Chapter 9 Facade
Music Man
When Amber and Darren were first married, they used to do the whole party and live music scene. They had a number of local band favorites. One musician, Dan, became pretty good friends with them. They’d often watch him and his band perform, and hang out together afterwards. Darren and Amber were still in shock at what happened to Dan. They blamed the class separation system for it.
For some fishy reason, the majority of musicians, actors, and artists were in the C class. Were they musicians, actors, and artists because they were in C class, or were they in C class because they were musicians, actors, and artists? Most research pointed to the latter. Their independent, go-against-the-grain, dreamer attitudes were opposite the States’ conservative, conformist views. And that affected their SIN Record and SIN Score from day one.
A hundred plus years before, in the early 2000’s, many musicians, actors, and artists were able rise to a level of social prominence. Rock Stars, Movie Stars, Fashion Models and the like were among the best paid and most popular people in society.
With the clamp down of the Line in the 2060’s, these stars were less and less in the news. Or, in reality, such news was less and less accessible by the mainstream. And by the time the SIN Record became the new norm in the 2130’s, there was no longer an elite status given to musicians, actors, and artists merely because they might be popular—in fact, quite the opposite was true.
The government generally regarded such personalities as non-conformists. Their official name in the SIN database was MAABER—Musicians, Actors, and Artists Barely Earning Revenues. No matter how good they might be, they generally couldn’t make enough money to be considered a viable industry. It wasn’t really their fault though. They weren’t free to travel anywhere they wanted. So any fan base and fame they might have would only be local, and not highly profitable.
There was no way to reach the masses. Even though the C and D class made up nearly eighty percent of society, they had little access to the Line or any other effective means to share ideas on a grand scale, like their love of some hot new music group. As such, they were not a driving force to give fame to anyone through their popular culture. They no longer had a popular mainstream culture. Only pockets of local influence in underground cult followings existed.
Popular music was controlled by State Music Stores, much like liquor was controlled by State Liquor Stores in the old days. Home brew and good old moonshine weren’t welcome. Neither was rock music.
Such was the climate that Dan the music man grew up in. With his electric guitars, long hair, and colorful flowing clothes, he looked like one the ancient hippies from the 1970’s. Electric guitars were to 2130’s pop music what a banjo would have been to 1970’s rock music. A joke.
Rock music in the 2130’s was not popular thanks to State censorship. The State pushed rock music in the same way they encouraged old church hymns played on a pump organ. Not at all. They purposely made rock music out to look tired, old, worn out, been there done that and got the ugly tie die shirt.
The State made the claim that rock music was the undoing of society, much as old church hymns were the undoing of the church a hundred plus years earlier when a younger generation just didn’t get it anymore.
And they had no trouble finding bad rock and roll examples to make their point. All they had to do was pick any number of “glam rock” pretty boy bands from the 1980’s. The State’s official position on rock music was that it was a rot to any good society. But it was not illegal.
Despite the general lack of enthusiasm from the public and especially the young, who knew no better, music man Dan was trying to keep the old rock music alive in his local underground cult following. It was like pulling teeth, even though there had been a recent interest in rock music a few decades earlier.
In 2112, the music from an ancient rock group, Rush, had a small revival thanks to the rediscovery by the underground music scene of Rush’s album titled, “2112.” It was a cult sensation. Rock music had been forgotten for some time, and the young suddenly seemed to re-embrace it. Rock music was a fad for a few years in pockets of the underground, but never really caught on in mass. This was only because mass communication through the Line or other means was not possible among the majority C and D class population.
But Dan persisted in resurrecting old classic rock songs from the 2000 era and performing them live with his band, Old Hat, wherever and whenever they could get gigs. They were something of an oddity, a band with only electric guitars and bass, and a real, antique acoustic drum set. They did, however, have a small loyal following.
Dan dreamed of fame and fortune, largely unattainable in his C class. Being a musician pretty much kept him in the C class. But he had an idea that could launch him into stardom, fortune, and upper class.
One way out of the lower classes was to make a lot of money. No matter what a person’s history and SIN Score, once they acquired a certain amount of money or annual income, they automatically bumped into B class (which also meant someone in B class got bumped downward). The reasoning was that if people figured out how to make a bunch of money, then they could now pay a large amount of tax, too. So they were encouraged to keep it up by allowing them a better lifestyle.
One major fear of people in the B class was to be bumped by C class big earners (of course, B class people who gave a baby to the State were generally protected from this). This motivated the B class to keep working hard, even though their lives were much easier.
For Dan, making a lot of money first meant getting famous. He had a hunch that the masses were starved for good rock music. They didn’t know good rock music. The government propaganda machine had ruined common folks’ view of it. If enough of them could hear some good songs, they would demand it from the State Music Stores. And if a lot of money could be made, the State would give in.
It would take getting some music and video to go viral on the Line enough to get noticed by a big portion of the A and B classes, which were only one fifth of the population. But if enough of them liked something, it could start a market drive. Any big sensation in the upper classes would trickle down to the lower classes as it always did.
Getting something to go viral had not been achieved by anyone from the general public in over seventy years since the big clamp down of the Line started in the 2060’s.
While Dan dreamed of methods to get his 2000 era sounding rock tunes, like Tullorama, to go viral, he had an unfortunate accident. He was the unintended victim of a stray bullet one night in a bar room brawl that turned ugly while Old Hat was showcasing a new set of his songs.
Guns were so old-school and antiquated. Who would even have one, except someone that the class system had ousted to the point of desperation?
Darren and Amber were in the bar the night of the shooting and were horrified. Even though it was a freak mishap, they blamed the government system for poisoning the whole music scene and creating a violent, banished underground society.
They visited Dan in the hospital every day, but he did not last a week. While they grieved the loss of their friend, they were even more saddened and shocked by the story of a woman they had met in the same hospital wing the week they visited Dan.
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