Read Online Down and Out on Murder Mile by Tony O'Neill - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Tony O'Neill
Ads: Link
The only people who bought the magazine werepeople who were reviewed in it. However, we would review anybody as long as they took out an advertisement in the magazine to peddle their wares. No advertisement, no review. The bigger the advertisement, the more enthusiastic the review. It was pathetic.
Â
I spent most of my time in the bathroom shooting up. The lime-green tiles, the noise of Stokerâs music, and my blood flooding into the barrel. Then, full of drugs and good feelings, I would swagger into the office and start hitting up people for money on the phone.
Â
After two weeks I was moved out of the office and into Stokerâs garage. He called it the âback officeâ but it was just a garage, a damp storage space piled high with unsold copies of the magazine in rotting brown cardboard boxes, a meager strip of carpeting, some electrical outlets, and a phone. I didnât mind so much. It was good to be away from the music.
Â
I was obviously better at selling than most of Stokerâs previous employees. I knew that I could make at least two sales a dayâto keep him happyâand the rest of the time I could nod out in the back office, with the portable radio tuned to the BBC World Service. The voices of the reporters lulled me into very gentle space. Some of the people I called from Stokerâs decade-old list screamed abuse when they heard my voice. One in particular started yelling hysterically when I said I was from Traditional Country Music Monthly .
Â
âStop calling here!â he yelled. âEvery two weeks some new idiot calls me from your magazine asking me to advertise. I advertised once three years ago and it did nothing! I do not want to advertise with you again! Remove my name from your list, idiot!â
Â
This guyâs deal was accordions. He repaired them, sold them, reconditioned them. I didnât like his tone so I made a point of calling him at least twice a week and acting as if it were the first time I had ever called him, and I had no idea that he didnât want to be solicited anymore. Eventually a woman started answering the phone and I lost interest, as I couldnât provoke her into yelling abuse at me.
11
THE BBC
The John Peel session with Liquid Sky turned out to be the first thing we did as a band. Leading up to the show, I put in a lot of work. The band had recorded demos with producers but had only a rudimentary grasp of how to play their instruments. It was up to me to re-create the drums and keyboards on all of the tracks. Louis XIV had never learned to play the bass, and Elektra confided in me that they had removed all of his bass lines from the demos without his knowledge and replaced them with the work of a session guy. But they liked him and didnât want to hurt his feelings. We decided to program all of the bass lines in on the keyboards as well and to turn his bass low in the mix.
Â
The first rehearsal took place at Elektraâs house in Hoxton. She lived with a guy called Tom,who was also in a band. They were married, although Elektra insisted it was only to get her into the country. She told me that Tom was really into fucking transvestites and doing coke, two things that didnât really interest her. He worked a straight job in the city, doing phone sales, and then rehearsed with his band, the Ones, in the evening.
Â
Tom disliked me immediately. Our first rehearsal I spent the whole day there with Elektra and Paris trying to make some sense out of the songs. It took us seven hours and a case of beer, but we finally got the rudiments of two tracks down. Paris plugged her fifty-quid replica Telecaster though Elektraâs stereo and played along. Her guitar seemed to be constantly going out of tune. I stopped asking her to put it back in tune though, because she didnât seem entirely sure of how to do it and would take ten or twenty minutes to fiddle around with it. It would come back sounding
Â
I spent most of my time in the bathroom shooting up. The lime-green tiles, the noise of Stokerâs music, and my blood flooding into the barrel. Then, full of drugs and good feelings, I would swagger into the office and start hitting up people for money on the phone.
Â
After two weeks I was moved out of the office and into Stokerâs garage. He called it the âback officeâ but it was just a garage, a damp storage space piled high with unsold copies of the magazine in rotting brown cardboard boxes, a meager strip of carpeting, some electrical outlets, and a phone. I didnât mind so much. It was good to be away from the music.
Â
I was obviously better at selling than most of Stokerâs previous employees. I knew that I could make at least two sales a dayâto keep him happyâand the rest of the time I could nod out in the back office, with the portable radio tuned to the BBC World Service. The voices of the reporters lulled me into very gentle space. Some of the people I called from Stokerâs decade-old list screamed abuse when they heard my voice. One in particular started yelling hysterically when I said I was from Traditional Country Music Monthly .
Â
âStop calling here!â he yelled. âEvery two weeks some new idiot calls me from your magazine asking me to advertise. I advertised once three years ago and it did nothing! I do not want to advertise with you again! Remove my name from your list, idiot!â
Â
This guyâs deal was accordions. He repaired them, sold them, reconditioned them. I didnât like his tone so I made a point of calling him at least twice a week and acting as if it were the first time I had ever called him, and I had no idea that he didnât want to be solicited anymore. Eventually a woman started answering the phone and I lost interest, as I couldnât provoke her into yelling abuse at me.
11
THE BBC
The John Peel session with Liquid Sky turned out to be the first thing we did as a band. Leading up to the show, I put in a lot of work. The band had recorded demos with producers but had only a rudimentary grasp of how to play their instruments. It was up to me to re-create the drums and keyboards on all of the tracks. Louis XIV had never learned to play the bass, and Elektra confided in me that they had removed all of his bass lines from the demos without his knowledge and replaced them with the work of a session guy. But they liked him and didnât want to hurt his feelings. We decided to program all of the bass lines in on the keyboards as well and to turn his bass low in the mix.
Â
The first rehearsal took place at Elektraâs house in Hoxton. She lived with a guy called Tom,who was also in a band. They were married, although Elektra insisted it was only to get her into the country. She told me that Tom was really into fucking transvestites and doing coke, two things that didnât really interest her. He worked a straight job in the city, doing phone sales, and then rehearsed with his band, the Ones, in the evening.
Â
Tom disliked me immediately. Our first rehearsal I spent the whole day there with Elektra and Paris trying to make some sense out of the songs. It took us seven hours and a case of beer, but we finally got the rudiments of two tracks down. Paris plugged her fifty-quid replica Telecaster though Elektraâs stereo and played along. Her guitar seemed to be constantly going out of tune. I stopped asking her to put it back in tune though, because she didnât seem entirely sure of how to do it and would take ten or twenty minutes to fiddle around with it. It would come back sounding
Similar Books
