I love music. I am a poor musician but I enjoy playing, and inflicting my noise on people as part of a band, this text below is my fantasy of how that should play out. Part of a wider story that I will not finish, so here you are…
That night Green Goddess were second on at a not-for-profit DIY night in a cellar in Camden, Neal considered these to be the best kind of gigs really. They were put on by someone with a lot of time (or some maniacs who had way too much to do already!) and all the door money was split between the bands. There were no fancy light rigs, or those tacky revolving disco things, and the musicians usually preferred to do the sound between themselves, twiddling knobs at random until they arrived at something all were happy with. Better that than someone calling themselves a ‘sound guy’ or worse, ‘engineer’ who would do the exact same thing, before demanding payment, or worse, payment in beer. The alternative to this DIY philosophy was the scabs who were trying to make money from the venture! The audacity of it! As if anyone expected a band to make money these days, a stupid idea.
The crowd was respectable, about 50 or 60 people in a rotating roster between the main room where the bands played and the outside seating where they could smoke and talk loudly about themselves. The challenge was to play something that would bring the self-centred tossers in to watch you, normally it worked around the time of the penultimate song. Though a decent number were loitering inside, and they seemed to be waiting expectantly, Neal had noted this recent development, and put it down to Izzy’s influence. They hadn’t been playing together long, but she had something, magnetism and charisma that left people staggered, him included.
She wasn’t, in any sense what ‘girls in bands’ were supposed to be like, she wasn’t a girl even! Izzy was, definitively and defiantly, a woman, a female musician, but never a girl. The closest comparison Neal could think of was Poison Ivy Rorschach, the guitarist of The Cramps.
Everybody remembers Lux Interior deep throating the mic and running round in high heels and his PVC thong, but Ivy was the one in charge, she wrote all the music, did all the arrangements, she even took over as the band’s manager when the man who had been responsible for them fucked the whole thing up royally. She strutted round the stage with this look, it just said do not fuck with me. These knee high boots conceal deadly weapons and I will fuck you up while my husband holds you down. See my husband? He’s the one in the bondage gear over there humping the speaker stack, I’m the boss of him, do you think anything in the world scares me?
Izzy had the same look. And people loved her for it. She didn’t state any of this explicitly, or preach anything, she just lived it.
Woody went up to the ‘stage’ first (one corner of the main bar. The one place that didn’t obscure the route to the bar or the toilet), his own snare and kick pedal under one arm. They were sharing a lot of gear with the first band which made this entrance look even more slick than it was. He settled himself behind the kit, adjusting the distance of everything by fractions of inches, then stretching out his arms, a stick in each hand to gauge the positioning, and making further minute adjustments. When he was satisfied he waved to Neal, who was ordering drinks in his most affected nonchalant way, doing his best to hide the nerves. Neal in turn waved to the friendly bartender he’d talked to earlier, who obligingly turned out all of the lights in the room, just as Woody plugged in the strip of blue LED lights that ran right across the stage, running along the tops of the amplifiers and the PA cabinets, and was now the only source of light, a dull blue glow that made everything look cold, evil, and awesome! Woody started drumming now, a lazy, yet thunderous beat that he kept up as Neal worked his way to the front of the crowd, carrying a pint in each hand, one for him and one for Woody, who always forgot to get one, but would be gasping by the third song at the latest.
Neal picked up The Pig, his cheap, heavy, and shit, bass guitar that he had bought with money he saved from his paper round in 1999, preserved for gigs, the thing sounded nasty in just the right way, but couldn’t be relied upon for anything but trouble and strife. One day soon, when the moment felt right, Neal was going to smash it on stage, a sacrifice in the name of art and noise. He couldn’t wait. The Pig rumbled and burped out the bass line for the first song, slow and ominous in the blue gloom, and a few people cheered, either they knew the song of they were just enjoying themselves, could go either way. Neal smiled to himself, concealed in the dark as Izzy stepped up and plugged in her guitar. She’d put her game face on and that always made Neal laugh, to see his mate, normally so chilled and happy-go-lucky suddenly become this stonehearted mean faced killer, it was excellent. The Gretsch came to life in a scream of feedback and Neal jumped into the air as Woody seemed to hit everything at once, the whole room tipped 45 degrees and the crowd howled at the sudden release of energy. Just a few seconds in and Neal could feel the sweat gathering in the small of his back and soaking his hair, dripping from his fringe.
They must have doing something right as the room seemed more packed by the second, the smokers and the talkers were being drawn in and taken under Izzy’s spell. One bloke, and that was the best word to describe him, except maybe ‘ape’, duck egg blue shirt stained with spilled beer and revealing some hairy belly along it’s lower perimeter, made a lunge for Izzy and managed to lay a paw on the strings of her guitar, the song faltered and hung in the balance for an agonising moment, a half second that stretched on forever. Neal stepped forward, the headstock of The Pig pointed at eye level like a spear, but Izzy didn’t need him, probably didn’t even notice him as she kicked the guy squarely in the crotch, and shoved him back using the guitar, the crowd cheered even louder and Izzy dropped back into the song without missing a beat as the bloke was dragged away by a bouncer, what became of him after that, Neal could only speculate.
The bar had a backstage of sorts, it had previously been a restaurant next door owned by the same guy, who also did the cooking, but when he retired his daughter took over and didn’t bother keeping the restaurant going. Now when bands played they dumped their gear there and slumped amongst the tables and chairs when they had finished their sets to recover. There was a sofa which a shirtless Woody had claimed, he was now soundly asleep and snoring loud enough to compete with the DJ next door. Neal was sat on the floor with his back resting on the same sofa, head back and eyes closed. Izzy sat on a wooden chair, putting her guitar back in its hard case and stowing away leads and doing all the myriad little fiddly things that you have to remember when gigging. She sighed and smiled in a satisfied way.
“That was intense man,” No response, “Neal?” She snapped her fingers in his face and his eyes flicked open “Neal!”
“What? I wasn’t sleeping.” He protested as he dragged himself into a more upright position, his muscles squealing in protest.
“You were!” she insisted, “I said that was intense, people were actually into us tonight. Nice one.” Neal rubbed his eyes to get some life back into them after the total energy expenditure of the performance.
“It was you Izzy, they love you. You ARE a rock star, in the proper sense of the word.”
“Shut up,”
“I mean it, you’re so, and excuse me for being American here, badass! I’m a bit in love with your stage persona, She is terrifying.”
“I didn’t realise I had one.”
“Well you do,”
“Neal, can I ask you something?”
“Go on,”
“I’m really serious about doing this for a living, I know it’s stupid but I don’t want to do anything else with my life. I need you, I don’t want to spend another two years finding the right band, you boys are it. Can I count on you to stick with me Neal?”
Neal looked into her eyes, there was no way he could afford to keep doing this full time, his sister refused to lend him any more money and his parents didn’t speak to him all any more. By his estimates he could go without a job for maybe another two months.
“I’m with you all the way Iz.”
Spike Direction Should Write More 