#by perpetual_C000009A | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

prorevenge · 7 years

Text

Smells like teen primadonna spirit.

Bit of background. My little brother was in a high school band, and although I was never part of it, I used to drive them around to gigs and occasionally to the studio. I could drive, and if I helped my little brother out, it meant I got to borrow our Mother's car for a while, so it wasn't entirely altruistic.

As well as lil bro (guitar), there was also Kev (vocals), Bob (guitar) and Dave (drums).

This was in the late '90s, I was about 19-20 during these events, Lil' Bro is 2 years younger than me. They were a rock/grunge band. Kev was very much the ringleader. His Dad worked for a local radio station at a town about 100 miles away, and Kev would often insist on making decisions for the band because his Dad's background trumped everything. His Dad was a producer. Mostly all happy times, although Kev would often pick on Dave, and drummers in general. "What do you call a guy who hangs out with musicians? A drummer." Etc.

Partly, Kev just didn't feel that drumming required any talent, and partly he didn't like that his younger sister had a bit of a crush on Drummer Dave. Mostly he was just a Primadonna knobhead.

Drummer Dave was an exceptionally amiable and easy-going guy, and took it all in good spirit.

Dave also had a parrot (whom we'll call Chekhov's Parrot) at his place, and sometimes when they'd be practising in the garage there, Kev would complain that he could hear that sodding parrot over their music (highly unlikely), and would, whenever the chance arose, try to upset the parrot by flipping it off, rattling its cage or just making sudden movements toward it. He was a bit of a dick.

One sunny afternoon, Kev had told the band that he was going to visit his Dad (divorced parents), and be at his Dad's 50th birthday party, and there'd be loads of music industry people there, and he'd get the chance to tell them about the band and maybe even play them a track or two, and hand out some demo CDs. Maybe they'd get some airplay or even a record deal with a proper label!

But the catch was: they had to fire Dave and get a new drummer. Lil' Bro and Bob talked it over and decided they'd rather get a new vocalist, and they decided to call Drummer Dave, tell him what was going on, and that they would pretend they had fired him to appease Kev, but if it came to it, they'd both refuse to cooperate unless Dave was fully reinstated.

I was supposed to help in the drummer replacement by putting an ad in the local paper, but I can be forgetful sometimes, and I just never remembered. Anyhow, it was getting close to the big birthday, and I had paid out of my own pocket for a bunch of blank CD-Rs to put the band's demo on. We cut about 50 CDs in the end, for Kev to hand out to, or play in front of all these music industry people. All cases nicely labelled, and with the name of the band scrawled on the actual disk.

We handed them over to Kev a week before his departure for the big party. The band had one more practice session, at Kev's garage, before he went. At this session, my brother was helping clean up their McDonald's detritus, and upon opening the outside bin (that's a trashcan, for Americans), he saw... about 50 CD-Rs with the band's name on them. WTF was going on? He didn't confront Kev, but showed Bob what he'd found. Bob said he needed the bathroom and went inside, to Kev's room, where he found Kev's packed bags with about 10 CDs, just with Kev's name scribbled on them. Kev was going to fuck them over.

Bob took one of the CDs, stuffed it in his jacket and he and Lil' Bro made their way to the car, so I could drive them home.

They told me what had happened, and we put Kev's CD on in the car. It sounded less grunge and more "Take That". I guess Kev ran the numbers and thought he'd have a better shot at fame and fortune in a boy band. We hatched a plan, and we needed Dave to make it work. Instead of going home, we went to find Drummer Dave, and filled him in on the latest developments.

We recorded his parrot squawking, and all of us squawking "fuck you, Kev" and suchlike. We got a good solid minute of this, and then looped it, mixed it and put some of Dave's drums in for good measure.

We went and got the same brand of CD-R that Bob had taken from Kev's luggage, and duplicated it. We cut 10 copies.

Now we just needed to plant the CD-Rs in Kev's luggage. On the afternoon that his Dad was picking him up, I took them to Kev's house to wave him goodbye. He was a little surprised to see us, but figured we wanted to make sure he went through with the plan to showcase the band.

Bob distracted him with a masterful "I love you, man!" speech, Lil' bro went to say hi to Kev's little sister, and I went inside for a piss. We were both looking for Kev's luggage. Lil' Bro distracted Kev's little sister, and I did the swap. Kev never tried contacting the band after he came back, and nobody even tried to contact him. An ad was placed in the paper for a new singer (previous members need not apply).

A good five years later, Drummer Dave encountered Kev's little sister, who was able to give some closure on the matter. Their Dad had called everyone's attention fairly early on in the party, to say how proud he was of his boy, and now they would hear his son's band. This was in a hired hall in a big hotel with a DJ.

Kev was called to the stage, and explained that his band couldn't get it's act together, sadly, so he'd brought along some of his solo artist material. The DJ dutifully cued up the CD, but didn't play it. He'd shrugged and asked "you sure you wanna play this?", but was forcefully told to play it. So he did. They got maybe 10 seconds of "hmmm. Well this is an odd way to start a record" looks from the crowd, followed by a bewildered "when does the music start?" expression. Soon, it became very clear that no music would ever start, and this was just a parrot, some drums, and a few squawked statements about Kev's integrity as a human being.

Kev apparently fled the stage and disappeared for an hour or so before anyone saw him again, during which time he'd found that Every. Single. One. Of his demo CDs was filled with parrot squawks and suggestions that his taste in pornography was somewhat 'niche'. Some of his Dad's buddies apparently still call him the "Little Squawker" to this day, nearly two decades later. Final "where are they now?" bit:

Drummer Dave: briefly hooked up with Kev's little sister, but quite a few years later, and it didn't really work out. He is a fireman now, and married with two kids.

Kev's Little Sister: She has a girlfriend now. And last I saw of her, she was back on break from university and had developed quite the taste for tequila.

Lil Bro: is now a web developer for some faceless marketing firm. Married with a kid.

Bob: Moved away a long time ago. Nobody is in touch with him anymore.

Kev: last we heard, he was working at some IT recruitment firm, and spending his weekends go-karting.

Chekhov's Parrot: apparently still alive.

(source) (story by perpetual_C000009A)

#pro revenge #by perpetual_C000009A #prorevenge #pro #revenge #revenge stories #revenge storm

2K notes · View notes