Patsy Power Part 5

We made our way up onto the stage and took our microphones. I walked to the front and spoke to the crowd. “Thank you for allowing us to sing for you tonight. We are part of a band that is in town to launch our debut album. I am sure that if you like our singing Simon or his staff, on that big table, will be able to tell you where and when you can purchase it.

I believe that there have been some shipping problems so you may have to wait a few days. Luckily, this karaoke machine has the opening number to our stage set and we will start with that tonight. Should you appreciate that we will mine the machines playlist for old favourites that will show you our vocal range. If, after that, you are still interested we will be opening for “Amazon’ in a thirteen city tour ending in New York near the end of summer. We had to stop at three numbers last night because the competition was about to start but tonight we are dependent on your appreciation, we just love to sing.”

I hit the go button for ‘Mall Song’ and we did the full version, including the bloke ones. We had the audience singing along before we had got halfway and they called for more at the end. I picked another Supremes number and we did our best to emulate that great group, including some dance steps and when we finished they called for more. I pointed to an ‘Amazon’ song and Nina smiled so we did our impersonation of Ashley and her band. At the end of that someone, who may have been an ‘Amazon’ fan, called for another so Nina exercised her skill again. Lorraine pointed out a couple of old Doris Day songs so we did those with a more sexy pitch, much to all of the male’s enjoyment. Minh pointed out one of her favourites that really suited her voice so it was a very gleeful rendition of ‘Micky’ for her. Finally Joanne and I sung in a duet on ‘The wind beneath my wings’ and we finished off bowing to the crowd and walking back to the table where our party had joined the other diners in standing and applauding us. We sat down and so did everyone else but there was a distinct buzz in the room. The manager came over and told Simon that our meals were on the house as he had never had a Saturday evening crowd that was so entertained before. He asked us to call if we were in town again and he would ensure that there would be a table and our choice of microphones.

Simon turned to us and told us that he had never seen such a diverse range in a single group. He also said that every one of the staffers at the table had offered to manage the distribution of our individual careers should we decide to go down that path. He finished with another toast saying “I thought I was going to be hosting a thank you dinner tonight after a successful launch. I ended up with, not only a free meal, but a cabaret act thrown in. I thank you girls for a memorable evening.” We all blushed prettily, I think. We then chatted while we had our desserts and coffee while various people came up to us for signatures on their menus and to ask the staffers where they could buy our album. When we stood to go there was a smattering of polite applause and we waved to the room as we left to get into the limo. Simon announced that he would employ one of the staffers as a manager of our output and that they would stay in touch with us and the K Beat Office and would join us on both tours to ensure that everything went smoothly.

Sunday morning we flew back to Nashville and our house. After a shower and change I asked Joanne if she could take me to the nursing home as I had not seen my ‘Aunt Ruby’ for a couple of weeks; so, after lunch, we went there. Walking in to the usual waves and smiles we saw that my mother was in her room and we both gave her a hug and a kiss. She said that she had missed me the previous Sunday and I told her that I had been out of communication for a few days. She asked what had been going on so I sung “Just came down from New York Town; I done my time in Hell.”

She laughed and said “Really, what have you been up to?” I said “Really, Joanne can back me up. We have just flown back from New York where they held an Album launch for our debut album yesterday and I got the head of marketing fired. We also did two karaoke spots at an Italian Restaurant, got our meals for the whole table for free and the general manager of the company took us all to Coney Island and I won you a kewpie doll.” So saying I pulled the little doll from my purse and gave it to her. She said that ‘I shouldn’t have’ but gave me a hug anyway. “What about the weekend before” she asked. I took hold of her hand and said quietly “Mama, I was in a private hospital having enough done for you to say you now have a daughter – or to be safe, a niece – who would be difficult to pick from a real girl; once, of course, after the bruises fade.” “Oh dear!” she said, “what about Patrick?” I told her that she may hear some sad news about him having an accident and should weep when she hears it but that a part of him will remain at her side. Joanne looked at me strangely when I said this as she was not aware of the plan that Alice was waiting to put into place.

I told Ruby that we would be in town, as far as I knew, until the middle of May and then would be back in Nashville for four nights in the middle of June but after that we would not be home until the end of August. There were a few weeks towards the end of the tour where we may have a four day break but I thought that this would be taken up with media calls or invitations to outside events. It would all be up in the air but I would try to keep in touch. I told her that we now had about five weeks to wind up our other projects before we had to go and meet ‘Amazon’ in Baltimore. After we left her we went and caught up with Jim and Roger and a few of our ‘support crew’ who had a laugh when we regaled our stories. Jim told us he knew the pompous ass in marketing before he was promoted beyond his ability and that he wished he could have been a fly on the wall. I asked Roger about getting poster size pictures if the quality was not degraded and he told me that it had already been thought of and there should be some boxes in the office before the end of the week. These guys make our lives so easy!!

Monday morning I looked in my drawers and pulled out all of my Patrick pieces; watch, wallet, credit card, driving licence, student travel pass (well out of date) and a few other trinkets and put them in a bag. At the office I asked to see Alice and in her office I gave her the bag and said that this was all that was needed to identify Patrick; the only other things that were needed was proof of how he got to be where he was. She took the bag and said she would take care of it. Then she told me the sports car was now overhauled and tuned and would be delivered to the house tonight. All I now had to do was get a Patsy licence and that I had a booking to sit for my provisional this afternoon and that she would send an instructor to the house on Tuesday morning to get me some hours in before I go for the full licence. She commented on the events of the weekend saying that I should be careful or else I may get the nickname of ‘job breaker’. She did, though, wink when she said that.

After catching up with Ma and Lucy we worked through some songs and I asked Minh if she could look at the video that Chris had sent for the advert and told her what I was roughly looking for and why. I was then taken to sit for my provisional licence which I aced and was then taken home, arriving an hour or so before the girls got in. I sat in the studio and tried to come up with a catchy whistle of about five seconds and when I did I also crafted it into a short tune and then tried to come up with some lyrics. I had gone onto the web and looked at Peters old adverts which usually ended with the logo ‘Logan Motors, the biggest dealer in town’ I was looking to market them as the happiest dealer in town and the rest of the advert needed to build to that. Chris had left a message that a friend had an early Thunderbird that we could use in return for a hug, kiss and signed photo from each of us – that lad certainly knew how to drive the negotiations!

Part 6

Tuesday I took lessons from the instructor who brought me up on a few faults and sharpened my sense of what was around me on the road. He said he would see me the next day and dropped me off at the office. I got together with Minh and Ron and we went through the video from the dealership. We chose a very photogenic young mechanic and I rang Peter to ask him if we could film a short segment with this lad and also a short segment of us leaving the lot on Thursday evening just after the dealership shut. I asked him if he could keep his sales people back in casual clothing, not their usual suits and told him to have a change for himself as well. The rest of Tuesday we worked with the new band and Wednesday we reminded the old band of their place in the system. Thursday morning I did my driving test and was driven to the office with my new Patsy licence. Later in the morning all of us girls were called up to Sarah’s office and sat in the easy chairs.

She looked at all of us in our eyes and said “I know that you created mayhem last weekend in New York and a certain marketing person got fired but what else went on as I am having a hard time believing what is coming down from there and landing on my desk.” We related the events of the weekend and when we got to the bit about Coney Island she gasped and said “You lot were taken to Coney Island by one of the biggest names in the industry and you didn’t bother to tell me?” We said that he was just being friendly and she snorted. I told her about the launch and the total rejection of the planned speeches and my showing of some of the latest dance DVD and then we had a giggle when we told her about the dinner with Simon and his staff and our little cabaret.

‘Right” she said, “that clears up a lot of things for me. Simon rang me this morning and told me that a very forward thinking lad called Joey was now the marketing manager and had told him, in no uncertain terms, that he should get each of you on to individual contracts to distribute any of your individual output outside the band. He wants these contracts to be for a five year exclusive option for each of you and he said the boss has agreed to a million dollars up front each.” We all gasped at that. She went on “He has also demanded that our original contract with them be amended to only cover the pop output and that we will have a new one to sign at the same rates for the dance output. He also wants to pay for a film crew and sound crew to follow you to all of the two tours this summer; he will organise the logistics for that. He seems very keen to give you the best boost into stardom that you can have.“

I said that it was very exciting but wondered what they wanted in return so Sarah told us that she thought that we had a really good chance to get big nationally and internationally and that this summer tour was just the beginning. She said that she thought that Carl and the old boys would slowly back off and leave us with Jake and the new boys within the year but they had told her that they were extremely grateful for one last blast. “You guys certainly turned New York on its head on the weekend and it has changed the whole dynamic for us. We will be able to put more staff on and fund a new studio with state-of-the-art equipment. I am sure that Ron is going to want to give you all a kiss but will be too gentlemanly to do so. Alice is busy looking for quality talent to compliment your act should we put on a K Beat concert. You, alone, have let us turn the corner from a rural unit to a major player in our own right and for that I am grateful. Now, what do we need to tidy up before the tour starts?”

I told her that we needed to tidy up the advert for Peter and that there may need to be a small performance on his forecourt and that we really needed to properly blood Jake and the boys with either a concert or maybe a cheerio concert at ‘The Place’ if Al wants us back. She told us to concentrate on these tasks and make sure we used the gym as much as we could as we would need to be fit to withstand the tour. “Oh, by the way” she said “I believe that while this tour will be your debut, I have heard that ‘Amazon’ are calling it a farewell one, but not publically, so it will be a milestone for both of you.”

Minh and I worked a while finalising our thoughts for the advert and then we all got into the sedan and went to the car dealership. We met up with Chris and his car-owning friend and we paid his invoice with very proper hugs and kisses and his requested photos. Peter introduced us to the young mechanic who was very flustered so I took him aside and told him that all I wanted him to do was walk across the workshop giving a little whistle and I did the whistle for him and he repeated it a number of times until it was right. “And then,” I said “all you need to do is lean into the engine bay of a car and then pull your head out of it and smile at the camera. Can you do that”? Chris set up his camera and we went through the first scene a few times until he was happy and then did the second scene a few times as well. We let the lad go home and went on to the outside scene. We lined the, now casual, staff up in front of the storefront and all got into the Thunderbird and drove past them waving and smiling, going out of shot with the camera focussing on the salesmen and the façade of the building. We needed to do this a couple of times before Chris was happy and then we thanked Peter and his staff and took the sedan back to the house.

Friday we had our last vocal and dance lessons and then Minh and I got into the main studio with Ron and Chris. They had cut the original video down to about thirty seconds and when we added the mechanics walk to the front and the smile scene and car-lot scene we were up to close to a minute. Here, Ron proved his worth as, with Chris, they pinched seconds here and there and finally ended with the required twenty eight seconds of video that flowed well. Minh and I then added the audio – we got Chris to whistle in sync with the mechanic; we sang a little ditty using the same tune about fixing cars and the end was Chris, again, doing a voice-over saying “I am happy here, working on your cars. I know you will be happy driving them.” We then overlaid the normal logo of ‘The biggest dealer in town’ over the final scene of waving salesmen and then crossed out the biggest and added ‘happiest’ over the top. With it all finalised we put it onto a few DVD’s and I thanked everyone and told them that a cheque may well be in the post. I then rang Peter and asked him if they worked Saturday and he answered that it was the best day of the week. I asked him if he could set up a big screen in the showroom as I wanted him to see the final cut with his staff and let them decide if it works as they were the ones who would have to live with it as long as it was being shown. We arranged for me to be there at 11.30am so that the mechanics could see the video in their lunch period and he agreed.

We did not do a show at Mario’s Friday night as Sarah had thought we ought to stop them in the lead up to the tour so we were well rested when Joanne drove me, in the sports car, to the car dealership. When we walked into Peters office we were met by his wife and two daughters and we chatted a while. His wife said to me “I hope you have come up with something different. His adverts have become boring pictures of guys in suits showing smiling families the cars.” I told her that, if he agrees to buy the advert, it would mean a change in the way the dealership was projected without the huge cost of a paint-up or signage. She was intrigued.

Come midday we went out into the showroom where the mechanics, office and sales staff gathered and I put a DVD in the slot and hit the go button. When it finished there was a silence and then Peter said “Play it again, Patsy”.

Marianne G 2020