Bottleneck by Ed James Read Free Book Online

expression. "Not a Velvet Underground fan, then?"
    "Never heard of them," said Cullen. "Please, continue."
    "The band did a few concerts and I went to see them as a friend," said Johnson. "They were clearly going places, but Jimi was struggling with singing and playing bass at the same time."
    "And that's when they got you in?" said Buxton.
    Johnson nodded. "Indeed. At first, I was just playing the parts Jimi taught me, but I soon settled into it and started making the bass lines my own, if you will."
    "How did things go?" said Buxton.
    "Really well," said Johnson. "We did a few tours, released a couple of singles and managed to get a reasonable amount of press."
    "Were you ever close to getting signed?" said Buxton.
    "A couple of times," said Johnson. "Jimi..."
    He broke off, tears welling in his eyes. Until then, he had been ice and steel, stiff upper lip, but it seemed the realisation was settling in - Jimi wasn't coming back.
    "Tell us about him," said Cullen.
    Johnson composed himself and cleared his throat again. "He was incredibly talented, inspired by Jeff Buckley in a poetic way, but also by raucous bands like The Stooges, The MC5, New York Dolls, Velvet Underground and maybe a bit of Led Zeppelin."
    "Was he that tortured artist type?" said Buxton.
    Johnson nodded slowly. "That sort of thing," he said, rubbing his eyes. "He was gifted."
    "Did he have a girlfriend?" said Cullen.
    Johnson looked away. "Not that I knew of, I'm afraid."
    "Any groupies?" said Cullen.
    Johnson scowled at him. "We weren't that sort of band. We were artists ."
    Cullen didn't want to press the point just yet. "How was Jimi around the time he disappeared?"
    Johnson stared at the ceiling for a moment. "On reflection, Jimi had been a bit distant, it's fair to say. The last rejection by a label hit him hard. Really hard. Jimi wanted success more than anything."
    "I thought you were artists?" said Cullen, wound up.
    Johnson threw up his hands. "Artists have to eat. We were all working in awful jobs. We just wanted to make our living from music. That's not too much to ask, is it?" He took another sip of water. "That band put my academic career on hold for years. Fortunately, I've been able to pick it up again without too much of a deleterious effect."
    "Tell me about how the rejection was hitting him hard," said Cullen.
    "Jimi didn't seem to enjoy the music much towards the end," said Johnson. "He still had the drive, of course, kept pushing us on, but he'd lost something on the way. I believe the phrase is 'phoning it in'."
    Cullen leaned back. "Is there something you're not telling us?"
    Johnson nibbled at his nails. "Jimi was obsessed with something," he said, eventually. "I don't know what. He didn't tell me."
    "You have no idea?" said Cullen.
    Johnson shook his head. "None, I'm afraid."
    "But you thought he was obsessed," said Cullen, folding his arms. "How did this obsession manifest itself?"
    Johnson rocked back and forth. "You could tell when Jimi was preoccupied. Usually, it was some part of a song that didn't work. He'd fret over it for days and then come up with something that just fixed it. We did a tour and he'd been all over it, irritating the tour manager of the band we supported until he relented."
    He stopped moving. "He got this look in his eyes when something was going on in his head. It was like he wasn't all there."
    "And he had this look in the days leading up to his disappearance?" said Cullen.
    "I believe I told the investigating officer at the time I suspected Jimi had possibly run away," said Johnson.
    "You thought his obsession was running away?" said Cullen.
    Johnson nodded. "He'd often talk about New York. Of course, one would need a visa to settle there. To my knowledge, Jimi hadn't done any of that."
    Cullen himself was prone to fits of single-mindedness, particularly when working hard on a case.
    "What did you do after the band, then?" said Buxton.
    "As I've alluded to," said Johnson, "I gave up music after what