“You took your time, tosser!”
“I’ve been busy; what did our glorious leader want?”
“He wants a pedal to make guitars sound horrible; listen to this.” Lenny thumbs his interface and a warm rasping ooze throbs in the air around them; Miles furrows his brow.
“Is it a quattro through a fuzzbox?”
“Six string through a bass cabinet, four twelve inch speakers full of holes; fair guess though, it’s what I would have said if I hadn’t been told otherwise. It’ll need an octave dropper, high cut and distortion.”
“Compression?”
“Not onboard; it’ll take chops to use this box, man! One wrong move and your speakers are gonna fly across the dance floor like confetti; I’m going to call it the Flubber Guts.” Miles looks over his shoulder to the door by which Froot had recently departed.
“Suits him.”
Skenthurp Industrial Estate, Alpha Centauri Bd
Whenever’s good for you, 2236 A.D.
At long, long last the royalties from Maximum Purity show up. The debt owed to Sidney White was paid off years ago, but with one financial instrument and another he’s held on to the Igniters cash right up until now. Miles looks back and realises his whole life has felt as if he’s been swimming; every once in a while there would be an island or a ship and he’d rest awhile but before long a wave would take the island or the ship would sink and he’d carry on swimming, never with any clear idea of his ultimate destination. Now he’s in sight of the shore, but it’s just as scary in its own way. At any moment a wave may drag him all the way back out; there may be sharks and jagged rocks further in, but as long as he can see the shore he knows which direction to swim.
Miles put seed funding into a business once, back when he first started making real money with the Big Band; the old Customs House on Proxima and Byrd was for sale after a period of squatters dance parties on the second floor, which bounced up and down alarmingly when the crowd got going. It was known locally as the Beetroot because of the purple glazed bricks encasing its steel frame, and a couple of the Heavy Metal Guys wanted to convert it into a legit music bar. At the time Miles was feeling guilty for being about the only one from the old crowd making a decent living from music, and it felt good to be able to help a couple of friends out. For all he knew it was a non starter, but for such touring acts as visit the colonies the Beat Motel became known as the place you want to play.
Miles’ backdated royalties aren’t enough to buy a house in the quiet suburb of Dresden Green outright, but he offloads some of his stake in the music bar and digs up a few buried treasures. While sorting through his papers, he also discovers he owns about 0.0001% of the old BMC house on Proxima Road. He’d signed up for (or most likely failed to opt out of) some tied housing sell-off scheme not long before he quit, and legitimately owns a tiny fraction of the building. He vaguely remembered the announcement of the scheme on the company channel; at the time he’d been with Anna and this was at least a way to build up something on the off chance he’d be able to hold on to her. He’d briefly considered signing up for a tied house in New Sunlight, but that way lay stone guaranteed straightsville and he’d never seen himself as a company man. Still; one and a bit houses! He has a property portfolio!
After twelve years, Miles is done with the relentless military organisation of life in the Big Band, and feels the time is right to take things easier for his health and sanity; he’s not getting any younger when all’s said and done. Sha’ is with him as he retrieves his junk from all over the House of the Red Sun and stuffs it into bags.
“So what you gonna do? Put your own band together?” Miles shakes his head.
“I’m an old man of thirty now, Sha’; what I need is the quiet life. Radio Sunlight’s considering me for their Arts Correspondent vacancy and I’ve contacts in the BVC, so who knows?”
Speedin’ Sean Siemens, the first man to crash a Maserati on Mars, coined the phrase Acid Beat to describe the fuzzed up guitar music coming out of the Alpha system; he’d been an auto journalist, but the recession lessened demand for opinionated coked up copy concerning luxury sports hover pods. He’s scraping along in local newspaper The New Sunlight Star for now, but Acid Beat smelled like money to him. This music may have been born from fiscal downturn, it was cheaper to pay the three or four members of these groups than the twenty or thirty in traditional dance bands, but the monetary cycle eternally fluctuated and those who got in on the ground floor now could well ride the rising tide when better times come calling, as they surely will. All the available music periodicals were respectable organs, penned by trained and knowledgeable elder statesmen of the trade; the tone was uniformly paternal, and music was presented as a harmless hobby or steady if unglamorous career. Sean has an idea for a new kind of paper; loud music, fast bikes and as much sex and drugs as he can get past the publishers. Imagine his interest on discovering the voice reviewing opera on local radio belongs to the Miles Ravenscroft; Sean has the style, what he needs is legitimacy. The idea of obtaining an interview with a reclusive legend blossoms into a plan to secure him as Acid Beat correspondent, freeing Sean up to spend more time crashing things.
There is a two room prefab office on the edge of a run down industrial estate and the receptionist has instructed Miles to wait. She is vaguely annoyed to see he has a book and is reading; reading is not waiting. She wonders whether she should say something but finds she doesn’t know what to say as people usually wait properly, trying to find interest in the deliberately neutral décor and rearranging themselves uncomfortably on the bed of static nails that is the nylon waiting sofa. These treacherous furnishings may be ordered from any office supplies catalogue and come in varying shock value; Miles is currently in intimate contact with a seventy volt Zapmaster General, but it’s regrettably humid today. Eventually she comes to realise the man is whistling; whistling discordantly, intermittently and very quietly but it was exceptionally pervasive once you knew it was there. She found herself anticipating when the sound would resume during the silences. Any moment… damn! She was sure it was – oh! There it is again!
Miles is summoned through to Sean’s office and glances at his own seat before an imposing oak desk, which he calculates will put his line of vision about a foot below his interviewer. Psychology doesn’t work on Miles, but he’s aware of the concept; he places his satchel on the desk between them before crouching in the low seat like a resentful praying mantis. Sean stares at the accessory for some seconds before gesticulating with a pencil.
“Um, would you mind removing your bag from my desk?”
“Have you another chair in this place? Somebody’s sawn the legs off mine.”
“It’s the only one.” Sean admits, visibly deflated. Miles retrieves the thick satchel and uses it as a booster seat.
“So” begins Sean, having gathered his thoughts “New Sunlight eh? You can’t be a living legend without a connection to the place!” Miles nods.
"There were bacteria of greatness in that old town. Others caught the disease but I escaped."
“People say you’re the father of Acid Beat.”
“Is that what they’re calling it now?”
“If I’ve any say in the matter they will.”
“You know I was never leading it, I was just the one out front; a rock & roll show is one percent performer and ninety nine percent audience.”
“But it’s the performer who gets the free beer.”
“Only by way of compensation; can you imagine what it was like to be one of the only four people who could never see an Igniters show?”
“You must have seen the New Igniters?” Miles winces.
“The New Igniters were like… you know when you’ve this ex girlfriend and you know you blew it? You’ll cross the street to avoid her, but we’re cool now.”
“A lot of people say they were never the same.”
“Well yes, hence the ‘New’; when I left they lost their guitarist, singer, songwriter and the only g
ood looking guy in the band. Their later stuff’s great though; I love the extended line up with horns and backing singers.”
“The Big Band made such things compulsory.”
“I don’t know how we did it; the whole point of small bands was the promoters wouldn’t pay much for new music. Somehow we took twelve people on the road and made money. At a time when everyone used portable electric pianos, Solomon had an antique organ the size of a garden shed; it used to take four of us to get it onstage. Those walls of speakers weren’t for show either; Froot flat out refused to put the Big Band through a house sound rig, and from the first album onwards there were a couple of acoustics undergraduates working with us”
“I’ve heard he never hired producers.”
“Hell no; Froot always said producer was a made up job! As long as he got us the best sound engineers all they had to do was get it on tape. We knew we had a good one when this Korean kid, Kim Chul-su I think he was called, just hung a single stereo mic from the ceiling, pointed to it and said ‘the audience is here’. I remember we all had the same reaction; blank incomprehension for a few seconds until the penny dropped, and then he got a standing ovation from everyone in the room! He’d taken the trouble to see us play a few times, and understood we could control our own levels; most acts try to play over each other, and an engineer has to untie the knots. He couldn’t have done an album live in one take with any other band, but he knew he could with us. That was a months recording wrapped up in a weekend; thing was we’d already paid for the month in advance. Froot didn’t care; he’s just happy to get it in the can but later he was outside having a smoke with the engineer and asked what he was gonna do with a month off, y’know, just making small talk. Turned out there was some kind of free music school arrangement with the local comp when the studio’s booked but not being used; Froot got back in the room and practically ordered everyone to turn up at this thing and help out. Sha’ drew up a rota which was colour coded, so I think she must have taken some time over it; I did Wednesdays which were green and Tuesdays as well on Purple Dot weeks. There were a lot of students learning wind instruments, so even with our horn section turning up my pit band days still came in useful.”
“How did you like being a teacher? Was it strange being a role model?”
“The kids were pretty quiet because they knew who we were, and I suppose they imagined we knew what we were talking about; being on a couple of magazine covers gives people that impression for some reason. I did get trouble from one gobby twat on trombone; asked him for the lowest note he could get so of course the slide fell off which I always find funny, but the rest of them were great. When we were done Sha’ had one of those coloured timetables made up poster sized which we all had to sign for the local news; I think it got raffled off for the cause. Chul-su does movie soundtracks now; I saw his name at the start of Casablanca III.”
“It has been widely reported[‡‡‡‡] the entourage was a sophisticated smuggling operation; many believe the Big Band was nothing more than a front.” Miles waves a hand dismissively.
“That was a rumour, it was probably Froot put it about and it got well out of hand. We were investigated by UniPol come the end; they’re not like your regular coppers, I must say.”
“How d’you mean?”
“Sunglasses, man; like they were at the beach, but it’s a dark little room with a bright light shining right at you! I couldn’t shake the idea they were secretly wearing glittery eye shadow, which doesn’t help when you’re slightly stoned and trying to take it seriously. Very snappy dressers too; even I can tell it’s not off the peg. I got the feeling a cue was being given but couldn’t for the life of me work out how I was meant to react; people are fucking weird sometimes. They asked me the same four questions in as many different ways as you can imagine over three days; one was straightforward enough, the second was essentially ‘would you like to go to prison for ever and ever?’ and the other two were nonsensical but nothing was ever proved. Sometimes, when you’re moving around the systems, you might know someone on Bd with something they can’t shift but someone on Earth would take your arm off. You’re going there anyway, and if you want to drop off a gift to an old friend and she puts something she needs shot of your way, it’s not…” Miles pauses for a minute, perturbed. Sean fills the silence.
“It really sounds like smuggling.”
“Now I say it out loud it does seem like it, but it was only pocket money compared to what the band was making legitimately.”
“I’ll probably leave that bit out then, but the Interpol story was good. Do you still see the Igniters?”
“Oh yeah, Lenny’s been involved with the Big Band for years, even if he wasn’t on drums he’d be behind the scenes somewhere and we were all together at Jimbobs’ thirtieth; I can’t believe how old we are! It’s good to have Maximum Purity to look back on; those kids are the way people still think of us, and in some small way we’ll never grow up now. Do you remember your review for the Newer Musical Express?” It’s Sean’s turn to wince.
“Ah. You saw that?”
“’Until the sound of syphilis is recorded, this is the very worst thing you can listen to.’ We loved it! It was on all our gig posters for a year.”
“I don’t suppose you have much time these days for keeping up with new bands?”
“Quite the opposite; there’s so much good music out there right now. Our scene never got beyond a couple hundred at a show; the initial hype died down when the mainstream realised it had peaked, but more new bands are forming now than in the twenties. It’s just so difficult to find an audience; most crowds are four bands watching a fifth. Nobody’s got the money to chance a night out for an act they’ve never heard of.”
“But music is instantly available out of thin air; publicity shouldn’t be a problem.”
“There’s just so much of it; everyone has an equal amount of clout, which is roughly nothing, so why would anyone search them out? We’re in a recession and that’s not changing any time soon; right now guitar music is a buyers’ market, and nobody’s buying.”
“You paint a bleak picture; would you have any words of optimism to sign off with before my readers slit their wrists?” Miles gives it some thought.
“If you want to be the future of rock & roll, don’t join a band; join an audience.” After switching off the recorder Sean has something further to ask.
“This interview’s for the local paper, as you know, but I’m looking to set up my own; it’s going to be a wide revue of music, gadgets, pods, bikes you name it. You have an interest in current bands and I’d very much like you to be the Acid Beat correspondent.” Miles looks pained.
“Is there any chance you’ll stop calling it that?”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
“Fair enough; union rates apply.” This came as a relief to Sean, as he’d expected to pay a premium for so uniquely qualified an applicant. He showed Miles a dummy, publishing jargon for a mock up of what the mag would look like; it contains no real content aside from stock photos and example texts, but Miles likes it. It looks like music sounds; he can’t imagine who’s going to buy it but he’ll see a lot of bands for nothing and maybe even get free records, so Maximum Acid Beat magazine is born.
As a musician, Miles had always assumed he knew roughly how journalism worked; you heard a band you liked, checked them out and that was that. Not a bit of it; there was an official ‘maybe’ list containing at least six bands which had broken up, one air crash and, weirdly enough after all this time, the Igniters. This went with a list of ‘People we think are great’ and ‘People we hate and why’. These lists weren’t written down as such although memos came and went, but Miles soon found everyone in the media had the same lists; not one of the bastards was prepared to write a single word until they were absolutely certain everyone else felt exactly the same way! Bugger this for a game of soldiers, thought Miles one morning, and headed for Sean’s office to negotiate some elbow room; luckil
y he found his boss arguing with two creditors, a plumber and the receptionist. After trying to make his objections understood for some time, Miles managed to get an exasperated ‘God! Do what you want!’ from the boss. Good enough.
For personalised read highly focused and compartmentalized data streaming into a sensory slop pail designed to filter everything not appertaining to self preservation and reproduction; venerate animal over intellect and deify the first person singular. Individuality is the greatest fairy story ever told. Every cruelty, conspiracy and cynicism is an own goal; we are ultimately one as our hosts slug it out in a genetic relay race we are only dimly aware of and cannot control. Many suggest our consciousness shifts between dimensions, memories and identities in which case have a care; the next genitals you attach wires to may become your own.
Miles sighed and lay the paper flat on the café table halfway through Sean’s foaming prose, wondering where the circulation was coming from. The mag sold well, but advertising was non-existent and you didn’t have to read far to see why; the example above started as a review of a perfectly reasonable mid range portable music player, but three paragraphs in the needle jumped the groove and Sean had somehow linked the company to human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He glanced again at the front cover featuring two large, muddy and incredibly expensive motorcycles, himself and Sean in the background looking tired but happy. Miles learnt to ride on his old US Diesel of course, and modern bikes may well be faster but they don’t feel like it; scraping the hundred mile an hour mark on Count Scion had taken every ounce of strength to keep the archaic machine from leaving the road. Sometimes it’d shake so bad at those speeds you’d think if you didn’t hold on with all you had the whole bike could just fly apart, and when you dismounted it felt like you’d gone ten rounds with a Nephilim. Getting anything like the same kick out of a modern machine required imagination and Sean, no stranger to vehicle-related nights in the cells himself, was an ideas man.
The Only War Page 11