18

At Conrad's loft on Bond Street it's 1:30 which is really the only time to practice since everyone else in the building is at work or at Time Cafe acting like an idiot without trying over lunch, and from where I slouch in the doorway leading into the loft I can see all the members of the Impersonators lying around in various positions, each next to his own amp: Aztec's wearing a Hang-10 T-shirt, scratching at a Kenny Scharf tattoo on his bicep, Fender in lap; Conrad, our lead singer, has a kind of damp appeal and dated Jenny McCarthy and has wilted hair the color of lemonade and dresses in rumpled linens; Fergy's wrapped in an elongated cardigan and playing with a Magic 8 Ball, sunglasses lowered; and Fitzgerald was in a gothic rock band, OD'd, was resuscitated, OD'd again, was resuscitated again, campaigned mindlessly for Clinton, modeled for Versace, dated Jennifer Capriati, and he's wearing pajamas and sleeping in a giant hot-pink-and-yucca-striped beanbag chair. And they're all existing in this freezing, screwy-looking loft where DAT tapes and CDs are scattered everywhere, MTV's on, Presidents of the United States merging into a Mentos commercial merging into an ad for the new Jackie Chan movie, empty Zen Palate take-out boxes are strewn all over the place, white roses dying in an empty Stoli bottle, a giant sad rag-doll photo by Mike Kelly dominates one wall, the collected works of Philip K. Dick fill an entire row in the room's only bookcase, Lava lamps, cans of Play-Doh.

I take a deep breath, enter the room casually, brush some confetti off my jacket.

Except Fitz, they all look up, and Aztec immediately starts strumming something from Tommy on his Fender.

"He seems to be completely unreceptive," Aztec sings-talks. "The tests I gave him show no sense at all."

"His eyes react to light-the dials detect it," Conrad chimes in. "He hears but cannot answer to your call."

"Shut up," I yawn, grabbing an ice beer out of the fridge.

"His eyes can see, his ears can hear, his lips speak," Aztec continues.

"All the time the needles flick and rock," Conrad admits.

"No machine can give the kind of stimulation," Fergy points out, "needed to remove his inner block."

"What is happening in his head?" the three of them sing out.

"Ooh I wish I knew," Fitzgerald calls from the beanbag chair for one lucid moment. "I wish I kneeeeew." He immediately rolls over into a fetal position.

"You're late," Conrad snaps.

"I'm late? It takes you guys an hour just to tune up," I yawn, flopping onto a pile of Indian pillows. "I'm not late," I yawn again, sipping the ice beer, notice them all glaring at me. "What? I had to cancel a hair appointment at Oribe to make it here." I toss a copy of Spin that's lying next to an antique hookah pipe at Fitz, who doesn't even flinch when it hits him.

"'Magic Touch,'" Aztec shouts out.

I answer without trying. "Plimsouls, Everywhere at Once, 3:19, Geffen."

"'Walking Down Madison,'" he tosses out.

"Kirsty MacColl, Electric Landlady, 6:34, Virgin."

"'Real World.'"

"Jesus Jones, Liquidizer, 3:03, SBK."

"'Jazz Police.'"

"Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man, 3:51, CBS."

"'You Get What You Deserve.'"

"Big Star, Radio City, 3:05, Stax." I yawn. "Oh, this is too easy."

"'Ode to Boy.'"

"Yaz, You and Me Both, 3:35, Sire."

"'Top of the Pops.'" Aztec's losing interest.

"The Smithereens, Blow Up, 4:32, Capitol."

"If only you gave the band that much attention, Victor," Conrad says in Conrad's hey-I'm-hostile-here mode.

"Who came in here last week with a list of songs we should cover?" I retort.

"I'm not gonna sing an acid-house version of `We Built This City,' Victor," Conrad fumes.

"You're throwing money out the window, dude." I shrug.

"Covers are nowhere, Victor," Fergy pipes in. "There's no money in covers.

"That's what Chloe always tells me," I say. "And if I don't believe her, how am I gonna believe you?"

"What's the point, Victor?" someone sighs.

"You, babe"-I'm pointing at Aztec-"have the ability to take a song that people have heard a million times and play it in a way that no one has ever heard it played before."

"And you're too f**king lazy to write your own material," Conrad says, pointing back, full of indie-rock venom.