Lightbringer 007

Chapter Five (continued and finished)

Into the Woods

The terrified bear had left a more or less serviceable passage through the thicket ahead. This turned out to be a major advantage as Turner discovered that what he had thought was a small patch of overachieving underbrush that sprung up where a couple of trees had fallen prey to lightning and storm, was actually a clearing of significant proportions. So even with the bear path and some judicious use of his hand axe he spend considerable time pushing past angry shrubs with no concept of decency.

Twenty minutes and many more scratches later he slowly emerged from the dense growth into a large round open space, with a lot of sky above and a stylish little mound in its middle. It was a rather remarkable spot surrounded by a green wall of vegetation, carpeted with wild grass and flowers. On top of the knoll stood what seemed to be a circle of stacks, the ones one would usually find on concert stages. In front of them facing Turner was a girl in her early twenties holding an impressive doubled bladed axe in one of her hands.

“You are not a bear…” she sounded genuinely disappointed.

“No. I’m Adrian Turner.”

“Hi. Adam Turner.” the girl said lowering the axe. “I’m Kim. Kim Cochran.”

“Nice to meet you Kim.”

Awkward silence.

“So. What are you doin’ around here” she asked.

“I was looking for you.”

Kim raised her axe again. Turner held up his hands moving slowly backwards only to be poked in the back by some tree.

“Hey. Easy with the axe there.” Turner said.

“As long as you don’t give me a reason to chop you into pieces we are going to be fine. I think.”

“I’m am not the kind of person who does things that need to be answered by axe assisted violence Kim.” Turner said his voice at the edge of calm.

“You see Adrian, following girls into the depths of the Canadian hinterlands can be seen as rather creepy behaviour.” she said arching an eyebrow.

“I was not following you. I was looking for you, for you and a guy that calls himself D.C.” Adrian said. This had the calming effect of Kim lowering her axe and the confusing effect of making her look slightly disappointed.

“Oh. Well. At least that means that you are probably not a crazy stalker.” she paused examining him. “Did something happen? Back home I mean.”

Turner shook his head. “Not that I know off. I’m here because I am looking for musicians and you and that D.C. person are high up on my list. I’m here to talk to you about music.”

“You came all this way here into the middle of nowhere to track me and D.C. down just to talk about music?”

“Pretty much yes.”

“Cool. Pretty crazy, but I can respect that. What ever it is you are doing you are taking it seriously. I like your conviction Adrian. Follow me, I’ll lead you to the base camp. We’ll meet D.C. there.” Kim waved her hand behind here. “After you sir.”

“I don’t know they way.”

“I’m aware of that Adrian.” her voice carried a faint trace of sarcasm, “I’ll guide you. You just will have to take point, that way if it turns out that you are some kind of crazy motherfucker it’ll be easier to cut your legs off.”

“Fair enough.” said Turner walking past her taking care not to look at her or her axe as he did so.

“What’s up with Stonehenge?” he asked as the moved past the circle of stacks.

“Stonehenge? Oh the stacks. Those are supposed to kills bears.”

“Kill bears?”

“Yeah. Not working though. So far it only scares the shit out of them.” Kim said.

“I noticed.”

“It seems that I need significantly more power. Which given the circumstances is quite the problem.”

“Why would you want to kill a bear? More specifically, why kill it with sound?” Turner asked.

“For their guts.”

“Guts… What exactly are you doing out here? It does not look like a hiking holiday.”

“No holiday. I’m here to make myself a new bass. When I told D.C. he decided to join me and get himself a guitar.”

They had reached the thicket. They were now roughly on the side opposite to the one from where Adrian had come. The underbrush was here as impenetrable as from the other side.

“To the left.” Kim said “Yeah right there, those branches, you can move them to the side, there’s a path right behind them.” Turner brushed the branches aside and indeed there was a narrow but well cleared path beyond them.

“Why would you come to the middle of nowhere to make an instrument?” asked Turner as he moved forward into the thicket.

“Because this is the perfect place to find the right timber. Up here there is only primeval forest. Untouched by mankind, growing since forever. Here you’ll find trees that have lived for thousands of years, competing and surviving. I can’t imagine trees that are more pure tree then these. At least in North America. So here we are looking for the right tree for our new instrument. Once I find the right tree I will carefully carve a piece out of its heartwood and use it to make my new bass. That way the bass will be infused with the power of the tree and as long as the tree lives so will the bass.”

Turner smiled. “I like that. I feel tempted to say that it does sound a bit hippie, but you have an axe. A people axe not a tree axe. And you are trying to kill bears with a sonic weapon.”

“I take my music seriously.” Kim said with soft, unyielding voice.

It did not take them long to leave the narrow path behind them entering the forest proper again. On this side of the clearing the ground was perfectly flat giving the forest the appearance of a giant hall stretching to the horizon, its dark green ceiling held aloft by tree trunks. Adrian thought that the only thing this forest hall was missing were a few thousand dead Viking warriors enjoying their afterlife. He took in the quiet atmosphere of the place, haunted by soft wind, filled with the smell of pine resin and earth.

“There’s our base camp. “ Kim said pointing with her free hand towards as small collections of tents and tables not far ahead from where they had entered the forest hall.

The camp it self was quite large. There were two tents intended as living space to one side. Adjacent to that was a small ‘bath’ tent, a standing cylinder with the option to be heated with hot air that marked the space for a shower. To the other side was a largeish tent, which Kim explained was the place where they stored their equipment and tools. Around it were several spaces with work benches that had a rough hand made look to them, protected from rain by tarps that had been stretched above them using wires.

In the centre of the camp, dividing the living space from the work space was an ample fire place that had been carefully fitted with metal contraptions turning it into an out door free floating kitchen.The fire was not mostly embers with only one last thick log stuburnly burning on, where everything else had long since given up. Above the entire camp hung many cloth wrapped bundles keeping the food far out of reach of hungry bears and other critters.

“How did you get all this stuff here?” Turner asked.

“With great difficulty.” answered Kim. “But that is part of what we are trying to achieve here. First we had to find the right place, with the right trees. Then we had to build our base camp and let me tell you that part wasn’t easy. In part the hard work, the many trips, is all part of the ritual.” Kim fetched some fire wood from a large pile at the edge of he camp to get the fire going again. “D.C?” she called out, “D.C.? Where are you? We’ve got a visitor.” Kim shrugged. Turning to Adrian she said “Looks like he’s off to do his own stuff. It’s almost dusk. He’ll be back soon.”

The camp fire had come back with a roar, now burning with an intensity suggesting that I wanted to blaze forever. A thick stew that was mostly meat, Kim said that it was moose, and freeze dried potato was spreading a mouthwatering smell. When Turner heard the crack of dry branches near the camp he at first thought, icy terror stopping him in his tracks, that they smell had attracted another bear. Instead of a bear a man appeared. He was a narrow man, athletic in a stretched way, walking at a brisk pace towards the camp. Where Kim moved in a smooth fluid manner, this man walked with purpose and intensity. Yet despite of all the aggression that seemed to flow right under his surface he had soft eyes radiating calm.

“We have guest?” the man said. There was a cold curiosity to his surprise that made Adrian a bit uncomfortable.

“It’s a small world after all D.C. May I introduce you D.C. that guy is Adrian Turner. Adrian this is D.C.”

“Nice to meet you.” said Turner.

“Nice to meet you too. Quite the coincidence that you stumbled over us. You’d think all the way out here, you’ll never meet another human being.”

“Actually I was looking for you. Both of you.” Turner said.

D.C. did not say anything, instead he closely studied Turner, the exchanged looks with Kim and then scanned the camp. His expression had shifted from relaxed to focused. He did not show any of the aggression of Kim, but it was quite clear that he was assessing the situation, evaluating different possible scenarios with their probable outcomes in his mind.

“Why does everybody think that I am some kind of psycho.” said Adrian, shoulders slumping.

Kim stepped in telling D.C. that Adrian had apparently come all this way just to talk to them about music.

“I’m trying to find a new kind of music.”

“I like the humility of your ambition.” Kim said.

“I don’t know.” said D.C. “I like the idea somehow. We’re all here to move music forwards and I like that he has such a high goal set for himself.”

“We” Kim had weighed that word down with scorn, “are not trying to move music forwards. D.C. You are. You are the one constantly trying to be original and novel. I jut want to make music.”

“O.K. then most of us want to achieve something here.” D.C. said, voice calm.

“If you don’t watch what you say your face will become a prime ingredient for the stew.” Kim answered with a grin that was all teeth and promises of violence.

“You said that you don’t want to move music forward.” D.C. remained calm. Turner was starting to get worried.

“No. I just said that I am haven’t got delusions of grandeur trying to come up with a new revolutionary form of music.”

“If you don’t try you won’t change anything.” D.C. said still calm but now with slight exasperation in his voice.

“I do try D.C. I work on it, but I am not planing my way into some kind of brilliant revolution. That’s not how it works. You master your instrument and evolve your way from there. You always try to make up a big plan first and then work your way into the music. Wrong way round.” said Kim.

“At least I have a plan. It’s not like your endless improvisations are leading you from one breakthrough to the next.”

“No it takes it time but I least I don’t end up discovering that I have accidentally music that already exists wasting time and effort in inventing something that you remembered unconsciously.”

D.C. was about to reply something while weaving with a wooden spoon in Kim’s direction when Turner spoke up.

“How did you get this far without killing each other?”

Both Kim and D.C. turned to Adrian looking at him with arched eyebrows.

“What do you mean?” Kim asked.

“I mean, seeing you fighting like that, it’s a bit hard to imagine how you got all this together” he said gesturing around their large base camp, “without falling out.”

Kim and D.C. exchanged confused glances. “Who’s fighting?” D.C. asked.

Turner pointing fingers in their direction answered “You were. Just a few seconds ago.”

“What? No we weren’t.” said Kim adding “Are you on drugs?”

“We were simply having a discussion.” said D.C.

“Right.” said Kim, “When you are doing something you need to see it from several perspectives, get your view point challenged. Work on it.”

“That’s what a friend is for, don’t you agree. Someone to call you out on your bullshit and provide you with solid constructive criticism.” said D.C.

“That’s how you learn the fastest.” Kim again, then after a short pause, “D.C.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you just call what I do bullshit?”

“No. Not more than usual.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you.” Kim exclaimed, jumping up from where she was sitting towards D.C. to slap him over the head. D.C. held up his arms laughing saying “I was joking, joking.”

“You stupid asshole.” Kim said now smiling, sitting back down again.

“You violent monster.” said D.C. how now shifted his attention back to Turner. “So. You said your looking for a new kind of music. Wha do you have in mind?”

“Right now I am still searching. I know what I need to achieve. I know that to get there I need musicians who, apart from having mastered their instrument, have a drive to push music forward.”

“You can never really master an instrument.” said Kim.

“Of course you can. Mastery means nothing but that you reached an acceptable level of competence and are not good enough to explore new techniques on your own.” D.C. objected.

“Bullshit. Calling your self a master is not only a fucking presumptuous thing to do it will only make you lazy.” Kim said.

“What? So a guy who got his black belt is now a lazy, big-headed bastard?”

“er… guys?” Turner hoped that he could get their attention back. He had a feeling that this ‘discussion’ was going to go out of hand quickly.

“What?!” both asked in unison.

“I think if I tell you a bit more about my task, you can then go and discuss it to see what you make of it?”

“Sure thing.” said Kim. D.C. just nodded.

“I have it on good authority that music is slowly moving towards a dead end. While it is still moving forward, these days it seems to be slowing down. If we do not make a decisive move now we are at risk of moving into a future were music will have devolved either into flat commercialised tunes built around focus testing and marketing or it will become so entrenched into its own genres that it’ll stop evolving.”

“Sounds like the fifties before rock’n’roll…” D.C. said more to himself than anyone else.

“Worse.” said Turner who did not think that the fifties had been that bad but did not want to risk another discussion, “If this goes on there won’t be much left to inspire the next wave. In a generation or two the kids will grow up in world were music has stalled and even if they were to look to the past for inspiration it would only lead to more remakes of old styles.”

“How the fuck can you know that.” Kim interjected, “I grant you that the scene has been a bit shit lately, but this is just part of the normal cycle. Right? Why do you think we are here? We have made our pilgrimage to the end of the world because we believe in our music and we certainly aren’t going to retread some old shit. Right D.C.”

“Hear, hear.” said D.C. saluting her with his spoon.

“That’s why I am here. You are people who have the right spirit. You have the potential to move things forward. You are not the first people I have spoken to… hey no need to look so scandalised! The others were warnings. One was so burnt out that he might turn to ashes at any moment. The other was to comfortable inside his own niche to care about the fate of the others. Or maybe he was just scared. And the third one, the last one…” Turner paused for a moment, the memory of Max Stryker sending shivers down his spine “the last one was the worst. His music had no soul. He was driven only by greed.”

“Aren’t we all driven by greed?” asked D.C. “After all don’t we all somehow want to be like stars or touch people or impress the girls or, I don’t know, like sell a million records and show them all that we had it in us the whole time?”

“No not that kind of greed. Those are ambitions that you try to reach through music. What I am talking is the cold greed for hard cash using what ever method you have in your reach. That is an ambition that is not human anymore.”

“Oh bullshit. Being a greedy fuck is about the most human thing you can do.” Kim disagreed.

“How can I put this.” while turner knew on an emotional level what he meant he had a hard time putting it into words. “When you have your standard greedy bastard he wants all the money and shiny shit because of some goal he has in mind. Right? House? Car? Yacht?”

“Sure.” Kim agreed.

“The greed I am talking about is one that doesn’t want anything. It justs wants more, for its own sake. Ah fuck it. It’s so fucking hard to explain. Just trust me. Or don’t. I really doesn’t matter. My mission is to create music that will blow peoples minds. That will kindle old fires, capture the minds of the ones who have forgotten how exciting the new can be and enchant all the kids who have still no idea what music can do.”

“I think we should give it a shot.” said D.C.

“Trying to start a revolution? Ridiculous.” Kim’s voice was cold, here face like stone. Her face lit up with a predator smile. “I like that.”

“It’s a deal then.” said Turner.

“Not so fast young man.” said Kim.

“I could be your grandfather.”

“Who cares? The important thing is that I’m not going to follow you blindly. Fuck. Even if you were my fucking best friend I would not follow you. You have to earn that privilege first. While your idea is all neat and shit, you still could be some crazy tone deaf hobo who knows shit all about music.”

“I. Am.” Adrian pointed at himself, “Adrian Turner.”

“Yeah. I know.”

D.C. remained silent moving his head form one side to the other like a spectator in a tennis match watching how things slowly escalated.

“And you don’t think I know how to play music?”

“I didn’t say that. I said that I do not know. So can you?”

“You just said that you know me.”

“Yeah. You like introduced yourself to me back there at the clearing. Kim pointed with her thumb to where they had come from.

“You never heard of me? I mean before then?” Adrian was mildly shocked, he should have known better both Kim and D.C. were still toddlers when his career had moved underground but it was still hard to believe. “I’ve been playing in a band since the seventies.”

“So? Just because you were the drummer in Lord Otter and the Fox-Feet doesn’t mean that you’re any good. No offence.”

“No taken.” Adrian failed to convince everyone around him including the trees and the skies above. “I played on festivals. Huge festivals that you’d have a hard time to imagine. I once played with my band in front of nearly half a million people. Half a million! The crowed was so large it reached the motherfucking horizon. There were so many people there that the back rows were hidden from sight by the curvature of the earth.”

“OK. That sounds kinda neat. But I still have to hear you play.” Kim insisted. “Please, don’t take it personally, but this is how I do things. For me rank and fame are worth shit. I need to see and hear to believe and be honest. Would you rather like someone who followed you because you were some kind of celebrity back in pre-history or someone who you moved with your music. After all if you can’t move me and D.C. with your style, how are you going to move an entire generation?”

“Fair enough. Do you have a guitar?” Turner said. He had lost a lot of confidence in the last two decades but he trusted his music.

“D.C. has. But not so fast. We’re not going to just have a sing song session around the camp fire. This isn’t summer camp, kid.”

“Don’t call me Kid…”

“We have to do this right. So tonight we rest and tomorrow, you will have to beat both of us.”

“A duel?” Turner smiled shaking his head.

“Yep.”

“Accepted. Make peace with yourself, for tomorrow you will fall.”

As Kim threw Turner a can of beer so that they could toast D.C. marvelled at how the line of fire had moved placing him from the side lines right into the crossfire.

Lightbringer 006

Chapter Five (first part)

Into the Woods

Adrian had hoped that he would forget the insanity of The Critic, but he could still vividly remember every detail from his conversation. How he had left the house was already hazy. And how the fuck he had ended up here in the depths of the primeval Canadian forest was a total mystery to him. But he was well equipped it seemed. He was carrying a gigantic backpack which was trying to make him fall over backwards with every step. While Adrian did not know the details of what he was lugging around, he knew in his heart of hearts that he was perfectly prepared.

He felt that he was near his goal. There were two names on his list that he had circled with a pen, these two names were close. Why on earth they had chosen the deep Canadian wilderness as a hangout was as inexplicable to Adrian as was why he had chosen to go after them instead of someone who lived in a big comfortable city full of big comfortable hotels. He had to admit that neither cities nor hotels had done him any good. It was also nice to have a change of scenery. The evening was closing sending its chill ahead to make its approach known to all. The sun was still holding onto the sky sending shafts of its crimson light into the forest illuminating the sparse underbrush of the deep forest. The ground was mostly in a thick layer of dead leaves forming a thick soft cushion filling he air with their typical smell of almost earth.

Turner climbed over the massive trunk of a tree that had fallen many years ago. He grabbed a fern that had made his home out of one of the sunnier spots on it pulling him self over the trunk taking care that his treacherous backpack did not unbalance him sending him flying to his certain doom. Behind the trunk the ground began to slope softly downward leading to a spot where for some reason a large portion of the ancient trees had fallen giving rise to a wild tangle of plants all racing in slow motion towards the open sky, trying to reach it before anyone else so that they may establish themselves in a place that was eternally under the sun. It was there that Turner suspected that he would find the people he was looking for.

There was a sound of cracking branches. Some one was trying to break through the underbrush preferring a brute force approach to finesse. Stood still, waiting with crossed arms for whom ever was going to break out from the copse in front of him.

What broke with sudden fury into to the open was a grizzly bear.

Adrian’s brain turn off all processes that were not utterly relevant to a being attacked by sudden bears. Time slowed down as all the focus went into the situation at hand and how to get out of it. The bear had broken through the underbrush standing up, looking extremely impressive and sooo much bigger than on TV. Once out of the thick vegetation it had made a jump forwards and was now charging on all fours. Even in mortal danger time the bear, as huge and impressive like a steam powered angry barn, was fucking fast. It looked all fat and round and well slow, but in two, three strides it had covered more than a third of the space between him and Adrian.

Options! Adrian’s brain demanded.

a) Fall down. Lie still. Play dead. That works on bears. Right?

Problem! Backpack weighs more than the sins committed by high ranking politicians in a month. Thus it will lead to slow death by suffocation. Maybe made worse by bear sitting on top eating rations.

b) Fall back. Maybe screaming and waving arms. Some dude on a survival TV show did that. Bears were impressed and backed away looking for a less crazy snack.

Problem! Falling over backwards. Lying on back. Like a turtle. Soft belly exposed. Pinned down by evil physics defying backpack. Instant bear snack.

c)

Special news bulletin, bear now three quarters of the way towards soft easily ruptured body.

C) For fucks sake. Take axe from belt. Throw bear inn the face! Show him who’s boss.

PROBLEM! Fumbling it out of belt great risk! Not a Norse axe thrower. Possible results: missing bear, hitting bear with some blunt side of axe which axe is mostly made of thus making bear angrier or axe actually hitting bear with business end but making bear even more furious. Also bear would then also have an axe.

Fuck!

Or.

d) Bear doesn’t give a shit and runs past by us. Leaving only a faint trail of bear in a great hurry smell.

Adrian felt relived and very secretly, very, very slightly offended.

Behind him the bear vanished in the depths of the Canadian wilderness.

Adrian failed to relax. He tried to find some amusement in realising that while the bear was quite a threatening presence only a moment ago, that he was heading towards what had scared the bear so much in the first place. Maybe, he thought, what ever that was is on my side? While he made his way carefully down the slope, his little axe now in his hand he wondered if hope really died last or if it was not more plausible that it was life that got extinguished after hope had sensibly decided to go and look for more promising pastures.

Lightbringer 005

Chapter 4

Sound Advice

He remembered. Not how he came to stand in this entrance hall. A small room that had difficulty holding all its doors and stairs and that big front desk in place but it held it together. Adrian now realised that ‘how’ wasn’t important. He knew why he was here. That was important. He walk a few steps over the plushy 70s refugee carpet towards the front desk. An enormous mahogany dinosaur of a desk that by its sheer size dominated the room along with everyone in it. Behind the desk sat an androgynous person in clad in colours painstakingly combined in the most eye watering manner possible.

“Yes?”

“I’m here to see the Critic”

“You don’t have an appointment.”

“No. I was sent here by a mutual friend and he told me that I could see him today.” Turner thought that the gifts f the Devil could start working for a change.

“A mutual friend?” the acid trip escapee was not impressed. “Does that friend have a name?”

“Morgenstern.”

The receptionist hesitated for a moment. “OK. You can go and talk to The Critic. Be careful though he is listening to music right now and he hates to be interrupted.”

“Which door?” Turner asked.

“The stairs to the right” the colour out of space nodded towards one of the stairs, “first floor door to the left.”

“Thanks.”

As he was walking upstairs the receptionist added “Don’t break his flow.”

“Sure.”

The door left of the stairs looked ordinary enough at first sight yet as Turner opened it he discovered that it was a very thick wooden block of a door, that was heavily padded from the inside revealing another equally padded door right behind it. He could also hear the faint thumping of deep loud bass sounds trying to escape their prison. The inner door would not budge.

“It won’t open until the outer door is closed.” came from below.

Turner moved inside the cramped space between the doors pulling the outer door shut behind him. That left him with hardly and room left to move. Had he not been on a strict forgotten musician on tour diet he may not have fit at all. At least the space between the doors had neat reverse fridge-light going on, where a couple of small LEDs that were nesting in the padding started shining. They provided enough illumination for Turner to locate the handle of the other door. As he pressed it down the sound proofing seal on the door frame was broken and he was overwhelmed by music.

Turner might have staggered by a step or tow if not for the closed outer door behind him. The soft thumps of bass he had hared before were now crashing right through him. His whole body was forced into resonance with the music. There was so much sound all around him that the first thing that he noticed was the smell of leather and old record covers. The information Turners brain was receiving from his eyes were given secondary priorities for the moment. As the vibration of his entire being was connected to the sound and the sound was resolved into what was probably music, the room was allowed to come into focus.

It was a large space. Turner could have fitted his first three flats into it and have had enough room left for a nice little garden. The floor, the ceiling and the wall were all covered in padded leather. The leather was red, the one associated with wizened professors and fireplaces. The room appeared to be the result of an unique leather chair that had grown so large that it had started to fold into itself. The centre of it held three insect like chairs built to please some alien aesthetic first and human physiology second. All three of them were of matte black colour, carefully wrapped in some kind of spongy fabric. The central one was holding the figure of man who the moment Turner had entered had held up his left hand, to indicate that Turner should hold his breath until the piece the man was listening too was finished. Adrian was very thankful that the inner door closed itself. While he was confident that he could have strangled an elephant with anyone hearing anything, he was sufficiently intimidated by The Hand of The Critic to try to be as quiet as possible.

The Critic and his chairs were surrounded by carefully placed speakers. They looked rather plain in contrast to the chairs. Almost six feet tall but slender they did exude a certain professional nonchalance. These speakers were so far on top of the line that they needed no fancy branding, shocking colours or strange cases. They simply pumped out their sounds to the best of their ability which was equal to the limit of human technology at the time of their making. They were the best and they knew it.

One circle beyond were the pipes that held the cables, connecting the speakers to their amps, laid out in a grid that formed the modern equivalent of a summoning circle. The Main amp was sitting proudly in his cabinet, holding court over his many vassal amps, carefully passing on the secrets that he had gleaned from his records.

The last circle were the cabinets that held the records themselves. All of them crafted to perfectly fit the walls. Uniformly padded to not break the sound of the room. Their doors were closed but someone had gone through the trouble of marking them with gold leaf. Turner could see that they were ordered by years, only declaring what type of record they held. Starting from phonoautogramms, moving to shellac and vinyl records, CDs, audio-DVDs, to Blu-Ray disks and a myriad of other formats.

The music itself did not quite make sense to Adrian. As he was examining the room he was trying to get into the groove of the sound. However always when he thought that he had found the core of the piece that held it all together, the core dissolved into several new strands. He wasn’t even sure what kind of music he was listening to in the first place. It did remind him of some of the more extreme forms of free jazz, but then there was a lot of metal in the music too with a dash of post-rock added just for the heck of it. Turner was not impressed. However before dismissing the music he attempted to understand it. He had his principles. One of them was that he would not look down on any kind of music before he was not confident that he had grasped it. So he opened up the the record trying to understand it. There was hardly any melody, mostly a wall of sound, always in motion always changing. While it was not his cup of tea he could see the craft behind it, the work that had gone into weaving this strange fluctuating experience. He got lost in the music being drawn back to the present only after the piece was over and was replaced by muffled silence.

The Critic had paused the player. He had turn around in his strange chair now facing Truner. One leg hanging from an armrest. In one hand he held his remote control like a sceptre with the other hand he rubbed his chin.

“What did you think of that?” The Critic asked.

“Hard to tell. I don’t understand that music, yet.” Adrian said.

“You can stay.” The Critic said. He got up and pointed at a chair with his free hand. “Please sit down.” He moved one chair further to the right and sat back down again. Turner sat down, quite surprised that at how comfortable the chair was. Actually it was a comfortable as it was horrid.

“Granted you have not yet quite made a connection with the music you just heard, still you must have an opinion. Share it.” the Critic looked at Turner with what seemed to be genuine interest.

“The music was very complex. Many layers. Often losing harmony and what little melody there is. But it all held together really well. Every note played made sense.” He thought a bit longer about what he had just heard, while the Critic lent forward listening with a ferocious intensity. “The beat was pretty much awesome. Was not always there. Like the rest it was going in and out of focus, but when it came to the forefront it was very mellow and strong. So despite it not really being my style it was actually pretty decent. Interesting in the best sense of the world. Apart from one thing.” Turner winkled his nose.

“And what was that?” the Critic arched his eyebrows, leaning slightly back.

“Well there were moments when the ‘singer’ was growling which was a bit ridiculous.”

“That was not ridiculous, it was an accent. It had a primal strength to it that would have been ruined by anything as mundane as a simple humane voice. Also considering what the have done with the voices of their instruments it hardly seems fitting to not do it to the voice too.”

“If you say so. To me it still sounded like someone had dropped 150 watt amp on the foot of the singer…”

The critic laughed. “I like that one.” The critic was still smiling but was now serious again. “So you don’t like the growlers then?”

“To be quite frank I hate them.”

The Critics face was impassive. “Anything else you… hate?”

“Sure loads of stuff. Country? I fucking hate country. And rap or is it hip-hop? Is there even a difference? Oh and R’n’B which has neither rhythm nor any kind of blues. Fuck that shit.” Adrian was just getting started.

“Never hate.” The Critic said.

“What?”

“Never. Hate.”

“But that music is shit!”

“No it isn’t. Maybe you don’t like it. Or you don’t understand it. Or it is not to your taste. But music is never shit. Never.”

“Oh yeah? And when when its just three badly played riffs and the only time the bass and percussion are in the pocket is because if they try long enough they are bound to get it right sometime?”

“Don’t hate, man! Learn. Listen to it. First of all try to find out if it is you or the music. If it’s you, because you are not getting it or are feeling protective of your own shit. Let go of it. Learn to listen. Do it over and over again until you know it.”

“I always do that!”

“Yet here you are hating. What the fuck man? And even if the music isn’t good. Be thankful because the easiest way to learn is by avoiding the shit other people do. The next time you listen to something and think ‘wow that was some abominable shit right there!’ the next time you do that you have to stop and think to your self: ‘Hmmm I wonder why that didn’t work.” and try to see a way to make it better. Do you understand? The people who make the ‘bad’ music are our greatest teachers so show some respect OK?”

“Yeah. But…”

“No. Buts! Just stop heating. What do you think that’ll achieve huh? Are you going to hate the music away? Do you think the guys who make the stuff you don’t like give a shit? They will probably not even hear your silly ranting because the cash register is being so loud when they go and get their royalties. In the end you will end up with an ulcer or shit like that and they will live happily ever after. Does that sound clever to you?”

“Well. No. Not really.”

“See there you go. Do. Not. Hate. First it will make you a much more likable person and it will help you grow as an artist. OK?”

“OK.” Adrian said feeling slightly shocked. That was an unexpected little outbreak. To make matters worse The critic was kind of right. Now that he came to think of it there were a few ‘artists’ that were really high on his personal list of disdain whose stuff he could take and turn it into something decent without breaking a sweat.

“Sorry about that. One of my pet peeves. So. Adrian Turner…” the Critic Lent back again forcing his chair into a more comfortable position. His legs now both dangling over one arm rest using the other as back rest. “What brings you here to me then?”

“You know who I am.” Turner was almost surprised, but his surprise was gagged and bound by his world weariness before it could get anywhere. “Who told you that I’d come.” Rhetorical question, Turner knew the answer to that already.

“Told me, that you’d come? No one.” The Critic replied. Turner had to admit that this answer had only a few letters in common with the one he was thinking of.

“Have we met?” Turner asked.

“Have we met he asks! Of course we have met. Many hundreds of times. Me and you we go way, way back.”

“Really? Shit. I’m sorry I am having trouble with my memories lately.”

“Don’t worry. This is the first time that we see eye to eye. When you were still a big star burning in the sky I was a professional adolescent and not yet The Critic. Sadly as my star rose yours faded away.” The Critic inclined his head slightly. He smiled a happy little smile. “But it kept on burning for all these years, didn’t it.”

“Music is my life, I would not know what else to do.” Turner kept his voice carefully under control, so that what he said sounded cool and not as desperate as it felt inside of him.

“I’m glad to see that there is still Rock in you Turner.”

“But still how did you recognise me?”

“Your voice. I’ve listened to you so many times I could identify you in the dark. Your face helped although you’ve grown old. That makes it harder. Neither do I have a picture of you that isn’t older than 20 years nor is my memory for faces all that good.”

“I’m impressed and flattered. Only my most hardcore fans would recognise me these days when I am not on stage with…” Adrian remembered that there was no band anymore. “No. I think these days no one would recognise me anymore.”

The Critic smiled as if that was the best thing he had heard all day. “Perfect.”

“If you want me to kick the living shit out of you, you just have to ask, no need to get personal.” Adrian said.

“Personal? Wh…? No you misunderstand. Look at you Adrian Turner. You are not some run of the mill musician that has had a little dent in his career. You were once a rock god. You are a legend. A forgotten legend.”

“And how is that supposed to make me feel better?” Adrian replied through clenched teeth.

“Because you still are! A legend I mean. I have been listening to you for almost all my life. You exploded into the scene in the early eighties and it was remarkable. Especially if you listen to your really early stuff. Like I did. That was OK but not exceptional.”

“Is that also supposed to make me feel better?” Adrian fled into open the arms of sarcasm.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Open your eyes Adrian.” The Critic shouted. “There you are. A snot nosed teenager with some skill on the guitar and a hand full of solid demo tapes. That should not have gotten you very far. And yet not one year later you fucking thermonuclear exploded into the realm of music. I have no idea what happened but boy was that a leap forward. Again this is not that special. If you know where and how to listen you will hear hundreds if not thousands of guys and girls like you suddenly ignite. But then you just went on and became better. And better. And better. While others were already gone or to busy doing drugs and hookers you kept getting better for a decade. And then and this is my favourite part:” The Critic’s eyes were now large and shining, “when all around you genres were going extinc, sinking into obscurity losing their grip on humanity you just did it again you magnificent bastard. There you were the types of music that had made you great and that you had made great were turning to ashes around and you gave it another push. Sure you vanished from the main stream but your fans you millions of fans could see how you were burning with new creative energy. I talked to people who had been listening to your music since your early days of stardom. These people, when you talk to them they are still filled with a deep sense of wonder, they actually start to talk softer there eyes wide with wonder when they talk about what you did back then. They remember to this very day how after more than ten years you still managed to surprise them and blow them away with your music!”

OK. That was kind of nice to hear, Turner had to admit.

“And then, no one knows what really happened you start to fade away. You fade but you never die. You have a chance only very few people have. You are a hidden king. Your star can burn bright again. You can return.”

Turner was at a loss for words. He felt pride swelling in his chest and embarrassment blooming in his face. He cleared his throat. “Thank you for the kind words. er… Well. While I don’t really plan a comeback, I am looking for some exceptional musicians and I was hoping that you could point me into the right direction.”

“What’s the idea? Are you trying to mentor some promising musicians? Are you going to make a new band?”

“I am not quite sure. But I know that I need to bring together some exceptional musicians.”

“What for?”

“What for? To rock the fucking world down to its very foundations, of course. After our first concert I expect that the police will have gotten calls from dead gods complaining about the noise.”

“A noble mission if there ever was one.” The Critic said. “I will give you a list of people that can help you with your endeavour. you have to be careful though.”

“Careful?”

“Yes. You have to pull this off the right way if you want to succeed.”

“I still don’t follow you.”

“We have established that you are a legend, right?”

“Right?” Adrian had still no idea where this was going.

“The piece of music I had immersed myself into when you arrived. You listened to it and I have to admit that for someone who is not a critic you have shown to have a rather keen ear.”

Adrian just nodded to encourage the Critic to go on.

“I have listened to music professionally for decades now so I do hear deeper, much, much deeper than most other people. I hear the music, the rhythm, the theme, but I can hear further. I hear the struggle of the musician that work on it. I can hear the whispers of their souls. I feel the context, the Zeitgeist, the culture from which this music was born. In m mind I see how they are all connected. What we just heard was song of a broken heart. The sound that is produced by a soul that is slowly losing all its illusions that if had about its culture. Akin to the child that discovers that its parents aren’t perfect, the adult soul may discover that its culture also is flawed. In this case there is no other culture to replace the old. There is only the struggle between several different civilisations all of them flawed in different ways, all broken and the soul is left alone to fend for it self as it has not yet found it in itself to trust other souls. And see! There is the genius the music is made from different people all individual all lonely in the same way and they make this music that reflects how alone they are, despite having found others exactly like them. See? And there is of course the meta narrative of the parallel soul para-civilisation construct…”

“That is really” ‘rally crazy’ Adrian thought, “fascinating. I can’t quite see what this has to do with my plan though.” he remembered now that Lucifer had warned him that The Critic had past the demarcation line of genius to venture into the realms beyond.

“Everything!” The Critic said with burning eyes, “You cannot simply go out there. Knock on doors. Ask questions. Make a fucking casting. You have to invoke the powers of legend!”

“The powers of legend.” Turner had once read somewhere that you could get people to talk more by paraphrasing what they just had said. He hoped that The Critic might start to make sense again or at least give him enough time to come up with a good excuse to leave.

“Yes! There are powerful forces in stories. And what is music but a story told in emotions?”

Totally insane but he has a point there. “Agreed. So how do I harness that force?”

“Up until now you have only walked on the surface. Now you have to dive right in. Stop chasing after music. Be music. Follow its form and it will form you. Once you do that you’ll be in harmony with music. You will see, once that has happened things will come together quite naturally. Instead of you following the story, the story will follow you.”

“OK. I’ll just walk right ahead, go real deep and the story will just follow.” Turner said wondering what the fuck that even meant.

“Right.” The Critic seemed to be happy.

“So, about that list?”

“Of course, of course. Let’s go down to the reception I’ll give you the names you need. Oh and there is something else?”

“Really? What’s that?” Turner hoped it would not be another strange, crazy rant.

“Once you start moving inside the story you will know it by its trappings. That way you will be at an advantage when things should start to go wrong. Like in the horror movies? You know? With the serial killer and the stairs?”

“No running upstairs and if a serial killer appears with a knife shoot him in the face?”

“Just like that! Great. Now. Now you are ready to go out there and become the next chapter of your legend.” The Critic got up prompting Adrian to follow him.

Ten minutes later he left the house of The Critic with a list of names in his pocket and relief in his heart.

Now he had enough candidates to start three bands. Even if half of them refused his call he would still have more than enough people to do some serious rocking. Actually now that he almost had a team together he could start planing their next step.

Form now on things seemed easy and clear.

He was wrong.

This was the point where shit got surreal.