1968 Conqueror of American Rock - Chapter 137



Only Noblemtl

137. LA Metal (3)

When Kevin and I arrived at Sunset Strip, there were two police cars parked in front of The Devils with their sirens blaring. A crowd of people gathered around.

“Samir, what’s going on?”

“I think Raju found the guys who were harassing Eddie. After Raju entered the Devil’s Club, I saw Raju and those guys confronting each other at the hallway window, so I called the police. Don’t worry, Raju didn’t do anything wrong.”

Sameer is a smart guy. Surely Raju will be able to subdue them without the help of the police. But that won’t solve the case completely.

I went across the street with my brother Kevin to where the police cars were.

Three boys and Raju were being taken out by the police.

“Raju!”

“Don’t worry. It’s nothing.”

He smiled leisurely. But blood was running down his handcuffed hands.

“Raju! There’s blood on your hands······.”

“It’s really nothing. I did nothing wrong, so I’ll be released soon. Don’t worry.”

He got into the police car with a calm expression on his face, telling us that it was okay.

“Sir, what’s going on? Raju is an employee of our company.”

“First of all, since it is a violent incident, you must go to the police station and be investigated.”

As they were being dragged away, they kept swearing and throwing tantrums. I barely suppressed the urge to beat them up one by one.

I followed Kevin to the police station.

Anthony, the club manager, also came as a witness and was being questioned.

“You guys, be honest. Didn’t that guy tell you to do it?”

“Look, Detective. How many times do I have to tell you this? I hired these kids who had nowhere to go.”

Anthony, who seemed to have been through this a lot, was unfazed and insisted that he had done nothing wrong. The boys stated that it had nothing to do with the manager.

“But why did you attack this man? And attacking a person with a broken bottle is a crime!”

“······.”

“Don’t tell the truth!”

The slope slammed the desk down with a bang.

“Oh, I’m scared!”

The blonde screamed, squeezing her eyes shut.

“That makes sense, Inma! This is the guy you just wounded with that broken bottle. What the hell are you talking about?”

“That guy just chased us and threatened us!”

Raju looked at the slope and smiled like an angel.

“What, threats? Attacking someone because they threatened you? These guys are out of their minds.”

Raju testified that the boys had been harassing, threatening, and extorting money from our company’s musicians, and he even showed them a drawing that Eddie had drawn. It was almost a montage-like drawing.

Raju stated that he only went there to get the items back and to tell the child not to bully him in the future.

The police naturally believed Raju’s words because his identity was confirmed.

Raju was released immediately, and the boys were further questioned as it was revealed that they had committed a crime in San Francisco and fled.

Anthony continued to pretend not to know until the end and returned to the club.

Raju said it was just a slight cut, but Kevin insisted on taking him to the hospital for treatment. He asked what happened inside the club, but he said it would be better if he didn’t know. I thought it might be the mercenaries’ way. Kevin and I decided not to ask any more questions.

* * *

According to the police, the boys were going to be in jail for several months because they were no longer minors. I got Eddie’s booster back, but it was full of rips and tears. I just threw it in the trash.

Eddie regained his original bright smile. After Andrew joined as a vocalist, the band ‘Van Halen’ began to grow at a frightening rate.

Every time Eddie came to play, the guitar looked different. He dug out the body with a hammer and chisel to install a humbucker pickup on the Strat body, and he finally did it. However, the extremely shabby and horrible appearance was like Frankenstein itself.

Haha, that’s you.

I spurred the launch of the effects brand ‘Garage Brew’. Kevin created a department within the company, but the EGO members kept working in their own garages. The company took care of accounting, patent applications, and brand marketing, and all products were handcrafted in the garage.

In fact, this kind of manual work was the method used by companies that produced expensive boutique pedals in the distant future. So we decided to go with ‘homemaking’ instead of ‘mass production’.

I brought Eddie here often. I taught him the techniques and skills I knew, and Eddie came up with new ideas. I will continue to revolutionize guitar sound with Eddie.

“Uncle Brad, could you make this phaser sound a little softer? And when you turn it off, can you make it fade out naturally instead of just popping?”

“Uh······Okay. I can do it.”

This is Van Halen’s signature phaser.

Then I’ll go one step further.

“Brad, why don’t you just put a switch on it so you can switch between the two sounds?”

“Wow, Brother James. That would be so much easier. Hahaha!”

We constantly researched new sounds like this in the garage.

So we created three models: an overdrive pedal for boosters, a phaser, and a delay.

I also made an amp head here called the Leopard 1970.

This amp is not a modified vintage Marshall amp, but was built from the beginning with EGO members. Compared to the previous modified version, the output is much stronger, but the noise is less and the sound is clear. Thanks to the participation of art student Miguel, the design with a really cool leopard print came out.

The amp was a time-consuming and expensive undertaking to build. It will not be for sale. This amp will only be available to our CW musicians.

Other people may not be able to imitate me, but they will be able to imitate the metal tone to some extent with just the effectors we will sell in the future.

* * *

October 4, 1970.

The news of Janis Joplin’s death was delivered ahead of her album release and wedding. Like Jimi Hendrix, she lived a fiery life but passed away at the young age of 27.

Her first solo album and her last work later sold over 4 million copies and reached number one on the Billboard 200. She was unable to finish recording one song, so it is included on the album as an instrumental piece without vocals.

So two of the 3Js passed away.

“Life is so vain, so vain. They both performed on the same day as us at Woodstock last year.”

Annie was even more saddened by her death.

Most of the bands active in the US and UK at the time were male. Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin were among the few successful female rock vocalists.

Even among the bands that will be born in the future, it is difficult to find female vocalists. It is not until the late 80s or 90s that outstanding female vocalists begin to appear.

So Annie is a standout in the current rock music scene.

“LA Metal? What’s that?”

“We just called it that because it’s our home base. Our first album was aimed at Woodstock. For our second album, we’re going to do glam rock with a bit of pop elements, with a strong American feel. We’re going to target teenagers and young people.”

“Young people?”

“Yeah, I’ll be doing music for a long time, but someday we’ll all grow old. I have to make this time a memorable one. I’ll even shoot a music video.”

“You’re saying a lot of new words today? What’s with the music video?”

It was a time when the concept of music videos had not been properly established, with only live footage available. The first beginning was a scene from a movie where a song appeared. Later, the Beatles opened the era of early music videos, but what I wanted was a video that was several steps more advanced than theirs.

With director Robert Smith, we can do it. And from this album on, we don’t have to worry about production costs. We plan to make some music videos that will be remembered in history. In the distant future, we will watch these videos and reminisce about our glorious youth.

“To put it simply, it’s about making a short movie that matches the lyrics of the song.”

“Oh, that would be fun! Then let me surf and skateboard and make a song about that!”

Skateboarding. Suddenly Avril Lavigne from the 2000s came to mind. Annie still looks much younger than Westerners, so I should make a song to remember her.

Anyway, the words this guy occasionally blurts out often make me wonder if he has ever experienced the 21st century. That’s probably why they call felines spirits.

“okay.”

“Oh yeah!”

Since it’s difficult to take pictures of the ocean, I guess I’ll have to try taking pictures of skateboards.

“I’ll write songs too, but Annie, Jake, and my brothers, if you have any good ideas, please let me know anytime.”

I wrote all the songs for the first album by myself. It was just to make an album that was going towards Woodstock. Now I wanted to make it with the members.

* * *

Woodstock Business Office.

Michael Lang showed up at his office in New York more than a year after Woodstock, still dressed like a hippie.

John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeld were working on a business venture to fund the new band’s albums and concerts. They weren’t particularly happy about him showing up after a year of being a bum.

“What’s a San Francisco gangster doing in New York?”

John Roberts said in a cold tone.

“How are you all doing? Why are you all looking at me like that? I didn’t just come here to have fun. And now the income from Woodstock last year is still coming in. Aren’t you almost getting your investment back?”

Michael Lang’s words were true. John Roberts invested a huge amount of money. Although it seemed like a huge loss in ticket sales alone, the revenue from the album and video sales continued to come in.

“It’s a shame that we spent so much money on Wallkill, but Woodstock was the biggest, greatest festival in history.”

This was also true.

But it is also true that it was extremely dangerous.

Cars and people clogging the roads, wild parties by crazy hippies, electrocutions caused by heavy rain, food shortages, lack of accommodation, lack of sanitation, etc.

And above all, if Sparkling Ripple’s song hadn’t worked a miracle, I would have had to pay the enormous cost of restoring the farm that I had promised Max Yasuger due to the overflowing trash.

Therefore, the other three believed that Woodstock’s success was due to luck rather than Michael Lang’s planning ability.

“I went to a place called the Pilton Festival in England last month. You remember James Choi? Sparkling Ripple. Well, they really made a big splash in the country town festival scene when they appeared on pirate radio······.”

Michael Lang was very excited and told us all about the promotional marketing James had done in England.

“Well, James was really smart. He made it a stable festival rather than a greedy one. That’s exactly what I wanted.”

John Roberts thought that James was more suited as a planner than Michael, who only pursued immediate profits. He was also impressed by the fact that he created a fandom culture while promoting the charity by selling T-shirts that he made himself.

“But 10,000 people is just ridiculous. People would come over anyway, and there was a lot of ground to pitch tents. It was a much bigger farm than Woodstock last year. Considering all that, it’s hard to make a lot of money.”

“Didn’t the farm owner say it was a charity concert anyway? There was no reason to go out of his way to do it. Anyway, since James made the British charity concert so successful, he must have made a good impression on the British people.”

Michael, feeling like his words were being ignored, pulled out his last card.

“You guys, do you know John Scher? The representative of Metropolis.”

For a moment, all three of them turned their attention to Michael Lang.

Metropolis was the largest entertainment company in the eastern United States. With concerts, festivals, international tours, exhibitions and a huge live theater, it was the only company in North America that could match the scale of Kings.

Not only that, they have played a leading role in introducing legendary British artists such as the Rolling Stones, The Who, and Pink Floyd to the US market.

“John Scher and I are planning the biggest festival on the planet that has ever happened. Aren’t you excited? Hehe.”

“······!”