Boring Girls Page 17
TWENTY-FOUR
Socks and Edgar joined us in line. We told them all about meeting Marie-Lise and what we’d talked about. Socks lamented that we hadn’t had a demo to give her and reiterated that we needed to get into a studio and record songs, release an album.
We heard a shout and looked back — it was Craig and Yvonne. We invited them to join us.
“How have you been?” Yvonne asked me. “It’s been so long. I hear you guys are in a band. I can’t wait to come see you. When’s your next show?”
“Nothing planned right now.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t make it. I’m really sorry. But you sing! How cool is that? I seriously can’t wait to check the music out. Remember how you punched that guy in the face at Surgical Carnage? I can’t think of any chick who’d be better to front a metal band than you, Rachel.”
We filed in shortly, telling Craig and Yvonne everything we could about Heathenistic Bile. The concert began — and I was horrified to see that Blackskull had the chain on and everything. “They’re totally going to do it again!” I shouted to Edgar, and we laughed.
The place was packed — hundreds of people. Bigger than the Surgical Carnage crowd had been. We found a place along the back of the club where we could all see the stage. Heathenistic Bile definitely upped the ante this time — Kate and Jennifer wiggled wildly, fishnet-clad on each side of the stage, and Paul was even more dramatic, but the crowd didn’t seem into it. A few heads moved at the front, but there was no mosh pit or anything, and the cheer that would rise after each song was lukewarm.
When it was time to unleash the beast, there was no crowd response at all. Paul and his band steeled themselves and pressed on, Blackskull emitting the same weak howl as before, but no one responded except for a few random shrieks here and there.
“Probably their friends,” Socks said. “Same guys from the Toe.”
I noticed a few people in the crowd laughing at the proceedings, which made me smile. Morons. They thought they were better than us, and it was vindicating to see that we weren’t the only ones who thought they sucked. It would have been nice to land this gig, opening for Gurgol. It would have been a good opportunity for us, especially because of Marie-Lise. If the crowd was into her being in the band, maybe they’d be into our band too.
Heathenistic Bile finished their last few songs, and the crowd halfheartedly cheered them offstage. Immediately the vibe in the room picked up. Gurgol was next.
We all hung out chatting a bit while we waited, and Craig came up beside me. I’d seen him around school, but I hadn’t been thinking about him or boyfriends or school — or anything, really, except the band.
“How have you been?” he said.
“Fine. You?”
“Oh, busy with school and shit like that. I totally want to come out to your next show.”
The last time I had really talked to Craig was the day he’d given me Heathenistic Bile’s CD. “So, those guys are your friends, eh?” I said, gesturing to the stage.
He blushed a little. “Yeah, kinda. I mean, I know they aren’t very good, but you know, at least they’re nice guys.”
“Not really,” I corrected him. “In fact, Paul is a complete asshole.”
“Well, he’s always been pretty cool to me,” Craig said, then frowned. “Sorry about that. You know, I mean, sometimes people put on an act, right? I guess Paul’s trying to act like a tough guy in his band.”
“Paul’s band isn’t big enough for him to warrant putting on any kind of act,” I said. “His twenty fans are his friends. And since when does an ‘act’ mean treating people in other bands like shit?”
“Whoa, okay. Let’s not talk about Paul anymore. I’m not trying to piss you off. Actually I wanted to ask you a question.”
I could tell by the way he was gazing at me that it was going to be some kind of soppy, romantic thing. “What question?”
“Just, maybe, did you want to go out to eat or something sometime? Or, like, to a movie?” His eyes searched my face nervously.
In that moment, I felt the power shift between us. When I had met Craig, I’d thought he was cute, and he’d humiliated me. Since then, the few times I’d seen him, he’d either said stupid shit or just faded into the background for me. But still, he’d always had that moment when we’d met. He’d still won. And in this moment, it changed. Going out to see some boring movie with Craig was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. And now I was in control.
“No,” I replied.
He stood there, staring at me for a minute, waiting for me to continue. When I didn’t, he faltered. “Oh, er — do you have a boyfriend or something?”
“Nope. I just don’t want to.” I stared back at him. It really was that simple. Was he looking for me to offer some sort of excuse? Is that what I was supposed to do?
“Well, don’t worry about it, then,” he fumbled. “Don’t worry about it.” He went away from me then, back to stand next to Edgar, and I shrugged. If I hadn’t been good enough for Craig last year, he wasn’t good enough for me now. And I had far more important things to focus on than going to a movie with some guy.
The lights went down, the crowd roared deafeningly, and one by one, the members of Gurgol came out onstage as a garbled music-box melody played. First the drummer, then the guitar player. As each guy emerged, the crowd freaked out even more. Next, Marie-Lise came out — absolutely glowing in a white slip-dress and white boots. She’d curled her hair and it bounced in long ringlets tied on either side of her head with black ribbons. Her mouth was a slash of red lipstick, her eyes hollowed out with black. She looked a far cry from the girl in jeans drinking coffee in the sun that morning. The crowd screamed for her. She smiled prettily and picked up her bass, taking her place on the stage.
Finally, Josh Galligan, the singer, came out and grabbed his guitar. The crowd bellowed. They started to play.
I looked over at Fern. Her eyes were riveted to Marie-Lise. I smiled.
The show was amazing. I admit I really only watched Marie-Lise. She had her whole deal down perfectly — moving forward to the crowd, twirling away from the outstretched hands. Part of me wanted to try to get to the front of the crowd to be near her, but it was so packed I knew I wouldn’t be able to get close. Craig and Socks went to the mosh pit, but I stayed back with the others. It was nice being able to see the whole stage from where we stood.
They played for an hour, and at the end of the last song, Marie-Lise threw herself down on the ground, thumping the last notes of the song out of her bass. She lay close to the front of the stage, and I saw hands reach out and grab her hair, tugging it. She let them, and when she sat back up, they all respectfully let go of it. By this time the black makeup around her eyes had melted in her sweat and streamed down her cheeks like tears. Her lipstick was gone, and her hair had fallen out of its ponytails. She looked insane, and sitting on the stage, she grinned at the crowd one last time.
The lights went out and in the darkness the band left the stage. The crowd screamed, but they weren’t coming back out. The house lights came on.
“That was great,” Edgar said, and I agreed. Fern’s face was shining with excitement. I wondered how long it was going to take before she went shopping for Pegasus bleach.
xXx
“Socks, what’s your goal with the band? Why do you want to do it?” Fern asked as we drove home. Craig and Yvonne had gone in Craig’s car, and it was the four of us, with Fern and me in the backseat.
“Having fun,” he replied immediately. “I like to have a good time. I’d love to go on tour, see the world, all that.”
“What about you, Edgar?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and thought for a moment. “You know, I guess maybe I’d like to make a difference. Leave something behind, you know? Be remembered.”
“All the more reason we gotta get in a studio and record,” So
cks said.
“Studios are expensive,” Fern said. “We don’t have any money.”
“Yeah, but if we maybe knew someone with a good computer program and a space to record,” I said, “couldn’t we do it ourselves? We recorded our rehearsal at your place, Socks. Couldn’t we do a full CD the same way?”
“You’re right. If we had software where we could record each instrument as a separate track, then mix them together at the end of it . . . we could. My computer’s crap. I could call a few friends and see what I can come up with. We might be able to do it really cheap. That’s a good idea.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Socks had a friend named Ken, who played in some local bar band, and they rented a rehearsal studio down by the river. In that rehearsal space, Ken had a recording set-up. He said he’d help us record for pretty cheap, so we all pooled our money. I pitched in my birthday money, as pathetic as the sum was, and as the school year ended we went into the “studio.” It was fun — we created a schedule with Ken where each of us would record our parts one at a time, and condense all of it into a few hours a day for a week. Socks was first on the schedule, and we all wanted to be there, of course.
The room was in a small building with five other rehearsal spaces in it. Ken explained to us that most of the rooms were empty at the moment, and when we got our first look into their room, I was so relieved that we used Socks’s basement for band practice. The rehearsal space was filthy from years of use. The rug was an undistinguishable colour, the ceiling had water damage stains mushrooming across it, and the walls were covered with spray paint. Ken and his band had brought in some clean furniture and tried to tidy it up, but there was only so much that could be done with such a place. The good part was that it was soundproofed, cheap, and it was nice to go and sit by the river if you felt like taking a break.
Ken seemed like a good guy. He was probably in his early twenties, a bit older than Socks, and I was pleased to see him wearing a DED shirt. Socks had told us he was into good music, even though his band played generic rock covers at their bar gigs.
He had some good mikes and let Socks play on his drum kit, because the kit was in better shape than Socks’s. The only thing we did bring along for Socks was the snare drum, because we preferred it to the way Ken’s sounded.
Ken sat at his computer while Socks flawlessly played through all twelve of our songs. I was impressed by this — I familiarized myself with my parts by feeding off cues from the music. Socks just knew the rhythm of the songs. I supposed that was his job, but it still impressed me.
Ken suggested that Socks run through each song one more time, to ensure a good take or a different option, and Socks sturdily played through again. Edgar, Fern, and I sat on a couch, watching and trying not to make any noise that could be picked up by the mikes. Socks made a few mistakes this time through, but happily began again when it was required.
The goal was to get one of us done a day, and the next day was Edgar’s turn. He listened to Socks’s drum parts through headphones and played along, his amp miked. Ken sat riveted to the computer. Multicoloured tracks appeared, scrolling across the screen, representing Edgar’s bass lines. He definitely started and stopped a lot and it became clear that his parts were going to take awhile. So Fern and I wandered out to the river, sat in the grass, and I watched her smoke cigarettes.
The next afternoon was Fern’s turn, and as the rest of us sat on the couch and watched, it became very clear to me that she had improved a lot. And she’d been really good before. As she launched into the solo in “Blood on My Fist,” she absolutely soared and I noticed that it had grown more complicated as well, as if she had slightly reworked it. It was amazing. Even Ken looked over at us on the couch, lifted his eyebrows, and nodded approvingly as she played. I folded my arms. He was impressed because she was a girl, and that pissed me off. But at the same time, I also glowed with pride.
When Fern had finished, she took off her headphones and Ken said, “You’re a fucking great guitarist.” I waited for him to add for a girl, but he didn’t.
“Thanks,” she said. “Shall we go through them again? I have some harmonies I’d like to put down for a few of the parts, and a couple more things to add to broaden the sound. I’m the only guitar onstage, but I figure that it’s okay to have the CD sound a bit different.”
“Sure it is.” Ken nodded. Fern put back on her headphones, and I heard the tracks start over in her ears.
xXx
That night I found it hard to sleep. I was excited to get started on my vocals the next day. When Fern had finished and I’d gone home, my parents had asked me if I wanted to get a job for the summer, and I’d done my usual nod, smile, and look concerned routine. I felt like I had a job. Our band was in the studio — sort of — and that was work, wasn’t it? I knew my parents weren’t going to understand, but once our CD was recorded we might actually sell some of them and make some money. Being in a band could be a job, right?
The next afternoon we all got back to the rehearsal space. I’d brought my little binder with my lyrics in it, and I was relieved to see that Ken had brought out a little music stand for me to set it on.
“Okay, guys, same drill,” he said as Socks, Edgar, and Fern sat down on the couch. “Rachel, you’ll hear the tracks coming through your headphones. Do your thing. We’ll just go through the songs one by one, and if you need to stop, let me know.” He seated himself at the computer.
I thought about this for a moment. “So you guys will just hear me singing then?”
“Yep,” Ken said.
I didn’t like the sound of that very much. “Can’t we have the music playing along in the room?”
“No, because the mike will pick that up. We need as clean a vocal take as we can get,” Ken said.
My face started to heat up. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
Ken swivelled around in his chair to look at me thoughtfully. So did the others. I started feeling both very stupid and very angry. My cheeks pounded as I tried to find words to explain without sounding like a moron. “It will be hard for me,” I said, “with you guys just staring at me, and all you can hear is just me sounding bad.”
“You don’t sound bad,” Fern said.
“That’s what we all did, anyway. We all went through that,” Edgar said.
“It’s different though, with a voice,” I bumbled. “I have to be all into it.”
“We all had to be into it,” Edgar said.
“It’s different,” I said, hearing frustration in my voice. I was annoyed that I couldn’t even look at them as I tried to argue my point. The old stereotype, I knew, was that singers are all temperamental, and I didn’t want to be that way, but couldn’t they understand that this was completely different than recording a guitar part? I thought of my voice ringing cleanly out in this room, thought of the faces I was going to have to make in order to achieve the vibe I wanted, thought of them all watching me silently, and shuddered with embarrassment.
“Okay, okay,” Ken said. “Well, the rest of you guys can go outside or something and I can stay in here with Rachel. I have to stay here, okay? I will sit with my back to you if it makes you more comfortable, but this is really the only way to get a good vocal take.”
“So . . . all singers have to do it this way?” I said, ashamed, feeling like a true novice.
“In a real recording studio, the singer would go into an isolation booth and everyone else sits outside and hears the voice going along with the music. But that’s because they’re in isolation. We can’t have the mike pick up any sound other than your voice, otherwise it’s going to sound like shit.” Ken didn’t sound frustrated, exactly, but he definitely didn’t have his usual casual tone.
“Okay then.” I looked up at the ceiling, too ashamed of myself to look at my friends. “So do you guys mind waiting outside for a while?”
“Sure,” Fern said a
greeably, standing up.
“If that’s what you need,” Edgar said. I could tell he was annoyed.
“We’ll pick up some cheeseburgers,” Socks said.
As they left the room, I flipped through my lyric sheets on the music stand. After the door closed, I felt like I should say something.
“Ken, er — I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be a hassle.”
“No, it’s okay,” he replied. “You know, it’s a common thing. I’m not a singer, so I don’t know what it’s like. But, I mean —that’s why the isolation booth exists, right? People don’t like having to sing in a quiet room with everybody watching.”
I didn’t even like the idea of him staying in the room, but he’d promised not to look — god, I felt so stupid, like a little kid. He asked me if I was ready to start, and I told him I was. I put on my headphones. “Blood on My Fist” began. I tried to use the music to empower myself. I couldn’t let a little thing like someone hearing me sing ruin this CD, right? I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and roared as best I could into the first verse, trying to pretend that there was no one else in the room, that I wasn’t in this room at all, that I was somewhere else completely.
xXx
It was a very long and irritating process, to be honest. I knew I could do better on some of the songs and wanted to re-record them. Sometimes I’d screw up, my voice breaking at the wrong part. At one point in the middle of a great take of “Needles and Eyes,” the others came back and knocked loudly on the door. Ken stopped the recording, talked to them quietly at the door, sent them away, and then we had to restart. I felt like the hours were slipping by. It was taking much longer than it had for the others. And my voice was starting to wear out — a totally natural thing that, naively, I had not anticipated. It was so damn hard trying to get into the mood, trying to sound into it. I wasn’t onstage, I was in a small, smelly room. My friends were annoyed at me. I wasn’t completely comfortable with Ken. I kept my eyes closed and tried to project myself somewhere cool, like onstage in front of thousands or in some music video or something, but it was really difficult. After three hours we only had half the songs done, and our time was up. Ken worked evenings, so we always had to wrap up towards late afternoon. I sat down wearily on the couch as he went and got the others, and we all convened in the room.