“Yes, Mr. King?” his secretary said.

“Try him again, please.”

“I have him, sir.”

“Good, put him through.” Then Max put the phone on speaker.

“Hello.”

“Kevin my boy!”

“What’s up, Max? Sorry I missed your call.”

“No problem. Where are we at?”

Kevin laughed. “We’ve got KC.”

Max leaned back in his chair and put his feet up. He pulled a cigar out of his jacket pocket and lit it. He had a friend who had no trouble getting Cubans.

“Good work! There’s a bonus for you in it. Oh, and also for hooking up Hedrick with those weird heavy metal broads. There’s money in them!”

“Yeah, it wasn’t hard. It’s too bad about the other one. Don’t you think we can still make a play?”

Max got up, walked over to a wet bar in the corner and poured his favorite lunch; a double-scotch every day at noon.

“You mean the little crazy one? No, there’s no play there. The other guys have offered her too much.”

“We could trump, couldn’t we? Name recognition out the ass! She’s tailor-made for video!”

“You’ve still got a lot to learn, Morley! She’s falling apart. One album, two tops. Then she’s out. Can’t handle the life. Can’t pace herself! Everything goes up her nose. Forget her.”

On one of the walls there was a large framed poster featuring the Black Cloud Records logo. Underneath it in small print was the phrase: “Subsidiary of Real Rock Productions.” Real Rock Productions’ other subsidiary was Newbridge Recording Arts.

The last time Max saw the band was when he booked the recording studio for Kerry to record the guitar parts for the final song on the last album. Then he flew back to New York. He simply left; he never said anything to them about it. Several calls to him went unreturned. Kerry read in a magazine that he was done with the band.

“Wow!” she said aloud, putting the magazine down. “He actually fired us!”

Then she smiled. “I might have underestimated him.”

Max had nothing to do with the management of Kerry’s solo career or Tammy’s new band. It was years later after Kerry worked for a different label, that she found out about the connection between Kevin Morley, Max King and Black Cloud Records. She wasn’t pleased when she found out just how much she underestimated him.

“Alright Max, everyone is here. What the hell do you want? We’re busy.”

Max bent down to pull some papers out of his satchel and, looking up, noticed the band was seated in a row across from him. The two chairs on either side of him were now empty.

“Well, I’ve come up with some ideas for the band.”

“Ideas about what Max?” Nikki asked.

He was about to answer when Lindsey suddenly stood up. “Oh, where is that waiter?” Nikki grabbed her by the sleeve and pulled her back down into her chair.

“Not now honey, Max has ideas for the band.”

Max set out a series of pictures and fashion designs in front of them on the table. These were glossy and professionally done. They featured a series of designs for new outfits for the band. He looked up and saw Kerry glaring at him.

“Your ideas Max?” she asked. She noticed that the logo of their record label appeared at the top of the pages.

“Well, yes, Kerry. My ideas. Now, these are designs for stage outfits for all of you. I think we should feature them on the cover of the next album as well. As you can see, each design is tailored to fit the special style of each one of you.”

They soon began looking over the design ideas. Nikki pointed to the designs with Lindsey’s name written at the top and laughed.

“Hey Lindsey, how will you be able to move around? Yours looks pretty tight!”

Lindsey leaned forward and grabbed the designs with Courtney’s name on them. She laughed and pointed at her.

“Hey Court! We’ll need bail money for you! Hah! You’ll look like a hooker!”

Kerry stood up and slowly leaned over, peering at Max’s ideas for her performance wardrobe. Then she calmly sat back down and downed her beer.

Courtney put her arm around Kerry. “I don’t think I’ve seen this side of you before,” she said, pointing at the designs. “I like it! Besides, if the band doesn’t work out, you can always be a stripper!”

Max waved his hands. “Now, ladies, let’s be serious. Jeans and T-shirts are fine of course. But you’re big time now, thanks much to my management. It’s a softer, sexier look. And, man, will record sales increase! So I think you should consider these ideas objectively, and then give me an answer.”

He looked up and saw Courtney grinning at Kerry. Then the two jumped up and grabbed the designs, tore them up and tossed the pieces into Max’s lap. Kerry knocked over the pitcher, sending beer streaming across the table and all over his clothes. Nikki grabbed Lindsey and pulled her out of the chair, and the band quickly left the lounge. On the way out, Tammy suddenly stopped and turned around.

“I don’t like mine either Max.” Then she ran after the others.

The waiter appeared and began cleaning up the beer with a towel. Max stood up, picking wet pieces of the torn up designs from his clothes. He looked at the waiter.

“I guess that means no.”

Maxwell Randolph King

Max was the son of Gerrard King, the owner of Old South Records, a small record label that signed record deals with various country and country western musicians. Originally named Ante Bellum Records, Gerrard purchased the label after it was headed into bankruptcy. His father was Dawson Calhoun King, a small-time country music performer who went by the name Austin King, having obtained a local following in Austin, Texas. He knew the owner of Ante Bellum Records and it was through his intervention that Gerrard obtained the record label at a good price. Most of the label’s performers had regional popularity at most. Many of these had moved on to different labels before the impending bankruptcy became known.

Gerrard spent most of his time signing new acts hoping to find national success. When Max was young, he began working as a sound engineer for the label, renamed Old South Records, whose principal recording studio was in Los Angeles of all places. Max found himself drawn to rock and roll, and soon tired of the recording artists his father was signing. He met a man named Jason Sharkey, who went by the nickname Shark. Shark was the chief sound engineer at a studio in LA that specialized in recording albums for up-and-coming rock and roll musicians. Two of the engineers on Shark’s staff had gained considerable respect from the larger record labels. Old South, like Ante Bellum, wasn't viable, so Max took a job working for Sharkey. Max and Shark developed an interest in harder-edged, underground rock musicians whose controversial image, sound, and behavior turned out to be a bit ahead of the times. They handled the recording of several albums that featured sound effects and special mixing. They worked with a particularly notorious singer named Rezzi Steele, whose album Steel on Steel gained considerable acclaim for the quality of the sound engineering, something that was primarily credited to Max. Rezzi's girlfriend, Debbie Decker, was frequently hanging around the studio during recording. Debbie met Courtney Blaine at the Yardbird Club and Courtney told Debbie that there was a real possibility of a record deal for her band. Max told Debbie to recommend him to Courtney as the perfect manager for her. Of course, Max had never been a manager, but fortunately for him, Debbie was a groupie and a dope-head, so she was never aware of this. It was also fortunate for Max that the band never became aware of this either.

Courtney met and hired Max, without discussing it with the other members of the band. That wasn’t a good start. His inclination to be more concerned with the financial success of the band, almost to the exclusion of everything else, immediately led to hostility with Kerry Cooper. Kerry was the primary song-writer in the band. Still, Max turned out to be a good manager. He used contacts he and Sharkey had made to handle the numerous tasks of managing a band to success. His work was done behind the scenes and went largely unnoticed by the band. And for Kerry, Max was too close to their record label for her liking. Max’s decision to urge the making of music videos only increased the hostility between himself and Kerry. In addition to Kerry’s wrath, he became tired of the constant tension within the band, and so when the band decided to fire Max, Max decided to fire the band.

Max’s friend at Real Rock Productions brought him to New York to meet a heavy metal band that they were thinking of signing. Max's association with Rezzi Steele, by then regarded as a pioneer for the heavy metal sound, was a real bonus. He persuaded Real Rock to sign the band and he was given its overall management. Real Rock hired Max in the role of President of Talent Management. He became famous for being able to spot and sign rock musicians who later obtained national and international success. Following his work on the recording of Kerry’s guitar parts for Land of Sorrow, Max simply left, refusing to have any further contact with the band. But for Max, there was still plenty of money to be made from the band's breakup. Tammy Hedrick’s heavy metal band, who claimed Rezzi Steele as their main influence, signed with a label called Newbridge Recording Arts. Kerry Cooper was persuaded to sign with Black Cloud Records. Neither Tammy nor Kerry knew at the time that Newbridge Recording Arts and Black Cloud Records were subsidiaries of Real Rock Productions created by Max, who used his agents to sign them to new contracts.

The band’s second album went gold not too long after its release. They were on a tour of the US, Canada and Europe. Unlike the previous tour, they were now headlining. The US leg of the tour started in Detroit. The crowd waited for more than an hour. There were problems from the first that night. Courtney was late to sound check. The band waited longer than they should have, and then started without her. Thirty minutes in, Courtney ran in through the backstage door. The road crew was watching, and the sound engineers were making final adjustments.

Lindsey stopped playing when she noticed her. “Well, to what we do owe the honor of your presence?”

Courtney pushed her out of the way. “Shut up Lindsey!”

Kerry glared at her. “No…shut up Courtney! Lindsey managed to get to sound check on time. Oh, and everybody else did too. Even Nikki!”

Nikki stood up and threw one of her drumsticks at Kerry. She ducked just in time to avoid being hit.

“I’ll settle with you later!” Kerry hollered at her.

Nikki stepped down from the drum platform and charged at Kerry. “We’ll settle now!”

Soon Kerry and Nikki were throwing punches and screaming at each other. Courtney attempted to pull them apart and got hit in the face by accident. Lindsey disappeared backstage. Two roadies jumped on stage and called for security. Before they could be separated, a photographer managed to make his way to the stage. He was able to take several excellent pictures of Kerry and Nikki throwing punches at each other, and even a few of Courtney lying on her back holding the side of her swollen face. Then Lindsey suddenly appeared and smashed a bottle of whiskey across the top of her amp, sending glass and whiskey all over the stage. These pictures were run in the papers the next day. Courtney stumbled backstage, and was soon followed by the others. Now the band was delayed as Arnie and Steve applied ice to the side of Courtney’s face. She had a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, and she started laughing.

“Nice shot Kerry!”

“I didn’t mean to hit you, I meant to hit the other shithead!”

Courtney looked up and gave her the finger.

Kerry looked out at the floor of the stage. “Damn Lindsey, you wasted a perfectly good bottle of whiskey!”

Nikki and Lindsey looked at each other and laughed. Max suddenly appeared.

“Now that’s what I call a sound check!”