The L train had stopped at the Lorimer Street Station on its way from Manhattan back to Brooklyn when the young man sensed a sudden excitement in the car. He raised his eye from the book he was reading as a full-size stand-up bass sailed past. In moments, a trio of Mexican musicians had set up in the middle of the car.
He nudged his girlfriend “Look,” he said.
Continue reading “Ta Da Dum Bing – a story by Michael Henson”
Things really pick up at the fifteen-minute mark. Lionel Bottom, lead singer, is belting the chorus of “Baby Without Bottle.” He’s suffused in steamy shades of red and purple, highlighting the angularity of his spiky hair and turning his pasty skin pink. He holds the microphone like he’s choking it when he sings, “We are men we need no coddle / We’re like baby without bottle.” It’s a glorious crescendo, really marvelous, powerful stuff, exactly what The Scrum is all about. A crowd of five thousand worships the trio with bacchanalian ardor, yelling, dancing.
Continue reading “How I Made the Greatest Concert Movie of All Time by Adam Kaz”
The spring sea lapped upon the shore of Yokohama. In the city a familiar New Year tune played over a radio. It had been ten years since I heard that song. I mouthed along the words half-remembered from nights when, in drunken stupor, my friend, the poet Sunokaze Heki, would recite tanka alongside the music.
Continue reading “Rosa Rugosa by Thomas J Daly”
They hadn’t touched her daughter, the crowd outside. They had wept at her in holy resignation and punched fists of beads at the air, hostile with certainty, but Bec had drawn herself wider and taller, a linen sailcloth harnessing the crackle of hostile air, propelling them forwards to the safety of the car.
Continue reading “Loving You by Simon Ashton”
Cognitive Dissonance, my jazz combo, show signs of being on an upward swing, even though we left the audience at the altar last Fall when we almost but not quite played “A Love Supreme.” The show was a victim of unexpected interference from my day job, when my boss Ronnie was thrashed by the competition’s guys. I had to run to see him at the hospital minutes before we were planning to hit the stage. It was mandatory.
Some band members blame the inexplicably awol drummer, who prioritizes a half-week relationship over Cognitive Dissonance’s long-term reputation. Months of practice down the drain. However you frame the situation, our musical reach exceeded our grasp.
After I refund the ticket sales out of my own pocket, it’s ketchup soup and toaster leavings until Spring.
Continue reading “The Kid Who Thinks He’s Grown by Todd Mercer“
Whistler stood in the weeds, leaning against the brick wall of the old train station and listening to the susurration of wind over the tracks. The others might have known he was there, might have seen him suddenly after looking once and not seeing him as the wind stirred through the cyclone fence, wafting the trumpet vines and grasses down near the old, rusting boxcar where Nathan lived, but he saw no one. Bobo and Saint Louis lived at the other end of the yard in a faded red caboose, but nobody knew where Whistler lived. He appeared and disappeared. No one knew.
Continue reading “The Violin by Frank Jamison”
The weirdest five minutes of your life, October 17, 2001, Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros at the EMP Sky Church. The Wallflowers opening, Dylan’s kid the frontman.
Continue reading “Five Minutes with Joe by Marco Etheridge”
It didn’t take long before I regretted everything. By then it was too late. I cast a look back at the events that had landed me here in this moment and saw nothing but weeds. Overgrown brush and dry mud cracking under the low winter sun. A life left without watering.
Continue reading “Half Broke and Fully In by Josiah Crocker”
Arthur Nagel is an ugly, little man. He stands barely four feet tall, and his head is much too big for his body. The muscles on the left side of his face are totally paralyzed causing his face to droop. Because of his looks, most people think Arthur is mentally deficient. He is not.
Continue reading “Friend by Donnie Cox”
Laying the Groundwork for a Hit
Composing a Hit
wikiHow, “How to Write a Hit Song”
literally stories 