Five Flavors of Dumb - Antony John [18]
Our first full rehearsal took place back in the luxurious surroundings of the Cooke family garage, with its artfully painted walls, spotlighting, and central heating. There was even an old but fully functioning vending machine I hadn’t noticed before, and Josh downed two bottles of energy drink before the others had finished setting up. Thus caffeinated, he generously divulged some of the information he’d inexplicably kept secret until that point, such as:
1. The three songs they played on the school steps were, coincidentally, the same three songs they had played at the Battle of the Bands, which were, “technically,” the only three songs they knew.
2. Of those three songs, um, three were covers, which meant that, “in a manner of speaking,” Dumb would need to pay the copyright holder before recording them.
At which point I butted in and suggested that maybe it was time to learn some new material, and Josh pointed out that:
3. They’d been rehearsing those three songs pretty much continuously “since the beginning of junior year,” and the Battle of the Bands performance was the first time they hadn’t screwed up.
And Ed stopped biting his fingernails long enough to ask if it was a coincidence that they’d chosen songs that only used the same three chords, and Josh chuckled and said:
4. No. Not a coincidence at all. In fact, it took a while to find songs that only used C-F-G, although Tash and Will assured him they were itching for more complex material.
And even though I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, I knew my job was to keep up morale, so I said we’d take our time and make sure we were all comfortable before unleashing ourselves on our adoring general public, and Josh laughed again and said:
5. Yeah, but, you know . . . the first recording session with Baz Firkin is booked for this Sunday.
At which point I stopped biting my fingernails and expressed my incredulity through a choice four-letter word. Then I took a deep, calming breath and suggested that we stick to songs they already knew, at which Josh reiterated:
2. Of those three songs, um, three were covers, which meant that, “in a manner of speaking,” Dumb would need to pay the copyright holder before recording them.
At which point I uttered several more four-letter words. And this time, breathing deeply didn’t help at all.
Fifteen minutes later, Ed was using an ancient bucket of sidewalk chalk to illustrate how they could insert the chord of A minor between C and F. As far as I was concerned, he may as well have been writing hieroglyphics, but Will seemed to know exactly what it all meant. He leaned back and played a series of rumbling bass notes over and over, while Tash looked on admiringly, although her eyes were locked on Will’s face, not his hands. A minute later she joined in with the earth-shattering, paradigm-changing C-A minor-F-G chord sequence, and suddenly I could feel how something indefinable had shifted, like a sentence that had grown by a few words. Finally, Josh got in on the act, composing new lyrics especially for the occasion. By the time everyone was in sync, Dumb had its first original song, and although Josh was bummed when I said he should change the lyrics “Hey ho, make me happy” because they were likely to be misinterpreted, a glare from Tash convinced him I was right.
Meanwhile, I kept busy by e-mailing Baz Firkin, insisting that we put off the recording session for at least a few weeks. Then I pulled out my camera and began taking black-and-white photos of the band at work. I took photos lying