Chapter 23

“Okay an old van, a wireless system, speaker stacks, effects processors and amps,” I summed up, the following morning, Saturday. We were all lying on the bed upstairs where it’s light and airy, as opposed to in the dungeon which Alice and Faye had painted - inevitably, really - deep purple walls with a back-in-black ceiling. Now sometimes they were in the mood for that, and sometimes they weren’t.

Anyway the bed was big enough for five, as long as we overlapped. We were all buzzing about the gig that was coming up in four weeks’ time. Alice, with Kimie, had instantly earmarked all the money we were being paid for equipment.

“Yeah, we’ve got the wireless mixer, so Doug can mix for us,” said Alice, “and we’re not going to mic the drums yet apart from recording. We need boots for Kims and Senzie, and tops - whatever but not waistcoats so it’s not a uniform. What else? Dave’s fixing his lights isn’t he?”

Dave the landlord had joined us for a drink and was now a friend and ally. We’d shaken hands on £2800 for four gigs, and he was going to ask his brewery to do some promotion for us and get staff giving us likes and retweets and subscriptions.

“Makeup?” I suggested.

“Got that really,” said Kimie, “we’re just doing our eyes aren’t we? We don’t want to BE Kiss or something, just do one.” She grinned. “It’s good anyway, cos that’s all the money spent already. We have to find someone at the college in Media Studies to do video for us, and some graphics and a website template. Shouldn’t be hard, they’re always gagging for projects. I’m thinking I’ll look for a cloak to wear, in Faye’s charity shops.”

“What about shorts and a cut-off tee for you?” Alice asked Faye. “You don’t want to be distracted with guys looking up your skirt do you?”

Faye nodded, enjoying being looked after.

“Our second song,” said Kimie, “what should it be about?”

Their first one was basically done and just needed a bit of refining to be a very appealing heavy, rhythmic rock song. It was called ‘Keep Messin Round’ and was about a girl telling a boy what would happen if he kept messing about and didn’t get on with it. It was clever, funny and sexy. Kimie had written the words and the melody, Faye and Senzie had come up with the beat and bass riff, and Alice had pulled it all together and added her guitar. Now they wanted a second one.

“We need some angst, really,” said Alice.

“We haven’t actually had any angst,” sighed Sienna regretfully, “in our lives I mean. We’re just like middle-class girls that nothing’s happened to. We’ve all got both parents and enough money and everything, and they even let us half live here. Even our sex life is so easy: we just laze around in the nude and have a cum whenever we feel like it. I mean, I just feel a bit sexy the whole time, then when I’m ready there’s always someone else who feels like it. We don’t have dating problems or anything.”

Faye took a slight breath.

“Faye’s had some angst,” Alice picked up on it.

“You were bullied weren’t you,” I wasn’t sure we were ready to get into Jack and the house.

“Yes.”

“A rock song about bullying...” Kimie considered it. It was in her tone that she’d never been bullied.

“Not really a rock subject, normally,” mused Alice.

“No,” said Faye, with the faintest hint of disappointment. Being bullied is a low-status thing.

“It could be though, couldn’t it?” Sienna picked up on that, perhaps.

“What did they do?” Kimie asked Faye, stroking a delicate hand over her cheek.

Faye related some of the treatment she’d had, which was worse than I’d realised. It made my blood boil.

“Think I’ll go and rip some faces off,” snarled Alice, “what are their names?”

“Well it’s all over now,” said Faye anxiously. “Douglas stopped it, with the speech he gave. Only two of them carried on and then some others said something, that there must be something wrong with them, like Douglas said, and they didn’t do it any more. And I’m happy now anyway.”

“Huh,” Alice wasn’t satisfied. “Well if you’re sure ... alright but we can do something with a song, at least, can’t we?”

“Give them a smack, with rock?” Sienna nodded.

“Or do something anyway,” Kimie agreed. “Or try. Okay. Just cos it’s new isn’t a reason not to.”

“Do you have bullying at your school, Headmaster?” asked Senzie.

“Not any more,” I said. “though I had to have a bit of a fight with my governors.”

“To sack people,” guessed Kimie with satisfaction.

“One who just told a boy not to make himself a target wearing his hair long, and one who didn’t tell me or do anything when someone else went to her. That was the general attitude, among the governors as well, so I had to shake them up a bit. Gave my lectures, told the kids they mustn’t stand and watch, excluded a couple of kids and made a few suspensions. Made it clear what teachers are expected to do, which is impose the right culture and stop the bullying, not just follow a procedure. So there is a better culture now.”

“This is why we love you Headmaster,” Alice mocked; but she snuggled against me.

“So...” pondered Kimie, “why do they do it, the bullies?”

“It’s power, and status.” I slipped all too readily into teacher mode. “It transfers power and status from the victim to the bully. Some of it is usually an aggressive personality, low empathy, overlaid with some cultural aspects, like a bad example at home, poor self-worth, being bullied themselves, bullying parent. A gang of kids can adopt it and encourage each other, or a whole school can be permissive about it if other kids watch or even join in. It’s very social behaviour. So you need to enforce a culture where it’s not accepted by other kids, and if there are some individuals who can’t be stopped you have to act for the school as a whole and exclude them. Teaching, is what it needs, about that just like anything.”

There was silence for a minute.

“So it’s like a fake power,” said Kimie.

“Title!” said Alice.

“Yeah,” said Senzie, “a song about the bully. A song that rocks, but totally freaking puts them down. But maybe that’s not obvious to start with.”

“Yeah...” mused Kimie, off on a train of thought, “‘Gimme some power’... ‘cos I’m a taker’... ‘and a faker’... ‘I get off when you cower’... “.

“Let’s go down,” said Alice.

Everyone got up and we went down to the dungeon. We’d added another sofa so I was able to sit on one, with Bruno on my lap, while the girls sat on their stools with their instruments.

“Okay try da-da-da-DUM-da-da-DUM Faysie,” Kimie started the band off and our rock dungeon filled with energy. She made some notes in a notebook while Senzie added a deep, slow riff and Alice a sharp, attacking chord. No more than half an hour later they had the bones of a song. It was mean, and sad, and finally angry.

“Alright let’s close with it?” proposed Alice. “Open with Gimme Some Lovin, finish the first set with Keep Messin Round, re-start with Bad to the Bone, close with Fake Power and then what for an encore, if we get one?”

They all looked at each other; Faye took a breath.

“Go on,” said Kimie.

“D’you think we’re good enough to do Shoot To Thrill?” she asked. “I love the bit in the middle with the drums and the guitar. You know: doo dodododo doo dododod...” She played it on the drums, instinctively.

“We’ll try,” said Alice decisively. “Okay we practice the two sets, over and over. Twelve songs. Then practice the bits we need to practice some more, and do the sets again, so when we’re live and all stressed out we can still do it perfectly. Concentrate on each other, you two; Kimie and I will work the audience.”

The last Friday in May was to be the big day.

I tried to make contacts in the music industry, but couldn’t get any further than the assistants who told me, as they’d told everyone else I could hear in their voice, to send in a demo - which we weren’t quite ready for even if it would actually get a listen.

We did some filming with three Media Studies students from the college, of the girls arriving in the Seven Bells car park on their bikes, and some more of them playing. The students took a lot of photos, and by D-day Kimie had some pretty good profiles and pages set up, though with little activity on them so far.

We were starting at nine. In the afternoon we took the kit down in our old van and set up. We were all jumpy, especially when we saw the huge banners across the front and back of the pub: ‘Rhythm n Girlz’. It was scary, and thrilling. They must have been ten metres long, with a photo at each end of the girls in an intimate cluster, in front of their bikes with the two guitars crossed over in front. Alice and Senz behind, Kimie and Faye in front. Thigh boots and skater skirts or lycra shorts and lots of leg; waistcoat, cloak, or tee. There were more posters inside, and a banner on the wall at the back of the stage.