#blind guitar

[sleepyeye17]

This Machine Kills Dragons

Eddie and Max are friends. Lumax. Eddie is alive, and is a big brother figure. Max is blind. 

Words: 1,517

Eddie and Lucas walked back from the store, carrying bags of groceries for themselves and for Max’s mom. Max had been awake for about a month now, but her mom was as depressed as ever. Hopper was talking about taking her to the local AA meetings.

Lucas took out his earplugs as they left the busy main boulevard.

“How’s your tinnitus?” Eddie asked. Lucas had been struggling with ringing in his ears since the fight with Jason.

“It’s getting better,” Lucas said. “I have a fan going at night, which helps, and I wear earplugs if I know I’ll be somewhere loud, like the grocery store or the main street. The doctors are saying it will mostly go away with time.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

“Me too. It would suck if I was deaf and Max was blind. We’d have to figure out something new.”

“You guys could make it work. You could do morse code with tapping. That would be awesome.”

“Yeah. Or like, shaping letters on her hand. I could do that.”

“How’s it going with you and Max right now anyways?” Eddie asked. "You've been quiet about her lately. Which is unusual."

Lucas shrugged.

“I dunno. I still love her, but...”

Lucas kicked a rock. Eddie grimaced and hissed between his teeth.

“Don’t let her hear that tone. That sounds bad.”

“I know. It is bad. It wouldn’t be so bad if she would just talk to me. But there’s not much to talk about. She’s just in bed all day. So I go and I read to her, or I tell her about my day, but I want to hear about her . And right now, there’s not much for her to tell me. She says she isn’t bored, she’s just tired. But I don’t know.”

Eddie thought about this.

“You know, there was a point when I was a kid, when I stopped talking.”

“ You ?”

“I know, I know, now I never shut the fuck up. But this was a long time ago. I was little.”

“Okay.”

“That’s when my mom got me my first guitar. I was probably around ten. Things were bad at home. We had just moved to Hawkins. By playing guitar, I was able to, you know. Express things.”

“But Max doesn’t play guitar.”

Eddie grinned.

“Not yet.”

Max could feel the sun hot on her face. She wanted to call a nurse to close the curtains, but it was too much work. Everything was too much work. Pressing the button was too much work. Talking was too much work.

Her legs were still in casts, but her arms were in removable splints and slings. She’d thought that would make her feel better, but what could she do with her arms anyways? Draw? She was blind. All she could do now was press play on the Walkman, and she didn’t like the feeling of the headphones on her ears, cutting her off from her most valuable sense. Sometimes she did play her music out loud, but usually that was also just too much work.

There was a tap at the door, and all of Max's senses sprung into high alert. She bolted upright like a Jack-in-the-box.

“Hey, it’s cool, it’s just Eddie.”

She relaxed into wariness.

“Hi Eddie.”

Her voice was still hoarse from Vecna's chokehold.

“You hot? It feels hot in here.”

“Yeah.”

She heard the curtains being pulled and she was immediately more comfortable.

“I brought you something,” Eddie said. Max liked that Eddie never asked how she was feeling. He knew how she was feeling. Eddie had been released from the lab soon after she’d woken up from her coma, but he still came in once a week for his checkups, and he always stopped by to visit her when he did.

There was a hollow thunk, and Max jumped at the unexpected noise.

“Sorry,” Eddie said. “It’s a guitar. I brought you a guitar.”

Max leaned forward, curious.

“They let you bring Sweetheart into the hospital?”

Eddie chuckled.

“No. Besides, Sweetheart isn’t the kind of girl you learn on. This is an acoustic. It was my first, and I think it’s more your size.”

“I’m not that small,” Max argued.

“I know. I just have crazy noodle arms.”

Max smiled.

“Lucas told me that you get bored,” Eddie said. Max looked confused.

“He told you that? I didn’t tell him that. I don’t get bored.”

“Really? I used to get bored when I was recovering. I was just sitting here all day.”

“I don’t get bored. There’s stuff for me to do. They have someone teaching me braille. And physical therapy.”

“Lucas didn’t tell me about the braille.”

“No. I don’t really talk to him about that stuff.”

“Why not?”

“Because I haven’t actually been able to do anything. I still can’t tell an A from a K in braille, and all I do in physical therapy is bend my arms and lift quarter pound weights. I don’t have anything to say to him. I don’t do anything. What can I do? I get frustrated, because I want to tell him things, and, I dunno, entertain him, or whatever. He comes here all the time, and I just have nothing to say.”

“Well, after today you won’t have to say anything. Because you can play guitar instead.”

Max nodded.

“I’d like that.”

“How are your arms today?”

“Good. I can take off my splints.”

“You sure? We can start with just listening.”

Eddie had already talked to the physical therapist, who had approved short guitar lessons. Max was actually supposed to remove her splints more often than she did, and the PT was hoping that learning guitar might help her stay motivated in her stretching. But Eddie knew that Max would never agree to something just because it was good for her.

“I can do it.” She pulled the velcro splints off her arms. She was getting good at that.

“You ready?” he asked. “Can I put her in your lap?”

Max nodded, and she felt something large and cool bumping her thigh. She reached out, her hands running over the smooth curve of the wood. It was large, and her hands painted its shape as they traveled.

“Can I sit on your bed to show you?” Eddie asked.

“Okay.”

The bed dipped and Max scooted over to make room for him. Leather pressed against her arm.

“My mom gave me this guitar,” Eddie said. “She taught me how to play. It has words painted on it. Can you feel them?”

Max ran her fingers over the wood, and felt the texture change of thick dry paint.

“What does it say?”

“It says ‘this machine kills dragons.’”

“What does that mean?”

“In the 40s, the musician Woody Guthrie had ‘this machine kills fascists’ painted on his guitar. My mom was a big fan of his. And she liked fairytales. She couldn’t read or write very well, but she copied the words down and was really proud of them.”

“She sounds cool.”

“She was. She was a lot like you.”

“Blind?”

“No. Angry.” He didn’t give her time to consider this. “I’m going to move your hand. Is that okay?”

“Yeah.”

His hand came around hers. His hands were calloused, like Billy’s had been. He was similar to Billy in a lot of ways: impulsive, rebellious, and haunted by past abuse. But Eddie hadn’t let the abuse harden him. Sometimes Max wondered if Billy might have become more like Eddie if he’d lived long enough. She hoped so.

Eddie moved her hand to the neck of the guitar, over the strings.

“Just get to know her for now,” he said. “You should meet her naturally. You can’t see her, so learning is going to be different. I did a few practice sessions blindfolded, just to get the feeling of it.”

Max ran a fingernail over the fat E string, making it rasp.

“That’s called the fat E,” Eddie said. “The smallest string is called the high E.”

Eddie moved her hand over each string.

“It goes E, A, D, G, B, E,” he said.

“Why can’t they just be A B C D E F?” Max asked.

“Because musicians don’t know how to spell,” Eddie said. “You can remember it this way. Eddie—“ He plucked the low E . “-Ate-“ A . “-Dynamite-“ D . “-Good-“ G . “-Bye-“ B . “Eddie.” E .

Max grinned.

“Eddie ate dynamite, goodbye Eddie,” she repeated.

“It tasted terrible,” Eddie said.

Max laughed. It was an actual laugh, not just the fake giggles she attempted when the doctor made lame jokes.

“How about… Eddie And Demobats… Got Bad Ending.”

“Eddie And Dustin Give Badass Energy.”

“Eddie’s A Dinosaur. Go to Bed Early.”

“I’m not that old!” Eddie protested

“Eddie ate drugs. Got big eyes.”

“That’s a good one. You ready for the next lesson?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, this is called the nut. Hey! No laughing! That’s actually what it’s called!”

Lucas stood in the doorway to Max's room and watched her laugh. It was a rusty sound, and sounded painful, but it was there. It was music.

[sofiaruelle]

🤟🤟🤟

[yridenergyridenergy]

[laurzvahll]

he’s singing ‘I Love You Too Much’ from The Book of Life

[briskythesovietspy]

Joel’s cover of U + Ur Hand // TikTok 03.06.23  

[keepintouchxo]

you can hear the full thing here 🖤

[mudwerks]

(via Blind Willie Johnson God Don’t Never Change (1929)

that slide

[darkerthanblack-666]

bc.fever

a moment of silence for the fallen hero 🕯️

[esoteric-dyke]

i want to taste life like

fruit on an

early december morning

like one of those early summer stone fruits

that you see

and buy excitedly at the store-

a cherry a lychee a nectarine a child

a sun that pushes my sweat slicked

hair back behind my ears

and kisses the salt

off my lips-

its pulp pulls at my teeth

and gets stuck

and juice cascades

from the corners of my lips

i have never been alive before this moment

i will never be alive again

buy me a mango

when you get the groceries

today and we will

eat and feel its flesh

under our nails

[trupowieszcz-moved]

songs that have the same vibe to me

[idlejet]

"I feel like I've been sleeping through my days You loom larger now that you've gone away I can hear you whispering hurricanes"

[catboyolli]

What's the interview about Olli's bass being handcrafted? Maybe i saw it and i don't remember it and i found funny knowing he destroyed an handcrafted bass

hiiii, it's this one! timestamp: 15:26

Transcript below but please give it a listen, I just love the way Olli tells the (short) story hjsdfhjsklsd 😂

Question: which is the best guitar you ever had and why? And was it because of sound, color, or style, or etc?

Joonas: it depends on what is the best, but I would say the first guitar I ever had because that made me play guitar and learn how to play. Of course, when it comes to guitars, in this moment I'm in love with my new two guitars: Solar guitar and one irotlas [made me], RPS(?) custom model. Those are my favorites, I love them.

Olli: my favorite was the one our friend made. It was a custom made jazz bass. I fell in love with it, it sounded good, it felt good, it looked good... and then after one legendary show I left it on the roof of a car, so... [laughter]

(the interview goes on and Joonas is asked if he named his guitars like Olli named his bass Simba. He says "let's call it Enrico" (both of them?) "Yeah, Enrico 1 and Enrico 2")

[briskythesovietspy]

Joel // Instagram Story 26.11.22

[smartfox]

BLIND OWL WILSON

[y2k-2day]

Check out this guy using a multi-neck guitar for a song with 3 chords lol

Third Eye Blind - Never Let You Go (2000)

[coconut530]

DOES ANYONE. UNDERSTAND. THE FEELINGS I AM HAVING.

NO?

OK.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA