A Future We'd Like to See 1.61 - Overnight Success By Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne (Copyright 1994) "Garage band," I said. "We don't know how to play music." "Okay, a BAD garage band. Come on, man, we've got NOTHING better to do," I said. "It's Friday night. It's a happenin' time in the C'atel area. School's out. We don't have any damn projects to worry about. We have time to kill and a way to do it." "We can't play any instruments, Matt." "That doesn't matter. You've got a drum beat sequencer on your deck, right? We'll use that instead of a drummer. I have a toy guitar. Franny has a lot of samples and a cool keyboard. It'll WORK. And if it doesn't, we've successfully blown the weekend and had a fun time doing it." "Matt man, you're nuts. You know that, right? I mean, last week it was art. The week before, you were racing remote control cars. Now you wanna form a garage band." "Point?" "Point is that you're acting silly. You ALWAYS act silly." "Nothing wrong with that," I said. "A little silly will do you some good, Jack. Now get over here and bring your deck. I gotta call Franny." "Yeah, yeah, whatever," Matt said, clicking off his holophone. The image snapped out of existence. I grabbed my notebook (since the miracle of memory eludes me) and looked up Franny's number, dialing. "Yeah?" she asked, hopping into frame. "Franny. We're going to form a garage band. Drag a collection of weird samples and your keyboard over." "Okay," she said, and clipped the link. Well, that was easy. Certainly easier than Jack. Jack typically didn't like my spur-of-the-moment ideas. Always called them silly. I don't mind; they ARE silly, that's the whole point. Who cares if they take up time that could be used raising the GNP or your GPA? See, adulthood, conformity, and boredom are like burglars. They study you for the first ten or so years of your life, watching you do all sorts of meaningless yet fun things. Then, they cautiously slip into your mind under the guise of logic and wisdom. Once in, you can almost never get them out, and spend the rest of your dreary life wondering where your sense of adventure went. Where your wacky ideas went. Where your inclination to do spontaneous and zany things like see what happens when you fill a balloon with maple syrup and throw it went. Kinda hard to avoid happening, especially in your late high school years where the pressure's on to 'make something of yourself', but I manage to avoid the pitfall of Seeking Success. Like a garage band. We wouldn't get a contract, we wouldn't make a million credits, we'd be wasting time but it would be fun and pointless and that's all that matters. I'm a proud member of Generik Silly and strive to seek that level of wackiness. Franny's an aspiring one. She's got the drive and the randomness down pact, but her attention span rivals that of the common flea. Well, mine is no great span of history either, but it's enough to finish whatever I happen to be doing at the time. Jack's got an attention span that rivals most rock formations. You could plop him in front of the learning channel and come back two days later to watch him staring intently at the screen, alert and alive. KNOCK KNOCK. "Come on in, Franny," I called, not needing to check who it was. She always arrived first. "Where should I set up?" she asked, supporting the weight of a cheap keyboard and a slew of flopticals under her no-workout arms. "Garage, obviously," I said. "Can't be a garage band without a garage." "You don't have a garage," she replied, setting the gear down on my bed. "This is an apartment." "Okay, we'll have to construct a garage first," I said. "Then we can play." "I'll go get some wood," she said, and promptly left. Always quite the go-getter, that girl. I examined the disks. She never labelled them; that'd take more than a millisecond of concentration. Quite silly in a way. I remember her turning in a computer project that sorted a series of integers and accidentally handing in a disk with 1001 Ways to Cook Monkey on it. Luckily the teacher liked monkey and excused her to go get the real disk. Wacky, no? KNOCK KNOCK "Hello, Jack," I said, opening the door for him. "Alright, I brought the computer," he said. "Where's Franny?" "Getting building supplies. We lack a garage." Jack blinked. "You're going to build a garage?" "Of course. It is requisite." "WHERE?" "Oh, I don't know. The roof? Although the landlord may not appreciate that. Can we build one at your house?" "Why do you want to build a garage?" he asked, still not getting it. "Okay. I'll put it in small words. We're going to be a garage band. Can't exactly do that without a garage." "This is nuts," Jack said. "WHY do I hang out with you? You never take anything seriously. If we're going to try to play music for some weird reason, we don't need a damn garage." "Perhaps if we decided to do jazz," I mused. "I don't think we'd need a garage then. Just a bunch of those neat wooden stands like they have in big bands, with the painted logos." "How will we play jazz with no trumpets?" "It'll be neo-jazz. A new wave of jazz. Usually played via keyboard, guitar and synth drum." KNOCK KNOCK. "Come in, Franny," I said, spinning in my office chair just for the hell of it. "I couldn't find any wood," she said. "But I spotted this in a toy store window..." She held up a kit for a garage, at 1/50th scale, for use with model train sets. "I got us some model glue too, in case you didn't have any. You owe me five credits and change." "Okay," I said. "We'll build the garage later. For now, let us start to be jamming. Blues riff in G, high beat and follow me for the changes." "Check," Franny said, slipping a floptical into her keyboard drive and loading up some random set of noises. "What should I do?" Jack asked. "Drum something," I said. "Okay, here we go." I've been playing guitar for years, and have become a master at the art of the chord and fret reach. No; that's not entirely true. Actually, I suck. I go under sucking and straight into the negative-suck range, making it sound a lot like torturing mailmen than anything resembling music. But talent be damned, I was now a proud member of a garage band and I was going to play. I strummed the three strings (the rest had broken off when I tried to slice cheese with them) and tried to maintain a regular pattern that sounded somewhat like a Net Will Eat Itself song. Franny started playing broken glass noises and something that resembled Zamfir being burnt with cigar butts. Jack shrugged and tapped out a snare occasionally. "Okay, now we pause for the reverb effect we'll be editing in later," I said, checking my watch. One second... two. "Resume." I reached into the higher chords, wondering if I could make glass REALLY shatter. Franny took it upon herself to start playing Bach backwards and Jack stopped tapping, looking repulsed. "We suck," he said. "Big deal. Stomach Contents, the great granddaddy of all grunge also sucked when they started," I said. "Okay, I think we've practiced enough to start a recording session." "Whoa. You're making permanent copies of this shit?" Jack asked. "Of course. We'll need it in the event of a talent scout coming a-knocking," I said. "Alright, but leave my name off it," Jack said. "I am not proud of this." "Cheer up, Jack! We've got quite a night of hip dope fresh beats and grinding riffs to get through. Alright, first song. What should we call it?" "'Don't listen to this'?" Jack suggested. "'I bite the demon pancreas'," Franny stated, loading a new disk. "Okay, that works. We'll make it a cool intro with only synth. Can you handle that, Franny?" "Check," she said. "Start the tape." I pushed Record, wiping the bubblegum I had stuck to the button off in the process. It's hard to describe the noise coming out of Franny's cheap speaker, but it was something like this : a scream, three gunshots, some random orchestra hits, several pigs bweeing, a cut drum beat from a generic pop song, some political sound bite, and a repeating dull thump that could only be Your Digestive System in Action. This built up into a crescendo until she tapped out three random piano notes and stopped. "How's that?" she asked. "Great," I said, stopping the tape and writing on the cover. "Okay... bite... pancreas... one minute. Next?" * The demo tape lasted about sixteen minutes and included four tracks : Bite the Demon Pancreas, Frodo's Revenge (a lovely little number which had me reading from Tolken while pumping out chords), All My Lego Bricks Have Been Dropped in Acid (Jack reluctantly sequenced a rather catchy little one-two for it), and two minutes of silence entitled Trapped in an Invisible Box. "Why is it silent?" Jack asked. "It's a visual interpretation," I said. "Didn't you see the hand gestures?" "Yeah, but how are those going to get on the tape?" "They aren't. For that, they'll need to buy the video," I said, pulling my camcorder out from under the bed. "Okay, what do we do for costumes?" "That's it, I'm leaving," Jack said, collapsing the archaic two-dimensional screen of his computer. "Audio okay, video no. That's ridiculous. I mean, what if someone was going to see this stuff?" "We'd be heralded as musical gods who speak with the voice of our generation, of course," I piped in with, smiling. "Cool," Franny admitted. "No, we'd be laughingstocks. I'd like to graduate with my reputation intact." "Okay, no live video," I said. "Animation is good. I'm thinking something along the lines of a massive war between these anthropomorphic enema bags and a group of flightless waterfowl." "My cousin owns a penguin," Franny said. "We could borrow it for the shoot." "That'll work. Jack, could you run down to the drugstore and pick up fifteen or so enema kits?" "No!" he said. "Could you imagine the looks I'd get? FIFTEEN enema kits? Ugh!" "Jack, whatever happened to your spirit of adventure?" I asked. "Heck, I remember a time in elementary school when we formed a small dictatorship around the tree in the playground. We had a charter, rules, and even public executions, at least until it was time for math and we had to go back inside. That was fun." "That was childish," he said. "And so is this. If you'll excuse me, there's a special on Yttia I really wanted to watch on HV." KNOCK KNOCK "Probably our recording agent now," I said. "He heard us through my window and just had to meed the music gods." "Uh-huh," Jack said, slumping into his chair. I opened the door, and a man in an expensive suit peeked in. "Hello, were you the folks I heard playing music?" "Yup. Do you want to sign us up?" I asked. "Yes, in fact. Your music carries a powerful undertone of hatred against the system that our label, Oppression Records, specializes in. Do you have a demo I could borrow to make a press release copy of?" "Right here," I said, leaning over to eject the digital tape. I passed it over, and he pocketed it. "What's your band name?" "We don't have one yet." "Very good. The faceless unknown, toiling endlessly. I like it. Here's my card. I'll get back to you tomorrow morning," he said, leaving. I pocketed the card. "Well, that wasn't so hard, was it?" I said. "Did you pay that guy to come here and put on that act?" Jack asked. "Of course not. I've been here all night. Logic, Jack." "You mean that guy was real?" he asked. "Seemed real to me. Well, I guess we now have something to do this weekend. We'd better practice. Okay, Frodo's Revenge on three. One, two, five--" "Three," Franny corrected. "Yes, three," I said, starting into what I thought was the first note. Probably I was off by several octaves, but that's okay, music is a constantly evolving artform. "Jack, drums, please." "Oh, alright," he said. "I guess the night can't get any stupider, might as well go with the flow. How'd Frodo's whatsit go again?" "Something like bass hihat snare snare repeat. Or maybe just snare repeat. Improvise. A one and a five and a--" * My holophone rang and rang. Normally I don't like to spring awake on weekends; my body doesn't contemplate neural firing before eleven AM. However, a phone call is a phone call and a grapefruit isn't one, so I answered it. "Greetings," the agent said. "Say, what're the names of the band members? We need them for the album cover." "Jack, Matt and Franny," I said. "Anything else?" "Yeah. Go to the corner of Keister and Fifteenth. You have a gig in six minutes," he said. "Alright," I said, closing the connection. See? The weekend wouldn't be dull at all. I checked my notebook again and rang up Franny. "Yeah?" she asked. "Keister and Fifteenth in six," I said. "First concert." "Okay," she said, and cut the line. Jack, dial dial. "What?" he asked. "Keister and Fifteenth in six, we have a gig." "A what?" "A gig. A show. A time. A happenin' event. A concert." "Ha ha, Matt." "No joke. Our agent just phoned it in." "SIX MINUTES?" he said. "But we haven't even gotten an album out!" "Apparently we have. The music industry moves fast, you know. Gotta keep up with pop culture." Jack considered this. "This is insane. This is completely insane and I'm going along with it. I have no idea why. Okay, I'll be there in six minutes." "Five now," I corrected, tapping my watch. "Then five!" he stomped, holoconnection fuzzing. "I'll be there. We're going to be lynched on grounds of good taste, but I'll go anyway. Call me self destructive." "You're self destructive," I called. "Hurrah," he said without enthusiasm, and hung up. * The Pit was a club that looked like a club named The Pit. It was a pit, and a club, and was very pitty in its clubness. A sizable crowd had started to grow; apparently the current trend of Saturday morning concerts had really caught on. "Hello there!" our agent called out, spotting the three of us in our non-tooth-brushed, just-got-up grunginess. "Hey, I like the hygiene. It says something remarkable. Okay, your costumes are backstage and you're on in two minutes." "What are we supposed to do?" Jack asked. "Just play three tracks off your new album," he said, waving the freshly pressed CD2 at us. "Hope you like the art. We paid several million for it. We left off a band name or an album name since you didn't specify." "I like the costumes," Franny said, pointing to the rack. On three coat hangers were three costumes; one black in Franny's size, one grey in my size, and one white in Jack's. Although his wasn't as extensive. "What's this? A sock?" Jack asked, picking the single garment off his hanger. "Yeah. We'd like you to put it around an erection," the agent said. "Kids go for that." "I don't think so," he said, tossing the sock over his shoulder. "What I'm wearing is fine." "Okay, even if it is a bit old fashioned," the agent said. "Well... no. On second thought, you three stay the way you are. There's a certain purity in original design. Okay, you're up. On stage you go," he said, giving us a push. "But--" Jack started, and was cut off by thunderous applause and burning lights. "Cool," I admitted, strapping on the guitar and picking up what looked like a jack to stick in it. Franny pulled over a discarded and bent keyboard stand and loaded up a disk. "Jack, get booted up," I said. "We're on." "There are people out there!" he said, pointing to the happy crowd, swarming over itself in an effort to... I'm not sure, but whatever it was they really wanted to do it. "Of course. It's called an audience. Okay, Franny, do Bite the Demon Pancreas while Jack and I get set up." "Check," she said, immediately launching into the horrific mishmash of samples. The speakers launched to life, the crowd wailing in appreciation. "DO YOU HAVE YOUR DRUM PROGRAM?" I asked Jack over the noise. "OF COURSE," he said, turning on his old computer. "I'VE GOT SOMETHING RESEMBLING WHAT WE DID LAST NIGHT PROGRAMMED. I JUST TAP A KEY AND IT GOES." "LUCKY. YOU GET THE EASY BIT. SHE'S ALMOST DONE. LET'S DO LEGO BRICKS NEXT." "WHATEVER," Jack said, keying up the sequence into his simple shareware drum synthesizer. Franny's Pancreatic exploration ended with the three random piano notes, sending the crowd into hysteria. "Are gonna die?" Jack asked, able to talk over the lack of Franny's 'music'. "What makes you say that?" I asked, tuning up, or doing what I thought tuning up was. "They look a little rowdy." "Don't worry, they're okay guys. They probably just want to eat our livers so they can possess the healthy vitality our band possesses." "WHAT?" "Lego on three," I reminded him. "Three." He started the catchy beat (pop all the way, baby) and Franny quickly loaded her plastic-bonking and acid sizzle effects. I strummed the notes in something resembling the original order they came in. How'd the words go? Oh yeah... o/~ Mom burned all my motherf**king lego bricks o/~ (With a bleep from franny to keep bad words from hitting our audience's ears. We're not barbarians, after all... o/~ Plastic melting on my carpet She wants me to clean it up So I put 'em back in the box They stink up the room But I don't care All my lego bricks have been dropped in acid All my lego bricks have been dropped in acid But I play with them anyway My hands are scarred My arms are burned Ma wants me to throw 'em away But I'm not gonna Just cuz she hates them All my lego bricks have been dropped in acid All my lego bricks have been dropped in acid But I play with them anyway My creations look cooler Deformed lumps of plastic I like it better this way She tries to take them away But they're mine for good All my lego bricks have been dropped in acid All my lego bricks have been dropped in acid And I'll always play with them anyway. o/~ The crowd seethed with joy, climbing on top of each other to rush the stage and cheer us on. Force fields keep that from happening, of course (got to keep the band safe). "That was actually kinda good," Jack said, reading the Tolken novel I had brought along while his computer did the hard work. "We were good? Foo! I'll try not to let it happen again," I said. "Okay, I think I'll do Invisible Box." "You can't, stupid. It's not a song." "Art is art. Franny, can you short out the field there, please?" "What?!" Jack asked, lowering the book and casting a nervous eye at the crowd. "With THEM around us?" "Shorted," Franny said, as the air crackled with ozone. She dropped the two wires she had tangled and nodded to me to continue. "Alright. Invisible Box," I said, making mime motions in the air. The crowd loved it, trying to pattern this new dance. I took a deep breath and jumped into the crowd, landing on top of the pulsating mosh pit. * "Did you see when he was doing mime while being passed around..." "I had legos when I was a kid, I really miss 'em... *sniff*..." "That Franny can really play!" "Yeah! I almost achieved orgasm when she hit the end of 'I Bite the Demon Pancreas'!" "I've got to get the album!" "I NEED the album!" "They seem happy," I noted, pulling my head back in from the gap in the curtains, shutting off the crowd conversation. Jack was shaking his head, dazed. "They liked it," Jack said. "They're buying the 'album'. They're actually paying good money for it. Why, Matt?" "They like it. You said it yourself. If you like the music you buy the album. Maybe we'll get to do that video after all." "This has been the most surreal weekend I've ever had," Jack said. "Last night I was goofing around on a computer program and now I'm a musician sensation. This feels so funky." "Cool," Franny repeated from earlier. A fanboy slid up to her, having sneaked by the backstage guards. "Franny? Can you sign my head?" he asked, pulling his hair back from the scalp. "Your samples speak to me in ways that no mortal being can." "Okay," she said, uncapping a pen and scribbling her name backwards on his head. "Now you can see it right in mirrors." "Thanks!" he said, before the backstage guys noticed him and drug him off. Our agent walked up, grinning and waving his arms. "Take! The take's good!" he said. "We've made two million in album sales around the galaxy. You're getting a lot of airplay. Mind doing C'atel stadium tonight?" "What?" Jack asked. "No problem," I said. "Here's your cut for royalties," he said, flashing a green temporary credit chip with many zeroes on it at us, and handing it to Jack. "Transfer it among yourselves as you see fit. To the top, baby! You're going to the top! See ya tonight at seven." Jack eyed the figure on the card, as the agent retreated. "Matt, pinch me," he requested. So I did. "Ow," he said. "Okay, so this is real. Did we really just make this many credits for improvising four splatters of sound?" "Splatters! Good word choice, Jack. You're getting better at this lunacy stuff. Yeah, it's true. I wonder what I'll buy with my cut." "I'm gonna get a new car!" Jack beamed. "I want a doughnut," Franny said. "Me, maybe I'll buy enough raspberry jam to fill the school and then do just that," I mused. "Or maybe I'll just give it to Save the Lemurs." * Our second concert. Packed house, C'atel Stadium. Word got around really quickly about our untitled band with the nameless four track CD, and soon everybody had a copy. The stadium was awash in fans that had tried to dress in our early morning, thrown on regalia; emulating the band in any way they could. Some sported fake glasses that matched Frannies. Many had lego bricks or fantasy novels. "Gang's all here," I noted, looking around the curtain. "This gets more fun by the minute. Hey, Franny? Go play Pancreas for them while Jack and I ponder life's many mysteries." "Okay," she said, plugging up her keyboard and walking on stage. The crowd exploded in rolling waves of applause, shouts and pledges of undying obedience to Franny. "This may be ridiculous, but it's the most fun I've ever had," Jack noted, booting up his computer. "I'm a star. Wow. I'm actually famous. I've got a serious bank account and I'm recognized on the street." "Me too," I said. "Some girl bumped into me around lunchtime and offered her body to me if I'd do the Invisible Box routine for her." "Did you?" Jack asked. "No. I wasn't done my hamburger." "Man, you had someone pledging to sleep with you and you passed?" Jack asked. "Matt! Buddy! You're not getting the full picture. We're stars! We're hot items! We can have the world be our oyster, get big houses and cars and women and anything." "I just want a doughnut," I said, remembering Franny's earlier suggestion. "Do they have a pastry table back here? I figure I could polish off a jelly before Franny's done her number." "She's done now," Jack said, as the infamous three notes sounded and the crowd boosted total volume. "Oh. Okay, one second," I said, walking around the curtain and approaching Franny. "Franster? Could you extend the Pancreas a bit? I'm going to look for a doughnut," I asked. "Okay. Save one for me," she said, launching into the Pancreatic Remix. I ignored the cheers and headed backstage. "A doughnut?" Jack asked. "All you want is a doughnut?" "I'm hungry," I said. "Ergo, I desire pastry. What's wrong with that?" "You've got no sense of the big picture," Jack said. "I mean, you're still in Thursday. Thursday, we were nobodies. We're SOMEONE now." "You're Jack and I'm Matt," I said. "I don't see much of a difference. Ah, doughnuts! Sweet sugar delight. Want one?" "I'm never going to understand you," Jack said, shaking his head. "Let's just get on with this." "One sec," I said, pushing the guitar along the strap so I could carry the doughnut tray. I wobbled along, under the weight of superior baked goods, to the stage, Jack following. The crowd cheered, which is perfectly acceptable behavior for crowds. "Anybody want a doughnut?" I asked the crowd. They cheered Yet! Again! So I plucked two jellies off the tray for me 'n Franny and tossed the rest into the crowd. They cheerfully dove for the doughnuts, getting into a brawl over who could have one. "Alright, Lego on one," I said. "Three." * "I think the crowd wants more," Jack said. "We don't have any more," I replied. "Just four songs, one of which is more like performance art. Sorry folks! That's all!" The crowd groaned, and shuffled off, dejected. "Hey, don't go away mad," I said. "Anybody want more doughnuts?" Within five minutes, the stadium was empty. Everybody left. Probably had sitcoms back home to watch. "Hey, kids," the agent said, climbing on stage. "Sorry, show's over. You're fired." "What?" Jack asked. "Hey, out with the old, in with the new," Mr. Agent Man said. "Oppression stays on the musical beat. When the beat moves on, we do. We've had some fun, yeah? It's been real. See ya." "But we've only started!" Jack protested. "You can't cut us off like that!" "Of course I can. Happens all the time in C'atel. You're just finished. The buyers bought, liked and moved on. You've still got the cash, right? So no problem. Although we would like to sign Franny on solo. When can you make it to the studio?" "Not doing anything tomorrow," she said, shrugging. "How about lunchtime? Will you have any doughnuts?" "FRANNY?" Jack exclaimed. "But she just makes noise... we make art!" "Art is subjective. Franny, if you'll come this way, I've got a contract. How'd you feel about having your name legally changed to 'Angst'?" "Okay," she said, following the Agent. Jack was dumbfounded. I munched away on my dessert, not really concerned. "We're over? Finis? Just like that?" Jack asked. "Yup. We killed some time, made a few credits and entertained the masses. All in all, not a bad weekend, eh Jacky boy?" "But the money! The fame! The music! The band!" "Short-lived but enjoyable. Like most of our weekend escapades. I wonder if I can get some bonus points in guitar class for this. It'd help my grade." "I was hoping for more," Jack said, turning off his computer. "You were? On friday, you thought it was a waste of time." "It was!" "Well, one man's waste is another man's excrement. Take it in stride, Jack. Silly is good and we were exceptionally silly this weekend. From could-bes to has-beens in a day. You can't find enjoyment like that growing on trees. You've got the money anyway, right?" "No," Jack admitted. "I figured I'd be really cool and buy one expensive new car with each album... I've barely got enough to make a phone call now." "Live and learn," I said. "Come on, let's go home." "You know, we never did name the band," Jack said, walking off with me into the sunset. "Yeah. Silly, no?" I grinned.