18. Spaul

Spaul plugged in the multieffects panel, the jet flange, the treadplate distortion and the harmonic octaver, daisy-chained the stomp boxes together and set the noise gate at eighty decibels. He checked the guitar tuning and put his foot on the wah pedal. The set began, and Spaul strummed variations of the same chord progression for fifteen minutes straight without changing.

"It's just, it's just that I think we should branch out, you know," Spaul stuttered. Peter held up his hand.
"Spaul, North Korean Board of Tourism is a noisepop electrosynth shoegaze band. If you want to explore other styles, that's your business."
"What's that, you mean I should just play the same chords forever?"
"That's up to you. Forcibly emphasizing a harmonic theme is a tenet of the subgenre. It's a very specific subgenre, Spaul."
Spaul was reluctant to quit the band he'd co-founded. He hadn't co-founded it with Peter.

They played another show, and as Spaul counted beats until the breaks where he'd crank up the distortion or turn on the octaver, he watched what Peter did. Writhing with his guitar, making the work of the looping digital echo look like tremendous effort, Peter showboated at the front of the stage, singular notes almost inaudible inside the wall of sound. Spaul pulled the strap over his head and leaned the guitar against the nearest amp, letting the feedback rise to obscene levels as he walked off the stage. It took Peter a couple minutes to realize.

Almost three and a half years later, Spaulding lightly tossed a few bills on the table next to the empty glasses. "I'll get this round," he said, standing up. "Get another if she comes by?"
"To moving up in the world!" One of his friends laughed. "Sure thing, cheers."
The flyer taped above the urinal made Spaulding do a double-take. NKBT.
'Great acronym,' he thought, 'like a dyslexic New Kids on the Block.'
The photo had only one face he recognized. He stared at his former bandmate. The names of the musicians were written below.
"Speter?" He blurted in disbelief. "Speter? That doesn't even make sense!"

15. Seth and Annie

Seth tugged on the strand of skin fraying off of his fingernail, and hissed through his teeth as it bit into the quick. The newly torn fissure yielded a trickle of blood. Seth popped the finger into his mouth and wished he would have just left it alone.

The first six notes of "The Star Spangled Banner" tore from Annie's guitar like bullets from a revolver. The crowd caught fire; Seth looked up with worry lines on his forehead. This wasn't on the setlist. He didn't know the bass line. The audience was already into it. What was he supposed to do?
"Just kidding," Annie laughed into the mic, and dropped the impromptu Hendrix homage. Seth's shoulders rose and fell with an unburdening sigh. He chuckled at himself. What a free spirit that girl was, he thought. There was no one like her.
The songs went on as scheduled, and Seth's hands, programmed by obsessive sessions of practice, plodded along on autopilot. He was proud of his consistency. Note for note, he played precisely what was written, with no deviation whatsoever. Not that anyone noticed.
Annie seemed never to repeat herself exactly. Seth had an ear for this and he would notice the spatchcock revision of a score, especially careful to discern improvisational adaptations from mere mistakes. As he would point out, Annie did not make mistakes. She seemed possessed by a force that made her fingers fly, spewing riffs humbucker-hot when necessary. Sometimes she'd put the tempo just where it felt perfect and find, somewhere in those strings, scales that made harmonies with key changes that would break your heart, break it exactly right. Seth couldn't believe the enormity of the music in those hands. Her arms were so thin.

The highway lights made the tour bus interior a carousel of warm orange glows. They overlapped and faded away. The singer, reclined and serene, looked like her skin was the colour of caramel, then of milk. "Annie?"
"Yeah? Oh, hey Seth."
"That show, it was a great show. You were great, you're always great."
"Yeah, thanks."
"No, I mean it, you're really something else. Something special."
"Mm, thanks for the compliment. And you're a great bassist, you are." She yawned. "Yeah, really... great, Seth. But look, I don't like too many compliments on my playing, you know? They just stop meaning anything. It starts to be just a sound people make. You know what I mean?" She shifted her shoulders, settling back into the seat.
Seth took this for humility. He fought the urge to kneel. "I mean, more than just music." Looking for the right words, the road noise filled the cabin.
Annie opened her eyes and turned. Seth, leaning so far forwards that he barely made contact with his seat, picked at his fingers. She wondered what she should say to him, what she could say.
"You know, Seth," she said, looking up to the roof, "for a bass player, you're very high strung." She smiled in a good-natured way and looked over. Passing lights from outside made shadows spin across Seth's features like a sundial in time-lapse. He looked at his hands, fingers all working over each other, probing irregularities.
"Sss," he muttered, and put a bleeding finger in his mouth.

11. Mickey

The static buildup made a spark jump from the guitar into the patch cord as Mickey plugged in. The pop was as loud as a gunshot. 'Electric frustration,' he thought to himself. 'Builds up when it's not connected to anything. Guess I can relate to that.'
Mickey strummed a few barre chords and decided the guitar wasn't too badly out of tune. He took a swig from his beer and set it down on the amplifier, then turned to the mic. He scanned the rows of empty tables, the few patrons lingering by the bar with their eyes fixed on television screens. He checked his watch; the show was scheduled to start. He looked to the bartender, who gave him a shrug and went back to filling a glass. Mickey turned to his bandmates and twirled a finger in the air.

The first time they'd played a real show, Mickey had screamed 'Are you ready to rock?' and meant it completely. This time, he leaned into the mic, said "We're Downtown Meltdown" with indifference in his voice, and started strumming the same song they always opened with.

Meandering through the lyrics, Mickey realized he'd switched the order of the verses without meaning to. 'Nobody'll notice except for the band anyhow,' he thought. They'd had better nights than this and they all knew it. Irv was probably thinking about his new kid at home more than the drumming, and Ryan was sitting out of most jam sessions these days. He was pretty focused on his job. Mickey didn't think it would last a whole lot longer.

How did it get from there to this?, he wondered. When they started, the three of them would play in the garage until three in the morning was a distant memory. All of them were writing songs, or at least parts of ideas for songs, and somehow a debut album never materialized. The first few shows were packed with their friends, beer was on the house, and it was easy enough to take a girl home most every night they had a set.

"This next song, it's a new song," Mickey said, his eyes panning the room. "It's called, 'All You People.'" He tossed his head back so that the snort of a bitter laugh wouldn't reach the microphone. He turned back, smiling, and nodded to Irv. He nodded back. Mickey thought he looked tired.

They went through it, and in the middle, some new people walked in. They were young, Mickey couldn't place their ages, but the group looked about as old as their fans had when the band first got together. Mid-twenties somewhere. The group stayed for a minute or two and went out to find a different bar. 'What the hell,' Mickey thought, and played very hard on the guitar solo that ended the song. He leaned into the mic and said, "Thank you, everyone. That was our last show. You've been great."

He turned around and put down the guitar. "Thanks," Irv said.