Hard steely club music, hate chords. Music of the Angry Young. Construction work for Father. Roofing. Music, and his burly brother, Brother. Rough. Shaved heads. End-of-day paint-splatter, roof dreck, tar.
Music, goateed, smoked cigarette, cigarette, cigarette.
“Puppets of Weltschmerz” were Drummer, on drums; Brother, lead guitar; Music, lead singer and rhythm guitar; and Muse, on bass (lovelier not rough; muscular yearning; soft voice transforming—dream Muse to bed, her feather ear-rings and tattoos; cigarette, cigarette; radio; popular songs evoke girls known and loved when everyone was young).
Alcoholic Brother hated Father worse and loved Mother deeper than did Music. Gigs at dark clubs Brother drunk naked spoke in tongues. Puppets pumped for Music, singer at the center. Brother off-center, disturbed. Drunk fisticuffs. Brother against Brother. Blows.
Played till morning. Hung-over, sick, exhausted. Cigarette. Cigarette. Cigarette.
Worked for Father hot red dawn to gloom humid dusk.
Triumphant screech wailing guitars; stentorian drums; shriek life-plaint. Dissonance stretched pained expressions. Hip gyrations of The Young. Music’s energy hard master. Father-driven Brother anguished loon. Mad dog crazed. Obscene.
Music’s drive: escape Father’s hard labor, see Puppets succeed. Despite more clothes off, booze-inflamed belligerence. Fights in the audience. Blood on Brother; sweat-soaked Music; Muse’s tears.
Focus. Anger. Guitar. Desire. Music drank to frenzy, stopped short of madness. Ability intact. Kept it together. Disciplined. Saved money for studio time. Record. Record. Distribute. Club dates. Mailing list. Record.
Music’s energy hard master.
Fat Music, five nine, 250, no heartthrob. Different scene anyway. No melodies for throbbing hearts, but thunder for the foot stomping, fist pumping, Angry Young. Was Music still young? Twenty-seven. Older side of young. Clubs, auditions, practice, demo-disc, demo-disc, demo-disc. Burdened with work, Father, daylight, Brother’s stark-naked murderous inebriation.
Thread of fire sewing Life through night, sound, Time. Tick tock Time. One day stop playing? Angry Restless Young songs not forever? What would become of his guitar? Years listening playing dreaming to converge in bitter silence? Roof labor in heart-break phantom wind of on-stage memory? Brother dead, Father dead, guitar a souvenir? Nothing to wake to? Nothing?
Perhaps he’d never leave The Young, despite onset of Old. Ridiculous gray fat man, tired styles, out-dated tunes. Memories of restless, Angry Young (now sad, mute, weary Middle-Aged). And Brother at 40? Madness besot him before naked beat him down?
Playing anger amplified lightened burdens. What would become of Music without Life’s harnessed sound? Alone in his room. Headphones. Stomp, grimace. Not Future snarling in the mirror, merely Past?
(I heard what the Young today. . . not music of my day. Where was the music of my day? Songs surrounded me when I was young. Songs of my day, days of my day. No longer my day, so I’m not young? Your day is your striving. What you think is your day, you realize later, later, is not your day at all. Striving was your day. Everything next, the “Else,” just Time eating Tomorrow, spitting Old at Yesterday. Not the music of my day, when I….striving…illusion of “unique.” Not in front of me, as it had been. Behind. Memories real and imagined. Lyrics of youth love striving. Yearning for music-of-my-day days. Joy of striving. Drink, drink, drunk not to recall. Such sad second comings! Memory: sly, cruel doppelganger of Desire. Music, be the blood of Love, play on!)
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