by Max Frick
bottom of the poster; and lastly, the darkness, at least in part, lifted from his countenance. For his anger, though still severe, was momentarily tempered by this one consoling circumstance: the whipping boy was in town.
17
Since primitive man first stretched the hide of some slain and flayed beast tightly over a hollowed out tree stump and, after a few inquisitive taps, sat cross-legged before his invention beating out in faithful translation the simple song in his soul – a simple song which nevertheless touched profoundly the souls of his fellow men, inspiring some to dance and others to chant, but in all a feeling of awe and wonderment – music has undergone much refinement.Perhaps from that same tree, from somewhere higher up on the trunk, another drum was fashioned which, when struck, made a sharper, clearer sound, and from one of its thinner branches a rudimentary flute; crude instruments, making elementary noises, that down through the ages evolved and diversified into the multifarious array played, and heard, today: be it a doleful solo performance on acoustic guitar only, or the majestic swoopings and soarings of an entire symphony orchestra, employing wind, string, brass and percussion all at the same time; or any of the duos, trios, quartets, quintets, choirs and ensembles in between, performing the gamut of styles from a cappella to acid jazz via pop, punk, rap, funk, soul, rock’n’roll, etc, plugged or unplugged, live or pre-recorded, up to and including the solitary ‘whiz kid’ at the PC in his bedroom who, with the very latest technology literally at his fingertips, can, more or less accurately, recreate any or all of these foregone sounds, notes, tones, chords, riffs, movements or styles, fuse them all and introduce new ones, merely by tapping a few keys.But regardless of such meticulous refinement, and such glorious, inharmonious diversity, music, since those first primitive beatings, remains unchanged. It is still in essence – at least when made honestly and no matter how it is made – the faithful translation of the songs in our souls, inspiring some of us to dance, others to sing along, but in all of us a feeling of awe and wonderment.But it is not always made honestly.
It is a commonplace that all artists steal, but they do not all steal in the same way. There is a world of difference, for example, between those who openly and respectfully acknowledge their influences and in the spirit of homage proudly wear, alongside their own hearts, someone else’s heart on their sleeves and those – undeserving of the title of artist at all (which they and they only bestow upon themselves) – who surreptitiously pilfer the ideas of others and try to pass them off as their own.Desirous merely of fame, as a spoiled child craves attention, and covetous of the adulation and adoration heaped upon the former type of artist, this latter type will remorselessly cull, from whatever or whoever is currently attracting acclaim, everything they need to hitch themselves to ‘the scene’ and launch themselves – with more than a little help from other agents, those ad men and the like, as desirous merely of fortune as their protégés are of fame and every bit as bereft of integrity – launch themselves – using extensive and expensive promotional campaigns, akin to blanket bombing, on a passive, readily exploitable majority – launch themselves – sometimes with hitherto unimagined levels of success, becoming in some cases, almost literally overnight, multi-million selling sensations – launch themselves into, or, indeed, keep themselves in, the spotlight.
And yet, despite all their thievery they are not, strictly speaking, thieves – for, after all, stolen goods retain their value – they are not thieves but forgers, or, more accurately still, forgeries: worthless imitations of something infinitely more valuable. They lack that essential quality, undeniable though difficult to define, that exudes from the core of all true artists, pervading and authenticating their works as a watermark authenticates currency. And, ironically, what’s the simplest way to detect a forgery? Hold it up to the light.
It was something of this nature at least, something more or less to this effect, that Billy, only half listening as he idly flicked the channels from his usual position in the chair, had thus far managed to glean from the disjointed bletherings of Tony, who had done nothing else from the minute they walked in but inhale line after line after line of cocaine and ramble endlessly on and on on the whys and wherefores of music.
Hunched over the small table, he would, with his bank card, feverishly chop and shape three or four lines in advance, and every now and again, abruptly interrupting his monologue, would snort, through a rolled up ten pound note, one half of one line with one nostril, the other with the other, then simultaneously throw back his head, turn down the corners of his mouth, sniff successively in a diminishing scale and swallow, sending a globule of narcotic mucus – while he nervily thumbed at his nose – trickling slowly down the back of his throat. His eyes were wide and wild, shot through with red and darkly encircled, and even if his hair, supposing it longer and thicker than it actually was, had been utterly dishevelled and sticking up in tufts, it could not in any way have enhanced the vivid portrait of stark staring madness that he now presented.
He would then resume his rambling. And although he invariably re-opened with a ‘look, man, all I’m sayin is…’ or a ‘I’m fuckin tellin you, man…’ he seemed to make very little attempt to pick up where he’d left off, diverging sometimes to the very brink of irrelevance in relation to what he’d previously been saying, leaving his audience (namely Billy) to fill in the gaps and complete the picture. But the truth is that he was dredging up from somewhere deep inside, from the very pit of his soul no less, random bits and pieces of an aesthetic theory so natural to him, so fundamental a part of him, something inborn and inseparable which he carried within himself fully formed and perfectly coherent, that he failed to notice these gaps in his speech, which led to so much confusion and loss of meaning, and consequently frustration on his part, in the outside world.
And he would pace too: back and forth, to and fro, here and there, up and down; in front of the telly, behind the chair, along and back along the length of the couch; ranting and raving and bawling and shouting and gesticulating emphatically – grabbing at the beginnings of some words (those most vehemently enunciated, always expletives) with the curled fingers of his right hand (sometimes both hands) and physically wrenching them out of himself. And at every ‘this cunt!’ or ‘that cunt!’ or ‘cunts like fuckin him!’ he would point accusingly at the cardboard Ryan Watson – standing over by the CD player with its back to the room – like some demented peripatetic professor hell-bent on ceaselessly berating a pupil who had imprudently dared to defy him and whom he’d banished for his insolence to the corner.
Another line, then another, his wide, wild eyes growing ever wider and wilder, those dark circles darker still.
‘I’m fuckin tellin you, man:’ he went on, ‘as far as I’m concerned music’s about the only fuckin thing that makes life here worth livin! Well, that and drugs. And I’m not just goin to stand back and watch while cunts like fuckin him fuckin cheapen it! What time is it, by the way?’
Flick. Flick. Flick.
‘HO! What fuckin time is it?’
Billy flicked on the teletext and flicked it off again.
‘Half-seven,’ he said.
Flick.
‘Half-seven?’ said Tony. ‘C’mon, we need to get goin!’
‘Goin where?’
Flick.
‘The fuckin gig! We’re goin to the gig!’
‘The gig...?’
Flick. Flick.
‘...I could do with a quiet night in.’
‘Shame you’re fuckin drivin then, eh?’
‘I’m not drivin anywhere.’
Flick.
‘Aye you fuckin are! Get ready, c’mon!’
‘Forget it, man,’ said Billy. ‘I’m stayin in. You go if you like.’
Flick. Flick. Flick.
The TV remote control lay on the chair arm beside him, with his hand resting only very leisurely on top of it. Tony suddenly lunged at it from around the back of the chair. But Billy, once bitten, was too quick for him.
‘E
h, don’t think so,’ he said dryly, having swiftly whipped it away from Tony’s grabbing hand.
Tony stormed over to the window and tightly gripped the sill. But unwilling, or unable, to let Billy outmanoeuvre him he began casting around on the floor at his feet for some suitably heavy object, instantaneously seizing upon an empty vodka bottle. Weighing it in the palm of his hand he inspected it, like fruit, to gauge the damage it might be capable of, and first setting his sights hurled it rock-like at the telly. It flew past Billy’s left ear, battered the screen dead centre and smashed to smithereens. Dooly sprang up from a flaccid slumber by the foot of the front door barking hysterically and Billy, after shielding himself reflexively with an arm and a leg, leapt up out of his chair and rained upon Tony a battery of furious rebukes intended...
‘HOWFHOWFHOWFHOWFHOWF! HOWFHOWFHOWF!’
...intended to be...
‘HOWFHOWFHOWFHOWF!’
...to be every bit as...
‘HOWFHOWF! HOWFHOWFHOWFHOWF!’
‘DOOLY!’
...To be every bit as cutting as the shards of broken glass that had previously rained upon him.
‘And you better not have hurt that dog!’ he concluded.
Tony was now, head bowed, leaning on the windowsill, staring between his arms at his feet and breathing, very patiently, through his