Categories > Original > Drama > The Adventures of the Fabulous Four
searchingtheskies
Life had become a bit of a ritual. Wake up. Eat. Go to sleep. The only thing that made my daily ritual any different was the order in which those events took place. Sad really.
University had been over for a while, and my summer job followed suit. They had so politely told me they no longer needed me and that the work I had lined up for the next few weeks was no longer mine. Summer came and went. Happiness came and went.
So here I was, home alone and bored beyond comprehension. Here I was doing nothing. It was any wonder I felt the way I did.
Then, life changed. I was thrust onto a different path and it was all for the better. A friend from university called me. He and a few friends had formed a band, this I knew, what I didn’t know was that things with the lead singer had turned sour, hence the phone call. They wanted something new, something different. They were sick of the punk scene, sick of the scene kids; they wanted to shake things up. He called to see if I was available. The catch was that he needed an answer immediately because they had a small club tour booked and it was time to pack because we needed to have left yesterday. I wasted no time.
Being in the situation I was in, in this numbing ritual of nothing, there was no way that I was going to turn them down. I didn’t even think twice.
That was the beginning of my new life. I was no longer sitting at home, wasting time. I was in a new world, a world where I was singing songs, drinking, and sleeping in a van full of boys. I was a musician trying to make it big.
I was the only one organized enough to have my shit together on tour, the only person with a laptop, a phone charger, or anything that was needed. I soon became the point of contact to the outside world, the person who updated out blog, our MySpace, and even the one that sent regular emails to our families. I was our contact to the outside world, but most importantly, to home. I found myself sending email after email to people I loved, just to keep them updated, and let them know that I was still alive. People worried about me, but I sent them no reason to worry, I sent them words of reassurance. They just echoed in my head at night when I tried to sleep, an empty reminder that I wasn’t really okay. Not that I could ever admit it, does anyone ever want to admit that they are struggling?
Megan, being the only one of my close friends that was actually on the same continent as me, made it out to a few shows when she could. They were mostly the Melbourne shows, but it was still appreciated. I loved seeing her. I loved laughing with her. The best thing about her, and my other two friends Bianca and Moni, was that they supported me no matter what. Everyone else told me I was stupid for doing this, wasting my brain, but they told me to do what I wanted and if it was something that I wanted to do then they were there for me a hundred percent. Even if I failed.
They were the reason I was so willing to try this out, after all, it was a small shitty club tour with four boys, there were a hell of a lot of reasons to not do it. But I did, and they helped me through every bump along the way.
The boys on tour were awesome too; we fast all became friends, and I found myself quickly adopted into the ‘little sister’ spot in the group. That was fine with me because it meant that I had four boys looking out for me wherever we went. Talk about feeling protected.
Email from searchingtheskies to flockmaster, mywordsaremyfaith, beanie19 on Wednesday 03-09-2008
Hey Moni MonMon, B Baby, and Meggie Moo (mwahahahahahahaha I used it!)
How’s life treating you guys?
Fuck. I know it has been forever since I have come on the boards, and I know I am horrible at the whole Facebook, livejournal thing, I am a crappy friend, I admit it. There! You can hold me to it!
As you know I have been as busy as all fuck. Life on the road with four boys is harder than it looks, and those pictures don’t do it justice. It’s night after night of shows, drinking, driving (obviously not together, duh!), sleeping, writing, practise and God knows what else. Sleep has become a thing of the past, but we all know how shit I am at that so I guess it fits....in some weird moronic way.
And you know what I don’t like it, I LOVE IT!
I don’t actually know where we are at the moment, it being dark outside, me not having night vision goggles, and Jack driving with his pod in and the other three sleeping. I am too nice to disturb anyone; I wish I could say the same for them. Fuckers.
I am so happy I conned myself into bringing the precious baby that is my laptop with me, otherwise I think I just might have gone insane. Well more insane than I actually am.
What’s happening in your world across the ways there? Fuck I miss talking to you guys every night, but hey, this is getting us closer to that house where we can all live together, right? Ah the memories of the crazy shit we used to dream up. I guess if you dream it you can do it right?
Okay, I am going to stop rambling and try to catch some shut eye; I’m long overdue for a sleep. More or less long overdue to listen to something that isn’t screamo, or some techno shit.
Love you.
B. xo
P.S. having your period on tour with a van full of boys is not fun. Like, not at all fun. Fuck.
P.P.S. Having to buy supplies with boys is kind of awkward.
Email had become my way of life, the easiest way to stay in contact with people and faster than sending postcard, which I did for novelty value when I could. You know those crappy postcards you can get with the cliché sayings on them? They had become my second family. Some towns had some funny names that needed to be sent to unsuspecting people, just so I could receive some stupid text message regarding said name. “Greetings from Bald Nob Falls”, how can that not make your day?!
After packing up my laptop, I curled up next to Ian, the bands very awesome drummer, and tried to sleep. Somewhere between Jack’s finger tapping, Ian’s snoring and the sound of the engine I finally convinced myself to close my eyes and let it all go.
flockmaster
You know what I love about being awake at the early hours of the night, technically morning? The silence, the calm, and pretty much just everything. The only downside is that my computer, being old and in general a piece of shit, likes to make fucking weird noises at the most unneeded times. Why? Probably just to scare the absolute fucking shit out of me.
This time it wasn’t one of those about-to-explode-type noises, it was just a notification noise, that annoying high pitched ding that’s supposed to let you know that something has happened. After getting over the initial shock of the broken silence, and the startling noise I noticed that my computer was trying to tell me that I had a new email, I am sure there was a better way to go about it, but I’ll save the reprimand for later.
Cue me opening up my browser and going straight to Hotmail. I laughed lightly at the screen telling me I had a new email, pretty sure I already knew that, it wasn’t exactly a new development. I clicked open the new message, only to have my bad mood taken away from me. It was a message from Becca, and boy did I love getting these updates. They were always somewhat entertaining, due largely to the fact that she was on tour around Australia with four boys in one van. Talk about some interesting times stories, not to mention her interesting and bizarre way with words.
I must admit I was a little jealous, here she was having the time of her life and I was stuck here doing nothing but working as much as possible, going to classes and generally being fucking bored out of my mind. There were bills to pay and what not, unfortunately.
It was weird having a friend on the road with their band, knowing someone who was starting to become part of the music scene that we had been admiring for so long. It was something that I still wasn’t quite used to, I hoped that I got used to it soon though, because as far as I could tell, these guys were going to make it, I don’t know where they were going to make it, but I kenw they’d make it somewhere. What that meant for us, I didn’t really know.
I had managed to escape away from my life for a few shows, which I enjoyed beyond comprehension. There is so much more of a connection and a thrill when you know the person on the other side of the microphone, when you’re there not only for the band, but with the band. Not to mention the fact that from the stuff I had heard so far, I loved them. It was also great to escape away from university and my family for a few hours. University was as much of a relief to get away from as it was to be free of my family, as much as I love them; I love our time apart too. It’s almost my time for some sanity. I wouldn’t say I have the best relationship with my parents, and I definitely don’t have the worst. It’s just that sometimes it can be really hard to stay unaffected by some of the things they say or do, or even some of the shit the resurfaces from the past.
It makes me grateful for having these wonderful friends that I have managed to find, even if we happen to live in separate corners of the universe. They always hear me out, no matter the situation, always are sympathetic, always willing to help, and always offering the best advice. They never tell me I am ungrateful, or over reacting, they know how to make me feel better, and they definitely know how to make the situation better.
I was jerked back from my moment of self thought when my computer started beeping at me, trying to tell me that I had new messages. I turned the volume on the computer down and realized that Moni was trying to message me. In my moment of life contemplation I had completely forgotten that I was on the computer, talk about spacing out. I guess I had perfected the art of spacing out.
searchingtheskies
If you’ve never performed in front of any sort of crowd then you’ll never know the electric feeling of being in front of an audience. No matter if they love you or hate you, there is no other feeling that can compare. The buzz you get from their reaction to anything you do is like a drug, and addictive drug. The breathlessness of being nervous, the sweaty palms gripping the microphone, the heat coming off the lights, the closeness of your band mates, there was nothing better, nothing that could even come close to comparing. The applause, the adrenalin, the energy, it was something to very hard to forget and almost impossible to replicate when you walk off the stage. Nothing else could give you that kind of buzz. How do you deal with coming down from a high like that? There is nothing that compares to the feeling and it gives you such an adrenaline rush that you don’t know what to do when you walk off stage. What could you possibly do that compares?
You could do what all good rockstars do, party. In our case it isn’t really partying, well, it is to us, but it isn’t getting trashed and feeling like shit the next day, or worse, performing hungover. The only thing that makes me feel like utter shit the next day is lack of sleep. We take our music seriously, not in the way that everything has to be perfect. Everyone knows that perfection is a myth. We take it seriously in the sense that we give every performance absolutely everything we’ve got, even if it means that we can barely walk home. So that means, no trying to play drunk, and no playing hungover.
Our parties consisted of some people consuming alcohol, maybe on the days we don’t have a gig or an epic car journey the next day, but they more involved insane amounts of sugar and stupid activities, like bowling, mini golf or even go kart racing. Of course, being the rockers that we are, we tend to get hands on in all games that we play, even board games, and wherever we go, so our ‘damages’ bills were a little high, when we paid them of course. Tonight, of course, was no exception to our crazy shenanigans. Most nights we really weren’t into anything too wild, we’d hang out by the pool, or maybe go play some mini golf. It was rare that we really, absolutely trashed a place, or even played up at all. To be brutally honest, our reputation was worse than it needed to be and the hotels that try to warn us about damages bills and what not really just induce their own pain. We don’t give out anything that isn’t deserved.
We had decided that in honour of Jack’s birthday we’d go to the up class ‘micky d’s’ and then go and play a game of croquet. Of course, the game of croquet would be totally illegal seeing as we’d be breaking and entering, and it wouldn’t technically be in operation hours. This of course would not faze anyone. It was Jack’s birthday and someone had come up with the ridiculous idea of playing croquet, so of course we were going to do it at whatever cost.
So, after playing the show of a lifetime, and giving the audience my all, I found myself sitting in a Mc Donald’s eating a less than average burger and throwing fries at the boy sitting opposite me.
“Would you quit it” said Ian, pulling a stray missile from his hair. “You are wasting perfectly good food.” Of course, he ate it, despite it having been in his unwashed hair. We were on tour; I can’t say his body saw soap on a regular basis. I did try hard to create a showering rule, but for reasons unknown to me, it didn’t exactly stick.
“It’s fun to annoy you though” I shrugged. “Besides which, I am full.” I threw another one at his head. He sighed to himself and took the box that was still half full off me. I let out a gasp of mock outrage. Waste not, want not.
“You need to learn to eat” he replied. “It’s like you eat oxygen, and baby girl you can’t survive off oxygen. At least you’re not one of the 20-something year olds who are playing in the playground right now.”
“I could be” I replied slipping to the edge of my chair.
“Don’t you dare leave me alone here on my birthday with Ian!” whined Jack. Until I joined the band, I didn’t know boys could be such babies.
“Sometimes you guys are worse than teenage girls. Would you just get over the fact that he broke your guitar string? Just. Get. Over. It.” I sighed. I hated playing mediator sometimes, especially over stupid shit like this. I swear, his guitar was his fucking baby and if anyone hurt it, the world would end.
“No” replied Jack in a huff. I rolled my eyes, boys will be boys and all that shit, but it was just a guitar string.
“ICE CREAM!” yelled Pat shoving ice cream into my face, breaking the moment. There was no way he was getting away with that, it was war time. I never lose a war.
Life had become a bit of a ritual. Wake up. Eat. Go to sleep. The only thing that made my daily ritual any different was the order in which those events took place. Sad really.
University had been over for a while, and my summer job followed suit. They had so politely told me they no longer needed me and that the work I had lined up for the next few weeks was no longer mine. Summer came and went. Happiness came and went.
So here I was, home alone and bored beyond comprehension. Here I was doing nothing. It was any wonder I felt the way I did.
Then, life changed. I was thrust onto a different path and it was all for the better. A friend from university called me. He and a few friends had formed a band, this I knew, what I didn’t know was that things with the lead singer had turned sour, hence the phone call. They wanted something new, something different. They were sick of the punk scene, sick of the scene kids; they wanted to shake things up. He called to see if I was available. The catch was that he needed an answer immediately because they had a small club tour booked and it was time to pack because we needed to have left yesterday. I wasted no time.
Being in the situation I was in, in this numbing ritual of nothing, there was no way that I was going to turn them down. I didn’t even think twice.
That was the beginning of my new life. I was no longer sitting at home, wasting time. I was in a new world, a world where I was singing songs, drinking, and sleeping in a van full of boys. I was a musician trying to make it big.
I was the only one organized enough to have my shit together on tour, the only person with a laptop, a phone charger, or anything that was needed. I soon became the point of contact to the outside world, the person who updated out blog, our MySpace, and even the one that sent regular emails to our families. I was our contact to the outside world, but most importantly, to home. I found myself sending email after email to people I loved, just to keep them updated, and let them know that I was still alive. People worried about me, but I sent them no reason to worry, I sent them words of reassurance. They just echoed in my head at night when I tried to sleep, an empty reminder that I wasn’t really okay. Not that I could ever admit it, does anyone ever want to admit that they are struggling?
Megan, being the only one of my close friends that was actually on the same continent as me, made it out to a few shows when she could. They were mostly the Melbourne shows, but it was still appreciated. I loved seeing her. I loved laughing with her. The best thing about her, and my other two friends Bianca and Moni, was that they supported me no matter what. Everyone else told me I was stupid for doing this, wasting my brain, but they told me to do what I wanted and if it was something that I wanted to do then they were there for me a hundred percent. Even if I failed.
They were the reason I was so willing to try this out, after all, it was a small shitty club tour with four boys, there were a hell of a lot of reasons to not do it. But I did, and they helped me through every bump along the way.
The boys on tour were awesome too; we fast all became friends, and I found myself quickly adopted into the ‘little sister’ spot in the group. That was fine with me because it meant that I had four boys looking out for me wherever we went. Talk about feeling protected.
Email from searchingtheskies to flockmaster, mywordsaremyfaith, beanie19 on Wednesday 03-09-2008
Hey Moni MonMon, B Baby, and Meggie Moo (mwahahahahahahaha I used it!)
How’s life treating you guys?
Fuck. I know it has been forever since I have come on the boards, and I know I am horrible at the whole Facebook, livejournal thing, I am a crappy friend, I admit it. There! You can hold me to it!
As you know I have been as busy as all fuck. Life on the road with four boys is harder than it looks, and those pictures don’t do it justice. It’s night after night of shows, drinking, driving (obviously not together, duh!), sleeping, writing, practise and God knows what else. Sleep has become a thing of the past, but we all know how shit I am at that so I guess it fits....in some weird moronic way.
And you know what I don’t like it, I LOVE IT!
I don’t actually know where we are at the moment, it being dark outside, me not having night vision goggles, and Jack driving with his pod in and the other three sleeping. I am too nice to disturb anyone; I wish I could say the same for them. Fuckers.
I am so happy I conned myself into bringing the precious baby that is my laptop with me, otherwise I think I just might have gone insane. Well more insane than I actually am.
What’s happening in your world across the ways there? Fuck I miss talking to you guys every night, but hey, this is getting us closer to that house where we can all live together, right? Ah the memories of the crazy shit we used to dream up. I guess if you dream it you can do it right?
Okay, I am going to stop rambling and try to catch some shut eye; I’m long overdue for a sleep. More or less long overdue to listen to something that isn’t screamo, or some techno shit.
Love you.
B. xo
P.S. having your period on tour with a van full of boys is not fun. Like, not at all fun. Fuck.
P.P.S. Having to buy supplies with boys is kind of awkward.
Email had become my way of life, the easiest way to stay in contact with people and faster than sending postcard, which I did for novelty value when I could. You know those crappy postcards you can get with the cliché sayings on them? They had become my second family. Some towns had some funny names that needed to be sent to unsuspecting people, just so I could receive some stupid text message regarding said name. “Greetings from Bald Nob Falls”, how can that not make your day?!
After packing up my laptop, I curled up next to Ian, the bands very awesome drummer, and tried to sleep. Somewhere between Jack’s finger tapping, Ian’s snoring and the sound of the engine I finally convinced myself to close my eyes and let it all go.
flockmaster
You know what I love about being awake at the early hours of the night, technically morning? The silence, the calm, and pretty much just everything. The only downside is that my computer, being old and in general a piece of shit, likes to make fucking weird noises at the most unneeded times. Why? Probably just to scare the absolute fucking shit out of me.
This time it wasn’t one of those about-to-explode-type noises, it was just a notification noise, that annoying high pitched ding that’s supposed to let you know that something has happened. After getting over the initial shock of the broken silence, and the startling noise I noticed that my computer was trying to tell me that I had a new email, I am sure there was a better way to go about it, but I’ll save the reprimand for later.
Cue me opening up my browser and going straight to Hotmail. I laughed lightly at the screen telling me I had a new email, pretty sure I already knew that, it wasn’t exactly a new development. I clicked open the new message, only to have my bad mood taken away from me. It was a message from Becca, and boy did I love getting these updates. They were always somewhat entertaining, due largely to the fact that she was on tour around Australia with four boys in one van. Talk about some interesting times stories, not to mention her interesting and bizarre way with words.
I must admit I was a little jealous, here she was having the time of her life and I was stuck here doing nothing but working as much as possible, going to classes and generally being fucking bored out of my mind. There were bills to pay and what not, unfortunately.
It was weird having a friend on the road with their band, knowing someone who was starting to become part of the music scene that we had been admiring for so long. It was something that I still wasn’t quite used to, I hoped that I got used to it soon though, because as far as I could tell, these guys were going to make it, I don’t know where they were going to make it, but I kenw they’d make it somewhere. What that meant for us, I didn’t really know.
I had managed to escape away from my life for a few shows, which I enjoyed beyond comprehension. There is so much more of a connection and a thrill when you know the person on the other side of the microphone, when you’re there not only for the band, but with the band. Not to mention the fact that from the stuff I had heard so far, I loved them. It was also great to escape away from university and my family for a few hours. University was as much of a relief to get away from as it was to be free of my family, as much as I love them; I love our time apart too. It’s almost my time for some sanity. I wouldn’t say I have the best relationship with my parents, and I definitely don’t have the worst. It’s just that sometimes it can be really hard to stay unaffected by some of the things they say or do, or even some of the shit the resurfaces from the past.
It makes me grateful for having these wonderful friends that I have managed to find, even if we happen to live in separate corners of the universe. They always hear me out, no matter the situation, always are sympathetic, always willing to help, and always offering the best advice. They never tell me I am ungrateful, or over reacting, they know how to make me feel better, and they definitely know how to make the situation better.
I was jerked back from my moment of self thought when my computer started beeping at me, trying to tell me that I had new messages. I turned the volume on the computer down and realized that Moni was trying to message me. In my moment of life contemplation I had completely forgotten that I was on the computer, talk about spacing out. I guess I had perfected the art of spacing out.
searchingtheskies
If you’ve never performed in front of any sort of crowd then you’ll never know the electric feeling of being in front of an audience. No matter if they love you or hate you, there is no other feeling that can compare. The buzz you get from their reaction to anything you do is like a drug, and addictive drug. The breathlessness of being nervous, the sweaty palms gripping the microphone, the heat coming off the lights, the closeness of your band mates, there was nothing better, nothing that could even come close to comparing. The applause, the adrenalin, the energy, it was something to very hard to forget and almost impossible to replicate when you walk off the stage. Nothing else could give you that kind of buzz. How do you deal with coming down from a high like that? There is nothing that compares to the feeling and it gives you such an adrenaline rush that you don’t know what to do when you walk off stage. What could you possibly do that compares?
You could do what all good rockstars do, party. In our case it isn’t really partying, well, it is to us, but it isn’t getting trashed and feeling like shit the next day, or worse, performing hungover. The only thing that makes me feel like utter shit the next day is lack of sleep. We take our music seriously, not in the way that everything has to be perfect. Everyone knows that perfection is a myth. We take it seriously in the sense that we give every performance absolutely everything we’ve got, even if it means that we can barely walk home. So that means, no trying to play drunk, and no playing hungover.
Our parties consisted of some people consuming alcohol, maybe on the days we don’t have a gig or an epic car journey the next day, but they more involved insane amounts of sugar and stupid activities, like bowling, mini golf or even go kart racing. Of course, being the rockers that we are, we tend to get hands on in all games that we play, even board games, and wherever we go, so our ‘damages’ bills were a little high, when we paid them of course. Tonight, of course, was no exception to our crazy shenanigans. Most nights we really weren’t into anything too wild, we’d hang out by the pool, or maybe go play some mini golf. It was rare that we really, absolutely trashed a place, or even played up at all. To be brutally honest, our reputation was worse than it needed to be and the hotels that try to warn us about damages bills and what not really just induce their own pain. We don’t give out anything that isn’t deserved.
We had decided that in honour of Jack’s birthday we’d go to the up class ‘micky d’s’ and then go and play a game of croquet. Of course, the game of croquet would be totally illegal seeing as we’d be breaking and entering, and it wouldn’t technically be in operation hours. This of course would not faze anyone. It was Jack’s birthday and someone had come up with the ridiculous idea of playing croquet, so of course we were going to do it at whatever cost.
So, after playing the show of a lifetime, and giving the audience my all, I found myself sitting in a Mc Donald’s eating a less than average burger and throwing fries at the boy sitting opposite me.
“Would you quit it” said Ian, pulling a stray missile from his hair. “You are wasting perfectly good food.” Of course, he ate it, despite it having been in his unwashed hair. We were on tour; I can’t say his body saw soap on a regular basis. I did try hard to create a showering rule, but for reasons unknown to me, it didn’t exactly stick.
“It’s fun to annoy you though” I shrugged. “Besides which, I am full.” I threw another one at his head. He sighed to himself and took the box that was still half full off me. I let out a gasp of mock outrage. Waste not, want not.
“You need to learn to eat” he replied. “It’s like you eat oxygen, and baby girl you can’t survive off oxygen. At least you’re not one of the 20-something year olds who are playing in the playground right now.”
“I could be” I replied slipping to the edge of my chair.
“Don’t you dare leave me alone here on my birthday with Ian!” whined Jack. Until I joined the band, I didn’t know boys could be such babies.
“Sometimes you guys are worse than teenage girls. Would you just get over the fact that he broke your guitar string? Just. Get. Over. It.” I sighed. I hated playing mediator sometimes, especially over stupid shit like this. I swear, his guitar was his fucking baby and if anyone hurt it, the world would end.
“No” replied Jack in a huff. I rolled my eyes, boys will be boys and all that shit, but it was just a guitar string.
“ICE CREAM!” yelled Pat shoving ice cream into my face, breaking the moment. There was no way he was getting away with that, it was war time. I never lose a war.
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