Different Circles

Jake saw that they were now between takes in the studio. He waved at Laura and blew her a kiss. She returned the gesture with a smile of affection. He then went back out the door and retraced his steps back to Studio A, where he found Matt still holding Caydee against his chest, rocking back and forth and looking down at her.

“How’s she doing?” Jake asked him.

“She’s just lying there looking at me,” he said. “If I stop this rocking shit, she starts getting mad and making noises and squirming.”

“Yep,” Jake said. “You just described Miss Cadence to a T.”

“Take her back now,” he said.

Jake chuckled again. “Sure,” he said. He handed the Ibanez to Corban and then took Caydee from Matt. Automatically he began rocking her. “It needs to be tuned a little,” Jake told the guitarist. “Go plug in and I’ll give you the reference.”

“Right,” said Corban, who was looking at the bulky Ibanez as if he had never seen such a thing. “This is a nice guitar.”

“It is,” Jake agreed. “Don’t fuck it up.”

Corban went back into the isolation booth and plugged in the guitar. Jake went over to a small electric piano that sat on a platform behind the mixing board. Matt had no piano or synthesizer in his music, of course, but they used the instrument daily as a reference for tuning the guitars. Jake powered it up and the tech flipped the switch that would allow its output to flow into the headphones. The tech gave a thumbs up to Jake. Jake then gave an enquiring look to Corban. Corban gave him a thumbs up. Jake nodded and began to rhythmically push the key two to the right of middle-C on the keyboard. This key produced the exact pitch that a properly tuned high E string on a guitar would make. Corban listened, made the adjustment on the tuning knob while striking the open string and then nodded. Jake then began to push the key that matched pitch with the B-string and then the G, the D, the A, and the low-E. The process went quickly and they were done in only two minutes.

“All right,” Jake said, walking back over to his seat and sitting down. “That went easily enough.”

“Let’s hope the rest of this shit does too,” Matt said.

And, of course, it did not. Corban made it through the sound check without issue, but when they asked him to start playing the melody they were actually interested in, his fretting and strumming were hesitant and coarse on the unfamiliar instrument. They kept having him do it over and over again on the theory that he would get better with repetition. He did get better, but not good enough for recording quality sound. And he flubbed a note or two almost every time. It seemed liked it was going to take a considerable amount of time before he was able to churn out three entire chorus repetitions perfectly.

“Maybe we just do without the fuckin’ string strikes,” Matt suggested forty-five minutes into the experiment.

“That’s one option,” Jake said slowly. “But maybe there’s another.”

“What other option?” Matt asked. “I could give it a shot but I’m not any better at playing acoustic than he is. Probably worse at it, truth be told.”

“I could do it,” Jake suggested.

“You?” Matt asked, surprised.

“Why not?” Jake asked. “I’ve been told I play a decent acoustic guitar a time or two. And that is my instrument. I’m familiar with it.”

“You want to play guitar on my CD?” Matt asked, just for clarity. “After all those fuckin’ rumors and reports about Intemperance getting back together because you and I are working together?”

Matt did have a point. The rumors were flying around the music and entertainment industry about an Intemperance reunion. They had never really had any hope of keeping the fact that they were working together secret. The entire town of Coos Bay knew that Jake Kingsley and Matt Tisdale were both in town at the same time. And the only reason they would both be in town at the same time was to use Blake Studios. Pauline and Matt had both vehemently denied that they were recording Intemperance material in the studio or that there were any plans for a reunion, but the media was not buying it. Eventually they had been forced to come clean and announce that Jake and Matt were, in fact, working on a project together, but that it was Matt’s latest solo effort and not an Intemperance CD. The media people dutifully reported this information, but it was clear they did not believe it. They continued to write stories and air gossip shows about a possible reunion of the infamous “death metal” group.

“It’s not like I’m really playing guitar for you,” Jake said, putting a little extra rock into his sway because Caydee was getting fussy again. “I’m just throwing down an overdub that no one will really even notice in the final product. And it’s not like I’m going to be taking credit for it on the CD insert. It’s just an efficient way to get something done.”