#Oh and also 1 demo session

[morganapengdragon]

Whenever I've got a bunch of corporate sounding meetings in my calendar it immediately makes me think of that episode of i am in eskew where David gets a corpo project job

[emperor-kumquat]

Hiiiiii!

I’ve read your fic Mercy before and just read it again bc I think it’s so good. MAJOR kudos to you for finishing so much, doing all the different parts. For the other ones too!

By golly, I can’t imagine how much time it took to write every single one of those stories and then order them by “Go to section 3 xyz” then “Go to section 51 xyz”

I also noticed that there’s art now in the first three chapters!! Which is amazing. Haven’t read four yet, maybe there’s art for that too. But is that what you’re commissioning artists to do? I’m curious!

🇨🇦 to 🇨🇦 :)

Hello-Bonjour fellow Canadian! Thank you for enjoying my work :) Mercy is a huuuuuge project that I work on every day!

I'm still adding in all the key pictures and concept art in AO3 because I just learned that I could do that. So far Reformed Predator has all the art I could add right now with a few chapters or moments that are bare (that will change in the future). I am stuffing images into Space Adventure too so that will be done soon (I am also editing Space Adventure every day because it's my oldest story and could do with a quality boost). Discovery only has pictures in Part 1-2 but I will stuff the story with pictures as soon as I have done all I could with Space Adventure.

Yes, three fanfictions with accompanying pictures for every chapter coming soon! Monstrous Heart will get the odd scene and concept art but right now, the first three stories are my priority. I am concentrating my art efforts into them so that I can at least start adapting some of the stories into videos. I have a very ambitious goal of obtaining all Part 2 images for Space Adventure, Reformed Predator, and Discovery so I can complete their videos. Oh and all brand new Part 1 images for them as well to relaunch the videos of Part 1 for these paths (much has changed and improved since the demo of 2021)! Right now, I have something like 1000 pieces of art for Mercy. Haha but of course, I don't cram everything into the fanfictions. For example, "Predaking Gets Therapy" is the adaptation of Reformed Predator Part 3 chapter 2 and has about 50 images in it. The AO3 chapter just shows a couple of images. I would love to have at least one picture per chapter on AO3 and all concept arts for the first three stories. For the fourth story, just the concept arts is my goal for now. All this is very costly because many artists are paid! Yes, commissions are key to bringing my stories to life. I am thankful to them and to the volunteer artists who really save my butt.

Still looking for paid and volunteer Transformers artists! Haha I have been scouting actually. If I see some good Transformers art on Tumblr, I check the poster's bio to see if they do commissions. I've been randomly DMing artists. Sometimes they know exactly what my project is already! But hey anyone reading this is welcome to come to me, no need to be shy! I had an artist tell me they were waiting for me to reach out to them XD

Transformers: Mercy is going to be very unique as first, fanfictions with a 100 pictures inside them, then secondly as videos with 1000s (visual novel type TV show?!)

I invite all to take a look at what is happening to the AO3 fanfictions here! The new pictures and text edits are elevating the experience!

And everyone, please see this amazing adaptation of one of the longest Mercy chapters into video form! It doesn't spoil anything, just know that this storyline is specifically the result of the player choosing to eat Starscream. I am happy to say that people have been praising the therapy session for how it is written :)

[lovebirdgames]

Heartbreaker Quarterly Update - April 2025

We made it to spring! Thank goodness! I feel like the world is waking up. Hope you all are well!

Let's start by having a look at last quarter's to-do list...

As always, brainstorming is ongoing. Now that's it's warm enough to take walks and sit outside the coffee shop, I'm sure we'll do even more of it.

My goal was to soft "finish" the first route by making it to the end of one of the branching paths, which I did!

Alex wound up pivoting away from programming and focusing on organization of route ideas. We also honed back in on character profiles instead. After Lite told us she would be retiring, we asked if we could do a few more concept art sessions. As you know by now, it's a superhero game, so a lot of characters have more than one look and are a bit complicated!

We also wound up commissioning our logo this past quarter from Khoaisama yet again! And Lite hit us with some adorable chibi art, as you can see here!

WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO! Look at that amazing logo and adorable chibi! Hammerhead is too freaking cute!! Oh my gosh, this looks way better than what I cobbled together above, doesn't it? Hahaha.

February 14th was huge as we got to reveal the game and core cast. We were not planning to do so for a while, but I got a little excited. I’m very hyped I can now type these quarterly updates and talk about the characters more freely. Last time I almost typed “Ham” and you woulda been like “you got us dating a cold cut??”

Anyways, my goal is to finish Ham's route next, and considering I'm just a few chapters from the end, I'm confident I'll be able to do it this month. Then I'd like to go back over, edit, and buff it up. After that, it's onto The Beast!

I'm looking forward to it. Though at the same time I must lament it's hard to devote as much time to writing as I wish I could. I wish I could do this full-time. TT_TT Or I wish four-day work weeks would become a thing already. There's just never enough free time in a week. Waaa.

*ahem*

Finally, we had 3 more concept sessions with Lite that went great! I dunno why I put it as a goal when our last session was this past Sunday. Maybe I'll dot a few T's and cross a few I's on my own end in that department...I messed up that saying...oh well. Alex will continue organizing route ideas, and we'll both be brainstorming and finalizing character profiles.

Like we did last time, I would like to leave you with an excerpt from our boy failure Hammerhead's route! This one showcases the interactions among the Heroes Alliance.

If you're wondering why everything's in quotations, this is what programming looks like in Ren'py! The stuff in quotes are what you see appear in the text box, as our main character's thoughts and descriptions. If you see a little tag next to the quotations such as p (Perseverance) or b (The Beast), that means they are speaking and their name will appear in the dialogue box.

Without further ado, here is a very fun scene from the demo where Heartbreaker and Hammerhead eavesdrop on a Heroes Alliance meeting they were not invited to...

They're a mess.

Finally, I'll leave another song from Hammerhead's playlist. Songs with lots of water references/puns really suit him.

Lots more fun shenanigans to look forward to~ Both in Heartbreaker and hopefully in real life with the weather warming up! Have a beautiful spring, everyone, and see you for the next update on July 1!

[sarasa-cat]

Original plan for today:

1. Do some reading over coffee in the early morning

2. Continue cleaning The Great Mess That Has Exploded Everywhere (in the house--- namely laundry, everwhere, but also my office is such a wreck YET AGAIN I'm working out of my bed and my little writers nook in the bedroom)

3. Have a quick writing session for no more than 30 minutes.

4. Put in 6 solid uninterrupted hours BANGING through making sense of some technical documentation (while coding up a demo thinger that helps me understand this shit)

5. Take a walk while listening to a podcast or an audiobook or something -- something interesting. Walk for 45-60 minutes. Hill Climb. At a good pace.

THE REALITY:

1. Oversleep by 4 hours 30 minutes because the jetlag finally hit or something.

2. Fall asleep (literally!) while reading. (because legit tired and needed more sleep to compensate for timezone hell experienced on monday).

3. Start my writing session. Realize that it was going to be way more than 30 minutes of words. Do research. write more and more and more and more and more and more.

4. Take break from writing, be social. Get inspired to do all of the fandom things. Oh noes. OH YES!!!!

5. Notice that I am still in PJs and now it is too dark and toooooo cold to go outside an engage in anything shaped like exercise.

6. Actually, starting to feel hungry. Need to make food.

... Prolly not going to bang through writing code that attempts to makes sense of some technical documentation that I'm slogging my way through...

... Wonders why I just never got around to all of the art stuff I had planned to do in january.

........ what is time?

WHAT TIME ZONE AM I IN?

[iantimony]

didn't poast last week so this is a two-week extravaganza post! con: got roped into DMing dnd pro: none of these fools have read mdzs so i can steal plots from there. hope the party is ready to be lead on a quest by a disembodied arm!

listening: oh shit SO many things. i will not be linking to all of them.

depeche mode: basically just their top songs on spotify, not any specific album. strong shoutout to 'shake the disease' and 'wrong' (which featured in my secret samol post!)

disturbed: ditto

franz ferdinand: albums 'hits to the head' and 'tonight'. throwbacks

phoenix: 'wolfgang amadeus phoenix' ditto throwback

inxs: 'x' DITTO throwback. doesn't hit the same as when i first listened to em years ago unfortunately

streetlight manifesto: album 'somewhere in the between'

boy and bear: 'harlequin dream'

sammy rae: 'let's throw a party', 'the good life', and their 'everybody wants to rule the world' cover

hozier: 'wasteland baby' and 'unreal unearth'

paramore: album 'this is why'

grizzly bear: 'veckatimiest' and 'painted ruins'

haken: their newest album 'fauna' because i'm thinking about whether or not to go to one of their shows in feb (leaning towards yes right now)

my SO's pinecore playlist

shosty symphony no 5 (<3)

and, finally, a lot of borodin symphony no. 1 in e flat and the last two movements of rimsky-korsakov golden cockerel because that's what the youth orchestra i'm volunteering with is playing right now haha

for podcasts, i've listened to the new counter/weight prequel eps! i'm so charmed to see these characters again. i still haven't finished millenium break holiday special because i lost my spot when a bunch of an episode played without sound by accident so i finally went and scrubbed back to the beginning of the episode (it's the second to last part) so by next week i will FINALLY be out of holiday special zone.

reading: finished rereading tgcf lol,,, in loving memory of square checkbox: apparently apple is switching to circle ones? hateful wikipedia page for kessler syndrome my friend @celestialtourguide sent me a dm to ask about a few of the characters in this manuscript and i was immediately charmed by it. it's so pretty, i loved the informational blurbs, just really cool stuff. it was already on waybackmachine but i've gone ahead and updated it.

watching: kurtis conner looksmaxxing. weird little subculture peek. rewatched sideways' why the music in cats 2019 is worse than you thought because my roommate was interested. this led us to the same channel's why avatar has the most ironic soundtrack of all time because roommate misread ironic as iconic and she really likes that movie. no accounting for taste, but aight. much more interesting than i thought it would be. that video then lead us to tony hinnigan's woodwind demos because hell fuckin yes. big-ass panpipes.

i've been keeping up on dunmeshi anime in little watch sessions with my SO, and also am working through kill la kill with him! i've seen it before but he has not so i'm really enjoying that.

playing: fallow.

making: i managed to finish my secret samol gift in time for reveal day!!! comics are fuckin hard dude!!!! i don't know if i'll be doing it again but it was a fun challenge. i decided to use a New App for some reason instead of procreate because procreate has not been hitting right and i wanted comic half tone brushes for this project. app is called sketchbook, it's an orange icon with a pencil on it. shrug! it's fine! i'll probably keep using it for a bit. started working on an english paper piecing project! soliciting tips for that because right now my method is: cut out hexagon using pattern piece i made to be 1/4 in larger all around than the template, gluestick template onto hexagon, baste edges down neatly, whip-stitch right sides together. remove template once all six sides have something attached. i'm sure there's a better way to streamline this process, i'll have to experiment. this will end up as a dice bag i think.

finally, pottery starts again this week! so next week will have some of that in here

eating: ah beans i did not do a good job keeping track of this. uh. made the ground pork & cabbage thing again because my roommate got SO much napa cabbage for making kimchi and we had a shitload left over. napa cabbage isn't as good as a more standard cabbage for this imo, standard cabbage tends to be a little sweeter i think once it's cooked in? idk. had some stage 5 mental illness moments last week trying to cook dinner on a very short time scale with lots of other shit to do, following a recipe because fucking of course my roommate wanted me to cook with a recipe that night. anyways.

misc: like said at the top, somehow i managed to sign up for Another Activity god damn it. so now every saturday evening i run dnd. tl;dr i'm in a group irl that meets biweekly, someone who i give a lift to for that was complaining in the car that their other online group's dm ragequit after his encounter wasn't well-balanced (skill issue) and before thinking about it i just was like oh well i could probably step in if you need! god damn ittttt lol i have missed dming so it should be fun. i vibe checked them for a session 0 last week and they seem chill and honestly shouldn't be too much work on my end, especially if i yoink plots from mdzs ha ha ha. other than that, all is basically well. i've settled back into a schedule, applied for some summer positions (!), and absolutely hate the amount of busy work in one of my two classes. yippee

[dograffe1]

I'm not delaying it any longer. Nirvana review right here right now no more excuses. Full in depth review with each song let's go. (note: a few of the songs included are found on the deluxe editions of the correlating album. I won't do any live, pre-production, demo recordings etc. The only instance in which I will is if the song has no "final" version. I'm also not counting songs that appear on multiple albums or singles as a different version, I will rate whichever one I find to be better and will include it on the first album it was on.)

Bleach

Their first album, not their best not their worst, I rank it at #3. Love the sound of the songs and the rhythm but other than that it's just a good album Songs:

Blew: 7/10

Floyd The Barber: 9/10

About A Girl: 8/10

School: 6/10

Love Buzz: 7/10

Paper Cuts: 9/10

Negative Creep: 9/10

Scoff: 8/10

Swap Meet: 7/10

Mr. Moustache: 9/10

Sifting: 9/10

Big Cheese: 6.5/10

Downer: 9/10

Overall score 9/10, Favorite Song:

Nevermind

The second album and without a doubt one of the most iconic albums of all time. This album ranks #1 on my list and basically just everything about it is amazing. I think this is the album that made me love and truly appreciate rock music. Songs:

Smells Like Teen Spirit: 7.5/10

In Bloom: 10/10

Come As You Are: 9.5/10

Breed: 10/10

Lithium 11/10

Polly: 8/10

Territorial Pissings: 9/10

Drain You: 10.5/10

Lounge Act: 9.5/10

Stay Away: 9.5/10

On A Plain: 9/10

Something In The Way: 8.5/10

Endless, Nameless: 8/10

Even In His Youth: 8.5/10

Aneurysm: 9/10

Curmudgeon: 10/10

D-7(Live At The BBC): 8/10

Been A Son(Version on the Lithium Single): 10/10

Overall Score: 11/10, Favorite Song:

Incesticide

In my opinion the "worst" album, ranking #4. But it's Nirvana so #4 still means "really, REALLY good". Lotta good songs on here but overall kinda weak when compared to the other albums. Songs:

Dive: 7/10

Sliver: 9/10

Stain: 8/10

Turnaround: 7.5/10

Molly's Lips: 9/10

Son Of A Gun: 7/10

(New Wave) Polly(Why was this made? As you can tell I hadn't listened to some of the songs off Incesticide before this): 2/10

Beeswax: 6.5/10

Mexican Seafood: 8/10

Hairspray Queen: 10/10

Aero Zeppelin: 9/10

Big Long Now: 7/10

Overall Score 8/10. It's a 7 if you include all the confusion it gave me with the different session titles and Downer and Aneurysm being on here and the worse version of Been A Son. Favorite Song:

In Utero

Another album that at some points rival Nevermind. Ranks #2 in the album list. This is the album that solidified that Nirvana was a top 3 artist for me. Songs:

Serve The Servants: 9/10

Scentless Apprentice: 11/10

Heart-Shaped Box: 9.5/10

Rape Me: 10/10

Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle: 8.5/10

Dumb: 10/10

Very Ape: 9/10

Milk It: 7.5/10

Pennyroyal Tea: 8/10

Radio Friendly Unit Shifter: 7.5/10

Tourette's: 8/10

All Apologies: 9/10

Gallons Of Rubbing Alcohol Flowing Through The Strip: 7/10

Marigold: 10/10

Moist Vagina: 6.5/10

Sappy: 9/10

I Hate Myself And Want To Die: 8/10

Forgotten Tune: 7.5/10

Jam: 8.5/10

Overall Score 9.5/10, Favorite Song:

Now The Painful Part, Or Maybe It'll Be Enjoyable, Who Knows.

That is the 4 mainline Nirvana albums including a few Deluxe songs from each. As of right now I have never listened to the unique songs from MTV Unplugged In New York, With The Lights Out, or Sliver. I won't be ranking these ones but I will give an overall score. I apologize in advance if I miss any songs, please let me know if I did or if I messed something up. There are so many new and unique songs that it might be hard for me to track them. Also please let me know if I missed a "better" version of a song, I know there's a lot of different recordings and songs that were only performed live so yeah.

MTV Unplugged In New York

Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam: 8/10

The Man Who Sold The World: 8/10

Plateau: 11/10

Oh Me: 8/10

Lake Of Fire: 8/10

Where Did You Sleep Last Night: 9/10

Overall 8/10, Favorite Song:

With The Lights Out

Heartbreaker: 8/10

Anorexorcist: 9.5/10

White Lace And Strange: 9/10

Help Me, I'm Hungry: 7.5/10

Mrs. Butterworth(1988 Rehearsal): 8.5/10

If You Must: 10/10

Pen Cap Chew: 9/10

Raunchola/Moby Dick: 5/10

Beans: I don't even know

Don't Want It All: 5/10

Clean Up Before She Comes: 6/10

Blandest: 9/10

They Hung Him On A Cross: 4/10

Grey Goose: 5.5/10

Ain't It A Shame: 4/10

Token Eastern Song: 8/10

Opinion: 4/10

Here She Comes Now: 7/10

Verse Chorus Verse: 9/10

Old Age: 10/10

Return Of The Rat: 5/10

The Other Improv: 5.5/10

Do Re Mi: 4.5/10

You Know You're Right(Version found on the "Nirvana" compilation): 8.5/10

Overall 6/10 if you include the bad, 8/10 if you just include the good. Favorite Song:

Sliver - The Best Of The Box

Spank Thru: 4.5/10

Oh The Guilt: 9/10

Overall: 8/10, Favorite Song:

Closing Thoughts

Nirvana deserves to be at the #1 most listened to spot on my Spotify profile. I don't have much else to say in all honesty except oh my god it is going to take me so long to organize all these songs and different versions of said songs that I just added to my two different rock playlists. Originally I thought this would be a two in one post where I discuss the story of Nirvana and the background of some albums but I also didn't originally plan to rate EVERY SINGLE SONG. I'm sorry for this being such a long post but I guess I'm very adamant about Nirvana. I also hope this post doesn't get taken down because of some of the songs' names because I've been writing this for an hour. I am insanely tired, it is 1:30 AM at the time of writing this. If you've read all the way to the end then imma give you a big ol' smooch. Thank you and good night.

[rolandrockover]

I Wanna Confess All Nite and Help Myself Every Day

I can remember well how I held Carnival of Souls in my hands for the first time (1), and put it on the turntable just very few moments later. And on the first greedy listen, impressions of klassik Kiss sound literally flew around my ears from all directions. Or rather, impressions that seemed familiar to me. And that's exactly what I want to bring to I Confess today. Then, as now, I associate this song very strongly with The Elder. But not only. But at the time, I thought I could pin this feeling down to the vocal chorus and cello breaks in the chorus, which contrast starkly in tonal range. Today I see something more than just that, but more on that in a moment.

Let's just start with the something tangible, to which I am immediately struck by the intro to I Confess, with its descending, ominous and repetitive theme of regret that runs through all the verses. I think I can say unequivocally that this is the end of Not For the Innocent (2). Or is it not?

And then there's this mini-intermezzo (3) from Paralyzed, which forms the fading final part behind a dark veil of suggestively leading cellos (4).

And in the quiet verses Gene sounds confusingly similar to John Lennon, and in the loud choruses, well, I already take a step into the fog of ambiguity and associations of the chorus of Only You and the verse of Parasite awaken in me. What I mean by that is, it doesn't sound directly like one or the other, but both together. But that's just my intuition, anyway, and coincidentally what I consider to be a pretty good vibe.

But there is this one little thing what kept me going for a while and by that i mean this Elder-esqe feeling. And I'll tell you something, that's not just the cello breaks I was referring to, or the chorus. That's also A World Without Heroes somewhere in there. Buried. I think that isolated nuances of both verse and chorus of A World Without Heroes are also contained in verse and chorus of I Confess, just rising out of the darkness every now and then, making itself known for little moments, only to merge back again with those John Lennon impressions in the verses (5). I could be just as wrong, of course, but I fully trust my intuition, which leads me to see another indication that Gene's old songs that were experiencing a renaissance live at the time, or those especially that were dug out of the mothballs and played unplugged for the Konventions, had no small influence on his then current songwriting (6).

Side Notes:

(1) It was the Promo Picture LP, which was declared with the original name Head. I even had to borrow a record player from an old comrade, to be able to listen to it, because mine was a mess. And of course, you could see the so-called Zipperhead on the A-side, which really surprised me, because I had actually expected this ultra-sado-maso Flamehead, which was previously presented in the Kiss My Ass home video. Why did I sell it back then, idiot me! It had the rough mixes on it, and the guitars were a fair bit rougher and louder than on the Final Sessions mix. They broke out of the loudspeaker boxes like huge, dusty blocks. Imagine my face putting the Final Sessions into the CD player for the first time.

(2) Gene's suffering Oh! Oohh!!! Oooo-oooh's.

(3) Or is it a thematic break? A guitar pad? I have no idea how to call it.

(4) In the demo it forms the intro and the outro - and even rocks a little more.

(5) I cannot define it clearly anyway, not without putting in half a dozen more links, and I think even then I could barely get that across. So I better leave it alone.

(6) I am talking about Childhood's End and in this context Goin'Blind, and even God Gave Rock n' Roll to You II.

I put highlights on all those links. I only left the last two, A World Without Heroes and I Confess (3), in their entirety:

I Confess (1) (1997)

Not For the Innocent (1983)

Paralyzed (1992)

I Confess (Demo) (1993)

I Confess (2) (1997)

Parasite (1974)

Only You (1981)

A World Without Heroes (1981)

I Confess (3) (1997)

[desertsquiet]

Album of the month - January 2023: Sunshine Boy (Sessions & Demos) - Townes Van Zandt

The first month of 2023 has felt, at times, like the culmination of one of the worst prolonged emotional and psychological states I’ve ever experienced, one that started around the middle of November. I don’t think I’m completely out of it as of right now - actually, not at all - but I can only hope those negative peaks are starting to subside or at least become less in number. At the end of December/beginning of January, I did not feel like I had anything to look forward to for the new year. Nor anything to be proud of for 2022. Being on social media and seeing people (rightly) being proud of their accomplishments or expressing whatever they were looking forward to only angered me and sent me into an awful negative spiral, because I couldn’t have been in a more vastly different place at that moment. The real optimism for the many changes that were about to come into my life I had experienced just a couple of months prior completely gone. Vanished. Like it never existed. For the first ten days of January I was still on my winter break and I kept on being as moody and miserable as ever, having just had the final proof that no matter the setting, my mental state did not change or improve in the slightest. That I was the problem, not the place or the people around me. Which made me feel even worse. About the only part of my life that didn’t feel like it was crumbling down this month was my relationship/connection to music. It didn’t offer a magical solution to my problems, but it was a very strong presence and very often the only refuge from the literal hell my brain has become. In many ways it felt like it came to my rescue, by sending me new tracks and albums I could latch on to and form new, much needed connections with. There were so many and I am grateful to each and every one of them, but at the same time I knew what album I would be writing about in this post exactly 10 minutes into it.

A collection of studio sessions/alternative takes (Disc 1) and demos (Disc 2) from 1971-1972, “Sunshine Boy” allows you the incredible privilege of peaking into an atmosphere that is not quite a live nor a studio dimension, but something in between the two. A sweet middle spot that I shouldn’t be surprised to find out fits him so well, after all. But boy if it does. I don’t even know how to describe it properly, not sure if I have the words. I am however pretty sure that it’s already one of my absolute favorite, and absolutely one of the most precious Townes recordings I can think of. Disc 1 of this is just such a pleasure to hear. He sounds so good. He sounds so confident, relaxed, in the moment, enjoying every second of it. He sounds happy. He has a talented group of musicians around him and what comes through the most, more than almost anywhere else, is his love of performing with other people and constantly feeding off each other’s energy and creativity. There’s also an edge to many of these performances that he doesn’t show very often. While still mostly acoustic, the set is a lot more uptempo than usual, with the drummer especially asserting his presence in a way that rarely happens in his music but that, here, seems to work perfectly, aggressive bluesy rhytmn guitar playing at all times and other instruments that often play a percussive role. And the two excursions into downright electric territory are absolutely to die for: such a pity that an original as cool as Sunshine Boy did not make it on any of his studio albums from that period, but it was definitely NOT for lack of quality and oh my gosh, I’m sorry but this is the best version of Who Do You Love he ever did. I’m obsessed with it. He’s also just playing around with his own songs a lot, lyrically and melodically. Whether it’s because they’re still not “finished” and he’s still experimenting to see what works better or just because he’s in such a relaxed mental place that improvising comes very naturally, the result is so cool to hear. As for Disc 2…well. I always say that some of his songs are so gentle and quiet, and the subject matter is so personal, that they almost feel *too* private and intimate. Like sometimes you even forget that you’re listening with headphones and not in the same room with him as he sings directly to you. One of those is Greensboro Woman, without a doubt. Now imagine what levels of intimacy the demo version of that song can reach. I’m not even gonna try to find the words to describe that. So I’ll just say that the entire second half of this album is something very dangerous for me and that’s naturally why I’ve been listening to it non stop for a month. I do just also want to point out how cute his cover of ‘Old Paint’ is and how great the other unreleased original ‘Diamond Heel Blues’ is. I love his blues songs and his blues guitar playing and I’m always thrilled to have more of it. I think I’ve talked enough so that’s it. I guess I enjoyed this one. Just a little bit.

[dazzlinglando]

aria’s relationships with ateez:

masterlist

↳ hongjoong

as leader, hongjoong is protective over all of his members. especially to aria, though. he will literally not hesitate to hurt anyone who makes her sad, uncomfortable or as if she is undeserving of her place in ateez.

always tries to include her in the creative process of the songs, whether that be letting her in his studio whilst he works on songs, getting her to sing/rap demos or utilising her talents with musical instruments. he also ensures that she always feels involved in group decisions and knows that her voice and opinion is important, despite being the only girl.

when hongjoong knew that aria was joining the group and didn’t know much of the korean language, he took it upon himself to learn more english so she could feel as welcome and at home as possible from day 1.

↳ seonghwa

seonghwa would risk it all for his precious aria. literally. ever since she walked into the kq practice room, he was drawn to her. all he wanted was for her to feel comfortable, and despite the language barrier, he was the first to introduce himself.

certified cuddle buddies™. if those two go missing during schedules or practice, chances are they’re somewhere cuddling. 

when their schedules allow, they have special ‘arihwa’ time, in which they spend a few hours together to watch movies, paint each other’s nails, braid hair and relax together. during this time, seonghwa also insists on helping aria with her korean studies, as he knows that it’s a chance for him to learn more english too.

seonghwa in particular always looks out for her during practice sessions or long schedules to make sure that she’s eating, drinking and not overworking herself.

↳ yunho

their relationship started off rocky at first. when she first joined kq, she was very intimidated by yunho. In fact, it took her about 3 weeks to warm up to him and start initiating conversations.

honestly, when aria started talking to yunho, he was the happiest person alive.

fast forward a few months and yunho is aria’s happiness. literal happiness. he’s always going out of his way to make her smile or laugh, by doing random dances or showing his aegyo. looking back at it, aria has no idea why she was so intimidated by him. he is literally the light of her life.

↳ yeosang

despite his ‘savage’ aura, yeosang is a right softie when it comes to aria, or ‘ariana grande’ as he calls her. they’re one of the closest pairs in the group, they literally do anything and everything together (within reason,, of course). spontaneous trips to starbucks? arisang will be there.

partners in crime. always be concerned if these two are together and suspiciously quiet, they’ve probably pulled a prank on one of the memebers.

if aria is ever feeling particulary homesick, he will try his best to bring the uk to their dorm in south korea. in fact once, when aria was feeling this way, he brought her the first british related thing he could find. a guitar strap with the british flag, but also with one direction on. it’s the thought that counts, and that guitar strap is her prized possession, despite not really liking one direction.

↳ san

if you ever need him, he’ll be watching aria’s fancams. he is in awe with how talented she is. and he is not afraid to show that he is, in fact, the #1 fairy (aria’s individual fandom name).

they have both struggled with self esteem issues, and will always look for opportunities to compliment each other, even if its over little things.

when they spend a long period of time speaking english together, san WILL develop a british accent for a bit. he’s always asking her for cool english phrases to tell atiny, or how to word things when writing posts for the international fans. 

↳ mingi

the fairy line. these two are so soft around each other. they’re most probably cuddling, watching premier league football or playing fifa together.

when aria first joined the company, the language barrier put him off getting to know her; he didn’t know any english, just as she didn’t know barely any korean. nonetheless, they eventually got closer by using translation apps to talk to each other, before feeling confident to talk to one another in their native language.

always have the most memorable, or rather chaotic, vlives, where they dance or play games together.

↳ wooyoung

soulmates. absolute soulmates. as they were born so close together, they always make jokes about how they were destined to be best friends. and oh my, this duo is loud.

aria finds everything wooyoung does hilarious, literally everything. his sexy aura is something she was immediately drawn to, his confidence and perseverance really inspired and motivated her to be the best idol she could be. she really took a lot of strength through Wooyoung.

they also are known for their chaotic vlives and content. they cook and bake together, it’s their thing to teach and make one another tradititional korean and british treats and snacks, and 99% of the time it doesn’t go to plan. similar to yeosang, wooyoung always tries to bring the uk to their dorm when she’s feeling home sick by watching the great british bake off and other british cooking shows with her.

↳ jongho

such an underrated duo. aria loved having someone younger than her in the group. she was so used to being the baby of her family, as soon as there was someone younger than her, her maternal side really shows.

jongho may not like skinship, but boy does he initiate hugs with aria a lot. she is a big source of comfort for the maknae.

when at the company, in between practises, they’re most likely sat in her studio with a guitar singing random songs, and hitting high notes that mariah carey would be proud of. aria’s talent and vocal ability is something that always amazes Jongho. nothing but pure respect and admiration for his noona.

[melisa-may-taylor72]

QUEEN BEFORE QUEEN

THE 1960s RECORDINGS

➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖

PART 1:

BRIAN MAY, 1984 & THE LEFT HANDED MARRIAGE

JOHN S. STUART AND ANDY DAVIS DIG DEEP TO UNCOVER THE PREVIOUSLY UNDOCUMENTED AUDIO LEGACY OF ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST CHERISHED BANDS.

This month the beginning and end of Queen come together like the cosy ending of a contrived Hollywood drama. While fans wait with bated breath for the band’s final album, “Made In Heaven" — completed by Brian May, John Deacon and Roger Taylor with the aid of Freddie Mercury’s last demos — author Mark Hodkinson launches a new book in which, in greater detail than has ever been attempted before, delves into the pre-fame histories of Queen’s musical antecedents.

With previously unpublished photographs of Roger Taylor's the Reaction, John Deacon’s the Opposítion and even more impressively, Freddie Mercury’s Sour Milk Sea, ‘Queen The Early Years’ is a treat fans have waited too long to read. Coincidentally, six months ago, we commissioned Queen historian, John S. Stuart, to research the definitive article on the band’s pre-fame recordings, and as you’ll see, the results complement Hodkinson’s broader picture with hitherto undocumented details of Queen's 60s recordings.

We've touched on Larry Lurex and Smile before, of course, but the vinyl output of those two acts barely scratches the surface, so to speak: literally hours and hours of privately- recorded material of Freddie, Brian, John and Roger survive to this day — as evidenced by the recent discovery of the Reaction’s ‘In The Midnight Hour’ acetate ( see RC 191). So, while the rest of the world comes to terms with the fact that Queen’s recording career is effectively at an end, we unravel the untold history of four individuals' first tentative steps in front of the microphone, beginning with the 1960′s exploits of Brian May. Next month, we’ll embrace Smile, and John, Roger and Freddie's hidden amateur recordings; but first, 1984 and the Left Handed Marriage.

1984

Around late August, or early September 1963, as the Beatles celebrated the birth of Beatlemania with sessions for their “With The Beatles” LP at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios in North London, another rock legend was developing just around the geographical corner. In a semi-detached house in Feltham, Middlesex, electronics engineer Harold May began an 18-month task, helping his sixteen-year-...[ ]

[ ]...old son, Brian, to construct the world's most famous home-made guitar, the ‘Red Special'. In the mean time, Brian would have to be con­tent with thrashing away at the small Spanish acoustic his parents had bought him for his seventh birthday. (Brian evidently mislaid this childhood guitar shortly afterwards; and didn't see it again until 1991, when at a ‘reunion’ of former members of 1984, his schoolfriend and first musical collaborator, Dave Dilloway, returned it to him. Brian was so thrilled, that he featured the guitar in the video for Queen’s “Headlong" single).

By 1964, Brian and Dave Dilloway were already recording amateur duets together, and by linking up their two reel-to-reel tape docks, they discovered that they could lay down guitars on one machine, and perhaps bass, percussion and sometimes vocals on the other. Although the technique was crude, and despite the occasional disaster, the effect was often surprisingly good. One of the earliest tapes from these primitive recording sessions survives to this day, and features Brian belting out Bo Diddley’s eponymous R&B standard, "Bo Diddley".

“This is a mono quarter-inch, reel-to-reel I found buried among various other oddments from the era”,  recalls Dave Dilloway. “It certanly dates from before the formation of 1984. It was recorded in Brian’s back room in Feltham, with Brian on lead vocals and guitar, and myself on bass and drums. The track is basic, but Brian’s vocals are clear and recognisable. The guitar playing is fairly basic as well, but competent, without any real solos as such”.

“ This is the only tape in my collection of those double-track recordings. I’m unsure whether Brian himself has retained the tapes we made at the time, but I believe he usually ended up with the finished versions, so he may still heve them somewhere.”

 The duo also recorded four-track instru­mental cover versions of several Shadows tunes — “Apache”, “FBI”, "Wonderful Land” and "The Rise  And Fall Of Fingel Blunt” — as well as “Rambunkshush”, which they learned from the Shadows’ American counterparts, The Ventures.  Also on the same tape is their reading of Chet Atkins' “Windy And Warm".

 Yet another reel reveals an attempt at Cliff Richard’s "Bachelor Boy", on which Brian, once again, takes the lead vocal. Dave Dilloway's theory is probably correctt; May is known to have a meticulously catalogued personal collection of Queen (and pre-Queen) recordings and memorabilia, which almost certanlly contains unfathomable reels of similar early material.

In the autumn of 1964, Brian and Dave formed a rapidly-evolving band, through which many schoolmates passed, but which eventually settled with a line-up of bassist John 'Jag' Garnham, drummer Richard Thompson, and harmonica-playing vocalist Tim Staffell. After rejecting names such as the Mind Boggles and Bob Chappy & the Beetles, the quintet named themselves after George Orwell’s futuristic novel ‘1984’. Their look was far from sci-fi, however, and they happily adopted the classic, clean-cut beat- group look of the day: jackets, or in Brian's case a cardigan, and narrow trousers; and beat boots. Tim Staffell even acquired that year’s fashion accessory, a pork-pie hat.

The band rehearsed regularly at Chase Bridge Primary School Hall in Twickenham (located next to the rugby ground), and on the 28th October 1964, gave their first public performance at the nearby St. Mary’s Church Hall. It is believed that either one of the rehearsals, or the gig itself, was recorded, but unfortunately, no tape of this debut, perform­ance has survived the years. Although 1984 recorded almost all of their live concerts for their own critical appraisal, to save on the expense of new tape they often wiped over old reels once they’d listened to them. Nevertheless, evidence of Brian May playing live does survive from this period, and the earliest example dates from an unknown gig (Shepperton Rowing Club is the favoured consensus), recorded in late 1965. This wasn’t a 1984 performance, but rather an ad-hoc trio comprising Brian May on bass and vocals, Pete ‘Woolly’ Hammerton (a school friend of Brian’s) on guitar and vocals, and 1984's Richard Thompson on drums. The tape reveals the trio turning in versions of Martha & the Vandellas’ “Dancing In The Street", the Beatles' “Eight Days A Week”, “I’m Taking Her Home” — a song by the group Woolly later joined, the Others — and a brave attempt at the Who’s "My Generation".

The Others comprised older boys from Hampton School, who in October 1964 had issued a single of their abrasive reading of Bo Diddley’s “Oh Yeah", backed by “I’m Taking Her Home", on Fontana (TF 501). “That was good!" claims singer, Tim Staffell. “I’ve still got that record buried somewhere deep in my mind — I remember the singer, Paul Stewart's voice and the quality of the guitar sound. The Others were a pretty significant influence. Maybe not in terms of the music, more in the sense that they were already doing it, which proved it was possible."

As evidenced by the photograph included in this feature, the Others clearly had attitude, something which 1984, or Tim Staffell at least, could only aspire to “If I had tried to push 1984 in any direction," reveals Tim, “then that would have been it. Without hearing any of these tapes of our band — and I didn't even know they existed! — l’d say we probably sounded a lot safer than the Others. Mind you, they were different to us. Their guitar style was very much inspired by American R&B, whereas Brian’s never was. Brian was a unique guitar player: he was able to extemporise a much more original way than most guitar players could. I hope he’ll forgive me for saying so, but I never perceived him as having the dangerous image which was necessary at the time — the cardigan says it all!.

LIGHTWEIGHT

“In retrospect, 1984 was lightweight, a bit fluffy”  concedes Tim. “It was impossible not to be naively ambitious — that was part and parcel of it — and the primary motivation to do it was what we saw in the media as the end results of success. But I guess we were realistic about it — we were at school, after all. Also there was a good deal of pressure in the 60s from our parents, and the conser­vative generation, to conform."

Although a version of “I’m Taking Her Home” by 1984 was captured live on the Shepperton tape, and Brian occasionally guested with the Others on stage, it's worth stating once and for all that — despite the persistent rumours — he definitely doesn’t feature on "Oh Yeah".  In fact, Pete ‘Woolly' Hammerton doesn't even play on the record — he only joined the band formally later on.

In the autumn of 1965, leaving Hampton Grammar with no fewer than four 'A' Levels and ten ‘O’ levels, Brian enrolled at Imperial College in Kensington, London, to read physics and infra-red astronomy. Before breaking up for the Christmas holidays that year, he played the first in a series of gigs with 1984 at the college, a tradition he continued later with Smile, and in their formative days with Queen. Although the exact date of the event has long since been forgotten, a very poor- quality tape still exists of 1984‘s college debut. The set was a typical one, comprising the group’s broad blend of pop, R&B and soul covers, and included the following songs: “Cool Jerk" (originally by the Capitols), ‘Respect" (Otis Redding), "My Girl" (the Temptations), “Shake" (Sam Cooke), “Stepping Stone" (the Monkees), “You Keep Me Hanging On" (the Supremes), “Whatcha Gonna Do Ahout it" ( Small Faces), “Substitute” (the Who), “How Can It Be” (the B-side of the Birds’ final single, “No Good Without You Baby”), “Danc­ing In The Street", “Dream" (Everly Brothers) and the Small Faces’ "Sha La La La Lee".

“Our repertoire was a little too eclectic to have developed into any particular style” reckons Tim Staffell. “But the Small Faces were quite influential. When we were at school, the songs were dredged from all sorts of areas. I’d always liked rhythm’n’blues. Brian’s input would have been Beatles-orientated, Dave’s as well. Richard Thompson would have been more into R&B, and Jag didn't really have an agenda as far as songs were concerned. Because of the nature of the material we covered, our approach to the gigs was almost schoollboy cabaret. 1984 was not a dangerous, moody rock band! Which may have something to do with the way Queen evolved."

1984 oponed 1966 with a couple of gigs at the Thames Rowing CIub in Putney; and once again, a tape recorder was set up to document the group’s progress. Two reels from January that year exist: the first is dated the 15th, and features “Im A Loser” (the Beatles), “I Wish You Would" ( the Yardbirds), “I Feel Fine" (the Beatles), “Little Egypt" (the Coasters), "Lucille” (Little Richard), “Too Much Monkey Business" (Chuck Berry), "I Got My Mojo Working” (Muddy Waters), "WalkingThe Dog” ( Rufus Thomas) and “Heart Full Of Soul" (the Yardbirds).

The second, dated two weeks later (29th January), demonstrates the great variety and confidence of a band which consistently renewed its repertoire. The show began with Jimmy Reed’s  “Bright Lights, Big City", moving into the Cookies' “Chains" (popularised by the Beatles), “Walking The Dog", “Lucille", “Our Little Rendezvous" (Chuck Berry), “Jack O’ Diamonds" (Blind Lemon... (cont)

(cont) Jefferson, popularised by Lonnie Donegan), “I’ve Got My Mojo Working”, “Little Egypt" and Bo Diddley’s “I’m A Man”. The band’s finale was a versión of Sonny Boy Williamson’s "Bye Bye Bird".

For an amateur band with little real pretension towards stardom, or even a serious attempt at securing a recording contract, a staggering amount of live 1984 material has been preserved on tape. Dave Dilloway, for instance, is the guardian of a seven-inch reel-to-reel, which he says reveals either a very long performance or a compilation of various unknown dates.

Either way, the tape is divided into five distinct sections, which might make tedious reading, but is an invaluable reference: 1) “Route 66", (unknown instrumental), “I’m Taking Her Home", “Too Much Monkey Business’, “Yesterday" (featuring Brian May on lead vocals), “Walking The Dog", and “ Lucille"; 2) “Little Rendezvous", "Keep On Running”, “I Feel Fine”, “Walking The Dog”, “Jack O’ Diamonds", “High Heeled Sneakers", “I Want To Hold Your Hand", “I Got My Mojo Working*, and “I Should Have Known Better”; 3) “Little Rendezvous", “Jump Back Baby Jump Back", “I Feel Fine”, “Bye Bye Bird", “Little Egypt", “Crazy House". “Lucille”, “Oh Yeah”, “Heatwave”, “Too Much Monkey Business", “I Should Have Known Better", and “I Got My Mojo Working"; 4) “My Generation", “Little Egypt", “Dancing In The Street", “Whatcha Gonna Do About It", “I’m A Man", “Heatwave", “Lucille", and “Bye Bye Bird"; and 5) “Heart Full Of Soul", “Too Much Monkey Business”, “Something’s Got A Hold On Me", “Keep On Running", “My Generation", "Tired Of Waiting", “Bright Lights. Big City" and “Happy Hendrick’s Polka".

“These are all domestic quality, single microphone recordings of early-era 1984", reveals Dave Dilloway. “It's mostly bluesy material, with some soul and Beatles songs. While the quality is basic, the sound is intelligible, although there isn’t a large amount of identifiable Brian guitarwork. That came later in the band's history, when we included covers of Crearn and Hendrix. Brian's solo vocals on 'Yesterday' (on the first segment) are quite clear, however."

For much of 1966, the band carried on in a similar vein — Brian's and the others' college work permitting, of course. For Brian May and his unsigned, Twickenham-based covers band, the highlight of the following year, 1967, was undoubtedly the gig he secured via through his contacts at the college — supporting Jimi Hendrix at Imperial. The date was 13th May, the day after the release of Hendrix's debut, “Are You Experienced". Brian May idolised Hendrix to such an extent that he'd been nicknamed “Brimi" — a combination of the two guitarists' names—so although 1984 had seen him perform before, it goes without saying they were thrilled when backstage, they actually bumped into the ascending star as they filed past his dressing-room. It’s a familar story, but it's one worth repeating: Jimi enquired memorably, “Which way’s the stage, man?*.

BLOSSOMED

1984's act had certainly blossomed by this point. Their attire was now obligatory Swinging London — or Swinging Middlesex — fare: frilly shirts, Regency jackets, striped hipsters secured with a white belt, and hairtyles extending inexorably over the ears, and indeed the eyes. “Somewhere along the line, there was an external influence there", says Tim Staffell. “There was someone calling the shots. I don’t think all that was self-motivated. It’s something I’ve never been comfortable with, which explains why I split away from it early on — certainly from Smile onwards — because it was going that way; as indeed it ended up with Queen. It's fair enough, but that sort of flamboyance is just not me. I look fairly uncomfortable in the picture of the band from that period. My idea of a rock musician is one with hair down his back, a dirty pair of Levi's on, looking at the floor, thoroughly unconcerned with the visual and external trappings, playing the most extraordinary virtuoso guitar. That was my attitude."

Back in February 1967, Brian’s local paper, the ‘Middlesex Chronicle’ caught up with the band, and captured Tim Staffell in an equally decisive mood; although here, he was more enthusiastic about the latest trend. "Psychodelic music is certainly here to stay”~he claimed. "It makes more of music than mere sound, it makes it a whole and complete art form." Dave Dilloway, who also handled the group's light show, added: “We use everything in our act, including things like shaving foam, and plastic bricks we throw around”.

The ‘Chronicle’ was obviously impressed, and its reporter had this to say about a per­formance by what it called “one of the most foward-looking groups today". “Standards, like ‘Heatwave' receive a very original treatment, mostly due to the sounds that Brian coaxes out of his guitar. Jazz chords and electronic sounds add feeling and nuance to numbers that are often churned out wholesale. Using two bass drums for a fuller sound, Richard's drumming, combined with the full bass riffs of Dave and the steady (rhythm guitar) work of John, provides a firm basis for experiments in sound — an opportunity which is not wasted."

“To be quite honest with you, there’s more substance in the literary content there, than in the musical," laughs Tim Staffell. "If some­one genuinely thought that, then I'm surprised! Brian might have used a fuzz-box. but generally, it was au naturel. I remember in the Smile days, somebody wrote about ‘humming chords of wonder’, referring to my bass playing. The reality of it was that sometimes I did try and play chords on the bass guitar, which might have come out as a deep-throated roar, but actually sounded like a load of crap!"

“We did use to tickle about with a few lights, suggests Dave Dilloway, “but being a local band, money was tight and there wasn’t a fortune to spend on the band." As to 1984's psychodelic sound, Dave adds: “Brian did use a bit of fuzz, yes, and Pink Floyd influences and a bit of screaming guitar. He’d actually built a fuzz box into his guitar, which was fairly unique for the day, but typical Brian. If you look carefully at recent pictures of his “Red Special” you can see the fuzz switch taped over."

In September 1967, no doubt boosted by their praise — sincere or not — in the local press, the continuing evidence of their per­formance tapes and their recent Hendrix support slot, 1984 entered the local beats of a battle-of-the-bands competition at the Top...[ ]

...[ ] Rank Club in Croydon, just south of London. Effectively a promotion for Scotch tape, en­trance to the contest could only be secured via a demo recorded on a Scotch reel. 1984’s effort duly arrived in the form of a two-track master, featuring covers of Marvin Gaye's “Ain’t That Peculiar?" and the Everly Brothers’ “Crying ln The Rain" (on stage, both tracks were usually enhanced by characteristic Brian May guitar solos, but conservatism prevailed, and they were absent in this instance). A copy of this recording still survives, carefully guarded by the custodian of the 1984 archive. “This tape is a quarter-inch, mono reel-to-reel," re­calIs Dave Dilloway. “Tim took lead vocals on 'Ain't That Peculiar?’, and Tim and Brian duetted on ’Crying ln The Rain’. Brian's vocal style and tone can be clearly discerned, if one knows his voice. The songs were recorded in single takes, using a single microphone fed directly to the recorder. There was no mix facility so it has a ‘live' feel, a very good clean sound”. 

The mix was achieved using the old fashioned technique of microphone position and relative volume levels of the amplified Instruments. “As far as I am aware, only the one (master) copy of this tape exists.”

As has been well-documented, after two sets at the competition (one of which saw Brian, Dave, John Garnham and drummer Richard Thompson acting as the back-up band for a singer called Lisa Perez), 1984 won the contest, and walked away with a reel of blank tape (Scotch, of course) and an album each on the CBS label. (Tim took the top prize, Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sounds Of Silence", Brian had to make do with a Barbra Streisand LP, and Dave Dilloway became the proud owner of an album by Irish bandleader Tommy Makem!). More importantly, their demo tape was forwarded to the CBS A&R department for the national showdown, although, clearly, they didn’t win.

True to form, 1984's performance that evening was committed to tape — for an unpublished review by ‘Melody’ Maker, no less — but was probably erased shortly afterwards. The twenty-minute set consisted of the Everlys’ "So Sad", Hendrix’s “Stone Free”, Buddy Knox’s “She’s Gone" and Eddie Floyd's “Knock On Wood". After the gig, the band were invited by a visiting promotor to participate in the all-night gala event which has since gone down as one of the key gigs of the London underground scene: Christmas On Earth Continued, at London's Olympia Theatre, on December 23rd 1967. 1984 was the lowest pro­file act at this decidedly high-profile event, and after Jimi Hendrix, Traffic, Pink Floyd, the Herd, and Tyrannosaurus Rex had all taken to the stage, they only got to perform their humble set of covers at 5 o’clock in the morning. When Brian finally plugged in his ‘Red Special’, 1984 played a thirty-minute set to a very small, and less than enthusiastic, audience.

Also from 1967, and of far more interest, is 1984′s professionally-recorded Thames Television demo tape. During his first-year of study at Twickenham Technical College, Dave Dilloway had made friends with a number of technicians, or trainee technicians, at the Teddington-based ITV company which served the London area. The station had recently invested in new recording equipment, and rather than hire professional musicians at the usual union rate, in a set up similar to the first Queen sessions at the De Lane Lea studios, 1984 were let loose in the studio to record at their leisure. Dave Dilloway's carefully preserved tape still plays perfectly, and includes the following songs: "Hold On I’m Corning", “Knock On Wood“, “NSU", *How Can It Be”, two early run-throughs of the original May/ Staffell composition “Step On Me” (which eventually became the B- side to Smile's “Earth"), “Purple Haze", “Our Love Is Driftin* ”, and medleys of “Remember”/”Sweet Wine" and “Get Out My Life Woman”/ ”Satisfaction". The session ended with a run-through of "My Girl”.

AMALGAM

"What an extraordinary amalgam!" declares Tim Staffell today. “There’s Tamla, Cream, Hendrix, Lee Dorsey . . ‘Our Love Is Driftin' we’d have heard by Paul Butterfield. I’d forgotten there was such a large soul component in 1984!".

Dave Dilloway has the technical details: “This tape is the most re­cent, best and most representative of 1984 that I'm aware of. It is mono, but since it was made on good quality TV studio equipment and was carried out along the lines of a proper studio recording, with separately-mixed microphones for each source, it is remarkably good quality for its age. The material, except for ‘Step On Me', is aII cover versions, but as it dates from the late 1984 era, Brian’s playing is more prominent and effective, with his own style starting to show through. All the performances are competent — particularly Tim’s vocals and Brian's guitar; although the mix is a little heavy on John's rhythm guitar for some reason, probably the ‘ear’ of the recording engineer at the time. All tracks were laid down in one take, i.e., no overdubbing at all, so the sound is predominantly simple, as per our live versions."

And that was 1984′s swansong. In the spring of 1968, shortly afler the Thames recording, mainly due to the pressures of infrequent meetings and university studies — coupled with increasing musical differences — 1984 scaled down their operations drastically. Brian May left the band, and Tim Staffell took over on lead guitar for a while. A little later, Tim himself quit, leaving Dave Dilloway, John Garnham and Richard Thompson to rebuild the group, which soldiered on into the 70′s, content merely to play for fun. They all conceded that 1984 had been a good, solid, and popular local band, but that it didn’t have the necessary spark or originality to transform into a great one.

The Left Handed Marriage

ln the summer of 1965, in another corner of Hampton Grammar School, Brian May’s old friend Bill Richards (who had been a fleeting, early member of 1984 before it acquired its futuristic name), and his colleagues Jenny Hill (née Rusbridge), Henry Deval and Terry Goulds, formed a folk-rock band called the Left-Handed Marriage, named after an archaic form of marrying beneath oneself. By January 1967, the quartet had progressed to the point where they had issued their own privately-pressed album, “On The Right Side Of The Left Handed Marriage", which ran to just fifty copies (and, incidentally, has since acquired cult status among collectors, with a £600 price tag to match).

Although naturally familiar with the al­bum, Brian May as yet had not been involved with the band. That changed in March 1967, after Bill signed a twelve-month contract with EMI's music publishing company Ardmore & Beechwood — a deal secured through the efforts of Brian Henderson, a former member of Edinburgh beat outfit the Mark Five, and more recently, the bassist in Patrick Campbell- Lyons' 60′s psychodelic band, Nirvana. Bill approached Brian to help him create a “fuller" sound for the Left Handed Marriage, with a request to provide guitar and backing vocals on some recording sessions.

On the understanding that the project wouldn’t interfere with his commitment to 1984, Brian agreed. On 4th April 1967, he joined Jenny, Henry, Terry and Bill in AMC Sound, an amateur studio in Manor Road, Twickenham, to record four songs: “Give Me Time” (later changed to “I Need Time"), "She Was Once My Friend", “Sugar Lump Girl” and “Yours Sincerely” (which was basically “Give Me Time" backwards, with new lyrics pinched from the Russian author Pushkin).

The songs were all cleanly-recorded, melodic atempts at 1967 pop (despite the Left Handed Marriage's later classification, there's little actual folk music in evidence). “She Was Once My Friend" is the pick of the bunch, thanks to its Kinks-like structure — complete with Bill Richard's/ Ray Davies-soundalike vocal and, albeit way down in the mix, flashes of that distinctive Brian May 'Red Special’ guitar sound. Acetates of the AMC EP were cut, and the idea had been to release the songs as a commercial EP.  Instead, the set merely became the Left Handed Marriage’s first demo for their publishers, although it did lead to the offer to record at a more professional session — at EMI’s prestigious Abbey Road studios.

The Abbey Road session took place on 28th June 1967, when Left Handed Marriage were joined by Brian and 1984′s Dave Dilloway, who was drafted in to play bass. Two further tracks were cut: the reworked “I Need Time",...[ ]

...[ ] and a new song called “Appointment". At this stage, there was more talk of issuing a record, this time a single, and a release date of August was even discussed. This never materialised either, and again 7″ acetates are all that remain.

Although Ardmore & Beechwood were pleased with the results, they still thought the Left Handed Marriage could improve their sound even further, and on 31st July 1967, they booked the band into another studio, this time Regent Sound in central London. As Dave Dilloway was not available, another friend, John Frankel, was called upon to play bass and piano. The eight-track Regent Sound ma­chine was something of a technological marvel, and the session was flawlessly recorded, resulting in new versions of “I Need Time”, “She Was Once My Friend" (which also remixed and edited for the abandoned single), and "Appointment".

Despite the studio quality of the tape, Ardmore & Beechwood failed to place the songs with a record label, and like so many groups before and since, the Left Handed Marriage quietly disappeared from view. It was left to frontman Bill Richards belatedly to issue the fruits of this last session, when in February 1993, he tagged the three Regent Sound recordings — the final mix of “I Need Time”, the abridged version of “She Was Once A Friend Of Mine” and the final mix of “Appointment” — onto the end of “Crazy Chain”, a CD recorded by the reformed Left Handed Marriage, which itself was prompted by collector's interest in the group’s original 1967 LP,  “The Right Hand Side Of...” . Most of the master tapes for the LHM recordings featuring Brian May have Iong since disappeared along with the Regent Sound studio, and (with the exception of "She Was Once My Friend") the Richards/May collaborations on the CD were digitally remastered from acetates.

RECORD COLLECTOR Nº 195, NOVEMBER 1995

➡NEXT: ROGER TAYLOR’S REACTION 

@natromanxoff, @mephisto92, @moviestorian,  @39-brian,  @an-abyss-called-life, @his-majesty-king-mercury, @x5vale  @onegoldenglance  @i-live-for-queen, @brian-39-may, @toomuchlove-willkillyou, @brimaymay, @sail-away-sweet-sister, @briianmaay,  @inui-mycroft @brianmayislongaway, @balticlover, @astrophysicist-guitar-god, @miez-lakatz, @brianmayoucease, @jesus-in-a-life-boat, @drummerqueenrmt, @iminlovewithrogscar @roger-taylors-car, @crosmopolitan​ @silapril, @sherrifanciesfriskyfreddie @tenderbri, @brianmydear, @thosequeenboys, @millionairewaltz-carpediem, @painandpleasure86, @bribrifrenchfry, @xlucylennonx, @a-night-at-the-abbey-road, @inthedayswhenlandswerefew, @madformeddowstaylor, @drowseoftaylor @queenrogertaylorfan, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @queen-for-life, @rethought​, @mymakeupmaybeflaking​, @old-but-still-a-child​, @let-roger-get-a-lunch​, @warriorteam1924​, @funnydressesweirdhairanddance​, @painkiller80​, @thefanhuman13​, @yourtieddownmother​, @hgmercury39​, @brimi-stardust​, @thefairyfellermercury​,  @retroromantics​, @sailawaysweetbrimi​, @sophiaintheskywithdiamonds​, @deacytits​@rhysjoejoshtomfarisblog​, @holybrianmaywritingbear​, @lydiannode​, @39-yellow-daffodils​ , @ure-gonna-loveme-when-u-seeme​, @kaykaybeachgirl​, @foxmonkey​, @saik-ava​, @deakysgurl​, @redspecialandclogsandcurls​, @briansrainbowsocks​, @delilahmay39​, @ohmybribri​, @bless-the-queen​, @infunitehearbeat​, @sketchiesscketches​,  @everythingaboutfreddie​, @doitforthevine67​, @recordsoftheseventies​, @tenementfunsterwithpurpleshoes​, @drummah-in-a-rocknroll-band​, @beatlegirl1968​, @maylorsqueen​, @shearrehartatacc​, @gralto​, @alittlepeoplemagic​, @rainbowsockbrian​, @frejudy​, @drivenbybri​, @yourlocalmusicalprostitute​, @omb-xx​, @sassymaylor​, @somekindofroger​, @starlightmay​, @rhysjoejoshtomfarisblog, @freddiemercuryismylife​, @sunshine112​, @chrysochromulina​ @glitteryloveravenue​, @deakyislife51​, @0-primejive-0​, @just-a-skinny-lad​, @drivenbybrianmay​

[chilling-seavey]

Qui Totum Vult Totum Perdit (d.s.) - 6

A/N Out in the open

Warnings: This story is centered around a murder so there will be graphic descriptions of blood, death/manslaughter, dealing with corpses, possible domestic abuse (physical/verbal), crime/covering up a crime, shock/grief, and other possibly heavy or triggering topics. Please read at your own discretion.

You may think you understand stress, dear reader, but I can assure you that you do not. You do not understand stress unless you have driven around the city in broad daylight with a body in the trunk of your car. There was only so much guilt that a hat and sunglasses could cover.

“We should stop by the bank…take out some cash before we leave the state.” I suggested, my hands tightening on the wheel slightly as I drove. 

Jonah nodded and reached into the backseat to pulled over his bag to shuffle through it. It was always full of random junk from snacks and a water bottle to notebooks and his wallet and phone charger. He carried his life in that bag. He pulled out said charger and helped himself to the port in my car to plug in his phone.

“Jo.” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Why aren’t you…freaked out?” I asked.

“I am.” Jonah answered as he dropped his bag in the backseat again. “My best friend called me out of the single most important studio session of our careers to get me involved in the murder of his wife. Who wouldn’t be freaked out? Why aren’t you freaked out?”

I shifted my hands on the wheel nervously, “I-I am freaked out. I just…I don’t know what happened at all and I think I’m just in shock.”

“Do you think you killed her?” Jonah asked quietly.

I could sense the nervousness in his voice as if he was scared of me too. I honestly didn’t know what to tell him…I didn’t know what to tell myself to reassure either of us. I loved Avalon. I loved her with almost everything in me. So what would be my motive to kill her? Would our argument about my job be enough to enrage my conscious to see nothing but red?

I could only answer my best friend truthfully. After all, he risked so much to come help me.

“I don’t know.”

Jonah nodded stiffly. He probably expected that reply from me. I had been saying it all morning.

“Well, we’ll go to the bank and check out this J person at the Lincoln motel and see where that takes us.”

Jonah and I were by no means celebrities, but our jobs certainly put us in the spotlight more often than we might have liked – especially in a situation as we found ourselves in with Avalon. Owning one of the top record companies in the country was not an easy feat and the publicity that came with it often made going out in public a bit of a hassle. I couldn’t tell you how many times Avalon and I were interrupted on a date for someone to want to talk to me, slide me a demo, or – for some reason – even get my autograph. Even Hollywood Fix seemed to have a soft spot for Jonah and me.

Avalon hated paparazzi. She hated paparazzi more than any other aspect of my job honestly. They made her nervous and claustrophobic and she always felt completely tense the entire night we were out if the paparazzi greeted us at the restaurant. Seemed like no matter the country they followed us everywhere. Even on our honeymoon we couldn’t catch a break.

“It’s just a few cameras.”

Avalon glanced out the tinted window of the rental car to the sidewalk that was swarming with paparazzi and their crew, waiting for us to step out.

“That’s hardly a few.” she mumbled.

“Just keep your head down and don’t say anything.”

“I can’t just ignore them.” she turned to me, “That’s rude.”

“Well what do you want me to say?” I sighed.

“I want to have a date with my husband that’s not riddled with strangers and their cameras.”

“Sorry to be such a burden in your life, honey.”

“Oh, Daniel, stop that.” she scoffed, shaking her head as she turned back out the window.

I stared at her a moment, her bottom lip held between her teeth and her arms crossed over the chest of the tight tropical dress she wore. I slid my hand over her thigh and gave it a squeeze to get her looking back at me. Her brown eyes were shimmering in anxious tears.

“I want to go back to the hotel.”

“No, no. It’s fine. I promise. I’ll be right beside you.” I assured her, capturing her chin in my hand to pull her lips onto mine for a quick kiss before reaching for the handle on the car door, “Come on.”

Thinking about these things only made me realize how much we actually argued. Maybe how dense I was to her feelings. Did that make me selfish? Well, I’m no perfect man. I can only push that fact on you so much, dear reader.

Jonah and I stared up at the brick bank building in front of us. The few steps to the ATM seemed like a mile. I took out my wallet from my jeans pocket and flicked through it to pull out my credit card with a sigh.

“5k?” Jonah suggested.

“Yeah, sounds about right.” I mumbled, adjusting the cap on my head as I scanned the curb we were parked in front of. “I’ll be quick.”

I stepped out of my car before I could psych myself up anymore and hopped up onto the sidewalk towards the ATM outside the building. I stood close to the machine, head down, and slid my credit card into the slot. I typed in my pin number with shaking hands and waited for my withdrawal request to go through while I tried not to think about what I was hiding in my car just behind me.

The sun beat down on the back of my neck as I hunched over the ATM, trying my best to keep myself in the shadows. It felt like ages had gone by until the machine slid out a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills and returned my card. I kept my head down as I turned on my heel and crashed right into a man walking towards the front doors of the bank.

He must have apologized – I remember him saying something to me – but the fear that our sudden collision injected into my veins had me bowing my head and rushing off to my car a few feet away without a word. I was breathless when I closed the door behind me as if I had just hiked up the Hills and back and I tried to play it off as I flicked through the bills in my hand.

I held out half the stack to Jonah so we could split the total just in-case anything happened to either of us, “Twenty-five-hundred for you. Twenty-five-hundred for me.”

“Great.” Jonah reached into the backseat and grabbed his wallet from his back to tuck the cash safely away and I slipped my half into the glove box of the car.

We had to keep moving so I pulled out of the bank parking lot back towards the main roads while Jonah brought up the address of the motel in the GPS and set the route navigation on. We drove in silence, not even bothering to put on any music, and he scrolled through his phone as we hit some traffic on the freeway.

“The place looks musty as hell.” Jonah said casually.

I glanced over to his phone screen to see him checking out the Expedia site.

“It’s like 1 out of 5 stars. Reviews say bed bugs, broken furniture, unfriendly staff. Why would Avalon want to go within five blocks of this place yet alone meet someone inside?” Jonah mumbled and he set his phone back down to charge.

“Yeah, well, I don’t think the interior design what she was particularly worried about.” I muttered as I switched lanes towards the exit for Pasadena. I couldn’t help but let the jealously come out through my tone of voice.

My phone rang through the Tesla speakers and I glanced at the screen to see Christian calling me for at least the third time since the night before. I declined it.

“Fuck. Why does he need to know where I am so badly?” I grumbled.

“Maybe you should just tell him you’re busy at work.” Jonah suggested.

“It’s none of his business where I am.”

“It’ll get him off your back.”

“It’ll get him asking questions. We really don’t need that.” I sighed tiredly.

Jonah kept quiet.

The Lincoln Motel was right off the freeway and was so closely built under the underpass that it could have passed as a troll under the bridge. Honestly, it sort of felt like that same sort of sense as I pulled into the cracked parking lot of the nearly crumbling orange stucco two-storey building. My white Tesla looked like a diamond in the rough beside the motel and I would have been worried about it being stolen if it wasn’t for the body in the trunk already depreciating the car.

I parked in the spot closest to the building and Jonah and I took a moment to prepare ourselves for not only the person we were going to meet uninvited but also to face the decrepit building firsthand. I leaned forward to see up to the second storey balcony – all the rooms being outdoor entry – and located number nineteen. This certainly was not what I had planned when I woke up that morning.

Detective Team: @jonahlovescoffee​ @randomlimelightxxx​ @stuffofseaveyy​ @hopinglimelight​ @tempus-ut-luceant​ @br4nd1s​ @xkelsev​ @hiya-its-amber​ @sexyseavey15​

[ikleesfiction]

Will you follow through if I fall for you?

Fandom : One Chicago Word count : 3,762 words Disclaimer

Previously on this fic : Part 1 🞂 Part 2 🞂 Part 3 🞂 Part 4 🞂 Part 5 🞂 Part 6 🞂 Part 7 🞂 Part 8 🞂 Part 9

Part 10

It's been almost 6 months since you left Chicago. You spent those months working yourself to the bones as a way to forget Jay. It certainly was not a successful attempt, but at least you were too busy to think about him. You accepted Alex's idea to make a duo project and lazily named it "alex&y/n". You both started doing gigs at various clubs around the world. Pyramid, Alex's record company where you work for, continuously releases new sounds that you discovered. You keep writing and producing songs after songs. Really, your career is flourished. But deep inside, you're empty.

You never had a chance to go back to Chicago. Part of you was relieved that you don't have to deal with it yet. The other part of you was missing it so much. You might only stay four months in Chicago, but somehow the city (and its people) have marked their place in your heart.

You love Amsterdam. It's still your home, but its charm hasn't called you as it did before. Sure, you have your parents here. But you only got to meet them twice a week at best. Your work and their jobs don't leave lots of time to be together. Also, even though you have most of your friends in the city, you don't get to hang out with them all the time since you travel a lot for work. You get to make new friends along the way instead, just like you did in Chicago.

Case in point, you are currently in Norway, working on a song with Oliver Dahl, the number #1 DJ in the country.

Oliver's home studio is one of the best places you ever work in. The studio setup is practically the same as the one Pyramid has. But Oliver has a baby grand piano on one corner where through the window, you can see a tranquil lake with a green forest on its side. The view is calming and inspiring. So although Oliver is a much better pianist than you, you park yourself there and relegate him to a Korg keyboard.

"Hey, it's almost dinner time. Let's take a break," Oliver suggests to you. He guides you out from the studio and moves downstairs to his kitchen. The glass-paneled dining room has a door that leads to the back porch. You thought the view from the studio was great, but the view from down here is even better. You sit on a swing at the porch, take a deep breath of fresh air there.

Oliver comes out with two bottles of beer and hands you one, which you gladly accept. You switch your phone back on since you didn't want to be disturbed when you were working. It relentlessly buzzes once it's on. "Well, somebody is famous," teases Oliver.

You peek at your phone screen before grimacing at him, "Sorry. Nick needs something. I gotta call him back." You walk a few steps away from the porch. Without the roof over your head, you can feel slight drops of rain on your face. "Hey, boss. How's the meeting in Brussels go?"

"Infuriatingly slow. That is why I'm calling. I was hoping you can help us," Nick replies. He didn't sound too worried, so you thought it's going to be an easy request, "Sure. What is it?"

"Alex was supposed to have a phone interview with one of Chicago radio show, to talk about the new single of alex&y/n. Since our meeting here runs longer, could you do it in his stead? I know you don't like doing an unprepared interview, but I promise it won't be long, 15 minutes max."

"Alright, I'll do that." It's not like you can say no anyway.

"Great! I'll set it up. It's going to be in an hour. So don't mute your phone." Nick reminds you.

"I won't. It probably falls during our dinner here. I can keep my phone on."

"Thanks, y/n," Nick hangs up the call.

◢◤

Joe Cruz walks into the common-room of Firehouse 51 with his phone on hand. "Guys, Chicago Top 40 is interviewing Y/N right now!"

"Turn the volume up. I cannot hear it from here," Mouch complains from the couch as he mutes the tv. Joe pushes the side button of his phone and sets the volume to the max. Everyone continues doing their things quietly as they listen to the interview.

"We got one half of alex&y/n on the phone with us here. Dare I say the prettier half. Let's say hi to Y/N!" They hear the radio host cheers from Joe's phone.

"Hi, how are you doing?" you chuckle and greet back.

"We're all good here, thank you. So please tell us more about the latest single of alex&y/n? How did you guys come up with it?"

"We started writing this song probably about 8 months ago. I was in Chicago at the time actually," you start to explain.

"Oh, really? I didn't know you were in town," the host shortly interrupts.

"Yeah, it was back before we had any idea for this project. Alex came up with it when we made this song. It was supposed to be the first single of alex&y/n. But when I came back to Amsterdam, we wrote "Void" The team decided that it fitted better as the first single. Hence this song "Fiery Love" got pushed to be the second one."

The conversation regarding the song and the duo project goes on for another ten minutes before the interviewer wraps it up. Joe is about to close the radio app when he sees Jay Halstead and Hailey Upton step into the common-room of Firehouse 51.

"Enjoy the rest of your day, Y/N," says the host on air. "What time is it anyway in your place right now? I haven't got a chance to ask where you are,"

Joe's thumb stills above his phone screen. "It's almost 7 PM in Bergen, Norway," you inform the radio. Jay stiffens as he hears your voice.

"Oh, you got a gig there tonight?" the host asks curiously.

"No. Just a bit writing and studio session," you answer vaguely.

"It must've been in a studio with a view, unlike our four wall booth here," the host retorts.

You snicker quietly, "If I could, I'd trade you in a heartbeat,"

"Oh, stop it! You're too kind," the host says, thinking you're jesting.

You let out a tiny laugh, "But no, I'm serious. I wish I didn't leave Chicago," you admit candidly on air. Totally unbeknownst to the strained atmosphere in the Firehouse 51 common-room.

"Come visit soon. We'll show you our fancy dig here," the radio host returns jokingly. Joe finally decides to close the radio app, as Matt Casey addresses their guests. "Detectives, how can we help you?"

Jay looks at his partner, neglecting the fact that everyone in the room is watching him, "Can you handle this by yourself? I.. I think I left my phone in the car," Hailey is sure that Jay didn't leave his phone, but she gives him an understanding nod.

"We need to see Chief Boden," Hailey answers Matt. He then guides her to the Chief's office. When both detectives are out of range, Hermann asks the room, "It was a bit awkward, wasn't it?" Everyone ignores Hermann's comment and back doing things they did before. Kelly Severide determinedly stands up from his seat and goes outside. He finds Jay standing in front of the squad truck.

"Hey, man," Kelly greets him. Jay just nods to acknowledge him. After a few moments of silence, Kelly breaks first, "She always asks about you whenever she calls."

Jay scoffs his disbelief, "Yeah, right."

"She is not a brave girl, Jay. But she really loves you. She still regrets hurting you." Kelly tells him. Jay stays silent, taking in Kelly's words. "I don't think she's doing well out there." Kelly continues. Jay glances at him before opening his mouth to say something. But at the same time, Hailey comes out with Matt. "Let's go," she tells Jay. He nods at Matt and leaves with her without saying anything.

As both detectives walk away, Kelly shouts to Jay, "Will you pick up? If she calls you?"

Jay halts and looks over his shoulder. Not sure what to answer, he just shrugs in response.

◢◤

The following week, you find yourself working alone in Alex's studio. You go through some demos, try to find a song that you'd like to work on. The door is suddenly opened and reveals Alex and Nick coming in.

"You planning on going home tonight?" Alex says as he hands you a mug of hot tea. It's not unusual for you to stay all night working. While it was beneficial for the company, your well being is still his priority.

"Maybe," you just shrug as you accept the mug. "Thanks. So what's up?"

"I got an offer for alex&y/n gig for an EDM festival," Nick starts. "What do you think about it?"

"Cool, I guess.." you answer indifferently.

"Yeah?" Alex tries to reconfirm your agreement. You never play a festival before, so far alex&y/n only do club gigs. Even though you're basically doing the same thing, the stage and crowd size sometimes could be overwhelming, especially for someone who doesn't like to perform live.

"Uhuh," you nod before sipping your tea.

"Don't you wanna know where it will be?" Nick pushes.

"No," you say in disinterest, already looking back at your laptop. Nick raises his eyebrow questioningly towards Alex, which he answers with a subtle nod. "Alright then, I'm gonna go home now. You two get some rest. We'll talk again tomorrow," Nick informs you before leaving the room.

Alex drags a chair and sits next to you. "Talk to me. Please"

"There's nothing to talk about," you reply to your cup. Alex nudges you. Once. Twice. Thrice. "Stop it!" you scold him as you roll your chair away.

"You know I can do this all night until you talk to me," Alex says as he slides closer to you.

You exhale loudly in defeat before quietly tell him, "It's just... I'm exhausted."

Somehow he knows that you're not only talking about your body. "I'll talk to Nick. We can cancel the rest of alex&y/n gigs,"

"You know we can't," you rebuff his idea.

"We might be able to do that if I offer to take them instead?" Alex offers a solution.

"And let you be the one who burnout? Hell no," you deny his suggestion. You tiredly rub your face with your palm, "It's alright, Lex. I should have just suck it up and do it,"

Both of you stay silent for a moment. You pick your tea mug from the table when Alex unsurely speaks again, "That gig Nick talked about is in Chicago," You freeze up until Alex prods you, "Still wanna do it?"

"What do you think?" you weakly ask for his opinion.

"I think we should do it. It'd be fun. We can try to arrange a few days off. You can take me to your favorite places in Chicago, meet your friends.." Alex tells you. It sounds nice, makes you want to say yes. But you still have doubt in the back of your mind. "It's been months, y/n. Time for you to face it. Face Jay." Alex continues as if he knows your thought.

"I can't!" you shake your head in resign. "And why is that?" Alex pushes further.

"Because I still love him!" you forcefully drop your mug on the table, the tea splashes out of it.

"Then tell that to Jay! Don't make the same mistake as you did before!" Alex yells back at you. You instantly feel like you've been slapped.

Avoiding Alex's stare, you start to pack up your things from the table. "I think I need to go home now. Don't think I can work on anything tonight." You grab your jacket and hastily walked out of the studio.

A couple hours later, Alex comes by to your place with a canvas bag on his shoulder, "I got a box of chocolate and a six-pack of La Trappe Tripel here,"

"I don't think they can help me feel better this time," you quip as you open the door for him. Alex pulls the beers and chocolate out from the bag and puts them on the coffee table in front of the couch. He reaches again to the bag, "Don't worry, I come prepared. Got jenever in here too," He sets the bottle next to the chocolate. You go to the kitchen and bring out two clean glasses.

"Are we starting right away?" Alex asks you in confusion.

"Are you waiting for something else?" you start to open one of the beer bottles.

"Don't you want to eat dinner first? Or maybe have bitterballen to snack on?" Alex suggests to you. You open the chocolate box and pop one candy into your mouth. "There, I ate something," you declare sarcastically before sipping the beer in your hand.

"Okay then," Alex accepts his defeat. He goes to your kitchen and sees what you have on your fridge. "You don't mind if I finish this leftover stew, right?" he hollers at you as he puts the container in the microwave.

You snort your answer, "Go ahead. It's not like you need permission to raid my pantry anyway,"

Alex comes back with a bowl of stew and sits next to you on the couch. You fiddle with your phone for a bit before a ballad song playing on your home speaker. Alex starts to talk about various things as he eats, updating you about his sister Sara, his meeting in Belgium. He even lets you know what he had for lunch today. He keeps talking because he knows you're not gonna say anything.

Alex cracks open his second beer while you finish your third one and start to pour the gin into your glass. "I'll Be Over You" by Toto is playing on your speaker. Alex exasperatedly rolls his eyes, thinking that his best friend could really be dramatic sometimes. You sprawl on the couch with your feet on top of Alex's lap. "What if he's moved on?" you say after long contemplation, ready to tackle more serious conversation. "Ready" as in drunk enough to talk about it.

"Well, you face that with head held high and moved on too," Alex replies. "Easier said than done, I know."

"Big chance he doesn't want to see me anyway," you mutter to yourself. But Alex still answers you, "Maybe. Maybe not. You'll never know without going there,"

◢◤

It's been 7 months since you left Chicago and Jay Halstead still kept your last voicemail on his phone. Even when he's so mad at you, Jay never had the heart to delete it. Because somewhere deep inside, he could hear your sincerity. Jay is desperate to believe that you honestly love him and care about him.

Before Severide approached him the other day, nobody ever talked to Jay about his ex-girlfriend. Jay never apologized for pushing Adam. His friends guessed that his relationship ended, but no one ever said anything about it. His brother always abruptly changed the radio whenever your song was played on-air, acting all annoyed. But he knows Will is secretly still a fan of your music, just not in front of Jay. He thinks they're all worried that talking about you would raise his temper. But the truth is Jay misses you.

After his anger passed by, Jay could understand your position. You were left alone, befriending strangers in some city that far from home. While Jay understood that you missed home, he's still disappointed over the fact that you didn't tell him sooner. But it already happened, you made your choice. Now Jay is left with a bruised heart and silently pined over his ex.

Jay is lost in his thoughts. He jolts in surprise when he feels something cold and wet on his cheek. Jay looks up to find Will, who hands him a glass of beer. "How is the game going? Anything interesting happens when I'm gone?" Will asks Jay as he sits and looks down to the ice rink. They are at the United Center arena, watching a Blackhawks game.

"Nah, you don't miss much," Jay tells his brother. "Thanks for taking me here, man."

"It's nothing. I want to do something for your birthday, but since I have to work double shifts tomorrow, we just have to celebrate early." Will raises his glass for a toast. The brothers shout wildly during the game, chant together with other spectators in the stadium, basically having a good time. When the game is on a break, Will and Jay trade a light banter between each other. The jumbotron above plays adverts that they ignore.

"This summer, coming back to the Soldier Field Arena. We proudly present, Spring Awakening Music Festival! Featuring..."

When they hear the ad's narrator mentions "alex&y/n" Jay spontaneously looks up at the jumbotron. There was a picture of you and Alex, standing back to back, staring hard through the camera. Even with the cold gaze and unsmiling face, Jay still thought you look good. The announcement was certainly a surprise. Jay remembered when you told him that you don't like to perform in front of crowds. Now here you are, headlining a big stage. Time's changed, he thinks to himself.

Jay keeps looking at the gigantic screen, even though now it's showing another ad. If anyone asks him, Jay cannot tell what this new ad is about. His mind is busy thinking about something/someone else. Will glances at his brother and notices the tightness of Jay's shoulders. "I won't come to see them, even if they give me free tickets," he remarks wittily. Jay burst out a laugh and elbow his brother, "Thanks, man." he is grateful for his brother's understanding.

◢◤

Jay wakes up late the next morning. He spent the night listening to your podcasts and fell asleep with your voice on his ears. Seeing you on the jumbotron made him missed you more. His phone battery was drained, his alarm didn't ring. It's only because of habits from his ranger days that he woke up and gets ready in time to go to work.

Just as he walks out of his place, a delivery man is stopping him. "I got a package for Jay Halstead?"

"Yeah, that's me," Jay says distractedly, trying to recall if he orders anything online. The guy hands him a bag and a receipt form. Jay skims the paper before signing it. On the shipper box, it is stated, "Belgian Chocolatier Piron, Inc." He returns the signed form to the courier. "Thank you. Have a nice day, Sir", chirps the man. Jay pauses slightly, looking at the bag, before running to his car once remembers that he's late for work.

Once Jay arrives at the district, he puts the suspicious package on his desk. He opens the bag cautiously and pulls out a golden cardboard box with a black bow tied around it. He digs deeper into the bag but finds nothing more, no notes or cards, just this golden box.

"You got a box of Piron?! Can I have one? Please?" Jay hears Kim Burgess squeals at him.

"What the hell is a Piron?" Adam Ruzek asks loudly from behind her. Kim starts to pull the bow, but Jay moves the box away quickly. "I don't even know who it's from. We should be careful. I'll send it to the lab.."

"Is that Piron?!" Hailey Upton shrieks as she steps closer to Jay's desk.

"What? You know about this Piron too?" Adam baffles even further.

"They are like one of the best chocolatiers in town." Hailey impatiently explains to Adam. "Is it yours, Jay?" She sounds rather demanding than asking.

"Yes, it's Jay's. And he wants to bring it to the forensic lab. Unbelievable..." Kim says disapprovingly.

"I don't even know who send it! Aren't you worried if it turns out to be a bomb or a deadly virus?" Jay tries to reason to his teammates, who are now circling around him.

"What bomb?" They all jump in surprise when they hear Voight from behind them.

"Ah, it's nothing, Sarge. There are no bombs anywhere. At least not in the city of Chicago... Maybe..." Jay rambles.

"Are you gonna open that box, Halstead?" Voight cuts him off, pointing at the innocent box.

"I'm not sure, Sarge," Jay meekly admits. Voight pulls the black bow that was half undone because of Kim and opens the box gently. "Oh no, it's a bomb," Adam whispers as he hides behind Kevin Atwater but peeks over his shoulder. The girls are excitedly bouncing on their heels, seeing the rows of chocolate inside the box. Voight takes one and confidently bites into it. "You should never waste good chocolate. By the way, happy birthday, Jay." He pats Jay's shoulder before stepping toward his office. Jay gives Voight a small smile, though he still confounds about the situation.

Jay looks at the rest of the team. Hailey bites a candy on her right hand as she picks another with her left. Kim got half-bitten chocolate on her fingers. Her eyes were closed as she savors the taste. Adam's hand hovers above the box, cautiously looking at his teammates, "You girls feel okay? No dizziness, nausea, anything?" His questions were left unanswered since the girls were too busy munching.

Kevin offers Jay a handshake and continues with a quick hug, "Happy birthday, bro!" Jay clasps his shoulder, "Thanks, Kev,"

"So someone sent you this as a birthday gift, huh? Quite special, isn't it?" Kevin picks one candy from the box.

"I guess. If only I knew who sent it..." Jay wonders. He also takes one piece of chocolate and nibbles into it. The bittersweet taste suddenly reminds him of a particular someone. At the same time, his phone chirps on his desk. Jay checks his phone and finds a voice memo from an unknown, international number. He moves to a quieter place and listens to the message.

"Hi, Jay," Jay holds his breath, recognizing the voice on the other end. "It's me, y/n... I just want to wish you a happy birthday... Hope you enjoy the chocolate," He waits as you hesitate to continue. "Err... Stay safe, alright? I love you." As if just realizing what you've said, Jay hears you curse in panic, "oh shi.." and the message briskly ends.

Next on this fic : Part 11

+x Taglist +x

@shipshipshipau @itsdesiree86 @thevelvetseries @annaallicce

[everythingoesnk]

Better Late Than Never

summary; john plays cupid (sorta?)

word count; 1 711

request by anon; “heehee i never knew u took requests!! ur writing is so lovely u rlly are talented❤️❤️ i was wondering if u could do smthg ab being georgies neighbour and like him n the quarrymen r rehearsing and they invite u to watch and they flirt w u and he gets jealous”

disclaimers; this sat in my drafts for ages but i finally finished it. glad that i can post it for once and for all. don’t be too hard on me cause i haven’t written shit in so long and i’m super sceptical about my work ty

warnings;

********

A few weeks earlier, Paul and John made the decision that Eric Griffiths had to go. They wanted George to be part of the group, and with Eric on board there were just too many guitars. The Quarrymen, along with Lowe on the piano and Hanton on the drums, had a demo recording scheduled in Kensington in a couple of days, so whenever they had the time, they would invest it in practising and sprucing up their performance.

You were coming back home after babysitting a three-year-old boy when you saw Paul and John’s distinctive jaunty silhouettes down the street.

They were carrying their instruments.

”Reunion of bitches?” you teased, bumping your shoulders with theirs to open a spot for you in between.

They were so used to you being a nosy little bird that they didn’t even flinch when you appeared.

“If what you mean by that is if we’re heading to a rehearsal, yes we are” Paul confirmed looking down at you with a warm smile. He slid his arm around your neck and patted your cheek persistently just to annoy you. “It’s the three of us this time, the others are busy”

You tried to smack his hand away while he spoke, but he had it strongly clamped over your mouth now, playfully sticking to his cat-and-mouse game. John was used to Paul behaving like this around you, you being like a little sister to him even though you shared the same age, so he didn’t move an inch when you began asking for help through the muffled laughter.

What came out of his mouth instead earned puzzled looks from you and Paul, who slowly let his arm drop.

“You can’t come” he had stated, because he knew you and it was only a matter of seconds before you started badgering them to let you stay and watch them play.

“Why not?” you snapped back, forehead puckered up.

John threw his head back to stare at Paul and raised an inquisitive knowing eyebrow at him.

After witnessing the looks they were giving each other, you huffed loudly, tired of the melodramatic secrecy. “Not again with the silent conversations”

“You can’t expect to know everything, (Y/N)” John stated.

“But what is there to know?” you questioned, beyond confused.

You were missing something and it was stressing you out that they knew what it was but wouldn’t tell you because they didn’t feel like it.

Paul felt empathy for you after seeing you so lost.

“We don’t progress much when you’re around because you distract Geo too much” he explained.

“Bravo, Macca” John sighed as the three of you continued to walk towards George’s house.

With their ‘silent conversation’ they agreed not to rat out George, but Paul’s mouth was faster than his brain could ever be.

John should have taken into account his mate’s overspoken nature.        

“I do?” you said, lines forming between your brows, not understanding. “How so?”

John snorted. “Sit and observe”

You turned to Paul. He was staring at John the same way one does when you recognize your friend is about to put on a show and you aren’t very sure if it’s the right time or place, but you know that anything you say will fly into their ear and out of the other.

He fixed his eyes tenderly on you after and shrugged his shoulders with a peculiar cheekiness.

//

George looked every bit the unconcerned man as he sat back and watched John plop down on the couch next to you, splaying his arms along the top of the seat as he asked you how much you get paid for the babysitting.

They were in a break after been playing for two hours.

“Not much” you noted.

“Quit” he interrupted, smirking friskily and brushing a strand of hair behind your ear cautiously. “I’ll double your wage if you join the band. We are missing the attractive factor”

You wheezed. “I’m positive with your talent it’ll be sufficient” you said, laughing still.

You looked over at George. He wasn’t looking in your direction but John’s, mouth compressed and something you couldn’t fathom flitting across his eyes.

“Besides,” you added, “I don��t know how to play any instrument to save my life”

“The piano a little bit” George chimed in, after deliberating whether to speak or not.

You blushed settling your gaze on him one more time, marvelled that he remembered. “It’s been years since I last practised”

“If the piano is too much I’ll give you my harmonica. I’m fucking tired of blowing into that shit” John offered, resting his left hand on your thigh and giving it a firm squeeze.

Everyone laughed except George. He didn’t even smile.

He dipped his eyes and ran a finger over his brow back and forth for a couple of seconds before grabbing his guitar again.

Something was off with him, and it upset you that he was feeling under the weather when Paul, John and you were vibing and having such a wonderful time.

John kissed your cheek and cuddled you after wrapping his leather jacket around you even though you didn’t ask for it. George saw and shook his head gently, forcing himself to continue working on his part so he would nail it in the upcoming session. His mind was elsewhere and the chords didn’t sound as good as he wanted them to be. He brought his brows together and you stifled an affable grin, observing silently while he mumbled under his breath, probably putting himself down for not getting them right.

John smiled seeing you stare at George, but Paul knew what that smile meant, what was really behind it, and he started gesturing at him as subtle as he could not to push his luck with George. He’d keep his conscience clean regardless of what happened from now on.

John’s smile enlarged when he saw his best mate from the corner of his eye trying to catch his attention, but he had it all mapped out in his head.

He leaned forward, elbows on the knees and fingers interlocked.

“(Y/N), is it true that you’ve been seeing Sam?”

You looked over at John, perplexed.

George also raised his gaze, disconcertion lurking in it.

Paul slapped a hand to his forehead.

Clueless as to why he would ask that, you turned pink. “Where have you heard that?”

George interpreted your blush as you being embarrassed because you got caught, and your question as wanting to know who spillt the news. The suave yet pained expression tinted on his face was replaced by a rather sad and fragile one.

Instinctively, you pinned your eyes to George’s when John didn’t answer you. You weren’t dating anyone named Sam and you didn’t want him to believe that you did.

He remained there staring what felt like a lifetime into your eyes, only for his to fall to the floor seconds after. He stood up and paced to the door.

Envy overloaded him, making his jealously evolve into what a romantic would describe as passional delirium.

Hastily, he turned, came up to you and closed his fingers over your arm. John watched with a wry grin.

“Can we talk?” George asked, his tone filled with forced politeness.

You nodded and let him guide you towards his kitchen.

He looked over his shoulder first to confirm that neither of his bandmates had followed you there.

Then, for a few seconds, he froze. You noticed he was agitated and internally saturated with mixed feelings.

Out of the blue, he straightened his spine, a different kind of thickness filling his throat. Determined to overcome his shyness and insecurity, he gave a long exhale. Throwing you off guard, he grabbed your face, fingers gripping tightly your cheeks, and pressed his mouth to yours so enthusiastically that you subtly felt his front teeth.

Excitement and love rushed into your veins.

You kissed him back and wrapped your arms around his waist, knowing from the get go that this wasn’t going to be the last time that you would taste his lips. George couldn’t open his eyes at first after having departed from the kiss, which turned out to be the best and most pleasant, pure and precious kiss he had ever shared.

When he flicked them open, he couldn’t resist the drive to glide his thumb over the soft skin of your sweet fleshy lips.

John suddenly burst into the kitchen pretending to pull off that the obtrusion was casual. The real and obvious reason was that he wanted to see what was going on behind curtains.

George quickly pulled back.

That reaction and the swollen lips from both of you was enough for John.

“Don’t mind me. Just came here for something to drink” he said, but the clownery in his voice was oh so present and solid.

Cheeks burning, George didn’t move.

John, with the glass in his hand, turned to him before leaving.

“I mean, maybe it’s you who needs some water. You look feverish, my friend”

You quickly pushed him out of the kitchen.

George slowly looked up again when he wasn’t around. “There’s no Sam, is there?”

You shook your head no. “John is a crackhead, a good bloke but a crackhead. Never listen to him, listen to me” you smiled. He drew you into his arms, missing your warmth already. “I’m not dating Sam, Geo. He’s blond and I’m not into blondes”

George chuckled. “What are you into, then?” he asked, needing to hear from you that you only wanted him.

“I’m into this guy from The Quarrymen. Not the one who plays the bass, and clearly not the blind one, he’s too much of a ponce sometimes” you smirked. “Into the bushy unibrow guy”

He laughed harder and tightened his embrace.

“Lucky you he’s had his eye and unibrow on you for some time”

“Sweet, cause I’ve been in love with him ever since I met him”

George stared dearly down at you with the brightest smile and captured your lips again.

He didn’t know if John was a genius or a foolish cretin for causing him to feel so enraged before, making him believe you had a boyfriend.

The perfect mix, he conceded.

[daggerzine]

Celebrity Mixtape Party #1 with Steve Michener (Volcano Suns, Dumptruck, Big Dipper) Part 1

Steve (far left with Big Dipper) 

Mixtapes. They're back! Or maybe they never went away? What happens when you make a mixtape for someone who MAKES music? And then they talk about that mixtape? Well, dear reader, let's find out in..

Okay!  First song. Side A. So I'll give my impressions and then we can talk about the song. Okay? Then the reveal, when appropriate.

Sexy

Thanks for this tape, Matthew, I've really been enjoying it.  However, I gotta say the first song is my least favorite.

What is it pray tell

I don't know but I usually love that style of song.  Very Love/Byrds-y but there was something cloying about that hook of 'Let's Get Together'

Oh yes. Justin Trouble.

Can't tell if it's authentic 60's pop or revival

Early '80s. He was friends with Johnny Thunders.New York City area guy

Never heard of him but I'm not inspired to search him up. Too many words.

Aw man he's just riffing

Anything you wanna say in his defense?

I mean I could. I think that song and the whole record is genius. To me it's the very essence of rock and roll.

Okay, maybe that's just one song that I wouldn't like. I'll check it out. I know you love your 60s stuff  but to me it's just too twee. But if you were using this as a "courtship tape", the relationship is over.

Since we can't "get together" on that song?

Courtship tape. I think they were called love mixes back in the day my friend.

I'm older than you. We used to bring them and play them in the parlor. So this second song is right up my Alley. Great guitar sound, great drummer.  I love that it's poppy but it takes a minor key/dissonant turn when he sings the tagline 'Solid Gold'. Kind of a Fall vibe to that hook.

So what is that second song?

Boston band....Real Kids...1974 demo...EARLY REAL KIDS

I knew you'd get a Real Kids song on there but that is very 'Unreal' real kids.  Sounds like they were way ahead of their time

Yeah. That song is unhinged. Nothing twee about it.

Amazing band.  I would have maybe guessed that but that chorus is so left field.  If I knew about that song back then, I would have had the band cover it. Real Kids sounding like the Fall. They should have been as big as the Ramones.  Worse drug and ego problems I guess.

To me it sounds like The Dolls. A little bit of Glam in there.

I saw them a few times at the Rat.  Always a reliable live band. I hear the 60's thing in there but that turnaround into the chorus is at least 5 years ahead of its time. I need to hear more of those demos.

It's on vinyl.

Next song- One thing that I know about you is that you love your 60s stuff.  This sounds like an authentic acid rock band. Roky?

I don't have the tracklist

Ah, okay.  It's by Girl Trouble-"Storm Warning'. Don't know them but I love the song.

The pride of Bellingham

Kind of like the Seeds meet Nick Cave. What year?

1993 on Empty

Love the sax and guitar interplay at the end.  Wow. I would have placed that in 1965

Yeah except for the production. I think he's one of the Great rock and roll vocalists of the '90s

Yeah, great singer.  Are they still around or mutate into something else?

Kurt Kendall. No, I don't think they really play around much anymore. There was a reunion show not too long ago but I missed it.

Great stuff, I'll check it out. Next song? Okay, this one I knew from the first note--the great NRBQ. The greatest rock and roll band ever, at least in this incarnation.

Green Lights?

Yes.

I saw them around this time with the WW Horns, opening for Thorogood.

Another great vocalist

I didn't appreciate them back then cuz I was too into the alternative scene (tho still loved GT) but when I saw them in the 80's I was amazed.

This is a band that should have played the bar band in every '80s movie ever made

Exactly.  they were my template for 'a band'

That's Joey singing that one? favorite bass player ever, favorite drummer ever.

I'm not entirely sure what that guitar is in the solo. Sounds almost like a pedal steel or something.

Big Al could make anything sound like anything.  Genius band. Shoulda been huge.

The YouTube comments say Joey.

Yeah, Joey wrote the hits. Like most bass players.

Lol. The album is called nrbq at Yankee stadium and it's funny because the picture shows an empty Yankee stadium with them far away in the bleachers...a play on words...clever

I see.

I'll explain humor to you another time.

Make me a 'humor' mixtape

Okay next song

The 5th song on side A is called Buried Alive.  A 3 chord slab of brilliance.  Sounds like another Boston Band.  More Real Kids?

Hmmm

Should I peek?

It could be Avenged Sevenfold. Yes peek.

Oh no, it's the Nervous Eaters!  Born to Die.  I thought he was singing Buried Alive.

Ahhh!!

I knew it was Boston, can't believe I missed the Eaters.  Loved that band.

Another Boston band you didn't ID! You are 0 for 2

I wrote down it was "the Lyres without keyboards" so I get half credit.

Okay so one of the cool things about this band is it had one of the Paley Brothers. Who never did anything this "heavy" outside of this band?

I had their singles and saw them live a few times.  They were great. Just Head is a classic.

The major label debut was a bit of a disaster:  slick production, terrible cover art. I swore that I'd never let that happen to any band that I was in.

This song for some reason reminds me of Judas Priest.

I thought Saints at first but Priest would work

Next song?

Ok

This is one that I will probably miss too. Sounds VERY familiar and my first guess is Rockpile/Brinsley Schwarz.  "I'll have another drink and then I tried to crawl out the door.."

"I never did know a thing about it." It's got that Nick Lowe/Dave Edmunds vibe.

Take a peek

Status Quo-Lies

Ah yes

Wow, I don't think of SQ sounding like this. This is pub rock, I thought they were harder

Very boogie

Don't you get the Rockpile thing tho?

Oh absolutely

Great song.  I'd cover this. Was it a hit?

That status quo song is from 1980. I think so. They did it on Top of the Pops

Good. I'd be depressed if a song that great didn't get an audience.

Agreed

Next?

Yes

I also don't know this and I'm not sure what the hook is but it sounds like what I imagine the Muffs sound like. Be my baby.?  Sneering female vocals, 3 chords, loud guitars.

Fastbacks - Read my Letters

Yeah, another band I completely missed out on.  From the PNW?

Seattle

I've seen them quite a few times and they were always amazing. Big fan.

I'm sorry I missed them live. I don't care much for this song but I'll bet it sounded good in a sweaty club.

Ok

Did you like the Muffs?

Not really. I mean I respect them a lot but they never resonated with me. I think Kurt Bloch is a great lyricist. And I love that he didn't sing his own lyrics.

Wait, that was a guy singing?

No. The guitar player Kurt wrote the lyrics for most of their songs.

Got it.  So he left them to join YFF?

He did both simultaneously. Kim Warnick is the singer and bass player.

Too talented.

Definitely.

I saw the Fellows quite a few times also.

They opened for us in Seattle in 1990. I loved them but, as an east coaster, had never seen them.

Also amazing one of my favorites. During that time that both the Fastbacks and the Young Fresh Fellows were active it made me envy Seattle because Portland didn't have bands like those bands.

This is a different convo, but Seattle is a much more rockin town than Portland.

Full disclosure in the '90s I was not a fan of Portland's music scene. But I did like Hazel.

They were so cute!

Alright, let's not get distracted!   Next song I recognized easily , though I may not have a few years ago.  This is Sparks - Something For The Girl Who Has Everything. Brilliant band but one that I missed out on until recently

You know I never introduced you at the beginning of all this. Dear readers, I am discussing a mixtape with our esteemed guest Steve Michener from Skid Row.

Skid Row UK, legally. Not to be confused with those dorks from Hollyweird. Michael Cudahy was my roommate back in the day and he was way into them. I could never get past the vocals.Recently though, I have come to appreciate them and now I am a big fan.

I love the vocals. It's its own thing. Who is this Michael you speak of?

Michael was in Christmas at the time and then started Combustible Edison.  Now he does movie soundtracks.

Have you ever seen the video of Ron Mael singing karaoke to a Sparks song?

No, I'll google it.

Next song?

Ok

Well, I didn't recognize the song itself but it's hard to miss the unique guitar sound of The Wedding Present-The Boy Can Wait

Fastest wrist in the west

Trademark double strum. They're one of those bands that I just love the sound of but never bought any records.

That's a Peel session by the way.

They were around last year but I failed to attend.

I like the lyrics. They're clever. Kind of misanthropic but not in a Morrissey way. More humorous.

I'm not a lyric guy but I do love a good Morrisey couplet

The dude could pen a tune

Stephen I mean

Moz

The Moz

Himself.

He should pull a Prince and just change his name to Himself

Next song is one that you would never get past me, tho I'm 0-2 with Boston bands before this.  Heading into a Boston binge here.

Ok. Just another band out of Boston

I was the world's biggest Peter Dayton fan for years.  I moved to Boston the week that LaPeste broke up so I never got to see them.  So I made up for that by seeing every PD gig for years. 'She's a Girl' by LaPeste, probably one of the best bands out of Boston ever.

I like how evil La Peste sound. They sound like they carried shivs.

It means "the pest"

Perfect

"la" is "the" in french

Waow

I don't know if you knew that. Anyway, this must have been an Ocasek demo?  Sounds like they were trying to go pop. I had a live tape of them from the rock and roll rumble in 1979 that I wore out. Just a great pop punk band. Next song is also LaPeste- Die in My Sleep.Ric got involved with them later in their career and produced some demos.  Or maybe it was Greg Hawkes.  But Ocasek worked with him solo for a few years.  Dayton's EP, which came out the same time as Panorama by the Cars. It's a fun record.Better off Dead is an amazing single.

I'll check out solo Dayton.

Jim Janota on bass. I think he was in some of those early boston punk bands

But Ric was the producer guy then . Alan Vega etc

Yeah, Ocasek was cool.  He had Dayton's band open for The Cars at the Boston Garden.  Big supporter of smaller bands.

Next two songs had me stumped. I just wrote 'Sex Pistols'.

I would never put a sex pistols song on anything ever. But I do love a lot of things that Cook and Jones were on later

This just has a Pistols energy and sneer. Hey Hey! Hey Hey!

Hmm

3 chords, English. Fall-like but harder.

Not ringing any bells

Ha! I looked at the list--Naked Raygun-Roller Queen.

Yes

"trying" to be british

Nooo

I tuned this band out early.  Not my cup of tea.

I love the Raygun. Midwest thing

Just like Soul Asylum.  I was (and remain) a judgemental asshole when it comes to music.

Hard. Arty. Humorous.

I lump them together.  Prejudice.  But this is why I like the idea of listening to the tape blind.

Throb Throb is fantastic

It can blow up my preconceived notions  or reinforce them. I know they were hugely popular in the scene and it's probably my loss that I didn't explore their stuff. I was probably reacting negatively to the Big Black thing.  Lots of competition and jealousy-fuelled listening bias.

Eh no biggy. I never really liked Big Black. To me they were great in theory but not in practice.

I prefer Shellac

Great band

But i think BD covered 'Bazooka Joe'. Not my idea.

There was another Chicago band from that time that I like a lot called Breaking Circus.

Yes, I liked Breaking Circus.  We played with them.

Yay

Next song. 60s sounding psychedelia

Ok

Didn't recognize it, but liked it. reverby guitar,

Hmm

La Luz- I Want to Be Alone. Cool sound.  What's their story?

Ah. Seattle. Then moved to LA. 4 women. On Hardly Art (label). Started in 2012. They have three lps. Saw them at The Aladdin.

Short but sweet. I'll check them out.

Very very good band

I like good bands

No bad songs. They were VERY GOOD live. Jealous of the drummer's speed and dexterity. They play with a lot of feeling.

If we ever get to see live music again, I'll check them out.

You need to.

Next song is a classic Boston number called 'No Place Like Home' by The Neighborhoods. Such a great power pop song. B-side to Prettiest Girl, which was probably the biggest indie single of the time in Boston.  That and Academy Fight Song. Both on Ace of Hearts records

Oh really? Nice that I got airplay in Boston. I mean it. I didn't get any airplay in Boston

Yes, it was huge! (sorry about your lack of airplay)  top song on WBCN, the local rock station. They should have been huge-they had it all.  Cute guys, great songs, amazing live show. I woulda bet on them

Despite looking like a reggae album I've read good reviews with their first LP. The thing with a lot of these bands is they're from a time when there were regional scenes period and if they didn't make the jump to Major label then a lot of what they were about might have been lost on people outside of their scene

Honestly, I don't remember that LP at all.  Maybe I had dropped them and moved onto hipper stuff. They were kind of a high school crush for me. They got progressively more hard rock as time went on. Yes, probably a common theme with local bands. Some focused on getting a 'deal' and making it big.  Thank god for labels like Homestead, who gave smaller bands a chance to make mistakes and grow

If you had any anecdotes about any of these guys share away.

Anecdotes? I do

'dote away

Dave and Lee worked at Harrington's Liquor, the biggest booze shop in Allston and were always in there when I went to buy cheap vodka. Then, one day, they were fired. Word was that they tried to lift some expensive champagne from the shop to celebrate a record release party or something.  They were both dating members of Salem 66 at the time and Dave married Judy.  They were very nice guys.

Lee?

Lee Harrington, Beth's brother was their bassist in the late 80's. Beth Harrington was in Jonathan's band.

That's a good anecdote.

Jonathan?

Richman

Oh I thought I recognized her voice from Jonathan Richmond records. She was a backup singer. She had kind of a classically trained sounding voice

Yes, her and Ellie Marshall. Beth married my old roommate, whose girlfriend when I knew him, left him for Steve Forbert.

Ellie Marshall was related to who?

Something related to Paley Bros. It'll come to me.  Barry Marshall.

The next song is the Office Supply song. Swivel Chair. I don't recognize the song but it's gotta be something like Fountains of Wayne or Weezer.

Nothing Painted Blue

Oops. Hope they aren't insulted!  I kinda knew of NPB but obviously didn't get into their stuff.  Sounds like a certain pop band from Boston in the late 80s. Where were they from?

Franklin Bruno. Great songwriter in my opinion. Great band. LA

Oh, I know Franklin.  Of course.  I confuse them with that band from Boise

Franklin bears a slight passing resemblance to Bill? Cool that you know Franklin.

Well, on FB at least.  Very nice guy.  He's probably gonna unfriend me if he reads this.

I can edit it out. Celebrity mixtapes is about bringing people together, not about fighting.

No, it's fine.  It's part of the process. I'll take my lumps.

Ok

I just thought it was a little bit of a novelty song.

I just think it's adorably nebbishy

Not that we didn't veer close to that sometimes. It's a risk when you are trying to write songs that have humor in them.

Singing about office supplies. One of my favorite things about Big Dipper is you guys never crossed over into parody even though you were slyly funny.

Yeah, it def sounds like something I would write. I was an office supply nerd.

Maybe I sensed that. Dilbert Rock

Thanks. It's a fine line between clever and stupid, as the Tap says. Anyway, super catchy but maybe a little too clever for me.

NEXT!

Next song has to be Scrawl. Apple of his Eye.

Nope

Very Gang of Four with female vocals.

I did like Scrawl back in the day though. Bratmobile-Queenie.

Ah, well they should write a check to Sue and Marcy. Sounds like early Scrawl. Catchy song but a little derivative to my ears.

Yeah Scrawl predates the Bratmobile.By a few years.

You could steal from worse.

True

Scrawl were an amazing band.

Pride of Columbus

Really had the goods live and on record.

Never saw them live unfortunately.I always thought they were on Homestead but it turns out no.

You had your Homestead goggles on.

"I like everything that comes out on Homestead..."

Well that was me back then too

Last song on side A.  Permanent Wave.  No idea who it is, a short, catchy, new wave song.  Mo-dettes?

I do like the Mo-Dettes but no.

Oh Ok. From Athens

Ah!  i had their single, was this on it?

Michael Stipe's sister

Sister of Stipe

Matthew Sweet was in the band for a minute too, later on.

I bought it, I think, cuz I thought I could resell it when rem got famous. Retirement investment

I think the single and the lp are both amazing

Kind of twee, to revisit a theme

The lp is not as twee

That song sounds a little thin

I like the production. it sounds live.

I see that. Okay, I've gotta run.  This was fun.

Ok. Thanks for doing it.

https://www.mixcloud.com/matthewkenneth9/steve-michener-mix-pt-1/?fbclid=IwAR2hhMS8KXo51QjlpJ__ANfdmKY3Ux7vRyIqHHOxGfY_UK4H6tz6vIXyaxE

[thisiswherewestart]

I Remember (1/?)

Today had started out like any other Tuesday. I had woken up, logged in to work remotely for a few hours and then moved to a café for a change of scenery and to grab some lunch.

I usually frequented cafés close by my apartment, but my friend had highly recommended this quaint, newly opened one with an extensive pasta menu that was a half-hour train ride away. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a sucker for good pasta, and her rave review of their squid ink spaghetti had haunted me for the past week.

And so there I was on a Tuesday afternoon, after checking that they welcomed lingering customers. My laptop sat open across from me so I could monitor my inbox and I surveyed the simple decorations that created a homely ambiance. The fact that I was the only customer helped complete the serene scene. If this café were within walking distance, I would come again just for the atmosphere.

Ten minutes after giving my order to the waiter, my food finally arrived. The dark sauce coated the noodles beautifully, the seafood peeking out between the long strands making my mouth salivate in anticipation. As I picked up my fork, a tinkle of a bell sounded from the café entrance.

"Hello," a soft but confident voice greeted the approaching waiter. "One salmon aglio olio to go please. Thanks."

My fork stopped halfway to my mouth. My back was to the entrance but I would recognise that voice even in a noisy room.

"Tasha?"

And that confirmed it. It was him.

"Dongyoung," I greeted, standing and turning around to face the man. "It's been a while."

"When did you come back to Korea?" His tone was accusing now.

"How are you? How's Taeyong? How are the kids?" I shot out question after question, hoping he would forget the one he had asked.

"We're all fine. When did you come back?"

So much for that.

"Oppa…"

"Don't you 'oppa' me. We're basically the same age."

I sighed, dropping onto my seat and turning away from him. "I've been back for a year now."

He took the seat opposite me. Uninvited, but not unexpected.

"One year." The hurt in his voice made me wince. "A whole year and you didn't bother to call."

"Dongyoung, please."

His laugh was void of mirth. "So we're back to this, huh? The last time I saw you, you exclusively called me Doie."

I looked up at him.

"I guess that's what four years of silence does between friends."

*~*

"Five, six, seven, eight…"

The 7th Sense NCT U unit was made up of my favourite fellow trainees. 

Mark, who was the same age as my little brother whom I dearly missed. His naive sense of humour and bright eyed wonder had me growing fond of him in no time at all. Our shared love of story writing also brought us closer, as we encouraged each other to keep up with writing even as we were busy with idol training. He was my happy pill during our years as trainees together.

Ten, my fellow international school kid. We were different in that he came from money while I was the daughter of a diplomat. PSA: not all diplomats are wealthy! They are still government officers and don't earn nearly as much as you think they do. One of the perks was getting subsidised education, which made it possible for my siblings and I to attend international schools in non-English speaking countries we lived in. Ten and I hadn't known each other prior to becoming trainees, but he and I found that we just clicked. We even found several mutual friends in our international school networks.

Jaehyun and I took a little longer to warm up to each other. I was a fairly quiet person, only talkative around people I was comfortable with, so I was never one to initiate conversation. Jaehyun never approached me to start talking either, so a few months after we first met, our relationship had not progressed beyond a polite greeting when we bumped into each other. It took Taeyong to help us break the ice, but once we got to talking we found that our interests overlapped and they were the foundation to our pretty solid friendship.

Taeyong is the one trainee to whom I’m most grateful. I entered the company shortly after he did, and he seemed to decide to take me under his wing upon our first meeting. It didn’t matter that our training schedules didn’t overlap; he would always check in on me and help me when I struggled with getting dance moves memorised. In time, as Taeyong started writing and producing more songs, he would include me in his process and get me to record demos with him and Dongyoung.

Dongyoung was an enigma to me. I knew he had a kind heart because he would do things like invite foreign trainees home during holidays so they would have somewhere to go. I could see the warmth in his interactions with other trainees but he was only ever cordial to me, so I always thought he did not like me very much. It was, once again, thanks to Taeyong that we got closer. Dongyoung and I were both vocalists, but I dabbled in some rapping and Taeyong seemed to enjoy writing songs that featured the three of us. Studio sessions with the two of them became some of my favourite memories of my time as a trainee.

I was looking through the lyrics of the latest song Taeyong had written when the group finished their practice run and paused for a water break.

“Tash,” Taeyong greeted as he flopped down next to me, leaning his back on the cool mirror.

“You guys are looking really good,” I praised, handing him a water bottle. “The modifications you guys made last week improved the overall performance a lot.”

“Right? I’m so glad the choreographer let us do that.”

Dongyoung approached us, sitting on my other side. I passed him the last of my stock of water bottles. “Hey.”

“I’m beat,” he sighed. “But we look good right?”

“Yeah I was just saying that.”

The three of us sat in amicable silence for a few moments, the two of them gulping down the cool water as I finished perusing Taeyong’s lyrics. I shut my eyes as my thoughts turned to my own debut, or lack thereof, and my family’s increasing worries. 

“Hey, you okay?” I opened my eyes to find Dongyoung peering at me in concern.

I gave him a half smile. “I guess.”

“You’ll debut soon,” Taeyong assured me, guessing the subject of my thoughts correctly. I appreciated his vote of confidence, but we all knew that was a lie, at least if I stayed at SM. Having debuted Red Velvet two years ago, it was highly improbable that they would debut another girl group so soon. And besides, they were all tied up in NCT’s official debut, with two U units, 127 and Dream all training hard to perfect their debut performances.

“We should probably get back to training,” Taeyong said apologetically. His eyes were kind as he briefly grasped my shoulder with a comforting hand before standing up. “Tell me what you think of that song later,” he nodded at the printed lyrics in my hand. “I want your verse by the end of the week!”

Dongyoung sat studying my expression for a bit longer.

“I’m fine, Doie. Really.” I pushed his shoulder gently. “Go. They’re waiting for you.”

“We’ll go out to eat after this, okay?” he offered, standing. “We can get pasta. My treat.”

“Man after my own heart,” I proclaimed, clutching my chest in jest.

He grinned as he walked to his starting position. 

I watched as Taeyong counted the boys into yet another rehearsal. Meeting Dongyoung's eyes in the practice room mirror, I could see the nerves he increasingly felt but rarely showed for their debut performance, only seven days from now. I smiled as brightly as I could, hoping he couldn't tell my heart was breaking knowing I would be leaving in five.

*~*

The Doyoung that sat before me today was a fully fledged kpop star, hair perfectly coiffed and clothes fitting his comfortable but stylish lookbook. He had truly grown into his looks, and seeing him was making my heart ache. With pride? With longing? I didn't even know myself. I had just started developing maybe-more-than-friends feelings towards him when I had found myself back with my family.

"You look good. Healthy."

"Where have you been for the last four years, Natasha?"

His use of my entire first name hurt more than I expected. Was this how he felt when I called him Dongyoung?

"I went back home."

"As in back to your home country?" he asked, incredulous.

"Yes."

"Why? And don't tell me it's because you didn't debut with Red Velvet."

"You're kidding, right?" It was my turn to laugh humourlessly. "Has SM debuted another girl group since then?"

"Well no, but-"

"Don't say they might have added me to the group like they did Yeri. When I left, it had been one year since that happened and two years since they debuted!"

"But why did you have to leave?" Doyoung's voice was rising. "You could have moved to another company. You know you had the skills to debut."

"I just… had to, okay?" 

I guess he heard the pleading in my voice because he switched to another line of questioning after studying me for a minute.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” His voice was quiet. “Taeyong and me, especially,” he sighed. “We missed you. We still miss you.”

“I’m sorry. I know it was shitty of me but I just didn’t want to make a big deal out of me leaving.” I did not want to give you guys the chance to persuade me to stay.

There was a pause. “Did you miss us?”

Tears I thought had dried up years ago threatened to fall. “You have no idea how much,” I whispered, willing myself not to cry.

“Oh I think I do-”

“At least you guys had each other,” I blurted. 

“Excuse me?” Doyoung narrowed his eyes at me. “We were not the ones who stopped talking to you! I called until your number went out of service! And then we looked for you online but there was absolutely nothing. Why did you fall off the grid completely?”

I opened my mouth to respond but was interrupted by the waiter bringing Doyoung his food. Doyoung thanked him and handed him a card. “I’ll take care of her bill as well.”

“Don’t,” I protested. We were in the middle of an argument and he still wanted to take care of me. “Just charge him for his food, please,” I asked the waiter.

“I’ll pay for her,” Doyoung insisted. “Thank you.”

The waiter left, an awkward smile on his face as he retreated.

“I have to go now, so we’ll put a pin in this conversation.” Doyoung stared hard at me until I nodded my assent. "Does anyone know you're back?"

I shook my head. "I work in software now. I don't run in the same circles anymore."

"You know we have these things called phones, right?" He gestured at his Samsung with exaggerated motions. "They're amazing. You can connect with anyone, anywhere. Even if they're in a different country." He looked at me pointedly.

"I'm sorry, okay? I know I could have, should have, kept in touch but I just… I couldn't."

"Why?"

A million reasons. "I don't want to get into it right now."

"Fine. But you know I'll keep asking until I get answers."

I smiled, thinking about his habit of persistently badgering us until he got what he wanted. "I know."

"In fact," he grabbed my phone, which had been lying next to my rapidly cooling plate of pasta. "I'm going to call myself so I have your number."

Before I could protest, he had held my phone up to unlock it with my face and was dialling.

"Wait, I-"

He clicked the dial button and automatically put the phone up to his ear, before slowly lowering it again, staring at the screen in disbelief.

"So you kept my number. This whole time. And you still never called."

I didn’t know what to say to that. All I could do was apologise again. “I-”

“Just save it, Tash.” He put my phone back on the table. “I’m going now. Pick up when I call, okay?”

“I don’t like talking on the phone. Can you text me instead?” I joked, trying to keep my tone light.

“Do not test me,” Doyoung glowered. “Answer when I call.”

“Okay,” I murmured, but he was already walking to the counter to pick up his card.

He left without looking back.

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: May 2020

Well there’s another month come and gone. TV and books seems to be what I gravitate towards whilst in quarantine. Anyway here’s the month of May in a wordy nutshell!

……….FILM……….

Blockers (2018) I was mostly drawing while my partner watched this but from what I heard and occasionally saw, it was fun! Silly and gross and I’m not reeeeally sure who the target demo was, but it had a modern and more nuanced perspective on sexuality so that’s cool.

……….TELEVISION……….

Mad Men (Episode 1.11 to 3.03) WHO KNEW THIS SHOW WAS SO GOOD?!? The amount of screentime dedicated to advertising seems to be dwindling a bit, but oooooh there’s still so much juicy office drama (something I think I enjoy because of being self-employed and working from home). It looks like we’ll fail at our attempt to finish the series before it leaves Netflix in June but it was fun while it lasted.

Sex and the City (Episode 1.01 to 2.06) Returning to this for something when we don’t have time to watch Mad Men (or need something lighter) and it’s hitting the spot. We’re slowly getting past the era of randos talking to the camera (and mostly past Carrie breaking the fourth wall). I was in college when I first watched this and I’ve come to realize how much I’ve grown as a human as I only now have enough self-awareness to recognize I’m a Charlotte. 

Gravity Falls (Episode 1.09 to 1.15) We’ve since slowed down on this a bit but I’m really excited to get back into it as season 2 is just so good!

Disney Gallery: Star Wars: The Mandalorian (Episode 1.01 to 1.04) The first three eps didn’t really do much for me. The one on the directors was cool as I didn’t realize how many there were, but it would’ve been great if they talked a little more about what they brought to the table or why they took this on. Ep 4 on technology was more my speed but overall this still kinda just feels like surface level stuff. Loooots of time spent on actors and directors and professionals complimenting each other and I am not here for that.

……….READING……….

Illuminatus! Part 1: The Eye in the Pyramid by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (Page 204/304) What a trip. It’s pretty much what I expected from an comedic book revolving around the illuminati/secret societies from the 1970s, though it took me ages to adjust to the writing style. I’m really enjoying it, but be warned that there’s no major break between narrators so it can jump between plots with each new paragraph. It feels, at times, like a tone poem, but maybe that’s me putting more of the generation into the text than was intended. Again, I think I like it, but am pretty sure I’m missing a lot. 

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (Complete) Such a stellar read. I loved Novik’s Uprooted and while you could read either in any order, they both feel of the same world. Both books are full of fairytale danger akin to the traditional stories. They’re beautiful and uncertain and familiar and new. I realize I’m being super vague and general but it’s because it’s so hard to pin down what’s excellent about this book. It’s just good and if you like fantasy and classic fairy tales with layered characters and a more nuanced approach to good and evil then read this AND Uprooted.

Umbrella Academy Volume 3: Hotel Oblivion by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba  (Complete) It’s great to get back to this world but I think I need to give it another read. The first two volumes were frantic, but there was typically a clear drive or sense of what the big picture was. Volume 3 felt like a buildup or segue into the next story being told and that’s...not great.

Satania by Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoet (Complete) I’ve rambled at length about how much I love past books by these two (particularly Beautiful Darkness) but this one didn’t connect quite the same. The story only scratched the surface of (admittedly really interesting) themes and I would’ve loved for it to get fleshed out further. The art is consistently incredible and their take on a subterranean world is breathtaking. I recommend if you want to read every book by these two, but wouldn’t suggest this as your first introduction (for that, Beautiful Darkness, or Beauty).

Hellboy Library Edition Vol 5 & 6 by Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo, Dave Stewart (vol.5 and 6), and others (vol. 6) (Complete) A return to form. Fegredo is such a great choice for taking over from Mignola for the main story. The final story in volume 6 is still a weird choice to me (especially since the penultimate one would’ve been much better) but I’m so excited to read the next volume. Such an cool chapter in comics history.

GRRL SCOUTS by Jim Mahfood (Complete) Very late 90s. Like soooooooo 90s. Some of the writing hasn’t aged well, but it’s interesting to see how much things have changed in...oh jeez 20 YEARS! 

……….AUDIO……….

Staying In with Emily & Kumail (Podcast) As a dedicated listener to their old podcast, The Indoor Kids, it’s great to listen to these two again. Also weirdly comforting that their dynamic and personalities (at least as far as podcasting is concerned) hasn’t changed over the years between then and now. It’s gotta be at least 4 or 5 years, right? Anyway, this is a good listen if you’re navigating the pandemic (jk, we’re all doing that).

Articles of Interest (Podcast) So I think this is technically a miniseries put out by 99% Invisible but I loved season 1 and season 2 is just as good. Every episode is concise and these latest episodes are really diving into new parts of the fashion industry. Very cool.

Unravel Season 4: Snowball (Podcast) I checked this out on a recommendation since our mutual friend went through a similar situation (getting romantically involved with a perpetual con artist) and it was so interesting to see the overlap. It’s just such a wild story of deception and habitual lying and theft and manipulation. Great listen.

Dedicated Side B by Carly Rae Jepsen Exactly the sort of pick-me-up we need right now. Good stuff. Always a treat. Very happy.

……….GAMING……….

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The latest session had the group spending...maybe 25 minutes sorting out how they were going to approach the Jolly Roger (ship of the dreaded Captain Hook). Their plan is a mixture of stealth and impersonating what amounts to Pirate Ship Quality Control. We’ll see how that goes. Anyway I’m really excited by how the group is exploring the island and for this book to come out in October!

D&D Homebrew Adventure (Menace of Merlin) The group is sorting out a curse/illness plaguing one of the character’s hometown and...the timing of this plot is not ideal BUT everyone seems to be okay with it. They took out some orcs and hopefully will be able to find the hermit that can help with the slow petrification of the village.

Tyranny of Dragons /Gainfully Employed (Wizards of the Coast) I’m not sure I posted about this last month but the party has just sorted out the cause of a failing lighthouse (that’s magical) and brought the culprit to justice! Now to head out of Phlan and sort out some silly rumors that I’m sure are nonsense.

And that’s it! As always, hit me with your recommendations if you have something I should read/play/watch/or listen to!

Happy Sunday.