Chapter 11 : Kick Out The Jams
In which things start getting done
~
"Ooookay then...thank you. I think?" Octavia closed the door and stared dumbfounded at the letter the mailmare had given her.
"What was all that about?" Inquired Lyra.
"Well, we're banned from the auditorium, which is understandable."
"Mmmhmm..."
"And also, Princess Luna wants to hear our music. And she wants a band shirt?"
"Mmmhmm- Wait, come again?"
"Princess Luna saw a recording of what happened with the orchestra, and wants us to send her recordings and a shirt. And to see us play a gig."
"B-b-but we don't have an album! Or a shirt! Or any gigs!" Exclaimed Lyra.
"Not yet!" Vinyl interjected, poking her head out from above the stair case.
"How...How are you doing that?" Octavia asked Vinyl's upside down form, bemused.
"I-I don't know. Uh...help?"
~
The three of them sat around the table contemplating the letter. It was from the Seaddle Guard Force, informing them of the auditorium's decision to ban them until further notice, and of Luna's wishes regarding them. It was...odd, to say the least. Who would've guessed they would have gotten such a positive reaction From royalty, no less!
"So...um...what do we do? About this, I mean." Lyra gestured towards the letter.
"Isn't it obvious? We do what the letter says! We can't let the princess down!" Vinyl stomped a hoof for emphasis.
"Well, as nice as that might be, need I remind you that we have nothing in the way of, oh, I don't know, anything at all?" Octavia countered.
Vinyl sat silently for a moment, stroking her chin. "Hmm, wait here, I have a plan." With that she got up and left the house the dor closing with a thump.
"What is she up to?"
~
Vinyl cantered down the street towards her shop-come-house, greeting ponies she knew as she passed, this was her neighborhood, her domain. There was something in her shop that would help the situation at hoof along. Plus, she really should be checking up on the refurbishment of the shop, it'd been a month and a half since the fire now, so the build should be done pretty soon. She'd still need to re-do the whole shop front inside, though.
"Heya guys! How's it going?"
All the builders waved as she made her way upstairs and into the 'living' part of the building. Taking a chance to look around (she hadn't been home in over a month) she set about her task, entering the room that houses all her music gear.
Now for the tricky part.
~
There was a loud thump at the door, which Octavia answered. Vinyl staggered in with a...thing...on her back, and levitating a box covered in knobs and slidey things and a bunch of microphones and stands all bundled together.
She managed a wheezy "Honeys, I'm home!", and then promptly collapsed on the floor.
"Get up, you were only gone half an hour, you can't be that exhausted." Said Octavia, prodding Vinyl with a hoof.
"Yeah, and you didn't drag all this stuff from the shop."
"If you had told us what you were doing, we'd have been happy to help, Vinyl." Octavia countered.
"...Shut up..."
"What even is all this stuff?" Lyra inquired.
Vinyl gestured to the various pieces now spread around the floor. "Microphones and stuff. Mixer. And this is an 8-track recorder."
"Soo...?" Lyra said, confused.
"We're gonna record a demo!"
"Wait, here? Now?" Octavia interjected.
"Uhh, duh! C'mon, lets set this stuff up."
"Don't we need to go to a studio to record things? Isn't that how it works?" Asked Lyra.
"Well, thats what this is for!" Vinyl explained, patting the 8-track. "We record into this using the microphones, then use the mixer to adjust everything until its right. It wont sound as clean as a proper studio recording, but it'll get the job done, trust me. This is how I make my mixtapes and stuff."
"Well, what do we do?" Asked Octavia.
"Well Tavi, we'll need a room where we can fit all the instruments, and this stuff. So if you guys go and sort that out, I'll set all the recording stuff up and we can get started!"
~
The three of them stood around awkwardly in the newly re-purposed room, occupying what little space there was left.
"So now what?"
"Weeeeelllllllllll, now we record everything. We can't do it all at once, otherwise it sounds weird." Vinyl explained, once again. "So I'll record the drums, then Octavia can do her cello, Lyra can add in the lyre or guitar or what ever, then we add the vocals. After that, I'll level everything on the mixer, et voila, one demo tape!"
"So, which song do we do first? We only have, like, 7 anyway." Said Lyra.
"So thats 7 to go on the tape! I reckon we should do your Fluffgun '91, it'd make a pretty good opener."
"Well, get to it then!" Lyra said, pushing Vinyl towards the drums.
"Uh, Lyra, sweetie, you know I have to set everything up to record if we want to record anything." Vinyl deadpanned. Lyra just grinned sheepishly.
~
"...so I push this slider here up to bring in the guitar." Vinyl pushed said slider up, and the guitar levels increased, as promised. "And there we are! One song recorded onto tape!"
"This is so exciting!" Lyra beamed.
"I must say, I'm getting rather into it now." Octavia added. "So, whats next?"
"We should really make a list...We've done Fluffgun, so how about we record Ponyville?"
"I don't see why not. Lets get to it!" Vinyl returned to her drum kit.
~
"Going back to Ponyville!"
"Don't ask why!"
"Going back to Ponyville!"
"Don't ask why!"
"Going back to Ponyville!"
"Don't ask why!"
"ITS A GOOD A PLACE AS ANY TO GO AND DIE, ITS A GOOD A PLACE AS ANY TO GO AND DIE!"
Vinyl brought the volume down on the mixer, ending the playback. It had been two days, but all their songs had been recorded and mixed. All that was left to do was to duplicate the tapes so they could hand them out.
"Well, what do you think?" Vinyl asked nervously.
"That, was amazing! I was all "Going back to Ponyville", and Tavi was all "Don't ask why", and the drums, and the everything!" Lyra said, very, very enthusiastically.
"Its not the best quality recording, but I'm rather proud of out little project." Added Octavia.
"Well, thats good. All I need to do now is get this onto some cassettes. Shouldn't take more than a few hours, then we can spread our music around!" Vinyl finished with a slight flourish.
~
"Your highness, a delivery for you just came in from Seaddle."
The guard relinquished the packed to Luna, bowed, and set off away from her chambers. Luna closed the door and began to carefully remove the packaging, revealing a letter, and a cassette tape.
"Hiya Luna!
Thanks a bunch for listening to our music. We don't have an album or anything yet, but we recorded this demo tape for you! Also, when we have t-shirts we'll send one too!
Laters!
Vinyl, Octavia, Lyra.
P.S. Tavi says she thinks she should've written the letter. ~ Vinyl"
"Zounds! It seems they work fast!" Luna exclaimed, as she realised what the package was. It had only just been a week since she'd received the letter and video tape from Set Tempo.
She levitated the tape over for a closer look. The cover was a black and white copy of a hoof-drawn mare laughing. The title simply read "Mudhinney ~ Noisey Demos" and on the back was the tracklist.,
"1. Fluffgun '91
2. You Got It (Keep It Out Of My Face)
3. Here Comes Sickness
4. Flat Out Bucked
5. Burn It Clean
6. In 'N' Out Of Grace
7. Ponyville"
She loaded the tape into the cassette player and hit play. The now familiar riff of Fluffgun '91 broke the silence of her room, sounding so much better than the version on the projector footage. Luna grinned.
'Yes, this pleases us greatly!'
Celestia however, was much less pleased to be awoken by the racket emanating from Luna's room, and made it very clear from the entrance she made, definitely one of the angriest room-entries in recorded history.
No doubt.
~
Just like my dad when I play guitar with the amp on at 12 PM.
By the way is Mudhinney technically a riot marrre band?
4418654
Know that feel.
Huh, now that you mention it, guess they would fall under that...
4418716 I wish we didn't live in an appartment.
4418900
I wish I had a 4-track recorder...
4419541 Same here and a record player too.
4419620
And a Rickenbacker. For good measure.
4419640 12 string. And an octave pedal and a fuzz pedal. Oooh, a Fender Jaguar would be nice too.
4419808
>Fuzz Pedal
>Fender Jaguar
I cannot recommend this setup enough, go do it, you wont be disappointed. The Jaguar is amazingly easy to play, and sounds amazing with some filth.
And be sure to run it through a Twin Reverb.
I wish I had a Twin Reverb...
4419892 I wish I had a moog. Did you look up Tomahawk by the way?
4420341
Yeah, I looked up a few of their songs, not bad I must say.
I have a Korg Monotron, its pretty fun.
4420392 have you ever heard of The Rentals?
4420651
Can't say I have
4420676 They're a band featuring Ex Weezer bassist Matt Sharp and members of that dog. They make very distorted power pop. This song, Friends of P. Is a pretty good representation of them: http://youtu.be/wi-H6ohY37k
4420731
Gotta say thanks! This has given me a killer idea for a new song!
4420823 you're welcome. I love this sort of stuff noisy yet upbeat and fun to sing along to. Much like Pinkerton by Weezer.
4420823 i'd like to hear some of your stuff sometime.
4420830
Hang on a sec, I'll PM you my idea, its only the guitar at this point, but I'll be working on it tommorow. I'm pretty pleased thus far.
4420891 I like it.
4420891 I'm working on some songs myself too. One idea I came up with this morning while going down the stairs was "State Sponsored Party Anthem" a song that basically parodies how stupid pop music has gotten.
4420967
Thanks!
As I said, I'll start filling it out with bass and stuff later.
Still wish I could find a drummer though, something tells me hitting a bin wont quite cut it for this one like it did with the others...
4420984
Ooh, not bad! I like the idea.
I always struggle to come up with lyrics, but I found a way that works for me. Basically, I sing along to a song I don't know all the words too and end up making stuff up, most of it is usable, too.
I've also got it into my head for whatever reason I NEED to write a song called 'Mobile Piss Unit'.
Damn brain...
4421000 for some reason it's very easy to come up with good song titles compared to actual lyrics:
I wrote a song of great socioeconomic importance (but all she wanted was another love song)
Signaling The Mothership (which I do have lyrics for)
Battering Ram (I have a riff)
Jimmy was drunk
Sasquatch Hunt
(Learn some new chords) and Stop writing pop songs
To name a few...
4421039
>I wrote a song of great socioeconomic importance (but all she wanted was another love song)
As titles go, that's pretty great.
I've had a few title ideas recently, including the aforementioned 'Mobile Piss Unit':
The Increasingly Ill Adventures of Ned Flanders
Just Hear Me Out
Clowns Stole My Shoes
Strangers, Unconventional Lies
I'm sure there was one more, but I've lost it. Oh well...
4421070 the lyrics are about the increasingly consumerist nature of society. Also
The Greatest Dancer Who Ever Lived
Lounge King
The Kids Are All Dead
The Subject of Many Nightmares
She Used To Be A Star (Now She's A Black Hole)
4421134
I wish I could write lyrics about things. I'm pretty good at coming up with them once I get into it, but they rarely have a subject, if ever. I can only think of one off the bat, and that was just about how crap my school was.
4421153 yeah, I hate it when my lyrics end up sounding generic and forced. It sucks when I can't come up with anything meaningful. I came up with some awesome lyrics about how much I despise highschool though. Well it seems like it's up to people like us to put the rock back in indie rock huh?
4421180
And here's me, happy to put the 'noise' back into 'Oh god what is that horrible noise?"
4421242 that too. One of my catchphrases in school has recently been "Why am I the only one here who likes noise rock?" Another has been "Frank Zappa was a god"
4421267
Noise rock is just too damn good for them to get, man.
I've been saying "Steve Albini hates you" a lot, for whatever reason.
4421278 ooh and "I pity you for your taste in music", or "That song sucks, turn it off now."
4421309
"Why is everything you like so boring?" Is another one as well. They can't criticize me for listening to tUnE-yArDs, and then go off and listen to Coldplay.
4421332 I remember being dissed for listening to The Replacements because the song (Alex Chilton) was too boring. I was pissed when someone put on Pitbull straight after turning the song off halfway through. This move prompted one of the reactions below.
4421345
I got exactly the same thing with Swans. They put on some Calvin Harris or something and left, but I had the upper hand, because I was still listening to Swans, and they would never appreciate how great they are.
4421355 At one point I had to explain to someone that One Way Or Another is a Blondie song and not One Direction or to a bunch of metalheads that it doesn't matter how technically gifted the musicians are if the song isn't any good.
4421378
>to a bunch of metalheads that it doesn't matter how technically gifted the musicians are if the song isn't any good.
This, this so much. I don't want to generalize, but in my experience metalheads are all really stubborn that metal is better than everything else, especially when its bands lie Iron Maiden and stuff like that. I find if you say you don't like it, they assume that you must listen exclusively to bubblegum pop.
People who listen to Sludge and Doom Metal are generally pretty cool though.
Also, "What do you mean 'Man Who Sold The World' isn't a Nirvana song? They played it on Unplugged, man!"
And "'Lake Of Fire' is such a great song! What, Meat Puppets? Nope, never heard of them."
4421394 I like metal. I just don't like people who refuse to listen to anything but metal. Our highschool, here in Turkey has people getting into Avenged Sevenfold now. A teacher who is a big record nerd like me as he used to intern for Epitaph records and toured with bands joked that in 5 years people will start talking about this new band, Dillinger Escape Plan.
4421418
Yeah man. thats what I'm saying, it annoys me when people decide "This is the best genre, I will only ever listen to pop/metal/blues/electo/etc.
I'm not so hot on metal myself, but I do like a few bands here and there, namely: Melvins, Boris, Electric Wizard, Tad, Black Sabbath, stuff like that. Could never get into the speedy, decadent solos and dive bombs and stuff, slow and thick was more my style.
4421449 I see metal like how I see all music: there is good metal and there is bad metal. Changing the subject: are there any music publications you read?
4421541
I don't really read any. Sometimes I'll pick up a zine if there happens to be an interesting looking one, but other than that I guess I don't...
4421586 I read Mojo the most, they tend to have the best articles and CDs.