Strung Tight (The Road To Rocktoberfest #1) - Ann Lister Page 0,7
in a few more hours hammering out the rhythms leading into the bridge for our song “Phone It In.” This piece had an odd three-quarter-time that was unusual for us, and I knew it would be trouble to play when I wrote it. I was right. We'd all struggled with the song in different spots but especially the damn bridge. At one point, I'd even suggested we scrap the song altogether, but for whatever reason, the guys liked it, so we kept it in our catalog of new material.
~ Phone It In ~
Work my fingers to the bone.
Doing far more hours than a nine to five.
All you do is stay at home.
I'm not even sure if you're there alone.
You might as well just phone it in.
Ain’t no bank gonna give me a loan.
Nothing I can do when your heart is made of stone.
Tried my best, but it wasn't enough.
I might as well just phone it in.
I did everything for you and stayed true.
Yet all you wanna do is, phone it in.
Put a stamp on your Dear John letter and just mail it in.
I don't need to hear you say the words.
Did you ever give a damn, or were you just phoning it in?
We worked for a solid three hours before Mike finally had the beats down like second nature, and by that time, Jeff, Randy, and I were good with our parts as well.
“Let's try playing it straight through this time,” I suggested, and Mike tapped out an intro beat with his sticks on the edge of his snare drum.
Tap, tap, tap, and we were ripping into the song again. We'd managed to get all the way to last verse without mistakes until Randy fucked up a string of notes, one after the other, and the guys angrily lashed out at him.
“Jesus fuck,” Mike said. “How many more times are we going to play this same shit song?”
“I offered to toss this one into the trash in favor of ‘Blame It On The Milkman,’” and you all said no,” I argued.
“‘Milkman’ is even dumber than this one!” Dixon spouted.
“You're all welcome to write songs for us!” I yelled. “It doesn't have to be only me who does that chore.”
“How about we take a break, get something to eat, and let our tempers calm down,” Randy suggested.
That sounded like a wonderful idea to me. I set my Fender into its stand and stormed out of the room, taking the stairs down instead of the elevator. Dallas was leaning against a wall by the back loading dock while talking to someone on the equipment team and smiled when he saw me walking toward him.
“Hey,” he said with an endearing grin on his face. “Spumoni was just here asking for you.”
“Shit, did he already leave?”
“Nah, he's in the office around the corner talking to my dad.”
I nodded at Dallas. “I'll be back in a minute,” I said and hurried off.
In all the time we'd been working with Dagger and using the rehearsal studio of his band, Black Ice, I'd never met Spumoni. His main role was equipment director and transportation coordinator for both Black Ice and Ivory Tower. I had no idea how he was able to do a job of that size with a small staff of just two other men besides himself, but they got it all done, and I'd heard they were exceptional too. The best in the business.
The door to Skully's office was open, and I could hear him talking to another man as I approached. I knocked on the doorframe, and Skully looked up from some paperwork on his desk. The other man glanced at me over his shoulder. I knew Skully well enough that I offered him a wave and then my eyes bounced to the man who I guessed was Spumoni.
“You must be the famous Fletcher who Dagger is always talking about,” the man said as he stood up and extended his arm for me to shake. “I'm Spumoni.”
As he unfolded himself and straightened up to his six-foot-four-inch height, I found myself craning my neck upward to see his face. Spumoni was huge and wide with muscles and a full head of unruly brown hair, but the way his eyes sparkled and his comfortable smile relaxed his face, anyone could tell the man wasn’t the hardass he appeared to be.
It felt like I was meeting someone really significant when I gripped Spumoni's hand. I knew how important he was to Dagger and his guys, and I'd