“Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t like them,” Edgar said. “I just don’t want to start going around telling bands to fuck off, you know? I think it’s probably important to keep good relations with the other metal bands around here, even if they suck.”
“Well, you can give Paul a call tomorrow if you want. Go for a coffee or something,” I snapped. “I don’t regret what I said. I’d do it again. And I’d probably say something worse. They suck. I never want to play with them again. They are assholes. If you want to go buddy it up with Blackskull, be my guest.”
Everyone was silent when I stopped talking, and I started feeling stupid, which made me even angrier. I folded my arms and stared out the window.
Finally Fern spoke. “Rachel, they definitely were assholes. I personally don’t care what you said to Paul —”
“Well, you should,” Edgar interrupted grumpily.
“But I do think Socks is right, we need to talk about our show,” she continued. “Otherwise no bands are going to want to play with us. We’re not going to be able to move forward.”
Everyone started talking about how we’d sounded versus how we’d looked, and how we needed to really try harder for more energy next time, and out loud I agreed and half-listened. I was still thinking about what Edgar had said. He seemed to think it was a bad move to establish myself as a force to be reckoned with. Why couldn’t he understand that it was obviously better to be aggressive? Not to take any shit from anybody? Maybe that was a good reputation to have. After all, this was metal music. What part of it did he not understand?
TWENTY-THREE
I was determined not to have a shitty show ever again. I wasn’t na?ve enough to think that wouldn’t take time and practise, of course, and I wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the fact that trying too hard could result in Heathenistic Bile–like stupidity. It was a fine balance.
I spent a bunch of time on the internet, watching live concert videos of my two heroes: Marie-Lise from Gurgol, and Balthazar Seizure from DED. There weren’t any female metal singers I could watch for inspiration, but that meant that if I could combine the elements I admired from Marie-Lise and Balthazar, I would be original in a lot of ways.
Marie-Lise, of course, played bass and I couldn’t copy her as much as I probably would have tried to if I’d also played an instrument. Fern — as much as I loved her — wasn’t being very discreet in her attempt to emulate her. I mean, Fern continually bleached her hair, and she still wasn’t able to get it as pure white as Marie-Lise.
What I admired the most about Marie-Lise was her aggression and confidence onstage, and, of course, her style. She somehow managed to leap around stage in giant platform boots, sweat onstage without smearing her makeup, and wear cute dresses and skirts without ever coming across as looking skanky. She would take command of the crowd in front of her side of the stage by just glancing at them. In my opinion it was no small feat that she managed to intimidate all those long-haired guys pressed at the front of the stage, especially since there was a strong possibility that they felt the same way about women as Paul did.
My favourite video was one where Marie-Lise had moved to the front of the stage. It looked like a crazy show. Hundreds of people were crammed up front. Wrenching her bass, she skipped lightly to the front of the stage and placed one foot on a monitor, gazing challengingly into the sea of faces, and a ton of hands reached up through the wall of flying hair and banging heads, stretching towards her frantically.
She stayed just out of their reach and taunted them, banging out the chords, always making eye contact with the crowd and sneering. She was amazing.