Posted by dull thud proudly presents... on May 10, 2001 at 05:19:51:
In Reply to: prepares the ground for the first of his new series with this excerpt from the A to Z of Parodopolis Rock and Roll - F is for Flint Michigan posted by dull thud on May 10, 2001 at 04:55:05:
It’s a rainy Monday night in the City That Never Sleeps. Or at least, never sleeps without first piling furniture against the door and having another look at its insurance policy. Perhaps it should be called the City That Sleeps With One Eye Open? But I digress. On the upper east side there’s a building that used to be a school for deaf-blind crippled orphans. For the last thirty-odd years, however, it has served a nobler purpose as Parodopolis’ premier venue for scary-ass subculture bands and the occasional retirement home tea dance. Let’s go in.
The top line of the posters reads "FLINT MICHIGAN AND THE". Then there’s a gap, and someone has gone round with a marker pen, minutes before the doors opened, writing in "APOPTOTIC CASCADES". Below that is a photograph of a balding, jowly man in his late forties, dressed in black and brandishing a gold-topped cane.
The official story is that the famously boorish singer shattered his foot in a teenage motorcycle crash, but dull thud knows the injury was really from dropping the heavy pot of one of his beloved collection of bonsai. And speaking of thud, he’s down there at the front of the crowd, throwing himself about in a frenzy of sweat and flying beer, the only member of the pogoing throng actually dancing in time.
As the last notes die away, Flint Michigan raises his arms to the crowd, acknowledging the adulatory roar, and makes a sweeping bow. He picks up a cassette tape hurled onstage by an albino girl in a scarlet flamenco dress. Still waving, he and the band leave the stage through double-doors manned by burly minders and the lights come up.
* * *
"Do you think he’ll like it?" Olga was hopeful that Flint Michigan’s record label, Pervo Dogmaster, might be interested in her own unique musical concepts. Having heard some of them, thud could make an educated guess.
"He’ll love it," he lied. Olga had recently dropped out from Malmo Diphtheria’s School of Music in order to further her career as a performance artist. Said performance generally consisted of her dressing up as a goose, breaking bottles of olive oil over her head and showering the audience with rotting meat fired from a cannon. As for the music - she recorded under the name Møøse Factory - the first time she’d played him one of her songs he’d been convinced that he was having a brain haemorrhage. If it had been a minute longer he probably would have.
Thud reached over the barrier and retrieved his leather jacket from behind the P.A.. As the crowd drifted to the exits, a tall dreadlocked man waved him over to the mixing desk. It was Howie, a producer who occasionally steered work thud’s way and the city’s only Korean rasta. "I thought I’d see you here," he said.
"You too, but not on the desk. I thought you were working for the radio now?"
Howie nodded. "Yeah, that’s what I was doing, recording the show for Sunday." He jerked his thumb at an expensive-looking reel-to-reel machine. thud was surprised at not having noticed it earlier.
"Going out on Filthy Carlos?"
"Yep." The WGMY rock show, the Filthy Carlos Debauchery Interlude, had been a fixture of the Sunday night schedule for many years and was required listening for the local hipkids. Olga had been sending the DJ demos for months without success.
"Good stuff. I needn’t have bothered taping it myself then…" thud flashed him the recorder in his inside jacket pocket. "You coming out for a drink?"
"Nah, man, I’ve got to stay and pack up. But how about the Toilet on Thursday?"
"Okay. See you there."
Olga was waiting at the door, oblivious to the trio of sweaty-palmed thirteen-year-old boys in Slipknot t-shirts staring dumbly at her décolletage. She and thud tramped out and down the hill to the bus stop. She handed him another tape. "And there’s your bootleg of the Mitchum Is Busy gig. I liked the bit with the explosion samples."
"Yes, that’s cool…" Explosion? Did she mean the bit where he had sneezed into the microphone? He didn’t correct her. "So Howie says Toilet on Thursday."
"Toilet, Thursday. Sure. See you there." The Dullard’s Corner bus pulled up and Olga boarded. thud turned in the direction of home. He reached into his pocket and took out the tape recorder. Out came the newly-minted Flint Michigan bootleg and in went the jangly acoustic pop of Mitchum Is Busy.
"~~Oh finally,~~" said Cressida, "~~finally I can hear myself think. I promise you, if I’d ever had eardrums, I certainly wouldn’t do now. And if I had a gastro-intestinal tract I’d have vomited the contents long since. I’m surprised you didn’t, with all that pogoing.~~"
The tape started with a sound not entirely unlike someone reversing a truck over a colony of flatulent seals. This was accompanied by crashing cymbals, bloodcurdling overblown clarinets and someone shrieking the names of the 1954 Polish soccer World Cup squad. Cressida squirmed.
"~~And what on Earth is that supposed to be?~~"
thud stopped in his tracks. "It’s supposed to be the Mitchums..." He removed the tape. In thick black felt-tip, it read MØØSE FACTORY DEMO, the date and Olga’s phone number. He checked the box. In his own neat blue biro was the Mitchum Is Busy track listing. Which probably meant -
"Balls," he said.
* * *
The front doors of the False Address were locked. thud picked his way between the trash cans and dossers in the alley behind. "~~I really don’t see why it’s so important~~", Cressida was saying.
"But it was their first ever concert. There were only four people there. It’s the only copy. Anyway, it’s really good."
"~~Which explains why half of the - ahem - crowd left during the first guitar solo.~~"
"They were just Philistines."
"~~They were the guitarist’s parents.~~"
"Well, exactly."
The stage door was guarded by a truly enormous bouncer, squeezed into a badly fitting tuxedo. He was built like a wardrobe, and the forearm blocking our heroes’ path was the size of a fire hydrant. The effect was spoilt somewhat by his comedy Sarf Lahndan accent. He squared up to thud, his beard bristling.
"Wodda yoo want?"
"I, ah, left a tape for Flint Michigan, but it was the wrong one and I need to get it back."
The man looked slightly agitated. "E’s busy. Fack off."
"But it’s important..."
"I said fack off. Go on."
thud did try to stay polite. He managed for a whole quarter of a second, but then it was all downhill. A series of harsh words were exchanged. Finally the gorilla, incandescent with fury, raised two massive hands and made a lunge at him - but was left clutching at empty air. Looked around. Gone.
So then; dull thud, blessed with the gift of vertical teleportation and Master of the Plummeting Arts. I wonder where could he possibly be?
CRASH.
If he was lucky, the security man would come to in time to pick up his gold teeth before somebody else did. The bootprints on his coconut head would heal within a week or so. Cressida was furious. "~~NO!~~" she spluttered, "~~YOU DO NOT! GO AROUND! BEATING PEOPLE UP! I am appalled...~~"
"But he was going to rip my head off!"
"~~Well, maybe you shouldn’t have called him a miserable moss-faced bastart.~~"
"Oh, it’s my fault, is it? If he - "
"~~Yes it is your fault. You should know better. You’re supposed to do what is right. You’re a superhero, albeit a minor one, and not one of these brutal vigilante types. The Messenger was a brutal vigilante type, and you know how he ended up.~~"
"...Messenger was cool..."
"~~Oh DON’T get all wistful. Look, just go in, ask for the tape and let’s leave before he wakes up. We’ll talk about this later.~~"
There followed a long stony silence. thud sighed, stepped over the comatose giant and slipped in through the stage door. He knew his way around backstage; he’d worked the P.A. for a Disquieting Anal Fixation show some weeks before. The dressing-room (in truth a moderately-large cupboard with a new carpet and a lingering smell of stale biscuits) was down at the foot of the stairs. thud listened for voices, then knocked. No reply. He squinted through the keyhole. No light on.
Rather than wait, he went in. Instrument cases leant against chairs and two empty Scotch bottles sat on the table. His opinion of Flint Michigan went way down when the Mitchum tape - in the Møøse Factory box - was found in a bin below the handbasin, but that didn’t stop him picking up a plectrum as a souvenir. He was turning to leave when he heard raised voices outside, a nasty CRACK and something tumbling down the steps. There was a scuffling and then silence.
After a few seconds, he inched the door open. The drummer from the Apoptotic Cascades was sprawled at the foot of the stairs, his skull caved in from a blow to the forehead. thud felt the vomit rising. At the top of the stairs stood Flint Michigan, gold-topped cane in hand, weakly opening and closing his mouth as if fighting for breath. Eventually he found his voice.
"I… didn’t do it…"
* * *
The police arrived and began taking statements.
thud was interviewed first. Detective Stochansky, P.P.D. (Homicide), looked him up and down. He growled and took out a notepad. "Sooo-o-o-o… you the fella that murdered five singers, their manager and an evil twin in the most excessively brutal way imaginable?"
thud thought for a long time before answering. "........maybe."
Stochansky grabbed his hand and shook it warmly. "’Cause that was a good bit of work, son. Always best to get right to the heart of the matter." He stopped and frowned. "Tell you what though, I wouldn’t bring it up when this goes to court." thud told him all he knew.
Despite his musician-icing credentials, the detective didn’t seem to consider him a suspect. Ten minutes later he sat by himself in the corner of the upstairs bar. It wasn’t such a nice place to be once the shutters were down, the lights were up and the jukebox was switched off. Most people were still here, waiting until the police finished and allowed them to leave. Nobody was very talkative.
Except Cressida. "~~Are you alright?~~"
"Not really," thud whispered back. "Do you think he did it?"
No response.
"I mean, I knew he was a bit - well, irritable - but still."
"~~No, he didn’t do it.~~"
"But to actually... then again, I suppose I did fight with the security bod, but to actually…"
"~~He didn’t do it.~~"
"What?"
"~~I could tell. He didn’t do it. He was as shocked as us. He had nothing to do with it.~~"
"How do you know?"
"~~Nurrr, perhaps because I’m a telepath?~~"
"Then why didn’t you say to the detective?"
"~~Again, nurrr. There’s no way what a tapeworm said could be accepted as evidence. Anyway, if I become public knowledge, someone will want to do experiments on me.~~"
"So what about doing what is right?"
Pause.
"~~I’ll think of something.~~"
* * *
As far as the police were concerned, it was an open-and-shut case. After speaking to thud they took statements from the club owner, the four men hired in from Rancid Armpit Security and the lighting engineer. The other musicians, Howie, various technicians and the other False Address staff had all been in the bar when the attack took place. Flint Michigan was bundled off in a police car.
"~~Right,~~" said Cressida, "~~now let’s go around and sort all this out properly.~~"
As thud got up, Howie ran back into the bar looking upset. "It’s gone!"
"What’s gone?"
"The tape! The tape!"
He led thud and couple of others to the corner of the hall where the flight cases were stacked for transport back to the radio station. The largest had been forced open and the contents spilled over the floor. Howie knelt down beside it.
"Everything else is still here, but somebody’s taken the tape."
Cressida sounded in thud’s head. "~~That’s a start. The front doors are locked, and the fire alarm didn’t go off, so unless they’re still in the building they must have gone out through the stage door.~~"
"So if the ogre has come round he would have seen them."
The ogre wasn’t there. And when thud approached the Rancid Armpit deputation, they denied all knowledge of a fifth man on the stage door. So did the club owner.
"~~Well, that could be the second lead...~~"
Outside the stage door, some fragments of tooth were lying between the cobblestones, but otherwise there was no trace of the previous owner. thud stood under an arc lamp which sizzled in the light rain. Someone was singing nearby. He looked around. A little way up the alley a figure was lolling among the piled bags of trash and warbling plaintively about someone called Zorak.
thud approached him and coughed. "Excuse me."
The singer lifted his head very slowly. He had plainly spent a long night on the sauce, and was now completely legless. Appropriately enough, he was also pantsless. He fixed one eye on thud and the other on a spot two feet to the right. "Are you my mummy?"
thud blinked. "No... I was wondering if you could help me..."
"I can shmell beer. Have you got any beer?" He tugged at thud’s sleeve.
"No, I just spilled some on my... stop that!" He shook off the dribbling drunkard, who was trying to suck the stain from his jacket. thud took a step back. "How long have you been here?"
"I’ll shwap you a shpank ray for your beer coat."
"No. How long have you been here?"
A faraway stare. "Shinsh the dawn of time."
dull thud began to lose his patience. "How long?"
"Shinsh I left the Dawn Of Time. It’sh two blocksh that way."
"And while you’ve been here, have you seen anybody come out of that door?"
Space Ghost giggled. "That’sh a shecret."
"It’s important."
"Nooooooo, no, no. No. Big shecret." As dull thud turned away, exasperated, Space Ghost suddenly forced a gap through the drunken haze and blurted "Yesh! There wash a great big fella, and a little guy with him, and he was carrying shomething, and they went thattaway jusht before all the shirensh shtarted."
"Are you sure? What did they look like?"
But the ex-Legionnaire had settled back into his customary stupor. He managed to slur "whaddid who look like?" before falling asleep. There was no hope of getting any more sense out of him, and not much hope of finding two mystery villains in a city crawling with them.
* * *
Wednesday night, and thud was half-watching the local television news while he flicked through Raymond Chandler for inspiration. He looked up at mention of Flint Michigan. "Released today," the newsreader was saying, "after a raid on an apartment in Gothametropolis York. The musician had been in police custody after - "
thud snatched up the phone and stabbed in a number. "Howie? It’s me. Did you see - "
"I heard already. I was about to call you about it."
"So what’s going on?"
"Well, the police are keeping it quiet, but I know a girl who works in forensics, and her story is that there was some tip-off. Those two crims were found with the money and the tape... and one left his prints all over the backstage."
"And that’s enough to clear Flint?"
"They used a crowbar to get into my flight case, right? And that’s also what they beaned the drummer with on their way out. His blood type on it. No blood on Flint’s cane. They won’t know for sure till they get the DNA tests in, but man... he didn’t do it. And I didn’t tell you, right?"
"Sure." thud slumped back into the chair and dropped The Lady In The Lake onto the floor. He was relieved, but somehow disappointed. Far too easy.
* * *
The usual suspects convened at the Fatal Toilet. Olga arrived first, then thud and Dodgy Phil. Howie was late. "Sorry. Trouble at work."
By this time, the police had made their statement and the pictures were in the newspaper. thud recognised the thug he’d taken to be a bouncer. The other was a weaselly man who’d presumably nipped in for the tape while his accomplice stood guard outside. The crucial detail Howie hadn’t picked up was that the pair were dead. The official line was that they’d shot each other in a drunken dispute. How convenient. Maybe there would be a decent mystery in this after all.
Howie was casually thrashing thud at pool when the conversation turned to the tape. "Thing is, we’re not getting it till tomorrow night. Tests and stuff. They won’t need to keep it for trial evidence, so Carlos still wants to put it out on Sunday." He effortlessly potted the 8-ball. "Just means I’ve got to work all Saturday night mixing it, cleaning it up and dubbing out the potentially libellous bits." Knowing Flint Michigan, that last one would be a job in itself. And since Filthy Carlos had only recently returned from a three-week suspension, having played a particularly venomous b-side which included the unwieldy line "Ricky Martin takes it fudgeways from diseased Latvian fishermen" - in fact, that was the only line, repeated seventy or eighty times in a variety of silly voices - they would be treading carefully for the next few shows.
They went back to the table. Dodgy Phil was pulling his coat on. "Olga’s offered to take me home to hear her new song," he said hastily. "When she gets back from the bar, tell her I’ve just heard my mother’s died." He ran out.
* * *
Saturday night. Howie unlocked the door of the WGMY editing studio. "Thanks for offering to help. This would take ages otherwise."
thud shrugged. "S’okay. I figured I’d at least heard my copy a few times, so I might know what’s where."
They loaded the reel-to-reel onto the machine and listened to the first song. Howie rewound and adjusted levels. The vocals needed a lift and the bass was distorting, but the guitars came across loud and clear. The only real problem was background noise. Audience noise added atmosphere, but in the quiet sections, the production was spoilt by...
"I think one of the cables was dodgy," said Howie, "there’s a kind of drone going on."
"Yes, I hear it..." thud scratched his head. "But it’s... hmm."
They worked their way through the recording, dubbing out the gratuitous expletives, a few unnecessary carnal references and much of a between-song rant about the mayor. Most of the work was to avoid lawsuits from the music industry; Michigan had much to say about the bedroom habits of O-Town, Linkin Park and Puff Daddy, and it all had to go. In particular, they took exception to a section about N-Sync.
"Now that’s not fair," they said together, "I love N-Sync." And they meant it.
They looked at each other. Surely that wasn’t right?
Howie shook his head and continued. "It’s on the drum feed, so we can’t just leave it out. Didn’t notice it at the time... maybe the mixing desk was dodgy."
thud wasn’t so sure. From his inside pocket he brought out the Walkman and the bootleg. "Can I put this through the desk here?" Howie nodded. The tape was hissy compared to the professional recording, but the drums were clear enough to show up no sign of any similar drone on the house sound system. The guitarist was picking out the A-Team theme before the full band launched into a version of Louie Louie. thud thought about the Kingsmen. He thought about the lyrics. He thought about the CIA. Surely not...
Over the next four hours, they applied filters at a dozen frequencies and played the tape forwards, backwards, at half speed, at double speed, processing the sound in every way they could think of.
"But what are we looking for?" asked Howie. "I’ve been doing this for years with Shane MacGowan, and I still can’t make out a single line."
"Well..." thud pushed his chair back. "Why steal a Flint Michigan tape when you could just record it yourself?"
"Sounds clearer?"
"Still not worth killing someone for. Even a drummer. Any bets you like, the crims were paid to steal this tape by the same person who shot them and tipped off the police."
"But what’s the point of that?"
"Tape stolen, tape doctored, tape recovered, tape returned to Filthy Carlos. And who listens to Filthy Carlos?"
"The hip kids."
"And who feels threatened by the hip kids?" thud made a final adjustment and pushed up the master volume. The message designed to be subliminal now came out clearly.
"YOU LOOOOVE N-SYNC! YOU LOOOOVE N-SYNC!"
* * *
In the vast control bunker of his L.A. mansion, Lou Pearlman howled with rage. "NO! NO! IT WAS SO CLEVER, SO SOPHISTICATED... BUT ONCE AGAIN MY MACHINATIONS COME TO NAUGHT!" He plunged a fist into a relief map of North America, leaving a jagged hole at Parodopolis to match those at Seattle, Boston, Montreal and the stronghold of his bitterest enemy at Evanston, Illinois. Foiled again by the indie resistance - would this torment never end?
A suitably-placed computer monitor bathed his snarling face in eerie red light. A string of drool ran down his chins. "BUT NEXT TIME, PUNK BOY, NEXT TIME...!"