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"Bowling Night"
(A Unique Corporate Music Gig)
Fiction by Jack Littleton
Hootenanny Systems was the world's largest manufacturer of dongles, small devices that stop
people from stealing things on their computers. Hootenanny had made billions of dollars off of it. Billions of dollars. Not only that, the company was privately-owned. No stock holders. The company’s CFO
spent his entire day taking care of two guys' money. They had gone from living in their van to being the Kings of Flatberg, a nice city in Southern California.
The company was named after a beloved cartoon horse and his frontier pals, The Hootenanny
Trio, who sang songs on the range. Why not, the company founders thought, start their own band? Then they, too, would be beloved, if they weren’t already. It wasn’t a new idea, and other CEOs had done
it, but theirs would be even bigger. They would hire at least 30 professional musicians, sound people, an arranger and a designer, and rehearse every week. If nothing else, they could invite their
friends over and use the band as a giant karaoke machine.
The CEO and his childhood friend would grab a couple of instruments and have fun. The
professionals would settle for an envelope full of cash. For this, and many other reasons, the Hootenanny gig would become legendary among Southern California musicians.
Ace Turley was the band's thirteenth sound man, although the count was unofficial. “Whatever
happened to the other sound people?” he asked once.
"You're starting a fire, man," said Conga-EST, the band's human potential percussionist.
“Big time,” agreed Mr. Knock Knock Joke, who had a job only because he was reputed to know The
World’s Greatest Knock Knock joke. Hootenanny could afford to keep someone like that on staff just in case the rumor was true. They had that kind of money.
Ace had only two goals in life: to drag his trailer out to Lizard Gulch in the Morongo Basin,
and to mix just one perfect show for Hootenanny. You would think the odds would be in his favor having done more Hootenanny shows than any other sound man. You would be wrong. The venue choices
were rougher than the alien landing at Roswell.
“No other sound man has ever lasted this long in this gig,” Ace bragged to Catjuice Armstrong,
one of the band’s jazz cats. “It’s because my mixes sound like the record.”
“It’s because you’re the corporate yes-man of sound people.”
“Right,” agreed Ace. “That’s what I meant to say,”
All the musicians in the band were the best. They were the best and they were used to playing
with the best. They cared about the music being good and this was at odds with Hootenanny’s playing-for-fun-and-if-it-doesn’t-work-it’s-no-biggie attitude. Some adjusted; some didn’t and fell by the
wayside. Luckily Ace didn’t play an instrument.
Hootenanny rehearsals featured full-blown concert sound, both front-of-house (for an audience
of two or three people) and monitors (for the band). Ace was usually in back next to the band’s designer, Platinum Thimble, who also worked for The Fab and The Virgin. She was the ultimate in
professionalism. Boy, she must have some stories.
Ace had some stories, too. The thing is, he had come up in the business before all of that
celebrity etiquette stuff had been ironed out. That’s what he told himself. Blame it on the corporatization of rock. They must have been the ones who invented that rule that you don’t approach the
celebrities unless they approach you first. What about his Stephen Stills story? Or that thing that had happened in Jackson Brown’s bathroom? Ace’s stories spelled career suicide, if you were using
the New School dictionary.
As perilous as the Hootenanny gig was for the musicians and sound people, it was truly a
terror for those corporate officers that had duties during the day and then had to join the CEO at band practice at night. For them, everything was about looking good in front of the billionaire.
The CFO of Hootenanny Systems was a Chinese man, with a heavy accent, who liked to say his
name a lot. His name was You Should Pay Us, but it was pronounced You Should Pay Us. The musicians in the band were like bugs to You Should Pay Us. He couldn't believe he had to give them money.
For what? Music not a real job. Music a hobby.
"Hello, You Should Pay Us," said Ace, coming into rehearsal one day.
"You Should Pay Us," corrected You Should Pay Us, smiling. “How you been?
What you been doing?”
He seemed genuinely interested. Stunned, Ace gathered his thoughts and decided to tell a
little story. “…so, we did the show in Orlando and then we thought, hey, let’s go down to The Keys…”
Then the CEO, standing across the room, turned away. You Should Pay Us promptly turned and
walked out the door.
Ace was standing in the middle of the room, talking to himself. A full sentence and a half
came out of his mouth for no reason. He looked around to see if anyone noticed. Marco Mixalot, the monitor guy, was smiling. “I love it,” he said.
Ace realized that you only existed to these people when it would make them look good to be
pretending to talk to you. They wanted to appear to be being friendly to the little people. It was an alternate reality in which, if a tree fell in the forest, it made no sound at all unless the CEO was
there to hear it. You didn’t really exist in their world, but you still got an envelope full of cash. Everyone was okay with that.
He remembered how the whole thing had been described to him when he had started at Hootenanny.
Catjuice had described it as ‘Bowling Night’.
“Yeah, man,” he had said. “And we ain’t the ball.”
Now it was nearly show time; it was the annual company party. It would be a huge affair in a
giant party tent. Every employee would attend and receive their annual bonus checks. But first a three hour show!
Ace was already hyperventilating and dreaming of the desert. Sound would go slower at 3500
feet than it did here at sea level, therefore his reaction times would seem quicker if he could ever get there. Out there, science would be on his side. Or was it the other way around? But he knew what
he was in for in Flatberg. The sound in the tent would make the music sound like a space ship landing in a bathroom at the Coliseum.
Ace had a Zen-like philosophy of mixing that could be easily summed up in two words: Don’t
Think. He took his position at front-of-house. This could be the one. He would stand his ground. He would stop thinking. Still, he knew that his trailer was packed.
“Knock knock,” said a high, falsetto voice. It was Mr. Knock Knock Joke.
“Who’s there?” said Ace.
The lights went down…
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