Be warned, the ghosts of The Who still haunt the studio. Can a rock ‘n’ roll cliché save Split Lips?
Be warned, the ghosts of The Who still haunt the studio. Can a rock ‘n’ roll cliché save Split Lips from a weak performance?
“Do y’ deeee-aaar walk the open str-eeeeeeeets in the raaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiii…”
The band closed the set with
Guns of Bethesda. The last word of the chorus became a prolonged whine. Karl looked agonized as he exorcised himself of the word. His face contorted as though he was being violently sick. A tug of war between his mouth and the microphone sent shudders down the stand and into his arms. He slid down it, spilling himself like a pole dancer.
“…iiiiiiii-nah!”
In his ears were explosions: buildings crumbling, multitudes screaming. As the white noise dwindled around him the sound of a tentative, half-clap emerged from the crowd like an embarrassed uncle from a stinky toilet. Karl dared not open his eyes. He lay there in a heap, microphone in hand. Around him the band shook their respective instruments, squeezing out the dregs.
A low hum. A few more claps. Someone blowing bubblegum. And with that, something inside Karl snapped. They just weren’t getting it! They just weren’t fucking
listening were they? Well they’d get this alright.
He pounced on his acoustic, which had been innocently resting behind an amp, and raised it over his head.
‘Behold,’ said his taut frame, ‘I offer up this sacrifice…’ his face was as still as marble.
Henry eyed him suspiciously. Henry’s fingers curled around the top of his bass, tickling it.
Karl exhaled and brought the instrument down with a satisfying crack. The wood splintered at the neck. As it did so the body bounced free, almost, but for the strings. Karl began stamping on it, his flimsy Converse trainers having difficulty doing the job.
With moist, red eyes, Henry wrestled himself free from his strap, roared, convincingly, and began beating his bass guitar against the floor.
Rob too, seeing Henry follow suit, took his electric and did the same. He had rather a placid, workmanlike air about him.
The two, either side of Karl, beating at the stage with these cumbersome axes, were the parentheses to his statement.
Ellie looked ill-prepared. She hesitated for a moment. When she picked up her keyboard, the stand came with it. She staggered a bit, and it slipped from her fingers and toppled over: an attempted suicide. Graham looked on from behind his beloved drum kit, and suppressed a yawn. Nobody noticed him quietly going about the business of disassembling his equipment. Unscrewing, lifting, and folding. Squirreling pieces away behind a conveniently placed curtain.
Karl’s long-suffering acoustic was relieved of its ignominious career, and lay centre-stage, displayed as a proud heap of kindling. Henry and Rob were having less luck. Sweat beads were appearing in the former’s beard and he hadn’t even broken a string. Rob was trying, with all four limbs, to lever the neck of his Fender. Looking at Karl, smiling humbly, he balanced it on the toppled keyboard and jumped. It finally succumbed, and a white, plastic key sprang from Ellie’s keyboard and escaped into the crowd.
The applause became more convincing. Henry looked furious. He threw the bass guitar at Karl, and it bounced off Rob and clattered onto the floor. Henry stormed off, stage left, tripping once over his straggling jeans. Ellie had already disappeared into the ether and Rob felt it was his turn to follow, nursing a fresh bruise on his thigh. Graham looked up at the crowd like a panda in the headlights, swept his greasy, black hair behind his ears, and crept away, leaving a snare drum and two cymbals.
Karl stood erect, centre stage, behind his pile of wood, his fists clenched at his sides. He glared down at the crowd, who were clapping with more enthusiasm now; the kind of enthusiasm reserved for a half century in a county cricket match. One of them was shouting ‘come on’. Some were whistling. A few were discussing how the price of vodka and coke depended on the day of the week.
“We are Split Lips, and we will never play this shit-hole again,” said Karl.
He kicked at the heap of wood. Some of it fell off the edge of the stage. Some of it didn’t. One person got a splinter, but didn’t notice until later. One person kept a piece of the machine head as a memento.
Karl stormed off, giving Graham’s snare a warning prod with his toe. As the murmur of conversation spread, Henry reappeared, shiftily rescuing his bass.
