The Devil's Music
Eddy Wyler fell in love with rock 'n' roll music when he was only seven years old and saw Odyssey perform on a rare television appearance in 1982. Odyssey, like the Beatles, stopped performing live in the late Sixties and took to the studios to create a string of groundbreaking albums, all of which earned gold record certification.
Although lead singer Jamie Darnell was as legendary as Paul McCartney, John Lennon and Mick Jagger in the pop culture of the drugs-sex-and-rock-and-roll generation, he was not one to appear on music awards shows or benefit concerts in later years. His photo was rarely seen in newspapers and magazines, despite the ongoing popularity of Odyssey—a band that was still popular after more than forty years of performing.
Young Eddy had been so inspired by the music of this legendary group that he decided to become a musician himself. He didn't have the voice for lead vocals, nor was he very good at playing the guitar. He did, however, have a good sense of rhythm, so he learned to play the drums. After years of practice, he excelled at playing them.
Unfortunately for Eddy, the rock music of the new millennium was not that of the Sixties, Seventies or even the Eighties. It was the era of boy bands and rappers. There were singers, dancers and turntable artists. Those bands whose members played actual musical instruments were in the minority.
Rather than join a rock group whose music he did not even like, Eddy became a studio session artist, playing the drums on an as-needed basis for various performers who recorded at Colossus Records. After a few years, he earned the reputation of being the best in the industry. Thus, he worked steadily, performing with some of the biggest names in the music business including, on one occasion, Odyssey itself when he was called upon to fill in for the band's regular drummer, Arnie Fisher, who was drying out in a detox center at the time of the recording.
Eighteen months later, a similar opportunity came his way. When he arrived at the studio one morning, China, a sound tech and a fellow Odyssey fan, met him in the lobby.
"Did you hear the news?" she asked excitedly.
"What news?" he replied, fearing the worst.
It seemed to Eddy that the old cliché "no news is good news" should be rewritten as "all news is bad news."
"Odyssey is going on tour!"
Several questions raced through his brain. When? Where? Why? But only one came out: What?
"Jamie Darnell announced it at a special press conference this morning. Apparently, he has been giving serious thought to retiring, and he wants to go out in a big way. He has scheduled a world tour: London, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, Berlin, Rome and then over here to hit all the major U.S. cities and Canada. So, if I were you, Eddy, I'd start phoning my connections and find someone who can get you some decent tickets."
That same thought had occurred to Eddy, but as fate would have it, he wasn't going to need to call in any favors.
Two months after Jamie Darnell's press conference and just two weeks prior to the start of the tour, Odyssey drummer Arnie Fisher—who had gone back to his bad habits of booze and drugs—was killed when he smashed his Ferrari 550 Barchetta into the back of an eighteen-wheeler at a hundred and twenty-seven miles per hour. Arnie's death was a loss to rock 'n' roll—not nearly as tragic as the murder of John Lennon or the suicide of Kurt Cobain—but a loss nonetheless.
Most Odyssey fans, however, were more concerned with how the drummer's untimely death would impact the proposed concert tour rather than with the loss of human life. Apparently, with the possible exception of men such as Ringo Starr, Don Henley and Phil Collins, drummers, unlike lead singers, were expendable. It was a lesson that former Beatles drummer Pete Best probably knew only too well.
Three days after Fisher's fatal crash, his body was laid to rest at the family plot in a small churchyard in Dorset, England. The following day Eddy Wyler received a telephone call from Odyssey's manager, Cecil Hollingsworth. After Eddy conveyed his condolences over the tragic death of Arnie Fisher, Cecil got right to the point.
"That's precisely why I called, old chap," the manager said.
Eddy smiled. Hollingsworth, an Oxford graduate, was a walking stereotype of the proper British gentleman. Eddy bet that he had the Union flag neatly embroidered on his boxer shorts.
"You see with this farewell concert tour coming up, Arnie's death has left us with a bit of a sticky wicket. Jamie refuses to postpone the tour at this late date, and the lads can't very well go on stage without a drummer."
Eddy held his breath, listening intently to every word Cecil spoke.
"I know this would be an awful inconvenience for you, but, well, Jamie was wondering if you might consider ...."
"Yes!" Eddy cried ecstatically, answering before Hollingsworth even finished asking the question.
"That's jolly good!" Cecil said with relief. "I don't suppose you could fly to London tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow? I can be there tonight."
When Eddy hung up the phone, he immediately called the airline and booked a reservation. Then he phoned Colossus Records and told them to find a replacement for all his scheduled sessions.
"I'll let you know when I'll be able to resume studio work," he promised, but he secretly hoped that day would never come.
* * *
Eddy's plane arrived early at Heathrow Airport, and the car Cecil had sent to meet him was not there yet. After going through customs and collecting his luggage, Eddy walked over to the waiting area where he used his credit card to withdraw British currency from the ATM.
"Excuse me, are you Mr. Edward Wyler?"
Eddy turned, expecting to see his promised driver, but the man who had tapped him lightly on the shoulder was an elderly minister.
"Are you Mr. Wyler?" the clergyman repeated.
"Yes, I'm Eddy Wyler. May I ask how you know my name, Father?"
The man held up a newspaper. Eddy's picture was printed above an article announcing that he would replace Arnie Fisher as drummer during Odyssey's upcoming tour.
"You're this Edward Wyler, aren't you?" the minister asked, pointing to the photograph.
"Yes, I am. What can I do for you?"
At first, Eddy had the absurd notion that the old man was going to ask for his autograph.
"Go back to the States," the minister warned him. "Don't get involved with that man."
"What man?"
"Him! The one who calls himself Jamie Darnell. He's no mortal man; he's Satan incarnate."
Eddy nervously looked for the nearest airport security guard.
"You believe Jamie Darnell is the devil?"
"I know he is. I've had my eye on him for the past thirty-five years. I've watched him lure many an innocent soul away from the true God with his devil's music."
Thankfully, Eddy was spared having to endure any more of the man's insane ravings when a uniformed chauffeur appeared.
"I see your plane was early, sir," the man said. "I hope you haven't been waiting too long."
"No, not at all," Eddy answered and grabbed his luggage, anxious to be rid of the religious fanatic.
But the minister tugged on Eddy's sleeve.
"He's the devil, I say. Save yourself, while there's still time."
The chauffeur stepped in.
"On your way now and stop bothering this man, before I call a bobby."
The old man backed off, but his eyes held a desperate plea.
* * *
"Would you like to stop for something to eat along the way, sir?" the chauffeur asked.
"Why? How far is it to the hotel?" Eddy replied from the back seat of the Bentley.
"I'm not taking you to a hotel; I'm to drive you to Mr. Darnell's house, which is about an hour from here."
"I think I can hold out for an hour. I had a snack on the plane."
Jamie Darnell's "house" was a baronial hall. Eddy could easily imagine Prince Charles galloping across its great lawn on a polo pony.
"This is some fancy place," he said as the chauffeur drove through the main gate.
"You're right there, sir. It used to belong to a lord."
"I wouldn't be surprised to see the nobility in their red hacking jackets, sitting atop their horses, following the hounds to hunt down an unsuspecting fox."
"No doubt Mr. Darnell would make a good hunt master," the driver said when the Bentley came to a stop.
As the drummer stepped out of the car, Cecil Hollingsworth came out the front door to greet him.
"Eddy, my lad," he said in his crisp British accent, "hope you had a good flight."
"Yeah, thanks."
"Come in, come in. Jamie is upstairs resting now, but he'll be down shortly."
The manager led Eddy through the long hallway past the parlor and formal dining room, to a grand staircase that was reminiscent of the one on the Titanic.
"The main floor is most impressive," Cecil explained, as he headed toward the descending stairs, "but Jamie hardly ever uses it. He prefers to stay down here."
The lower level of the manor—no doubt once alive with the hustle and bustle of an army of domestic servants—looked more like the crib of a rock star, containing a professional-grade recording studio and a large assortment of musical instruments. So that Jamie was in no danger of having all work and no play make him a dull boy, the place also included a state-of-the-art entertainment system and home theater, a fully stocked bar, a dance floor, a pool table and a large selection of arcade-quality video games.
"Make yourself at home, old boy. Would you like a drink? Or would you prefer something else?"
Cecil was apparently playing host in Jamie's absence.
"Coke will be fine—the soft drink that is, not the drug."
"I heard you weren't one for illegal substances," he said with a laugh. "Glad to hear it's true. I wish Arnie had had your good sense."
"Poor Arnie!"
Eddy turned at the sound of a young woman's voice.
"Well, well, who are you?" she asked with a low, sexy laugh.
Cecil made the introductions.
"Eddy Wyler, new drummer just arrived from the States, meet Amethyst—with no last name—an old friend of Jamie's."
"Ouch!" Amethyst laughed. "I don't care for your choice of adjective, Cecil. After all, twenty-eight is hardly old."
"It is for a fashion model, my dear."
Amethyst held her hands up and curled her fingers.
"Hissss," she said with a feline air.
Jamie, barefooted and shirtless, walked into the room laughing.
"Are you two having another catfight?"
The singer then spied Eddy sitting quietly in an armchair, sipping his Coke.
"Eddy, you're here! Cecil should have woken me up."
"I would have had you been alone, dear boy," the manager said with a glaring look at the model.
As the three men discussed the upcoming world tour, Eddy found himself frequently staring at Jamie Darnell. The man had to have been in his mid to late sixties at the time, yet he looked no older than thirty. Whether his youthful appearance was due to plastic surgery or not, the singer was still boyishly handsome. It was likely that young women such as Amethyst saw more than fame and money in this aging rock icon.
* * *
Despite all attempts to keep their itinerary confidential, word of the band's travel arrangements leaked out. When the members of Odyssey met at Heathrow Airport, they had to make their way through a throng of adoring fans, the majority of whom were female. Airport security and Cecil's hired bodyguards managed to hold the crowd at bay while Jamie made his way to the departure gate.
"That was like a scene out of A Hard Day's Night," Eddy declared, once they were finally free of the screaming fans.
"Get used to it, man," advised lead guitarist Rex McWhorter. "It will be like that at every airport, every hotel and every stadium we play."
As the entertainers headed toward the jetway, a familiar figure approached them.
"Satan be gone!" the old minister yelled, holding his crucifix in front of him as if to ward off evil.
Jamie greeted him with amusement.
"What? You again? Aren't you tired of all this nonsense yet?"
"Do you think me such a weak adversary?"
"Give it up already, old man."
"I won't give up until you are exposed for the evil monster that you are."
The singer laughed and turned his back on the minister.
"Whatever you say, Granddad."
Rex leaned toward Eddy.
"That's another thing you'll have to get used to," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the clergyman. "The Reverend Fire and Brimstone will probably hound us throughout the tour."
"You mean the old man has bothered Jamie before?" Eddy asked.
"Oh, yeah. He's been around since the Sixties. The nut used to show up at every concert, warning fans against what he calls 'the devil's music.'"
"Can't the police do anything about him?"
"Nobody pays any attention to him. The teenagers laugh right in his face as they pass by him. Then the security guards escort him off the property, and no harm is done."
Rex's predictions proved to be correct. The old man appeared before every scheduled concert, preaching against evil, Satan, rock 'n' roll and Jamie Darnell. Yet despite the harassment by the mad clergyman, the European leg of the tour was a huge success. Odyssey broke attendance records in every city they played.
Hectic though the pace was, Eddy loved every minute of being on the road. Nine months passed and Odyssey, after performing to sell-out crowds in Asia, Europe and South America, flew to the U.S. for the final stretch of the tour.
"How does it feel to be home again, old chap?" Cecil asked as the plane touched down at New York's JFK International Airport.
"I'll let you know tomorrow—after I've had a chance to see my wife."
Jamie's laughter echoed from across the aisle.
"So, the Boy Scout turns into Romeo at last," he teased, referring to Eddy's refusal to party with the groupies that threw themselves at the musicians while on the road.
The other members of the band—their lead singer, in particular—had no such scruples. Jamie had been like the proverbial sailor with a girl (usually more than one) in every port.
* * *
The North American leg of their tour was even more successful than the previous one. Football stadiums, arenas and coliseums were sold out in every major U.S. and Canadian city. As the band made its way west, Eddy was finally beginning to tire. When the tour was over, he planned on taking an extended vacation—far away from planes, taxis, limos, screaming fans and the ever-present Reverend Fire and Brimstone.
"Where do you think he gets the money to travel so much?" Eddy asked Rex as they passed the old minister outside Boston's Fenway Park.
"It's cheap enough to travel around Europe."
"But airfare costs a pretty penny."
"He must save up his frequent flier miles," Rex laughed, giving no more thought to the old man.
"Why doesn't somebody do something about him?" Eddy asked.
"Like what?" Jamie replied.
"Like taking out a restraining order."
"The old bloke is quite harmless, I assure you," Cecil said.
"Yeah. I'm sure John Lennon thought the same thing when he saw Mark David Chapman outside the Dakota."
Jamie laughed.
"I think if Rasputin the Mad Monk wanted to kill me—or any of us—he's had ample opportunity to do so over the past forty years."
* * *
After Odyssey played San Diego, Jamie called the members of the band together for an important announcement.
"You all know we have only three more cities left to play: San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. I hope you don't mind, but I've taken the liberty of adding one more date at the end of the tour."
Rex groaned.
"Enough is enough already. I'm beat."
"One last performance before Odyssey retires. A show that will make rock 'n' roll history! We can probably draw in a quarter of a million fans if not more."
"There's not a stadium built that can hold that many people," Rex argued.
"It will be an open-air concert, not in a stadium. As we speak, contractors are building a stage."
"Really? Where?" Eddy asked with mounting excitement.
"Rome."
"But we already played there."
Jamie shook his head and explained, "Not Rome, Italy. Rome, New York. A place well known to the music world."
"Woodstock '99," Cecil said, "the largest concert performance ever held. Some two hundred and twenty-five thousand people were in attendance."
Eddy looked worried.
"And it ended in disaster."
"Oh, come on, Boy Scout," Jamie scoffed. "Sure, there was some trouble, but it could hardly be called a disaster."
"Women were raped. Fires were set. It wasn't the peace-and-love Woodstock of '69."
"Don't forget, old chap, several of the performers at Woodstock '99 had some pretty rough followers," Cecil argued. "Odyssey's fans aren't into violence. I don't anticipate any trouble."
"The Stones probably felt the same way when they walked out on stage at Altamonte," Eddy persisted, referring to the tragic concert in which a young fan was beaten and stabbed to death by members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang who had been hired to provide security.
Jamie gave Eddy a look that made his blood freeze.
"If you haven't got the nerve to play before so large an audience, Boy Scout, I'm sure we can find another drummer."
Eddy was hurt by the assumption that he could be replaced so easily.
"No. If you're going to schedule this show, I'm in," he said.
* * *
Eddy Wyler flew to Massachusetts after Odyssey's performance in Seattle. He would spend three weeks there with his wife before traveling to upstate New York to rejoin the band in Rome for their farewell performance.
"I think my boss will let me take a week off from work," Francie, his wife, said, expressing the desire to see the historic concert.
"I'd rather you didn't, honey," he said. "I have a bad feeling about this gig. There are going to be way too many people there, and crowd control will be difficult at best. I'll have enough on my mind worrying about my own ass without worrying about yours, too."
Three weeks later, Eddy said goodbye to Francie and flew to Rome where he met Cecil, Jamie, Rex and the other band members. The musicians crowded into a helicopter that landed them directly on the wooden stage. More than three hundred thousand fans pushed and shoved to get closer to the platform on which Odyssey was to perform.
"This is incredible!" Rex shouted, trying to be heard above the din of the screaming crowd.
The members of the band held hands and bowed to a roar of approval from their fans. Then Eddy walked to the back of the platform where his drums had been placed atop a riser, and Jamie walked to the microphone in the center of the stage.
"Hello, New York," he yelled. "You know, my mates and I were invited here back in 1969 to appear at the first Woodstock. However, we had a previous engagement at the time, so we couldn't make it. But here we are now. Sorry, we're a bit late," he jokingly apologized.
With that said, Jamie broke into one of Odyssey's classic hits.
The concert continued for nearly two hours. The band took only two short breaks, during which time film clips of old interviews and performances by Odyssey were shown on the huge jumbotron screens that flanked the stage. As the show drew to a close, Eddy looked out over the crowd, surprised at how well the fans were behaving. Thankfully, his fears had been unfounded.
Then he spotted a familiar face in the second row. It was the old minister, the man Rex dubbed Reverend Fire and Brimstone and Jamie sometimes referred to as Rasputin the Mad Monk. This time, however, the clergyman was not crying out dire warnings against Odyssey's lead singer or the devil's music. Instead, his eyes were shut, his head facing up toward heaven and his hands were folded in prayer.
Finally, his face streaming with sweat, Jamie Darnell walked to the edge of the wooden platform.
"This is it. We've come to our final song of the evening and of my career," he announced, and the crowd expressed their displeasure. "Come on now, I'm an old man. I need my beauty sleep."
Laughter rang out through the audience.
"To end the show tonight, I want to sing a song written by my good friends, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. And I want to dedicate it to a man who has been following our band for decades, a man who's here tonight. Father, this one is for you."
Reverend Fire and Brimstone's eyes flew open as if he had been slapped. Eddy saw his face contort with anger and his lips move, but his words were drowned out by the sound of the crowd as Jamie began singing the Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil."
"Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm a man of wealth and taste."
At first, Eddy sat on his stool behind his drum set, not knowing what to do. Odyssey was to have performed the Beatles' "In My Life" as their final number. Why had Jamie changed his mind at the last minute?
"I've been around for a long, long year. Stole many a man's soul and faith."
Rex, who had not been party to Jamie's plans, looked at Eddy and shrugged his shoulders.
"I was around when Jesus Christ had His moment of doubt and pain."
Rex started to accompany Jamie on the guitar.
"Made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands and sealed His fate."
As Eddy banged out the rhythm on his drum, an uneasy feeling invaded his body.
Cecil was on the sidelines of the stage instructing the roadies to place a pyrotechnic display around the perimeter of the platform.
Is he crazy? Eddy wondered. It's insane to shoot fireworks in this tightly packed crowd.
The following events happened so quickly, that Eddy remembered them only as fragments seen through a kaleidoscope. The reverend was pushing through the fans toward the stage. Cecil was urging the roadies to light the fireworks for the grand finale finish of the concert. Both Rex and Santos, the bass player, were shaking their heads in disbelief. All the while, Jamie continued singing, seemingly oblivious to everything on stage and in the audience.
"Just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints, as heads is tails just call me Lucifer 'cause I'm in need of some restraint. So, if you meet me, have some courtesy, have some sympathy and some taste. Use all your well-learned politesse or I'll lay your soul to waste."
The fans cheered wildly as the fireworks exploded, sending their pyrotechnic magic into the sky above the crowd. Eddy, from his position atop the riser at the rear of the stage, was the first to see the sparks ignite the video towers. The monitors exploded and sent chunks of glass, metal and burning wood into the crowd.
The resulting hysteria sent fans running away from the stage in panic. Thousands of people were injured in an attempt to flee from the fire that was soon raging across the wooden platform and spreading toward the audience. Thousands were burned and hundreds more were trampled to death by panicked fans. Only the elderly reverend stood firm against the chaos, meeting his fiery death courageously despite the excruciating pain he must have had to endure.
Eddy looked with horror at the inferno around him. Cecil Hollingsworth had been burned to a crisp, and the blackened bodies of the roadies surrounded him. Besides Eddy himself, only two other people were still alive: Rex, who was badly burned, and Jamie, who continued singing through the flames with a crazed, maniacal look on his handsome face.
In a moment of unselfish heroism, Eddy Wyler was able to drag Rex McWhorter to safety down the back steps of the platform before it collapsed in a cloud of black smoke. Sadly, despite Eddy's bravery, Rex died later that night in the burn unit of a nearby hospital.
* * *
Although Jamie Darnell's body was never found, it was assumed that he had died and that Eddy Wyler was the only person connected with the tour to survive the nightmare of Odyssey's final concert. In the years that followed that tragic night, Eddy never spoke of what he had seen. He returned to Massachusetts and to Francie after his burns had healed, but his life would never be the same.
For one thing, he never went back into the recording studio. In fact, he never even played the drums again. Having survived a disaster that killed close to twenty thousand people and injured tens of thousands more, he developed an intense interest in religion. He enrolled in a seminary and eventually became the Reverend Edward Wyler.
On the twentieth anniversary of Odyssey's final concert, Father Edward sat in his Scituate home watching television with his teenage daughter. The girl, who had inherited her father's love of music, was watching a video by a new group called Ecstasy. As the camera came in for a close-up of the singer and lead guitarist, all feeling left Eddy's body.
"Darnell!" he uttered with horror.
"You've heard of him?" his daughter asked with surprise.
Then she remembered that her father had once been a musician.
"Jimmy's dad was a singer, too. Did you know him?" she asked.
Father Edward stared at the young vocalist. It's true that both Sean and Julian Lennon bear a strong resemblance to their famous father, and there's no denying that Jacob Dylan is Bob's son. But the resemblance between Odyssey's Jamie Darnell and Ecstasy's Jimmy Darnell was uncanny.
He's not the son; he's the father. Or perhaps he is the unholy ghost, the minister thought with mounting fear.
Eddy Wyler looked from the smiling image of Jamie/Jimmy Darnell, barely twenty years old, to the look of enraptured attention on his daughter's face. Then he picked up the remote control and turned the television off.
"Why did you do that?" the teenage girl demanded to know.
"Because that man is Satan incarnate," her father explained with passionate conviction. "And I'll not have the devil's music in this house."
"Sympathy for the Devil" © Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Salem once wanted to be a rock star. This is a clip from his music video.
