Copyright (c) 2000 by Jeff Noon. Excerpted by permission of Transworld Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Needle in the Groove by Jeff Noon

door code

the nightclub/a stonecold zombie with a look of shock on its face, the kind that happens when nocturnals get caught in the daylight/check that feeling/something about turned-off neon always does it for me, turns on the sadness, gets me thinking about where all the shine goes to/like it should've been raining, like it should've always been raining
what the hell
just this guy, you know, standing alone on ian curtis boulevard/sunday morning frozen, just gone nine/and even the moon has been left behind by the night, so careless, looking like a stain of bleach/like a close-up photo of how my head is feeling/oh please, I could do with some doghair right now/something wet to get the heart in tune, to keep my finger from shaking on the door buzzer/until this low-pitch squawk gets back to me
-Who is it?
-I'm here to see donna
-who is it?
-it's elliot, look...
-who is it?
oh shit, the door's got nasty bouncer attitude/I only met this donna last night and I'm pretty sure she never mentioned a password
-who is it?
-shut the fuck up will yer, I'm thinking
-who is it?
I press my lips closer to the grille
-the bass player

sticky stuff

the door slides open, smooth as yer like/and I have maybe five seconds to get myself and the big case through before it closes again/closes like a bad-breath mouth around me/some kinda foyer, shuttered cloakroom to the left, ticket booth to the right/suddenly warm, like the building has a pulsebeat/and no one around so I walk ahead, through into blank space
club zuum/the dancefloor, shining away into the distance/ heat-shivering
and dirty/with my shoes sticking to the spillage so much, feels like I can carry on walking, right up the walls, make out like a fly for the day/around the circle of the floor, where a couple of old ladies are cleaning up the plastic glasses, the cans, the swill, the vomit, the debris/I give the bomb squad a wave, and they look up and smile, and wave back, like a mirage/the club has that glazed ozone feel/molecules of evaporated sweat and perfume/the thousand-and-one come-ons still lingering, sticky ghosts of young desperate sex
-where's the studio? I shout over
the women point me towards some steps/down/where a lone stiletto lies discarded, as though cinderella has turned sluttish/a regular trash palace/ along a corridor now/deserted/past offices all empty of life/maybe I got the wrong day or something
holy shit/what am I doing here? somebody tell me
just tracking down the traces/the sizzle and the traces of a stranger's smile when this big, old domestic cat saunters out of one of the offices/a mangy, battle-scarred affair, all black and tattered fur/the flea magnet looks at me, like I'm a fool to even be here/and then waddles off down the corridor, flicking its tail like it owns the world
well what the hell/I follow/into another doorway
some fat guy, standing near a kitchen counter, eating a breakfast burger
-what the fuck do you want?
-the studio?
-downstairs! down the fuckin' stairs!
hey, nice people/I walk back into the corridor, thinking it's maybe time to leave/no, really/when I see the cat again, sitting on its backside right next to a door/a wooden door this one, looks like a broom cupboard/open it/and there you go, more stairs, leading further downwards/into darkness/I look around for a light switch, find one/but it doesn't work/of course it doesn't
this is getting stupid
the old cat's looking at me/one eye is glued together with a clog of scum/the other's giving me this real voodoo manic stare
ok, cat/let's get to it
holding the case behind me, I follow the creature downwards/feeling for each step in turn/musty, cloying air/the damp on the walls meets the sweat on my skin/the drink being squeezed out of me/and down, and further down
some other kind of door at the bottom/no answer to my knocking/louder now, and still nothing/and then swing the door open, letting the cat nip through my legs/I follow it through, into a recording suite/empty/a glass partition shows a room beyond/darkness/near darkness/people/another door leads to them/I push it open
just standing there, holding the bass/ looking through

heavy on the download

oh yeah, I play the bass/the bass plays me/the four-stringed, thick-bellied electrified monster, you know, the one that eats all other noises alive
and I've gone walking down these four strings most every hour of every day, of every year and every busted heartbeat, just trying to get along to where the last riff kisses the dark/the subsonic groove, we call it
dub culture/midnight's vibration/something to reach for
some throat, some bottom, some neck and some deep clutch of riverpulse/gets you hot just strapping yourself into the thing/and the more you play, the hotter it gets, the slicker the slide/and all for nothing much because none of the songs you discover, ever come anywhere near to what you hear in your dreams
and I guess all that follows is about me taking a chance on the journey of the bass/and finally getting to reach the end of it/the end of the last tune, and what I find down there, in the grooves of the soul/and how come the music is always that one step beyond all the love you play it with/and how the bass ain't got four strings at all
just when you think you're getting the grip of it
how it's got these other strings, invisible like/below the low, and deepcore/you gotta dive down underload to get a finger on them/and watch yourself doing it, watch yourself
those strings can pull you under, believe me
ah shit/believe me please


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