Part 1
After a month and a dark and really stormy night came the Festival, along with anxiety and stress. Specifically because of the ‘stormy’ part.
We needed our synthesizer backing tracks because, well, not one of us could play keys and especially not while playing any of our primary instruments. Still, the programmed lines added a lot to the intricate quality of the music and it would be very detrimental for us if we had to perform live without them, especially because that’s how the songs were recorded on our EP which would be launched after the show but was already in our respective playlists for the past two weeks.
The files got really heavy on the CPU and to export them the first time for the EP was hell, but having to do it again just for the synthesized tracks would not be much better. The reason for everything was because we, instead of doing it track by track, decided to arrange it in the way we would perform it in the set, one after the other. Therefore we assumed it would be okay to leave the computer on for the 12 estimated hours exporting the file.
It wasn’t.
The storm was strong enough to bring three fast intercalated blackouts. We were all at our homes when it happened which resulted in a lot of texting going on, but we all hoped that despite the obvious reset and having to restart the process all over again in the morning, the medium-priced No-break would take most of the damage and leave the computer with the project files unharmed.
It didn’t.
Now Megumi was gone, as she stormed out the door saying ‘I have a plan’, Akane was sulking, Rin was angry at the school, at the electric company, and the heavens. I did my best to keep them together and functioning, and to some extent, succeeded. Most of our EP work was dead for good but we still had the mixed and mastered files on our mobile phones, personal computers and music players and also on the server of the Finnish audio engineer we hired; maybe we couldn’t post stems of it so it could ever be reworked it in the future and the live performance would sound really empty compared to the recording but it wasn’t the end of the world.
It was actually a good story for the future.
Megumi came back one and a half hours later with a loop pedal so we could record sections of audio and play the loops just by stomping on it, which would help us give the songs more body because we could just record the parts that previously belonged to synthesizers with the guitars, regaining some of the ambience we achieved on the EP. The rainbow girl said she borrowed it from a friend, but I managed to see the pawn shop ticket before she could hide it and I knew very well she had only one personal possession she could trade for this.
Her acoustic guitar.
I called Rin for a private talk so I could provide her that information and she agreed to get Megumi’s guitar back immediately, even though that would involve telling her father about the whole band thing. We came back to the room and started working on rearranging and tracking the loops for the best performance we could bring with those limited resources and were surprised by how, with some effects, it sounded much less cluttered and alive this way.
And then, when we were done celebrating, Rin proclaimed something that made me snap.
“I want you all to give your very best tonight. It shall be Saris’ first and last performance, after all.”
The shock made me sure my hearing comprehension had failed for a moment.
“Wait, what?”
“Surely you heard correctly, Shin-tsu.” She spoke in monotone. “This band will be over as of the end of Ars Finita.”
The other members made no objections and it only made me angrier. It was obvious: they all knew this was coming.
“…Why are you doing this?” Frustration building up. “I thought you guys enjoyed this as much as I do!”
“We do,” said Akane in a surprisingly audible voice.
Megumi faced the ground and started talking.
“These have been the happiest days of our lives too, Shin-tsu.”
“Then why?”
“Because these days will not last.”
Fury took over me when I heard Rin utter that.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I am graduating soon and you cannot possibly expect me to live this rebellious ephemeral dream for much longer, especially as an adult. My family and its company will need me someday soon and playing technical music will not get me ready for this responsibility, so there’s a huge chance I will soon move to study abroad. I am terribly sorry if I led you all on, but then again I was fooling myself too.” She took a melancholic pause. “And even if you keep this without me, it’s only a matter of time before something similar happens, albeit different in scale, to Akane and Megumi, who are older than you and going to graduate next year.”
“But that doesn’t mean everything should just end! You guys are overreacting!”
“Yes, but what would come next, then? Playing occasional gigs in bars while settling for part-time jobs you believe are ‘temporary’, becoming the casuals you all deep down loathe so much until you do not have time or interest to rehearse or talk to each other anymore? Perhaps trying to be a full-time band but failing miserably for years because your style of music simply does not sell, and then realizing you wasted years that could have been used for self-improvement and studies in order to have an actual career like everyone we went to high school with and their little brothers? Or selling out and hating yourselves every single day for not being able to succeed by playing fair and doing everything you are able to? Even the best case scenario for us is to somehow go major with our own music style but eventually degenerating into predictable, uninteresting trash as time goes by.”
“And your alternative is to kill the unborn, to give up while we’re ahead? That’s the cowardly way out!”
One bar pause.
“The soldiers who die at war are seen as brave by some, but in my opinion they were just as scared as the others who managed to come back. There is no glory in failure.” Rin was once again sharply calm, the most infuriating sight possible for me at that moment. “My alternative is to let this be what it really is: a rebellious ephemeral dream that will end up exactly as good as it started specifically because it ended shortly after it started, without having the time to become a flawed execution of the initial concept. Something we can be proud of and share the longing of it till the day we die: a band made of never-ending nostalgia for us to dream about.”
That was the last straw for me but when I looked around and saw my other two band mates who were showing no signs of resistance as I did to Rin’s ideas and views on morals, I felt like I was the only one trying to save a sinking boat. Unfortunately, no matter what I said, I could not fully disagree with them. We all took music and ourselves too seriously to let it slide to the status of a hobby but had but had so much going on in our personal lives that we couldn't make a career out of it, which would be already hard considering the kind of music we played.
“So, is this it? You’re all quitting on us? This was supposed to be influential and huge! Are you telling me we wasted time and effort on this just so we could self-produce an EP and make a single live performance? Have you all gone insane?”
They all looked disappointed, but I couldn’t tell if they felt this way about me or themselves. This kind of drama was less the end of a band and more akin to a bad breakup.
“That is a conceptual mistake: it is never ‘time wasted’ if you enjoy wasting it, Shin-tsu. I too fell in love with this project but I cannot afford to remain like that any longer if that is going to be in my way, and ultimately neither can you. This would only hinder us: no matter how much potential they have, high school bands never last long.” She looked into my eyes and for one moment I assumed Rin would break down too. “One can see this is not only about the band for you, but either way at some point in life you will have to learn to let things go.”
My mask and inner layers were directly hit and broken at that point. Was this what it was all about, letting things go? W
hy was it easy to everyone but me to just accept it as a memory, to sacrifice important things for something that wouldn’t last? Were they all idiots?
“…But how can I?” No longer in control of myself and without the strength to lie, all that was left for me was to join them as a spectator of my own monologue and be mortified by the truth that came out of my mouth, a truth I never wanted to admit. Regardless of my past experiences I still became attached to this, too much in fact. It was good, to finally feel like I was part of a group. “I thought I was too numb, too devoid of emotions to really care about anything. I’ve been losing since I can remember so I should be used to it by now, right? But it just keeps happening to me over and over again and it never gets any easier than this. How can I let the only thing I truly believed wouldn’t end on me simply vanish like this?”
Not my friends. Not my family. Not Ryo.
People have forsaken me so many times I cannot help but expect a relationship will end before it even starts, regardless of its intensity. Is it because of that? Is that the reason why the one thing I felt so honestly attached to is not a person but an abstract, juvenile concept such as a ‘band’? Is having nothing I can truly call ‘mine’ the reason why I cannot afford to lose anything?
…Just how broken am I?
As I pondered, warmness surrounded me all of a sudden and I didn’t need to open my eyes to confirm I was in the center of a group hug.
“By keeping the bittersweet aftertaste on your mouth as a memento, obviously.”
Knowing that I wasn’t the only one needing that, I decided to let the whole thing happen a little longer before making any significant movement.
“…Let’s do this,” I said when the time was right.
Everything from that point on was on blurry flash-forward and the only moment I do recall was furiously growling the title of the first song in the set sharing a microphone with Koukina Rin.
“WE ARE THE BLEEDING DARK!”