Dana Spiotta - Stone Arabia

Lux started out as a songwriter. He penned a couple of hit singles for a sixties novelty group, the Ginger Jangles (yes, they had red hair). After that, Lee had attached to various marginal acts. One was a young whisper-voiced girl who was trying to do the Emmylou Harris/Gram Parsons southern angel stuff. She had long native-straight black hair and she sang her country pop without pedal steel guitar or anything too offensively country. She had some minor success and then quickly disappeared. Then there was Lee Lux’s other protégé, an uncomfortably handsome singer from Canada who bleated out didactic political songs with acoustic accompaniment. Lux remade him as some kind of glitzed-out superstar and quickly got a record deal. Lux saw to it that they spent a lot of money, and the singer’s first album had these huge, lush production numbers. He was hyped beyond belief, shoved on billboards, and seemed to be opening for everyone. But the hype didn’t hit the right note for his still-earnest presentation. Or maybe he was too pretty or the timing was bad. His one and only record sank without a trace. You can still buy it on eBay for a chunk of money, perhaps if you are a collector of obscurities. Or a collector of artifacts of people who sell out for exactly nothing in return. But that sounds like a terrible, mean thing to collect.

One wonders, or at least I wonder, what happened to these people? Not the one-hit wonders but the no-hit wonders? Those actual people who became roadkill as the Lee Lux types move on. I can easily imagine the unreturned phone calls. The years when a second chance still feels within reach. But then what? I wonder, of course, because Nik is sort of one of them. Someone, somewhere, no doubt wonders what became of roadkill Nik. But it really pains me to think of him in this category. I shudder to think of him as a footnote in the documentary yet to be made about Lee Lux Smith. Which is one of the reasons why I thought Ada’s idea for her movie wasn’t so bad, despite my noncompliance. I really didn’t want the smug opportunists, the people who dine off other people’s lives, to tell all the stories.

After Lee Lux failed with the singer-songwriter, he let it be known he was looking for a new act.

The Fakes were not the ideal candidates for Lux. But he wanted to find a way into the new new thing. And one thing I have to concede: Lux did recognize how good Nik was and how timely the Fakes were. I remember being backstage and seeing him appear. He must have been in his mid-thirties then — he just looked old to me. He wore a sport coat over a T-shirt. He pushed the sleeves of the coat up his arms a little, which must have been his concession to the moment — he was, after all, all about concessions to the moment. But he still looked out of place with his uncommitted haircut that was short in the front and long in the back, and his iron, handsome jaw, and his way of smiling that felt moneyed and important. I watched him throw a friendly arm around Nik and whisper to him. Already he colluded, naturally he was on Nik’s side. He knew things, he could grow and spin his indispensability in the course of a conversation. Nik waved me over. I remember exactly how it went down.

“Dee Dee, this is Lee Lux.” Nik called me Dee Dee back then. Denise was only for serious moments and my mother. I held out my hand and gave him a cheeky sarcastic wink. At twenty-one I had somehow developed the manner of a drag queen. This was my version of punk attitude. He kissed my hand and I curtsied.

“Now, why isn’t this creature in the band? You can stand behind a keyboard, can’t you, darlin’?” Lee said. God, he really was a shameless sleazeball. He was so corny, it was almost fabulous, you know? Almost, but not at all, actually. Up close I could see he had a mouthful of gleaming straight teeth. From his mother, I couldn’t help thinking. That is the thing about these sorts of people. They are quite charming, and shallow as it sounds, everyone likes some shiny teeth. (One other truly subversive thing about the Sex Pistols and the British punks: bad teeth. Bad smells, bad teeth, bad skin — this was the real stuff of rebellion. It didn’t last long as an aesthetic. But wasn’t it amazing for a moment?)

Nik and I went to Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset Boulevard with Lee Lux. The rest of the band was cordially not invited. That was the first sign, I think, that this guy was bad news. But we also already knew he was bad news. Everyone knew it — so you had your guard up. But Lux used that notoriety and made it work to his advantage.

He said, “You know me. Everyone knows me. I am the king opportunist. I am the ruthless man-eating star maker. Either get with me or get out of my way because I’m not nice.”

We all laughed.

He said, “You can be nice. I can be the cutthroat. I have no qualms, none whatsoever, about doing what needs to be done. I am a shark, I am a piranha.”

Nik chain-smoked. He didn’t say anything at all, but he listened. I sipped a Coke. Lux bit into a hamburger. He said, “Tell me what you see for yourself. Where would you like to be in two years?” He pushed his french fries away from his burger and ignored them. Nik leaned his face wearily into his hand and looked around the restaurant. He said nothing, then started laughing. “Seriously,” said Lux.

Nik shrugged. He said, “Look, you know, the Fakes are just for fun. I have much better stuff than the Fakes.” Lux nodded. He had finished every bite of his burger. I watched him very carefully — I ate nothing in those days. I wanted to be skeletal. But I was fascinated watching other humans eat.

Lux said, “The music is fine. I really like the music the way it is. The music is perfect. But maybe you don’t need that cynical name …”

Nik laughed again. “Too cynical?” he said. “What name would you suggest?”

Lux gave up and finally popped two french fries in his mouth. “I don’t know. Maybe the Real? Or the True?”

Nik shook his head. “Nope.”

Lux shoved a few more french fries in his face. “Look, maybe not, but with the Real, say, you can be ironic to the new wave kids and sincere to the rest of the kids. You can have it both ways. If you want to be successful, you have to get things to work in many, many ways to many, many people.” Nik didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was considering it. We left that meeting, and I felt sure Nik wouldn’t bother with Lux. And he never changed the name of the band, it was true. But it didn’t go away. Lee Lux hovered around. He arranged opportunities for the Fakes without Nik asking for them. He was growing his indispensable qualities. Maybe Nik’s ambivalence was a form of consent. Maybe there was a more formal agreement between them. I don’t really know. But I do know Lux stuck around, fixated on the Fakes for a while. And he had a finger or two in the record deal that was offered to Nik in the summer of 1979.

Okay, the funny thing is I don’t really know what went wrong. I wasn’t lying to Ada. I mean, Nik never explained it to me or anyone. More or less, a record deal with an actual major label, Sire, which was Blondie’s label, was in the offing. Then there was another label. And it all blew up. It was all on the verge, but another LA band, maybe the Dickies, their record had come out on a real label and it was a flop. Maybe that was part of it. But I also think — well, I know — that when it became clear he was not going with Lux, Lux helped blow things up. Lux was setting it up, and when Nik told Lux to fuck off, Lux may have sabotaged it. Then Nik was too tainted to get an independent label interested. So what Lux said was true — get with him or else. After that happened, Nik changed his life. Ada was right to an extent. That time, ’79–’80, was a kind of turning point.