#i might. sing on a stage in front of an audience later this year. audience of mostly strangers.

[daz4i]

not to get sappy but like. when i was young every time i tried singing ppl yelled at me to stop and that i'm bad and should never do it etc. but these days if i sing and then notice that someone's watching me/in the same room as me i'll usually stop, and they'll often say "why did you stop". ppl ask me to sing for them now. it feels insane. anyway my point is finding better people - as well as getting better yourself, both talent wise and in resilience - is possible. keep using your voice, someone out there will love it 👍

[corroded-hellfire]

Tiny Dancer - Eddie Munson x Reader

An As You Wish Story

Summary: It’s your daughter Eliza’s first recital and Eddie couldn’t be prouder

Note: This idea came to me and would not leave me alone until I wrote it 💕

Warnings: older!eddie, dad!eddie

Words: 1.9k

[As You Wish masterlist]

“Why did I have to wear a tie?” Luke complains, yanking at his buttoned-up collar. 

Eddie leans forward so he can see Luke around Ryan, who is seated between them.

“Because this is a special occasion. Your sister’s first recital.”

“They’re three-year-olds,” Luke hisses in a whisper, one hand gesturing towards the empty stage. 

“Hey,” Ryan says to his brother, “she cheered louder than anyone for you at your baseball game. You can do this for her.”

Eddie nods at his oldest in thanks. 

Luke turns to you and asks, “Think her hair is still all up in the bun?”

Wrangling your daughter’s dark curls into the ballerina bun on the top of her head had been a massive undertaking. Some spirals were shorter than others, so there were always a few popping out right as you would go to secure the hair with the white bow. It was an immense test of patience to try time and time again all while Eliza became more antsy and less appreciative of you tugging on strands of hair. She ended up with enough hairspray on her little head to make her hair as hard as a helmet. 

“It’s out of my hands now,” you say, wiping your hands and holding them up in defeat. “If Ms. Benson wants to deal with a curl going rogue, that’s on her.”

The lights dim and eight little ballerinas walk onstage, all with hands on their hips, poofy pink tutus flaring out just below them. Their instructor, Ms. Benson, follows them out to make sure they’re all in the spots they should be. 

Eliza is the third ballerina from the left, and she looks so precious you think your heart might burst. Her white tights and ballet slippers somehow aren’t stained even though they’d been in your house longer than forty-eight hours. The pink leotard and tutu give her the regal air of a princess, though that might just be Eliza’s own aura. She’s nothing if not captivatingly glamorous. It looks like all of her unruly curls are still on their best behavior, but it would be hard to see one or two offenders that sprang loose from the audience anyway.

You peek over at Eddie and see him beaming as he looks at your little girl up onstage. He feels your gaze and turns his head to meet your eyes. The pride on his face makes your heart melt against your ribs. Eliza hasn’t even done anything yet and Eddie is over the moon.

“She’s so beautiful,” Eddie whispers.

“Like her dad,” you reply, giving him a wink. 

He playfully rolls his eyes, but you don’t miss the touch of pink that colors his cheeks. Luke puts his hands on his stomach and pretends to gag. Eddie thunks him on the back of the head. 

Ms. Benson finishes her inspection and gives the girls a thumbs up. She scurries off stage, all ballerinas still with hands on hips. None of them can truly stay still, though. A few are swaying, one is twisting from side to side, and Eliza shakes one little leg, her knee bouncing up and down. You’re unsure if it’s due to nerves or anticipation. 

A few moments later, the speakers above the stage crackle to life. The opening notes of music tinkle and the voice of young Shirley Temple singing On The Good Ship Lollipop floats through the air. 

Eliza and her fellow dancers start to move, tapping the slipper on one foot on the stage in front of them, then switching to the other foot. It’s hard to tell what foot they’re all supposed to be on, since it’s split about fifty-fifty with what foot each girl is using. 

On The Good Ship Lollipop

It's a sweet trip to a candy shop

Where bon-bons play

On the sunny beach of Peppermint Bay

Arms go above Eliza’s head as she spins around, little feet stomping around in a small circle rather than spinning on one foot. Once she’s facing forward again, her arms come down to shoulder level and her knees bend and straighten, bend and straighten, as the ballerinas bounce. Again, all girls are going at different times and speeds, so it’s hard to know on which notes they’re supposed to be up or down on. 

Lemonade stands everywhere

Crackerjack bands fill the air

And there you are

Happy landing on a chocolate bar

Next, it’s one hand back on the hip and one hand waving out to the crowd as the dancers rock from side to side. You specifically remember Eliza practicing this move at home and she kept reiterating how her toes needed to be pointed on the foot she wasn’t balancing on. Only two other girls have their toes pointed at the appropriate times, so you can tell they didn’t take this step as seriously as your daughter. 

The moves of the eight tiny dancers are clunky and mismatched, which makes the performance all the cuter. When they all walk to the right on tippy toes, they’re at varying heights, some more flat-footed than others. On the march back to the left, one girl stomps so hard you can hear the clacking of her slippers. 

With arms out, the girls do one more twirl and then take their bows. 

The crowd breaks into applause and the small girls smile, appreciating the praise for their performances. The ballerina farthest on the right jumps up and down in excitement and the one on Eliza’s left waves furiously to her family. But Eliza stays in her final position, grinning from ear to ear as she looks out at you and her guys. 

“Yay, Eliza!” Luke cheers. 

Ms. Benson comes out, leads the girls in one more bow, then ushers them all off. The applause is still going.

“There’s my ballerina!” Eddie grins and catches Eliza as she runs over and leaps into his arms. He presses a smacking kiss to her cheek and squeezes her in his arms. “Mwah!”

“I did good?” she asks as the other girls reunite with their families all around you. 

“You were wonderful,” you tell her, leaning in to give her a kiss on the opposite cheek. “Did you hear me cheer for you?” Luke asks.

“Yes,” Eliza says with a giggle. “So loud!”

“Of course, it’s Luke,” Ryan says. He ignores Luke’s jab to his ribs as he reaches up and presents his sister with a bouquet of white flowers or different varieties.

Eliza beams and takes the crinkling plastic wrapping from him. She leans in to sniff the flowers and giggles as a few brush her nose.

“I got flowers!”

“For being the best ballerina ever,” you tell her.

“I love! Can you hold ‘em, Daddy?”

“Of course, my little ballerina.” He takes the bouquet from her with his free hand.

Ryan pulls on the bottom ruffle of his little sister’s tutu. “You look like a pretty poof ball.”

“Mama, can you take bow out?” Eliza asks.

“Sure thing, sweet pea.”

Eddie bends down a bit so you can see the top of her head. As gently as you can, you unwind the bow from her hair, wincing when you accidentally tug on it. Tough little girl that she is though, Eliza doesn’t whine.

Once you get it out, you do your best to stifle a laugh. It’s not good enough though, a snort of laughter breaking through your hand covering your mouth. Luke and Ryan laughing as well doesn’t help, either. 

“What?” Eliza asks with a pout.

“Sweetie,” Eddie says, also with a small chuckle, “I think Mommy used so much hairspray on you that your hair is stuck up in a bun all by itself.”

She gasps and her hands go to the top of her head. She feels around the stiff hair, moving backwards to the curly bun that hasn’t fallen one little bit since you took the bow out. Short fingers inspect the bun and Eliza turns to look at you with panicked eyes.

“Mama!” she cries. “My hair!”

“It’s okay, Liza,” you tell her, not able to help a small giggle coming out with your words. You pat her back soothingly. “As soon as you take a bath, it’ll be good as new.”

Your words visibly calm her. Her shoulders lower, though she still keeps her hands up on her hair. Now that she knows it isn’t stuck that way, she’s able to find the humor in it. Small giggles turn into loud laughter as she begins to shake her head from side to side like a wet dog getting out of the bath. Her hair hardly moves, only wobbling a little when she really whips her head around. 

“Do you want me to put your bow back in since we’re going out to eat?” you ask.

Eliza gasps. “We are?”

“Yep! Wherever you want,” Luke says, but adds under his breath, “despite my begging.”

“Yes, bow please.”

“What do you want to eat?” Ryan asks as you secure the soft white bow back around her stiff bun.

“Mmm…pancakes!”

“Ooh, breakfast for dinner,” Luke says, nodding his head in approval. “Nice choice. I’ll gladly wear my fancy schmancy suit while eating a waffle.”

“Okay, you can take off the tie now,” Eddie says. “I don’t feel like washing syrup out of it.”

“You don’t feel like washing syrup out of it?” you ask, raising your eyebrows at your husband.

Eliza pats her dad’s shoulder three times, as if she didn’t already have his attention.

“Mama does wash.”

“You tell him, kid,” Ryan says to his little sister. 

“Why you taking the girls’ side?” Eddie asks as you all begin to head towards the doors.

Ryan looks over at his little brother who is wrestling to get his tie off over his head. It’s currently stuck around his eyes and Luke just keeps tugging on it. 

“I’m not on his side,” Ryan says, looking back towards his dad. 

“Well, help him!” Eddie scolds Ryan.

“I gotcha, Luke,” you say.

A few strategic pulls and you have the knot undone, the green tie falling away into your hand.

“Thanks,” Luke says as he reaches up to rub his nose. “How’d you learn to undo ties?”

“Taking dad’s off,” Ryan says with a smirk.

Both you and Eddie whip your head towards Ryan with wide eyes. Luckily, both of his siblings are too young to get his innuendo. The further he gets into his teenage years, the more subtly inappropriate comments he makes.

“Dad doesn’t wear ties a lot,” Luke says.

“You’re right, Luke,” you say, ruffling his curls. Then you step closer to Ryan and wrap your arm around his head, your hand closing in over his mouth. “And you need to watch yourself, Mr. Teenager.”

Ryan mumbles something beneath your hand and the muffled sound makes Eliza laugh. When you still don’t move your hand, Ryan licks it, and you yank it back. Eliza laughs even harder at that. 

“You think it’s funny?” you tease, wiping your saliva-coated hand off on your daughter’s tight-clad leg. She squirms in Eddie’s arms, her legs kicking and almost catching him in the crotch.

“Ewww!” Eliza squeals. 

“I don’t have germs,” Ryan says.

“Yes, you do,” Luke and Eliza say at the same time. 

“Can I eat at a different restaurant?” Ryan asks.

“Nope,” you say, looping your arm through his. “You’re stuck with us.”

“Yep!” Eliza echoes. “You’re stuck!”

[aois-amaterasu-painting]

Gekirock Live Report - 2024.05.27 Toyosu PIT

Regarding death. And regarding life as well. Through their 22 years of activity up to this point, the GazettE can be said to be a band that has consistently portrayed views on life and death, depicting heavy and intense soundscapes as well as profoundly serene scenes that are the complete opposite. Looking back now, when the album 'DIM' was released in 2009, RUKI (Vo) said in an interview, "We created this album based on the premise of not escaping from anything, including the weight of death and the realities that happen every day." Yes, the GazettE has always been a band that chooses not to escape.

REITA (Ba) suddenly passed away on April 15th, leaving behind a post on social media expressing his wish for "the GazettE to be eternal." The next day, the official website announced the news, and the day after that, RUKI, Uruha (Gt), Aoi (Gt), and Kai (Dr) sent a message to their fans. Just 10 days later, on April 25th, they announced a memorial concert, "HERESY LIMITED 'SIX GUN'S'," to be held at Toyosu PIT on May 27th, REITA's birthday. Their swift response was not an act of escape from the immediate events, but rather the result of facing REITA head-on without even taking time to grieve. (By the way, "SIX GUN'S" refers to the five members and the fans as the sixth member, a phrase used previously as a live title.)

"The usual way of the GazettE's live shows is a place where everyone can let go of their feelings of helplessness and pain from their daily lives. That's what our live shows are about. So today, it's okay for you to cry or go wild. We, all the members, will accept all of your emotions, carry them, and lead you with all our might. That's the resolve with which I sing...!" (RUKI)

First, the concert opened with "LAST SONG," which includes the lyrics "You taught me all the reasons for me to keep living." During "TOMORROW NEVER DIES," RUKI repeatedly looked up at the stage ceiling while singing the lyrics "Can you hear me?" The song "Chijou (痴情)," which REITA publicly stated as one of his favorites, was firmly included in the setlist. In "Hyena," REITA's shouts resonated throughout the venue from the pre-recorded audio as usual. During "Miseinen," RUKI shouted loudly, "On Bass, REITA!" before the bass solo, which was met with applause from the audience. In "Shunsetsu no Koro," during the customary scene where all members except Kai gather at the front of the stage in the latter half of the song, Aoi kept a space for REITA. There are countless examples to mention, but it can be said that tonight's live performance was a memorial for REITA, yet it was filled with moments where REITA's presence was undeniably felt.

"Let me say something that we have all agreed upon as a band. From now on, the GazettE will not have any bassist other than REITA. We will never stop using REITA's sound from our past live recordings, and even for new works, we will continue to use REITA's bass and equipment to the fullest extent, respecting his wishes," (RUKI). After these words, they announced that they would perform again at Toyosu PIT on September 12th, and the last song they played was "UNFINISHED." The lyrics "I want to show you the future" can also be seen as the collective intention of the GazettE. Long live the GazettE.

[aech1gwen]

Happy Birthday, Miles!

A short and late birthday story for Miles inspired by my recent post about Miles and Gwen. (Please forgive me for any writing errors, I have not written fanfiction for almost a year now so I might edit this out along the way as I notice any grammatic errors while rereading.)

----

In a familiar rooftop where she had met both the older Morales's, Gwen nervously paces around waiting for her boyfriend to arrive, her heart drumming a fast rhythm as she rethink this whole surprise. Yesterday evening, she had shared this idea with Mrs. Morales who of course, had wholeheartedly supported it and even thanked her for being such a caring lover for Miles. And now, she can't help be more anxious about Miles's reaction.

She knows she shouldn't pressure herself, besides who was she kidding, this is Miles Morales that she's thinking about. The sweetest and kindest man she had known her entire life, a man with the purest of heart who without hesitation would risk himself for others. Gwen knows that anything she gives him is something he'll cherish for on and on. Which is why, she wanted to give him an evening dedicated to just the both of them, an evening where they can lay under the stars and just be Miles and Gwen instead of Spider-Man and Spider-Woman.

 

---

In the early sunrise that day, Miles was woken up by the softest melody from a piano being played in his dorm. It was one he didn't recognize, a lovely lullaby of piano keys played together that he could tell was professionally and gracefully played. With how gratifying the music was, Miles had almost fallen back asleep until he realizes that he doesn't have a piano in his dorm and Ganke doesn't play one..

 

So how in the?

 

He begins sit up from his bed, carefully listening to music while slowly reaching up to the door then finally hears words, lyrics rather being sung and he had immediately recognized that comforting and gentle voice.

 

I never thought you'd be the one / To hold my heart / I never knew I'd think of you / Each time that we're apart.

Gwen? Miles peeks outside his dorm room to find his lovely girlfriend gracefully playing a massive piano (how it got there? he'll have to ask later) with her sitting down with her eyes closed but her body facing towards Miles's room. He stares in marvel at the scenery in front of him, completely awestruck with how captivating and pretty she looks playing and singing a the same time. He steps closer to her hoping to get a better hearing and look. The girl smiles in recognizing the boy's footsteps but she doesn't open her eyes yet, her fingers pressing on to the black and white keys with so much grace.

 

Each Day / I'll be the one missing your face / And all that you are / Save me / I promise I'd stay here by your side / And I know from the start.

Then as she begins to play the chorus she opens her eyes only to be greeted by a lovestruck Miles Morales, beaming at her breathtaking little concert and carefully listening to the lyrics. Their eyes met and Miles's smile grew even more as his heart beats to the slow rhythm of the piano. He hummed along with her and she continues on to sing softly whilst Miles just stares and listens. Her eyes fall back to the piano when she finally hits the last chorus. The dorm becomes a stage in the eyes of the birthday boy, he is the audience and she is the performer, the art, the star.

Miles is more focused on the lyrics and the unfamiliar song. Had Gwen recommended this to her yet? Or is it an original piece? Whatever the answer is, Miles felt that she was not merely singing for him but for everything they are.

 

When you're here I realized / I'll be the one to testify / Baby / Say that you're mine tonight.

 

Gwen had ended the song with one last key, looking back at the young man who had stars in his eyes and a gentle smile on his lips, she beams back at him chuckling at how adorable he looked. "Happy Birthday, Miles." she whispers in the most loving way imaginable.

Ignorant on his surroundings, he flinched at the shout of a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" from behind him, now noticing the other people in the room carrying a little SpiderMan cake with candles lit up. A soft laughter produces out of Gwen at Miles's reaction while he examines them all and saw that both his close friends from the Spider Society and his family had all gathered up here today to surprise him with big smiles on their faces and presents on their hands. He instantly began to burst into tears his mom runs over to embrace him whilst peppering kisses on his cheeks and forehead.

He started to thank everyone for being here with him on his birthday especially his Spider friends. Hobie comes up to him and greets him with a pat on his head, telling him that it was Gwen's idea to have everyone come over and celebrate with Miles for his 16th birthday. "I thought you'd love the idea of having them all with you on your special day," Gwen clarifies, finally standing up from the piano to stride closer to Miles, "they are important to you after all." she finishes.

Miles smiles adoringly at her while also taking in on what she's wearing now that she has stood up fully for him to admire her clothing. "Thank you so much, mi preciosa. You look very gorgeous in that dress, it suits you a lot." Miles compliments, taking Gwen in to give her a massive hug after he was done admiring her look. A moment later, they head back to the Morales's apartment and had started to celebrate. Miles glances around to see his other relatives on the rooftop with magical decorations that drove Miles to burst into tears again. They really had planned this so well. This was most definitely his best birthday yet.  

With his spider friends all dressed in casual clothes to blend in with the crowd while thel had the time of their lives, his parents and relatives coming to him to greet and blab short about how he's matured so much, his mom embarrassingly taking out baby photos of hin to show to his friends as he tries to stop her (he failed), and how Gwen had went with him to his Uncle Aaron's burial to pay respect. The sky becomes dark and his friends had decided to call it a night going back home to their dimensions.

 

Gwen had also excused herself but explained that she'll be right back to grab something from her dimension. She gives Miles a quick peck on the lips and leaves in a rush which brought in a doubtful look on Miles. While waiting for Gwen, he used his time to spend it with his parents chatting about his life as Spiderman and that even though they were terrified of the responsibility and danger, they were proud of him for trusting them and being honest with them.

And honestly, Miles was content with what he has.

After the events of what transpired, he had become more confident about himself. Sure, it did take a while to bring back into his spirit when Miguel had ruined him so badly on both his mental and physical health, but he has his loved ones who had wholeheartedly supported his decisions and everything that he is.

Of course, it also did take a period of time for him to trust his friends again. Gwen had almost.. almost fallen to her fate like the other Gwen Stacy's. Miles will never forget the day she had suddenly said goodbye and "I'm sorry." out of nowhere making Miles worried when she ran off over to the Green Goblin. Hobie had thankfully warned him about the destiny and tragic deaths of every variants of Gwen which that made him manipulate the canon events in order to save her. 

 

.....just in time..

 

When Miles finally caught her hand, he held onto her, clinging like onto her and pulling her close to his chest yet still somehow not close enough for him. He embraced her so close as if she'll really disappear if he let go, if he hadn't made it in time, she might have been. A waterfall of tears streaming down his cheeks silently hoping that she would open her eyes.

And she did. Gwen had whispered his name, opening up for Miles to see her beautiful ocean blue eyes as she looks at him in longing, causing Miles to whisper affirmations in Spanish whilst she clings into him, falling back unconscious and in tears. Mrs. Morales saw it happened right before her own eyes, the uncontrollable sobs this Spiderman (which she later finds out is her son) had displayed in horror of losing Gwen. She had offered to help which resulting to Miles turning back to her unmasked revealing his identity. But he didn't care, he was too focused on the unconscious girl in his arms.

 

Her safety became his top priority.

 

Many months of being the only spiderman had ended and he had been greeted by amazing new people he can rely on and talk to about his troubles. He had managed to break his own canon event and Gwen's. They had spoken about it in the hospital, all those pent up sentiments and feels were both let out and heard, hugs and apologies were exchange, then that was the day they had shared their first kiss... It took Gwen by surprise, but Miles had to find a way to stop Gwen's nonstop apologies for what she did and how she doesn't deserve his forgiveness so Miles did what he had always wanted to do since that day at the rooftop.

 

Of course, it may have taken the young girl by surprise but she did return the kiss with much sweetness and softness, falling into their own rhythm and setting up their own pace as they test the waters.

 

"Mi amor, let's go talk to other umm.. spider people," Mrs. Morales closes the door after she takes a peek at the happenings inside, letting her son and Gwen have their moment. "I'm sure you have some questions to ask them." Jeff agrees without hesitation and leaves to check on the others. The moment they come back, both have fallen asleep in each other's embrace, Miles never felt happier that day.

 

---

 

Half an hour had passed and Gwen hasn't come back yet. Miles tries to contact her through his watch, no response. He begins to worry, so he goes out of his room only to be met by his mom who had wanted to him to follow her back to the rooftop. "You'll see, Miles." Rio had gently replied to Miles's constant curious questions. As they got nearer, Rio steps ahead to unlock the entrance for her son to witness the shimmer in his eyes when he saw his one final surprise.

 

On the rooftop was a rows of fairylights hanging above to light up the whole rooftop. He examines more, observing the small sunflower petals scattered all over the floor and leading to a path in front of him. He hasn't noticed yet, his mom left and closed the door whilst his eyes was too busy processing this magical sight in front of him. He took in the amount of detailed decorations everywhere then brings his gaze back to the petals, that leads all the way to a makeshift blanket fort with his one and only girlfriend, sitting on the opening with that familiar delicate smile and her hair gently swaying with the breeze.

 

"Happy Birthday, Bambi." She welcomed him using the nickname she used for him since he had compared him to a baby deer. Although Gwen usually uses the nickname as a taunting joke, but she said it so softly and filled with fondness that Miles cherished the name more than ever.

 

"Gwen!" He ran into her arms resulting to them both tumbling back into the fort, lying down on the soft blankets that wraps the floor with an enormous amount of pillows. He was practically squeezing her out of bliss that Gwen couldn't help but laugh and returning the hug with much energy. A couple of instants after, he shifts away sufficiently just to give her the sweetest kiss on lips, "I don't know how you did this but I adore you even more for it." Miles whispers in astonishment, his face near to Gwen and lays their foreheads on one another, he can see the soft tinge of pink rising up from her neck to her cheeks.

 

"I'm glad but I have 1 more gift for you." Gwen murmured quietly, unhurriedly sitting up with Miles to grab her gift just right underneath a distinctive sunflower pillow with a baby deer's head in the center of the flower.

 

Miles will have to snatch that later.

 

Whatever the gift was, it was small that Gwen had suppressed it in her fist, not a single clue of what's inside. Curious, Miles peeks at Gwen and notices how her cheeks had darken into a pretty shade of pink as she seizes one of his hands and gives him—

 

A USB?

 

"It's not really much but I just thought tha— that you know—"

 

Miles darts back at Gwen, encouraging her to take her time responding even though curiousness is ingesting him up on what this gift is about. "I always noticed how much you love listening to music. So I thought that whilst Miguel starts assigning me into more missions, I wanted to explore each of those dimensions and listen to their music and also gather songs that made me think of you and songs I know you might like." Gwen describes slowly to Miles, he bobs his head and smiles then finally understands what the gift is for.. "And I also added songs I wrote about you in it so you could hear them." she looks away in embarrassment, but she couldn't see how Miles was flustered and in tears.

 

He was complimented at the understanding that Gwen paid attention to these songs and instantly thought of him or figured out that he'd enjoy them. She seized on many assignments just so she could compile this much songs for him to enjoy and listen because it's what he loves. Gwen knew how much music means to him and she collected these all just for him. It was overwhelmingly endearing of her, so precious that he gently grabbed her face and started peppering kisses in every single portion of it, causing Gwen to chuckle in shock. He never felt so lucky to have her.

 

Later that night, Miles had insisted that they both listen to each playlist of songs. Giving their thoughts and feelings about how they felt about it. And as they reached the playlist of songs that were written by his girlfriend, he requested if she could maybe sing it to him instead. Without delay, she did what he had pleaded for and he slowly fell asleep in the warmth and comfort of her voice, Gwen shortly follows suit. In the early morning hours, Rio had gently covered the blanket on both of them and took a quick picture for Miles that now served as his new phone wallpaper. Miles had downloaded the songs onto his phone and would listen to them constantly when Gwen was away, sketching every vision and meaning with a big smile on his face...

The End.

- "He draws the stars in his lover's eyes as they only appear when they're together in each other's company."

- "The melodies were sweet and bright as he was that made her adore him more than ever."

[zilabee]

Colin Hanton, re Mimi:

"In those early days we certainly only practised at Mendips on a very few occasions as a full six-piece group. Although she was more relaxed about things than you might expect, Mimi was concerned about the noise we made and possible complaints from either the neighbours or of distracting the student lodgers who were studying next door in the dining room. […] having said that, when we did Mimi was very hospitable, she always served us tea and biscuits in the tiny morning room next to the kitchen.

She had the ability to terrify everybody, a cross between a headmistress and a chief librarian. Yet she was also the first adult I recall who would hold a conversation with you as an equal. She didn't talk down to you or treat you like a silly teenager like a lot of parents would. She would talk to us about the group and the music and other subjects, about life in general. She paid us respect, for which, in turn, I respected her."

Colin Hanton, re Julia:

"He said he was going to see his mum and asked did I want to go with him? I was a bit surprised by this because up to this point no one in the Quarry Men had mentioned John's mum and I'd never thought to ask if he even had one. I just accepted he was living with his aunt for whatever reason. It wasn't unusual at the time - post-war - for a parent to be missing. Think about it: Eric's dad was missing, and Ivan's, both casualties of the war. In those days many families were missing people: not just dads but mums too, because of the Blitz. It was something you almost took for granted, so you didn't talk about it. It was private. Anyway I went along with John to visit his mother.

I was immediately taken with Julia: she was vivacious, full of fun and friendly, not like most mums I knew who could be a bit guarded when you first met them. […] We hadn't been there very long before she produced a banjo and began singing a song. I was fascinated: a mum playing a banjo and singing. In my experience this was a bit different. And she was really good."

"Apart from the church fete the only time I remember seeing Julia in the audience was when we played a club on Penny Lane. […] We could all see that John was really pleased when his mum showed up that night. the rest of us were too: for one thing her presence almost doubled the size of the audience. As I looked out from my drums she was sitting almost at the front, on the right-hand side of the stage quite close to where we were, while other members of the audience were dancing. John acknowledged her from the stage and played up to her quite a lot, as if he was performing just for her. Every time we finished a song, Julia clapped very loudly and enthusiastically which was great because not many others were. She was clearly pleased and proud to see and hear John performing with his group.

After we had finished, Julia came over and told us how much she had enjoyed our set. As ever she was great to be around: one of the few parents who appreciated what we were doing. Jim McCartney was another. However, there was something special and engaging about Julia. All these years later I still feel privileged to have known her and to have witnessed the musical bond between her and John. It was very loving and very strong."

from pre:fab! by Colin Hanton and Colin Hall

[aurorafables]

From the Grey, Chapter 1.

Let's get is started. :) I'm very excited, and I hope you will like it bc I loved to write it.

Pairing: Noah Sebastian X Nicholas Ruffilo

Warnings: 18+, Explicit, Angst, Past character death, Suicidal thoughts

Tags: M/M, Slow burn, Childhood friends, Friends to lovers, Family drama, Band fic

Word Count: 4.2k

Cross-posted: AO3

Author's note: This was originally written in Hungarian, and I'm still looking for a proofreader, so please forgive me the mistakes, strange expressions. Hope it's still enjoyable. Let me know, what do you think. :) Also let me know if you want to be tagged in the upcoming parts :)

Summary: In Noah's life, his best friend was the light, the way out of the abuse he suffered at home. After a childhood full of trauma, in which he was stripped of his wings so many times, he moves in with Nick, whose goal is to let him fly. The band, Bad Omens, led by Noah, begins to soar, which brings at least as many problems as joy. As teenagers grow into men, Noah and Nick drift closer and closer to each other, and the boundaries of friendship and love completely merge.

Chapter 1.

It would be difficult to say exactly when it started. It was as if the dynamic between the two of us had completely changed without being noticed. I could compare it to when I'm doing a tattoo and I want to create a nice color gradient to make the design look as realistic as possible. The point is that you can't tell where one color ends and the other color begins. Even between us, the transition from wanting to hug him in a friendly way to kissing him passionately was imperceptible.

Maybe I woke up like that one day, but it's also possible that the desire had been brewing in me for weeks, months, years, I just blocked it deep down. And what if I felt that little spark the first time we met, but I was still almost a child and couldn't identify it? I have to start this story somewhere. And like most fairy tales, it didn't start well. The mood of the whole band was cast by melancholy over the loss of a friend. But like all dead artists, Keaton remained immortal. His voice will live forever on the records, despite the fact that he was not with us anymore. The music of Too Close To Touch mingled with the cohesive low murmur of the crowd outside in the club's concert hall, where Keaton's vocals echoed painfully through the walls. "Death is not a game with the ones I hold close She was mine, mine, you can't deny Three years is too quick to die"* All his anger, all his pain were in the song he wrote about his little sister, who died lying on a hospital bed. In the text, he blamed God for choosing little Eiley over him. The poor boy had no idea at the time that they were both chosen… Personally, I would have liked to break something if I remembered that he was gone now, and I could only reassure myself that maybe they were already up there together. If it even exists up there. Because what if up there is actually only two meters underground?

The song didn't come at the best moment, because we had to go on stage right after, and I might be able to hide my mood in front of the audience… I glanced at Noah and my heart sank when I saw him banging his head against the wall, clutching the microphone in his hand, next to the stage, which we will soon have to walk up to. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, which I completely forgot to do in parallel. I was so worried about him. I knew he'd hate himself for that if his voice cracked while singing the opening lines of The Death Of Peace Of Mind. His maximalism was what he could torture himself with the most. Also, he had to be up there alone at the beginning of the song, we didn't join until later. I walked to him and gently put my hand on his shoulder, but I still managed to scare him a little because he pulled away before he opened his eyes. When he saw me, he almost snuggled back into my hand. It reminded me of my very first cat, the little black ball of fur I found on the street when I was barely ten. I named him Dusk because of his color and when he came to us I did everything I could to fatten him up. We slept together in my bed at night, because his soft purr always lulled me to sleep quickly. It was amazing how much Dusk and Noah were alike. Even in the semi-darkness next to the stage, my best friend's dark brown eyes glistened with unshed tears, which he tried to quickly blink away. His shoulders slumped forward in the thin linen jacket, and I'd bet his fingers were white under the faux-leather glove he wore on his left hand, clutching the microphone like a lifeline. He and Keaton were very close. In the last two years, they spent a lot of time together, especially during and after the Covid epidemic, when it was possible to travel. Even when they were far away, they kept in touch on a daily basis. Keaton was good with all of us, but he had a stronger bond with Noah. He wanted to remember him by playing their songs during the break after our opening band, but Eiley's song has never come at such a bad time.

“We can extend the time for five more minutes,” I told him, and meanwhile I looked back at Jolly, who was still fiddling with his headphones with the help of a sound technician, and Folio was deep in his own thoughts drumming on the wall, sometimes doing shoulder circles as a warm-up. "Everything's fine," Noah replied in a weak voice, to which I nodded hesitantly, lowered my hand, and took a step back. "I'm worthless to the world You're innocent and pure God, why didn't you choose me over her?”* They signaled to Noah, who gave a thumbs up as if everything was fine. Nonsense. I knew nothing was okay. Keaton's voice faded outside and soon the intro to our song began. I looked down at my guitar and after stretching my fingers I strummed a few chords just to pass the time. When Noah walked out and the crowd cheered, he wasn't as lost as he had been two minutes ago. He immediately filled the stage and sang like a fucking siren without faltering. I shook my head, feeling a little angry at myself for constantly underestimating him. It was about time to get used to that Noah wasn't ruined by all the crap that happened around him. On the contrary, it only strengthened him even more.

Two months later, I was sitting on the steps of the tour bus in Phoenix, beer in one hand and a half-smoked cigarette in the other, when I heard Noah's footsteps behind me. After a concert he liked to clear his head, so I thought he was going for his usual walk and I thought that I could join. I stood up to let him go, and when he stepped next to me, I was hit by the smell of his perfume. He had just stuffed his wallet into the back pocket of his pants, so I began to suspect that he had other plans for that evening. “Karin is in the city,” he said to me, but he didn't look at me, just watched the night lights. The blue neon lights of the bar glistened on the brunette's hair, and the tattoos running down his arms coiled around his skin like snakes. I thought I still had time. I thought I could figure something out before they met again in Salt Lake City. I blew out the last of the smoke, extinguished the butt, then slipped out of my denim jacket and held it out to him. “We will leave in the morning, be here by then.” Noah hesitantly took my jacket and looked at me. “That's it?” he asked in disbelief. I don't know what he expected. Maybe to remind him again that woman is crazy like hell? "I'm tired," I confessed to him. ”I can't save you from someone whose arms you keep running into. But I can do something to save you from catching a cold,” I gestured towards the jacket. He still didn't move, even though the situation was becoming more and more pressing for me, and the spring night wasn't nearly warm enough to keep me from getting goosebumps. I wrapped my arms around myself and hobbled in place. I kicked small stones with my boots on the asphalt of the parking lot and waited. I didn't care if I froze there, I wouldn't leave Noah alone as long as he needed me. The boys' laughter could be heard from inside the bus, a car honked on the street not far from us. I raised my head and immediately met a pair of dark eyes. Stared. I don't know how long or why. I swear he didn't even blink. Then he reached out and touched my arm under the sleeve of my shirt. “You are cold.” I blinked a few times, then started to move. I took the jacket from his hands and draped it over his shoulders. “But you don't have to be cold,” I answered him with an encouraging smile. “Everything will be okay. I will be okay,” he said quietly and gloomily. I don't know which of us he wanted to convince with this, but it didn't work. The smile immediately melted off my face. “Noah…” It's been a long time since my voice sounded so desperate when I said his name. I think all my fear must have been on my face because Noah took a step back and shook his head. I was ready to try again to get him to stay. We could have done so many things. From walking to sitting down to play video games with the boys. Or we could have gone to a nightclub to drink and to flirt with girls. Whatever, just don't let that cunt touch him again… He brushed his hair back and shrugged as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “I have to go, Nick. We will talk in the morning.” And that was it. There was nothing I could do to keep him there.

I got home from the tattoo salon late that night and was so tired that all I could think about was my bed. But as soon as I stepped through the door, the strong smell of weed hit me. It went through the small apartment so intensely that I almost got sick of it. "Shit," I muttered to myself as I kicked off my shoes, dropped my bag on the floor, and headed for the bedroom with the goal of scolding Noah. The door was not locked on the little hole we called the bedroom, which was completely filled with my bed and the mattress that Noah had been sleeping on for months. When I entered, he was sitting on the bed, knees pulled up to his chin, and he was holding a weed cigarette between his long, thin fingers. As if he had completely forgotten about it, the ash fell onto my blanket and I was amazed that it hadn't caught fire yet. Noah didn't even notice I got home because he was listening to music on his earphones, and I was sure he was just physically in the room by the way he looked. I leaned towards him, took the cigarette from his fingers and crushed it in the ashtray. With that, I finally drew attention to myself, because after he looked up at me tensely, with red eyes. The Asian features of his face came to life, which normally I would have stared in fascination, but this was not a normal case. I forgot I wanted to yell at him for wasting the weed and almost setting our apartment on fire. Because by then we both owned that little flat. In the corner, next to my guitar, there was also his. Noah's things appeared in the bathroom, his shampoo, his toothbrush, he got half of my wardrobe and sometimes half of my bed… His clothes were just as messily scattered as mine, and he already had his favorite mug, from which he preferred to sip his coffee in the morning. I wanted to think that his eyes were red from smoking weed, but when he spoke, I had no doubt that he must have been crying for hours.

"I thought you'd come home earlier today," he said in a nasal tone after stopping the music and taking out his earphones. In the meantime, I opened the window without holding him responsible for why he did not do so. “I thought so too,” I answered him, then I fell down on the bed next to him. ”Another guest came at seven, and thought I would do miracles in two hours with an old, messed-up tattoo.” Noah nodded, then slowly stretched out his infinite legs. He was only sixteen then, but already a little taller than me. We sat speechless for a while and looked at each other. I was even more overcome by fatigue, and for a moment my eyes were probably closed too long while blinking, because I was jolted when Noah moved next to me. He took a deep breath, then let it out shakily. Our tattooed arms touched and I could feel the tremors running through his bones as he reached for his phone. Oh my god, he was so skinny. If I touched his arms, I was afraid I would crush him as if his limbs were made of thin glass fibers. “I got a message,” he whispered into the dimness, then put the phone on my thigh. I picked it up with a scared heart and started reading. I had a guess of what it might be, and honestly… I just didn't understand why it didn't come sooner. At first, Noah's mother tried to lure her son back to her side with sweet, but poisoned words, which in the end turned into mere threats. Every fucking word she wrote made me feel nauseous. “After half a year, she remembered that she had an underage son. Maybe she expects some kind of reward for it?” I asked, but mostly I meant it as a poetic question.

Noah tensed up next to me and started breathing faster. “I… I can't go back there. If… if you say I have to go back to her, I… rather… I…” "Hey Noah, I would never say that," I turned to him and tried to speak in the most soothing voice possible. But I was too late… By that time, tears were already falling, and he was clutching the crumpled bottom of his two-size-larger shirt. I was totally in shock because I had never seen anything like this before. What kind of friend is who doesn't recognize that the problem is so big? Noah was an old soul with a lot of shit and loss behind him, who blended in perfectly with the adults, so I tended to forget that he was still just a kid. But now there was a child next to me who was terrified. Whom fear brought out the worst. "I shouldn't be here," he said between sobs, to which I shook my head so fast that my hair hit my cheek. I knelt on the bed, turned to face him and tried to remove his fingers from his clothes. I just wanted to hold his hand… I just wanted him to know I was with him. “Noah…No! Don't tell me this!” I protested loudly, but he didn't listen to me. It's like he didn't even hear what I said. Instead, he drove himself deeper and deeper into madness. “I should have died a long time ago…years ago.” If he had only stabbed a dagger into my stomach with his words, this was the moment he twisted it. My chest felt tight and I couldn't breathe. Noah snapped his head back hard and his skull hit the wall loudly. After that, I couldn't focus on my own panic anymore, without thinking I put my hand on his head to protect him from himself. I didn't care that I might not be able to tattoo. My fingers ached as they met the hard wall, but I didn't really notice the pain. All I cared about was Noah and how I could keep him safe. I've been trying to figure out how to fix this. His cries and animalistic whining still ring in my ears, mixed with the sound of my heart's frantic beating. I wrapped my arms around his head and pulled him close as he just cried and cried, his tears completely soaking my shirt. He was hugging my thighs as I knelt next to him, finally not wanting to hurt himself anymore.

That night, I only left his side when I brought him water from the kitchen. Then we both got into bed and Noah turned to face me, but half of his red face from crying was hidden in the pillow and the other half was covered by his hair. I quickly got rid of my tight jeans, threw them on the side of the bed and took his phone in my hand. He was watching what I was doing, but he didn't speak. First, without any guilt, I deleted his mother's message, then opened his music. It didn't surprise me that he was listening to Castle Of Glass by Linkin Park when I got home. I flipped through the playlist and started our favorite song As Cities Burn after giving him one of the earbuds. "Won't you come down, heaven. Won't you come down? Won't you cut through the clouds? Won't you come down?”** At the first chorus, he already closed his eyes, and only then did I allow myself to relax a little. I carefully reached towards him, smoothed the strands falling from his face behind his ears, and then I closed my eyes too. I begged myself to fall into a dreamless sleep. In the morning, when we woke up, Noah helped me untangle the earbuds’ cord from my hair. We parted laughing, shoving a piece of toast into our mouths. He went to a band rehearsal, and I went to a place that has become my second home, the tattoo salon. My fingers got away with it quite well, with a small bruise on one of the joints, which only started to hurt a little towards the end of the day. We didn't discuss anything else about that night. Maybe I regret it since then, but what can I say? I was just a scared kid too, too stupid to help his friend more. Noah's mother died less than two months later. I didn't feel for a minute that she was a loss to the world.

He has become a grown man since and he doesn't need me to protect him from the world. I watched motionless as he walked down the street to get into a taxi. His tall, thin figure disappeared around the corner and I could finally get my legs moving. I got on the bus, grabbed a new bottle of beer from the fridge and joined the others. Folio showed Matt some funny videos and Jolly typed a message on his phone. I sat next to him on the couch and started reading the news. "He won't be able to do this for long," said Jolly next to me in a strong Swedish accent. When it was late and he was tired, he didn't pay so much attention to speaking English with perfect pronunciation. But there's nothing wrong with that, we've been working together for so long, and we've been friends for so long that we understand each other with half a word. “What do you mean?” I turned to him. I slipped out of my boots, slid off the couch, and put my feet up on the small table. I rested my head on the backrest and wiped the steam from the side of the glass with my thumb. “For Noah's secret night meetings. Matt had told him before when saw that he wanted to go out on the town all by himself.” “It doesn't happen that often. And it's not a secret where he's going, he told me he was meeting Karin,” I took him to my defense immediately. “Anyway, why can't he go? The fans had left for an hour, no one was out there. And it's not that he hit the town on foot. He called a taxi.” “That girl is strange,” Jolly grimaced. You do not say.. “When she came to our place, Noah wasn't quite himself.” Recently, I felt guilty for not trying to stop him more firmly, but I reminded myself: Noah pointed out rather angrily during an argument about this that I can't protect him from everything. "If a little fuck puts him in a better mood, we're all fine with that," Folio interjected when Matt left us alone. Maybe I gave him a nasty look from behind my beer bottle, because he held his hands up defensively. I took another sip, then realized I didn't even want the beer. I put the bottle on the table, brushed my teeth in our small bathroom, and went to sleep. At least I wanted to sleep, but I must have been tossing and turning for another hour.

It felt like I had barely closed my eyes when something started to tingle my nose. I brushed it off at first, but then Noah's soft chuckle crept into my consciousness. I groaned then pulled the pillow over my head planning to go back to sleep. I kicked the blanket off because I was hot, and it turned out, it was a big mistake. Ice cold fingers touched my side, the muscles in my stomach jumped and I let out a muffled moan. “Fuck me!” I grumbled hoarsely as I caught Noah's hand, who was just putting the other one in front of my mouth. "Shh, the others are still sleeping," he whispered excitedly with sparkling eyes. “I want to sleep too,” I answered after pulling his hand away from my mouth. “Come on, Nick. I'm hungry. I want breakfast.” “Why can’t you eat?” “Missing your company.” I sighed. “Go to the kitchen. Give me five minutes and I'll be there.” "If I leave you here, you'll go back to sleep," he said accusingly, as if he had every right not to let me go back to sleep. “And I would go a little further for breakfast than the bus kitchen. But I promise, it's worth it. You will love the place.” Another sigh, but I sat up with half-closed eyes, then pulled on a pair of pants and a thick hoodie. My jacket was still on him and he didn't seem like he wanted to give it back.

After five minutes, Noah got off the bus energetically, and I, wrapped in my hoodie, got off the bus grumpily. It was just dawn, around half past six. Noah finally slowed his steps and stopped in front of me, facing me. My hair would have been a complete disaster, not to mention the pillow creases on my face, or my eyes, which I could barely keep open. "You're sweet when you are sleepy," he said finally. He looked at me with a smile, then pulled the hood over my head and did the same with his own. ”I don't want to be recognized.” “Come on! Who would be awake this early?” I asked sarcastically, yawning into my palm. We walked down the street and luckily he was right, we really didn't have to walk far before we got to the breakfast place. Too tired to read the sign, I just entered the small but friendly coffee shop and sighed as I was greeted by a pleasant warmth inside. I said hello to the gray lady behind the counter. When I saw the first cat, licking its paws on a chair, I turned to Noah questioningly, who just shrugged. "I thought you missed your little monsters," he said. A big smile spread across my face. A cat café. I was already less sleepy when I crouched next to the kitten and let him sniff my hand. Then I noticed even more hairballs and I didn't even know which one to go to. Meanwhile, Noah ordered us coffee and breakfast at the counter. I heard the old lady laughingly answer him when asked why they were open so early: “If the kittens wake up, why can't I open the cafe?”

I smiled as I scratched the head of a calico sitting next to the wall, and we blinked at each other for a long time. After ordering, Noah came over and sat next to me. "The chick likes you," he remarked when the kitten was placed on my lap. “What kind of chick? She is a lady here,” I caressed the hairy ears. Laughing softly, Noah leaned forward and, using the kitten etiquette he'd learned from me, introduced himself to our newest friend before petting her. Now that the hood was off his head, I noticed the bite marks on his neck. The dark red spot was located right on the border between his tattoo and his bare skin so that it was just noticeable. I swallowed, tore my gaze from his neck, and reassured myself that Noah didn't seem as lost now as he did after most of his meetings with Karin. Maybe she has changed. Maybe she finally realized what she had to lose? Noah's fingers accidentally touched mine in the kitten's soft fur, and we smiled at each other as the furball began to purr loudly. I haven't seen Noah this happy since before Keaton's death. Maybe Karin isn't so bad after all? We ate breakfast sitting on the floor with a cat each in our laps and had to run back to the bus before departure.

*Too Close To Touch - Eiley **As Cities Burn - Contact

[wellpresseddaisy]

Cherry Ripe

@momo-t-daye and @greens-your-color...you wanted to see the fic that might contain words born the same year as Severus. This concept has been knocking around my brain for a while, but finally found a place thanks to both of you!

“Would you kindly sod off, Headmaster?” Severus growled.

He knew going into the staff room for a digestif with Minerva would prove to be a mistake. For one, the coffee was appalling. For another, it gave Dumbledore a prime opportunity to corner him.

Minerva, the traitor, sniggered into her substandard coffee.

“It’s such a very small request, Severus. Miniscule, even. And think how much joy you could bring into the lives of the aged?” Albus wheedled. “They would be so terribly excited to see you perform again. Your grandmother was a favorite of many.”

Severus nearly bit his own tongue in outrage.

“Last year, you degenerate old codger, you had me in a catsuit and some reprobate kept yelling ‘show us your arse then, darling’.” He hoped his scathing tone would singe the old arsehole’s beard off.

“Douglas Harriot went off to his next great adventure this December last,” Albus explained hurriedly, sensing his moment. “He won’t be in the audience to trouble you. And it is for charity.”

Severus favored him with the stink eye that sent most students scarpering for the hall before detentions went flying.

“I’m sure you’re very frightening, dear boy. Not one of us wonders how you keep your more vivacious students in check. I suppose I could manage to find an extra free weekend for you each term and…seven more free evenings this year?”

���What do you have in mind?” Severus sighed.

“There was a really splendid scene in a show on the telly that I saw with Cecilia and Deidre the last time I went round for tea…you’re not adverse to cross-casting, are you?”

Cherry ripe, Cherry ripe

---------

Which was how Severus found himself seven weeks later, crossing the stage in the Jolly Jents Revue (all proceeds to go to the Aged Alchemists Fund) while wearing a flame-colored velvet corset (with matching and spangled pants) and singing:

Ripe I cry…

He tossed a long curl over his shoulder and hoped against hope that the pompadour they’d swooped his front hair into would hold. It had to last at least through You'd Be Surprised, Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers and The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me.

The extra free weekends would be worth it.

"Show us your arse then, darling!"

For example, he could use one to murder Lucius Malfoy.

[tomorrowxtogether]

TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s Beomgyu Is Finding Joy Everywhere

Beomgyu reflects on how TXT has evolved over the years and life in the spotlight

“It’s been a perfect day so far,” Beomgyu announces as he takes his seat in an Osaka, Japan hotel room. It’s a sunny day, near lunchtime, and while the members of TOMORROW X TOGETHER don’t have a concert the day we meet, there’s still plenty on the agenda for the bandmates (this solo interview included) as they prepare for tomorrow’s show.

If the day’s schedule feels daunting at all, Beomgyu, who is essentially the middle child of the five-member group, doesn’t show it. He seems genuinely happy to chat, happy to be on tour, and happy to reflect on the factors that coalesced to get TXT to this point in their career. In fact, the longer the day goes on, the more enthusiasm Beomgyu seems to have.

Beomgyu was known as the “mood maker” of the team for a long time, a phrase mostly used in K-pop to designate a group member who can be counted on to energize everyone around them. “I always think I should pay back all this energy and love,” he says, nodding as he speaks, his shaggy black hair swishing in front of his eyes. “So I try to do that.”

These days, though, he doesn’t feel as much responsibility to set the tone. “The joy that I get the most in my everyday life is my members,” he explains. “Recently, all the members have become mood makers.” Beomgyu notes that his fellow TXT members (Soobin, Yeonjun, Taehyun, and Hueningkai) tend to see each other more often than they see their biological family these days. “I think we were close to being best friends before, but now I think we are a true family,” he says with a smile.

The group is on the road right now for the “ACT: SWEET MIRAGE” tour (secure tickets here), and Beomgyu shares that prior to 2022’s “ACT: LOVE SICK” tour, he didn’t get nervous in the moments right before the band steps onstage, when the crowd’s anticipation reaches thunderous levels. This year, though, the scale has increased: “Now, since the stages got bigger, and the venues got bigger, and I have to fill up a bigger stage, I think there is more pressure. I try to change the pressure into good nerves.”

Like the mood maker aspect of TXT’s group dynamic, the members share responsibilities musically, too; they each sometimes sing and sometimes rap, and all are very strong dancers. Beomgyu’s deeper, huskier voice is easy to identify in the mix. The story goes that when he first appeared on the radar during a talent search, staff members at the former Big Hit Entertainment (now HYBE) were willing to travel to Beomgyu’s hometown of Daegu, South Korea to complete his audition since he was nervous about missing school. They weren’t going to let a talent like this get away, even during exam week.

There’s a concept in K-pop called “duality,” and Beomgyu is considered a prime embodiment of this phenomenon. The term refers to the switch some artists can pull off between their onstage and offstage personas; Beomgyu’s reputation when spending time with his members is sillier and goofier than the sharp, poised identity he can assume in front of audiences or the camera.

What’s even more fascinating is the way he can transition back and forth between the two: During the concert at the Maruzen Intec Arena in Osaka, Beomgyu sections off part of the crowd near him and leads them in spontaneous choreography with their bright, glittering lightsticks. To an outsider, the audience members appear so coordinated that they might assume Beomgyu had planned this moment ahead of time; in reality, the onlookers are just that locked in when he stands before them. They’d follow him anywhere. Moments later, still giggling as the next song begins, Beomgyu slips back into professional mode without batting an eye.

Beomgyu clearly finds joy onstage, but he also revels in the magic of songwriting. He’s not the sort of creative that keeps a notebook of ideas, he explains, but rather the kind that has to let inspiration strike. “I have to walk the corridors or watch the sunset, and then I go into the studio right away and do all nighters for two or three days,” he shares. “I someday want to write a song that solely has my story and my vibe.”

Throughout the “ACT: SWEET MIRAGE” tour, the members have been performing a currently unreleased song called “Blue Spring,” which Beomgyu says “incorporates the stories of all the members.” By the end of the global trek, as audiences continue to familiarize themselves with the song, he’s hopeful that the crowd will be singing the lyrics back at full volume. In the meantime, though, his priorities are set: “I just want to pull off a really perfect show with my members,” he says.

As for what Beomgyu envisions beyond the working world in which the five members are so enmeshed, he’s content taking it day by day. “My goal is living happily and finding small happinesses,” he says before pausing, thinking about a time even further down the road. “Maybe one day I can open my own coffee shop and live quietly.”

[isobelleposts]

My Live Theater Watches Through The Years

By Cassandra Isobelle [Sep 8, 2024]

Something to love about live theater is that the art cannot only be found on the stage but also with the audience—how the image of so many people gathered in one room to sit in unified appreciation of the show is an artwork in itself.

Annie (2016)

Sometime in September of 2016, I was gifted with the full dream experience of a theater kid with front row seats near the orchestra and a picture with the cast. And, if that wasn’t enough, little me also ran into Michael de Mesa as Daddy Warbucks.

I didn’t know then how that night would be the start of a long-time fascination towards performing arts—that only a few months later, I would find myself in an audition room for the 2019 run of “Matilda”. At the time, all I knew was that the music made me happy and that a dog acting on stage was extremely cool.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (2017)

To be frank, I don’t remember much about ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’, so if given the task to rank all of these shows, you might find it a bit low. But, nonetheless, just like all the others yet to be mentioned, the unified effort put into the whole production impressed me. With each step into a show, I found myself more eager to experience the theater life myself—whether backstage or not, I wasn’t sure yet.

Matilda (2019)

‘Matilda’ was my first and last attempt at an onstage role. As an extremely shy kid, I’m not sure how I was able to get through singing in front of so many important people, and explains why I never did again. Its story was inspiring as a kid, because after that, I started to think of the possibility of directing and writing, or anything where my shyness wouldn’t hinder much.

Watching a group of actors my age able to carry out such a lengthy and impressive performance, with amazing choreography and clever use of props, made me believe that I could do something great, as well. ‘Matilda’ would forever be one of my favorites—whether it came down to the original film, live performance, book, or album. I, a quiet kid who buried herself in books and had a hard time speaking up, saw a lot of myself in Matilda. So despite not getting to play her character on stage, I at least lived a part of her in the real world.

Ang Huling El Bimbo (2023)

Ang Huling El Bimbo, my all-time favorite and first watch after the drawn-out pandemic. Watching this through a screen was beautiful enough, but seeing it with my own two eyes and hearing the music live was a different kind of captivating.

For some reason, their [Eraserheads] songs seemed to perfectly fit events in our lives—providing a sort of soundtrack that we fondly remember many years later.

Merwin Tee, Music Publisher [AHEB Playbill - pg. 6]

AHEB was simple yet heart-wrenching. The simplicity of the script that came off so naturally the actors’ tongues is what made the story feel so raw and humane. It portrayed the many truths of life, specifically in contemporary Manila, which included all of the good and bad. AHEB’s story is not only of the characters’ but also of many Filipinos out there.

Seeing my own culture on stage and hearing the language I speak everyday play a massive role in the delivery of a beautiful story was moving and even inspired me in my own project (see pictures below).

Bawat Bonggang Bagay (2023)

Bawat Bonggang Bagay is a one-man show starring Jon Santos that talks about mental health and the small things that make life worth living for. For example, “amoy ng bagong lutong ulam”, or it could also be “mga lollipop na iba yung flavor sa gitna”, or even something as simple as “ice candy”. This instills the idea that happiness is everywhere.

BBB was an intimate and interactive gem, held in Zobel De Ayala Recital Hall where it held only a limited number of heads, making it all the more meaningful. The show was successful in making you feel a part of its world, having you sit only a hand-stretch away from the actor and giving you lines to deliver and scenes to participate in.

This is the most unique theater experience I have had, and if ever doors open for a re-run, I highly recommend that you secure your tickets!

Miss Saigon (2024)

This was my first watch of an international cast, and immediately, the richness of the production proved why Miss Saigon is considered a world-class act. My seat may have been a bit far in the steep theater of Solaire, but even from such a distance, I was able to clearly capture the performance with its large-scale designs and magnified acting.

”One piece of advice I think I can impart is just to enjoy every moment of the process of creating the character, but create something that you can call that is absolutely yours.

Lea Salonga’s advice for Abigail Adriano [GMA News]

Miss Saigon, a show that has brought so much pride to the country through the success of Lea Salonga, coming home to the Philippines with several shows was quite a big deal. And seeing both Abigail Adriano (Kim) and Seann Miley Moore (The Engineer) be Filipinos made my heart happy, knowing that the pride Lea Salonga and Jon Jon Briones once brought was carried on.

Miss Saigon was truly beautiful, never letting my eyes drift from the stage.

Buruguduy-stun-stugudun-stuy (2024)

As much as I try to avoid it, it is inevitable to compare this show with Ang Huling El Bimbo, both deriving its soundtracks from popular Filipino bands. Both were touching to the heart but definitely opposites when it came to concept and production.

The title ‘Buruguduy-stun-stugudun-stuy’ was not the only hard thing to comprehend, but so was its story. The show surely matched the chaos of Parokya Ni Edgar songs through its absurd and overwhelmingly packed script. If AHEB was simple and slice-of-life, well…Buruguduy surely is everything but that.

From dancing penises to a lesbian cop x alien couple and so much more, Buruguy had it all. There was not a moment when the stage was empty, so if chaos and color is your thing, then Buruguduy-stun-stugudun-stuy is for you.

Mula Sa Buwan (2024)

Everything about Mula Sa Buwan is still fresh in my mind—the jokes, the kilig, the pain. Although it started off a bit slow with the dialogue feeling too lengthy and dragged on, it definitely picked up once the Cyrano x Christian dynamic was introduced. From then on, the first part of the show was heavily carried by its humor and filled the theater with laughter.

The second part, on the other hand, tugs at your heart. It is the part of the show where war breaks loose, people die, secrets are uncovered, and some of the most painfully poetic lines are delivered. MSB’s use of the Philippine language shows off its beauty and depth.

“It’s a responsibility. In a nation full of fools, misfits, and dreamers…what Mula sa Buwan has always promised is to offer its magic — to believe, to change lives and to bring the Filipino audience together.”

MSB is a musical that is continually progressing with each production and one that I believe has yet to reach its fullest potential. So don’t hesitate to secure your tickets for its next run!

[krispyweiss]

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Day No. 2, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Sept. 30, 2023

Leyla McCalla controls the weather.

An overcast day in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park suddenly turned sun-soaked when the former Carolina Chocolate Drop sang: My face to the sun as she performed Our Native Daughters’ “I Knew I Could Fly” during her Sept. 30 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass set on the Towers of Gold Stage.

“That’s awesome,” she said mid-verse as the Earth’s star emerged from the afternoon clouds.

Following the electric and steel guitar instrumentals of Hermanos Gutiérrez on the adjacent Swan stage and playing cello, banjo and electric guitar, backed with rhythm section and electric guitar, McCalla covered Kendrick Lamar’s “Crown” and offered a gumbo of New Orleanian, Haitian and American music delivered in English and Haitian Creole while showcasing her the Capitalist Blues and Breaking the Thermometer LPs.

The Sound Biteses’ day had begun in the pre-noon fog with the down-in-the-holler, old-time string music of Dry Branch Fire Squad playing the songs of Gillian Welch, Doc Watson and Bill Monroe on the Banjo stage. Later, it was gospel from the McCrary Sisters, who sung Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground,” “Amazing Grace” and other numbers backed by a full band during short, five- to 15-minute sets on the Rooster stage, where Brennan Leigh offered a lunchtime menu of traditional country music.

It was also on the Rooster that Emmylou Harris previewed her Sunday appearance by guesting with Shawn Camp and Verlon Thompson and closing their Doc Watson tribute set with Guy Clark’s “Old Friends.”

Shortly afterward, Bettye LaVette sauntered onstage to deliver her grinding version of Bob Dylan’s “Things Have Changed.” From here, it was an impassioned reading of songs from the Randall Bramblett-written LaVette! album as the singer prowled the stage and proved her 77 years have cost her nothing in vocal prowess and stage presence.

“If I could write, this is what I would have said,” LaVette said in introducing the new songs, which worked better on stage than on wax.

Rickie Lee Jones attracted a ginormous crowd to Banjo - “I haven’t seen so many people in front of me for so long,” she said, soaking it in - and their enthusiasm rubbed off. Jones, whose band included Vilray on guitar and vocals, plus accordion and bass, was animated as she danced around the stage and crooned like a lounge singer when she wasn’t playing guitar, banjo or piano.

Opening with a radically rearranged “Danny’s All-Star Joint” more suited for the streets of New Orleans than the fields of Golden Gate, Jones went on to perform “I Won’t Grow Up” - for the first time, she said - “Last Chance Texaco,” “We Belong Together” and a sinewy rendition of Steely Dan’s “Show Biz Kids” that found Jones lifting her orange sweater to sing of the Rickie Lee T-shirt beneath.

Give RLJ the MVP for turning in HSB No. 2’s No. 1 gig.

Faced with the quintessential festivalgoers’ dilemma, Mr. and Mrs. Sound Bites split the last hour between Steve Earle’s uncharacteristically sleepy solo-acoustic set on the Banjo and Irma Thomas’ barnburner R&B/soul revival at the Rooster.

At 82, Thomas played the day’s most rambunctious set, ripping into “Time is on My Side” and getting the audience bouncing and waving their handkerchiefs on her mashup of “I Done Got Over It” -> “Iko Iko” -> “Hey Pocky Way” -> “I Done Got Over It.” That one might be ringing through Golden Gate’s trees along with the birdsong for some time to come.

Read Sound Bites’ coverage of HSB Day One here.

10/1/23

[say3x]

the GazettE 2024.05.27 Toyosu PIT

...

gekirock.com

Writer: Yuki Sugie Photographer: KEIKO

TANABE, KYOKA UEMIZO

About death... And also about life...

Over the past 22 years of activity, the GazettE has been a band that has often used the concept of life and death as a theme, creating heavy and intense sounds, as well as profound scenes that are the complete opposite. You could say that. Thinking back on it now, when the album “DIM” was released in 2009, RUKI (Vo) answered this in an interview. "I created this album on the premise of not escaping from the reality of things that happen every day and the weight of death."

Yes, the GazettE is a band that never chooses to escape.

Reita (Ba) suddenly passed away on April 15th, leaving a post on social media saying, "I hope the GazettE will last forever.'' The next day, the truth was announced on the official website, and the day after that, Ruki, Uruha (Gt), Aoi (Gt), and Kai (Dr) sent messages to fans, and just 10 days later... On April 25th, Uruha announced that it would hold a memorial performance "HERESY LIMITED 'SIX GUN'S'" at Toyosu PIT on May 27th, which is Reita's birthday. Far from escaping from what had happened, I think this was the result of them facing Reita without even taking time to grieve.

(*By the way, "SIX GUN'S" means 5 members and fans = 6th member, and has been used in a live title before.) "The way the GazettE's usual live shows are, is a place where everyone can go home and let out their everyday, unresolved, painful, painful, and hopeless feelings, and that's where we are. It's a live show. That's why today, you can cry and be as wild as you want. All the members will accept all of your emotions and carry you forward with all your might. I'll sing...!" (Ruki)

First of all, the song that was played at the beginning was "LAST SONG", which includes the lyrics 'You taught me/The present is filled with the meaning of life'. During "TOMORROW NEVER DIES", Ruki sang the lyrics "Can you hear me?" while looking up at the sky over and over again. "Chijou", which Reita had professed to be his favorite song, was also firmly included in the set. During "Hyena," Reita's shout echoed through the venue as usual from the existing recording sound source. Even in "Minor", the bass solo after Ruki loudly shouted "On Bass, REITA!" received applause from the audience. In "Haruyuki No Koro," in the second half of the song, the usual scene where members other than Kai gather at the front of the stage, Aoi kept the space for Reita. The list goes on and on, but it can be said that while tonight's live performance was a performance in memory of Reita, it was also one where you could definitely feel Reita's presence everywhere.

~Let me tell you what the members decided upon as a consensus~

From now on, we will not have bassists other than Reita in the GazettE. I'll never stop using Reita's sound for the live takes I've done, and I'll continue to use Reita's basses and equipment for new productions, so I can respect his legacy as much as possible. (Ruki)

After these words, they announced that they would be performing again at Toyosu PIT on September 12th, and the last song they played was "UNFINISHED". I guess that the lyrics "I want to show you the tomorrow" are also the GazettE's general intention.

Forever the GazettE.

[dankusner]

FANCY — by Ray Davies (not Hugo Largo nor Mimi Gooese [sp?])

“Hugo Largo remains one of the freshest and most contemporary groups of our time. These songs are sweet lullabies for a troubled world.” — Michael Stipe

"Forty years after their formation, no music sounds quite like Hugo Largo. Their hushed, majestic atmosphere — which veers toward ambient dream-pop but emerged from the noisy No Wave scene of 1980s New York — is the result of open-ended exploration and pure vision, an embrace of mystery and a refusal to compromise.

Even the basic components of the band — two bassists (Tim Sommer and Adam Peacock), a violinist (Hahn Rowe), and a one-of-a-kind powerhouse vocalist (Mimi Goese) — set them apart from any peers or contemporaries.

With Huge, Large and Electric: Hugo Largo 1984-1991, a new box set via Missing Piece Records, their entire catalog, as well as unreleased and live recordings are finally

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of their formation, Hugo Largo will release Huge, Large and Electric, a three LP set featuring all of the band’s studio output (1988’s Drum and 1989’s Mettle) including a full album of previously unreleased and live recordings (Hugo Largo Unreleased and Live 1984-1991).

These albums are long out of print, and will be released on streaming services for the very first time.

The set includes essays from Michael Stipe, who produced the band’s debut release Drum, along with Brian Eno and Hugo Largo member Tim Sommer.

an appreciation of Hugo Largo ‘the great lost band of post punk…’ 21 March 2017

an appreciation of Hugo Largo ‘the great lost band of post punk…’

hugolargo_1[1]Hugo Largo: A Silent Scream

A cold autumn evening: October 1988.

Glasgow Barrowland provides a familiar refuge from the wind and rain.

A sizeable crowd has gathered to see That Petrol Emotion.

The bar is busy, the atmosphere cheerful.

As the support act take to the stage, there is minimal migration to the front.

The musicians take up their positions, and at first glance something is not quite right.

First of all, the band doesn’t appear to have a drummer.

Even more worryingly, on closer inspection, much to the chagrin of the tousled assemblage of noiseniks increasingly impatient to get their rocks off, there’s no guitar.

Suddenly, two bass guitars map out a crisscrossing rhythm one on top of the other, then an electric violin fills the expanse of the venue as exquisitely as if it were painting frescos on the walls of a yawning cave.

There’s something strange about the singer too.

She smiles.

Then she begins to sing.

Her voice is piercing.

Elastic.

Ecstatic.

Then, rather disturbingly, she drags a steak knife across her neck.

Few in the audience take any notice.

Conversations continue over the music.

Some bodies trudge away disconsolately looking for the bar.

Furrowed brows are everywhere in evidence.

But, randomly dotted around the ballroom, there is the odd silent soul, rooted to the spot.

Transfixed.

For those rapt few, it was as if the people on the stage had dropped out of the sky from another planet.

Unknown-2

“I thought we were the greatest fucking band in the world”, says Tim Sommer, founder of Hugo Largo, the remarkable 1980s NYC four piece.

For those fortunate – or old – enough to have been around at the time, Hugo Largo were precisely that:

incontrovertibly unique, out on a limb.

As evidenced by that Barrowland performance, not everyone felt the same, but for those enraptured by their gently ravishing mysteries, they became something of an obsession.

There was no-one remotely like them.

Hugo Largo made only two records, both of which have been long unavailable.

It is now thirty years since the first, Drum, was released, but there exists renewed optimism that the pair might be reissued later this year.

The band’s line up of two bass guitars (Sommer and Adam Peacock), electric violin (Hahn Rowe) and singer (Mimi Goese) raised eyebrows at the time.

Unsurprisingly so, for they had set out to be different and had been refining their unorthodox approach to making music for some considerable time before 1987.

A dyed in the wool music freak, Sommer was a former punk fanzine writer, a highly regarded journalist for NY’s Trouser Press and for a period in the early ’80s, Sounds’ New York correspondent.

He was also a veteran of the NY hardcore scene, having worked with Thurston Moore, Swans and the Glenn Branca Ensemble.

His philosophy paralleled Howard Devoto‘s, whose characteristically sardonic remark that he had formulated “the revolutionary idea that one could play slow songs”, was similarly instructive.

For Sommer, during one of the most fertile eras of rambunctious guitar noise, believed that ‘quiet’ could be punk, or more precisely, that ‘punk’ could be quiet.

There’s little doubt that working for Trouser Press and Sounds helped shape Sommer’s musical sensibilities – he always expressed a preference for the UK post-punk sounds of PiL and more particularly Young Marble Giants, who would become a crucial influence on Hugo Largo‘s sound. “

I saw them in the fall of 1980 – they announced onstage it would be their last ever show – and that changed everything for me.

They didn’t jump around, they were quiet, joyful, but soooo punk rock to me.

I thought:

I see the future now.”

For Tim it seems, punk was more to do with attitude and inventiveness than simply fiddling around with the volume level.

“In 1982 I first had the idea of a quiet noise band.

Occasionally, in the NY noise scene, some bands were playing beautiful stuff, but none were quiet, none were experimenting with low volume. I wanted to keep it quiet and contained, mixing the energy of Stiff Little Fingers with the minimalism of PiL and Young Marble Giants. Rock & roll had always been: block one – guitar; block two – bass; block three – drums; block four – vocals. It was the way The Beatles did it, The Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, Sex Pistols – that’s what you call rock’n’roll right?”

Sommer was aware of his own limitations as a musician, admitting:

“I wasn’t a very good guitar player. I was an OK bass player. So I felt I could make these basses work in an ensemble way, playing off one another – it seemed natural to me.

There was an English band I’d seen in NYC (Delta 5) who had two basses but didn’t really use them in that ensemble way.

Then there was one song by The Cure (‘Primary’) which was all bass – that was really interesting.”

“I had an apartment on Thomson St. in Greenwich Village. I’d play one bass line into a boom box and then play it back and play along with it. I wrote four or five songs that way.

I played some of the songs to my then girlfriend [Lucy Sexton] who had a big loft apartment in the West Village in Manhattan. She and her roommates would dance around and recite things.”

The flatmates gave Sommer the confidence he needed.

“[They] thought this was something we could do. I think it was Lucy – although it could have been Mimi – who came up with the name.

She used the phrase to describe those giant sweaters in thrift stores: Hugo Largo sweaters!”

It wasn’t long before Anne and Lucy decided they wanted to do their own thing, but Mimi stayed on.

Fellow bassist Greg Letson, whom Tim had known from the Glenn Branca Ensemble was there at the inception, and it wasn’t too long before they were performing live.

Tim recalls: “We got our first gig at Maxwells in April ’84. We put together a few songs and we played. People loved it. We instantly began getting more gigs.”

However, they weren’t always made to feel welcome.

“In the mid-80s if you showed up at a club without drums, they assumed you were playing folk music! We would have to explain: ‘No, this is an alternative rock band!’

They were soon joined by Hahn Rowe, another GBE veteran, who began engineering their live sound (“like Brian Eno had done during the early Roxy Music shows” says Hahn).

“Two bass and vocals is pretty complicated for the average soundman – most of them fuck it up” says Tim, “so Hahn started being our soundman, and then playing a little violin. He did that until mid-1986, when he finally came on stage with us.” Before then, in January 1985 Letson, without warning, suddenly quit.

“I was sitting around at home in Hoboken and he called me.”

The message was abrupt: ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’

“Mimi invited me over and suggested Adam Peacock – her then boyfriend – could fill in. He’d been to all the shows and knew how to play bass.

We rehearsed once, and then played a gig opening for Billy Bragg at Danceteria, which went really well.

Adam was a much better fit than Greg.

Greg was technically a better musician than any of us, but he didn’t add anything creatively.

Once Adam came into the band, he and I started writing together.

Until then it had just been Mimi and I.”

Peacock was self-taught and had no problem stepping in.

“I had a brief gig with Cool It Reba within a week of moving to NY, finding myself on stage at CBGB’s on a Saturday night and then touring up and down the East Coast on the back of their debut LP, on one occasion even opening for REM.”

Musically, there was a meeting of minds right away.

“On so many levels we didn’t get on” adds Tim, “but we never disagreed about music. It was an incredibly harmonious musical environment.

We would hand Mimi pure instrumental tracks and she would come up with a melody and lyrics over them.

She never changed anything we did and we never changed anything she did.”

Peacock remembers how he and Sommer collaborated together.

“We would get together in my bedroom with our little amps and just play – sometimes one of us starting something off with a little fragment of something.”

The bass parts were like “left and right hands of the piano, one of us acting sort of as a metronome, one of us taking a melody or progression on top.

That subsequently branched into pieces written specifically for guitar and bass – the Mettle LP being quite full of that.”

Tim recalls making a demo in late ’85/early ’86.

“I gave a copy to Michael Stipe who was a friend of mine. I wasn’t expecting a response. He liked it and said ‘let’s go down to Athens and make a record’, so in June ’86 we went down to Athens for two days and made the Drum EP with Michael and John Keane.

It was really magical. I can’t think of a single negative energy or memory associated with that period.

There was a big local NY indie label – Relativity – who offered to put it out.

They were very excited and supportive.

By early ’87, we were playing live a lot around New York and once the EP came out we started flying.

We went on a long tour of the States with The Feelies, then a couple of our own tours, but at the same time we started having the personal problems that led to us breaking up so prematurely. But musically, it was amazing.”

Drum showcases both Goese’s unshackled vocal performances, best exemplified on ‘Scream Tall’, ‘Harpers’ and ‘My Favourite People’, alongside the jaw-clenching tension of ‘Grow Wild’ and the subtly menacing urgency of the startling ‘Second Skin’.

A beautifully unsettling hysteria pervades the record.

Theres a wizard cover of The Kinks‘ ‘Fancy’ and Stipe himself makes a number of interventions, most remarkably on the gorgeous ‘Eureka’.

Drum was released in two formats, initially as a seven track EP, then later extended to a nine track album.

While reviews were generally positive, the band were not the type to be easily pigeonholed, meaning that outside of New York, media coverage was slender, and musical comparisons often predictably lazy.

“From the beginning, Tim always posited that Hugo Largo was a punk band”, recalls Hahn.

“Of course, that was an outrageous notion, but Tim was very savvy about labels and how the band would be portrayed in the music press.”

Naturally so, after all he had started out as a music journalist, but frustratingly for Sommer “The Cocteau Twins were the only band that we were compared with.

I always felt we had more in common with The Durutti Column, whom we played with both in London and New York.”

In the U.K. at least, the band were often compared to AR Kane, another band who, for the time being at least, had the British music press tripping over themselves in a rush to invent new genres upon which they could shower their loquacious approval.

‘Oceanic rock’, ‘dreampop’ – in many ways both slightly unsatisfactory labels – had their roots here.

In the meantime, live shows were leaving audiences spellbound.

Mimi is unequivocal in her conviction that the superior HL experience was the live performance.

“I think it’s hard to capture the feeling of two basses recorded. I’m glad for the recordings but the live show had the palpable power.”

Tim recalls:

“I’ve always had the attitude that whether we played to 20 or 200, I always knew that there would be a percentage of the audience that would be blown away – like ‘What the fuck is this? I fucking love this!’ – and that gives you a lot of confidence.

Mimi came up with things that were just out of this world.

I never asked her what anything meant.

She loved the sound of words, the tone and shape of words: the meaning wasn’t that important.

She taught me that music that didn’t have descriptive or intelligible lyrics could still achieve an extraordinary emotional power.”

“I trained as a dancer not a singer”, explains Mimi.

“I think that informed my gymnastic vocal style. In fact, I didn’t know how to read music so I would draw a graph of the vocal melodic line to remember it.

Because I wasn’t trained, I didn’t have a lot of rules in place.

My main rule for writing lyrics was to stay descriptive and no love songs.”

The band were making waves and some illustrious names were beginning to take note, amongst them David Byrne and Brian Eno, who duly signed them to his Opal Records label – which had a distribution deal with Warner Bros – in ’88.

From the outside the future may have looked rosy, but the resultant album was the last long player they would release.

Long before the rippling subaquatic expanse of sound that was Mettle had hit the shop shelves in early ’89, relationships within the band had begun to disintegrate.

As Tim explains:

“By late ’88, it was clear we couldn’t really coexist as personalities in the group.

I was difficult.

Mimi was difficult.

In different ways.

We were very strong personalities.

Mimi was a deeply brilliant artist but very modest, very polite, whereas I was positive we were the greatest band in the world.

Mimi would never have said anything like that.

More likely she would have seen Hugo Largo as one expression of the many different types of art she was making.

Adam and Hahn were somewhere in between.

Despite that, we never stopped being creative when we worked together – from the first day to the last.

When we kept getting better offers through ’88, that was alien to Mimi.

She did not at that point have the same cognisance of the music business as I did.

She had modest expectations and I had enormous ones.”

Meanwhile, Peacock points to the lack of objective advice from the band’s management and notes:

“When things really started happening – a residential recording studio, our big Warners contract, European tours – it was all happening so fast that we kind of got swept along without managing to touch base with each other.”

The band’s last recording was the Christmas song ‘Gloria’ (aka ‘Angels We Have Heard On High’).

“By then we had a more vibey sound as opposed to the more choppy metronomic sound that was on Drum“, explains Sommer.

Before long, Hugo Largo was no more.

Six months or so afterwards, the band, minus Tim, regrouped, but it wasn’t the same.

“Even when I was being a dysfunctional person, I still understood what that band was about. I wasn’t surprised or upset about it, because I have so much respect for the talent of Mimi, Adam and Hahn, but neither was I surprised that it didn’t work.”

Looking back now, how does Sommer reflect upon the band’s recorded output?

“Drum feels much more taut – but it’s a collection of songs. Mettle felt more like a sound – a whole sound. If people ask about our music, I play them ‘Country’ or ‘Eskimo Song’ from Drum or ‘Martha’ and ‘Halfway Knowing’ from the second record.

I was involved in the composition of every song on the first record, but in the second there is a whole lot I had nothing to do with.

Despite that, I prefer Mettle.”

For Peacock it is Drum which represents the band’s sound at its most powerful.

“Drum is still very much from our basement phase – all spare and minimal – whereas Mettle has us following our spirits into (for me) slightly self-indulgent anything-goes experimentation.

Drum is pure, whilst Mettle is us after we’d been given carte blanche and a huge amount of money to record the record we were basically playing live – and that’s perhaps it’s failing.”

As so often happens in rock history, Hugo Largo‘s implosion appeared to come at the height of their popularity and the peak of their creative powers, but they had made a lasting impression.

For Hahn, “the fact that our music was diametrically opposed to the noisy and raw aesthetic of the NY noise scene was sometimes taken as a type of sly defiance of the norm.

Personally, I thought we never really fit into any one arena. We were misfits and that became part of the appeal of group in my estimation.”

If for some Hugo Largo was a visionary concept, Goese would argue that providence played its part.

“To say it was a fully formed concept negates the influence of NYC’s underbelly community, the atmosphere of the time, luck, chance, magic and the input from people involved. It’s important to acknowledge the confluence of factors and the unknown. It evolved organically. For how little music we recorded, it’s shocking we are remembered at all.”

When Sommer talks about Hugo Largo his passion remains unambiguous.

“I don’t know why I was so sure that a band could work without drums, but from day one it seemed they weren’t necessary, and – without sounding like too much of a dick – I take 100% credit for being the architect of the idea.

I’m not the person who made it work, I’m not the person who realised the idea – that was very much the work of Hahn and Adam and Mimi and myself.

I didn’t make another record til 2005. I know why that is.

When I hear music in my head the vocabulary is Hugo Largo’s vocabulary.

I’m still thinking in Hugo Largo colours.

I’m using different musicians and performers, but those are still the colours I think in.

Who else would you want to work with but Mimi and Adam and Hahn? They were the best.”

A new generation of Huguenots await the discovery of one of the ’80s best kept secrets, who sound as remarkably fresh today as they ever did. Go on, enter the silence…

[With thanks to Tim, Adam, Mimi and Hahn, each of whom is still making music, although sadly not with one another. Tim’s career has come full circle and he is music columnist for the New York Observer]

[yournameoneverypage]

When You're Ready

Reader request: Shawn Mendes x (y/n). "Shawn is on tour and invites the reader to the show so he can ask her to be his girlfriend and he sings When You're Ready, but Camila shows up and the reader is convinced that it's for C and not for her."

Word Count: ~3.7

Notes: Mostly fluff with brief moments of angst, and a smut ending.

Warnings: NSFW

~ * ~

(Y/n) stood at baggage claim at LAX, waiting for her blush-colored suitcase to roll by on the carousel. She was going to be in California for almost a week. Why? Well, her best friend was Shawn Mendes and he was currently on tour. He was missing her something fierce, he had said, and he wanted her to come see him.

Shawn had two sold out shows, consecutive nights, at the Staples Center followed by a show in San Francisco three days later, so why not make a week of it? His idea, but the second he mentioned it she was on board. She’d figure it out, find a way to make it work.

Any time she got to spend with him was both treasured and torturous. But she would go through the pain and heartache over and over again if it meant nearly a week with her most favorite person.

See, the thing was, (y/n) had been in love with Shawn for nearly as long as she had known him.

~ * ~

After retrieving her bag, (y/n) went in search of her driver. Shawn had said he or she would be holding a sign with her name on it. Shawn had a few interviews to do that morning, so (y/n) would be taken to his hotel to wait for him to finish, and then they’d have the entire afternoon and evening to spend together.

Aside from the aforementioned interviews, this was a day off for Shawn and he wanted to make the most of it because the Staples Center shows were the following two nights, and there wouldn’t be much down time during the days with soundchecks, meet and greets, and Q&As before showtime. Fortunately they would have more time to spend together between LA and San Francisco.

(Y/n) located her driver, who smiled brightly and introduced himself as John. He took her bag and engaged her in friendly chatter as he led her toward an idling Range Rover.

Who left a vehicle like this idling curbside at the airport?

John opened the rear passenger door for her with a knowing grin. (Y/n) started to climb in before she even noticed him.

“Shawn!” She almost tipped over into his lap reaching across the seat to hug him.

“Surprise, babe!” he chuckled into her ear.

“You’re here!”

“I’m sorry I didn’t collect you myself, but as much as I love my fans, I didn’t want to get stuck here for a half an hour taking selfies.”

“I thought you were in interviews all morning.”

“I was. I was hoping to come with John to pick you up, but I honestly didn’t know how long all the interviews were going to take so I didn’t want you to be disappointed if I said I would be here but then wasn’t.”

He was always so thoughtful; it was one of the many, many things (y/n) loved about him. She linked her hand with his between them, squeezed, and smiled. “I missed you.”

With a grin, he leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Missed you, too. So much. I’m so happy you’re here,” he breathed.

~ * ~

The day flew by way too quickly.

Once Shawn got (y/n) checked in and settled at the hotel, in a room that adjoined his, they grabbed lunch at one of Shawn’s favorite places.

It was (y/n)’s first ever visit to Los Angeles. Shawn had asked her if there were any specific things that were on her must do/see list, and he’d take care of everything.

They visited the Griffith Observatory, and strolled down the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

(Y/n) thought, and Shawn agreed, that too much attention might be drawn to them if he was spotted along Venice Beach or the Santa Monica Pier, as he had already been approached a few times during their activities earlier in the day. (Y/n) had been understanding and supportive of him spending a few minutes chatting with his fans and taking photos. She actually took a few of the photos herself.

Another day, he promised.

Instead, they spent a good part of the late afternoon and early evening at the Getty Center Museum.

They had dinner in Little Tokyo, followed by drinks at a tiki bar. Only one for (y/n) because she was a lightweight and tiki drinks were known to be quite strong. Shawn stopped after two, as he had a full day the next day and didn’t want to risk waking up with a hangover.

Back at the hotel, freshly showered, in pajamas, and in Shawn’s room, stretched out on his king-sized bed, Shawn and (y/n) ordered something from room service to share.

Even though they had chosen a movie to watch, they were too busy talking and laughing to pay much attention to the television.

~ * ~

Staples Center, Day One, had (y/n) immersed in the thick of things with Shawn, his band, and his crew. She knew only a few of them and was introduced to many more. Her laminated pass was the same as what everyone else had, giving her access to anything and anywhere she wished.

She soaked up as much as possible.

Shawn didn’t always attend soundcheck with his band, but for (y/n) he definitely wanted to be there so she could fully experience it. She stayed backstage, chatting with Shawn’s people while he did his meet and greet photos. She sat in on his Q&A session but stayed unobtrusively toward the back of the room. She could talk to him whenever she wanted; this was his fans’ time with him.

The concert was unbelievable, as (y/n) knew it would be. Shawn always left his heart and gratitude on stage.

That night they were in (y/n)’s room, she on one of the doubles, Shawn in the other. He was still a little high on adrenaline, asking her how she enjoyed the day, and especially how she enjoyed the show.

She knew it wouldn’t be long before he completely crashed out. When he did, he was still in her room.

~ * ~

Staples Center, Day Two, was much the same, although they started the day with Shawn dragging (y/n) to the gym to work out with him. They also skipped soundcheck to get lost together in the backstage corridors.

The closer it came to showtime, the more anxious Shawn seemed to get. He had a different vibe about him than he had the night before.

While eating dinner, (y/n) asked him if everything was alright. He assured her everything was amazing; it just felt like something big was about to happen and he hoped it would turn out to be a good kind of big.

~ * ~

Again, the show was absolutely incredible, although after the song he normally ended with, before acknowledging his band and going into the encore, he tried to quiet the deafening audience with a finger pressed against his lips.

Of course, it was futile. He just laughed, somewhat nervously, and said, “This song is for someone very special to me. Someone who is here tonight. I want her to know how I feel about her...”

That seemed to get everyone’s attention.

Shawn found (y/n) in the audience, met her eyes, and smiled adoringly.

Maybe I had too many drinks But that's just what I needed I hope that you don't think that what I'm saying sounds conceited When I look across the room, and you're staring right back at me Like somebody told a joke and we're the only ones laughin'

(Y/n)’s heart started thumping. He couldn’t be singing this for her, could he...? He had never expressed any interest in her as more than a friend. Had he?

Don't know why I tried 'Cause ain't nobody like you Familiar disappointment every single time I do Every single night my arms are not around you My mind's still wrapped around you

A couple of girls beside (y/n) bent their heads together and pointed to something or someone standing to the side of the stage. Shawn seemed to notice, as she had, and looked toward the side stage.

She followed his line of vision to see Camila standing there, beaming brightly. She put her fingertips to her lips and blew him a big kiss.

(Y/n) didn’t notice, over the dizzying blood rush in her head, that Shawn seemed to stumble a little through the chorus.

Baby, tell me when you're ready I'm waitin' Baby, any time you're ready I'm waitin'

Even ten years from now If you haven't found somebody I promise, I'll be around Tell me when you're ready I'm waitin'

He glanced once more toward Camila, but just as quickly his smile settled again in (y/n)’s direction. His voice steadied and grew stronger.

What if my dad is right When he says that you're the one No, I can't even argue I won't even fight him on it Call you when it's late And I know that you're in bed 'Cause I'm three hours back Seems like you're always six ahead

(Y/n) smiled back, although it seemed more reflexive than genuine, as her heart was currently crumbling to pieces. She tried her hardest to be happy for her best friend and the woman he was currently confessing his feelings for, on stage, in front of everyone.

Don't know why I tried 'Cause ain't nobody like you Familiar disappointment every single time I do Every single night my arms are not around you My mind's still wrapped around you

Baby, tell me when you're ready I'm waitin' Baby, any time you're ready I'm waitin'

Even ten years from now If you haven't found somebody I promise, I'll be around Tell me when you're ready I'm waitin', yeah

And if I have to, I'll wait forever Say the word and I'll change my plans Yeah, you know that we fit together I know your heart like the back of my hand...

Before the song ended, overwhelmed, unable to continue her façade, (y/n) had slipped from the crowd and backstage.

She wasn’t sure where to go once she was backstage. She was fighting back tears, so her vision was blurry, but she didn’t want to stop to ask anyone how to get out of the venue because they might ask why she was crying and then it would all turn into one big mess.

A voice from behind her asked, “You’re Shawn’s friend, right? Are you looking for his dressing room?” Was she? Would she be able to face him after his encore and bows?

“Yes, please,” she found herself answering.

“End of the corridor, turn right, first door on the left.”

(Y/n) nodded her thanks and began to follow the directions she was given. She wasn’t sure if it would be the first or last place anyone would be looking for her.

~ * ~

Shawn burst into his dressing room, out of breath from the end of his show and running around looking for (y/n). Incredibly relieved to see her, he gasped, “Are you okay? What happened?? You just disappeared!”

“I’m sorry. I just needed a few minutes.”

“In the middle of the most important song of the night?”

Her voice cracked. “I said I was sorry.” And she was. She should have stayed till the end. “I was caught off guard.”

“Oh no, babe. Shit! I’m sorry, (y/n). I overwhelmed you, didn’t I? I shouldn’t have made it so public. It should have been a private conversation. Forgive me?” he whispered.

“Of course. You’re my best friend and I’m happy for you,” she smiled softly, truly. And she was. His happiness meant more to her than anything else. It was just going to take some time to refortify her heart. “I wish you and Camila the best.”

“Camila?” Little wrinkles formed between his eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean, what am I talking about?” she puffed.

Suddenly Shawn started laughing.

(Y/n) placed her hands in the center of his chest and pushed him away, unamused.

He caught her wrists and pulled her to him. “I wasn’t singing that song for her.” He placed her hands over his heart and covered them with his own. “I was singing it for you, my beautiful, clueless, wonderful, precious love.”

“What?” she exhaled.

“I finished singing and looked for your eyes, only to find you gone.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“I was going to ask you to be my girlfriend. Not Camila. You, (y/n). In front of the entire Staples Center audience. Why did you think I wanted Camila?”

“You kept looking at her side stage.”

“I glanced at her twice,” he contended, lightheartedly. “I was surprised. I didn’t expect her to be here tonight. It’s true that she recently told me she has deeper feelings for me-”

“And you have always had feelings for her.”

“I had feelings for her. Past tense. Before I met you. Are you really arguing with me about how I feel about you?” he smirked.

“But you didn’t sing that song last night, when Camila wasn’t here.”

“You are!” he laughed again.

“Stop laughing!” she exclaimed, unable to stop herself from giggling, her heart blooming with hope. She then whispered, “Did you really mean it?”

“Oh, darling...

“If I had professed my feelings last night and you had turned me down, I don’t think I would have been able to get through tonight. Telling you tonight, when there were three days before San Francisco, would have either given us time to disappear together for a few days, or would have given me time to sort myself out if you didn’t want me the way I want you.

“Please tell me you want me.”

(Y/n) wanted to scream, yes, I want you!, but instead she teased, trying to keep a straight face, “I don’t know. Any boyfriend of mine has to be a good kisser. Are you a good kisser?”

“I am a fantastic kisser,” he grinned. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and slid his hand to the nape of her neck.

“Prove it.”

His other hand circled her waist, fell against the small of her back. He leaned in, watched her eyelids flutter, then close, and gently guided her lips to his.

She had imagined this moment for so long but it was much more than she had ever expected. Thousands of thoughts were forced away to make room for one single idea. How could one kiss cause the world to fall away around her?

“Shawn,” she said, breathless, easing away.

“Still proving it,” he murmured. He softly licked at the seam of her lips, and when she responded he deepened their kiss. Her heart was pounding, and she was warm from head to toe. She felt his tongue meet hers and her entire body began to hum.

Their knees were weak when their lips separated.

Shawn touched his nose to hers. “Well...?”

“I will be more than happy to kiss you all night long, but only after you take a shower,” she giggled.

~ * ~

(Y/n) knocked on the adjoining door. She didn’t wait for a response before letting herself through.

Shawn was leaning against the dresser, partly sitting on it, phone to his ear, wearing nothing but baggy, cotton pajama pants. His chest and feet were bare. By his side of the conversation, (y/n) grasped that they were talking about the plan for the days leading up to San Francisco.

He held his hand out to her in invitation. His legs fell open and she automatically moved into the V they made. He ended his call, set his cell aside, and placed his large hands on her hips.

“So, about what you said... Something about kissing me all night long?”

She moved even closer to him. One of her hands curled around the back of his neck, the other tangled in his still damp curls. The roughened pads of his thumbs caressed the bare, soft skin just above the waistband of her pajama shorts.

She kissed him, tenderly at first, and then with growing intensity. He gently bit her top lip, sucked it, her teeth tugged on his lower lip. His kiss was determined and sent her head spinning. She began to tremble as she clung to him.

Shawn’s lips slowed and softened; he eased away and breathed, “I’ve already waited so long; we can take our time.” He slid his hands further up (y/n)’s sides, under her shirt. “We don’t have to rush into anything. I can wait for you.” She felt his thumbs brush either side of her breasts.

She started trailing tiny kisses from his chin up along his jawline before touching the tip of her tongue to the lobe of his ear. “I don’t want to wait,” she purred.

“Oh, thank God,” he groaned before again pressing hungry lips to hers.

She responded without hesitation.

Her hands trailed down his chest and to his sides, her fingers playing over the ripples of his stomach. She brushed her knuckles against the start of his arousal and his breath hitched, cupped him through thin cotton.

He arched his pelvis against the heat of her palm and she heard a low, rumbling moan from the back of his throat. He tangled a hand in her hair, tugged gently. He bit down on the skin of her clavicle, sucked, soothed it with his tongue.

She pulled away from his mouth. “Shawn!” she scolded, playfully, chuckled, “You’re going to leave a mark!”

“Good. Show everyone you’re mine. Mark you everywhere. But this,” he smirked, kissing the already purpling bloom, “will be the only one people can see.”

“Fuck,” she sighed. His claim on her made a shiver trickle up her spine.

“If you insist,” he grinned, smugly.

Feeling bold and sexy, she hooked a fingertip in the waistband of his pajama bottoms and starting walking backward. He stood to his full height and followed.

(Y/n) felt the backs of her legs hit the mattress. With fluid movement, she slid her shorts down, stepped out of them, and pulled her camisole up and over her head. She stood before him in small lace panties, breasts bare, nipples tight.

The way he looked upon her made her blood thrum, her body flush. He licked his lips, bit softly on the fuller, lower one.

His hand reached out and cupped one of her breasts. He gently tugged at her nipple, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. Instinctively, her hand slipped between her legs, at her core, and she rubbed herself through the damp lace. His nostrils flared when he caught the scent of her arousal. He whimpered, her name falling like a prayer from his lips.

“I wanna see you,” (y/n) purred.

Obeying, oh so eagerly, Shawn pushed his pants down, over his ass, off, his cock bouncing free, filling, curling up toward his stomach right before her eyes. He wrapped thumb and forefinger around the base, his other fingers pressed flush against his scrotum.

“Been thinking about me like this?” he hummed.

Yes. God, yes. Maybe one day she would tell him just how much. It was her turn to lick her lips and bite the lower one.

They fell together onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and with a crash of lips. When they separated to catch their breath, (y/n) reached over to turn off the bedside lamp.

“Nuh-uh, Sugar,” Shawn rasped. “Waited too long for this.” Voice rough with desire he sang softly, “I wanna love you with the lights on, keep you up all night long... Darling, I wanna see every inch of you, I get lost in the way you move...”

She might have giggled if her panties weren’t being drawn down over her hips, if calloused fingertips hadn’t begun to dance along soft, hot, electrified skin, lips and tongue following.

He took a dusky, peaked nipple into his mouth. Her back arched, hands grasping at the sheets at her sides, and moaned softly. He sucked her other nipple into his mouth, tasting, humming.

“Shawn,” she whined, moving a hand to tangle it in his dark curls, tugging him away from her breasts.

“Tell me what you want, Love.”

“I want you. I need you,” she pleaded.

“What was that?”

“Fuck me, Shawn.”

“Mm... Since you asked so sweetly,” he smirked, stroking his cock. He rolled on a condom and moved to rest between her legs.

She reached between them, taking him in her hand, and he shuddered. She wanted to feel the moment he slid into her. He let her guide him. Their eyes met and held, bodies drew together, foreheads touched. She groaned with deep satisfaction into his mouth as she adjusted to his girth and length.

He wheezed, stilled as he bottomed out. She was so tight around him that if he began to move in that moment it would be over too soon.

“You okay there, Mendes?” she purred and imperceptibly tightened her legs around his waist.

“Oh God.” That tiny shift was almost too much. “You feel so good. Too good,” he mumbled. “I need a minute.” His arms on either side of her, holding his weight above her, he buried his lips in the crook of her neck, centered on the scent of her skin as he salvaged control.

One hand again tangled in in his hair, the other stroked the skin of his upper back.

“Okayokay,” he mumbled, and he began to rock into her, slow... rhythmic... deep.

She gasped when the pebbled nubs of her breasts brushed against his taut nipples. Her whimpers and groans mingled with his rumbles and moans. She was torn between closing her eyes and wanting to watch his face as warmth and pleasure coursed through her.

He wanted her to climax before him. Wanted to watch her fall apart beneath him.

He knew she was nearly there when she began to ripple on the bed like a wave on the sea. The tide came all the way up; he was caught in the rush. And then the knot at the root of his cock dissolved in fire and he was falling fast, craving the feel of her so close to him, unsure where he ended and she began.

( FIN )

~ * ~

@theregoesmyherojd @benito-mi-vida @shawn-is-my-giant-jellybean @mendesblurb

[dynamoe]

↑ Li'l Billy dominates the talent portion of the Koios Society "Sons of Blaise Pascal" pageant

“I'm a kitty,” Li’l Billy whispered to himself in the wings, an elementary school take on method acting.

↓ Under the fold, read a preview of the next chapter of Boy Genius ↓

“Maaaaaahhhmmmm,” Li'l Billy droned as he trudged onto stage, “The unitard is too long.” His feet were crammed into what would have been the knees of the spangly bodysuit while its floppy fabric shins and actual feet dragged behind him like a train. The neckline was stretched from Li’l Billy forcing his melon-like head through it, giving him daring decolletage for a 7-year-old, but the lacy cravat of the full costume would cover it.

“Let me see, water-baby,” his mother beckoned him over, “That's an easy fix. Just scrunch them up. The legwarmers will cover all this, water-baby,” she said as she worked the loose spandex up into bunches at his ankles, making him look more like a clipped poodle with pom-pom feet than the cat he was supposed to be portraying.

“We only have the stage for 20 more minutes, baby, so let's run the blocking.”

“Dancsching around like an idiot is not a good use of my tremendousch intelligencsche,” Li’l Billy griped.

“What have I told you about little boy geniuses who only study science, technology engineering, and mathematics and neglect the arts and humanities?”

“They grow up to be schupervillainsch.”

“...They grow up to be supervillains,” Rose joined, saying it with him, “We need our genius to be well-rounded and be complemented by empathy. The arts teach us to FEEL.”

“I feel like a big schtupid idiot,” Li’l Billy muttered under his breath, tugging at the legs of his catsuit and getting into position.

“I'm a kitty,” Li’l Billy whispered to himself in the wings, an elementary school take on method acting.

As the kindergarten prodigy on stage bowed after playing Chopin's Étude Op. 25, No. 6 (*snooze*) and was ushered off, the MC announced “Billy Whalen, from Washington DC,” to a round of polite applause.

His backing music started on the sound system as Billy pranced to center stage, did a couple standing leaps, squatting mid-air so his heels nearly touched his butt (a move way harder than it looked; something adult Billy would blame for his creaking joints twenty years later). 

“Preschto!” Li’l Billy sang.

The black velveteen unitard and leg warmers from rehearsal now joined by a sequined tuxedo jacket and frill-fronted dickie and cravat around his neck, finished white gloves and white capezios— the Great White Way’s glitzy interpretation of a black-and-white tuxedo cat.

🎶

He is quiet and schmall He is black From the earsch to the tip of his tail He can creep through the tiniescht crack He can walk on the narrowescht rail 

And you'll all schay: Oh! Well I never! Wasch there ever A cat scho clever as magical Mr. Mischtoffeleesch!

Oh! Well I never! Wasch there ever A cat scho clever as magical Mr. Mischtoffeleesch!

🎶

After the pageant organizers nixed setting up 200 feet of ramps and track for their tribute to Starlight Express, this number from Cats was the compromise Billy and his mother settled on as his talent.

Master Billy Mistoffelees pointed left and triggered the flash-pot, setting off a small explosion of light and noise and a cloud of silver glitter. He did another standing jump and pointed right— another flash-pot boomed. He removed a rainbow-colored streamer from his pocket and waved it in the air like a rhythmic gymnast as he bounded around the entire stage and into the audience, leaping and spinning: barrel rolls with a few fouetté en tournant for a touch of class.

He stopped in front of the judges' table and fanned a deck of cards. The confused judge pulled out a card, showed it to the audience,  and put it back in the pack while Li’l Billy over-exaggeratedly looked away to sing another chorus of his song. Magical Master Mistoffe-Billy nodded thanks, vocalizing a little “meow,” before climbing back on the stage. He pointed to his right and set off another flash-pot, which might have been overkill as flash-pot fatigue was setting in on the audience.

The recorded music reached a crescendo. The dozens of hidden LEDs in his tuxedo jacket switched on (wiring the circuit into the fabric was Billy’s only solo contribution to the act. He burnt himself twice with the soldering iron.), turning him into a twinkling star field on the semi-darkened stage. 

The pre-recorded voice of his mother announced:

Ladies and gentlemen I give you the marvelous Magical… Mister…. Mistoffelees! 

Billy ramped up into his big finish— a standing back flip into a mid-air twirl landing with his back to the crowd. In the middle of his jacket’s back, outlined in red LEDs was the card— Ace of Diamonds. The crowd exploded in thunderous applause. (The audience was so impressed they forgot the Judge's card was actually the 11 of Spades.)

to be continued... sooner rather than later...on AO3...

Debut Reboot

Saturn Devouring His Son

Chatty Breakfast (animated)

Halloween Pumpkin 2.0 🎃

Li'l Billy Aces the SAT 💯

[charlie-rulerofhell]

For they know exactly what they do

Today there was a pretty long article published in the German newspaper FAZ, written by Julia Schaaf. Since there were quite a few interesting topics raised in it and Måneskin talked about some new aspects (or in more detail), I translated the whole thing (it might also have helped me to procrastinate).

Full interview in English under the cut.

For they know exactly what they do

June 22, 2021

Four young rock musicians from Rome are today's hottest band. Måneskin are enchanting Europe. Why? We met them for an interview.

Every romance needs its founding myth, an anecdote from the beginning, something you can tell later in more difficult times for self-assurance.

In the case of the band Måneskin, who first had Italy and now half of Europe wrapped around their fingers, and who are now trying to conquer the rest of the world with their rock music, there is the story of the shoe box. Rome, around five years ago: Four teenagers who are meeting every day after school in their rehearsal room to make music together, and sometimes they play their songs on the Via del Corso in the city centre in front of a changing audience. One day they want to record their own stuff. They find a studio that they can actually afford and as they go there they bring a shoe box, with the name of the band written on it, 'moonshine' in Danish, the bassist's mother is Danish. In the box: around seven kilogram of coins. The things you get from playing music on the streets. Everyone searching through Instagram for photos from that time can find four hippies with children's faces, three boys in batik, the girl is wearing a straw hat.

As they have to pay [for the recording], frontman Damiano David, 22, says that there was this guy, Angelo, and his bandmate Victoria De Angelis, 21, is interrupting: “No, Andrea, not Angelo”, and all of them have to laugh because a rigid studio manager with the Italian name 'angel' would be even funnier for a founding myth. David continues his story: “The guy was completely dumbfounded. 'We can't do that.' We went: 'Sure we can, that's worth the same even if it's just 20 cent coins, it's still 300 euros.” Thomas Raggi, 20, the guitarist of the band, is gasping for air as he laughs, while drummer Ethan Torchio, 20, is smiling dreamily. David finishes: “And then we snuck off before he was able to count it.” [the German text says 'verdrücken' here which is just a colloquial way of saying 'we left', but it entails some sort of a dramatic exit, so yeah, let your thoughts get creative how they left exactly :D].

Four young musicians on the verge of global fame are sitting on a white interview sofa in Berlin, completely styled, babbling across each other like overeager teenagers.

Ever since the Roman band first won the music festival Sanremo and then also the Eurovision Song Contest, carried by the enthusiasm of European viewers, you could say Måneskin has become a phenomenon. “Rock 'n' Roll never dies!”, Damiano David yelled fueled by the adrenaline of winning, and the insinuation that circulated on social media of the singer snorting during the counting of votes in front of a live camera – including their strict denial followed by a negative drug test result – might have given an additional boost to their public interest, their exploding album, ticket and merch sales, and their outstanding success on Spotify.

“We think it's a shit prejudice against rock music that there always have to be drugs involved. We fully threw ourselves into our participation with the utmost professionalism. We give everything for the music. So of course we don't want people to think that we can only do that because we take drugs.” – Victoria De Angelis

Prior to Eurovision, Måneskin was more of an insider's tip outside of Italy. Handmade rock music, not creating something entirely new but paying homage to the good old times with classic guitar riffs and cracking drum beats, being a lot of fun but also quite fragile and vulnerable at times and, first and foremost, conveying a captivating energy. Finally, on the stage of Rotterdam, live after so many months of isolation and renunciation, this wave of energy spilled straight over into European living rooms. It seemed easy to (mistakenly) interpret the winning song “Zitti e buoni” (Shut up and behave) as a declaration of frustration of our youth in times of a pandemic. In fact, singer Damiano David is singing about the favourite topic of the band: the unrelenting need to, against all odds, be yourself, despite or perhaps because you are different. The message fits their provocative sex appeal, which the band uses to demonstrate their independence of gender norms at any given time. But the core essence of rock music has always been the promise of unlimited freedom.

Thus at the first moment, the meeting with Måneskin is kind of startling. It's Wednesday, we are in the top floor of the new Sony head quarters in Berlin. The four Italians have just started their two-week long promotion tour through Europe. In the afternoon there will be a live concert in a queer club [the SchwuZ, but that's not mentioned here] in Neukölln, which will be streamed via TikTok. Around one million viewers will watch the show, some of them even from Brazil, so people at Sony are pretty excited [for Måneskin to come here]. But at first, these stunningly gorgeous creatures [yes, that's the exact wording :D] are standing surrounded by an entourage of people – their management, PR team, a stylist, a photographer, people who can hold a smartphone or a cigarette if needed [this paragraph is worded a little weirdly, especially taking into account that basically their whole team / 'entourage' is just friends of them, but it seems like the journalist didn't know that or maybe they just wanted to describe their first impression]. They seem like fictional / artificial characters out of a Hollywood movie. Transparent frill blouses with blazers and flared leather trousers, even the platform boots, everything brand-new, the makeup makes their faces look like a glossy magazine cover even in person. The smokey eyes of De Angelis and Raggi make them look smug and bored. Later, on the pictures it will probably look cool.

So of course your first impression might be: This band is under contract to industry giant Sony ever since their success on an Italian casting show [X Factor] in Winter 2017. The music industry must have its hand in the game when a band is photographed half-naked by Oliviero Toscani and styled by Etro. Also, one does not simply rent a villa with a pool in Rome to produce new music there, isolated from the rest of the world. And who else went to London for two whole months, shortly before the winter lockdown, just for inspiration? After the TikTok concert in Berlin – De Angelis and David are now wearing fishnet shirts that sparkle with every move, their bare nipples covered with an X of black tape – the band is posing with a few influencers. In the world of social media you would call that 'producing content'. But what does that mean for a band who are preaching their hosanna of authenticity? How authentic is Måneskin? And is their pointedly casual approach to sexuality and gender cliches in today's pop-cultural spirit more than a marketing strategy?

We're in the interview, the recording device is running for not even five minutes, when Victoria De Angelis says: “Actually, we just try to be ourselves and do what we really want to do.” And really: The more you listen to those four how they speak about the early days of the band in their slurred Roman dialect, about the shoe box and their own experiences with being different, but most importantly about their shared obsession [with music], the more you realise that [De Angelis] is  very serious. Ethan Torchio, who got his first drum kit at the age of six or seven from his father because he was beating everything he could reach, says: “For me, music is like food. I cannot live without it.” The bassist next to him laughs at his pathos. Singer Damiano David applauds the otherwise more reserved friend for his truthfulness [it says 'klarer Punkt', meaning 'for the point he makes', but it makes it seem like Damiano is agreeing with Ethan here, although it doesn't indicate whether he agrees that yes, music is everything for Ethan or that he understands and feels the same].

De Angelis and guitarist Raggi already knew each other from middle school and they were the ones who tried to form a band at the age of only 13, a band that actually took music seriously.

De Angelis: “It's just difficult at that age to find other people who really put everything into music and who truly commit themselves and are willing to invest a lot of their time.”

Raggi: “We set strict rules and scheduled fixed times for the rehearsals, for every day.”

David: “Fever, stomach ache, there was no excuse. Even if you were feeling sick in the rehearsal room. At least you were in the rehearsal room.”

The way the four of them talk across each other, completing each other's sentences, taking turns in talking and sometimes joking about each other, seems intimate and playful. Singer David remembers how at first bassist [De Angelis] was merciless towards him when it came to her first metal band project, as she told him that he wasn't committed enough [to the music]: “Back then I was still playing Basketball. I was one of the people that Vic absolutely didn't want [in her band].” Drummer Torchio was later discovered through Facebook, even though there had already been a drummer, a close friend, but he was not good enough. It seems as if even back then music was everything for them. Even if it meant that only Raggi managed to graduate.

And why rock, why rock music of all things? Because it's great, the four of them say in unison. David adds: “Actually, it's a genre that allows you to do everything you want to do.”

When they played on the street, they were laughed at by their classmates. But not only there. De Angelis explains that she never wanted to be a typical girl: “I was always deterred by those stupid boxes that people put you in, and that are just restricting and constraining you, because something is only regarded as male or female. I always rejected that. Instead, I just wanted to do the things I enjoyed doing, I went skating and played football.” Torchio says: “Friends who are not friends anymore were already telling me at the age of ten that those“ – he grabs his long, silky black hair – “were wrong. Because I'm a boy and boys are meant to have short hair, long hair is only for girls. I was bullied a lot for that.”

“Compared to the past, people in our age became much more open-minded. It gets better.” – Thomas Raggi

Frontman David on the other hand, for whom eye shadow, jingling earrings and nail polish as well as his bare torso with the tattoos have become trademarks by now, says: “I was actually more of the average boy.” De Angelis convinced him to try out some eyeliner, which he describes as a spiritual awakening: “I liked myself much more [with makeup]. I saw myself more as myself. As if it had been a suppressed desire of mine.” On a trip to Copenhagen with the others, when he realised that it really didn't matter what people were thinking about him, he got his first fake fur [coat? the article doesn't specify that] in a second-hand shop and let his clothing style be guided by his own love to experiment: “I realised that my whole life I was just going at half speed.” When it comes to diversity all four of them are becoming almost missionary.

At the same time, their success is not only opening doors for them. Back home in Rome they are barely able to go out on the street due to all the paparazzi. “[You need a] hoodie and huge sunglasses”, David says, “the mask is quite helpful, too.” And still, none of them is complaining, and Torchio explains why: “Even if those experiences right now may have sides that are not so pleasant, we still know that for us a dream is coming true. We experience something that we always had in our minds, so we are willing to face every consequence that this entails.”

So is the band facing difficult times, is Måneskin going to change with all the success? Again, all of them answer at the same time.

David: “I'm not worried about that.”

Raggi: “No way!”

De Angelis: “On the contrary. Everything that happened to us happened because we are who we are, so we want to continue the exact same way and stay ourselves.”

Just a few hours later, they are at the stage in Neukölln, bouncing around like pinballs, hammering at their instruments, flirting with each other. “We are out of our minds, but different from the others”, David sings their winning hymn against conformism, and: “The people talk, unfortunately they talk.” Here on stage, the four paradise birds [a German word describing someone with a flamboyant personality] with their half-nude-glittering outfits are radiating an incredible energy with the utmost sincerity, and you begin to wish there was a live audience instead of the TikTok cameras, absorbing and spreading this energy. Måneskin. A cry for a life after the pandemic, a cry for freedom and a better world.

“We do what we wished for all our lives.” – Ethan Torchio

[redspiderling]

MCU Breakdown: Black Widow, Part 1

I can’t believe this is happening 😭

First of all, congratulations to all of you who’ve been here all these years. We got it. We begged for years, and it’s finally here.

For once I wasn't dreading revisiting this film to write down what I got from it. I felt more like I might not do it justice. This film is so special to me, but here it is, the MCU Breakdown of Black Widow, part 1 (of who knows how many).

I remember back when I started running this blog and talking about a hypothetical Black Widow movie that had never been announced, always "yeah, we would be happy to do it, maybe, someday in the future", and arguing that it would be important for women and girls, no matter its content. I'm so glad we got it like this. So, so glad.

The rest under the cut.

Let's start with some technical details. The film has a lot of setups and callbacks, nothing is done in chance. For example, I love how the light, and the sounds we hear when we first, and last, see Natasha in the film, are the same. We greet her in bright -birds cheeping- morning light, while she's riding her bike home, to her family

and we leave her in bright -birds cheeping- morning light, while she's riding her bike home, to her family (I'm using the term family very liberally here in reference to the Avengers for the sake of the movie, bear with me, you know how I feel about those dudes).

It's signifying new beginnings, each time, not endings. Notice how, what we see is natural light, which makes this scene pop out, and look more real because the light is coming from the sun, and isn’t artificially made on VFX software. You will notice the stark differences in colours and lighting when the emotions and the atmosphere change in this film, because there is a visual language being employed here, the director has a story to say, and she uses all the tools she has to tell it. The light is exactly the same in those 2 scenes, because Cate wants us to make that connection, even if we make it unconsciously.

Natasha is placed in such a positive way, both at the start and the end of the film. There's this discussion about how "real" their little family was, but it was the characters that muddled up that image. The reality of their lives in Ohio is presented in a happy way, that had deep rivers under the surface, for sure. This wasn't accidental, for a lot of reasons.

First of all, if you take it the literal way, they were spies, and had to present themselves as normal. If you take it the allegorical way, any girl could fall victim to trafficking, and if you take it the character way, both Scarlett and Cate wanted to showcase that Natasha is human. They also wanted to give her something that wasn't always dripping with pain and sadness. They were both parts of her life, yes, but there was also joy, and light, and once upon a time she had been a kid, playing with her sister.

Also, and this has been mentioned before but it bears repeating: I love the actress they chose for young Natasha, and I love how they presented her character. She's allowed to be a young teenage girl. She's not sexualised. She's at that gangly stage between childhood and adulthood, and there's nothing sexual about it, no provocative clothing, no excessive makeup. She's a kid.

Plus, I know Cate said the actress already had her hair dyed blue and they just decided to let her have it, but I think it works well for Natasha's character. That small act of defiance, even that early on, against the system that wanted to break her. Also, the film gives us such great character moments, because they let the camera roll and don't rush through scenes, look at Natasha looking at Melina comforting Yelena. We can see the pain, the fear, where she knows that this isn't going to last, and wonders about what will become of them once their lives begin to unravel.

We also get to see the joy on her face, the wonder of discovering the world, how often do you get to see Marvel characters do this, just live in the moment?

Bioluminescence: the production and emission of light by a living organism. Or how Natasha is a bright light, that shines from within. Not my words, Cate Shortland's words. I felt it when I was watching this scene, but it was lovely to have it verified in one of her interviews. I wish I could meet her, and tell her that everything she wanted to put on screen came through, incandescent and crystal clear. Fireflies are a symbol for Natasha, as a bright light that shines from within, and never dies.

Small details that I love, the magnet on the fridge: Don't forget, above a picture of Natasha. LIKE WE EVER COULD, CATE.

We have another setup here, where the family gathers up to have dinner together. Even the sitting arrangement is the same as later on in the film.

Notice also how both young, and adult version of Natasha, communicate so well with Melina, just with their eyes. It doesn't necessary show a deep history between them, but it does show a bone deep level of understanding. Not just of their current circumstance, but of their future, and of what it will do to them. Melina knows what's coming and she's says it "I'm sorry", but they're both resigned to their fate, Melina because she doesn't see a way out, and Natasha because, well, here she's a kid, and therefore is powerless.

The dynamics between Yelena and Alexei is so different. Yelena is young and doesn't understand, so they're speaking about completely different things. "I don't have my shoes" is what she says, and it's heartbreaking in its innocence, as Alexei is loading his gun and reading himself for battle. We can still see that he's not indifferent to her, telling her she can have "fruit loops in the car". He's not a monster, he just doesn't have a choice (or at least, he thinks he doesn't).

Also, notice how the camera angles are employed here: Natasha and Melina look each other eye to eye, Yelena looks up to Alexei, Alexei looks down on her, there is an imbalance of power and understanding in the second set of images, and the camera tells us that.

Melina doesn't let Natasha take the photo album. For one thing, it's certain that Natasha wouldn't be able to keep it. For another, Melina wanted the memories, and probably didn't want anyone else to realise/think that they cared about their little family unit.

There's just a lot of thought that's been put in the details of the script, to show us their bond, their attempts to hide it, to show the characters' personality in everything around them (notice the plants that are ever present in Melina's home, in Ohio and later in Saint Petersburg). She might seem cold, she has been through a lot, but she cares. And that care has brought her pain. And we have to see that pain, because we get the quiet moments like this one, where she stands alone in an empty home knowing that part of her life is over, never to return.

The mission, is the last thing Melina asks about. The last thing Alexei mentions, the last thing either of them cares about. First, she refused to accept that they had completed the mission and were now hunted, then she accepted it and they loaded their family in the car, and then she asked about the leaked files.

Also, notice how that shot is framed. Both images silhouetted by the light because it’s the moment and the prop smack down in the middle of the frame that’s important, now what they’re going through, emotionally, they’re not themselves in that moment, they’re nameless, tools of the trade, expendable in front of that tiny floppy disk.

Yelena is singing while the rest are plunging in despair, but still humour her and play her song.

I found this shot a bit... Jarring. I get it that for American audiences this would show that they're actually leaving "home" behind, but for the rest of us... Eeeh, I'll give it a pass because it is an American production and this is just something to be expected. I mean, Yelena's song was American Pie. We get it, you still love America, just because you're making a film about Russian spies doesn't mean you're a commie Marvel, it's ok.

But in any case, the setup for the action scene here was excellent. Happy, familiar music playing, car is on the main road, car goes off the main road familiar music gets toned down and eventually completely lost in the darkness.

Yelena knows what to do, we see it, so that we know that this 6 year old girl who holds her stuffed animal and walks barefoot has practiced for this moment.

By the way, Natasha did take another item with her along with the photobooth pictures (it also looks like a photo album with Disney princesses on it), it didn't survive the trip. We are informed of this for a very specific reason: Melina didn’t ask Natasha not to take the photo album out of malice, or just because she wanted to keep it for herself. She knew it wouldn’t survive the trip in Natasha’s hands. We also get a close shot of the image strip (and we get it again, during the credits), because it will be important, later on.

Bet y'all also forgot you were watching a superhero movie until this happened? That wasn't accidental, they wanted us to see them as normal people, this is the moment when that ends.

Natasha saved her family, even though she was a terrified kid.

I know that they did the huge titles thing to connect this film to Civil War but... Listen, Civil War needed the huge titles because that script and the way that movie was directed was a complete disaster. We needed to know where the characters were each time with huge ass title because there was NO OTHER WAY TO TELL. Between complete lack of a timeline, and the fact that you couldn't even tell what time of the day it was due to the horrible lighting, you definitely couldn't tell what the location was because it was irrelevant to the plot like, 90% of the time. Not to mention the title cards in Civil War were usually followed by dimly lit grey corridors so, yeah, give us a title so we know at least where they are, generally.

This film. Didn't Need That. For the most part anyway, there are 2 locations where the titles worked. First one was Ohio, the other I'll reveal later.

But here. Guys, they're Russian spies escaping from the US on a small plane... Where else would they go if not to Cuba?!?! This is the Black Widow movie paying for the sins of Civil War, in a small way in this instance.

Yelena tells Melina that pain only makes you stronger, Natasha cries, and they setup my heartbreak for later.

Natasha protecting Yelena, terrified, and staring men down the barrel of her gun anyway. Such a badass and heartbreaking callback.

Notice how this scene makes us look at how men view this. There's an allegory here as well, but I'll address what's actually happening in the film:

Dreykov notices Natasha's natural instinct to protect herself and her sister, and all he sees is something he can use. A tool for violence, instead of sex, in this case. But the implication is there. Not a person, or a terrified girl, just an object to be used by men.

So glad that piece of shit got blown up and never mentioned again. Any man looking for exposition on Dreykov to feel the "loss" when the villain is gone: Fuck you. Go get some therapy.

Moving on from that piece of shit, difference between Melina and Alexei: Melina apologised. Alexei lied, but he also tried to give them hope. We can see the devastation, because the soldiers never thought of them as girls like he did, and didn't blink before drugging them and taking them away.

Yet another setup, of Natasha and Yelena, drugged and powerless as they are taken away. Because it wasn't enough that they were kids, they took away all their choices, and rendered them unconscious.

What can I possibly say about this credits scene.

It's very real, probably the realest minutes in the entire MCU, and it's merciless. They don't try to sugar-coat what's happening, and there are no jokes to diffuse the drama. These are girls being trafficked from all over the world. I don't know about you but I felt the switch from true parallel to real life traffic victims like this shot that looks like footage from Interpol

to Red Room victims as being a clear shift, and I was actually grateful for it. Because here I could put my back against the fact that the red room wasn't real, otherwise I would have broken down before the credit sequence even ended.

It was a stroke of genius to create an introduction to this entire world like that. We rarely see credit sequences anymore and it's a shame, because when they're well done they tell stories in and of themselves, and this is one of the best I've seen.

Even the villain is set up here. He's pointing at girls and saying "that one, and her", like he's picking pigs for slaughter. How much more setup than that do you need, to want to murder that man dead? Not any more, that was enough.

Nobody speak to me I’m crying.

Subtle, but there. Trafficking (and traffickers) exists because it IS being tolerated by governments around the world.

Unnecessary title aside, who else says Natasha looks at herself in the mirror hear and repeats "pain only makes you stronger", as she's being hunted away from yet another family.

Then she's saying it again because it bears repeating and Natasha has been through A Lot these past few years. I love how unfiltered our first image of her is. After all she's been through, we basically see her stripped of all her tricks in a moment where she’s alone with herself and her thoughts(something we later learn she tries not to do much), and she's just a woman having a tiny breakdown in a semi-public bathroom. Again, human.

This is where I will leave you for this first part. Hey, I got through the intro, I count that as a win given just how long this breakdown has already been. If you’ve gotten this far, thank you for reading, come yell at me in my inbox whenever, see you for the next one xo