Chapter Three: Manehatten, Manehatten
The All-Rounders are excited to be touring around Manehatten.
“We can see the Manehatten Bridge! Perhaps go to Bridleway, or maybe Central Park, ooh! Maybe Times Square!” Athen squeals excitedly.
“In fact, it does appear that our first show is at Central Park. We have to make sure we’re not too loud, Strawberry Fields and everything.” Proper states.
“Meet at my place, we need to come up with a few songs.” Athen says.
Later, they arrive at Athen’s place, Chase has a bit of paper, and Athen is eating a hayburger he got from a fast-food joint.
“All the places in Manehatten, and you chose a generic burger place... seriously Athen?” Chase asks.
“Yes, do you have a problem with that?”
“We have no problem at all, but I’m a bit excited to record a song.” Hooves states.
“By the way, when was the last time you went by ‘Madame Hooves’ Hooves?”
“Not since I was a filly, just because my parents are part of the upper class does not mean I get to be treated like I’m some stuffy aristocrat.”
Seeing she was sensitive abous this, Athen turns in his chair and starts talking with Chase.
“Got any songs?” Asthen asks nonchalantly.
“A couple, the first one’s based off the ‘21 gun salute’, simply called 21 Guns, Hooves, get us started.”
They play the song, then Chase gets out another song,”This one’s a bit of a funny one, it’s still good, I did write it, after all.”
Athen takes the sheet music out of his hooves,”Stray Cat Strut? Seriously?”
“Oh, but wait, you haven’t heard it yet, it’s quite jazzy.”
Athen perks up his ears,”Is there any swing in the song.”
“No swing, now tell me, you got this swing idea from somewhere, The Wasteland Wailers perhaps?”
Athen smiles and chuckles weakly,”I listen to them more than anypony should. Let’s get started shall we?”
They play the song, and it is pretty groovy, Athen likes it quite a bit.
“Those should be the songs we play at Central Park, if everything goes as it should.” Chase states.
“I’m so bucking excited! When’s the show?” Hooves says excitedly.
“Next week, we’ll be toward the center. Make sure that those ponies who play hoof-made drums on 4 plastic bins and a shopping cart don’t get in the way of our show.”
“Will do,” Proper says.
Next week
“Minor little crowd, you’ve got your hippies, people who need coffee to operate, that’s everywhere in Manehatten though.” Athen says while surveying the crowd for their Central Park performance.
“Let’s do this!” Hooves says, while Chase takes his place on the stage.
“Hello everypony! Today you are witnessing a little show spearheaded by us, The All-Rounders.”
“Stop wasting my time!” A heckler shouts.
“If we were wasting your time, why are you here? ” Chase snipes back.
“I wanted to see Strawberry Fields!”
Ignoring him, Chase states,”Anyways, without further ado, let’s get started with our first song, 21 Guns.”
Proper uses his magic to direct some sort of light source onto Hooves strumming the opening chords on her guitar, soon, Chase joins in. All this would be impressive, if the gig were at night, a spotlight doesn’t do much for a day gig. However, they finish the song without a hitch.
“Our last song for today is Stray Cat Strut, everypony relax and listen.”
Hooves starts up the intro, while Athen gets a devilish idea. He bucks the chair put from under him, caught wildly by Proper’s magic, and dropped to the side, before climbing up on his drumset to play the song. Proper mouths at him,”are you serious?” Before he starts to put on a show himself, using two hooves on the bass to play it. Hooves, not to be outdone, starts singing with Chase and playing the guitar at the same time.
The crowd blinks, and then launches into a thunderous applause, The All-Rounders don’t even have to finish the song to know they’ve got this, but they finish it anyways.
“Thank you, let’s hear it for Athen, who started this crazy thing in the first place! We’ll hopefully be touring Manehatten, so don’t miss us!” Chase states, as The All-Rounders depart. They head backstage, where they give each other high-fives and congratulate everypony on their performance out on stage.
“You totally rocked it out there, Athen!” Hooves states.
“Seriously, guys, don’t give me all the credit, I was just livening up the act.”
They talk for a while, before they decide to head back to their houses.
The next day
Everypony gathers in Athen’s house to write some new material, when Chase comes in with his phone, he’s looking at indoor music venues to see where The All-Rounders will play next.
“Let’s see here... Mercury Lounge has an open show for us at 7:00 tomorrow, wonderful!” He says,”Have we got any songs?”
“I hate to burst your bubble dude, but that’s supposed to be your job,” Hooves states.
“Right! Sorry, I’ve got nothing, I was too busy looking up indoor musical venues.”
“No ,atter, we’ll help you right?” Proper says.
“Yeah, we’ll help.” Athen adds.
“Although, I have a couple alright ideas, they haven’t come to fruition yet.” Chase says.
“What’s the plan?” Hooves asks.
“First song, a song about telling the world what we can take a stand too, not the world standing on us. Since everypony seemed to like We Weren’t Born to Follow so much, I’ve got a couple of similar songs.”
“Let’s attempt to improvise, this is not gonna sound good. Let’s get the lyrics down first, and possibly the guitar solo, to give us an idea of what we’e dealing with.” Athen says.
“Alright, if you say so.”
They write down the lyrics to their new song, Have a Nice Day, and the guitar solo. Athen starts by counting out the parts,
“3, 2, 1!” Before slamming the high tom and snare simultaneously, Hooves starts a chord heavy guitar riff, and Chase sees his cue.
“Why, you wanna tell me how to live my life!...”
He sings, and they finish the song pretty handily.
Reclining back in a wooden seat, Proper says,”You know, if this gig doesn’t give us fame and fortune, we need a song to fall back on. A Boulevard for Broken Dreams perhaps?”
“With a couple tweaks, that would make a really cool track,” Chase says.
“This sounds great and all, but will there be any acoustic guitar?” Hooves says, while sitting in a chair backwards,”You gotta know how expensive those things are.”
“No, just electric, let’s play.”
“What music?” Hooves asks.
“I’ll write that down, I might need some assistance.”
Hooves graciously volunteers to help Chase, leaving Athen and Proper in the room together.
“Huh, I thought Kirn would be the only character who sat in a backwards chair,” Athen says.
“Who are they?”
“You wouldn’t know, I’m sure you’ve never played Dragon Quest 11 before.”
“I haven’t, so what should we talk about?”
Athen doesn’t really respond, because he doesn’t know what to talk about, until finally, he breaks the silence.”What do you do if somepony has a crush on you.”
“What feelings are we talking about here?”
“Kinda like, she likes you as a coltfriend, but she’s a really cool friend.”
“Hooves? Well, you could do worse, that’s for sure.”
“I know, it’s just strange.”
They don’t talk much after that, Athen just silently sits in his chair, while Proper does the same.
Finally, Hooves and Chase come out with some sheet music.
“Took you a really bucking long time,” Athen says.
“That shouldn’t matter, we’ve finished the song.” Hooves says, and then starts on the intro chords. The rest of the band joins in. After they’re finished, they decide to use these two songs for their next concert at the Mercury Lounge.
The next day
The All-Rounders arrive at the Mercury Lounge to play their songs. They step onto the stage, and Chse introduces the band like he had before.
“Welcome everypony, to our show here, we have a couple songs to play for you and then we’ll be on our way. First off, Have a Nice Day.”
After the song finishes, Chase introduces Boluevard of Broken Dreams, but as he says dreams, the lights flicker off. Athen spies Proper looking at Hooves.
“What in your right mind do you think you’re doing?” Athen asks.
“Just wait, Hooves needs to tune her guitar, and then we’ll be go. Just hold on.”
Hooves tunes her guitar, and plays a chord, followed by a slightly higher one, and another higher one. Before she starts playing the guitar so that it sounds like a keyboard. She starts singing Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
“Dear Celestia!” Athen says as the song starts,”She sounds so cool!”
“That’s the point, now shush!”
Athen, not listening anymore, hops behind his drumset and plays a roll on the crash cymbal, followed by another one at the end of the chorus. Followed by another one a little later.
As the second verse starts, Athen plays a fill to coax the band into playing with him, and it works. Then, they hit the guitar solo.
“I walk alone, a walk a—“
Hooves lauches into the guitar solo, after it’s finished. Athen goes silent, as Holves attempts to imitate a much higher voice. Athen loves all this, though still not entirely sure why this is happening.
When they finish the song, the get a stomping ovation,”That was our...” Chase stutters,”...improvisational cover of Boluevard of Broken Dreams. Enjoy Luna’s night everypony.”
The All-Rounders stop near the bar for a few drinks, when Athen checks his phone.
“The hippies really liked it for some reason, they’ve invited us to play at a hippie venue near Proper’s place.”
“We can keep our instruments in my house!” Proper says.
“Why not,” Athen says, shrugging.
They meet up at Proper’s house after the bar, and they start thinking up songs that might intrigue hippies.
“A song based on philosophies? Nah. A trippy indie rock song? Maybe not.” Athen mutters, while pacing around the room.
“I’ve got an idea,” Hooves says,”let’s go crazy on our instruments, I’ll record it, see if it sounds any good.”
Athen gets behind his drumset while Hooves overtunes her guitar so that it sounds like the bass to ‘Ace of Spades’, and Proper tunes his bass to match.
They start strumming out the most jarring riff Athen can think of, trying to match up with their frenzied guitar playing, Athen starts drumming out a series of beats and complicated fills, making the song sound worse. Proper had flipped on the distortion, so the house was practically filled with cacophony. Having no lyrics, Chase attempts to sing a lyric, although all he can think of is ‘What else can I say?’ and ‘I can feel the fire,’ this did not help the song. After 5 minutes of blistering, ear-destroying beats, they mellow out the song, kind of. After about 6 and a half minutes, they finish the song.
“What. The. Hell. Was. That.” Athen says.
“Who even bucking knows? Noise rock maybe?” Hooves says.
“Please help my ears, they’re dying inside.” Chase says.
“Needless to say, we’ll not be using that. How about we just stick with our normal songs?” Athen says.
“Minor problem,” Proper states,”we don’t have anything.”
“I’m sure we can write some songs today,” Hooves says, stealing a glimpse at Chase, who is still sprawled out on the floor.
“Just let my ears recover! My poor bucking ears!” Chase shouts.
“Alrighty Mr. Overreaction, what’s your bright idea,” Hooves retorts.
“Nothing right now, I’d rather settle for some sounds of silence.”
The room goes silent, then Athen says,”That’d make a great song title!”
Chase and Hooves realize this, and head to the back of the house to write this song, as well as three more. Eventually, they come back out, Athen is checking his wrist like it’s a watch, and Proper is trying to play Metallicolt on bass, opting to play songs that came before ‘...And Justice For All’.
“That took an incredibly long time,” Athen says.
“I know, but we have three songs, however, I’d like to just show you the note progression of the third one.”
“Hooves, you better not pull any tricky shit on me,” Athen says.
“Oh, I might, might not,” Hooves says with a sly smile on her face.
Athen overlooks that piece, as does the rest of the band, Athen does say it sounds pretty cool on drums.
“First song, Sounds of Silence, this is actually a rock cover with the lyrics to ‘Sound of Silence’ by Simon and Garfunkel.” Chase says.
They start up the song and play it. Everything runs smoothly.
“Secondly, You Give Love a Bad Name. Since everypony likes these types of hard rock songs so much, we’ll continue playing them.”
Again, The All-Rounders play the song and it goes on without a hitch.
“Man, because you took so long to write those songs, I need to go home and crash, I’m sure we can leave our instruments here, it’ll be fine.”
The All-Rounders head home and in the morning, Athen wakes up to his phone ringing madly. He glaces at a clock it says 7:00 AM.
Athen picks up the phone,”Hello, extremely irritated yellow pegasus here, what the hell do you want.”
“Athen, our instruments?”
“What about them?”
“They’re gone!”
“I told you you should’ve locked your bucking door, I’ll be there right away.”
Athen flies over to Proper’s house and opens the door,”When is our gig?”
“It’s at noon!” Proper says,”I hope we can make it.”
“Let’s go there without the instruments, perhaps the hippies will give us some.”
“That’s a really stupid idea.”
“Got any better ones? Let’s wait for Chase and Hooves to arrive so that we can tell them.”
Proper dejectedly agreed, at around 10:00 AM, Hooves and Chase come into the house.
“We’re here!” Chase says.
“Great, we have no instruments,” Athen says.
“We’ll just hope for the best,” Chase says as he sits down, Hooves sits down too.
Two hours later
The All-Rounders arrive in the joint at 11:30 and encounter someone. He’s wearing a tye-dye shirt and some green sunglasses.
“Where are your guy’s instruments?” He asks.
“Stolen,” Hooves says bluntly.
“Dude, that like totally blows, I’ll lend you some swag instruments.”
The All-Rounders recieve intstruments covered in odd indie stickers, they are very basic kits, they just don’t have anything else.
Proper glaces over at Athen and sees he has a bow and arrow,”What the hell do you have that for?” He asks.
“You’ll see, although I’m not incredibly athletic, I’ll try.”
Asking no more, the band prepares for their show.
When the time hits, Chase steps up to the mic,”Hello everypony! We are here today to perform a couple of songs for you.”
The crowd cheers.
“First up, we have Sounds of Silence, as made famous by Simon and Garfunkel, and reimagined by us.”
The spotlight settles on Hooves playing a few notes on her guitar, she starts out the lyrics. When the beat kicks in, the lyrics turn to Chase, and he sings the song. When that’s over, he announces the next song.
“Next song, is You Give Love a Bad Name, in 4, 3, 2...”
Athen whips out the bow and arrow and aims it towards the ceiling.
“Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame! Darlin’ you give love, a bad name.”
Athen releases the bow and arrow, it lands in the middle of the stage,”Told you I sucked at sports,” he says as he starts up the drum part.
After that, Hooves leaps towards Chase and wrenches the mic out of the stand. Chase steps back, surprised.
“I’d like to dedicate this one to a pegasus stallion, it’s called Lay Your Hands on Me!”
Athen blushes, but starts up the song. The set finishes with that, and Chase once again adresses the crowd.
“Hopefully you enjoyed! We might be back, we are The All-Rounders, good-bye everypony!”
Athen walks backstage, still blushing. Hooves comes up and playfully bumps him to the side a bit,”You did know who Lay Your Hands on Me was for right?”
Athen nods.
“Good, because I wasn’ about to explain it.”
On their way back to Proper’s house, The All-Rounders find a local pawn shop. “Hey!” Hooves says,”That’s my guitar!”
The band looks in the window and sure enough, their stuff is there.
“I knew everything would turn out alright!” Proper says.
They purchase the stuff with their new money, and walk back home.
“You know some fans have offered for us to couch-surf, right?” Proper says.
“Let’s do it!” Athen says.
*******
Next time, The All-Rounders decide to couch-surf, how bad of an idea can it be?
Stats
Page generated in 0.011 seconds
Total duration
737 users online
734,282 hits today, 2,364,530 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®