Pretenders

By Nathan Allen

Los Angeles, 1993. Fawn de Jager is a former child performer struggling to make a name for herself in the cut-throat world of pop music.
 
Julian T. Rockefeller is her manager, a one-time music business high-flyer and a full-time disciple of the rock and roll lifestyle, trying to rebuild his reputation and stay relevant in a rapidly changing industry.
 
Steven and Rahul kidnap people for a living.
 
On the brink of bankruptcy and facing imminent obsolescence, Julian takes one last roll of the dice in his bid to launch Fawn’s career. It could be the worst idea he’s ever come up with – or it could be the best.
 
When you’re that desperate, it can be hard to tell the difference.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Mar 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9783755409977

Book preview

1992

Chapter 1

24 September 1992

Dear Fawn,

London calling to the faraway towns!

Yeah, yeah, I know you’re sick of hearing me tell you this, but I’m still going to say it one more time: you really need to get yourself over here, pronto! London, Manchester, Bristol, Reykjavik, Berlin – maybe the message hasn’t traveled all the way across the pond yet, but the nineties will be taking place on THIS side of the Atlantic. This is where it’s all happening. Remember, you heard it here first.

Forget tired old LA sweetie, its moment has passed. I know you had your reasons for staying back and everything, but Europe is where it’s at. This is the land of infinite opportunities. The place is so vibrant, so ALIVE! The wall is down, the Soviet empire has crumbled, the cultures are intermixing, new and old worlds coming together in a glorious melting pot, a hub of boundless creativity unlike anywhere else on the planet. Paris is no more than a short trip on the Eurostar. Amsterdam is a six-hour ferry ride away. Spain is a two-hour flight. The clubs, the fashion, the culture, the atmosphere. You haven’t lived until you’ve been here – you’ve only existed.

And the music! Oh my god, it is PHE-NOM-EN-AL!! Check out this rollcall of talent: Massive Attack. Paul Oakenfold. Spiritualized. Jesus Jones. My Bloody Valentine. Stereo MCs. These are the performances I have witnessed in just THE LAST NINE DAYS!! Some of those names might not mean anything to you, but trust me, the sounds they generate are like transmissions beamed in from the fourth dimension. A soundtrack to a near-future utopia. Track down some of their imports if you can.

I hope all is well in your corner of the world. I’m thinking of coming home for Christmas, but who knows? When you’re living in the center of the universe, why would you ever want to leave?

Anyway, I’m off to Brussels with friends in a week’s time, and then on to Prague after that. I’ll try and get another letter off before then, or maybe I’ll write one on the train ride between the two cities, but if I can’t, I know you’ll forgive me. So much is happening right now that it’s sometimes difficult to remember where I am or what day it is.

Karli xoxoxoxo

Halcyon nightclub was located along a stretch of Los Angeles urban ennui better known for its car dealerships and constantly proliferating chain restaurants than its electrifying nightlife.

The supply closet doubled as the backstage dressing room. A mop and bucket sat in the far corner, filled with murky days-old gray water. The shelves were stacked with gallon-sized bottles of disinfectant and ammonia. There was a distinct rotten cabbage smell, most likely due to a rodent carcass decomposing somewhere in the walls or ceiling.

A sheet of mirrored glass the size of a newspaper was glued to the wall. Beneath that was an old dresser with no two legs the same length. The room pulsated in time with the synth bassline of I Feel Love. This was the closing number for Janice, the Donna Summer impersonator currently performing on stage.

Fawn de Jager sat alone beneath a bare light globe hanging from the ceiling. She folded the letter in half once she had finished reading it, then slipped it back into the envelope and stashed it away in her bag.

Two years ago, her best friend Karli Cook had left LA for Europe on what was supposed to be a three-month trip but soon stretched out to six months, then a year, and now indefinitely. It wasn’t difficult to see why she kept putting off coming home. Reading her fortnightly correspondence was like a glimpse into another world, a fantasy life closer to that of an international model or jet-setting socialite than of someone she had known since the age of eleven. While it always brought a smile to her face to hear about the all-night beach parties in Barcelona, the awe-inspiring ruins of the Acropolis of Athens, and the geothermal spas in Iceland, the fact that Fawn had to read about it while sitting on an uncomfortable plastic bucket chair in a dingy dressing room, wearing rubber bracelets and a puffy thrift store dress, and she could not be over there with her, meant that each of these missives came tinged with sadness.

Three quick knocks, and then the door was flung open.

You ’bout ready, Fawn? the club’s manager said, sticking his head inside. He was a stout man in his fifties, with a horseshoe of jet-black hair encircling an otherwise bald head. She often wondered why he bothered to dye it – did he really believe this made him look younger, despite it only covering one-third of his scalp? She had met him six or seven times by now and still had not made the effort to remember his name.

I’ll be right there, she said.

She couldn’t summon the energy to become upset by the way he had barged into the dressing room unannounced, as if those three rapid knocks were enough to absolve him of inappropriate behavior. After performing for more than half her life, she had come to expect this from a certain type of club manager. She had learned from a young age never to remain in a state of undress for too long, and she knew to drag some sort of obstacle in front of the door should the situation demand it.

The manager left without closing the door, and she reviewed the setlist one more time. She would open tonight’s show with Holiday, as she did most nights, before segueing into the mid-eighties party starters: Into The Groove, Lucky Star, Material Girl, Open Your Heart. A few slower tracks would follow (Oh Father, Crazy For You), before a ninety-second instrumental medley to facilitate a costume change, shedding the puffy dress and oversized neon sweater to reveal a much skimpier outfit underneath, and then onto the fan favorites (Borderline, La Isla Bonita, Causing A Commotion, Everybody). She would bring it home with a bracket of classics that should have the dancefloor at least half full: Like A Prayer, Papa Don’t Preach, Vogue, Like A Virgin, Express Yourself.

She adjusted her wig and did a final touch-up of her makeup. She looked the part, and now it was time to act the part. She would step onto that stage and give it everything she had. She would deliver a show so good that, to the untrained eye or the vision impaired, they were watching the real Madonna – if she happened to be putting on an impromptu performance in a club with a capacity of three hundred, upstairs from an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet.

She was still the most in-demand performer for Ze-Rocks Tribute Artists.

Fawn didn’t always enjoy these shows, and some nights were more of a struggle than others, but she would never dare complain. She was doing what she loved. Being paid to sing was better than any day job. And it would all be worth it in the end.

It had to be. There was no plan B.

Chapter 2

The office of Silver Star Records and Ze-Rocks Tribute Artists was situated in a Los Feliz strip mall, accessible only via a narrow staircase. A drycleaners occupied the floor below. Next to that was a shady-looking Armenian guy hawking counterfeit jewelry and fake gemstones to passers-by.

Fawn trudged up the stairs the morning after her show at Halcyon. Gordon, the agency’s Lionel Ritchie impersonator, was leaving just as she was arriving. They exchanged quick hellos as they passed

The haggard appearance of her manager was something she was ill-prepared to deal with at such an early hour. Julian T. Rockefeller had the ash-gray complexion of a man who had gone days without seeing direct sunlight. His eyes looked like he’d been smoking two packs a day and using his own face as an ashtray. Fawn’s heart sank when she saw the condition he was in. She tried to ignore the rumors, and he never did anything in her presence, but his colorful past was all on public record, and the evidence often right in front of her. In addition to every other problem in her life, the last thing she needed was having to worry about her manager, the man who also ran the label she was signed to, making decisions about her career on day three of a five-day coke bender.

His shirt was marked with unsightly sweat patches, and his hair was sticking out at different angles at the back and the sides. The slept-in-the-office look didn’t inspire confidence in his capabilities as a manager. His hair wouldn’t look half as bad if he’d just get it cut. It was thinning at the front, but like so many men staring down the barrel of middle age, he kept it longer in a desperate attempt to hold onto the last threads of his youth. This only accentuated the receding, thereby making him appear older. She’d dropped the occasional hint about how much better it would look if he cut it short, but he never caught on.

Two more shows have come in for next week, Julian said, tossing an envelope on the desk after she took her seat. One’s at a nightclub. The other’s a corporate event.

She collected the envelope without responding, opening it and tallying up the bills inside. She insisted on being paid in cash after he had written one too many bad checks, and she insisted on counting it out in front of him after he’d short-changed her one too many times. She didn’t bother being discreet about it, either. She no longer cared if it annoyed or offended him.

The corporate gig’s on Wednesday, he continued, his eyes becoming even more bloodshot after rubbing them with his thumb and forefinger. Some accountancy firm, I think. Early evening, mixed crowd, range of ages. Stick to the hits. Nothing obscure. Definitely none of the raunchy stuff, otherwise it might get uncomfortable.

His British accent was harder to decipher on days like this; a string of syllables mashed into one continuous gurgle. Fawn needed to lean in slightly and pay close attention if she was to pick out enough words to figure out what he was trying to say.

Friday will be at Velveteen. Younger crowd, so you can throw in some of the newer tunes. A few deep cuts, if you see fit. Might wanna do that new single. I’ll see if I can get you an advance copy of the album. You can ’ave a listen and decide if there’s anything worth adding to your set.

The new Madonna album, Erotica, was scheduled for release later that month, accompanied by what appeared to be a softcore pornography coffee table book with the less than subtle title of Sex. The hype leading up to the book and the album’s release had been off the charts, with the press getting all hot and bothered over the risqué content, and conservative groups declaring it would lead to the downfall of society and the destruction of the traditional family unit.

Millions of Madonna fans were counting down the days until the 20 October release date, but Fawn was less than thrilled by the prospect. She enjoyed Madonna’s songs, or at least she enjoyed them before she had to sing them every other night for the past two years. She preferred her pop hits of the mid-eighties over her more recent material. But wherever Madonna went Fawn had to follow, which meant she would soon be wearing even fewer clothes on stage and singing about bondage and obscure fetishes, the thought of which filled her with dread. It wasn’t that she was a prude or uptight; it had more to do with the section of the audience that would display their appreciation through wolf-whistles and lewd comments rather than applause. She could be singing about taxation law and she would still have to endure drunken creeps gawping at her. God only knows how they’d respond to these new songs, which were basically three and a half minutes of heavy breathing set to music.

She also doubted Julian had the industry connections to score an advance copy of what was one of the year’s most anticipated releases. This may have been his attempt at impressing her, talking himself up and exaggerating his influence, which he had a habit of doing. She hoped that’s all it was. It would be concerning if he believed he still had that kind of power.

Can’t wait, she said, as she went to stand. The back of her chair bumped against the filing cabinet as she pushed it out. The office was about the size of a walk-in closet. The windows didn’t open, or if they did she had never seen them open, and so the place always smelled like the inside of a cupboard. When she first came here, Julian insisted this was just his temporary base, but it soon became clear this was all he could afford.

Fawn, before you leave, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about, he said, motioning for her to sit back down. What do you think about Cher?

What about her? Fawn said.

I’m thinking about adding a Cher to the talent roster. She’s more popular than I realized. I assumed she was past her prime, but it turns out the poofs love her. We’ve been getting a few requests, so if you’re interested in picking up some extra work, let me know.

You’re asking if I want to do Cher shows as well?

It’s a chance to double your work and take home some real dosh. You could be doing shows every night of the week, if you wanted.

Fawn closed her eyes and let out a small sigh. "Julian, I do not want to do shows every night of the week."

No bother. I just thought I’d offer it to you before I took out an ad.

But why would you even ask me that? You know I want to stop doing the tribute act stuff and start focusing on my own music. You said you were going to help me with that.

Julian winced, as if struck by a stabbing pain between his ears. Fawn wasn’t sure if it was her words that had caused this, or if this was his nocturnal activities catching up with him.

We’ve discussed this already, he said, opening the top drawer of his desk and rummaging around inside. I will help you with your own music. Soon. But these things take time, kid.

I’ve given it time. More than two years of my time, in fact. I never wanted to sing other people’s songs in the first place, and I want to do my own stuff now.

I understand, but it’s simply not possible at the moment. The money’s just not there. Everything we have is tied up in the Warpistol album.

Warpistol. A bunch of underperforming and overindulged adolescents. Just hearing their name was enough to make Fawn retch. Julian, for reasons known only to himself, had funneled a river of money into their career development and hedonistic lifestyle ever since he signed them. Fawn had unwittingly contributed to those funds, thanks to the revenue she had generated with her Madonna performances.

Their album is almost complete, Julian continued, eventually finding what he was looking for – an aspirin packet. He popped three tablets from the blister pack. It’s slated for release early next year. Once it’s done, they’ll head out on tour and we’ll have a much healthier cash flow. Then we’ll have the resources to devote to your career, and you will become Silver Star Records’ number one priority. Nineteen ninety-three will be your year, I promise.

I promise. Two words that came easily for Julian. Fawn had heard them so many times that they had been rendered meaningless. It was a verbal tic, a way to end a sentence, the way others finished their sentences with you know what I mean?

The sad thing was that she had no choice but to go along with it. She had put all her faith in Julian, trusting him when he said he could turn her into a star. This was the sunk cost fallacy; she continued to do everything he told her in the faint hope that he would eventually deliver on his promises. The alternative was to cut her losses and throw away the last two years of her life – something she could not afford to do.

As with many things in Julian T. Rockefeller’s life, his entry into the music business was something he fell into without much planning or forethought. He was born in Reading, England in 1949 to an upper middle-class family, and he breezed through his school years without exerting himself any more than necessary. His parents knew that he was spoilt and sorely lacking in ambition, and so shortly after his final exams he was put to work at Lipshut’s Electrical, the business founded by his grandfather and run by his father and uncle.

He had about as much enthusiasm for the job as he did for his studies. Having to rise early and put on a shirt and tie was an unfair imposition on an otherwise carefree lifestyle. His days were nine-hour sentences of sweeping floors, counting stock, and trying to talk housewives into purchasing the more expensive vacuum cleaner over the cheaper version, even though they more or less performed the same task. The part of the job he hated most was the loading of cumbersome washers, dryers, and refrigerators into the company truck and delivering them to customers’ homes, where he would then have to unload them and lug them inside the house. This was torture for someone with a pathological aversion to physical work, although there was one fringe benefit to all of this – it gave him round-the-clock access to the keys to the truck.

The late sixties witnessed a surge in demand for young men in sharp suits belting out the pop hits of the day. Exciting new bands such as the Beatles, the Who and the Rolling Stones had turned a generation of teenagers on to the thrill of pop and rock music, but few fans would ever have the opportunity to see these bands up close. The next best thing was having their hits replicated at the local clubs and dance halls by one of the many combos that had sprung up across the country.

Julian lacked the talent to play in a band – he could wring a few chords out of a Rickenbacker, but he couldn’t keep time to save his life. The one thing he did have was access to a large vehicle. The company truck may have been an industrial refrigerator on wheels with the turning ability of the QE2, but it was perfect for transporting bands and their gear to and from gigs. He took it out whenever it pleased him, and he made some easy cash by renting out his services three or four nights a week.

His father and uncle eventually caught on to what he was doing, but by then he had saved up enough to buy a second-hand lorry of his own. He ignored his father’s protests and quit his job, and he spent the next few years as a driver/roadie for dozens of local bands. He grew tired of the physical work soon enough, but by then he had figured out that he could make more money for less work by becoming these bands’ tour manager. He also began putting on shows of his own – booking venues, hiring the talent, selling tickets, and not really caring if anyone other than himself got paid in the end.

After a decade of managing and touring with countless groups, he had seen just about all the British Isles had to offer, along with the occasional jaunt over to mainland Europe, but what he really wanted was to get to America. His wish was granted in 1979, when he talked his way into a job as part of Status Quo’s touring party. He was hired as stage manager – a role he wasn’t remotely qualified for, but one he managed to bluff his way through by delegating his tasks to anyone beneath him. His greatest contribution to the tour involved sourcing drugs for the band and their hangers-on; something he discovered he had a unique talent for.

Status Quo returned to the UK following a disappointing tour, but Julian stayed behind. His newly discovered drug-sourcing ability had made him popular with many of the American bands whose orbit he had come into. He crisscrossed the continent for several years, bouncing from road crew to road crew, and he was never short on work – this was an era where no serious rock band was complete without at least one British guy in their entourage. His Rolodex, brimming with the names and phone numbers of the premium narcotic suppliers in every major American city, guaranteed his job security.

In 1982, his industry connections helped him land a job as a talent scout for Atonal, a young independent label based in Los Angeles that specialized in the new hard rock sound exploding in popularity across the world. He was there for eighteen months, where he spent more time propping up the bar at the Rainbow and the Whisky A Go Go than at the label’s Palo Alto headquarters.

Atonal was acquired by Atlantic Records in 1983. Despite Julian achieving nothing of note during his year and a half at the label, his new employer chose to retain his services, and he found himself with a steady salary for the first time in his life. He also had a job he had no desire to do – a position in sales and marketing, something he found almost as mind-numbing as selling vacuum cleaners. He was more interested in hitting the town with the label’s talent roster, many of whom were happy to invite this yappy Brit with access to the best coke and Mandrax pills into their inner circle.

Employee turnover at most labels was high, and Atlantic Records in the mid-eighties was no exception. Staff were quitting or getting fired on a weekly basis, which allowed Julian to move up the ladder by dint of keeping out of the way. He went from his sales and marketing role to publicity rep, then to head of press, and then on to artist relations. He only ever did enough work to get by, but he could think on his feet and play label politics as well as anyone. He wouldn’t hesitate to throw a colleague under the bus if it helped him get ahead, and he would happily take credit for the success of bands – such as Foreigner, AC/DC, and Quiet Riot – that he had nothing to do with.

In 1986, the Atlantic Records board of directors, mistaking proximity for competency and correlation for causation, promoted Julian to the head of A&R.

This was where he really came into his own. Armed with a thick book of blank checks, he embarked on a spending spree that would make Liberace blush. Obscene sums of money were thrown at any band with long hair, loud guitars, lipstick, and leather trousers. Ninety percent of them came and went in the blink of an eye, ending up as nothing more than tax write-offs, but every so often a Twisted Sister or Cinderella or Ratt or Skid Row would break through, and their success allowed the powers-that-be to look past his many failures.

His behavior during this period epitomized the era. It was all about excess, all the time. Everything had to be bigger, brasher, in-your-face, more. Why spend two hundred grand on the debut record of an unknown band when you could blow through two million? Why shoot a music video in two days on a Burbank soundstage when you could fly the band and their entourage to São Paulo on a private jet and spend a week filming on location? It was a philosophy that crossed over into his personal life as he burned through multiple cars, homes, friendships and marriages, his lifestyle fueled by a never-ending expense account and South America’s highest quality pharmaceuticals.

During his tenure, he managed to alienate and ingratiate his colleagues in equal measure. He was forever burning his bridges and rubbing people the wrong way with his boorish behavior, but as long as the river of cash continued to flow, he was allowed to get away with it. Perhaps his most notorious legacy was his penchant for shameless publicity stunts. He loved nothing more than using an offensive quote or a salacious rumor to drum up some free press; anything that would stir up controversy and get his artists’ names in the papers. He knew that any instance of outraging public decency translated to an extra hundred thousand record sales.

He was on top of the world, and he bought into the hype. He believed everything that was said about him, and he grossly overestimated his own abilities.

But as the decade wound down, signs were afoot that the era of decadence and these garish rock and roll Caligulas might be coming to end. Top ten singles came around every six months rather than every six weeks. Albums that would have shifted three million units had they been released in 1985 struggled to go gold in 1989. The public were harder to shock, and so Julian’s stunts weren’t nearly as effective as they once were. Strange, foreign sounds without a guitar in sight were infiltrating the top forty, and selling dumb rock music to dumb American teenagers was no longer the fish-in-a-barrel exercise it once was. He threw record deals at scores of bands that were blatant rip-offs of other successful acts: there was a Guns N’ Roses clone, a Bon Jovi clone, a Def Leppard clone, and about ten Mötley Crüe clones. These acts replicated the bands they mimicked in every conceivable way except for sales figures. One by one, their albums stiffed. He let Faith No More slip through his fingers, and he passed on Soundgarden and the Black Crowes. Pressure was building to deliver the hits and keep his job, and he grew desperate.

He decided to go for his most audacious publicity stunt to date. It was one that was of questionable taste. His colleagues warned him not to do it, but he ignored them. Julian was a lifelong gambler with an addiction to risk, and