Dateline: Los Angeles - 1947
On July 4th eve, Tucker Hart, a real knockout dame, sashays into hardboiled private dick Jack Spade's Hollywood office. And that's when the real fireworks begin. There's an instant crackling energy between the two, as if they've met before. Déjà vu or not, a pair of lost souls find one another in Tinsel Town. But Hart's Uncle Leon has been missing for aeons. And she needs to unearth the geezer - on the double. So Spade takes the case. And then he takes a belt of Scotch. (Single malt.) And before you can say, "What the hell time is it, baby?" the case takes over Spade's life (literally, at one point, until voodoo proves otherwise) and Hart's as well. In short order, Tucker Hart, former international spy-nightclub chanteuse, and The Late Jack Spade, failed writer-armchair crooner (and, well, zombie), find themselves embroiled in a caper neither could've fathomed reading in an actual pulp novel. Taking cover under the guise of a professional lounge duo, the shamus and the canary search near and far for Tucker's Uncle. And they soon discover they're not alone. Not when half the governments of the known world are stumbling over one another in a mad dash to confiscate something that's vanished from the old guy's underground lab. Something top-secret. Something that may or may not have to do with flying saucers. Something (someone?) known only as "Q."
With Q in hand, Hart and Spade go on the run. More like the long distance run. Seems everyone and their ex-brother-in-law is after Q, because Q happens to be Uncle Leon's greatest invention: a time machine. But not just any dime store time machine, sister. We're talkin' a time machine that ticks to the beat of a different drum. Yeah, daddy-o. Said time machine is also a prototype drum machine. (In a fedora.) And vice versa. Dig? Matter of fact, the damn thing makes all kinds of racket. And that's how it works. By tapping into certain noise frequencies and radio signals, Q can be decoded and a portal to the future can be unlocked. Sound crazy? Maybe, wise ass. But you think about the properties of time and static and how that translates into what we know as "reality." At least the reality that's found you planted on your keester, gettin' a load of these very words. There may only be one earth, but it's a big old stinkin' grid - a maze, even. And for 60 odd years, Tucker Hart, The Late Jack Spade, and Q - a.k.a. The Frequencies - have been zig-zaggin' its time zones, garnering the distinction of being called "The World's First Rock 'n' Roll Band" along the way.
Dateline: Los Angeles - 2007
Uncle Leon may be long gone, but the Frequencies remain entrenched in another deathless whodunit: who, exactly, killed Rock 'n' Roll? Pete Townshend is too damn easy an answer. Alan Freed? A payola patsy. And the corporate record labels are just a lousy smokescreen. No. It goes deeper than that. Much deeper. And so, one man, one woman, and one time machine aim to get to the bottom of it, come hell or the Pussycat Dolls.
Thanks to recent declassifications, the details of the tale you've just read are slowly being revealed, straight from the mouths of Tucker Hart and The Late Jack Spade. (Q, as always, has no comment.) In addition to the trio recounting their strange story and performing their minimalist music at the rare live gig, The Frequencies also plan to release never-before-heard recordings, as well as record all-new material with the infamous Paul Roessler, keyboardist of legendary L.A. synth-punks, The Screamers, and producer-engineer at large. Plus, they'll "always kick Elvis's fuckin' ass."* Now, put that in your "retro-future" pigeonhole and smoke it, true believer. Tick-tock, cuckoos. Tick. Tock...
(*Screamin' Jay Hawkins, circa 1956)
further information on the freQuencies will be released as it's declassified.
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