Beat Off

I've received a couple of tidbits since this week's look at the fall of Last Beat Studios hit newsstands. First was a phone call from Bob Suffolk, a British record studio designer who has called Dallas home for so long that he was one of LB's original designers. "I've been there tearing out doors and tearing out the acoustics that [Caron Barrett] has sold," he told me yesterday. "She's sold everything, man. It's all gone." The SSL recording console that was sold to Rik Emmett of Triumph was just shipped to Nashville, en route to its final Canadian destination.

"Caron is one of the sweetest people I know... she did not represent Last Beat," Suffolk said. "Last Beat fucked her over, they ripped her off, whoever was working there. She trusted people to run it and she got badly ripped off." He repeated this sentiment more than a few times, though he wasn't able to really clarify who did the fucking or what exactly was fucked over, and since I still haven't gotten a phone call or e-mail returned from Barrett herself, I can only continue to wonder what exactly happened.

Then I got this e-mail from a local musician:

"My band practiced there for the past two years. We have been wanting to move out since the rumors were flying about a new owner kicking everyone out. I tried to call Caron like ten times a day for a couple weeks, I went down there on my lunch breaks to see if I could catch her, and nothing. Then one day last week I called again to see what we would have to do to get out of our lease (we are rockers but still have morals you know), and of course no answer. Then two minutes later, she calls me back, and was like, 'who is this, you called me?' I told her who I was, and said we wanted to move out, what do we need to do? She told me that we were on her good list of tenants, and that the new owner would be getting a list from her saying who is good and bad renters. Anyway, she didn't seem to care that we wanted to move out, she said no worries, but one thing she did want to push was her equipment. She was like, 'you want a drum kit, I got two DW kits, make me an offer, just hurry, I am about to go back to Maui. You want a new guitar, amps, huh, huh, I got tons of stuff, just come make me an offer.' It was funny, she seemed so desperate. Anyway, we tried to pay our last rent to her, and the mail slot was sealed with duct tape."

Why would a mail slot be sealed with duct tape? And how come nobody told me about that desperate sale? Anyway, those two accounts have nothing on the phone calls I received on Tuesday at around 2 a.m. from an anonymous "tipster." Click here to listen to the messages. The names Anne Rice, Phil Anselmo and Geddy Lee never sounded funnier together. -Sam Machkovech