Different Circles

“Okay,” Jake said. “I’ll think it over. Now, are we done here?”

They were done. Jake left them copies of his promotion instructions and then went back to the studio. He was able to get in a few more hours of work before heading home.

Obie had been out on the road as well, he and his band doing what they called a “soft tour”, which meant they played consecutive shows in multiple cities for a stretch of about a month and then took long breaks of two or three weeks before starting another leg. As a country music legend with an impressive catalogue of twelve studio albums, he was able to sell tickets for almost as much as Celia charged and he, like her, sold out every venue within hours of release.

Obie flew home from Louisville on September 16^th after a month of doing shows throughout the Midwest region. His next show was scheduled for September 30^th in Nashville. On September 20^th, a Saturday and the end of Jake’s workweek (it was a V-tach day so Laura was not there), Obie, Pauline, and Tabby met Jake at Whiteman Airport after he wrapped up for the day and flew back to San Luis Obispo with him. They were going to have a nice dinner together and then Jake and Obie were going to do some ATV riding on the dunes on Sunday. Aside from the family time together, there was also a little business to discuss.

They talked about it over the Saturday night dinner. Since Elsa was off for the weekend (as was Meghan, but she usually stayed home on her off-days) and since Laura was not much of a cook (as the youngest of five she had never been taught by her child-weary mother) Jake cooked the meal. It was simple fare, just hamburgers and tater tots, but Obie, who had been eating road food for the past month, tore into it voraciously.

“Glad you like it,” Jake said with satisfaction after the singer proclaimed his enjoyment of the offering for the second time.

“You’re a good man with the grill, Jake,” Obie said. “That’s something to put on the old resume.”

“I’ll add that in,” Jake said.

Obie took another bite of his burger, popped a few tater tots in his mouth, and then washed it down with a healthy swig of the IPA that Jake had served with the meal. “Pauline tells me you’re ready to start talking studio time,” he said.

“That’s right,” Jake said. “We’re coming along pretty well. We have V-tach’s tunes pretty much dialed in for the basics and I’m starting to work on the polish. As for my stuff, we’re a little bit behind V-tach, but progressing.”

“I’m gonna play on two of the tunes,” Laura said happily. “I even get a solo.”

“What’s a solo?” asked Tabby from her seat at the table. She had a mouthful of burger of her own.

“It’s when Aunt Laura plays her saxophone all by herself,” Pauline told her daughter.

“Oh,” Tabby said, seemingly disappointed that it wasn’t something cooler than that.

“We got Nat on board now, and Nerdly has agreed to be the keyboardist through the process. I guess he feels he’s experienced enough to engineer and play at the same time.”

“A good thing,” Obie said. “Are you talking two studios here, like you did with Tisdale and Celia?”

“No,” Jake said. “We can get by with one. It’ll be just like when C and I were recording at the same time. We’ll be using the same musicians and alternating days.”

“Glad to hear that,” Obie said, “because there’s no way I could’ve swung two studios anyway. I’m pretty booked up. I have Wild Hat using Studio C right now. They’re scheduled through December 23^rd. I can give you C starting on the first business day of 1999 until May 25^th. That do ya?”

“I was hoping to get in a little sooner,” Jake said. “By late November if possible.”

Obie was shaking his head. “Just not possible, unfortunately,” he told him. “A and B are booked up until the last week of February and Wild Hat is one of my most profitable acts. I need to get them finished up on time.”

“I understand,” Jake said. “First of the year it is, then.”

“You know I’d help you out if I could,” Obie said.

“Yeah, I know Obie,” Jake said. “And maybe this isn’t such a bad thing after all. We can slow the pace down a bit. Drop down to five-day weeks and only seven hours a day. That’ll give us lots of polish time without burning out.”

“Sometimes things happen for a reason,” Obie said.

“That is true,” Jake agreed.

“I hear the new songs on the radio, both for Matt and for Celia,” Obie said. “How’s the sales picking up now that you got two releases charting?”

Jake smiled. “As I predicted,” he said, “sales started rising within days of the promo of Dethroned and Limbo. Matt’s gone Gold now and weekly sales are still increasing. Celia’s gone Platinum and will likely go double-Platinum before the end of the year. The suits over at National are beside themselves.”

“Kicking themselves in the ass a little?” Obie said with a grin.