What follows is the opening to a story that has been floating around in my mind for a while now. I'm recovering from COVID and finally had some time to get my ideas onto the page. If you like the setup please send some feedback and I'll write the rest of it. While this opening contains no sex, it is a direction the story will go down in later chapters. This is just the opening act.
Keldarling111@gmail.com
Rock and roll.
The oldest of cliches.
The graveyard of many hopes and dreams.
"I just don't get it..." Martin murmurs dejectedly as we slump around the bar. A long month of shows has definitely started to take its toll; we all look tired and frustrated. We had given it everything we had, and had come away with nothing to show for it -- except for a gaping hole in our wallets.
"We're so fucking good, Perry" he continues, before adding his final summation: "but nobody else can seem to see it."
I nod and sigh. People at the far end of the room are starting to gather closer to the stage, as the sound of chatter and anticipation grows by the minute. Fifteen minutes earlier, as we filed off stage, the place had felt like a ghost town. Now, it was practically buzzing with excitement for the headline act of the night. I swig hard on my beer.
"Maybe it's time to call it a day" I add, before swallowing the last remaining dregs of the bottle, motioning to the bar staff for two more. We had started our band, Full Throttle, a couple of years ago and had been relentlessly flogging it to death over the past eighteen months, trying to catch our `big break'. By now it had just become a source of frustration, disappointment and embarrassment. Our recent tour had consisted of empty rooms or uninterested crowds. We'd resorted to throwing in cover songs as a last resort.
Davey, our drummer, reserved and shy, offers a typically reluctant response: he shrugs, rummages through his pockets, finds his cigarettes and walks towards the smoking area.
"Fucking cattle. Look at them" Martin nods towards the crowd, which have now began to cheer and holler, as the floor lights dim and stage crew flash five minute warning signals to the sound desk. "We're too ahead of our time for these morons" he adds. "We just need our big break..."
"Boys..." A booming voice interjects. "I hate to interrupt, and by all means, this is none of my business..." He begins to laugh deep and guttural. "You can all clearly play -- but don't think for one second your set was ahead of its time" I turn around from my slouched position at the bar to look up at the wall of pinstriped suit towering over us. His face is formed into a half smile, making it hard to work out if he is being confrontational or just overly confident.
"Nah you're wrong, mate" Martin retorts in grimace, clearly thinking it was the former.
"Look, I don't mean to offend, but how can a rock outfit like yourselves, treading the same old water, that has been rehashed a thousand times, singing the same old songs, ever -- at any point -- be judged to be `ahead of their time'" His fingers mime air quotes as he mocks Martin's nasal drawl. "I mean, you're called Full Throttle for Christ's sake. Cut the crap, just form an 80s metal tribute band, and be done with it"
The colour has drained from Martin's face, and I can feel my face involuntarily scrunching at the cutting remarks. The truth is -- he's right, and deep down, we both know it.
"As I said, I do not mean to offend" He turns and beckons us to look over towards the stage, as the headline act appear to a rapturous welcome from the crowd. The stage is a flurry of feathers. A shimmering of sequins. A trio of woman bounce onto the stage to the opening of a popular song, dialling the response from the crowd up to eleven. "Let's go, sisters!" they scream in unison, all jazz hands and hips.
Sisters of Mercy.
The name of the headline act flashes through my mind, as I join up the dots. A drag act. We had been booked to open for a drag act.
"Now you're not going to like me saying this..." Pinstripe suit raises his voice over the opening song of the set, the stage a burst of motion and tightly choreographed dance routines. "But this is more rock and roll than anything that is happening right now!"
Martin laughs nasal and hard, giving me a look as if to say: this guy is full of shit'. I can feel my face beginning to involuntarily scrunch up again. "This is so rock and roll... look at the way they play those instruments..." He mocks, open mouthed, air guitaring and making rock horns' with his fingers.
"That's the biggest mistake you're making. This isn't just about musicianship, nobody cares how well you can play. Do you think these cattle' - as you called them - have even noticed that there isn't one musical instrument on that stage? It's about the show. And this, boys, is a show. Hell, it's a lot more daring and cutting edge than any rock band' I've seen in the past decade. And guess what? It draws crowds. It makes money. It sells..."
His voice cuts in and out of the disco beat of the music, audible just enough for both of us to hear his point. He leans in close to us both, our expressions clearly at a loss. "Believe me, I've been doing this for years, and this is where the money is at. This act makes me more money per show than you will in your entire career." He laughs deep and guttural. "Rock and roll is the oldest of cliches."
"Now, enjoy your evening, boys." He slaps us both on the back in a spine breaking thud, graciously slipping through the crowd towards the backstage entrance. He shakes hands with Davey as the drummer emerges from the door before heading back over towards the bar.
"Fucking arsehole" Martin glances. His face pale and eyebrows furrowed.
I nod and sigh.
The ride home in the van is always the worst. Three disheartened souls either at a loss for words or finding empty words of encouragement to build our fragile egos back up.
This one was definitely worse than usual.
Nobody is ever usually that straight up with you about your band or your performance. Friends and family are obliged to compliment, and crowds are outright indifferent or non-existent. I get it, I mean why would you take your time to insult somebody or offer any type of criticism? It takes too much effort, and most people are too self-involved in what they are doing to even bother speaking to you. A band like ours are, at most, a distraction from their own night out.
"Where do we go from here?" Martin drawls.
The van is silent in contemplation, before, unusually for him, Davey breaks our reverie.
"That guy. The pinstripes. He's Eddard Pike" His voice slow, faint and ghostlike. Davey doesn't have the most assertive way of speaking, but somehow, we always hang on to his every word.
I wait for him to answer his own setup. The big gaps are usual to his way of articulation.
"He's a manager." He adds.
"Yeh, no shit. He told us that" Martin scowls dismissively. "He told us that himself"
"Used to manage Drudge. And Luna and the Horns. Back in the day" Davey continues regardless of Martin's remarks.
"So... he does have some idea what he's talking about." I surmise. While not platinum selling or world touring, both bands had made big waves in the Britpop scene of the 90s, and still held loyal followings to this day.
"He knows fuck all, Perry" Martin cuts me dead. "He's a washed-up manager, who along with the declining interesting in rock music has decided to cut ties, jump ship and fucking turn coats and start managing drag acts"
"He's lost enthusiasm for it, sure. But so has everyone else." I scrunch my nose at my own point, as if to emphasise it. "The only shows we play that people are excited about -- and shit, actually turn up to -- are headlined by old timers. Bands on album number 7, 8, 9. There's no space for new bands anymore -- and why is that? What was the last great album you listened to?"
"Easy. Death by Glory. The Meatheads." Martin asserts confidently. Davey nods in agreement.
"That's seventeen years old -- it's nearly as old as we are!" I exclaim, ramming my point home.
"I just don't get it..." Martin ponders. "I really do not get what your point is"
"I've been thinking about what he said" I attempt to answer. I really had been thinking it over, something about what pinstripes -- Pike -- had said hit home. "So new bands come along and re-tread the same old steps of the past: sounding, looking, acting like bands of the past..."
"...Because they were rock and roll. They. Fucking. Rocked." Martin chokes on his words, spluttering out the final few.
Rock and roll.
The oldest of cliches.
"It's cliché. It's been done. We need a new direction, and I've got an idea." I counter, as forcefully as I could in my tired and half-drunk state of mind.
"Okay, you're the blonde one" I nod towards the mop of honey coloured hair on the floor.
Three days later, on the living room floor of the apartment I share with Davey, we all stand over the pile of clothes, wigs and makeup I had mustered together from charity shops, discount stores and the internet. The band was really taking its toll financially, and this, my last plan of attack, was all I could muster. The prospect of working full time at REPUTA, the behemoth of a call centre where dreams go to die, was looming hard.
"This is fucking stupid" Martin's voice sounding manic and absolutely bemused by what we were about to attempt. His laugh begins to break into a mock sob.
"It's definitely weird" I agree, as he picks up a pair of fishnet stockings and stretches them out, not knowing whether they should be worn or used to catch something with.
"I just don't get it... We aren't a drag act" Martin hangs his head towards the floor. His confused eyes searching across the pile Infront of him, as if hoping to find an answer in the array of woman's clothes.
"Yes. You are right. We are not. We are a rock and roll band, and this is our gimmick." I mutter the words I had said over a hundred times in the past few days.
"Like Kiss" Davey joins in.
"Exactly, Davey. Thank you. Like Kiss. Or David Bowie. Or -- I don't know -- The Red Hot Chili Peppers with their dicks in football socks" I continue, spurred on by Davey's words of encouragement.
"Yeh but they were all fucking cool. This is so not cool" Martin drawls spitefully.
"At no point. And I mean. No. Point. Is having your dick in a football sock, considered cool" I shout back passionately. "It's cool because of how ground-breaking and iconic and recognisable it is. It breaks the chain. Fucks with the norm" I try to hammer home my point like a politician making empty promises.
"We're going to get fucking slaughtered..." Martin mocks. My words had clearly worked.
Ten minutes later we stand in front of the door length mirror in the hallway. Two pale and skinny boys looking like they had lost a fight with a costume shop. The costume shop had definitely won.
We both laugh uncontrollably; our reflections do look ridiculous to say the least.
Martin is wearing a blonde wig, that looks like -- because, well, it is -- a cheap fancy-dress version of a `hair metal' hairstyle. His neck is layered with lines of faux pearls, not unsimilar to the ones the old ladies wear to Bingo. His dress is far too big and hangs down limply, the floral pattern the only thing making it seem like a dress, rather than a distorted, oversized t-shirt. Two misshapen balls stuffed with all sorts of socks and tissue paper protrude from his chest, making him look more like a shoplifter than a buxom woman.
He gives `rock horn' fingers and shows his tongue to the mirror. We both laugh idiotically.
I brush the red hair from my eyes, the attempt at eyeshadow giving me a ghoulish, corpselike look. My painted lips give Robert Smith a feeling of subtlety and control in comparison. I'm wearing a leopard print tube top that nestles amongst my curly chest hair, which subsides around my stomach before a heavy patch of pubic hair becomes wild and wiry towards the miniskirt around my waist. The stockings on my legs are covered in ladder marks: patches of hair clump together dark and bushy. I rock and topple from the black stiletto heels I've squeezed my feet into. At only 6 foot tall, I look long and drawn out in the little clothing I have adorned.
"I just don't get it" Martin stammers through his laughter. "You're so fucking hairy, man"
I nearly fall over and struggle to remain balanced through both the laughter and the heels.
"This maybe isn't going to work" I admit defeat.
The quick and easy, wave of the magic wand transformation hasn't quite gone as I had planned.
I am about to give it up when the door to Davey's room creaks open. A long fringed, dark-haired alternative girl walks out with her head down, making Martin and I nearly jump out of our skin. My heart skips a beat and I cross my arms across my body in order to cover myself up and hide what remaining dignity I have. Martin cowers behind me, using my silhouette as shield to block the unwanted gaze of the stranger.
"You two look ridiculous" The ghostlike voice offers.
"Davey?" Martin quivers in response.
We sit on the edge of the sofa, all of us still wearing the outfits from earlier. Stunned into silence, I am at loss for words and feel unable to offer anything intelligible.
Davey is wearing a tight, striped, black top. A low V points downwards to reveal, what looks like, cleavage. Actual cleavage. My mind doesn't know how to process this information. Around his neck is a black choker with a small silver love heart in the centre. A thin cardigan rides up his wrists, making them look small and delicate. His long dark fringe sits just above immaculate makeup of dark smoky eyes and heavy brows. His lips are deep crimson and standout in striking contrast to his pale skin tone. He wears a tight-fitting skirt and thigh high socks. It's strange how feminine and at ease he looks.
None of the items he is wearing are the ones I bought.
"I like it" he smiles warmly. "You two need some work though"
"You can say that again!" I look down at myself in hysterics.
"I just don't get it..." Martin offers weakly.
"Another time..." I bat him off and try to gain some sense of victory towards my initial goal, my face begins to scrunch as I carefully choose my words. "It's small steps. Davey is clearly a natural and can show us how to do this better. I tell you what though, it's already pretty `out there', isn't it? Pretty daring and different? Pretty rock and roll?"
It was at the point I think we all realised things were going to be different from now on.
Pretty rock and roll.