Rock Is Lit

Murder, Music, and Mystery in LA: Philip Cohen Reads from His Novel ‘Conflict in the City’

In this episode, Philip Cohen joins the Rock is Lit Season 4 Reading Series to share a few chapters of his novel ‘Conflict in the City’. Mixing and blending the genres of detective noir and music, ‘Conflict in the City’ takes place in greater Los Angeles, home to both classic and modern fictional LA detectives like Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe and Michael Connolly’s Harry Bosch, and music legends like the Doors, Van Halen, and The Mamas and The Papas. It’s in this world that we find Johnny “Whoops” Watson and Billy Bates, young guitarists/singers and their band, Conflict, playing clubs in modern LA, where the days of rock’s zenith and ascendance in the 1960s and 1970s has faded, but the hopes and dreams of aspiring musicians haven’t. Conflict is struggling and chaos ensues when someone linked closely to the band is killed. Billy and Johnny become swept up in the mystery, ill-prepared as they are to confront it. Philip M. Cohen was born in New York City and moved to Los Angeles as a young man. A musician since his pre-teens, he began writing songs and playing with bands in his teens and had a near-encounter with fame with his band The Heaters. He then became a music attorney to pay the bills, but continued to write, perform, and record music. Presently, Phil still consults on legal and business matters but spends most of his time writing and playing music, composing, recording, and performing with his two bands, Dogs and Bones and The Silver Heaters, consisting of former members of The Heaters. ‘Conflict in the City’ is his first published novel and ‘Conflict in the Club’, the second. They are both part of an on-going series dubbed “The Conflict Stories.” MUSIC IN THE EPISODE IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE: Rock is Lit theme music [Guitar Instrumental Beat] Sad Rock [Free Use Music] Punch Deck—“I Can’t Stop” The Doors “Light My Fire” The Mamas and The Papas “California Dreamin’ ” The Doors “Riders On the Storm” [Guitar Instrumental Beat] Sad Rock [Free Use Music] Punch Deck—“I Can’t Stop” Rock is Lit theme music LINKS: Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Goodpods: https://goodpods.com/podcasts/rock-is-lit-212451 Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rock-is-lit/id1642987350 Philip Cohen on Facebook: @PhilCohen Christy Alexander Hallberg’s website: https://www.christyalexanderhallberg.com/rockislit Christy Alexander Hallberg on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube: @ChristyHallberg Rock is Lit on Instagram: @rockislitpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Duration:: 30m
Broadcast on:: 15 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

It’s in this world that we find Johnny “Whoops” Watson and Billy Bates, young guitarists/singers and their band, Conflict, playing clubs in modern LA, where the days of rock’s zenith and ascendance in the 1960s and 1970s has faded, but the hopes and dreams of aspiring musicians haven’t. Conflict is struggling and chaos ensues when someone linked closely to the band is killed. Billy and Johnny become swept up in the mystery, ill-prepared as they are to confront it.

Philip M. Cohen was born in New York City and moved to Los Angeles as a young man. A musician since his pre-teens, he began writing songs and playing with bands in his teens and had a near-encounter with fame with his band The Heaters. He then became a music attorney to pay the bills, but continued to write, perform, and record music. Presently, Phil still consults on legal and business matters but spends most of his time writing and playing music, composing, recording, and performing with his two bands, Dogs and Bones and The Silver Heaters, consisting of former members of The Heaters. ‘Conflict in the City’ is his first published novel and ‘Conflict in the Club’, the second. They are both part of an on-going series dubbed “The Conflict Stories.”

MUSIC IN THE EPISODE IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:

Rock is Lit theme music
[Guitar Instrumental Beat] Sad Rock [Free Use Music] Punch Deck—“I Can’t Stop”
The Doors “Light My Fire”
The Mamas and The Papas “California Dreamin’ ”
The Doors “Riders On the Storm”
[Guitar Instrumental Beat] Sad Rock [Free Use Music] Punch Deck—“I Can’t Stop”
Rock is Lit theme music

LINKS:

Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Goodpods: https://goodpods.com/podcasts/rock-is-lit-212451

Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rock-is-lit/id1642987350

Philip Cohen on Facebook: @PhilCohen

Christy Alexander Hallberg’s website: https://www.christyalexanderhallberg.com/rockislit

Christy Alexander Hallberg on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube: @ChristyHallberg

Rock is Lit on Instagram: @rockislitpodcast

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(upbeat music) This episode is brought to you by Skinny Pop Popcorn. Perfectly popped andlessly delicious. Oh, so light and crunchy. Skinny Pop Original Popcorn is the snack you've been searching for. Made with just three simple ingredients, popcorn, kernel, sunflower oil, and salt. Snacking never felt or tasted, so good. Perfectly popped andlessly delicious. Give yourself permission to snack and pick up Skinny Pop Original Popcorn today. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/campaign to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/campaign. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. This is the energy of electrification. Available type best high performance variant with nearly 500 horsepower and 278 mile EPA range range. Choose from our complimentary charging packages so you can charge how you want the all-electric Acura ZDX. This is the energy of innovation. Acura, precision-crafted performance. This your local Acura dealer until he's the all-electric ZDX for $389 a month. Rock is lit. Rock is lit. Rock is lit. Rock is lit. You're listening to Rock is lit with Christy Halberg. Rock on, Christy. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Rock is lit. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hey there, lit listeners. Welcome to season four of Rock is Lit, the first podcast devoted to rock novels, and also the 2024 American Writing Awards podcast of the year in the categories of music and arts. Rock is lit is a proud member of the Pantheon Podcast Network. - Hey, I'm John Stewart and you're listening to the Pantheon Network. - Rock is Lit is hosted, executive produced, and edited by me, Christy Alexander Halberg, author of my own rock novel, Searching for Jimmy Page. - Big shout out to this season's incredible team, social media intern keyling plats, and our three production interns, Major Lagulin, Tyler Elcock, and The Air Lower. This season we're shaking things up with a fresh new format. Instead of our usual author interviews, we'll be rolling out a weekly reading series, giving you a deeper dive into the world of rock novels through curated readings and literary explorations. To keep up with all things Rock is Lit, follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube at Christy Halberg and @rockislitpodcast on Instagram. For more info, head to ChristyAlexandorHahlberg.com. Got a rock novel you'd like to see featured? Drop me a line at ChristyAlexandorHahlberg@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe, leave a comment, and give us a five-star rating on your favorite podcast platform. Wyatt, the Rock is Lit mascot, and I thank you for your support. (upbeat music) - Hi, this is Philip M. Cohen, but you can call me Phil, and you're listening to Rock is Lit. (upbeat music) ♪ You know that it would be untrue ♪ ♪ You know that I would be a liar ♪ ♪ If I was to say it to you ♪ ♪ Yeah, we couldn't get much higher ♪ ♪ I'm always in life like fire ♪ ♪ I'm always in life like fire ♪ - Today I'll be reading a few chapters from my novel, Conflict in the City, which is the first story in what I call the conflict stories. This novel captures some of my passions, the music scene, my love of music, my love of noir novels, and unexpected path that completes and complicates our lives. Before I begin to read, I wanna tell you a little bit about me and my story. My story begins with the desire. I sat in front of a TV, couldn't have been more than nine years old, and saw a drummer. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Cubby from the Mickey Mouse Club. You may laugh, but that was seminal for me. I knew that's what I wanted to do. I twisted my dad's arm till he came home one day with a little practice pad and a pair of sticks, and I rat-a-tatted on those for a year before he went out and saw I was serious and bought me a small drum set. I played on that drum set with all my passion and started to play with bands. First, when I was 12 years old, and then all through high school, and into my very brief college career. All the same time I was writing. I started to write songs, which were not very good as I did not know how to play any instrument besides drums at the time, but I was also writing stories. I always felt, just like I could play drums, the great stories that I read, and I was an avid reader, were an inspiration to me as well. So I was a young writer. Basically, I abandoned college, moved into the music scene in New York, and played in many clubs, and that was part of what I call number two, The Struggle. I played on the East Coast, up and down with a number of different bands. Finally, in New York, I was playing with a great group called Moon Baby. We rehearsed in Richie Haven's studio. If you don't know, Richie Haven's was a fantastic musician. He had a studio in the village where we all lived, and unfortunately, there were no clubs to play at the time. It was a dead scene, and I decided to move out to Los Angeles, thinking it had to be better there. Unfortunately, as they say, timing is everything in my timing there, for a drama was terrible. The scene in LA was kind of dormant at the time. It was transitioning from the folk rock scene. In the meantime, the New York scene had exploded. All the players that I knew were in bands that were playing CBGBs and other clubs, and that whole scene, people were getting signed, left and right. And so, would I move back to New York? I thought about it, but decided to stay and persevere. And that led to chapter three, which was my brush with success. Like I said, I persevered. I met many other young, like-minded players, and we started to play clubs. I joined this band, which became a band called The Heaters. We were hungry, we played small clubs, and then we started to play bigger clubs. We played the Starwood, which was a massive, maybe 500 capacity club in West Hollywood, played the world-famous Troubadour, which had transitioned to rock after the folk rock scene. We played the Whiskey of Go-Go. We filled clubs. We headlined, and we also opened for bands, such as Van Halen. We opened for Cheap Trick. We opened for many other bands and played with many other bands. But we couldn't get signed until some small label came by us and said, "We'll sign you." Being so hungry and wanting to get out of our day jobs, we eagerly signed. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to have a little extra patience. It was a tough lesson to learn because things went bad with the label. The album that got recorded was not representative of the band, and I quit the band after about a year. Which led to Chapter 4, which is Life Interrupted. I was married, my wife had a child on the way, and I was broke. Not an uncommon story for artists, but what was I going to do? Well, I got lucky, to be honest. I met some people and landed a job at one of the motion picture studios here in L.A. Something I had never even envisioned. That led to something I really had never envisioned. Encouragement to go to law school, which I did at night for four years. And eventually, I became an executive at those motion pictures studio first at Sony, and then I spent 20 years as head of the music business affairs at Universal Pictures. I raised the family, and all that time I tinkered away. I continued to write, and I continued to play. The funny thing is, I often felt that I wish I had known someone like me when I was a struggling musician, because now I was able to provide counsel to players coming up and give them advice that would be helpful, hopefully, in their career. And that leads to Chapter 5, Full Circle. I have always dabbled in art, as well as music, as well as literature. And when I was young, I always thought, "Well, I'm going to live in a little apartment in the village, I'll play music in little clubs, and I'll write. I'll write stories, and novels, and screenplays, and whatever." And continued to write and play music, as well. And despite all of my interruptions, responsibilities, family, a legal career, I've come full circle and continue to play music. I have two different groups I'm playing with, a three-piece blues rock band called Dogs and Bones, a band called The Silver Heaters, which contains two of my former comrades in the band The Heaters. Our music will be coming out within the next month. And I'm continuing to write novels, which embody all the things that I love. Music, Los Angeles, the camaraderie that you find in bands, the Elaine Noire, which I've always been inspired by, by the great writers, Raymond Chandler, James L. Roy, Michael Connolly, and also these books encompass youth and the dreams of youth. I really believe the conflict series is the vehicle that captures it all. So, now I'd love to share a bit of that first novel in the series, Conflict in the City, and I hope you enjoy it. [ Music ] Conflict in the City by Philip M. Cohen. Dedication. To the wizards of words and the sirens of song. Too numerous to count. To cubby, art, and keith my lodestones. And to Alan Frida, Salmon Rose, Philip, and Jenny. The light still shines brightly. Chapter 1. It was another sweat-filled, beer-spraying, loud and rocket-set. The club, held maybe 300 people who had all come to see the headliner. A local band with a decent following. The club itself was legendary. In the past, major bands from all over the world came to town just to play on this stage. And the local bands that eventually achieved the dream played here too. But now, in 2019, it was just another stage. Famous in name only, bands paid to play here. "Here's 300 tickets," said the club booker. Sell them for whatever you want. Give 100 to the club. You can open for Act 8. Let's see. If I had 300 friends who would come out on a Monday night, I could charge them $2 a piece and we could split 100 bucks. Or 100 friends and charge them $5 each. We would play for free, but what else is new? Hm. Not sure the price is still right. Or I could scrape up 100 willing souls on a Monday night. How about 50, or 250? Well the reality was 15 souls willing to pay $10 each, and we scrounged together the rest of the bands cut between the four of us. But that doesn't matter, we claim, because in the end it's all about the music. The saintly, profane, semi-religious act of strapping on a sonic instrument of prayer and performing a sacred act of pleasure and pain in front of how many sympathetic or curious or bored or gee, didn't the doors play here, but man it's fallen on hard times, tourists. And it was a sacred act, or at least the most fun a guy can have without taking off his clothes. How can I describe it without seeming simplistic? You know how you can anticipate your birthday? All your family and friends will be there, they all love you and can't wait to see you. And they're bringing you presents. Maybe that video game you've been dying to have. And there'll be drugs and booze, and maybe Mary will get drunk and crawl onto your lap like a Joey's party, and then it all happens at once in a forty minute cyclone of noise, rhythm, screaming, singing and joy. And even Tommy Taurus thinks this is pretty cool, maybe this old dump isn't completely past its prime. All is great, any thought of having to pay the SOB club owner to perform gets washed away, all except for that fat, loud mouth drunk in front of the stage. This shovel slamming against people and shouting, "Act 8, act 8, we want act 8, get the fuck off the stage, act 8!" Now I don't care while the music's playing, loud mouth can't compete with martial amps, but it continues to bellow between songs, "Act 8, bring on act 8." This continues unrelentingly throughout the show, until all I can see and think about is loud mouth. I can't remember the words to the songs, what song is next, where we are, or what we're supposed to be doing, "Act 8, act 8, act 8." I rush to the front, grab loud mouth by the shirt and bellow into his face, "Shut the fuck up!" I release my grip, and he falls back into the crowd, as if shot. Blessed silence. I count off the last song, and we finish in glory. Chapter 2 Johnny Whoops slouch back in the pink leather seats instead at the grimy ceiling. It was old cardboard tiles grimy and grey, and probably not clean since the club opened in '64. Johnny could imagine Jim Morrison staring up at the same tiles after a set in '67 and thinking the same thing. He took a drag on the joint that Billy passed him, flicked a lock of sweaty black hair out of his eyes, and washed as his smoke, billered toward the tiles. Not a bad place to be, backstage at the world-famous whiskey, knee agogo, and having just played before a room full of music and film industry types, or wannabe types. Not too hard to imagine this place in its prime. When the music scene was just forming in Hollywood, and any kid from Kansas could roll into town and live out his dreams. At least as far as those dreams would really take him. Now that kid better load up his Instagram account if he wants anyone to pay attention to him. Here's space man! What's the ceiling tell you now, Mr. Far away and who's nowhere? Billy laughed as he took the joint out of Johnny's lips. You've been floating to ting all night, except when sure all around? A man has to relax, brother, and so Johnny. Thinking of the pixie cut black hair moving off her face as his girlfriend Shirley looked up at him before the gig. He looked for her around the 8x6 space that passes a dressing room for the quote "headliner". Frank, named Francis after black Francis, by his pixie's loving mother, was the band's teenage bass player, his long, stringy brown hair matching his long, skinny frame. He was holding court in one corner, sizing up the girls who always seemed to be there for him. Batter up beans, Roberto Benitez, the drummer from East LA with an associate's degree from Pasadena City College, his head-shave ball sat motionless, his feet out on top of a coffee table, watching his eye pad as the sounds of a news report filtered out. Billy the guitarist was a white boy with dreads who told everyone that he grew up in Jamaica and that his father was a famous musician there, not a dentist from the San Fernando Valley. Johnny, Billy, Frank, and beans, known to that minor part of the public who cared as conflict, knew they hadn't reached the apex of true headliner. But that's what dreams are all about. And they were playing the whiskey. Just maybe thirty years too late. "John, hey Johnny, how's it going? I swear it could have been 1983 out there." A spark plug of a guy brushed his black curly hair off his forehead. "And the chicks going wild, I swear, they're for the picking." "Okay, Harry, sure," Billy said. "So where's your little chickadee now, huh?" "Well, Frank, Frankie, Frank, you know what I'm talking about?" said Harry, eyeing the four girls surrounding Frank. "Leave me out of this," replied Frank, twisting a strand of his long brown hair with his fingers and staring into the eyes of a mousy little brunette. Harry, all five foot six, two fifty pounds of him, penguined over to Johnny and plopped into the pink chair next to him. "Really, John, you were tremendous tonight, really, really tremendous," insisted Harry, pulling Johnny toward him with a tug of Johnny's black cowboy shirt collar. "Yeah, thanks Harry," said Johnny, pulling back and disentangling himself. "Yeah, yeah," said Harry, his eyes scanning the room distracted. "Listen, kid," added Harry, "who is all of three years older than Johnny. Something's come up I gotta take care of. Okay with you if I don't help you with the gear tonight." Harry looked up at Johnny expectantly. Harry had been with the guy since they started a little over two years ago. A cousin of Billy's on again, off again, currently on, girlfriend Olivia. He had an old Subaru SUV, which he was glad to lend to Johnny and the boys for gigs in exchange for the opportunity to hang with the band and get into clubs for free, plus the possibility of meeting attractive young or not so attractive and maybe a bit older, ladies of course. And for that possibility, and the occasional 20 bucks, he was also willing to haul amplifiers and drums into and out of the SUV, onto the stages of varying sizes, from a three by six-foot triangle where only half the drums fit and the rest of the band played next to the bar, to a stage big enough for the USC marching band, with four musicians needing to create a sweeping musical mousstrum to fill the vast hall. Johnny exhaled through his nose and derision and pushed Harry in the chest, "You're useless, you know that? What's so goddamn hot that you gotta leave us in the lurch?" He pictured squeezing three amps in a set of drums into his beat-up blue civic. "No, no, you take the wreck. I'll get it from your place in the morning," said Harry. "I'm heading out with a couple of guys. Guys?" asked Johnny. "What guys? I thought you'd finally gotten lucky." Harry nervously scanned the room again. "Hey, what the fuck, Harry? What's the matter?" "Nothing, nothing," said Harry, standing up and hovering over Johnny. "Good show tonight, kid. See ya tomorrow." Harry turned and tugged off, through the dressing-room door. Johnny thought it was strange for Harry to bail on the band, but at least they had the SUV. "Hey guys, let's get outta here. I'm starving." "Me too, baby," exclaimed the black-haired beauty, bursting into the room. She ran over and pulled Johnny out of his seat, and into an embrace, "You're so sexy out there." She looked Johnny in the eyes inches away. He pulled her head to him and they kissed. "That's what I like," she mocks wound, stepping away. "You always were a teaser, Cheryl," said Billy from across the room, having taken in the entrance. Mid-twenties cut off Jean Short's ending before they began, and a man's white shirt tied around her waist. All the guys in the band took in her entrance. "And a pleaser, baby," Shirley responded, draping her arm over Johnny's shoulders. "Alright, Frank Beans, you ready?" asked Johnny, his left arm around Shirley's waist. "Who's for the 101?" "Pancake!" squealed Frank, "Let's go!" He pushed a little brunette off him. Johnny, the cowboy rocker, Shirley the temptress, Billy the valley roster, pancake loving Frank, and better-up beans picked up their gear, jostling and muttering, heading for the exit. "Doesn't seem right to be without Harry," Johnny said to Billy. "Yeah, the man always pays," laughed Billy sarcastically, as they left the club. "Oh, hell, wait a second," said Johnny. He sat down his guitar and amp next to the Subaru, and ran to the front of the club. He could hear the guitar of the band on stage, a jangling bird's Tom Petty sound. He brushed by the muscle-shirted bald-headed Samoan bouncer, Tim, with a nod, and headed up the side stairs to the office door. He knocked once and opened the door. "Hey, Raj, we didn't get paid yet." "Yeah, you did," answered Raj, tall and stocky-built Brit, late-forties, blue blazer, white pants, wavy white hair, lifting a teenage blonde off his knee. "Harry was in here before you finished your set," said he was collecting for the band tonight. "I gave him three bills." "Three large," exclaimed Johnny, "I need that money. What the hell?" "I don't know, Johnny, pick your friends," called Raj as he left the office. "I hope Shirley has some plastic, or we're not eating tonight," thought Johnny. They loaded the SUV like a jigsaw puzzle, and hopped in, Johnny at the wheel, Shirley next to him. Billy Frank and beans followed behind in Johnny's Honda. Johnny confirmed that Shirley had her visa card, which she did by purring "whatever you need" and slipping her hand onto his lap. Johnny hunched over the wheel, watching the traffic, but still seeing the view from the stage. Pancakes sounded good, actually. As Johnny drove off, a man on the sidewalk outside the club watched them go. "He punched in a number on his cell phone." "Yeah, it's me," he said. The kid is definitely in the band, and Brick drove off with his guy. "Yeah," paused. "Okay," he hung up, and looked down sunset at the receding Subaru. Chapter 3 Harry looked out the darkened window of the black Cadillac Escalade SUV from the backseat, and wondered exactly where they were headed. They were going west on sunset, through Beverly Hills, and heading toward West LA. "Heading for the beach?" he asked, no one in particular. Neither of the guys in front answered. The driver slicked down, close-cropped black hair above an aquiline nose, didn't move his head an inch, guiding the Escalade with minor movements of his hands. Next to the driver, the guy in the shotgun seat turned his dark brown eyes under a blue UCLA Bruins cap toward Harry, and stared at him as if Harry was a bug on the windshield. "You say something?" Bruins cap asked dismissively. "The beach? Are we going to the beach?" repeated Harry, wondering whether he had swelled his words in his throat. "Yeah, right," answered Bruins cap. Coming back toward the front windshield, taking out a cigarette, and lighting it with a tarnished zippo from his pocket. He blew the smoke up to the roof of the SUV, filling the cabin. "Cough, cough, Harry, you mind cracking a window?" Bruins cap ignored him, and the driver moved his hands just enough to slal him around the curves on West's sunset. Not very nice thought Harry, I don't know why Brick sent a couple of hard boys to pick me up. Brick knew him all the way back to North Hollywood High days. He had the money that he had borrowed from Brick, at least some of it. Harry subconsciously patted the three hundred dollars he had gotten from Raj in the club. He'd make it up to Johnny and the boys. He stared out the window at the dark street, and the high bushes surrounding the houses and street entrances to Bell Air. They continued to head west. Thanks for tuning in, let's listeners. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a rating and comment on Good Pods and Apple Podcasts. Links in the show notes. Wyatt, the Rock is lit mascot and I really appreciate your support. Until next time, keep rockin' and readin' and gettin' lit. Rock is lit. Watch. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]