Snippet #2540488

[No, I did not, indeed, wrest control of ted from Erik. This is a co-post between me 'n him.]

And so, as the final slam chords of A Sanguine Reverie drew Psychosis' set to a slow, grinding close, Psychosis ceded the stage to Aborticide. Izzie didn't waste much time on the general post-set melange of 'thanks for comin' out, stay for the rest of the bands, stay metal/brutal/whatever'; she grunted something vaguely along the line of 'thanks or whatever', and then ushered her troops along in vacating the stage. Breaking down the equipment and then packing it back up didn't take long at all-- after all, she wouldn't be winning any awards for being the nicest band leader you ever worked with in your life, but Izzie did like to think she ran a tight ship here. Well, sort of a tight ship, anyway.

As the band emerged from the backstage and back into the general milieu of the venue, Izzie clapped a hand on Cormac's slender shoulder-- just about scaring the little drummer outta his wits as he gave a little jerk of fright (whereupon he had to continue jerking about like that intermittently so that people wouldn't think he'd gotten the daylights scared outta him, that was totally just how he walked around). "Staff the merch table," she grunted tersely, delving a hand into the pocket of her jacket and withdrawing a pack of cigarettes. She'd managed to kick the drinking habit to the curb since she'd found herself mired in it once again about a year or so ago, but the smoking... yeah, she knew it was probably about time she started cutting down on this too. She wasn't young anymore, and though she'd maintained a pretty healthy lifestyle otherwise-- diet, exercise, that whole gig-- drugs had proven the chink in that armour since her youth, and smoking remained the only addiction she was battling these days.

Although frankly, she added silently to herself in disgruntlement. That would probably be a much simpler war to wage if I didn't need the smokes to relieve the stress. If everything around her just fucked off and quit making things so difficult, quitting wouldn't have been such a pain in the ass.

By the time she emerged from the heat of the venue out into the cool air of the Baltimore night, the cigarette was already balanced between her thin-drawn lips, and she was bringing the lighter to bear by the time she noticed what she supposed could be called a familiar face. Granted, his back was turned to her, but it was still pretty clearly Ted Marubini. Izzie's lips quirked just slightly into something like a smirk as she flicked the lighter and set the end of the cigarette ablaze. The drummer-- the one Cormac had been old buddies with, though the name escaped Izzie (Champagne? Chardonnay? Something like that)-- was out there as well, and she caught a snippet of their conversation as she approached.

"So, I thought after this we should go get some drinks or something," the drummer was saying. "Maybe I'll invite Cormy and the others if I can find them, don't know if they'll be interested or not. But oh well. You game?"

"I'm sure Cormac'll be just delighted to join you," Izzie drawled by way of greeting, before turning to Ted in particular. "Y'all sounded pretty good back there. I reckoned if I ever saw you again I'd apologise for bein' an idiot a year back and firin' your other guitarist for you, but I gotta say, if that's what got you to quit playin' that bastard amalgamation of nu and power metal..." She took another drag of her cigarette, and shrugged her broad shoulders. "Either way, sounds like you've found your stride."

Ted blinked. He had been about to say "Sure, that sounds nice," but then a very different (though not entirely unexpected) voice cut in. Ted whirled to see the speaker, but he recognized her immediately. The scarred, angular face, the rough black hair, the amazonian build...Yup, Izzie.

He took a short drag from the cigarette and blew it at the ground, then said, "Hullo t'you too, Izzie. I guess it has been a while." He chuckled at a thought, and continued, "Gotta say, you sounded pretty good. Guess it sounds better when it's not in a supposedly soundproofed studio."

Izzie made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff. "Yeah, that's one studio that ain't gettin' my business any time soon. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't just set a recording studio up at my own place. Cut out the middleman 'n all that shit." She took another quick puff from her cigarette, and added, "And I'd say it's baffling to hear you express enjoyment in my music, but then, I would've said much the same about coming across you on a death metal tour, and yet here we are."

"I've considered it once or twice," Ted said. "But I couldn't possibly justify it. Or afford it. I thought jazz pay was mediocre...the crap we get sometimes for a set just like what you saw. But I guess we gotta start somewhere. Hell, I don't think we've played a gig outside of the city yet."

He paused a moment, took another drag and blew it to the ground, then remembered something else. "Oh, apology accepted. I think it was for the best in the long run. We'd already lost two band members from the original lineup. It was as if an occult hand had forced the band apart, saying 'No. This will not do.' Honestly, Bey should have at least picked up her phone."

Now, at that, Izzie did give a gruff chuckle-- er, that being the bit about making a pittance off this sort of music, not the bit about the long-lost guitarist. "Yeah, you can't exactly go into this kinda business for the money," she confirmed in a voice that was as rueful as it was amused. "I should know: I've been at it for thirty years and as far as I'm aware neither the diamond pool nor the solid gold Astroturf have arrived just yet."

On the subject of the aforementioned long-lost guitarist: "Well, I ain't proud of it, but I can't say her absence left y'all worse for wear." Izzie took a drag of her cigarette before adding, "Whatever that occult hand might be, I reckon it's got an idea or two about what it's doin'."

"Quite possibly," Ted replied with a chuckle. Upon reflection, much of his career had been built on that sort of serendipity. Meeting Izzie, not going insane, forming Cor Leonis, helming "Neo Cor Leonis", meeting Lionel, Trap dissolving...all of it had led to this moment, in a way. Not that this was an especially notable moment. There would probably be more like it. But this was definitely going someplace where he could play guitar for a living, and that was really all Ted needed.

Speaking of which... "By the way, nice guitar." He was surprised to have recognized it as the same guitar she had used on Sturm&Drang.

"Thanks," the Colombian guitarist returned languidly; by that point her cigarette had whittled away to all but nothing, and she dropped the bare remnants to the ground, where it fizzled out listlessly. "Damn things nearly as old as I am, and it can still churn out anything from death metal to fusion like nothin' else. Quality luthier work does wonders."

She crossed her arms across her broad chest, and leaned back against the wall of the venue. "Speakin' of which," she added with some hint of wry amusement to the hard rasp of her voice. "Nice Ibanez. Odd to see you playin' a guitar with quite so many points, but I guess you gotta meet a certain quota for how many parts of your guitar can impale somebody before you're constitutionally permitted to play death metal on it."

As Izzie dropped her butt, Ted realized his was burning dangerously close to his fingers. He hastily flicked it to the ground and crushed it, thinking of a witty retort. By the time the cigarette had been thoroughly smashed, he admitted defeat to himself, and instead said, "It looked like a nice compromise between no points and lots of points. Plus...it's just great. Plays great, sounds great, balances great. You should try one sometime."

A familiar strain of music caught his attention. "Ah! Next band should be starting. He always plays Robocop for the third band."
"That would be Aborticide," Izzie noted, pulling away from the wall and turning back to head into the venue. "I dunno how fond you are of thrash, but everybody likes Aborticide, so it's worth bein' in the thick of things to listen to." And with that, as Aborticide's vocalist kicked off their set with a rabid howl, the evening went right along.






Meanwhile, at Psychosis' merch table...

Great show in Baltimore tonight! Who's got tickets for Charleston tomorrow? - Cormac With a press of the touchpad screen of his phone, the message was posted to Psychosis' Facebook page-- the one Izzie had reluctantly permitted Cormac to create after considering the benefits of using social media as a means of getting her band's name out there and keeping in touch with fans. Granted, Izzie herself didn't really use it much other than to post every now and then about tour dates and new materiel recording, so generally, it fell to Cormac to keep it alive, which Izzie allowed, so long as he signed off on each one with his own name so people knew whatever dumb shit they saw was comin' outta his hands, not hers. It was mostly an okay gig, though Izzie had nearly revoked his Facebook privileges after a comment about 'that pipsqueak drummer of yours' had resulted in a several-pages-long tirade that had concluded with Cormac declaring that raspberry jam was inferior to strawberry jam and anybody who disputed this inarguable fact of reality was a culinary leper who deserved to be drowned in an ocean of the clearly superior breed of jam.

Stuffing his phone back into his pocket, Cormac glanced about at his two bandmates, before zeroing in on Kodie in particular. "Now then," he mused absent-mindedly, as though remarking upon nothing much more consequential than the weather of the evening. "I believe somebody said they'd do something if Izzie ever told me to use my windchimes... what was it? Something about ten dollars?"






Psychosis was... well, Psychosis. Lestari couldn't say she was particularly fond of the ultra-technical 'FULL BLAST AHEAD' bits, and the slam death metal aspect of their music wasn't much her kinda thing either, but they mercifully threw in just enough d-beats to keep her engaged. After all, everybody with the vaguest iota of musical appreciation knew that the quality of a given album or performance varied directly with the number of d-beat sections-- it was, like, some kinda quantum physics law or whatever. Feynman's second law of d-beat dynamics and all that. Other prominent laws of metal physics included Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which stipulated that at a certain point a slam death metal fan has no fucking clue what band they're listening to because all slam sounds the same, and Einstein's theory of relativity, which demonstrated that compared to Demolition Hammer, all metal bands were relatively inferior.

Speaking of d-beats, Aborticide was about to go up, and Lestari was pretty certain their drummer had yet to learn that there were even any other physically possible drum beats besides the d-beat, so that was sure to be a fun show. Now that there was a drummer who understood that good heavy metal was not the product of flagrantly flashy flourishes or pointless bouts of off-kilter time signature fuckwittery, but ruthless, pounding, violent fucking drumming. At least, that was Lestari's own philosophy, and it'd clearly served her well, since she was still here, wasn't she?

Either way, you could be damn sure she wasn't gonna be the one to kick off a slam with a run across the goddamn windchimes.

Speaking of which-- "I bet he's never been so happy to be able to use his windchimes," Liam mused. Alex, between him and Lestari, permitted the vaguest ghost of a smile to tinge her lips, and she added, "Next thing you know, Psychosis' percussion will consist of nothing but windchimes, bongos, cowbells, and the odd triangle beat."

Just that? Lestari couldn't help but point out mordantly, displaying the note before quickly scrawling on. I wouldn't be surprised if we get to Charleston tomorrow and discover him breaking out the marimba and the harpsichord, 'just in case'.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "The harpsichord isn't even a percussion instrument."

That wouldn't stop him, Lestari retorted, which Alex had to concede with a shrug of her shoulders. "Hell, I gotta admit," she mused. "I would be the first up to watch a slam harpsichord band."