King Hell Spectacle
The Prologue of King Hell Spectacle: A Novel
There I was at Mel’s, don’t remember what time. Drinking with people I’d only met hours earlier. Drinking like a fish, like it was a reunion of old friends. I don’t often drink. I’m like that character in The Grapes of Wrath. One of the uncles, I think, who on very rare occasion goes wild. Pulls the pin, throws the grenade. All or nothing. To the cat houses. Anyway, there I was at the bar. This older guy, Maurice his name, he’s buying tequila for his coworkers and us.
Maurice and I met at an event earlier that evening. Up at the Banff Centre, a meet and greet thing part of the world media festival they do here in Banff every June. Maurice looked bored as hell standing, listening to some dude on stage talk about workplace culture. Like it was a science. And there I was about to follow this guy’s act. They wanted live music when the event broke into what they deemed “networking time.” Sure, whatever. But hell, they were paying me four hundred bucks to play an hour of “Coldplay kind of stuff.” Coldplay? Not a chance. But that’s not what I told them. Told them I’d happily oblige. All the while I’m thinking: do my thing, maybe impress a few big shots, get the hell out of there. Might get paid, might not. In music, you’ve got to know who to play for. You think Dylan wasn’t aware of who was in the Gerde’s audience? At Newport? He knew.
So I’m looking at this guy who looks bored as hell. Who doesn’t clap when the workplace culture guy finishes his snake oil pitch. I weave my way through a crowd of big city yuppies and I introduce myself. I say, “Hey. Name’s Cliff. I’m about to turn your afternoon around.” All confident like.
“Excuse me?”
“You’ll see. What’s your name?”
“Maurice.”
“Okay, Maurice. What kinda music you like?”
“Well, I…”
“Blues? Great.”
I didn’t wait for his reply. Up onto the conference room stage I went to rip the place apart. Playin’ the blues. One man band, one man gypsy circus. Contrary to ordinary. Harp on the rack, Taylor hung from my shoulders. Some Lightnin’ Hopkins, Elmore James, Jimmy Reed. Some Bobby Charles. And for the last half of the set, my own stuff. I kicked ass that afternoon. Sometimes you hit hard, sometimes you don’t. That afternoon I did. Felt damn good. Anyway, by the time I got to my stuff, people were movin’ and shakin’ and swingin’ their hips under fluorescent conference room lighting. I guess you could call that networking. And Maurice? There he was in the middle of it all, drink in hand, the other one on the hip of a lovely looking lady. Happiest guy extant.
He approached me after my set, catching the last of the argument I had with the event organizer while I was packing up my guitar. She was refusing to pay. I didn’t play what she wanted. Breach of contract was her term for the situation. I said, “But look! You think Coldplay would’ve had the room movin’ and shakin’ and swingin’?” Didn’t matter to her. Left me standing there. I felt like Chuck Berry gettin’ stiffed. Maurice wanted to know what the kerfuffle was about. I told him. What’d he do? He took out a few hundred dollar bills and hands them to me. American, no less.
Maurice said, “Those your songs?”
“Yeah. Some, anyway.”
“Never heard ‘em. Where you from?”
“Banff.”
“Grew up here?”
“No. Ontario. Moved here while back.”
“How old?”
“Thirty.”
“Married?”
“Nope.”
“Kids?”
“Nope.”
“Mortgage?”
“Not a chance.”
Maurice stopped. He looked me up and down. Examined my aesthetic. My boots, my jeans, my shirt. The flat-brimmed hat I had custom made last winter down in Colorado. Maurice reached into his pocket, gave me his card. Maurice Lomax, Partner of Ataraxia, Artist Management and Production Company.
“You playing anywhere else tonight?”
“Mel’s tonight. Playin’ harp for a buddy.”
“Your band?”
“No just helping out. Don’t have a band.”
“Solo acoustic? That it?”
“Yup.”
“Mel’s, eh?”
Sure enough, once I got on the Mel’s stage later that night, there I spotted Maurice and company in the crowd. Mel’s was packed with media festival people that wild Friday night. When I finished playing, a drunkern hell Maurice was at the bar lining up shots for all of us. Acting like a big fish. I figured he was from somewhere Back East, the way he dressed, talked. Slick and fast.
Maurice slurred, “What’re yer songs about, anyway?”
“Lotta things. Stories mainly.”
“Storyteller? Like some folksinger?”
“Sure.”
“You write a lot?”
“Every day.”
“How many you got?”
“Oh, I dunno. Forty?”
“Blues only?”
“Blues, country, folk. Same idiom.”
“B.B.,” he said. “Let’s talk tomorrow. I think I wanna record your ass.”
He said that just as a beautiful twenty-something pulled him away. To the dance floor? My initial assumption. Big swingin’ dick and all. No, she pulled him to the other side of the bar. Her tab needed paying. Clout goes both ways. That was the last I saw of Maurice that night.
Gracie found me at the bar. She was with Jess, one of her best friends visiting from Revelstoke. She wanted me to dance with her. I told her I could hardly stand. “Likewise,” she said, to my surprise. Like me, Gracie hardly drinks. But Jess was in town. And that called for the two of them to have a night out akin to when they first moved to Banff five years before. Both from Australia; Jess from Melbourne. Gracie, the Gold Coast. They met as residents of the Banff Springs Hotel staff accommodation. After that first ski season, they moved into a house with three others on the Tunnel Mountain side of town, Grizzly Street. I remember the day they all moved in. I was their neighbour. That was four years ago. Last year, Gracie and I moved in together and Jess left town for a job at a Revelstoke heli-ski company.
Gracie asked, “Who was that guy you were talkin’ to?”
“Who, Maurice?”
“The slimy old guy.”
“Maurice Lomax. Record man. Met him up at the Banff Centre.”
And at the same time, we said:
“He grabbed my ass!”
“He wants to record me!”
Next morning, I was the one to take Gaspar for his morning walk. Gaspar is our two year old French-Algerian Bulldog. I call him French-Algerian because it sounds exotic and I don’t know what he is crossed with. The breeder said he was purebred when we got him out of the trunk of the breeder’s car on the side of the highway. I have my doubts. I take him on twenty-kilometre trail runs in the middle of July. He’s no ordinary Frenchie. So he’s a French-Algerian to me and whoever wants to know. And let me tell you, he’s not without personality; the independent republic of Gaspar. Love the little dude to death. Gaspar, Gracie and Music: My own personal Holy Trinity.
The walk was a battle. He’s brutal on a leash. Even worse, Gracie and I got into a big fight when I returned. Our hangovers doubtless adding kerosene to the fire. The argument was about the Maurice situation. The disagreement concerned whether or not I should follow up with him given his ribald behaviour toward her. Ribald was my word. Her word for his conduct was criminal. To which I said something to the effect of yadda yadda, I wanted to explore what he was willing to discuss regarding the business of my music. That did not mean I condoned his sexual advances toward her. Gracie did not see it that way. Maurice’s sliminess was a cold, hard non-starter for her. It was criminal. We didn’t resolve the argument that morning. It ended with me leaving in a huff after an intense screaming match. A first for us. Till then our relationship was peaches and cream. A two and change year unbroken boulevard of green lights. The whole time feeling like we were on an extended honeymoon.
The Maurice situation ended that streak. I left because I had to get to a meeting with him. The man from Ataraxia. See, he’d invited me for lunch after I texted him my contact info earlier that morning. It was a difficult exit. When I left, I caught a glimpse of Gaspar. He was hiding behind the kitchen table. Ears all folded back. He looked terrified in his shelter from the storm. Broke my heart seeing him like that. But what can you do? I was determined to follow up on what I thought could be my big break.
Maurice was fifteen minutes late. Thank God, because I was late by ten. We sat on a Caribou street patio. The sun was hot, the air was dry. We got straight to the point. He didn’t have much time. He was flying back to Los Angeles later that afternoon.
“B.B., you got something. See, the blues, it’s eternal. Yeah, its popularity has waned last few years, but somethin’ tells me it’s making a comeback. Can feel it in the airwaves. I see you and I’m thinking to myself, why don’t I test my theory? Spend some cash. Throw some marketing muscle behind you. Records and shit.”
I was speechless. Maurice laughed.
“Now at Ataraxia, we do handshake deals, okay? Lotta people turn us down for that reason. And that tells me right away they aren’t my kinda people. The man who can sleep well at night doin’ handshake deals is the man Ataraxia wants to work with. You feel me?”
I told him I did despite having no experience whatsoever with record contracts.
“And I was thinking, you see yourself as a storyteller, that right?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you write the stories behind the stories?”
He could see I wasn’t following.
“Give us some prose with your poetry. Give us a concept album. Then write the story behind each song. We put them in a book and sell it to the lit publishers. Have it on your merch table. Multiple revenue streams.”
I sipped my water. This was incredible. But could I trust this guy? Was this my Johnsonian crossroads moment? Should I bring up the Gracie incident? I thought things over. Thought fast. Few minutes went by.
Finally, I blurted: “So long as I can keep my publishing, I’m your man.” It was the only thing I could think to say. Maurice grinned.
“Deal.”
We shook hands right then and there.
Truth is, I didn’t know a thing about the business. About publishing rights, record rights and so on. Till then I was a street performer. The kind of guy who plays bars and breweries and hair salons. Any gig I could get. I only said I wanted my publishing because in that very instant what conjured in my mind was a grainy YouTube video I stumbled across some years ago. The footage was of this old surf rocker (Dick Dale?) giving advice to a young musician. Dale said that no matter what, keep your publishing and above all, be wary of the Label Man. Stay as independent as possible. In hindsight I’m shocked I recalled that memory. Must’ve been years since I saw the video.
Anyway, what you’ve just read is the brief account of how Maurice Lomax and Clifford "Big Bo" Beauregard got into the business of music together. Dear reader, what follows is the manuscript I handed in to Ataraxia last week. The story behind each song I wrote for my first ever record. Sometime soon, I’m supposed to fly down to L.A. to record the music - a seventeen song concept album telling the true story of what happened after that fateful lunch with Maurice. I wanted my first record to be the new, new thing. None of my old stuff. And what better way to masquerade as a folksinger than to tell a true-ish story. A story told across seventeen songs. A story which most certainly can only be classified by yours truly as a (and therefore aptly named):
KING HELL SPECTACLE
Talkin’ Banff
Gaspar The Great
Little Flour Girl
Seize The Carp
Crossroads
Goodbye Gracie
Stolen Dog
Busker’s Blues
Down The Open Road
Lay It On Me
Quitter’s Quit
The Helping Hand
Revelstoke Saturday Night
Dialogues
The Hunt
You Are My Sunshine
End of Summer Sun