Patsy Power Part 7

What else could I do but play the half minute advert again. While it was playing I looked around the small group. The mechanics were all smiling, as was the admin staff; the sales staff were clearly waiting on Peter as they were the ones that dealt with him every day. His wife and daughters were trying hard to suppress giggles and a guy I had not met before; in a jacket and tie that screamed ‘manufacturer’s rep’ looked positively stunned.

Peter, himself, did not give anything away by just looking thoughtful. When the advert finished there was a short moment of silence and a voice from the mechanics came loud and clear “She got us nailed, boss, bang to rights!” Then there was a bit of laughter as the mechanics and admin staff left to carry on with their lunch period. Peter looked at the company rep and asked him what he thought. “I must say I thought that I would see something a bit different but I did not expect this, young lady.” He went on “If you take this up. Peter, it would mean a completely different method of marketing; away from just pushing the cars and the deals and into promoting the dealership as a happy place and making the pitch at the customers’ satisfaction. Car sales have always been that we had the right car for you and you had the money for us. It would be a gamble but I am sure that we would back you on this as it could mean a different avenue for the company nationally.”

“Young lady, how much did this cost?” I answered that the main costs were in peoples’ time. There was Chris for filming, Ron for editing and production and K Beat for use of the studio. No-one else was paid. The rep said that I had given his marketing department a swift kick in the nuts and I said that I seem to have a habit of doing that. Peters’ wife finally could not hold herself back. “Peter, this is exactly what I have been saying for a long time. You have been stuck in the male dominated, suited, idea of car sales. You need to move into the new age of a more casual, but smart, look and maybe recruit some female sales staff. This advert has gone further than I had thought about but the idea of going to a happy place to buy a car will give the female half of the population a much better feeling.”

Peter looked at me and said “Patsy, this has been a revelation akin to the one you delivered to me at Mario’s. What do you think I would have to change if I go ahead with this and how much do you think it would cost me?” I thought for a few seconds and answered “Peter, as far as change goes it isn’t much. Maybe some potted plants in the showroom, all of your front-of-house staff in smart casual and attending smile practise; a sign writer to reproduce the ‘not biggest but happiest’ logo on the window. The rest of the place is good, your paintwork is bright enough and you already have bunting out in the lot; maybe a few balloons may lift the spirit there. As far as cost, you can negotiate with Sarah about what this advert will cost you. Compared with what you would normally pay, this will be relatively cheap, but you still will have to get a new artwork for your newspaper advertising and billboards but you would have to do that if you altered the concept anyway. All in all, it does not cost a lot to smile and that is really the only thing we said in this advert.”

He looked at the expectant group around him and said “My business brain is screaming ‘don’t leave me’ but my heart is saying yes. What do you sales guys think?” They generally said yes with a couple of older ones looking pensive. “OK,” he said “I am going to give this a try over the summer. If it bombs we can always say it was just a summer campaign and if it takes off we are going to have to think of some different ways to make winter happy. What we now need to do is put this to air as soon as possible and organise a special launch day. Right, you lot get back to work; Patsy, can you come into my office?”

Joanne and I followed him, his family and the company rep, into his office and one of the office girls rounded up a few more chairs so we could all sit. He asked the rep if the company would come to the party with tee shirts and give-aways for a launch and the rep said yes. He then said that he would get on to his advertising people to look at the video and design some print ads and fliers for a launch. He asked me whether we would be available for a Saturday morning and I told him he would have to talk to Sarah but that I thought that we could do an acoustic set in the showroom if he cleared it of cars for the day.

I said that he needed to work fast because we were due to go on tour in only a few weeks’ time. He wrote lots of notes on a pad and thanked Joanne and me for coming today. I told him that the DVD was still in the machine but gave him a spare for safe keeping, saying that we could supply more if needed. His wife and daughters led me out, leaving him and the rep to nut out a plan of action. His wife thanked me for tipping him over the edge of something she had been pushing him toward but he had been too set in his ways to take the final step. I told her that it had been a bit more work than I first thought but had been satisfying and fun. She, and her daughters, gave us a hug each and I drove us back to the house.

Joanne had been pretty quiet through the whole thing so when we got back and sat ourselves in the kitchen with our coffees I asked her what was on her mind. She thought a bit and then said “This morning has distilled some of the thoughts I had been having lately. I sing because I love it and I organise things because I love to do that as well. You, on the other hand, seem to be a powerhouse of problem solving but, at the same time, you make it fun. I have been thinking of myself as an entertainer but am now think that we deliver fun. It happens at our concerts, it happens when we do karaoke, it happened this morning. You delivered fun and Peters’ customers will receive some of that fun in the future. It is a strange thing that you can weave a spell of fun over everyone and I now realise that it was there in the old school band but you disguised it so well no-one really saw it was you. Some of your songs are about love and drama but none are negative while most are simply fun on a stick. You make me happy, very happy, and you have given all of the other girls a sense of purpose. I know that we will be passing on that fun to thousands of concert-goers over the next three months. Please don’t change as I love you the way you are!” We both stood and hugged and kissed and were still doing so when Nina walked into the kitchen and said “Get a room you two.”

Joanne replied that we already had one, thank you very much and we sat down again. Lorraine and Minh came in and Minh asked me what the individual contracts really meant. I explained that she would be paid the money to ensure that any solo work she did for five years was to be exclusively marketed by Simons’ company and if she did not do any the money was still hers. I did remind them that K Beat took ten percent and advised them to put the remainder aside in an interest bearing deposit so that, if there were any problems, it could be paid back and that any interest would be hers to keep. All the girls nodded at this. Then she asked why there could be a problem and I told her that another company may offer two or three million in a year or two when she is famous and there needed to be leeway for negotiations at that time.

She seemed stunned at that. “But what could I do outside the group that would be so needed?” she asked. I told her to think back to Saturday evening and our karaoke session. “We stood up there on that stage and you sang ‘Micky’ beautifully and we all did numbers that showed that any one of us could be a solo star. Do you think that a canny operator like Simon would not have seen that! I have spoken with our management and it was said that you could provide the ideal vehicle for our Christmas album with some songs built from your work with the church teens. I think it would work well and is something to think about after the summer. We could all go into next year with solo albums as well as the group output. I can see Nina doing an album covering her namesake Nina Simone and Lorraine would be out there giving Doris Day and Marilyn Munroe a shake-up. Joanne can sing as well as any of us but I cannot pidgeon-hole her style just yet but I do know that she and I could do duets. You and I just have to sit down and write more songs aimed at our individual styles, they could be used to round out our group pop concerts as well. We can do anything we put our minds to; the world, as they say, is our oyster.”

Part 8

Sunday I drove the sports car to see my mother and then went for a drive out into the countryside and back to clear my mind. I had to get to grips with the dynamics of a changing situation and get settled before the stress of the tour, as stress was certain to occur with a bunch of people in a pressure situation. More relaxed I drove back to the house and spent the evening in the lounge with my guitar and the girls just doodling with any song that came to mind. Before I went to bed I said “It has come to me that if Peter wants us to appear at his dealership launch, we can do an acoustic set with just a PA system and a couple of the band guys. It doesn’t have to be our stage stuff, maybe we can do some of the old numbers about cars and holidays and gentle folk for an hour.”

Monday we did our gym work before breakfast and went into the office to catch up with Ma, who was in a whirlwind of activity so was a bit hard to catch. Lucy did tell us that the stage costumes were coming along well and that she had arranged outfits for both bands that fitted our looks. Our publicist had a great long list of media people who wanted to see us in each city over the next three months and our music publisher said he had transcribed enough songs to make our first music book for the shops. Tom told us that the logistics were coming along and that he had put together two small crews to do the setting up and transport and had one at each tour qualified to drive a bus for, not only the intercity transport but also getting us to and from airports. When we got back to Ma she had enough time to tell us that we flew out to Baltimore exactly two weeks from Thursday so to make sure we had tidied everything up by then.

I asked her if she could ring Al at ‘The Place’ to see if he would be happy to host a ‘see you later’ concert this Saturday night and, if he could, would she arrange with the ‘new boys’ to be ready to practise the full set during the week so we could play. I told her that we may be asked to do an acoustic set at the car dealership the following Saturday and told her I would arrange it with a couple of the old band and would see if Ron had a small PA up his sleeve. When I caught up with him I explained that it was not set yet but we may have to do a small set at the car dealership and that, to make it easier, I thought that we could have us five girls on stools with Minh and me playing acoustic guitar and, if I could get them to do it, either Carl or Jake also on acoustic guitar and one of our bass players on double bass with one of our drummers just on a snare drum and cymbal.

I then asked him if he could put his hand on a small PA system and enough mics to mic all singers and instruments with a mixer unit to handle all of that so there is one lead into the PA. And, I said, I wanted a separate hand-held radio mic with a receiver plugged into the PA on a separate channel for the MC to use. The gig would be Saturday week if it goes ahead and I will let him know as soon as I did. He said that he was really glad to see that Peter had gone with the advert as we may be able to add that business to the K Beat list when we moved into a new studio. He said he was already looking at equipment and had been really surprised by the technology now available.

I then went to talk to Carl and Jake and outlined what will, hopefully, happen next Saturday night and the following Saturday during the day. I explained the folk group instrumentation that would work at the dealership and Jake commented that I didn’t get stuck in a rut. They said they would put a team together if needed and, when I confirmed the gig, they would organise the instruments from the music store. When I got back to our office Ma told me I was wanted in Sarah’s office so I went to see her. When I walked in Peter and the company rep were sitting by the desk so I said hello and sat down. Peter said “We really have to thank you for what you produced for us. We have been busy planning our changes and would like you and the girls to play at our launch. We plan it for Saturday week and I am here to negotiate, with Sarah here, your fee and also to come to an arrangement to pay for your work so far. We need to verify who needs to be paid for what.”

I listed those who have put work into the advert; Chris spent about two weeks off and on doing the video, Minh and I spent about eight hours composing and that Chris, Ron and me were about four hours in the studio getting the final cut. I said that the car was supplied by a friend who only needed to be paid in hugs, kisses and signed photos and had been already paid in full. Beyond that there was only the studio time. Sarah was making notes and she told Peter that she would have an invoice ready before he left the building. I asked if the two gentlemen would like a small tour as Ron and the guys would need confirmation of the gig and Ron would need to know where, and how many, power points were in the showroom. So that’s what we did. I took them to the Patsy Office to meet all of the other girls (where Ma told me the dance gig was on) and then down to the practice stage to meet the two bands and finally to the studio to meet Ron.

On the way back to Sarah the rep remarked that it was a bigger operation than he thought and I explained that it would be bedlam from today in the countdown to two tours side by side. He asked me where we would be playing and I listed them off for him. He asked me what days we played Detroit and I told him it was a Friday, Saturday and Sunday night but he would have to check with Ma regarding the dates and venue. I said the next concerts were the following weekend in New York and were the last on that tour but we had another festival to play at the following weekend before we could come home. He commented on how hard we worked, and there was him thinking we just sang for a couple of hours a week. I told him to watch out for advertising by ‘The Place’ for this Saturday night if he wanted to see just how hard the work was.

I left them with Sarah to finalise the business and went to grab the girls for lunch and after that we spent the afternoon with the new band going through the dance set. I told Carl that the next week was set aside to go through the pop set and any extra songs we could play if needed and then we went home for a bubble bath, dinner and sleep. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday was much the same, finalising details for the tour and practise with the band. We were now very smooth and I congratulated them on their hard work. We had put together a set to finish with ‘Dancefloor’ and save ‘Maximum Dance’ for an encore. If we played it on Saturday it would be the first time the dance club patrons would have heard it as we had not sent Al a studio copy of the live performance. Friday the guys had the day off and we did a bit of relaxing and talking about the future. In the afternoon we had a salon pampering and had an early night as Saturday would be a late one.

Saturday we did an extra work-out on the gym machines and dressed in jeans for the day. I looked in our larder and went out to the shop to get some supplies then, in the afternoon, Minh and I spent time in the home studio working through new songs, ending with four rough cuts on the laptop. We all had a light meal and then got ourselves dressed in the red leather pants and boots outfit we had used at the second concert and waited for the limo to pick us up. When we got to ‘The Place’ there was a queue to get in and we went around the back to the stage entrance. The boys were already there with the gear set up on stage and I could see that they were excited by their debut in ‘the big time’ so we spent some time chatting and trying to settle them. Finally we were given the nod, strapped on our guitars, put on our radio mics and special buds. I pressed my intercom button and asked if everyone was set and, after they all answered, I gave the stagehand the nod and the curtains opened. It was a blast, the guys were really energetic and the extra volume brought them alive. We did the lot and after ‘Maximum Dance’ faded I called ‘Thank you Nashville, next stop Washington!”

Marianne G 2020