Find a Few Good Strangers, Start a Band (IC, Closed)

[The Fanboyists]

He was dead. Most certainly dead. God would never be so unkind as to make someone that was still alive feel this way.

That was what Art kept telling himself.

Don't handle hangovers so well now, eh? the unkind thought rose, unbidden. He groaned. Stretched his arms, feeling the bed beside him. Well, feeling what wasn't there. That waitress that had come back to the room with him, for starters. Pity. She'd been kind of hot, he thought. Oh well. Drunken one-night stands happened, even to the best of people.

It had happened largely as a result of the bad news yesterday.

At seven p.m., his band mates had informed him they'd be going into the Battle of the Bands without him.

It was scheduled to start at three o'clock this afternoon. It was eleven o'clock in the morning now.

Not playing wasn't an option. He'd bloody well spent his $200 for the bus ticket, hotel room, and meals. He wasn't going to waste a good two hundred.

There was room for emergency and last-minute contestents to sign-up. He planned on using it.

Now he just had to find a band. He sighed. Pulled his pants on. Threw the used condom in the trash, pulled on his shirt. Brewed some coffee. Drained the mug of black brew. Repeated. There. That was a little better.

He glared out at the sunny vista outside the window, as if it was Thomasburg's fault that he was up shit creek without a paddle.

It wasn't even his fault. Ok, so shouting something about foreigners wasn't a good thing (he'd done that at their last show), but really, he hadn't been thinking straight at the time. Sleep deprivation, and all that jazz. It wasn't like he actually dislike---

Fuck it. He didn't like foreigners. Not the unregistered ones.

And there were plenty of 'em here to compete. There'd be plenty in the same boat as him, most likely. And he'd have to play with them if he wanted a shot.

Oh well. He pulled his sweatpants the rest of the way up, pulled the loose white t-shirt down over his stomach, and popped a crimson baseball cap on his head, brim facing the back. Scooped up his base.

See who's attention he could get. Playing at bars for an hour or two.

Damn bandmates, anyway.

[Siloin]

Kim sat outside the hotel, holding a fragment of a keyboard. Her bandmates had been high last night, and kind of blew up at her when she, once again, wouldn't take the drugs they spent so much of their money on. So they kicked her out and ran over her precious instrument. Ah, well. Whats done is done. Except for the 200 someodd dollars she had spent coming here. How was she going to make this place worth 200 dollars?

She heard someone coming out of the hotel and saw that bassist from that warmup a couple of days ago. He had done very well there, but wasn't his band staying at the Stephens? She waited to see if he would recognize her, which would not be hard, of course- where else could you find a tall, overweight, woman wearing a battered fedora and a turtleneck sweater?

[Euro-Trash]

Chris Frisbee Awoke to ‘Oh So Gentle Sound’ of the Bus Screeching to a Halt. Groggily, Chris Removed Himself from the Seat and Walked Down the Long, Sticky Aisle Leading off the Vehicle.

Growing Up, Chris Had Always Despised the Buses. The Faux Metal and Cheap Vinyl that Bare Skin Would Stick to on the Hottest Days, Never Ideal by Chris’s Standards…

He Off-Loaded the Bus and Worked Around it to the Storage Compartments on the Sides of the Massive Automobile. His Acoustic Guitar, His Baby, Awaited. He Grabbed the Guitar and Worked Towards the Center of Town. There, He Found His Metropolis. Cafes, Bar, Pubs, etc. Even the Street Performing Seemed to be Good. Bucket Playing was an Option, Always Readily Available. He Was Sure He Could Pedal Some "Go2" Albums Here. And Live Shows Would More Than Keep His Meager Needs Sustained. It Was Heaven. After Basking in the Radiance, He Went to Go Check Out the Hotels. There, He Found the Oddest Sight. A Girl With Sitting Against a Building in an Alley, Half a Keyboard in Hand.

"Jesus, What Happened to You?"

[The Fanboyists]

Art noticed Kim, standing, looking, truth be told, rather depressing with a broken instrument in hand.

This should have an interesting story behind it, he thought, altering his course. He approached her, as Chris did the same.

"Heya, Miss. You're...you're playing in the Battle of the Bands this afternoon, right? I've seen you there. Practicing. What happened to your instrument there?" Pre-empting the inevitable question, he said "Yeah, I was going to be playing. Dick-heads for bandmates tossed me out 'cause they thought the judges would object to me. Over some stupid comment I'd made after three days without sleep. Name's Art."

He had his bass slung over his shoulder; his case for it had been utterly destroyed when the band had tossed his crap out of the hotel room. Luckily, the bass guitar itself had survived, if at the cost of a case. Oh well. Cases were easy to find. A good guitar wasn't.

[Siloin]

"Well, I got kicked out of my band for... reasons. Then they ran over my keyboard with their truck." She turned to look at Chris.

"Who are you?"

[Aima Tomeis]

The mighty Chad St. Chad is down on his luck. His past four or five musical ventures all went dead. Or soft. They're the same thing to Chad.

From a pocket on his leather jacket, Chad pulls out his breakfast- another cheap beer. He can't afford actual food in this place. He hasn't had real work since he quit driving the forklift back at that warehouse to give him more time to pursue his music. Actually... Chad St. Chad can't really afford anything. He sold his premo guitar case for cash to buy a few more shirts and jeans. As glamourous as the sequins are, he rationalizes, he won't stand a chance if he doesn't have a pair of street clothes. Which he uses spare change to wash and dry at laundromats every other day.

Chad's current situation is this:

• He has a bag of clothes which he keeps with him at all times. He has no where else to put them.
• He has a guitar he keeps over his shoulder at all times. He has no where else to put it.
• He is a wickedly talented musician and can put on worthwhile street shows with an electric guitar and no amp. He makes just enough money on the street to buy a happy meal for dinner.

---

Chad St. Chad is sitting on a bench outside a big hotel, just practicing fingering, working out a new song. He sees a young guy shuffle out the front double doors and chuckles to himself, "Heh must have been some beer bash. Poor guy." Then he pauses: he starts talking to a woman with a smashed up keyboard. She has sort of a forlorn look on her face, almost one of resignation... then he remembers he'd seem her before. Both of them as a matter of fact. They both went into the hotel with bandmates....

Chad St. Chad grins broadly, not believing his possible good fortune. He gets up and heads... away from the two- towards the hotel dumpster. He climbs up and looks around at the contents. "It was around here somewhere..." he pushes some garbage around, digs through it a bit, then finds what he's looking for. He had spotted this the night before, looking for anything useful: a discarded keyboard. Some rich punk may have gotten a new Yamaha from daddy, or maybe it was just sabotage, either way, it appears to be a mostly-in-working-order keyboard. At the very least not as smashed up as that chicks.

His new treasure tucked in arm, guitar across his back, he walks back toward the pair. Only now there's another guy, another guitarist. "Acoustic, huh? I wonder...." Chad comes to a stop next to the woman and sets the keyboard on the ground, leaning against it.

When he gets a moment, "Ma'am, your instrument looks like it's seen better days."

[The Fanboyists]

"Blower. Kicked out? Same boat as me, then. Up shit creek. No paddle. Wanna tag along? I'm gonna look for anyone else in the same sorta sitch. Gonna play if it kills me."

Then Chad showed up. Things were looking up for him. Art smiled.

"Guitarist, are ya? Well, then...Two guitarists, a keyboardists...a bassist. Reckon all we're missing 'sa drummer. And a singer." He was almost thinking aloud. He clarified, after a moment, if there was a possibility of them hearing him speaking. "Ah, well, that would solve this young lady here and I's conundrum; we want to play in something, but got no bands. Care to help us out?" He looked at Chad. From the looks of it, he already has helped us.

He started to walk up to a good street corner, put his bass out front, and decided to start playing. Something simple. If the others were willing, if they were really into it, they'd join in. Then he'd see how well they could improvise, seeing as they wouldn't have time, competeing, to do much else.

No amp didn't hurt. It just left him giving his usual in-the-basement, easy thumping. No thundering snarls yet.

[Siloin]

Kim could see what Art was doing. Well, with half a keyboard, she couldn't do much. But wait... didn't the hotel have a piano inside?
She casually walked in and began to play, straining to hear what the bassist was laying down. From the outside, the piano sound would be muffled, but you could still here the bluesy tones practiced by people 70 some-odd years ago. She had been trying to unite jazz, classical, and rock for some time now, but had never actually done a field test... until now.

[The Fanboyists]

It was a little muffled but...yes. She had definitely joined in. And...ok, not quite what he was expecting, but pretty darn good. Well...add a bit of variety...

The next sound he coaxed from the bass guitar probably wasn't normal. It probably wasn't audible to most human ears. It wasn't a wierd noise it was just...too low. It was a rumbling, more than anything. Amplified, it might have been confused with an earthquake. He couldn't get the snarling he preferred without an amp...so that wouldn't be factoring in, for now.

He kept playing, waiting, hoping for the other two; there wasn't loads they could do with only a bassist and a keyboardist with no keyboard. It would take the guitarist and the acoustic guitarist (who, he was hoping, had some good pipes on him; Art's own voice was a gravelly bark, and was ok for singing, no, growling to heavy metal. Otherwise...not so good. Two people does not a band make, unless one has the Pick of Destiny. Which, he knew, he most certainly did not have. It was fictitious. So was he, but he didn't know that.

[Aima Tomeis]

Chad grins broadly. He sets the mostly-in-working-order keyboard right on the sidewalk and unholsters his instrument, so to speak. He in steps in behind the young guy- didn't ever catch the name- and listens a few chords... then starts in, adding a little bit of melody... and an oddly cool clattering from the strings. Throw in just a dash of percussion from slapping the guitar's body... and Chad St. Chad rocks on at the street corner, with no money and no amp, with a guy he's known maybe a minute, and a woman in the hotel lobby on piano that neither one can see.

[Euro-Trash]

Chris, Having Watched the Scene Unfold, Decided to Test This Experimental Mix of Sounds. Indie, No Doubt. One of Specialties. He Quickly Went Into 'Musical Overdrive Syndrome' a Term Pended by Himself After Listening to Music for A Whole Day Straight in His Dorm One Day and Later Being Able to Pick Apart Every Single Aspect of the Song. Parts Such as the Chorus and Verse Became Clearer to Separate, The Key of the Song Became Obvious, the Tempo and Type of Feel and Every Instrument's Part. It Was as if He Had the Whole Piece on Paper in Front of Him, Except the Page was a Mere Thought.

"Christ, this is Human," He Said to Himself. "Let's Start Here. Key is Ab Major, Tempo is About 144, But the Feel is Something I've Never Heard Before. It's Primal, It's Beautiful, it's Human. That's it, I'm Getting in On This..."

Chris, Without Thinking, Walked Up and Got Out His Guitar.

"Mind if I Jam?"

Chris Listened for Another Moment, Listening to the Lead Guitar. From There He Dissected the Major Chords and Found a Rhythm, At Least in His Head, That Complimented the Work. He Walked Over to the Street Corner, Where the Rest of the 'Band' was Jamming, and Jumped in with his Idea. It Clicked. In His Mind, the Missing Piece that this Had. It Sounded Great. Suddenly, he Realized that He Knew No One on the Stage. He Started with the Keyboardist...

"Hey, Sorry to Cut in. But I Had to Jam With You Guys. The Name's Chris. You?"

Then, Without Thinking, Chris Turned to the Bassist, Who Seemed to be Leading the Operation, and Popped What Seemed to be a Very important Question at the Time; :"Can I Sing?"

[The Fanboyists]

Art smiled. They were into it. The problem was almost solved.

The tune...now, the tune...it wasn't anything even remotely familiar, except to someone with a rare disease that robbed them of sight, and instead only saw in sounds; poetically, of course. The melody that had formed was just jamming, and would be called genre-confused, possible bat-shit scrambled. It didn't matter. It worked. It was good music. It was unique.

And it was wholly improvised. That was the best part. It was entirely improvised, each person inflecting their own style. And it still sounded good...no, great.

With Chris's quiet question, a grin split Art's face.

"Oh, hell yeah. Sing. Sing. By all means," he said, grinning. Yes! Improvised vocals, too! All we need now is a drummer, to make this really shine! He left the original bass-line behind, and started exploring some, first taking it real low, then back up, higher and higher, until he started coaxing a noise high-pitched enough that it shouldn't come out of a bass guitar on any planet, even if one is on drugs.

He started providing a rhythm, more than a baseline from there. Back down to normal pitch...back to a good, rhythmic thumping. He still needed an amp to thunder and snarl, and do what he did best, but this wasn't bad.

He grinned wider now. Everything had fallen into place perfectly; the acoustic, lead, bass, and the piano were now locked into a jam, a melody that, to the casual passer-by, would sound as if it had been rehearsed pain-stakingly, until it had become musical perfection itself.

Band indeed.

Who needed bandmates?

Anyone worth their salt, that's who.

[Euro-Trash]

Despite 'Go2's Success, Chris was Horrible at Lyrics. He Always Needed Help with Them. Despite the Pain-Stakingly Great Work on the Album, He Repeatedly Went Online to Find Inspirational Things and Things to Trigger the Mind. And Worse, He Still Had Trouble After These Searches...

"Um..." He Started, At a Lose For Words, "In His Image; There Was Everything You Would Need to See. In His Image, There's a Smile. In His Image, There is Nothing to Fault. There is Nothing Wrong at All. The World!

Where Did He Start Find These? That One Poem! That Was It! Something Triggered His Memory of a Poem He, Himself, Wrote as a Young Boy Detailing His Father; A Man Who Worked Tirelessly at a Dead-End Job to Provide for the Family. It Was An A Good Poem, But it Made a Great Song!

"The World Revolves Around the Sun! The Sun Revolves Around the World! Everything Goes It's Own Way! Everything's Set in Motion! The World Revolves Around the Sun! The Sun Revolves Around the World! Everything Goes It's Own Way! And I'm Moving Right Along!"

This Was An Odd Chorus, as He Had No Clue What Inspired the Words. Nothing Written, Nothing Said. Nothing Stored Deep Inside the Brain of an Odd Musical Genius, At Least in His Mind...

"In His Image; He is God. In His Image; We're His Son. In His Image; Everything. In His Image; We're the One.

Realizing Where This Lyric Came From, He Almost Burst Out Laughing. While Inactive, Chris was a Christian. This Sounded Exactly Like the Trinity in the Bible! However, He Wasn't Sure the Last Time He Went to Sunday Mass, Prayed, or Even Which Church He Used to Go to. This Circumstance Also Proved that Chris, Unknowing of the Exact Branch of Protestantism, was Going to Hell. Oh Well...

"The World Revolves Around the Sun! The Sun Revolves Around the World! Everything Goes It's Own Way! Everything's Set in Motion! The World Revolves Around the Sun! The Sun Revolves Around the World! Everything Goes It's Own Way! And I'm Moving Right Along!"

"Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah! Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh Yeah! Yeah! In His Image!

"And the World Revolves Around the Sun! The Sun Revolves Around the World! Everything Goes It's Own Way! Everything's Set in Motion! The World Revolves Around the Sun! The Sun Revolves Around the World! Everything Goes It's Own Way! And I'm Moving Right Along!"

It Came to Chris's Attention that, Eventually, He Would be Unable to Continue Faking that He Knew What He was Doing...

Hey Guitarist, Take a Solo!

[Aima Tomeis]

Chad grins. He's improvised a bit of music before; he was playing acoustic at the time, and the power to the amps was accidently cut mid-show. Without a bass guitar or singer, it was just Chad's acoustic (which he now had to thrash, his own pick-ups were out too) and his drummer. It worked, but it was only twenty or thirty seconds before someone got the amps back up. He's never improvised a whole song before, let alone with three other people. "Let's do it!" he thinks to himself.

"Chris, right? Name's Chad. I gotcha, one solo coming up!"

He was digging the bassists' up and down- "Art... I think that's what I heard."- but when he came back down to the rhythmic baseline, Chad opens up with his ups and downs. All the way up to a clattering squeal, down to the bellowing, thumping lows, then everything in between.

"Hey you guys, I think we've got a crowd!" He pointed the neck of his guitar to a group of six or seven people watching the- very- impromtu band.

[The Fanboyists]

Ah, well, nobody was perfect. Art realized fairly quickly that Chris was bull-shitting the lyrics. Oh well. He could help, even if it wasn't great. A gravelly bark was by no means ideal. But it would do.

As Chad started to wind up his own solo, he started to slow down the pace on his own baseline. It was clear a new tune was needed, and a new song. They could quickly figure out what they were doing in between.

Slowing down the pace, he hoped the others would realize that it was winding down. He nodded to Chad: Good solo, man and to Chris Good job. Let's regroup some, here, and see if we can't give these people something better.

[Euro-Trash]

Chris Realized the Cue, a Cue Not Uncommon Amongst the Jam Sessions of the Bwah-Ha-Has. He Started to Slow, Playing Softer...

"Alright, Uh... Thanks Guys. Give us a Second Here, We're Just Going to Take a Quick Brake!"

"What's the Band Name!?" a Man in the Small Audience Shouted as the Song Came to a Mere Shadow of it's Former Self, Symbolizing the Ending of the Great Session. No Doubt, He Hoped, to be Followed by a Grander Session. And Put Out the Case for the Listeners...

"Um..." Chris Stuttered, and Gave a Quick Glancing Look Around at the Musicians in the Jam Session, "We're the... Um..."

Chris Prayed for Someone Else to Step Up. Anybody Playing, the Bassist in Particular Who Seemed to Be Running the Rag-Tag Group. He Kept Trying to Think of a Name but the Only Idea Returning to Conscious and Seizing Memory was, of Course, Go2.

"We're the..."

[The Fanboyists]

Art shrugged. "Do we need a name now?" He sighed. This wasn't something he was planning on addressing yet.

"Alright. Here's what I'll do. I've got a pocket dictionary. I'm going to open it to a random page, point at a word, maybe two, and that will be our name. For now, at least."

He folded the thing over, as a cold breeze snapped it shut. He had forgotten. Even in mid-fall, Thomasburg could get nasty-cold. He shivered, opening the thing up again. Close to the middle.

Closed his eyes. Pointed.

Opened them. Read the word.

"'Syphilis'. Ok, let's try that again."

Eyes closed. Point. Read.

"'Baghdad'. Never mind..."

This was getting sort of ridiculous. Eyes closed. Point. Read.

"There we go. The 'Holstein's." He grinned triumphantly. It was an incredibly stupid name. But who would care? Besides farmers, that is. He nodded, still grinning. "We're The Holsteins. How's that sound?"

[Euro-Trash]

Chris, without waiting, was the first to jump out at the idea. He like the bassist, and the rest, and a name needed to represent such.

"No dice. The name matters! I came here to find a great band, maybe get a record deal, and maybe get big! This has potential and we don't even know names! It's what we're going to be known by! I'm sorry if I'm the only one with the care now to pick a decent name, but I think we damn well should. Maybe the name of my first album? Go2. Spelled with a two in it. What do you guys think?"

[The Fanboyists]

OOC: Bump! We need everyone that signed up to be involved, or we do not, in any real sense, have a proper group RP!

[Siloin]

"How about A Few Good Strangers?" Stupid name, really, but the only one she could think of.

[Euro-Trash]

"How about A Few Good Strangers?" Stupid name, really, but the only one she could think of.

Chris Thought About the Name a Moment. It Had a Nice Little Ring to it, Told a Story, Hadn't Been Used Yet by Anyone Big. While Chris was Unsure if the Name was a Serious Suggestion, the took it as such.

"I like. It's something to go with, at lease for a bit..."

[The Fanboyists]

Art grinnned again. Nodded. "I like it! "A Few Good Strangers!" It works, too!" he laughed. "That work for everyone?"

[Aima Tomeis]

"I like it," says Chad, breathing none too lightly. Being out of practice for such an improvised set can be demanding.... "A Few Good Strangers... it's fitting, ya' know?"

[Euro-Trash]

"So it's Agreed We're A Few Good Strangers Now? Alright, Well Then We've Got a Name, and the Essence of a Great Band. So We Know We're Good Together. What Should Our next Big Step Be? I Mean, I Bet You Guys Know the Local Music Scene. What's Going on? What Can We Do Right Now?"

[The Fanboyists]

"Alright, then." Art nodded. "There's a battle of the bands in a few hours. Both...Kim? here and I were slated to compete, but our bands dumped us. There's room for last minute entries, though. That seems a good place to start."