I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone

by Stephanie Kuehnert

  July Lies actually invited us to play with them. Of course, that meant we weren’t set to headline like I fantasized, but we got second billing. Not to mention July Lies drew a huge crowd since they’d recently signed to an indie label in Minneapolis. Label reps would be there. If we played well enough, maybe they’d want to sign us, too. Marissa’s success had definitely proven to me that my wildest dreams could come true.

  The day of the show I paid little attention in class. This wasn’t new; I studied rock ’n’ roll performance more avidly than any subject in school. I’d been to over a hundred concerts and I hadn’t even reached my sixteenth birthday. Observing established bands, I kept notes on how to arrange a set list (at least four fast songs before slowing down for a ballad), how to interact with the audience (for the mysterious rock star, speak only occasionally to thank the adoring crowd and introduce new songs), and general pointers (you don’t need theatrics if you’re a good musician, but make sure your live sound varies from your album sound).

  I’d reviewed those notes and practiced guitar until midnight the night before my first gig, so instead of making up answers on the history quiz I had to take that day, I drew different versions of our band logo below each question. And I guess I was also humming one of our songs, because Jackie Jenkins kicked the back of my chair midtest.

  “Will you shut up?” She emphasized “shut” with a crack of her gum.

  This caught Mrs. Trot’s fine-tuned ears. She stalked over to my desk in the back of the room.

  “Girls, what’s the problem?” she hissed, trying not to disturb the rest of the class.

  Jackie, however, was an attention whore. She loudly complained, “Emily’s singing to herself again.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I think Jackie’s having auditory hallucinations.”

  “I don’t know what that means, but I’m not the druggie.”

  I took particular offense to this comment because, though I drank whenever and whatever I could get my hands on, I’d stopped smoking pot and forced Regan and Tom to give it up as well. I’d been reading a lot of rock bios that made the stuff they said in health class seem true. Pot and sniffing glue led to coke and heroin, which led to too many dead rock stars. “I am not a druggie,” I said. “But I think those diet pills you and your little cheerleader friends take at lunch instead of eating might qualify.”

  Jackie automatically tuned out any criticism. She flounced her sun-kissed curls and retorted, “Well, if you’re not a druggie then you must be retarded. Only retards, like, sing to themselves.”

  “Oooh, I bet it hurt your brain to come up with that one!”

  “Enough!” Mrs. Trot snapped, but then she noticed my test. “She Laughs? Is this some kind of joke, Ms. Black? Because I’m not laughing and you shouldn’t be either, since you’re well on your way to failing this class.”

  I protectively slid my paper toward me and snarled, “It’s not a joke. She Laughs is my band’s name. And we’re playing a show tonight, which is way more important to me than this quiz.”

  “Oh my god,” Jackie cackled. “You are a joke. A band? A show? Where, in your basement with your two loser friends? Oh wait, they’re probably in the band, right?”

  The rest of the class chortled along with her. I’d never hated Carlisle more. “Shut up, bitch! Ten years from now—”

  “Emily Black! Principal’s office now!” Mrs. Trot roared.

  “No, I don’t think so.” I snatched my backpack and logo-covered test. “I’m outta here.”

  I ran down the hall to Regan’s math class and knocked on the window of the closed door. Regan sat in the last row, and as soon as she saw me, she stood up and grabbed her things, ignoring her teacher’s objections. We swung by Tom’s science class and signaled him in the same fashion. He followed without hesitation.

  “Why did we even come here today?” I grumbled as we headed for the exit. The principal’s office was right next to it, and as we pushed our way through the big glass doors, a secretary came running out of the office.

  “Parker, Black, Fawcett!” she barked. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Rehearsal!” Tom smirked, grabbing both Regan and me by the hand and breaking into a sprint.

  I’d never expected Tom to mesh with me and Regan so well. I thought he’d be around for a month or two until Regan got bored. But she hadn’t, and even if she had, I wouldn’t have let her kick him out of the band. Surprisingly, he turned out to be the key ingredient to She Laughs’ sound.

  Before he joined, we were a stereotypical, angry-girl punk band. I relied on fast power chords, and Regan concerned herself with volume over accuracy when it came to drumming; I didn’t sing, I screamed like the victim in a slasher movie. We had melodic influences, but we ignored them. Aside from July Lies, who had an indie, Sonic Youth vibe to them, punk ruled River’s Edge, and the harder you played the more respect you won. Besides, Regan and I were pretty pissed off.

  The first few times he played with us, Tom dutifully learned our songs. But when I brought a new one in, he pushed his scraggly bleached hair behind his ear, straightened to his full six-foot height, and asked, “Can I make a few suggestions?”

  I wrinkled my nose distrustfully because this was not how things worked. I came up with a riff, then Regan and I jammed on it. But Regan was still all doe-eyed over him, so she said “Of course” before I could object.

  Tom knew me well enough by then to cut to the chase. “The bands that are getting real attention like July Lies aren’t your average punk band. You’ve gotta use everything you know about music to create a unique sound. You guys have Black Flag in your record collections, but you have the Bangles, too. Pop songs aren’t all bad. You want to write something that sticks in people’s heads. Catchy, like the Ramones or Nirvana. Also, if you don’t dial the amps up to eleven, you might be able to hear Emily’s vocals.” He stared poignantly at me with slightly bloodshot brown eyes. “You write great lyrics and Regan says you belt it out like Billie Holiday in the shower. You shouldn’t scream all the time or you’ll ruin your real voice.”

  That made me blush furiously and I wanted to say some thing sarcastic, but instead I conceded. “Okay, what would you do with that song?”

  Tom’s lips curled into a small smile. “Your dad loves the blues, right? Did he teach you slide guitar?” When I nodded, he instructed, “Open with it, and give the audience something they’re not expecting. Now, your lyrics are great, but in the verses, your voice should go down an octave and draw out the last notes of each line. In the chorus, pick up the pace like you’re used to.” He snapped his fingers to demonstrate. “Your phrasing should be clipped, staccato. And how do you two feel about harmonies?”

  A new dynamic was born: I composed, Tom arranged, and Regan provided the beat. We wrote songs with texture. Punk rock’s razor edge tinged with the blues and underscored by the simple rock ’n’ roll melody you’d find on the oldies radio station. Sometimes I crooned like Billie, sometimes I raged like Courtney Love.

  My father taught me how to play guitar, but Tom taught me to be a songwriter. So I developed a soft spot for him.

  But I shouldn’t have folded on the drug rule, not at the last rehearsal before our first show.

  After we ditched school for Regan’s basement, Tom grew increasingly agitated. Quitting pot wasn’t a big deal for me and Regan, since we were drinkers, but Tom usually relied on smoking a bowl to help him relax. As the afternoon wore on, Tom continually stopped in the middle of songs, put his bass down, and paced the room. Finally, I unplugged my guitar, retrieved the bottle of tequila Regan kept stashed behind her kit, and shoved it in his face. “Here, drink this and calm down.”

  He smacked it away. “Why the hell is this okay and pot isn’t? It makes no sense. Wait,” he spat, “it does. Booze calms you down. You need it to go onstage tonight, but who cares what I need.”

  We stood there, hands on hips, glowering at each other. Regan tapped out a steady beat on the cymbals, re
fusing to get involved, which she had done since I initiated the no-drugs rule. “Fine,” I spewed through gritted teeth. “I just want to get through this rehearsal. Then you can go score some drugs, okay?”

  He showed up at River’s Edge stoned, and then smoked some more with the July Lies drummer and other randoms hanging around backstage. “That’s some strong-ass weed,” I heard a kid with a blue Mohawk remark. Tom nodded with his eyes at half-mast and a dumb grin on his face.

  I glared at Regan. “If he screws this up, he’s out of the band.”

  She shook her head, hair freshly dyed burgundy for the occasion. “He’s not going to screw it up. You need to relax. Maybe you should get in on the next bowl.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s a great idea!”

  I ignored her and Marissa’s pleas to chill out and watched Tom decline into a near comatose state. When Regan told him it was time to set up our equipment, he just blinked at her.

  “He can’t even talk!” I exclaimed furiously.

  Regan rationalized, “He doesn’t have to talk to play bass.”

  “He has to walk to get onstage. He has to make sure his bass is in tune.” I ticked off these responsibilities on my fingers, my voice growing more panicked with each one.

  “Well, if you hadn’t been such a control freak for the past few months, he wouldn’t have gotten so high. We’re a high school band for Christ’s sake, not a chart-topping—”

  “Regan!” I yelled, frustrated by her lack of loyalty to the band, and to me. “I don’t want to top charts, I just want a band that’s good enough to get us the hell out of here. I thought that’s what you wanted, too.”

  She sighed heavily. “Just go set our shit up and I’ll get him onstage.”

  At an abandoned warehouse, you are your own roadie. The drums were already onstage behind the first band’s kit, but I had to check my guitar and microphone and, since he was incapable of doing it, Tom’s bass. I did it quickly, probably too quickly, but at River’s Edge there was none of that wait-half-an-hour-for-the-band-to-come-on crap. The last thing I needed was an impatient crowd. As I finished, Regan pushed Tom onstage and he somehow managed to strap on his guitar.

  His playing was off to say the least, and that in turn threw Regan off. Regan was never, ever off. She was the most natural drummer I’d ever seen. Tom had her really worried. He stood stock-still, his head hanging down from his neck like a fat tomato about to fall from the vine. Sweat mixed with the hair that flopped in his face. His fingers moved sluggishly, always a note or two behind, and hit the right chord only half the time. I made things worse by playing faster, thinking he’d speed up, but he just slowed down more. And the one thing that could have slightly made up for our wretched musicianship —my vocals—was drowned out. I hadn’t checked the microphone as well as I should have. Out of frustration I screeched the words at the top of my lungs. My voice cut out completely by the end of the fifth song, so I ripped the cord out of my guitar and stalked offstage, leaving Tom still playing and Regan staring after me.

  Marissa found me drinking a warm beer on the hood of her car. Exactly the spot she’d found me in almost two years earlier when I’d been feeling sorry for myself because I’d lost my virginity to such an unworthy guy. And she said exactly what she said back then: “The first is always the worst.”

  When I didn’t respond, she pointed at the guitar lying in the gravel by the front tire. “You can really play that thing. You can tell that your dad’s had you messing around with it since preschool. You’re not just a punk guitarist sloppily pounding out chords, Emily, you’ve got really refined technique. Even Lucy from my label said she’s never heard a kid play like that.”

  I ignored Marissa’s compliment. “She called me a kid?”

  “Emily, you are a kid. Why is that a bad thing? Why have you and Regan wanted to be twenty-five since you were ten? This is the best time of your life. You have no responsibilities—”

  “That’s easy for you to say! You have a record contract. You moved to Minneapolis. I want to grow up fast to get out of here!” I screamed, but I sounded childish, my voice scratching and dipping because it was all used up.

  “You’ll get out, Emily.” Marissa brushed a strand of my long, black hair off my sticky forehead and I batted her hand away. “Listen,” she said firmly, “you can leave on your eighteenth birthday like your mom did. You can tour and move wherever you want, but you’ll find out what I have. July Lies is not a Minneapolis band. No matter how much you hate it, this is where you’re from. You’re a Carlisle band, or if you really can’t stomach that, you’re a River’s Edge band.”

  “They’ll laugh us offstage if we try to play here again,” I scoffed.

  “No, even with your timing off and your mic problems, you were still one of the best bands these kids have seen.” Marissa smiled at me with genuine admiration. “After you guys work the kinks out, you’re gonna be huge.”

  Though I brushed off her compliments, I did take them to heart. Without those words, I might have broken up the band that night and given up on music forever, and it was not the time to give up on rock ’n’ roll.

  Everybody remembers how Nirvana exploded in the early nineties, but it was particularly significant to Regan and me. Marissa had taken the two of us to see them at a hole-in-the-wall club in Madison for my thirteenth birthday in 1989. We moshed up a storm just an arm’s length away from the band that would become the biggest of our generation. It would be a lie and a cliché to say we knew they’d get huge. Scruffy kids with loud guitars from middle-of-nowhere towns like Aberdeen, Washington, and Carlisle, Wisconsin, didn’t get huge. Guys with poodle hair from L. A. got huge. But as we drove home through the black Wisconsin night, the windows rolled down despite the stench of dead skunk rotting on the hot asphalt, all we wanted was what Nirvana had at the time.

  ”Someday I’m gonna see the country in an old van with July Lies,” Marissa declared over the blaring radio.

  “Yeah,” I sighed, fantasizing about the band I hadn’t even formed yet.

  By the time She Laughs played its first show, Nirvana mania was in full effect. The next time we saw them live, they performed in an arena. I was so amazed by the size and intensity of the crowd that I didn’t even jockey for my usual spot up front. I just stood in the middle of it all, marveling that a small-town band had done this.

  Punk never became the mainstream in Carlisle, though. People wore flannel, but it was no fashion statement. The jocks that ruled our high school called Kurt Cobain a fag because he wore a dress in a music video. Nirvana wouldn’t be cool until they were on the classic-rock station. Carlisle was that stagnant. But at River’s Edge, the air felt electric and full of promise. The heyday of the garage band had arrived. We all had a shot at being the next Nirvana.

  She Laughs’ audience grew every time we played. After our disastrous first performance, Tom swore off pot for good, so the only problems we faced onstage were the occasional broken string or drumstick, and those were generally signs of a good show.

  Junior year, Regan’s parents and my dad bought us an eight-track recorder as a joint Christmas present. We recorded our first demo tape in Regan’s basement. It was hard to choose ten songs for it because by then we had thirty. For cover art, we cut out one of the logos I’d drawn on my history test: She Laughs in swirling letters around a pair of sultry, smirking lips. We even left printed above it: “List the key events leading up to World War I.” We silk-screened Tshirts with the same logo and sold them alongside the cassettes. We made enough money to pay for gas to go on a short tour of Madison, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis the summer before senior year. We set the gigs up ourselves and were elated by the turnout, at least fifty cheering kids per city.

  Finding fans outside the boundaries of River’s Edge was an important step for us, but my biggest thrill came when I spotted a girl on Main Street in Carlisle wearing a She Laughs T-shirt. My dad actually noticed her first as we emerged from Carlisle Groceries and Meats. “A fan!” he
exclaimed proudly, gesturing across the street. She looked about fourteen and emulated Regan with her messy, cherry-red bob.

  She saw me and screamed, “Emily Black, you rock!” My dad joyfully clapped me on the back and the girl’s sister sneered at me. It was Jackie Jenkins. She’d gotten booted off the cheerleading squad after showing up blitzed at homecoming. Life wasn’t going nearly as well for her as it was for me.

  Things only got sweeter when Marissa came home for Christmas with a signed contract in hand from DGC Records, Nirvana’s label.

  ”You’re the next Nirvana!” Regan shouted as they embraced.

  Marissa pulled me into their hug, vowing, “You guys are next!”

  The three of us screeched so loud and long that the neighbors called the cops. Luke told my dad, “Now everyone’s going to think I’m an axe murderer,” but the two of them lit up cigars like Marissa’d announced she was pregnant, because in our families a record deal was better than a baby.

  New Year’s Eve 1993, we opened for July Lies again at River’s Edge. We had almost two years’ worth of shows under our belt. The audience had swollen to nearly eight hundred people and they weren’t just there to see July Lies. Tom was sober, as were Regan and I because our parents had come out. Our dads stood off to the side, but Molly and Marissa danced in the middle of the melee at the front of the stage.

  Maybe I imagined it because I saw Molly out there, but a few yards from the stage, I caught a glimpse of long, blond hair. I couldn’t see her face. She was too far away and she had her arms up, waving in the air to the steady riff of my guitar. But my stomach clenched and I thought, Louisa.

  My gaze locked on her as I wailed the last chorus: “You’re sixteen years lost and I’m sixteen years found. You couldn’t teach me how to live, but I figured out how. I figured out how!”

  I clenched my eyes shut for a few seconds while I held the last note and Regan pounded out the final three drumbeats that closed the song, but when I opened them I’d lost sight of the blond. I spent the next song only half focused on the music, combing the crowd for her. Then I abruptly ended the set two songs early with a garbled “Thank you, good night,” set my guitar down onstage, and ran off, leaving Regan and Tom as bewildered as they must have been that very first show.