The past couple of days, I’ve been working hard on “Dead Rock Star”. The last couple of chapters have been difficult and this is a good sign. When things start to become an effort that means I am poking my stick into the right anthill, as it were. The first pass at chapters 10, 11 and 12 are done and we are upto 40,000+ words, which is surprising as I wasn’t expecting to hit that word count to around chapter 14/15. Anyway, lots of forward momentum, the introduction of the goth band, the ghosts of Abbey Road demonstrate how clueless they are and the reunion concert at the Shepherds Bush Empire is blighted by a plague of ghosts. So far, so good.
Here’s a little taster of the events at the Empire as the ghosts run amok and ruin the concert:
True enough, to the left of the stage were the presences of Jamail and his band of children, a ghostly Fagin directing his little demons to create mayhem and disaster. The amorphous traces of the spirit children darted across the stage, busying themselves with the various pieces of equipment that were used by the band. The first noticeable problem was with Geoff Simms keyboards as loud squelches and burps could be heard over the PA system. Somehow the children were scrambling the circuitry inside the keyboard and making it misbehave. Geoff could be seen adjusting knobs and buttons on his instrument before switching it on and off. When he realised that it had stopped working completely, he began to signal to the roadies off stage. The remaining members of the band hadn’t noticed Geoff’s technical difficulties and continued to play with guitarist Jon Woodworth stepping forward to take a solo. As he began to play, ghostly hands ran over the tuners on the headstock of the guitar detuning the guitar, rendering the subsequent solo tuneless. Woodworth heard himself making an out of tune racket and immediately stopped playing. The spirits surrounding him loosened his guitar strap and all of a sudden the instrument swung free, the heavy ash body of the Fender hitting him square on both feet. The force of the impact caused him to literally topple over in pain onto the stage.
Malcolm Anthony noticed what was happened and did what every good drummer would do and launch into a blistering drum solo. David Seymour looked around the stage and noticed that his colleagues had suffered various technical difficulties and found himself panicking about what to do next. As Malcolm pounded his drums and worked his way around the kit, he was oblivious to the spirit children unfastening the bolts on his drum seat and as he reached the full momentum of his solo, the seat collapsed and the drummer completely disappeared from view. The music had stopped and David Seymour was left to make an announcement. He stepped forward, but as he reached forward to grab the microphone, he was completely unaware of the spectral presence that had been tinkering with the circuitry of the microphone. As damp skin touched metal, perfect conductivity had been reached and Seymour had completed the circuit. Before he could even open his mouth, a significant voltage surged out of the microphone and down his arm. With a scream, he was propelled backwards across the stage and hit the drum riser with an audible thud. The impact caused the drumkit to topple forward and Malcolm Anthony’s schizoid face adorned bass drum landed squarely over Seymour’s head with a crash, framing his unconscious body with jarring precision. The audience fell silent and then somebody screamed. The lights went out and people began to panic.
Of course, this will all change with subsequent editings and revisions.
The mushrooms I photographed by the front gate have gone rotten and only had a life of just over 24 hours. I am glad I photographed them when I had the chance.
In the post: The Simpsons Series 6 DVD box set (Digipak Edition). I’m a sucker for the Simpsons. I make no apology for it.