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shieldofiron · 18 days

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Pretty Boy Live in Santa Fe, 1977

Part 1/3 Also on Ao3 here

For @harringrove-relay-race. Very happy with how part 1 turned out, and there will be more to come. Thanks to @foxxtastic for the intro and next up will be something stunning from our fearless Relay Race leader @half-oz-eddie

Rated M / 5k words / Part 1/3

Part 1: Into Hades

Rolling Stone Magazine - May 2002

Billy Hargrove arrived after I did, in his lovingly maintained blue Camaro, the subject of his song, “Lady Blue.” “Lady Blue” was recently named #93 on Rolling Stone’s Top Love Songs of the Century.

“I wrote, ‘She’s the wind in my hair, the rumble in my soul.’ I thought it was so obvious,” He laughed, his blue eyes still boyish. “My niece made it her wedding song, I said ‘Really? It’s about a fuckin’ car!’”

He showed me several pictures of his niece, the supermodel Tyler Sinclair. It seems good looks run in the family. He suggested the diner and he ordered waffles, winking when I mentioned that we’ll be here a long time.

The decades have been kind to him, maybe a few more lines. It’s not hard to imagine him stepping right back onto the stage, as if no time has passed at all.

“A little extra glitter on the eyes,” He said with a smile, “to hide my crows feet. That’s all I need.”

I ask what he’s going to wear to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony for Kaleidoscope's induction and his smile dims only for a moment.

“I think I should pull out some old costumes. You know, the butterfly still fits.”

He was referring, of course, to the sheer butterfly cape costume that nearly had him thrown off the stage in Houston Texas in December 1976. He caved to putting on a pair of silvery shorts rather than the nude underwear it was designed with. He later wore it with the nude underwear on the inside cover of Kaleidoscope, the album that will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in just a few short weeks. Kaleidoscope was his last album with the iconic Glam Rock band Pretty Boy, which famously broke up at the height of their career while touring for the album, onstage.

It’s not often that a band is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and there’s a question if all of them will even show up.

“I’ll be there,” Hargrove said, fiddling with the silver band on his middle finger. “I have no problem with seeing him.”

The him is, of course, the lead guitarist and other lead singer of Pretty Boy, Steve Harrington.

Steve Harrington invites me to his oceanfront house in Malibu later that afternoon.

“I haven’t decided if I’m going to go,” He said thoughtfully, his brown eyes darting around the room.

When I mention that Billy is going to go, he seems surprised.

“He didn’t say he was going to punch me, did he?” Harrington smiled, but it doesn’t seem like much of a joke.

For one of the most famous rock stars of the 70s, Harrington is shockingly low key. He wears a t-shirt and slouchy linen pants, and he jokes that he ought to have shaved when I take out my camera. The house is stunning but empty, with miles of blank white walls and overstuffed white furniture.

“I’m looking for a little peace,” He shrugs, “I used to have all these pictures up, all this furniture… It was too much.”

It was hard not to see him as an artist without a muse. He drifted listlessly, picking things up and putting them down as we talked. So it was a surprise to me to hear that he’s been recording.

“I may never release it but… Yeah,” He laughed, “Music. After all this time. Bet you didn’t know.”

He picks up a rare photo from the piano. It’s from the early days of Pretty Boy, before Billy Hargrove. Harrington has his arm around his bandmate, Eddie Munson. Their drummer Chrissy Cunningham is balanced precariously across their shoulders, laughing and cringing at the same time. Bassist Robin Buckley smirks from the corner of the frame, messy bangs in her eyes.

“Who knew, right?” He asked no one, shaking the frame a little.

There are no pictures of Billy Hargrove.

“That’s a… a long story,” He said, when I asked.

But I have time. I tell him Rolling Stone will pay for it. At least that makes him laugh.

It was just by chance that Pretty Boy’s last concert was filmed.

“We were meant to just film in Vegas,” The director, Argyle Molina-Zapata, sat down with me after a private screening of Pretty Boy Live in Santa Fe, 1977, “But there was a freak rainstorm, and I couldn’t get my camera’s out of the back. The crowd was digging it, refused to leave. I remember when Billy hit the high note for ‘Mother Make Me,’ there was this lightning crack… brilliant.”

Molina-Zapata shook his head, “But the footage, what I got of it, was awful. Awful! So I begged Murray to let me come with them to Santa Fe.”

Murray was Murray Bauman, famed tour manager, who handled the Boys, later Pretty Boy from their first album Starfire, all the way to Kaleidoscope.

“And I was lucky,” Argyle nodded, “They had that extra tour bus.”

The tour busses are featured in the first few minutes of the film. They roll around the corner, one reading Billy Blue (Billy’s original stage name was Billy Blue before he dropped the Blue), and the other, Steve’s Six (Named after Steve’s best friends from his hometown.)

“They were nightmares,” Murray Bauman’s voice crackled over the phone, “Nightmares on tour. Separate buses. Separate hotels. Fuck me, I swear to god at one point they wanted separate stages. And the label caved on almost all of it. Fucking nightmare.”

It’s almost impossible to imagine it when you see them on stage together. There’s something electric that passed between Billy Hargrove and Steve Harrington, something that drove crowds wild. They gravitate towards each other on the stage, orbiting like planets until they can share the same mic. They can’t seem to stay apart.

It’s hard to see exactly what happened that night.

“I’ve watched it a million times,” Argyle laughed, “But the only two people who can really say what happened are Billy and Steve.”

What you can see is this: Steve tearing into “Pride & Prejudice”, the lead off Kaleidoscope and the last song of the night.

Billy was trembling, visibly shaking as he sang and Steve harmonized along.

What can I say, if you ask me to walk away?

Baby, there’s no words for you.

Baby. I don’t know what to do.

Billy danced closer, joining Steve, his handheld mic loose at his side.

Can you ever put away your pride?

Is it worth it to not have me at your side?

I guess it must be, because I’m yours,

Regretfully,

Baby.

Billy leans in, sharing Steve’s mic for the bridge.

Is it really a mystery?

What I mean to you, and you mean to me?

Is it really, baby?

Billy shook his head, curls bouncing. He looked into Steve's eyes. He smiled. Steve looks at Billy, and Billy looks at him. It almost looks like Billy mouths something, but bootleg footage also has appeared where it looks like Billy just nodded. Steve goes a little shell shocked, hand freezing on his guitar, falling out of sync.

And then Steve turned away and left the stage, handing his guitar to a stagehand. Billy turned to the crowd, his expression strangely triumphant. He was always magnetic on stage, but this moment transcends that. It somehow feels like he’s getting everything he wants.

So I guess I’m losing you,

You promised me you would and it’s true.

Baby, there’s no words for you.

Baby. I don’t know what to do.

Steve Harrington hasn’t performed in public since 1977.

“None of us knew what was going to happen that night,” Chrissy Cunningham curled up next to her husband, Eddie Munson, on the large white couch of their Seattle home.

They’re a handsome couple still, draped in rock and roll finery. He toyed with the edge of her scarf, and she curled his long hair around her long fingers.

“We had some of our own shit going on at the time so…” Munson shrugged, “Maybe we were distracted.”

Their living room was crowded and verdant, every spare flat surface covered in plants. Their partner, former record executive Jason Carver, puttered in the kitchen in an apron that read Plant Papa.

“Yeah,” Chrissy smiled, “We had some stuff going on at the same time. But still… It seemed like they were getting better. Didn’t it seem like they were getting better?”

Munson shrugged, “The thing about Billy and Steve… they were soulmates. You don’t write music like that and not… it was like they had a second language, just for them. They were soulmates, I really believe that. Everything they did, everything that happened… they could only hurt each other that badly if… yeah.”

When I ask what they did to each other, Eddie and Chrissy just scooted closer together, like teenagers in a slasher, hiding from the killer. She laid a hand over his leg, her two stone diamond ring catching the sunlight.

“Steve never wanted Billy to be in the band,” Eddie shook his head, “but Jim had a soft spot for Billy. And Steve had… I mean Jim was…”

“Jim was like a father. To all of us.” Chrissy’s knee jiggled.

“We were this little tiny band from Nowhere, Indiana,” Eddie nodded, “And Jim believed in us.”

“I was just a junior exec at the time. I was put on the Kaleidoscope tour in case of catastrophic failure, which by the way it was,” Jason Carver is making risotto while we speak, the steam curling the lock of hair that falls over his face. “But it wasn’t my fault although I was high as hell on coke half the time. I guess I deserved to get fired. But Jim was the real deal. Gold records out the ass, best wife in the world, and his daughter, I mean… she was something else.”

They’re referring, of course, to Jim Hopper, producer on Kaleidoscope as well as Billy Blue and The Boys’ records, and the father of pop superstar Eleven aka Jane Hopper.

“Jim was…” Steve Harrington’s eyes always got a little misty talking about Jim, staring out over the ocean. “Yeah, I guess he was a little like my dad. My own parents were always gone. Which is like… I grew up so privileged so like I’m not saying… I just mean I grew up mostly by myself. And we were just so lucky he even agreed to listen to us when we got to LA.”

“I remember that night,” Joyce Hopper’s voice was raspy, cigarette-y in the way only old movie stars are. She’s a gorgeous woman in jeans and a gardening hat, speaking to me while she tends to her garden at her home in Castellammare. “He came home and said, ‘I have the next ones, the next big ones. Fuck, Joyce, they’re brilliant. Unpolished, but brilliant.’”

When I ask about when Jim discovered Billy Hargrove she just laughed.

“If Steve and the rest of The Boys were unpolished, Billy Hargrove was a fucking ten carat diamond,” She said. “But Steve’s band was Jim’s, and he could polish them up how he wanted. And then when he thought they were just right for it… he set the diamond.”

Jim Hopper was a big man, larger than life both in appearance and in personality. His fingerprints are all over some of the best hits of the decade.

Watching him on old interviews, there’s an immediacy to his presence that leaps off the screen.

“My daughter is the one who really found him. She snuck out with her sister and wandered God knows where. And she just… found him. Called me the next morning, saying ‘Dad, you have to hear this guy.’ He was playing in this… terrible club,” Jim said, tapping his cigar on the table of Merv Griffin’s set. “Absolute shithole, pardon my french. And he’s got a great voice, you’ve heard his voice, right?”

“I have,” Merv said.

“I had to get him out of there. He was a star.”

Billy Hargrove was a teenage runaway from San Diego when he came to LA in 1971.

“I had a girl’s backpack from my stepsister, eight dollars, and an extra pair of underwear. By the end of the next week? I had two more dollars,” Billy laughed. “But I got lucky. I met Heather.”

Heather Holloway was a showgirl at Wildwoods, a nightly revue. She found Billy at the backdoor, and took him to her apartment.

“She saved me,” He frowned. “Whenever I needed her most.”

Heather Holloway, Billy Hargrove’s first and only wife, died in 1979.

“I got a job singing at Sugar, this great gay club downtown. It was in the late afternoons, so I had a crowd of about… two. But those two brought two more,” Billy smiled, “Heather would talk me up to all the promoters. He’s a singer, he’s great, you’ll love him, he’s so cute.”

“He was an instant hit,” Sugar’s manager, Bob Newby, tells me by phone as well. “I did have to keep a couple of creeps off him, when he just started he was only nineteen. But even if you closed your eyes… he was a hit.”

“Guys used to think that because I was a part of the entertainment, I was fair game. And let me tell you, the novelty of that wears off mighty quick,” Billy shakes his head.

He shares a diary entry from his late wife of a night in April 1972. He came to her home with blood all over his face.

“Some guy thought because I was a fag…” Billy’s mouth twisted, but he went on, cradling the little marble notebook in his hand. “He could do whatever he wanted to me. When I fought back… he cracked a bottle over my head.”

He’s not just a piece of meat. He’s a person. I don’t understand these people. I just don’t understand, Heather Holloway wrote. I cleaned him up and he’s sleeping now.

The next diary entry is from a day later. April 12. Billy and I drove to Vegas and got married. When we spoke in the morning he said he was afraid for me too, even though I’m careful with the girls. He’s afraid of the cops trying to bust up the Wildwoods and picking me up. At least this way, he says. He and I can come home to each other. Look out for each other. Always. The groom wore band aids and his great velvet pants. The bride wore lavender. It was perfect.

“And lucky too. Because within a month… I met Jim,” Billy smiled. “And my whole life changed.”

Upside Down Records signed Billy Blue, unagented, in1972 and he spent the next year working on his debut album with Jim Hopper.

“I didn’t even realize, when it happened,” Billy shook his head. “A couple of girls came by after a show, wanting to talk to me, wanting to meet me. That wasn’t that unusual. But they were young, far too young to get into the club. And the little one, she was asking all these weird questions. Did I have an agent? Did I know if I had enough songs for an album? Weird fuckin’ questions. And then she said I have to meet someone. To be honest, I thought she was coked out of her mind when she said, ‘You have to meet my dad.’”

“I was not,” Eleven promised me, “coked out of my mind. But that’s just Billy.”

Eleven aka Jane Hopper, meets me backstage at one of her shows. She’s dressed in slouchy leather pants, to match her sister and drummer Kali Hopper.

“I knew he was something special. My dad was always talking about the IT factor. That thing that made a person something special. But I didn’t get it until I saw Billy Blue singing on that tiny stage,” She smiled. “He didn’t just have the IT factor. He was IT.”

It’s odd then, that Billy Blue’s first album had a surprisingly tepid response. His first single, in 1973, “Let Alone,” came in at only 26th for the month of April on the pop charts.

“People liked it,” Billy shrugs, “But I don’t think they knew what to do with it. You have my songs, these like… little pop love songs and ballads. I wasn’t that strong of a writer at the time. It was like half my songs, half covers. And so they’d book me, expecting fucking… Peter Frampton. And here comes this big queer with glitter on his nipples.”

But the lyrics of “Let Alone” would hint at his later songs, a hallmark simplicity that shone off his raw voice and poetry that hinted at a troubled past.

And if you were meant to care for me

You would, and that’s how it has to be

You said I couldn’t go on without you

Ha, look at me, looking brand new

At the same time, The Boys’ song “Paper Girl,” penned by Harrington, was number one.

She’s my paper girl

Wakes me up every morning, right on time

She got me smiling, got my head in a whirl

Picture perfect, paper girl

“Billy didn’t have much commercial appeal. Sex appeal, yes,” Jason laughed, toying with Chrissy’s hair. “But for sales? That’s where The Boys came in.”

“I hated that name,” Eddie said, “To start with we were half girls.”

The Boys had already had a somewhat successful tour under their belt by the time Jim suggested a collaboration with Billy Hargrove.

“It was a nice, short tour,” Steve Harrington glances away when I ask about the first tour.

“It was a nightmare. Balls to the wall nightmare,” Robin Buckley’s voice is a warm crackle over the phone. “Steve went on like thirty overlapping benders at once.”

Her partner, soap actress Vickie Carmichael cackles behind her, at their home in Salt Lake City.

“The thing about Steve is… well… he’s never found a good way of coping with himself,” Robin huffs. “Music was about as close as he ever got. But in those early days, he just kept looking for more and more.”

“You don’t think it was about-” Vickie asked, just barely into the phone.

“No.”

“It was about Nancy,” Eddie said confidently when I mentioned their first tour. “Nancy, Nancy, Nancy.”

The Boys got their start in the late sixties, beginning with Eddie and Steve. Eddie gave Steve guitar lessons, which turned into some talent show performances. They used to practice at Eddie’s Uncle’s trailer.

“That’s where we got the name,” Eddie nodded, “My uncle used to just call us that, and it stuck.”

“I don’t even remember,” Chrissy said.

“That’s not how we got the name,” Steve shook his head, when I mention Eddie. “It was our first gig, after we got Chrissy and Robin. Robin put it down after the headliner kept asking when ‘you boys’ would go on, and kept addressing it to Chrissy’s chest. She blew him out of the fucking water.”

Nancy Wheeler was there that night, writing about local bands for a tiny column in the school paper.

“She was beautiful. Smart. So smart. Could hear her talk forever,” Steve said, eyes falling.

Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler were married in 1972 after they graduated high school.

“Steve made his own choices,” Chrissy shook her head.

That summer, the Boys plus one drove to LA and Nancy Wheeler took a job at Women’s Day Magazine and later, Rolling Stone. Steve Harrington and The Boys got a “steady gig” at La Bonita Rosa on the strip, playing for drunks every night from seven to eight.

“I really liked playing at La Bonita,” Steve said. “The audience, right there. You could smell the sweat. You could see on their faces if you were bombing. And we used to bomb. A lot. But it was a great place to try things. Experiment. We played there for about a year but… it felt too short.”

Within the year they had met Jim Hopper, who got them into the recording studio and sold their demo nearly on the spot to Upside Down Records.

“They had a great sound. They had got this way of playing. Smooth like a polished stone. Everything sounds good sitting in a frame like that,” Jim said in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1981. “Their songs were… catchy, but basic. But they had the sound.”

Upside Down records set the Boys on a US tour after “Paper Girl,” and “Joy to Love You,” both charted.

“It was like… overnight. One day we’re in a studio, messing around. Kid stuff. I was nineteen,” Steve Harrington shookhis head. “But…”

“That tour,” Chrissy trails off, playing with her ring again.

“I…” Steve Harrington scratched his nose. “I was losing it. Majorly losing it. It felt like we had just moved to LA and we were already neck deep. I mean, I had a number one fucking song. And for some reason I got it in my head to call my mom. She told the maid she wasn’t home. And I could hear her over the phone. My mom. So yeah. I lost it. Lost about half my damn mind on that tour. And people will say it was because of Nancy, because we got married just out of high school, and she wasn’t supportive… but that wasn’t true. Nancy saved me.”

“Nancy never wanted him to be in the band. But… she also didn’t seem to care that much either,” Eddie shook his head, “It’s… complicated. Love is supposed to be. Simple. Like the chords of a song. 1-3-5.”

Jason Carver rolled his eyes at that, “Then what are we?”

Eddie grinned, “We’re a band.”

Nancy Wheeler met me on a Thursday in New York City, slim sunglasses dominating her small porcelain face. We get lunch at her favorite deli shop, and she perches at the counter, loafers dangling. She’s an editor at The New Yorker now, but she still has a soft spot for rock and roll, as evidenced by the Grateful Dead t-shirt under her blazer.

“That tour. I didn’t even know anything was wrong. He just came home with a funny look on his face, saying, ‘We’re headlining.’ So I said, ‘That’s great, Steve.’ He just kept… saying it. It was starting to piss me off, if I’m being honest,” She shook her head. “I should have known something was wrong.”

“I wish she had stopped me. But how could you know right? Hindsight is always 2020,” Steve Harrington said. “I mean, she was my wife. How could she not want me home? But that’s just… sorry. That’s not fair to put on her. I chose to go.”

“I flew out to meet them when they were in Indianapolis, visited my family, and I came a day early to see him,” She smiled warmly, and then it fell. “He was… Well, first, Eddie Munson tried to intercept me at the hotel, so I wouldn’t see him. I told him, ‘I’m here to see my fucking husband.’”

Steve Harrington didn’t add any more details about the tour, just shrugged when I asked.

“He was coked up like you wouldn’t believe,” Robin scoffed. “She walked in on him with two girls and coke all over his… well.”

“I just asked him. Do you want to come home? Do you want to get help? Or not?” She purses her lips. “And so he came home and we found a rehab place near Hawkins.”

“The tour kind of… fell apart. Obviously. We had lost our lead singer and guitarist to fucking… Hawkins, Indiana,”

Everything stopped for the Boys. Upside Down offered to let them out of their two album contract, but Steve couldn’t afford to pay it down.

“Rehab,” He shrugged. “Is expensive.”

Right as it seemed that everything would be over for the Boys, things were looking up for Billy Blue.

“Jim was always saying, ‘the record is selling alright, the songs are getting there but he needs a… push,’” Joyce said. “‘He’s so close. So close. He’s a star.’”

“He always believed in me,” Billy smiled, toying with his ring again. “Always. Even when I threw a jug of milk at his head.”

Joyce laughed when I asked about that moment, “He came home saying, ‘He milked me, Joyce. But he’ll fix the song tonight.’”

“And I did,” Billy said. “And the album was going alright. I did a little tour, socal and the southwest. And then one night, Jim brings me this song. He said, ‘I want you to tell me what’s missing from this.’”

The song was, of course, the Boys’ biggest hit, “Hades.” Steve Harrington’s first version was called, “To Orpheus” and the chorus goes:

Don’t turn back don’t look behind you baby

I’m close, I’m right behind

The future's so bright, and I want you to take me

Wanna be holding your hand when I make it across the line.

“It was fine, but just kind of… nothing. It was supposed to be about Eurydice, but it was so… nothing. She just loved Orpheus and that was it. There were no insides to her. She was going to follow him to her doom,” Billy shook his head. “That’s not right.”

This was not the version that made it to the recording booth, of course. The Boys’ single, “Hades featuring Billy Blue,” came out in 1975. The actual chorus goes:

Turn back on me and I won’t forgive you baby

Don’t want you to see me like this

Up ahead is bright, and I want you to take me

If you’re strong enough to cross that finish line

“‘Hades,’ was a real step forward for the Boys. Gone were the teenybopper tunes,” Steve Harrington’s biographer and personal friend Dustin Henderson wrote in his book The Pretty Boy. “Their first album got the kids dancing. But the second proved that they actually had something to say.”

“Still hate it,” Steve Harrington said. “I wrote that song in rehab. It was deeply, deeply personal to me.”

“He came out, all ready. He wanted to start recording right away,” Robin sighed. “Like I mean the next day. All these songs, just pouring out of him. But the label had lost faith in us. And they certainly weren’t going to let us start recording with a guy who had only just earned his thirty day sober chip.”

“The song wasn’t ready,” Billy shook his head. “But I guess he was. Jim said he needed this. So Jim asked if I would come and like… pitch some stuff as a personal favor. Songwriting credit, that’s all it was supposed to be. Get the songs moving, get them going.”

Steve Harrington takes a long time to continue speaking about it.

“I felt it, writing for that album. I felt proud of those songs. They didn’t belong to anyone else but me,” He toyed with some piano keys while we talked, and then finally sat down and began to play something tuneless and half formed.

“That album was all about Nancy,” Chrissy said. “I mean. I know it. You know it. Nancy knew it. And she kind of hated it. But-”

“You can’t leave your husband right as he gets out of rehab,” Nancy said to me, toying with her wedding ring. “When he writes all these songs about how you’re the only thing… Steve was always like that. Heart wide open. That’s why when he met Billy. I almost thought… it would all be okay. That sounds fucked up but. I thought they could save each other. That the music could save him.”

“It was just a songwriting credit,” Billy raised his hands. “Jim swore up and down. I was just gonna come in there and sit down with this guy Steve. But when I walk into the studio, there’s two mics set up.”

“I was the Boys’ only singer,” Steve Harrington shook his head. “And to be absolutely honest, I was kind of a jackass about it. So to have some guy come in and say he’s gonna sing me my song… well…”

“Steve was the only one who would ever argue with Jim, And he let him have it that day,” Eddie laughed. “He called him the most low down, dirty, rat bitten bastard in California, and that he would die rather than give up his band to someone else.”

“I did not want his band. I did not know his band. And I did not care. And his song sucked. And I told him so. And then I sang it. Better.” Billy smiled.

“Billy was…” Chrissy shook her head. “Incredible.”

I ask Steve what Billy was like that first day in the studio.

“He was,” Something passed over his face. “Alright. He has a great voice, alright.”

“I was good. Better. Best.” Billy smiled.

“But he didn’t understand the song. He wanted Eurydice to… doubt. To think she wasn’t going to get out,” Steve slammed his hands on the keys. “It’s been… almost twenty years. I still don’t understand it.”

I asked why he let Billy stay. But Steve doesn’t have an answer.

“They were like oil and water, right away,” Chrissy said.

“Yeah, but oil on the water can catch fire,” Eddie shrugged.

“Jim asked me to stay,” Billy looked away from me, down at his waffles. “It was a favor to the label.”

“If Billy said louder, Steve said mute,” Robin snickered. “It was kind of great, actually. Finally someone called King Steve on his shit. One day I came in and they were arguing over how close the microphone should be to your throat. Almost got in a physical fight over a fucking microphone. I mean, I love Steve. But he always thinks he’s like… the babysitter. It’s his job to do everything for everybody.”

“Like who was this guy? Really? He came into my studio with no shirt on, most of the time still half smashed from the night before, and he thinks he can make all these changes. But Jim keeps telling me it’s just business, the label thinks it’s good business.” Steve frowned, and then smiled, and then frowned again.

“Yeah, I never wore shirts back then. Or underwear,” Billy said with a grin. “I was a rockstar!”

“Steve fought for every song on that album,” Nancy Wheeler patted her lips primly with a napkin. “He only lost on one.”

“Billy Hargove has songwriting credit and lead vocals on “Hades.” Dustin Henderson wrote.

“Billy was all over that album. He’d make some minor suggestion, maybe this chord instead of that, this word is better. And Steve would flip out, yell at him, yell at Jim, threaten to storm out… and then two days later quietly tell me to change the chord, he’d start singing the new words. Billy was there with us about every single day,” Eddie said.

“Of course, it was our biggest hit,” Chrissy laughed. “Everything but that song, Steve did what he wanted. Oh we had Billy in the studio, making suggestions. But Steve did what he wanted except for ‘Hades.’ Jim said that song is the album, and he wouldn’t cut it.”

“Jim was always right,” Steve closed the piano. “The bastard.”

Hades exploded onto the radio in late 1975. They didn’t have the same distribution as their first record, but the Boys had another hit.

“Billy had this way of singing it. Still does. He broke four mics when we recorded it. Singing so loud I had to keep an eye on the cymbals to stop them from shaking. You can feel him, right in your chest.” Chrissy giggled. “Like he was trying to wake all the dead from Hades. If anyone could, he could.”

“It’s a really, really great song,” Robin said.

This song belongs to Billy Blue, Rolling Stone wrote in 1976. The only question now is, what will The Boys do next?

“I remember that article. Fucking… Harrington said that he basically wrote the whole song. But he said, ‘the label thought bringing Billy in was a good idea,’” Billy gets tense for the first time. “I’m not saying I was like… I just mean. It would have been nice. To treat me like an equal. I’m more than just a singer. I’m not just… a piece of meat.”

“Billy was really pissed about that article. I remember, the day after the article came out, we were getting breakfast at this tiny place off La Cienega. Steve had this car back then, a big maroon BMW, and Eddie had got him a vanity plate when he bought it. Stupid thing it said, ‘BIGBOY.’ Anyway, We’re having breakfast, and we hear this screech outside, like an accident,” Robin Buckley gets uncharacteristically quiet as she goes on through this story. “Billy’s car is parked halfway out of the parking lot, and he comes in like a bull in a charge. Billy… he wasn’t some wimpy guy. He was small, but he was strong as hell… He came right over and grabbed Steve by his collar and lifted him right off the counter. And he said, I’ll never forget it because Steve used to recite it from memory, yell it at me, ‘Tell me I’m not dreaming. Is that Steve fucking Harrington? The lead singer of the Boys. Hey man, I love your song ‘Hades.’ How’d you get your voice to sound halfway decent for once?’”

“I don’t remember that,” Steve Harrington said flatly when I asked.

“And Steve used to be a fucking dick in high school. So he starts getting real bitchy, shoving Billy off him, asking what his problem is, why he’s such a dick all the fucking time, when it’s not even his band. And Billy said something like, ‘No one wants your shit band. Not with you in it,’” Robin paused for a moment. “And they just. Stare at each other. Like… daring each other to do something.”

Billy just shrugs when I ask, “I was pissed. I gave this guy a number one hit, and he still wanted to treat me like some… airhead singer the label brought in as a stunt. I’m not just a singer. I’m not a piece of meat. I’m a person.”

When I ask Steve about that day he’s pretty quiet, deflated at his piano. He only wants to talk about the song. The music. Can’t seem to talk about Billy any other way.

“He sang it like he not only knows Orpheus can’t save him, but that he won’t. It was supposed to be hopeful. A happy ending.” Steve said.

“So you still hate the song?” I asked.

“No, I don’t. It’s brilliant. And that’s the whole problem.”

To be continued...

Next up is Half-Oz-Eddie's piece at 7:00 pm. GET HYPE!

#harringrove relay race #harringrove #billy x steve #billy hargrove #steve harrington #harringrove fic #steve x billy #harringrovefic #harringrovefanfic #harringrove fanfiction #harringrove fanfic #stranger things #my writing #DJATS au #Daisy jones and the six au #tw drugs

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feelbokkie · 2 months

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but first, someone asked for a tour of the skz merch

(which is below the manga hall of fame) (i have a different manga bookshelf in the corner)

there isn’t much to explain and I have to reorganize it bc why not?

Shelf 1

she is a mess and mostly a catch all shelf. but i have my unofficial dwaekki, jinret (with a rifle), wolfchan, puppym, bbokari skzoos, official puppym keychain head & pilot skzoo, chan and seungmin's unit mini poster from maxident that i pulled, and a picture of sengmin in a dog frame that says "top dog"

behind them i have all of the mini albums, most of the japanese mini albums, my card boz that has stickers that i decorated with skz unofficial stickers, nemo rockstar, and all of the seungmin digipacks (i had beef with Seungmin personally trying to find his rockstar and oddinary digis)

and then, also on that shelf: felix and seungmin's dicon photo books (lix's came with the entire binder kid i got for graduation and i happend to find seung's book at the local kpop store by chance for $10 usd), the photo cards from seungmin's nylon magazine, 2 sleeves from my first ever cup sleeve event, and an edit that someone made from stay week that i printed out

Shelf 2

my leftover shelf kinda. it's less clutter than shelf 1, that's for sure. it has my unofficial foxi.ny, leebit, and han quokka skzoos, two smiling seungmin "photocards" that i got from a follower during a trade as a freebie because i was complaining about the lack of sminling seungmin pcs (pre seungmin bias days), and my signed seungmin postcard from rockstar

behind them, i have all of skz studio albums both korean and japanese, my light stick, and all 6 of my pc binders (i know, i know)

and then i also have some of my seasons greetings merch that i'm trying to figure out where to put them, my seungmin maxident sticker that is not in it's assigned spot for some reason, and pilot puppym's tag that i can't part with for some reason

these four are my main binders. the back on and clear one on the shelf that aren't pictured are my ot8 and unit card binders. seungmin has his own binder bc bias privilege and i only collect seungmin for now. hyunlix share a binder bc...hyunlix (i don't collect but their cards are so pretty that i can't part with them). chan, lino, and changbin are in the hyunglin binder and hanji & innie are in the maknae line binder. i also have a small binder for duplicates for trades that lives on this shelf

(if you want to a binder tour or want to see a specific card lmk, there's also this ask game)

Non-Shelf Stuff

i have both (i think there's only 2) of seungmin's solo covers framed and a rave version of the mask from lalalala m/v that i think i'm going to used to replace the gallery wall in pic 3 (it's time)

my little seungmin grid that lives behind my monitor/next to my bed with pics i printed myself, an art print i got myself for christmas, one of me seungmin duplicates from rockstar (aka my only seungmin pc pull from that entire era), and my seungmin keychain which is a couple keychain that i have with my wife (hehe)

by my bed on my game strategy whiteboard i have these two pics of seungmin that i printed that keep me calm when i'm in my felix era (sucking ass at games), and a pochacco and pompompurin mini posters (keroppi is also there)

on my fan i have the air freshner from seasons greetings tapped and on my printer i have the calendar

and finally, behind my mirror i have my little skz poster wall that i made when i first became a stay and got this bookshelf. i'm going to change it though because maknae line gets covered by the mirror. i think i'm going to use the mini posters from seasons greeting there and then do something with the extra space. but it's the first thing i see when i walk in and out of my room, my boys 💛

hehe

#feelbokkie rambles

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hollywoods-angel · 9 months

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joan <3

joan baez is an american singer songwriter and activist. many of her folk songs spread awareness about social justice, and are protest songs. she was part of the folk revival of the 1960s alongside bob dylan, who she had a very public relationship with, and she is arguably one of the most important folk singers. in 2017 she was inducted into the rock n roll hall of fame.

joan chandos baez grew up in nyc and as a child her family converted to Quakerism. during her childhood she was often discrimanated and called racial slurs because of her Mexican heritage, which sparked her intrest in activism. she attended boston university and lter dropped out to perform in local cafes and venus, and refused to play in segregated areas.

joan's first professional performance was at 18, and afterwards she made her first album sold moderately well. she went on tour and had a sold out performance. in 1961 she relased another album, then another in 1962 which both went gold. the same year she was on the cover of time magazine- something that was rare for musicians. during the mid 60s she continued to rise in popularity, and introduced her audience to the then unknown bob dylan.

the two were in a relationship throughout the early to mid 60s, and wrote numerous songs about each other. joan's musical style was unique and she continued to experiment with different styles. bob described her as having a 'siren' like voice and having a unique guitar style. her first single to chart was in 1965, and out of her 14 vanguard albums, 13 were on the billboard 100 mainstream pop chart. 11 made top 40, 8 made top 20 and 4 made top 10. her music has inspired the likes of bob dylan, joni mitchell, judas priest, led zeppelin and many more.

a crucial part of joan's life has been her activism. she was one of the early artists to use her platform to spread awareness, both through her music and through her actions. she supported the civil right's movement (leading to an fbi file on her), protested the war in vietnam (and got arrested), is against the death penalty, advocated for the lgbtq+ community, supported peaceful protests in iran, performed in rallies against the war in iraq, was in a tree 'sit-in' for urban farmers, endorsed obama during the 2008 election and performed for the protesters at occupy wall street in 2011.

in 2007 joan was given the lifetime achievement award at the grammy's for her impact on music, and in 2011 the amnesty international, a human rights group honored joan and had a tribute event. she also received an award in 2015 by the amnesty international. the american academy of the arts and sciences elected her to the fellowship in 2020 for her contributions to music and activism, and she was listed at 189 on rolling stone's 200 best singers list.

#joan baez #60s #girlblogger-interrupted

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barkingbonzo · 4 days

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Michael Whelan Cover Art, The Cosmic Computer

Michael Whelan (born June 29, 1950) is an American artist of imaginative realism. For more than 30 years, he worked as an illustrator, specializing in science fiction and fantasy cover art. Since the mid-1990s, he has pursued a fine art career, selling non-commissioned paintings through galleries in the United States and through his website.

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Whelan in June 2009, the first living artist so honored. According to his Hall of Fame citation.

Michael Whelan is one of the most important contemporary science fiction and fantasy artists, and certainly the most popular. His work was a dominant force in the transition of genre book covers away from the surrealism introduced in the 1950s and 1960s back to realism.

His paintings have appeared on the covers of more than 350 books and magazines, including many Stephen King novels, most of the Del Rey editions of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, the Del Rey edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars series, Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince and Dragon Star series, the Del Rey editions of H. P. Lovecraft's short story collections, the Grand Master edition of Ray Bradbury's fix-up novel The Martian Chronicles, DAW editions of Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné books, numerous DAW editions of C. J. Cherryh's work, many of Robert A. Heinlein's novels including Friday and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, the Ace editions of H. Beam Piper's Fuzzy novels, and Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Otherland, and Shadowmarch series and Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive. Whelan provided covers and interior illustrations for Stephen King's The Gunslinger and The Dark Tower, the first and last of his Dark Tower books.

Cover art by Michael Whelan has graced many music record albums including Demolition Hammer's Epidemic of Violence, The Jacksons' Victory; Sepultura's Beneath the Remains, Arise, Chaos A.D. and Roots; Soulfly's Dark Ages; Obituary's Cause of Death; and every album by the Elric-influenced metal band Cirith Ungol. He painted original works for the covers of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell and The Very Best of Meat Loaf albums and several of his older paintings illustrate the liner notes of the former. In 2009, he painted the cover art for thrash metal band Evile's album Infected Nations.

#The Cosmic Computer #Cover Art #Michael Whelan #science fiction #art #illustration

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soonie-doongie-and-dori · 6 months

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Rock-star thoughts

Ok, so. Rockstar came out. And it was, as expected, awesome. I have so many thoughts about the comeback, a lot of which are *incoherent screaming*. But, I also wanted to write about what I thought of the songs overall. So, enjoy the word vomit <3

Megaverse

I've said it once, I'll say it again; the first tracks on skz albums always go HARD.

Absolutely in love with the beginning- Felix singing in french, and I'm in love with Bangchan's verse, it reminds me of the 'break the wall' ateez fanchant for some reason

This is the ultimate hype song, very much following in the footsteps of it's predecessor Hall of Fame

Lalalala

This title track ROCKED (pun intended)

Often, I find that I like the b-sides of skz albums far more than the title track; which really frustrates me, but Lalalala did NOT disappoint. It is the epitome of what a title track should be, since it represents skz so well; unapologetically loud and fun

I absolutely love the wordplay in this album; La means happiness but it also sounds like rock buts it's also la in the sense of lalala. I'm an absolute sucker for wordplay, and this made me feel so happy.

Another hype song, it embodies it's message so well; even though negative emotions exist, joy always comes out on top

I loved the pirate concept of the mv, but I would have absolutely lost my shit if the mv was an actual rock star concept. But pirate skz is also pretty cool

Blind Spot

Our genius Quokka did it again guys

But seriously, I'm absolutely in love with this song. It's my favourite, I'm absolutely addicted to it

This song is Mixtape 2/Behind the Light pt 2. I can't explain myself, it just is. (If you don't remember it, go listen to it!! fr one of the most underrated skz songs)

Bloody hell, I love "Shining, we are the champions,Trying to make a difference" It's truly so good

The opening instrumentals are NO JOKE, they're short but they are so vital to the song

I also love the imagery of a 'Blind Spot' in the song, like it's a part of them that we don't see. I really want to write an entire essay on this song. I might.

Comflex

WORDPLAY AGAIN, 3racha are fucking genius

It's exactly what it says on the label, a(nother) hype song, this one about embracing your flaws & insecurities and being proud of them

It's a self love song, in the most skz way possible. Reminds me of the meme of someone yelling 'HYDRATE OR DIEDRATE' while throwing water bottles at people

If Youtiful was skz telling us that they love us, Comflex is skz screaming at us to love ourselves

Flex your complexes guys!

Cover Me

When I first saw the credits for this song, I screamed a little. I've been waiting for a song written by Hyunjin since he talked about getting into songwriting in the 5-star intro. I was so disappointed when I saw that none of the 5-star songs had Hyunjin as a writer, because I was so sure that one would be there, and then I forgot all about it, so Cover Me hit me like a brick to the face

This song quite literally feels like a warm blanket covering you

Something I found really interesting; I'm usually pretty good at figuring out who is singing when, but damn did this song stump me. It's probably because it was a mainly vocal song, unlike most of skz's songs, but it's still interesting

In a similar vein, FELIX USED HIS MIDDLE REGISTER! Don't get me wrong, I love Felix's deep voice as much as the next simp, but I loved Deep end because it gave Felix a chance to explore range other than the deep voice he always gets handed in songs. I was praying for some songs to allow Felix to use his mid-upper range and I was hopeful when I saw the intro, and Cover Me delivered. I love Hyunjin so much for this

Leave

Skz's latest break up song! Reminds me of Ex

Being honest, I didn't find much special about this song, but it is genuinely a pretty good song

But, the angst is quite nice and it's an excellent song to sob to

Overall

Skz just outdoes themselves every time. I'd describe this album as very evenly split between Head-banging hype songs and ugly crying songs. If they'd have swapped Blind Spot and Comflex, the album would literally be 3 songs of pure hype followed by 3 songs that you're sobbing to. Skz continues to display their range by giving us whiplash with every album. I'm so, so in love with this comeback. The rock ver of lalalala was also a pure genius idea, it brings the album together so well, and it's just plain fun

#i have a lot of Thoughts about skz #stray kids #stray kids comeback #skz #skz rock star #skz rockstar #rockstar era #stayville

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mannytoodope · 5 months

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Paul Gustave Simonon (born 15 December 1955) is best known as the bassist for the band The Clash. Six months after meeting bandmate Mick Jones in 1976, he would join him and punk legend Joe Strummer to form The Clash; he still really didn’t know how to play the bass that well, which is why he smashed his bass out of frustration in the cover of the classic album, London Calling. I had a poster of Simonon breaking his bass on my wall years ago. His skills as a bassist improved after Mick Jones gave him some help. As his bass-playing skills improved., Simonon would go and play on a majority of The Clash’s songs. His ska and reggae-influenced sound set him apart from other bassists in punk music at the time. I always considered him the “tender-hearted tough guy” of The Clash. He came up with the band’s name and visual aspects, such as stage backdrops and clothing he is shown on the cover of The Clash’s album London Calling, smashing his bass. After the band ended in 1986, Simonon started Havana at 3 am. The band recorded one album before breaking up. Simonon continued to work with various artists and went back to creating art. 2004 The Clash was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He joined other bands that probably looked up to him, playing bass for them. Simonon still plays an integral part in punk music

#Musician #Punk #New Wave #Reggae #Alternative Rock #The Clash

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julialouisdreyfest · 2 years

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NIAT Interview

So to start off, what does the name N.I.A.T. stand for?

JR - Never ingest apples, Timmy. Will - NIGHT IN AT TIANANMENS - Take your time and sound it out. Danny - Nice Interstate At Toronto

I saw that you guys recently went on tour, how'd that pan out?

JR - We had a great time! Looking forward to our next tour in October! Will - For our first tour it went exceptionally well. Minor vehicle issues halfway through but we were able to perform every date with minimal setbacks. We are going back on the road in October for a little over a week and playing with some good friends - couldn't be more excited. Danny - It was really dope. I haven't been out in a really long time so getting back out there was awesome.

Favorite venue from that tour?

JR - The Plaid Pig in Tacoma for sure. The locals were all super nice and made us feel right at home. Will - Haufbrau House = Hall of Fame - the venue in Tacoma, The Plaid Pig, was badass. Major Railyard (R.I.P.) vibes for sure. Zach - Substation in Seattle! Danny - The pinball bar next door to The Plaid Pig, the venue we actually played at.

Over the years you have had quite the lineup change, how has that affected your sound, or has it?

JR - I think it has changed our sound in a lot of ways. Everytime we have a member change, the most important part to me is keeping the feel that we have always created. The chaos, the energy. At this point I am the only original member but luckily for this last member change, Danny and I had worked together playing crazy weird music in the past. So it just felt obvious to me to ask him. I have always loved making music with Danny. I can honestly say this new chapter has me more stoked than ever! Will - The sound has changed to a degree - I think much of that lies in Edward Longo's departure from the band in 2019 (that guy is in a league of his own) but with Danny integration into the band, it has brought back an element that I thought we had once lost. Having to deal with those abrupt lineup changes has also allowed us to explore different avenues - I started a solo noise project called PLVMES in mid 2020 after Tony Morales departed and now incorporate elements of that into our live sets to replace the samples he wrote for our first album, "Blasphemist". Slowly working on re-incorporating that again but at the moment, the noise walls become more and more cohesive as we get along it might be awhile before that happens. Danny - I'm the new guy, It seems like it's changing a lot, but also, it doesn't?!

For the metal laymen, how can you describe the fucked-up sound that is grindcore?

JR - Imagine driving by a music festival going 90 miles an hour with your windows rolled down trying to make out who's playing. Will - The sound of a government building being razed. Zach - A garbage bag of empty paint cans rolling down a hill on a windy day. Danny - S.C.U.B.A. if you know you know.

I was super excited to see you guys contribute to the Nirvana grind cover album. How did that come about and why Aneurysm as a song choice?

JR - I want to say Will found the Label that put it together and asked if we could submit. "Territorial Pissings" was already taken so I picked my second favorite song, "Aneurysm". The recording process for that one was a lot of fun. Will - I came across a post in a random grindcore group on social media and contacted Sudden Strike Records out of Ireland about submitting - it only took us a few rehearsals for it to come together before we recorded, mixed and sent them the track. There were a good number of bands that had already picked their songs so it was our first choice but even if we hadn't been able to get on the compilation, we probably would have ended up covering it anyways. Zach - Always one of my favorites, we all immediately gravitated towards it (seems kinda obvious). Danny - I have no idea. I was not in the band. If it was up to me we would have tried to do a Weezer song and see if anyone notices.

What's your take on Montanas metal scene, its growth and what it could benefit from?

JR - It has come a long way. I think the biggest thing is just more bands. More bands making more music. Like Zach says, go record your homies if you can. Make terrible music with your friends until you make something you think is awesome. There's no fast way to make our scene bigger or better. It comes from more people, trying new things. Will - The scenes are ever changing, ever growing - we're still reeling from losing The Railyard and Smiling Dog Records, two DIY mainstays that provided countless bands here the opportunity to play. The influx of residents in the state has resulted in there being many more musicians around than there used to be, leaving us in a good position where we can really expand what we're working towards if we put in the work - I think much of this can be addressed with better organization and networking. It is also beneficial to provide a service to your scene if you're able, whether it is flyer design, street-teaming, shooting photos, promoting online, etc. The list is endless. Zach - At this point in my life I’m very thankful for the metal scene, and Montana music scenes in general for their sense of community and the friendships. I think something the scene could benefit from is more DIY boots on the ground: house shows, homies recording homies in the basement for free, cross genre DIY shows, etc. Danny - It has definitely come a long way. I think we just need more high quality music of all sorts, there is never too much. Hahaha.

What is the most annoying thing that people do at a metal show, besides just standing there looking at their phones?

JR - Gatekeeping. Also people requesting you to play literally anything lol. Will - Showing up late or ditching out early because you gotta work in the morning. Your job ain't going anywhere, bucko. Zach - Karate bullshit in the pit. Danny - Smoking weed when I'm trying to worship the Lord with my music.

What goes into your writing process?

JR - When this band started we just liked the idea of writing with no limits. I think we still encompass that. It usually starts with a drum part I make but lately we have been jam writing more with Danny. Will - Generally starts with a skeleton brought to the table by JR; Danny and Zach then take the reins and construct the guitar parts. Vocals are constantly evolving just like the lyrics and go through multiple edits before anything is set in stone but there have been a few songs where the lyrics were basically written on the spot ("How Long Does Shit Burn?", "Coffee Is For Closers"). Zach - One person brings an idea to the table, usually JR with a drum part, and we expand upon it. Danny - Mostly just starts with a riff, work around it, bring it to the guys and if they like it we keep working around it. Sometimes we just jam one out too. I don't think there's really a right or wrong way to do it, just whatever works for you. Don't be afraid to try new things.

Favorite Seinfeld character and why?

JR - Morty Seinfeld, I mean the guy worked for Harry Fleming for 38 years. Will - You got a question, you ask the eight ball. Zach - Kramer Danny - Bender

React to this: You're watching a stage play. A banquet is in progress. The guests are enjoying an appetizer of raw oysters. The entree consists of boiled dog stuffed with rice. The raw oysters are less acceptable to you than a dish of boiled dog.

JR - The only reaction I can think of, would be to go home and hug my dogs. Will - *lights blunt* Zach - Raw oysters are absolutely delicious. Pop one with a little hot sauce, uncultured swine. Danny - Wait, you guys aren't eating boiled dogs? I thought this was metal.

Working on any new material, what can we expect to see in the future?

JR - Well, you can watch us attempt to write ourselves into a never ending wormhole of weirdness and loud angry noises. Will - Find out for yourself this Saturday @ The Nova Danny - Degeneracy, overall.

You can catch NIAT during this year's fest at Nova Center on August 6th at 10:15pm!

#niat #billingsmontana #jldviii #julialouisdreyfest #dreyfest #Spotify

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albumwalloffame · 3 months

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Album Cover Wall (Hall) of Fame Winter 2024 Inductees - Day 1

Minor thing before we begin, doing 25 whole album covers was... a lot, so I decided from now on (Since we're over 200 covers anyway), I'll just induct 10 each season. So I'm going to induct 5 covers today, and five others later this month.

Okay, with that said, let's get to the album covers.

1. Smash Song Hits by Rodgers & Hart

2. The Rarity of Experience - Chris Forsyth

3. Yesterdays - Yes

4. That's the Way Love Is - Marvin Gaye

5. Control - Janet Jackson

#album covers #music #album art #art #alex steinweiss #chris forsyth #yes band #marvin gaye #janet jackson #rock and roll #pop music #Album Covers Wall (Hall) of Fame

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caravelmp3 · 3 years

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UNDER THE CANYON MOON

pairing: josh kiszka x female!reader warning(s): mostly fluff, just brief mentions of alcohol and sex word(s): 2k note: hi hi hi !! this is just a little something i wrote up the last couple of days with the inspiration of light my love, canyon moon by harry styles, and the interview where josh talked about road-tripping the u.s. last summer <3 i don’t write one shots often but let me know what you all think bc i might shuffle some more out soon lol. hope you all enjoy !! :)

The Los Angeles sun was hot, beating down onto the city basking in its late-summer hues. You parked your car on the street in Silver Lake and carried a bag of food and drink tray to the door of a recording studio, more than prepared to be swarmed by hungry boys who had been cooped up in the studio since five a.m. on the dot that morning. They had a breakthrough the night before with a new song, and after getting home and going to bed for a few hours, the creative juices started flowing again and they were back in the booth.

A windchime on the door sang as you pulled the door open and walked inside, greeting their manager who was at a table by the door.

“The boys here?”

“Down the hall,” he nodded, pointing a finger in the direction of the hallway. “They’re more rowdy than usual so be prepared,”

You laughed and turned down the hall, walking towards the studio. The walls were decorated with memorabilia of rock and roll greats and record plaques, and among them, you spotted a picture of the four boys with their Grammy award. It seemed like time had passed so quickly. They won the award for the first album and they were already working on their third, shooting them further into stardom.

“Coffee’s here!” You shouted in a really bad New England accent when you noticed the recording light was flipped off above the door.

You stepped into the room to a chorus of cheers and “thank god you're here”’s that made you laugh while sitting the food and drinks down on the table and they all rushed over. You handed out the specific orders and pointed to which drinks was theirs when they got handsy and tried to grab everything from her out of both excitement and some desperation for caffeine.

“Our savior,” Jake said, reaching out and grabbing your shoulders to give them a gentle shake before taking the coffee you were holding out to him, and then you handed Danny’s to him, too.

“Just the coffee girl here,”

“Well, you’re a little bit more than that,” Josh said, walking over to the table to grab his full cup.

You pressed a hand against the table, leaning over to him. “Just a little?”

“A little bit,” he shot you a wink before swiftly pressing a kiss to your cheek.

You were more than just a “little more” than the coffee girl, you were typically their designated drunk driver, the one who took all of their candid photos, the mediator in times of need, and well, the girlfriend of the lead singer, too.

Everyone in the studio took their food and drinks and scattered among the seating area in a break from recording. Instead of one tiny room with all of them cramped together, they had a wide open space with booths for the different instruments and bean bag chairs and big comfy, velvet sofas, and there was dim lighting with deep toned rugs that gave off the vibe of a more relaxed feel rather than the fluorescent-light, tiled-floor feeling that made them feel rushed and confined by rules they didn’t set themselves.

You liked the studio, too, and often took naps on the sofa while listening to them play instruments individually in the recording booths and while they were writing. One night they had found you at two a.m., bundled up with a blanket on the bean bag chair after they spent the night writing in the front room on the piano, but it wasn’t the first time as you often napped in their Nashville recording offices, too.

“You guys been busy today?” You asked jokingly while lowering onto the sofa armrest, receiving nothing but glares shot in your direction. “Okay, okay, touchy subject,”

With a mouthful of bread, Sam pointed to Josh, “Josh finished a song, didn’t you?” He was grinning.

You hummed in joy and surprise, grabbing Josh’s knee as he sat next to you. “Really?”

It had been a rough few days for all of them as they tried to shuffle out a few more additions to the new album. It felt incomplete with something missing, but they couldn’t quite put their finger on what it was exactly, so they attempted to bring back and revamp old songs, write and record new ones, but nothing seemed to stick, until now.

“Yeah, wanted to wait and show you later, but someone can’t keep his trap shut.” Josh said, pretending to be serious before cracking a smile and taking a sip of his coffee. “Just wanted it to be a surprise,”

“Well it can still be a surprise, I’m surprised now,” you said. “Can I hear it? Or read what you got?”

Josh nodded and stood, grabbing your hand and pulling you with him. There was a little recording room fit with a piano inside, his writing journal placed on the music stand where he had scribbled notes and keys and melodies in pen. He picked it up and handed it to you.

“Nothing seemed to click until last night, when I started putting it together.” He said.

“Is that why you wouldn’t tell me what it was when you all got back to the house?”

Josh shrugged, pinching his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger. “Yeah, yeah, I wanted it to be special when you first heard it.”

You sat the coffee cup down onto the floor while lowering into the small chair in the corner, holding the journal like it was the most delicate piece of art in the world. In silence, while Josh watched on anxiously, you read the words he had splayed across the blank page.

Can you light my love? Flames glowing bright as the sun Deeper than oceans you run Watch as our world has begun

Your mind is a stream of colors Extending beyond our sky A land of infinite wonders A billion lightyears from here now

You felt your throat tighten, tears tempted your eyes.

It was a love song.

“Josh-”

“Oh god you hate it don’t you, you dread it, despise it,”

“Oh shut up, I’m in tears right now, you know I love it.” You looked up at him with a smile and a sniffle.

His words across the page were sloppy, some cursive, written in different pens of different colors, some lines crossed and scribbled out, others underlined.

“Your mind is something I will never fully understand.” You told him as he sat down on the chair next to you. “How the fuck did you come up with this-”

“I was thinking about our trip out here, the week we spent driving out and all of the stuff we did… and how I think I fell more in love with you.” His voice softened.

You reached out, placing your arm on his shoulder, fingers playing with his curls. “I can’t put it into words how much I love it, how much I love you,” you said, “and you make me sound so lovely when in reality I know I was a pain in the ass that entire trip.”

“Yeah, but my pain in the ass,” he kissed the inside of your arm.

Two weeks before the boys left Nashville to head to Los Angeles, Josh called you at midnight with an idea in mind – the two of you renting a camper to drive out to L.A., falling into all of the tourist traps along the way and stopping in random small towns to sleep while exploring the in between, which would definitely beat the boring four-hour flight. And you, half asleep and across the country, agreed.

It would be fun. Right?

And it was. Every time someone asked how it went, you called it “the most magical week of my life.”

While the others waited behind for their flights the next week, you and Josh set off from Nashville, heading west with only the destination in mind and a trusty map in hand. Everything else just came to you both.

The first stop was three hours in the trip, in Memphis. You and Josh roamed Graceland on Elvis Presley Boulevard and had lunch near Sun Studio before taking in the mementos and relics at the Blues Hall of Fame where Josh talked your ear off, rattling off more details about each band and singer than was on the info-cards on the wall.

Then it was two hours to Little Rock, falling asleep in the back of the camper after a take-out dinner outside of a random supermarket. Sitting in lawn chairs in the middle of a parking lot, you held Josh’s hand under a blanket and watched the pink sunrise over the hills, and then it was back on the road again.

From Oklahoma City to Amarillo, you fiddled with the map when Josh got lost after a wrong turn in a small town where he insisted on seeing the giant 66-foot LED soda bottle sculpture, and in the middle of northern Texas, he made it up to you by cooking your favorite dinner. You thanked him in a quiet whisper as you crawled into the bed with him that night, sliding under the covers where he greeted you with warm hands and kisses against your neck that made you squeal with the tickle of his mustache and he grinned against your lips.

Josh got to choose the music all the way through New Mexico – Neil Young and Crazy Horse to John Denver’s Thank God I’m A Country Boy, and you were only able to squeeze in Joan Baez every hour when you stopped to stretch your legs on the side of the road, belting the words to him while he laughed at your voice cracks.

And after you both pitched the tent in the Petrified Forest in Arizona, Josh hummed the tune to some new song while you two sat under the midnight stars in the canyon with a roaring fire, his arm around you, his sweatshirt draped over your shoulders. When he tried to start telling you a scary story after you heard a weird noise outside the tent, you blindly hit him in the dark and accidentally hit his nose, causing you both to burst into laughter after the initial panic left. He laughed loudly into your shoulder as you held his face in shock, catching the scent of your lavender lotion, and his body relaxed when the laughter died down, feeling so at peace in his life with you there.

It was the tail end of the trip, but the excitement hadn’t died down yet. After showers in the camper in the middle-of-nowhere-Arizona and five hours west, you and Josh found a bar outside of Las Vegas that resembled Coyote Ugly, so you both had a round of tequila sodas and margaritas before walking around the small town that evening and sleeping off the tipsy-headaches in the air conditioning. On top of the covers, you looked at Josh napping in the sunshine, cheeks flushed red, curls poofy from the wind, and you felt your heart grow in your chest before falling asleep next to him.

And then came Los Angeles, the final stop, the dreaded one. But you and Josh didn’t tell anyone that either of you were sad to be back with them in L.A. when they asked, and instead, you two smiled and hugged everyone after piling out of the camper in the drive-way of the Silver Lake house.

Cleaning out the camper, tossing cheesy novelty t-shirts at each other and laughing at how many socks you two managed to lose along the way and how many bug bites were added, watching the developed clips Josh had filmed of scenes in the desert and you asleep in the passenger seat, you both were nostalgic about a trip that just ended.

It was so easy, so freeing to just be together on the road, with only the destination in mind. It revealed a part of them that the other didn’t see often, like your tendencies to get your lefts and rights mixed up while giving directions, and Josh’s equally awful sense of direction didn’t exactly pair with the fact that he was a maniac while driving in the first place.

But those parts were just added to the long list of why you and him loved each other in the first place. So you became the designated driver after Amarillo and Josh stuck to telling you “left or right” for the rest of the time. It was a compromise, another reason why you two worked so well together.

It was a form of love in itself.

“We’ll have to drive all the way back to Nashville then, so you can write more songs about me.” You teased.

Josh rolled his eyes but cracked into a grin a second later. “Let’s not get too carried away,” but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t always mentally reliving the night under the canyon moon.

#gvf imagine #greta van fleet imagine #gvf #gvf one shot #greta van fleet one shot #gvf fanfic #greta van fleet fanfic #josh kiszka imagine #josh kiszka one shot #josh kiszka fanfic #greta van fleet

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eirikaanemo · 3 years

Text

My Celebrity Childhood Friend

Warnings: minor character death, sad feels

Venti x GN!Reader

2k Words

Many years ago, when you were eight years old, you had two very close friends. Their names were Venti and Himmel. The three of you did everything together. You were very close. All of you thought your friendship would be forever and that you would always be close. But, unfortunately, that's not what happened.

One day you and Venti received the news that Himmel had passed away. It was really difficult for both of you to accept the reality of his death, grieve, and move on with your lives. In the end, you couldn’t even help each other. Spending time together only reminded you of how Himmel wasn’t there anymore.

Eventually Venti just couldn’t take it anymore. So his family moved out. Losing Himmel had hurt, but losing Venti too reopened the almost healing wound in your heart. He didn’t even say goodbye because he thought he’d chicken out if he did. And so there you were, friendless, hurt, and feeling very, very alone.

Your only solace was in practicing the piano. The three of you had all been learning instruments and playing together before. The idea was to become a band of sorts together and play music professionally. Himmel played violin, Venti played guitar, and you played piano. Playing the piano was all you had left of them, so you continued playing and practicing it.

Years pass and you move on as much as you can. You make new friends and try new things. Piano is still important to you but you do new things now too. But even with all of this, there’s a part of you that left with Venti and Himmel. The hurt in your heart is no longer a gaping wound. Yet the pain has never truly gone away.

Then one day you hear a familiar voice on the radio. That voice and guitar combo sounded very familiar. It was a good song and you enjoyed listening to it, but you just couldn’t get the feeling of familiarity out of your mind. However, once the radio host introduced the song, you immediately understood. “And that was Soaring Bird by The Bard. Venti really did himself proud on this one…,” they continued, but you were no longer listening.

Venti was on the radio! What could this mean? You hurriedly took out your phone and ran a search. There he was, Venti, also known as The Bard, is a singer/songwriter who rose to fame after a stint on a television talent show a couple months ago. Well, what do you know? Your childhood friend has followed your childhood dream.

Part of you feels left behind, but you accepted that had happened years ago. So instead you decided to be supportive! Suddenly you have a new favorite singer and you just have to have all his albums. Physical copies, so you can display them. Your bedroom walls are covered with posters.

You now have more The Bard themed t-shirts than you have regular shirts. There’s a concert of his you can go to? You’re there. You promote him with everyone you know. If you hadn’t converted your friends to the truth of Venti supremacy they probably would have gotten sick of your antics by now. Instead they’re almost as invested as you are.

When he finally releases a new album you are thrilled. It’s been almost a year since he released his last one and you’ve been starving for new content. You are first in line to the store to buy the album and listen to it as soon as possible. Track one through four are fantastic and you enjoy them a lot! But then track five starts to play.

It’s more melancholy and nostalgic than other songs he has written. And then you hear the words. The words touch your heart, soothing and healing some of the pain that has remained. At the end he takes a moment to dedicate it to his childhood friend, to you. Not by name, but you know what he means by “my old childhood friend”. You’re tearing up.

I’m sorry I was too blind to see

That you were suffering as much as me

You were left behind, I was moving on

And you were left to carry on

It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair

That I chose to just leave you there

We’re not really close now, are we

But I just want to say I’m sorry

You listened to it over and over again, crying in your room. Maybe it was stupid but that was something you didn’t even know you’ve been wanting to hear for years. Knowing that he felt bad about leaving you behind and hearing an apology from him meant the world to you.

And it just so happens that the song he dedicated to you is your friends’ new favorite song. If they didn’t know about your history with him before, then they sure know now. You’re still struggling to not cry every time it plays. Sure, maybe some of your dirty laundry was now being aired all around the world. But that wasn’t important.

What was important was that your heart was finally able to heal. You were truly able to feel happy again, for the first time since you were eight years old. Life had color again. There was more of a bounce to your step. Your friends noticed that your smiles even seemed more real now.

So when you learned that Venti would be doing an album signing event, you just knew you had to go. And you knew just which album you wanted to have signed. Now all you could think about was getting the album signed. How would he react to seeing you again? Would he recognize you? You really hope he does. It would really hurt if he doesn’t.

All of a sudden you’re now worrying if this is a good idea at all. Your friends managed to convince you to go, but you were really close to not going at all. And even now that you’re here at the signing you’re half considering running away. But instead you steel your courage and get in line.

You try not to think about it as the line slowly creeps forward. Making small talk with those around you in line might help, but you’re too nervous to even try social interaction. You’re twentieth in line, then tenth, then fifth, then second. Now it’s your turn and you approach the table he’s sitting at to sign the albums.

He’s wearing a white button up shirt, green slacks, and a green beanie with a flower on it. He’s dyed the tips of his braids teal and wears some light makeup to bring out the color of his eyes. You suddenly feel very underdressed as you anxiously walk up and hand him the album.

“Hi Venti,” you say softly. “It’s good to see you again.” He looks up sharply and freezes for a second, wide eyed. “Oh my gosh!” He exclaims, jumping up out of his seat. “It’s so good to see you again! It’s been so long!” You smile, feeling more comfortable and sure of yourself now that you know he recognizes you.

Someone behind him clears their throat and sits back down. “I can’t really talk right now,” he admits, sheepishly. “We don’t want to hold up the line, but hold on a sec.” He opens the album and scribbles something on the inside of the opaque cover. “That’s my number,” he whispers quietly to you. “Text me later, okay? I’ll get back to you when I can.”

You nod and move on, only realizing he didn’t actually sign the case until you were down the hall from where he was signing. Laughing a little, you sit down on a bench and pull out your phone. That was such a Venti-like thing for him to do. Sometimes he would get so excited that he’d forget what he was supposed to be doing.

Opening your texting app, you typed in his number and sent him a message.

You: Hi! Is this the right number? I’m the one you wrote song number five about.

It took a couple hours for him to reply. Which is very understandable considering how he was probably signing albums for a while.

Venti: Yes! This is the right number! It’s so good to hear from you again :)

Venti: And I’m so glad you heard that song

Venti: I really am sorry about leaving like that

You: I won’t lie and say that it’s fine, because it really hurt that you left like that

You: But I really appreciate your song that you wrote for me. I cry every time I hear it

Venti: Oh no! I didn’t mean to make you sad :(

You: Happy tears, Venti. They’re all happy tears

Venti: Oh, okay, that’s good :)

Venti: Want to come eat lunch with the staff and me?

Venti: They’re all really curious about you

Venti: The mysterious childhood friend I wrote a whole song about

You: Sure! How do I find you?

Venti: You don’t! Where are you? I’ll send someone to pick you up ;)

You send him your location and wait around for someone to come pick you up. After a while a nicely dressed woman approaches you and gestures for you to follow her. She leads you to a car and drives you to a restaurant. A waiter takes you to one of the closed off rooms for group events.

Approximately two seconds after the door is closed, you are hug tackled to the floor. Venti cheerfully cheers your name right into your ear. You grumble good naturedly and swat at him until he laughs and gets off you. He offers his hand, you take it, and he helps you stand up. Some chuckles from the staff tell me they’re just as amused as he is by the situation.

This sets the tone for your lunch. It’s lighthearted and you have a great time getting to know each other again. He introduces the staff and they admit they’ve been curious about his childhood friend he wrote a song about. You enjoy eating lunch with them a lot, and all of you are disappointed when you have to go.

You continue to chat as long as you can while preparing to leave. As you’re gathering your stuff to go, you come across the album that he never actually signed. “Oh yeah,” you laugh. “Venti, you never actually signed my album!”

“Whoops! I’ll sign that right now.” He declares. “Though I must admit that I feel a little awkward signing stuff for you.” Finishing writing with a flourish, he hands the album back to you. “But I guess I better get used to it,” he continues. “You better bring the rest of the albums next time!”

Your smile is so bright that he has to squint for a moment.. “I’m looking forward to it already.” You say. “See you later?” He beams right back. “Yep! I’ll let you know the next time we can meet up!”

The grin stays on your face all the way home.

You meet up whenever you can after that, though your schedules don’t always match up enough to allow it. Video calls are common when he goes on tour. It’s like the two of you never split. And eventually your friendship becomes something more.

“Hey, could I ask you a question?” Venti asks you over a video call one night. He’s acting a little funny, nervous with a dash of hope and excitement. “Would you like to go out with me sometimes? Like a date?” You chuckle, amused. “Venti, you’re on tour right now. It’s not like we could go out to dinner or something.”

“You’re right that we can’t go out to dinner together, but we could eat at the same time over a video call! I’ll even call and order food for you or something!” Venti plans. “Sure,” you agree. “I think I’d like that.” He pumps his fist in the air. “Yes!” He shouts. “I’m gonna make this the best long-distance date ever!”

And so he does.

#eirika writes #genshin venti #venti #venti x reader #genshin impact x reader #celebrity au

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clumsyclifford · 3 years

Note

OKAY. how about "This wasn’t meant to be a date, but we’ve had such a good time and now it’s 2 a.m. and I should really go home…" with ur teacher alex/ambiguous office job jack? (or any version of jalex) (we just love jalex in this house)

well hello, she said casually, nine months later. thank you for the excellent prompt, sorry it took me so long to get to it, but you can thank yourself for that too considering going to ssf is what inspired me to finally write this one. bellawritess clumsyclifford pictures is proud to present: the tshirt jalex meet-cute :)

read here on ao3

Later, Alex learns that the boy at the barricade who’d elbowed Alex in the face trying to snatch the thrown guitar pick out of the air is named Jack.

“I’m so sorry,” Jack says for the millionth time, even though Alex has laughed it off every other time. He laughs it off this time, too.

“Seriously, it’s fine. And hey, you caught it.”

Jack holds up the guitar pick, triumphant. “I did catch it,” he says. The blink-182 logo flashes its dead and frozen smile at Alex. Alex finds himself smiling back, though not so much at the pick.

The leaving crowd parts around the two of them. Headlights flood the night, filling the street before them with light and noise. There’s a line of cars backed up further than Alex cares to imagine. Those at the front must have left the show significantly before the set was over. Quitters.

“What I didn’t catch was your name,” Jack adds. His lips quirk, like he’s proud of such a smooth line.

“Alex,” says Alex. “We should probably get out of everyone’s way. Are you waiting for someone, or…?”

“No, no, I came alone.”

“Yeah, me too. Was supposed to have a friend but he bailed on me last-minute.”

“Seriously? Bailed on a blink concert?”

“I know, right?” Alex grins. “Eh, whatever. If he’d been here you probably never would have elbowed me in the face and then we’d never have met.”

“But I would’ve never elbowed you in the face,” Jack says. “Don’t you think you’d have preferred that?”

“Not if it means we’d have never met.”

Jack’s smile slowly grows. “Fair enough. Did you know there’s a 24-hour diner literally five minutes from here?”

“Oh, man, I like the way you think,” Alex says, shoving his hands into his pockets to protect them from the cool late-night breeze. “I didn’t want to sit in this traffic anyway.”

“And I don’t blame you.”

“Well, lead the way,” Alex says, nodding down the sidewalk, and he falls into step with Jack as they both start to walk.

The Tastee Diner is charmingly diner-y — neon lights, stools at the bar, the whole nine yards — and, more attractively, it’s mostly empty at this hour. It’s past midnight, later even than Alex’s usual bedtime, but between the buzz from the concert and Jack the attractive stranger across from him, he’s not really feeling tired. If he’s going to flush his sleep schedule down the drain, a post-concert Friday night seems like the best time to do it.

And Jack is really cute. So that helps.

“Breakfast,” Alex says reverently when they’re seated. “Oh my God, a fucking giant waffle.”

“Wow, everything you say makes me like you more,” Jack says, leaning his elbows on the table. Alex glances over the top of his menu but Jack’s eyes are focused on his own menu on the tabletop. He’s smiling a little. So is Alex.

“It’s a giant waffle, Jack! How the fuck do I say no to that?”

“You don’t. This table is pro-giant waffle. At the exclusion of anything else.”

“You’re damn right it is,” Alex says. “Do we also happen to be pro-chocolate milkshake?”

“We’re pro-vanilla milkshake.”

“Ew, seriously?”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know, how can I like vanilla when chocolate is right there—”

“Yeah, how can you?” Alex reaches over the table and covers Jack’s hand with his own. Their eyes meet. Very seriously, Alex says, “How do you look at yourself in the mirror, you monster?”

A beat. Jack chews his lip, clearly trying not to smile. “With great difficulty,” he says. He’s humoring Alex, but sincerity sparkles in his deep brown eyes. His earnest gaze holds Alex’s and he doesn’t pull his hand away. After a moment, Alex does.

“Well, if I looked like you I’d never stop looking in the mirror,” he says instead, and brings his gaze back to the menu. A laugh escapes Jack.

“You can’t turn it off, can you?”

“Turn what off?”

“Your flirty brain-to-mouth pipeline?”

“I could,” Alex says breezily. “I choose not to.” It feels like a subtle rejection, a quiet dig, but it’s hard to be sure. Jack’s smirk seems to suggest otherwise.

The waitress comes by to take their orders of two giant waffles and two milkshakes — chocolate for Alex, vanilla for Jack, though Alex is sure to give Jack a judgmental look as he’s ordering. When she goes, Jack laces his fingers together and leans back in the booth. “So,” he says. “Your name is Alex, you’ve got fantastic music taste, and you seem to be more or less my age, but that’s about all I know about you. Are you from around here? What do you do? Likes, dislikes?”

“Are you trying to build me a dating profile?”

“That wouldn’t be very opportunistic of me, would it?” Jack smiles innocently. Alex’s heart gives a little leap. “I’m trying to get to know you. You know, like any normal stranger would if they found themself at a diner with another stranger.”

That’s fair. They are effectively strangers, although Alex can think of a shorter word to describe what they’re doing right now. He glances around at the jukebox-esque machine bolted to the wall next to their booth, at the empty swivel stools at the bar, at the marble tabletop where Jack is absently tapping his fingers. The decor of the diner is very classic, and he and Jack, both dressed in blink merch and black jeans like the perpetual emo teens they’re no doubt trying to emulate, stick out like sore thumbs.

However unintentional, it sure as hell feels like a date to him.

“I’m from Baltimore,” he starts. Jack lights up.

“No shit! Me too.”

“Really? Whereabouts?”

“Well, I work by the harbor.”

“No shit, I work in Highlandtown,” Alex says excitedly. “Highlandtown Middle. I’m a teacher.”

Jack whistles lowly. “That’s fucking awesome. What do you teach?”

“Music,” Alex says, and Jack groans, although he’s smiling as his hands move to cover his face.

“Of course you do,” he says.

Alex tilts his head. “What, are you not a fan of music teachers? That’s insane.”

“No, no, it’s not that, it’s just.” Jack laughs. “Of course the hot guy I meet at a blink-182 concert is a middle school music teacher. I feel like God is punishing me for refusing to play anything but bad drums in middle school band.”

Alex also laughs. Being called a hot guy by a hot guy is making his stomach do gymnastics. He’s too old for his stomach to be doing things like that, but his stomach clearly doesn’t care. “Well, if I’d been your teacher, trust me, you’d have been playing solidly mediocre drums. But I’m sorry you feel that way.”

Jack’s hands fall to his lap. “I’m sure I’ll get over it,” he says with a slanted smile.

Alex swallows and grins. “So did you look up surrounding diners before you came, or are you just…inexplicably familiar with Silver Spring geography?”

“I come to a lot of concerts here,” Jack says, nodding in the general direction of the venue they’d just vacated. “Venue’s awesome.”

“Yeah, it really is. Honestly, I’m still amazed that you caught that pick.”

“I have a lot of practice. From aforementioned many concerts.”

“I can see that.”

“Trust me, it’s a very specific skill. I’ve got awful hand-eye coordination,” Jack says with a chuckle. “My dream of being the youngest Oriole inducted into the Hall of Fame was crushed at a young age.”

Fizzy champagne fills Alex’s chest. He can’t stop smiling. “Fuck yes, you’re an Orioles fan?”

“That’s my team,” Jack says, looking excited. Possibly at the prospect of meeting another person who’s equally interested in both music and baseball. That’s why Alex is excited, anyway.

“It’s my team,” he says enthusiastically. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, they fucking suck—”

“Oh, no, yeah, they’re the worst—”

“But I’d take a bullet for them. I happily go down with ‘em every year.”

“Yeah, they’re my boys,” Jack agrees. “Here’s hoping this season is better than every single other one.”

“Yeah, all my fingers are crossed, but between you and me I don’t have a lot of faith.”

Jack shrugs and nods. “It’s good for my ego to be so loyal to such a bad team. Keeps me humble.”

“That’s the best attitude I’ve ever heard,” Alex says, and Jack’s smile is so radiant Alex could swear he can feel the glare off the shiny marble tabletop.

“Between ‘All The Small Things’ and ‘Going Away To College’ how the fuck am I going to choose ‘Small Things’?”

“Yeah, but it’s such a classic! ‘College’ is, like, emo and…emo.”

“No more emo than ‘I Miss You’ —”

“That one is a classic—”

“I’m not saying it’s not, I’m just saying ‘College’ is their best song and it deserves its spotlight.”

“That’s ‘Feeling This’ erasure and you know it.”

“Besides ‘Feeling This,’ but they always play ‘Feeling This.’ I stand by what I said. I’d swap ‘Small Things’ for ‘College.’ Deal with it.” Alex tongues his milkshake straw into his mouth. “Your turn.”

Jack glares at him for another long moment, like he has to properly make his point about it. “Fine,” he finally huffs. His gaze shifts sideways, off into the distance like he’s thinking, and he swirls his own straw around his milkshake cup. Alex can kind of see his reflection in it. While Jack is thinking, Alex quickly checks his phone.

(21:47) Rian Dawson: How’s the concert? Fuckin bummed I couldn’t make it :/

(21:48) Rian Dawson: Hope you’re having a good time anyway. Text me whenever you get home so I know you didn’t die or get trampled by a mosh pit or whatever the case may be.

Alex smiles and turns off his phone again.

“I feel like I can’t choose a song off Enema now that you did,” Jack mumbles.

“You can,” Alex says. “It would just be kind of a lot of Enema.”

“No, but Enema is a legendary album. I’d go to a show that was literally just all of Enema.”

“Why were you complaining about ‘College’ then!”

“I’m not complaining about ‘College’ itself, I just would never trade it for ‘Small Things’!”

Alex scoffs. “They play ‘Small Things’ all the time. I’ve never seen ‘College’ live. I’d literally kill.”

“Oh my God, I know what I’d do,” Jack says. “‘Shut Up’ instead of ‘Down.’ That’s the only thing that could make this set list more perfect.”

“Ohhh,” Alex says, “that would be fucking sick. Imagine two thousand people just shouting ‘shut the fuck up, she said’ at the top of their lungs.”

“I cannot think of anything cooler than that.”

Alex hums thoughtfully. “So you went with Take Off Your Pants instead of Enema in the end.”

“Alright, don’t get it twisted. If I could add the entirety of Enema to the set list, I would. But if I only get one song, it has to be ‘Shut Up.’ More Enema is never a bad thing.”

“Why wouldn’t you trade ‘College’ for ‘Down’ then?”

“Because that was your set list move, and this is mine,” Jack says. He slaps the table. “Yeah. This is the answer. Someone get Mark Hoppus on the line, stat. I have to tell him I’ve figured out the formula for the perfect set list.”

“‘Shut Up’ live would be awesome,” Alex concedes. “Good move.”

“What can I say, I have extremely good taste,” Jack says airily.

Alex snorts. “Okay, Vanilla Milkshake.”

“You’re just afraid to taste it because you know deep down that it will be better than your chocolate one,” Jack says, pointing his straw accusingly at Alex. Drops of milkshake fall onto the table. Alex sweeps a napkin over the mess.

“You had an advantage over me, though,” he observes. “You said your favorite blink song is ‘Feeling This,’ which was already on the set list. My favorite song wasn’t, so my hands were kind of tied.”

“It’s among my favorite blink songs,” Jack says. “I have many. Most of which are set list staples, yeah. But that’s on you for only having one favorite song.”

“Wait, what? You can’t have many favorites, that defeats the whole point of having a favorite.”

“I can have multiple favorites, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“No way, man. You only get to have one favorite. You can have second-favorites or close favorites but there’s always one that’s better than the rest.”

“Sorry to burst you bubble, Al, but I have more than one favorite blink song,” Jack says, shrugging. “I also have more than one favorite color and more than one favorite food and more than one favorite song.”

Alex shakes his head through Jack’s speech. “I reject this out of hand.”

“You can’t.”

“Well, Clearly Enema is your favorite blink album.”

“Tied with Take Off.”

“Seriously?” Alex narrows his eyes. “Come on, there must be one thing you have just one favorite of.”

“Yeah, there is,” Jack says. “My favorite movie is Home Alone. No other movie comes anywhere close.”

Of course it is. Alex grins and inclines his head in accordance. “That��is extremely good taste.”

“Thank you,” Jack says graciously, and slurps loudly from his milkshake.

The next time Alex checks his phone, his brain takes a moment to catch up. “Holy shit, it’s already one a.m.?”

“Oh shit,” Jack says, checking his phone as well. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

That adage has never felt more true. Slowly working through giant waffles and milkshakes while exchanging questions and random conversational topics with Jack has been the most fun Alex has had in a long time. Diners, he muses. There’s something about diners. Time feels frozen within these walls, and Alex kind of wants to stay in the time bubble forever, laughing with Jack until the sun comes up.

He could do it. Tomorrow’s a Saturday. Nobody works on Saturday, not even Jack at his “boring office job” (his words).

But he knows there’s a reason that nothing gold can stay. It wouldn’t be valuable if it lasted forever. The night will crystallize as something special in Alex’s memory, but it can’t do that until it ends. And it has to end eventually.

“We should probably go,” Alex says reluctantly. Jack nods once.

“Yeah,” he says. He signals for the check and looks back at Alex. “My treat.”

“Uh, no way. I’m paying.”

“Nope, not happening. I will elbow you in the face again if I have to. I’m paying this check.”

“Jack—” Alex wavers. Jack looks so insistent, eyebrows raised like he’s daring Alex to argue, and there’s nothing to do but smile. “Okay. If you insist. We’ll call it even for you assaulting me earlier.”

“Exactly,” Jack says, and he happily accepts the check when the waitress hands it to him.

“Did you guys get everything you need?” she asks the two of them.

Alex glances at Jack, but Jack’s scanning the check. “Pretty much, yeah,” he tells the waitress. She leaves them with the check, and they vacate their table to go pay it at the front.

Alex wonders what someone might think if they saw this table. Whether anyone could even begin to illustrate the story of the night using only two empty milkshake cups and two plates that formerly held waffles. It would be impossible. Not even Sherlock Holmes could work this one out.

Alex smiles. They’re a fossil in amber, preserved in memory. Even if it turns out not to be a date, Alex knows he’ll look back on tonight fondly, and he can count on this exact same smile every time he does.

Jack finishes paying and turns to face Alex. One arm outstretched, he says, “Shall we?”

Alex links their arms. “After you, good sir.”

They’re laughing as they leave in a glow of neon light.

“This is me,” Alex says, gesturing half-heartedly at his car. They both stop short behind it.

“Ah,” Jack says, nodding. “So I guess this is where I leave you.”

Alex swallows. “I’m glad you elbowed me in the face,” he admits, which sounds strange to say out of the blue. “I had a good time tonight.”

“What, at the concert?”

Jack is obviously teasing, but Alex doesn’t mind being more clear. “Actually, I think I had more fun after the concert,” he says, smiling a little. “You’re good company, JB.”

Jack smiles, and if Alex isn’t mistaken, he’s also blushing. “Same to you,” he says. “Despite your wrong opinions about the set list.”

“I hate sounding like a cliché,” Alex says, ruffling a hand through his hair. Jack cocks his head. “But, um, I’d like to see you again. If that’s okay.”

“So okay,” Jack says. “And totally plausible, considering we apparently live within twenty minutes of each other.”

“True,” Alex says. “The universe really wanted us to meet, I guess.”

“Thank you, Universe, for putting Alex in harm’s way,” Jack says solemnly, looking upwards. Alex laughs. “Can I have your number?”

“Yeah, yes, of course.”

Alex recites his phone number for Jack to enter into his contacts. “I promise I’ll call,” Jack says. His gaze flits around Alex’s face like it can’t find a good place to land. He drags his index finger diagonally over his chest. “Cross my heart and everything.”

“I have to ask,” Alex says, shifting on his feet. “Were you— was this supposed to be a date?” He hesitates; maybe that’s the wrong question. “Was it a date?”

“For the sake of anniversaries, let’s say yes,” Jack says. Immediately his face puckers in regret. “Pretend I didn’t say that. I’m— my brain gets ahead of me.”

“No, it’s all good.” It’s more than good; there’s a horde of butterflies in Alex’s ribcage that won’t fucking quit, not now that he knows Jack is thinking of anniversaries when this is only maybe their first date. A person who is not only anticipating a future for them but preparing to celebrate it. So far, so fucking good. “You’re a practical thinker. I can appreciate that.”

“And I appreciate that you aren’t deleting your number from my phone even after I just said that to you,” Jack says, grinning. His grin melts away when he sighs. “I should go. It’s late.”

“Yeah,” Alex echoes. “Late.”

“Please drive safe,” Jack says seriously. “If I’m the last person to see you before you die, that’ll make me look really bad.”

Alex laughs. He likes that Jack keeps making him laugh. His friends make him laugh, too, but Jack makes him laugh in a different way, like he can’t stop himself. Like the delight refuses to stay trapped.

“I promise to drive safe,” he vows. “I owe you a date. I would hate to lose the chance to impress you.”

“Oh, wait, that reminds me.” Jack reaches into his pocket and presses something into Alex’s hand. It’s the guitar pick, warm from Jack’s pocket. “You’ll probably use it more than me,” Jack explains, ducking his head. “You know, being a music teacher and all.”

“Oh,” Alex breathes, flipping the pick in his palm. “That’s, um…thank you. Thanks. I’m…”

“Yeah,” Jack says, licking his lips. “Of course. Um, okay, now I really should go. But like I said, I’ll call.”

Alex nods, still staring at the guitar pick in his hand. His head snaps up and he breaks from whatever trance he’d fallen into. “I’m counting on it,” he says, stepping closer to Jack. He hears Jack inhale as he leans closer, brushing his lips to Jack’s cheek.

When Jack speaks, it’s a hoarse whisper. “I had a good time too, you know.”

Alex leans away and starts walking backwards to the driver-side door. “Good,” he says, smiling warmly. He’s not really trying to smile so warmly but he can’t help it. “Get home safe, Jack.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “You too, Alex.”

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gyllenhaalstories · 4 years

Photo

SOUTHPAW, PART 1: HEADCANONS.

notes: dear anon: thank you for making me appreciate jake the rapper! also i know nothing about rap, so i’m sorry if this is pure trash! i never finished watching southpaw because it was too dark for me, but i took some very loose inspiration from it. warnings: mentions of dark past, mentions of sexual content... this got really long (2k words). gifs credits: alphalewolf. extras: if you want more informations about rapper!jake, please scroll through my blog. i have edited some older posts with the tag: topic: rapper!jake, so check it out if you’re interested. i have taken some ideas and put them in this list. (at the end of the list i provided some goodies!)

PART TWO WILL BE UPLOADED SOON, KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR IT!

attention, attention! please note i know absolutely nothing about rap. i very rarely enjoy listening to rap music, it’s simply not for me. this might be inaccurate and off compared to the actual world of hip hop and other similar genres. i apologize for my lack of knowledge! this is an au in which jake is not an actor or a producer or anything of the sort. his fame, he built it with his music. you must keep that in mind while reading these headcanons or else it will get confusing. also, i’ve taken some loose inspiration from jake’s actual work, but that’s just for the sake of backstory. are you ready to dive in this twisted fantasy?

Jake Gyllenhaal. Known as Hall. He exploded the charts after being picked up by one of the biggest record companies for his first album: Hall of Fame. He was a rookie, yet he was older than most of the rappers you can think of today. He worked his way up undercover. He started participating in poetry and slam nights at local cafés. He became a songwriter, through connections. He sold some songs that are absolute classics today, but he does not care. He did not feel like they fit him anyway.

Growing up, Jake had it rough. There was a lot of fighting at home. His older sister was the perfect angel and him? The absolute disaster child. It was not like he ran after danger and trouble, he seemed to always be at the wrong place in the wrong time, he hung out with the wrong crowd. He managed to avoid juvie on some miracle. What was the miracle, you might ask? He was caught robbing some local bank with his “friends” and the cops, at first, did not believe he was innocent. While his friends were screaming and threatening the innocent clients of the bank, Jake actually tried to help them out of the building safely. The cops arrived at the same moment and thought he was keeping the strangers hostage. He was arrested on the spot. The other guys played the victims, blamed it all on Jake but it was only when Jake wrote the whole story, from the beginning where his friends manipulated him and made of him their puppet to when he felt this adrenaline rush telling him he needed to save the strangers that night. His writing was too sincere, too raw to be a web of lies. The police released him, but they kept an eye on him.

His escape were writing and music. He impressed all of his teachers at school. Talented, gifted, magical. That was how they described Jake at every parent and teacher meeting. Writing dumb sentences that made very little sense and playing with a guitar after school, that did not make his parents very proud compared to his sister who was on top of all of her classes and working hard for a future of wealth and success.

Music was his entire life. He would come home from school and blast music until he was called out for dinner. Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Heart, Pink Floyd, Metallica, name it. He liked it loud. He liked it weird. He liked it with a deeper message, with double meaning.

He worked all types of jobs, some legal and some not so much. He was saving money for college. He applied. He got in. He started his classes. He had big dreams, too, he had ambitions. Maybe he could his talent to good use? He wanted to study philosophy, literature, music, creative writing... Anything that required thought and depth. He made friends, there. He befriended the edgy punk guy, he had tattoos everywhere, he listened to the same bands, he was quiet but his essays spoke volumes.

Jake was disappointed, his illusions were broken. He hated the format of his classes, the feeling like his opinion and his inspiration did not matter, it was always about meeting some stupid requirements to please a rich professor who did not care about passion, about talent, about originality. Jake dropped out, soon followed by his friend. His friend was hired at a tattoo parlor and Jake hung out there all the time. He would stay up until 5 am, 6, 7, all night and all day long. He loved the clients there. He would write and read his writing out loud to the clients when they were tortured by the needle shooting the ink in their skin. Talented and gifted, they all the same thing.

He started to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

He wrote, not just stories and opinion pieces. He started writing songs, melody and lyrics. He started playing them, he started writing his own poetry too. He was introduced to freestyle battles. And as he fought against other talented thinkers, he noticed he spoke with a tempo, with a rhythm. He was rapping and he did not even realize it.

His career sky rocketed from the moment a music producer attended one of the rap battles. He was famous, he got quite the thick wallet and the connections. Jake was introduced to legends of hip hop. They all influenced him as his career grew to become something overwhelming and terrifying, yet thrilling and addictive.

Hall had a style of his own, though. It was romantic, yet absolutely disgusting and dark. It was aggressive, yet vulnerable and philosophical. He spoke of his trauma, of his hatred, of his envy, of his fears... He used his songs as an escape. He was becoming his own escape.

And his own prison. His family did not care about him, he was a shame, even. Aside from his old college friend, he never built strong friendships. They were all after him for fame and cash. He slept around, guys and gals, threesomes, foursomes... He did not care, anything for some genuine connection, even if it lasted for a very lazy and messy fifteen minutes in the trashy bathroom of a concert hall. Rumour had it he was a great lover, but he was so bad at loving.

Now it gets interesting...

Hall rapped alongsides Eminem, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott... The biggest pop stars were fighting just to get him to rap a line in their songs. Rihanna wishes he was the one singing Love the way you lie, does that give you an idea? He appeared on duets. He wrote more solo albums, sold them instantly. He never left the top of the billboard in weeks, months, if not years. It never really got to his head. He was still that sensitive boy writing about knights and princesses in his bedroom with walls covered by band posters. Fans did not care about this side of him, they loved him for his lyrics about snorting coke, drinking his pain away and fucking whoever wore the tiniest skirt around.

His latest album, Southpaw, was an even bigger hit. Pure filth. Pure gold. Imagine 13 tracks, Cardi’s and Megan’s WAP but reversed. He does not rap about how good he fucks people. He raps about how good they feel. That’s some real depth here, no pun intended.

You met him at one of his concerts. Your friend won VIP passes, so you were standing in the front and got to take a picture with him. You did not understand the hype around taking a photo with this guy, he just stood there and looked absolutely emotionless.

You hated rap, or perhaps you loved it. You did not care much for Jake, that was for sure. You thought he was just another lame rapper who thought he was the real deal because his lyrics were so explicit, even the clean versions made angels cry. The truth was, you did not know much a bout him. You found him too commercial, like he was scared of becoming irrelevant.

You saw right through him already.

But him? He already cared too much about you. You caught his attention as he rapped his songs. He could not take his eyes off you. You weighted heavy on his mind, caused him to stutter and forget lyricvs. Fans laughed, they said he was probably too drunk or too high too focus. Drunk in love, that’s what it was.

There was something about you. Maybe it was the Black Sabbath shirt you wore. Maybe it was the unimpressed look on your face. Maybe it was your plump lips he wanted to kiss. Maybe it was the sight of you laughing with your friend that made his heart skip a beat. Maybe it was the fact you treated him like a normal person even if you had not spoken to him first.

So, you met backstage.

Your friend was beaming from ear to ear, showering Jake in compliments.

“Did you enjoy the show?” Jake asked you.

“For someone who shows no emotion, sound dead inside and look like they wish they were doing anything but making dozens of thousands of dollars by singing a couple of semi mediocre tracks, yeah, it was not that horrible.”

He was up for a challenge.

You two exchanged insults like it was a boxing match. Each round was getting more and more intense. It was no longer insults, it was straight up flirting. You noticed when your bodies were so close you could smell the scent of watermelon chewing gum that escaped from his warm breath. You could hear the way his raced even faster than yours.

You were snapped out of this fantasy by his bodyguard, indicating other fans waited for him.

He remembered the name your friend called out, saying he needed to bring you home before something bad happened.

It was the most beautiful name he had ever heard.

He hung out around that concert hall for the next couple of days. At the bar nearby, at Starbucks, at McDonald’s, anything for the sake of seeing your face again.

And he did.

You were walking out of the record store with a vinyl of Heart squeezed under your arm. You looked so happy. You had paint stains all over your clothes. You were erasing the memories of a terrible relationship by decorating your tiny apartment, and you needed to set the right ambiance. You needed guidance, you found it in the strong minds of the ladies behind Heart, in Joan Jett, in Stevie Nicks. You found your silver lining in music.

Jake ran behind you, he pretended he was out jogging and he mysteriously bumped into you. He grabbed your vinyl before it could fall on the ground.

“Nice pick.”

“We finally agree on something.”

Another round of flirty insults...

... That ended in the two of you fucking like animals on the floor of your apartment.

And fucking on the couch the next day.

On the kitchen counter the morning after.

And finally, on the bed. That was a really special one. Jake was the first person to be on your bed since the departure of your ex. He could feel that you were not in the mood for a rough battle for dominance.

That night, he made love to you.

For, quite possibly, the first time in his life, he expressed his love directly to somebody. “Princess, baby girl, beautiful, gorgeous, amazing”, he showered you in compliments, and praises. The slow movement of his hips, the intense passion in his eyes and love in his heart spoke louder than the music you were playing in the background to set the mood.

You were not just another trophee to hang on the wall. You were special.

He was special too.

He bought you every record that reminded him of you. He bought you collector items of your favourite bands. From the silliest decoration to a new car to replace your crappy one, passing by tickets to exclusive and sold-out shows, Jake had never felt more famous in his life than when he was with you.

His fans noticed the change in his songs, in his lyrics. They were just as explicit, just as rotten and just as corrupted. However, they came from a place of light and love, not of darkness and rage.

He sang about how good your felt when you climaxed around him. How drenched he was whenever he made you squirt. How he loved to taste himnself on your lips. How he was full of love and of lust for you. How he would quit everything if it meant he would live a normal life, for once, and with you.

You inspired so many songs that became massive world-wide hits.

You travelled the world with him on tour. You helped him design his new merch and you wore his t-shirts with pride. You attended concerts in your freetime. You loved staying up all night, painting and drawing while he was writing about this mirage of a goddess, blessing his existence with a smile and a sparkle in her eyes.

He was addicted to you.

He was crazy for you.

And he went crazy on you.

for research purposes and not because i wasted my time hearing eminem talk about stuff i don’t understand so i could stare at jake’s thighs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP_cKP4OjsA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whV5oQDvVWE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGqC9URTJIQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5imXD1LPnwo

and finally, for good measure :

@gyll-yee-haw ily

#jake gyllenhaal #jake gyllenhaal smut #jake gyllenhaal imagine #jake gyllenhaal x reader #topic: rapper!jake #series: southpaw

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venmomejoy · 4 years

Text

Convince Me- pt. 1

Summary: When Aelin Ashryver-Galathynius, lead singer of Bitch Queen, gets in a twitter fight with Rowan Whitethorn, drummer of The Cadre, everyone is buzzing about their hatred for each other. When their PR teams decide they need to fake a friendship to keep up a good public image, the two are vehemently against it. But slowly, a fake friendship turns into a real connection, maybe something more.

read it on AO3 here :) and here’s the link to part two / part three / part four / part five / part six / part seven / part eight / part nine / part ten / part eleven / part twelve / part thirteen

Most celebrities rattled on about how they hated fame, hated all the attention, but Aelin knew that was a load. Sure, there were aspects of fame that could be frustrating, but not one of them would trade their careers for a chance to go to the grocery store unnoticed.

She wouldn't, that's for sure. Aelin had worked her ass off for her career, and she wasn't ashamed to admit that she was proud of her success. Bitch Queen had started from nothing, and now they had a top-charting album with two number one singles. She reveled every time a fan stopped her in the street, every time someone asked to take a photo with her, because she had worked for every ounce of fame she had, and they had finally made it.

Aelin hadn't even planned on being in a band. She'd always been a good singer, a raw talent her parents had fostered from her childhood, but she'd never intended on doing anything with it. But when her best friend started learning the guitar she begged Aelin to do some duets with her, and Lysandra was a tough person to deny. So they would mess around with different arrangements, would butcher their favorite songs, until one day, it sounded good. Really good.

They started practicing more seriously then, and by their senior year of high school, they had really honed their skills. Lysandra's fingers danced along the strings with ease, rarely making a mistake, and Aelin had enrolled in singing lessons to refine her ability. She even tried her hand at songwriting, and after a year of failed attempts, finally produced something passable.

They roomed together in college, Aelin majoring in Business, as she planned on following in her mother's footsteps and running Ashryver Inc., while Lysandra chose psychology, since she intended on going into social work. They spent any free moment composing and playing and videoing their songs, but they still hadn't decided to do anything with their newfound skills. But somehow, everything fell into place.

Aelin found their keyboard player when she bumped into a childhood friend on campus. She hadn't seen Elide since elementary school, when she had moved to New York to live with her uncle after her mother's death, but college had brought her back to California, and Aelin was eager to rekindle their friendship. The girls became close quickly, old bonds quickly reinstated, and when she told Elide about her and Lysandra's little duo, Elide told her that she was currently enrolled in the school's music program, and had been training on the keys for years. Aelin insisted she play with them, just for fun, but Elide was hesitant- she had grown very shy in their years apart. Elide eventually agreed, but only if she could invite her roommate, Manon, who played the drums.

Aelin easily agreed. She was happy to find one new person to play with, not to mention two.

The next afternoon, Elide let them into the music hall, taking them to one of the many rehearsal rooms in the building. Inside, a silver-haired girl was adjusting the height of her drummer's throne, flashing them an assessing glare as they entered. Lysandra immediately darted towards the rack of guitars on the wall, running her hands over the glossy wood in wonder. But Aelin didn't have any fancy instruments to fawn over- mics were mics- so she scanned the area, taking in the sheer amount of instruments in that one room. She didn't know what kind of funding this school had, if every rehearsal room was stocked like this.

Manon stalked over to them, using her height to her advantage as she stared down at Aelin. She could see why people thought Manon was intimidating, with her blood-red lips that curled into a smirk and her metallic painted nails, so long they were basically claws. Aelin just looked up at Manon, a slow smile spreading across her face as she extended her hand. "Aelin Ashryver-Galathynius." Aelin respected the effort at intimidation, but hoped Manon didn't think she would be able to cow her. Aelin actually really wanted to be her friend- she loved a girl who would get shit done- but she had too much self-respect, and maybe too much pride, to let herself get steamrolled by this girl.

Manon raised an eyebrow at Aelin's gall, her smirk turning into a proper smile. She probably wasn't used to meeting her match, but she didn't seem unhappy about it. "Manon Blackbeak," she said, grasping Aelin's hand firmly. "Elide said you sing?"

"Yeah, and my roommate Lysandra," she pointed at Lys, "plays guitar."

Flipping her silver hair over her shoulder with a curt nod, Manon said, "Well, let's get started. No point wasting more time than we need too."

Aelin frowned at her pessimism, but they all got into position, Lysandra widening her eyes dramatically at her roommate when the other's backs were turned. They all toyed with their instruments, tuning them while Aelin warmed up her voice, before deciding on a song they all knew. The first couple tries were rough, but eventually they got a feel for each other's style and techniques and the song really came together. It was far from perfect, but it had potential.

Surprisingly enough, it was Manon who suggested they start practicing seriously, as a band. The girls had been shocked at the suggestion, but quickly agreed. What did they have to lose? Maybe something would come of it, but even if nothing did, they all loved music, so there was no time and energy wasted. They compared schedules and found a time they could meet every day.

They started with covers, getting the hang of playing together and making their sounds blend seamlessly, before moving on to original tracks. Lysandra and Aelin started looking into gigs, and when it came time for them to pick a name, Aelin had the perfect one. Bitch Queen, the nickname given to her courtesy of her entire high school student body; she had loved it then and she loved it now. The girls loved it too.

They played gigs all throughout college, becoming regulars at small venues, even scoring Friday night spots at a couple bars and clubs. When someone posted a video of their set on YouTube, everything went nuts, and suddenly they had offers from twenty different labels. Everything after that was a blur: signing the contract with Terrasen Records, dropping their first singles, writing their first album, recording their music videos. In just over a year, they had become one of the biggest names in indie rock.

It was while they were recording at the studio that they met the men of The Cadre. Their lead singer, Fenrys, had popped his golden head into their recording room in the middle of a set, scaring the living shit out of Lysandra and ruining the take, but he just laughed and said, "The boss told us the label was getting a new group, but didn't expect them all to be so pretty," with an exaggerated wink. They all just rolled their eyes and laughed at his come-on, except for Manon, who snarled at him. Fenrys had the good sense to look nervous at that, but he quickly recovered, sticking his hand out to all of them. "I'm Fenrys, lead singer in The Cadre. These are the guys," he said, gesturing behind him to where three other men had slipped into the room, looking much more uncomfortable than their friend. Aelin's eyes scanned the guys, thoroughly impressed by the sheer size of them. They had to be the most muscular men she had ever seen, and all unfairly attractive.

"This is Gavriel, our guitarist," Fenrys said, gesturing to the other blond in the group, who flashed them all a small smile.

"Next to him is our bassist, Lorcan." Lorcan's long black hair shone as he pulled it up into a ponytail, barely sparing them a glance before turning away. Aelin smiled to herself when his eyes shot back up and went straight to Elide, but the moment only lasted a few seconds before Lorcan schooled his features and dropped his gaze.

Chuckling to herself, her eyes caught on the white-haired man towards the back, his toned arms crossed over his chest. "Lastly, we have Rowan Whitethorn, our drummer." He had a wicked tattoo stretching down the side of his face and onto his torso, judging by the way it disappeared into his turtleneck. When she dragged her eyes back up to his face, she found his eyes already on her, though he didn't seem to be appreciating the view the way she was. No, he was sneering at her, looking at her like she was the dirt on the bottom of his shoes. Aelin blinked at him, as much surprise as she would show, before drawing her eyebrows in and fixing him with a glare of her own. She had just met the man. How could he already hate her? Aelin snapped her gaze away from him, briefly introducing her friends to the men.

The two bands ended up spending a lot of time together, since both groups happened to be in the recording process at the same time. Aelin and Fenrys became fast friends- their personalities were too similar for them not to get along. But they weren't the only one's getting close. Anytime the bands met up or had lunch together, Elide and Lorcan always wound up next to each other, practically ignoring everyone else as they listened to each other in rapt attention. No one was surprised when the two announced they were dating later that month; everyone had seen that one coming from a mile away. The girls were thrilled for their friend- even though Lorcan was a raging bastard to all of them, he seemed really good to Elide. And both Manon and Aelin didn't refrain from detailing exactly what they would do to him if he hurt her. He only gave them an unimpressed look.

Aelin managed to become decent friends with Gavriel, his soft-spoken demeanor giving into wicked humor once he got comfortable. She tried, several times, to speak to Rowan, but every single time he met her friendliness with hostility, barking insults at her that hurt more than she was willing to admit. She hurled insults of her own in response, but after a while, she gave up trying to get Rowan to warm up to her. Whatever she had done to make him hate her, there was obviously no way for her to undo it, so she decided to just leave it be.

They all kept in touch after they finished recording, attending the same events and even going out to dinner together. Bitch Queen's album was a smash hit, and The Cadre's third album was pretty popular as well. They met up for congratulatory drinks after both albums had dropped, toasting to new music and new friends.

Now, Bitch Queen was prepping to go on tour in two months, and Aelin was lying if she said she wasn't freaking out. Playing their little shows when they were unknown was one thing, but an entire tour of sold out venues? She knew they were good, was confident in the songs she had written and in her own vocal ability, but she just didn't want to let anyone down.

Aelin couldn't help that she channeled her nervousness into aggression. And it was Rowan's fault for tweeting that shit, anyway.

She had tweeted a picture of their tour dates with the caption: "20 shows!! I'm crazy nervous but crazy excited to see you all!!"

To which Rowan replied: "we've got 35 shows, and I'm not nervous at all."

It wasn't really that big of a deal, but it made Aelin's blood boil. Was he insinuating that she was less professional than him because she was nervous? For her first tour ever? And of course The Cadre had more shows than them, this was their third studio album, they already have a fanbase. What was Bitch Queen supposed to do, become The Strokes after their first single?

Aelin couldn't help herself: "Maybe if you played anything difficult, you would be. Manon could play your parts in her sleep."

The response came in minutes: "No, experience just makes you more composed. Maybe you'd know if you had some."

She was seething. Was he calling her an amateur?: "I think nerves make me a better performer; it means I care about the quality of the show I give my fans. I won't disappoint them because of my own arrogance."

Rowan replied: "Fans? What fans? Your 8,000 streams on Spotify?"

Aelin was going to murder him: "Try 800,000. If I recall correctly, your band's debut album didn't do near as good as ours. Watch yourself."

Rowan: "Ooh, you've really scared me now."

Aelin's phone rang before she could finish her response, her PR manager interrupting her tirade. She tried to cool her anger before she answered the phone, but she still snapped, "What?" into the receiver.

"Aelin! What the hell are you doing?"

"Hey, don't look at me, Rowan started this. I'm just defending myself."

"Well, stop. Christ, Aelin, Twitter's having a field day with this. You and Rowan are going to be the main story in every tabloid by tomorrow morning. Everyone's talking about your hatred for one another."

"Whatever, it doesn't matter."

"It does matter, Aelin. This not only makes you look trashy, which is especially bad for an up-and-coming band like yours, it also reflects poorly on the label to have two of its artists fighting on a public domain."

Aelin deflated. She didn't even think of it like that. "Okay, what do we do?"

"You don't do anything. I'm emailing with The Cadre's PR manager right now. We're going to have to meet in person to work out the logistics, but you and Rowan are going to have to make everyone think you're friends."

"What?" She and Rowan have not had one pleasant interaction. She doubts anyone would buy that they were friends.

"You can't take back what you've already said, so we're going to have to twist it like you two were joking around. But we can't stop there, people will think its just a ploy."

"Which it is."

"Yes, but they don't need to know that. So we're going to have to sell that you two have been really close friends ever since you started working at Terrasen Labels. That means hanging out one-on-one in public, posting photos together on social media, doing whatever you have to do to make this believable." She sighed. "Look, I'll update you tomorrow on what the plan is, but for now, just stay quiet, okay? No more social media posts."

Alien could practically hear her rubbing her temples through the phone. "Got it. For what it’s worth, I'm sorry?"

"Yeah, yeah. Get some sleep," she said before hanging up the phone.

Aelin tried to sleep, but she couldn't stop thinking about how they were going to pull this off. Rowan was a prick; there was no way she convincingly act like she enjoys spending time with him. She wouldn't be surprised if he outright refused the plan their PR teams had created, what with his egotism. Stardom really went to his head.

Aelin imagined going out to get coffee with Rowan Whitethorn for all of one second before she smashed her pillow on top of her face and turned her brain off for the night. She would deal with all of this in the morning.

notes: ahhh I'm actually really excited for this fic, so I hope you guys have some interest in it!! let me know what you think or if you would like to be tagged!

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passionate-reply · 3 years

Video

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Passionate Reply is back, and taking a look at one of the best known and most influential albums in industrial history: Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine! Transcript of the video below the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, it’s finally time to discuss arguably the best known industrial musician of all time, and his debut album: this is Pretty Hate Machine, by Nine Inch Nails. Released in 1989, it is, technically, an “80s album,” but given how stylistically influential it would become on the music of the 1990s, it’s hard to think of it as a product of the preceding decade. Still, it’s worth remembering that this album came out almost fifteen years into the history of industrial, and Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor has never denied his indebtedness to, and appreciation of, the genre’s 80s pioneers, like Coil and Skinny Puppy. Pretty Hate Machine didn’t go down in history for being the very first industrial album, but rather for being the first one that most people actually heard--particularly, in Reznor’s native America. What really set Nine Inch Nails apart, then and now, is Reznor’s ability to marry those harsh textures and machine beats with a real knack for that most elusive of songwriting goals: the pop hook.

Music: “Head Like a Hole”

Pretty Hate Machine’s unforgettable opener, “Head Like a Hole,” is the track on the album that you’re most likely to have encountered before, and sits just behind “Hurt” and “Closer” in the ranking of the best-known Nine Inch Nails songs. There’s not a whole lot to say about it, musically, that hasn’t already been said--each of its three parts have that devilishly catchy quality about them, and despite its underlying electronic structure, inspired by European EBM, it’s got just enough rock credibility to appeal to American audiences. It wasn’t a huge pop hit, of course, but I think it’s easy to hear how and why it earned its acclaim, and high rotation on MTV.

As far as the lyrics are concerned, I’m always happy to listen to an anti-capitalist jam, especially when it comes to industrial, but I feel like that lends a weird tension to “Head Like a Hole.” Reznor wants to sell us his denouncement of “God Money” and the relentless hunger of capital, but using such an approachable, or marketable, pop formula forces us to question its sincerity. Despite industrial music’s deep roots in counter-cultural values, the sociopolitical commentary of the album doesn’t dig any deeper than “Head Like a Hole”’s vague indignance at being controlled by something-or-other. While I won’t argue that artists ever “owe” anybody more political art, Trent Reznor popularized a style of music that began as an expression of working-class struggles on another continent, partly by stripping away most of the truly subversive commentary, so I can’t say I don’t understand why many die-hard industrial listeners see him as something of a profiteering poseur. So, if Pretty Hate Machine isn’t about class struggle, what is it about? The short answer is, atomized personal struggles, particularly in unhealthy relationships.

Music: “Sanctified”

While a track like “Sanctified” isn’t quite as explosively hooky as “Head Like a Hole,” it’s made of the same basic stuff: tight mechanical rhythms, shouty vocals, and distorted guitars that offer just the right amount of edge. As the title implies, it deals with themes of religious purity, darkly inverted--a common enough subject for traditional goth music, though a bit less so for industrial. Still, it’s not unheard of, and seems like a good fit for this particularly American take on industrial. The sort of push-and-pull, love-and-hate dynamic on display here is a consistent one throughout the album, though at times, it feels a bit more low-brow.

Music: “Kinda I Want To”

“Kinda I Want To” is certainly a catchy song, which is once again cut from that same dominant songwriting formula, but I find it’s one that I have my own love-hate relationship with. Whether or not I like a given song is rarely determined chiefly by its lyricism, but in this case, I find “Kinda I Want To” to be almost insufferably puerile and crass. For as much as the critical consensus has really turned around on Nine Inch Nails, with Oscars, Emmys, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame smiling at Reznor’s artistic achievements, I still remember growing up in a world where this was panned as music for angsty teenage boys. While I obviously think *Pretty Hate Machine* has more value than that, it’s moments like “Kinda I Want To” that make me see the argument. It’s always struck me as a track that takes itself very seriously, and yet fails to convince me. On the other hand, you’ve got a track like “Down In It,” which feels unashamed of being slightly lighter fare.

Music: “Down In It”

In fairness, “Down In It” isn’t entirely “light” material, with its lyrical theme of addiction and its delightfully scratchy soundscape, but it’s danceable and club-friendly in a way that really sets it apart from the rest of *Pretty Hate Machine.* It’s even got a bit of hip-hop influence, with its pseudo-rap verses, and that distortion that sounds vaguely like record scratching--calling back to the early days of hip-hop when it was chiefly employed as party music. Reznor and company famously mimed “Down In It” on the TV program *Dance Party USA,* which a lot of Nine Inch Nails fans see as incongruously absurd, but I think this track genuinely does fit in just fine in that milieu. I don’t look down upon dance music, and I don’t think it’s insulting to suggest that “Down In It” is some great dance music. It was actually the album’s lead single, and a fairly successful one in its own time, so clearly, people were moving to it.

Pretty Hate Machine’s iconic cover is somewhat abstract, featuring this tightly framed streak of lurid magenta and teal that’s boxed in by oppressive walls of black. While that artificial colour palette makes it difficult to ascertain exactly what we’re looking at, it appears to be some sort of large machine with a symmetrical row of spokes, though it’s possible to interpret it as something more organic as well--perhaps a ribcage, or a row of teeth.

The album title “Pretty Hate Machine” strikes me as almost pithy with how straightforward it is. Yes, you can put this album on and expect to find some electronic, machine music, with a fair amount of spite and vitriol, but covered over in that “pretty” pop sheen. Like a lot of the album, it’s on the nose, and perhaps a bit simplistic, but functional enough that I don’t overtly dislike it, even if it isn’t exactly clever.

Reznor’s follow-up to Pretty Hate Machine, 1994’s The Downward Spiral, would go on to even greater acclaim than his debut, and it’s considered by many to be his magnum opus.

Music: “Reptile”

Given its greater emphasis on guitar-driven noise-scapes, and its concept album style narrative, chronicling its protagonist’s descent into madness, I completely understand why the rock criticism establishment is high on this album. In what will probably go down as one of my most controversial opinions, I really don’t care for The Downward Spiral very much at all, precisely because it fits the “rock album” mould so much more than albums like Pretty Hate Machine. Give me the EBM beats any day of the week.

My favourite track on Pretty Hate Machine is its closing track, “Ringfinger.” While “Ringfinger” is yet another toxic relationship-themed number, I like the emphasis on work or labour in its lyrics. The context is quite different, but I’d like to think it has a hint of that working-class consciousness of industrial’s European forebears. Musically, I think this song’s outro is to die for. It closes out the album with some impressively cacophonous rhythm, almost ridiculous in the density of how many loops are playing at once--and yet it works! Overall, I think the percussion tracks throughout the whole album are really remarkable, despite often being overlooked by critics. That’s all I have for today--thanks for watching!

Music: “Ringfinger”

#music #album review #album reviews #nine inch nails #industrial #industrial music #pretty hate machine

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