Louder Than Thunder

Paul led the girls back to their dressing room. They entered to see an older man, grey-haired, square-jawed, and dressed in a proper suit. He stood up as they entered and shook each of their hands.
“It’s nice to meet you, girls. Name’s King - Craig King.”
“Girls, he represents Polycent Records.”
“Oh,” Mary said.
“When we heard about the Rag Dolls touring with the Leatherjackets, we had to know just who you girls were! We got in touch with our New York and London contacts who’ve seen you play and they said that we simply had to partner with this band. Our main studio is here in Chicago, and since you were stopping here, I decided that I just had to come over and see you girls for myself.”
The girls looked between each other, with half-smiles, anticipating a good ending to this story.
“Well, on behalf of Polycent, we’d love to have the Rag Dolls record an album in our studios.”
“No way,” Michelle blurted.
“Are you offering us a record deal?” Mary asked in disbelief.
“Yes. How does four records, two years sound?”
“We could do that, right?” Darlene asked, turning to Michelle.
As the songwriter, she had to be able to handle the load. Enough songs for one record could be difficult enough as they had to flow together and be approved by the company. Even if they weren’t to be hits, they had to sound good.
“Yeah,” Michelle replied. “I think we could.”
“Great! We’ll make a contract and keep in touch.”
“Girls, why don’t you go catch up with the boys while Mr. King and I speak?” Paul said, ushering them out of the room.
Paul was sweating, droplets dripping from his hairline. He couldn’t believe it any more than they could. They hurried out of the door and let Paul attend to business. Sidney and Kurt were waiting outside for them.
“How’d it go? Did he offer you a contract?” Sidney asked.
“Y-yeah,” Michelle stuttered.
“We’re gonna make a record!” Darlene cheered.
“Hey, congratulations!”
Sidney hugged Michelle, who was taken by surprise but hugged him back with a warm smile shining on her face.
“Good job,” Kurt said.
“Thanks guys,” Darlene said.
“Making a record is great. I bet you’ll love it,” Sidney told Michelle.
“Let’s celebrate! How ‘bout a round, then?” Mary asked.
“Sounds good to me,” Darlene said, rubbing her hands together evilly.
The two bands drank and then danced to the music playing through the venue. Even Keith joined them, though he participated separately, preferring to dance with strangers.
The next afternoon, the girls were driven to the recording studios. Mr. King met them in front of the building and brought them inside, trying to pair them with a producer to allow him to get back to handling the big business. He brought them into the famous little room with a glass window separating the band and the studio engineer. He had the girls start playing one of their songs, which was a favourite among mod-club-goers.
“I just don’t know who to put them with. We’ve never had an all-girl band like theirs,” King admitted.
“Don’t think of them as an all-girl band. They don’t like it. They’re a rock ‘n’ roll act, alright?” Paul explained to him.
“Right.”
“Just treat them as a rock ‘n’ roll act. It’s the music that matters to them and it should matter to you.”
“Well, I do have one man . . . I’ll see what he’s up to.”
With that, King ran out in a hurry. He returned about five minutes later with a gangly, geeky-looking man with glasses and a comb over.
“Girls, this is Peter Young. I think he might be just the producer you need,” King said over the microphone.
“Alright, King, let’s hear what you’ve picked up this time,” Peter said, leaning against the opposite wall.
King cued the girls to play and they did. Hardly halfway into the song, Peter crinkled his face and just said,
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’? They’re the only girl group doing what they’re doing and they’re good at it!”
“Who do I look like, Phil Spector? I don’t produce girl groups. I don’t work with girls!”
“Mr. Young, I assure you that whatever issue you may have had with previous groups you will not have with these girls. They write their own songs, they play their own instruments, they sing, they embody mod, they’re everything you could ask for,” Paul assured them.
“Come on, um-”
“Paul-“
“Right. Paul, we all know mod is on its way out. It’s done, hippies rule the scene.”
“But mod isn’t done. As long as kids are dancing in clubs, poppin’ pills, dressing like mods and making the music mods love, mod is alive.”
Peter removed his glasses, sighed and rubbed his face tiredly. He replaced his wide glasses and looked around at the girls. It went silent for a while as Peter contemplated his situation.
“We have a lot of work to do,” he finally said.
“Mr. Young, thank you. The girls will be so happy.”
Peter turned on the microphone to speak to the girls in the next room.
“Girls, do you think you could play another song?” he asked them.
They looked to each other, quickly chose a song and went into it. It was a slightly heavier song, but was nonetheless another club favourite. Suddenly, Peter looked pleased. He smiled and nodded as he sat down in front of the controls and put on a pair of headphones. He tapped Paul on the shoulder proudly. Paul smiled at him in understanding.
Once the girls finished the song, Peter called them into the control room.
“Girls, that was a really good take. I think that if we add some vocals on over top, we just may have a hit,” he explained as he moved levers and switches in the room like a mad scientist.
“Great! Should we get back in there and record the vocals, then?” Mary asked.
“No, no, you’re busy touring. We’ll double track it for now. I’ll call you back in if I think it needs anything else. For now, let’s record that first song you played as a B-side. Then we’ll be done for today.”
“Wow. Okay,” Darlene said.
They recorded the first song and were then free to leave. Peter would work out the single from there. The girls arrived back at the hotel, exhausted from the day of nervous energy and awaiting the response from a producer who had heard them for the first time.
“I still can’t believe he liked us,” Darlene said.
“He was quick to say ‘no’, and he was quick to say ‘yes’. He must’ve seen something in us, I suppose,” Michelle said.
“I’m glad he did. This is it. This is where things start to feel like we’ve actually moved up,” Mary said excitedly.
When they arrived back to the hotel, which was dead quiet at only seven o’ clock, the girls ordered room service. They lacked the ability to wind down for sleep as they awaited the next day, when their contract would be made up and they would sign with Polycent Records.
The next day, the group stopped at the record plant, signed the contract in King’s office, and decided to celebrate with some shopping. Chicago didn’t have the same stores the girls liked, but they enjoyed the town anyways.
When they returned to the hotel, they were met with some negative judgment from Keith and Eric.
“You girls just signed a contract, and you’re celebrating with shopping? Typical,” Keith said, snidely.
“Like you don’t shop. What’d you do when you got a contract, then?” Mary snapped.
“We rented a Rolls and drove it to clubs.”
“So, you shopped. You spent money on an object - shopping.”
Keith gazed at her, as if not comprehending what she was poking at. He continued by them down the hall, not bothering to even respond. As soon as they entered the elevator, Michelle glared at her.
“What?”
“Mary, I told you not to bother when they say something like that.”
“Just because I proved them wrong!”
“It doesn’t matter!”
“Fine, I’ll stop.”
“Thank you.”
The next day, Darlene and Eric went out together for a few drinks after lunch, Michelle and Sidney decided to take the afternoon to write out songs in Sidney’s hotel room, while Mary was left in her hotel room.
Unsure of what to do, she decided to wing it and try finding if anything was going on locally. She headed down to the lobby, exited the building, and she turned the corner just to find the street full of greasers. Mary ducked behind a potted plant, hiding and hoping they’d leave soon. In her time, she had learnt that she could trust other mods and should fear rockers in large numbers.
She was prepared to sneak back into the hotel, when she noticed Keith standing among them. Now she watched more closely. They mentioned going to this club down the road. Now, Mary was interested. What was going on between these greasers? With nothing else to do that day, and an itch to find a club, she decided to follow them; first, she ran upstairs to change her clothes. She slipped into the most ragged skirt she had, which resembled a circle skirt, except with a mod pattern on it. It would do, she decided.
She put on bright red lipstick, and started going between the hotel rooms on the floor, looking for one of the band members’ doors to be unlocked. She tried the second one away from theirs, and then the one after, and the one after that. Someone appeared at the doorway as she was moving on to the last in the hallway. Kurt peered between the slightly opened door, his curious earth green eyes staring at her in confusion.
“Kurt! You have a leather jacket, right? Could I borrow it?”
“Erm, I guess,” he said, removing it from his back.
“Thanks, Kurt! You’ll get it back in a couple hours, I promise!”
Kurt watched her strangely as she ran down the hall.