(This is a series of posts of me trying to write fiction)
Mist woke up bewildered and bruised on the shores of a radioactive wasteland. Numb and giddy, he looked around to find nothing but torn posters of a Steve Aoki concert advertisement. What was this happy wasteland?
He could not believe his eyes, he knew EDM was slowly taking over the planet converting all the humans into enslaved, dabbing, wild, hand-waving robots. The future looked grim indeed. Mist could not recollect where his bandmates were, surely they would find him and they could continue their mission.
As he took a piss in the fern he could not remember anything of significance from the last 48 hours. He found a harmonica, lying ahead of him with dried blood on it. Somebody from the alliance was here as well. But where? It wasn’t normal to find a harmonica, this must have belonged to an older alliance member, possibly a Bob Dylan fan or older.
As he lit a fire on the shore to dry himself and his clothes, some flashes came back like a Jim Morrison-esque, dead Indians on the highway flashback from Riders On The Storm.
Mist and his band members had gathered on Mt.Alternative to discuss their next attack along with other alliance members. They were to liberate the Techno heads who were captured by the EDM robots 100 miles south of Mt. Alternative. With Radiohead headlining and a serious mosh pit developing for fucks sake, that’s when the EDM humanoid robots struck. Wave upon wave of EDM trucks playing billboard EDM numbers launched a blitzkrieg.
Mist and his band members Shadow(lead), Ghost(drums), and Night(vocals) were separated. Mist being primarily a bass player had gone backstage to increase the volume of the bass so that Colin Greenwood could play Bloom’s bass line louder. He hoped that it would send maximum killer Rock vibrations throughout the area which would surely transform the robot EDM humanoids back to their human selves and activate signals inside their brains that would help them remember their Rock n Roll roots, which they had forgotten, or so he thought.
The human race on planet LAX needed to reconnect with their Rock n Roll roots to overcome this EDM epidemic that was taking over & restore peace & order.
The EDM trucks came in fast and hard and tore the eardrums of the alliance members with monotonous beats, annoying melodies, and dreadful basslines. It was all too similar; like most of EDM. The alliance members launched a counterattack with Radiohead playing The National Anthem. That’s when things got ugly. The EDM humanoids couldn’t take the darkness of the music and began to transform back into their human selves while the EDM machines retreated.
Mist’s flashback ended with him seeing Thom Yorke dancing like a snake charmer while singing the chorus of The National Anthem. That was all he remembered. Mist needed to clear his head and remember more. So he took out his iPod and hit play on Tame Impala’s Lonerism album….
Mist wandered around the Happy Beach in search of the Bob Dylan fan who he was sure was part of the alliance. Could the older alliance member hold the key to the missing fragments in Mist’s memory? Or perhaps he could explain what happened at Mt.Alternative and how he got to this goddamn Happy Beach?
Mist hated all this pursuit of happiness nonsense he knew it was just passing thoughts and feelings and a release of dopamine. Mist embraced his dark side and even learned to like it. EDM had destroyed the sanctity of that passing feeling by its sheer constant monotony. He cursed the EDM DJ machines and their mind-controlling music.
Mist was listening to Tame Impala’s track ‘Solitude Is Bliss’ when he really began to appreciate being marooned. Mist always thought that going solo was integral to every person’s life. After all, it leads to breakthroughs, new experiences, and knowledge, which isn’t possible in comforting groups. It’s more exposed; only for the brave.
Mist was always a lone soul wandering through the sea of people who were stuck in the rat race. But Mist was a musician & it was, in general, a kick-ass time not having to answer to people and deal with their bullshit & just sit down & make music.
That was until he finally met his band mates & vibed with them & decided to make music with them. Mist had jammed with a lot of musicians & ditched some really popular one’s to find Ghost, Shadow & Night. He always thought of it as Neil Young, finding Crazy Horse despite being with CSNY & other bands.
Mist also made Electronica & Boom Bap, he was a bassline addict & loved his beats, but the EDM epidemic was killing all the great music on planet LAX & enslaving the people to mind-numbing EDM, converting them into robots.
Nobody knew how the EDM epidemic started; it just sprang out of nowhere & the EDM machines began to enslave the people one terrible EDM song at a time. Some said the EDM epidemic began because machines began to think for themselves & communicate with one another & decided to attack the humans on planet LAX by destroying what made them feel alive & usher progress – music.
The machines planned to create ‘happy music’ which would appeal to humans & reel them in using this happier music & then take control of their minds. But the musicians on planet LAX became aware of this & so the alliance was born. Musicians from every diverse part of planet LAX united & put aside their differences to fight the EDM machines.
Music was at the heart of planet LAX. Music was the way people connected, lived & differentiated from one another. From countries to places & people – music was at the core of how the planet functioned & evolved. You were either a listener or a musician. But musicians weren’t the majority, & listeners were. And all life on planet LAX depended on music.
It had been 15 years since the EDM virus began & the fight was taking a huge toll on the free-spirited and enterprising humans on planet LAX. But when all hope seemed lost, heroes began to emerge & fight back & Mist & his crew were one such outfit. They had the highest kill ratio of EDM machines & liberated the most number of humans. They were integral to the alliance.
Mist remembered his younger days when he would explore the wide open spaces of Indie-a while almost lucid dreaming. He remembered one girl he met in his teens, they were friends, and he would go with her to a lot of Rock concerts and whom he kissed on a train.
She would throw him into mosh pits & he would fight and that would toughen Mist up. They would talk on telephones regularly before mobile phones were around. Her brother was a bass player & Mist was inspired & began to learn bass immediately.
Just as Mist breathed a sigh, his daydream was broken because out of nowhere 3 EDM humanoids jumped out of the trees and surrounded him. It was worse than he thought, the EDM virus had spread all through their bodies and made them regurgitating zombies. Before they could play Hardwell or some worse shit, Mist unleashed his bass guitar and began playing a classic Roger Waters bassline, it was the epic intro of One Of These Days and the humanoids were awestruck. Mist nailed each note it was almost as if Roger Waters had possessed him.
The humanoids put down their shitty Bose speakers, after all, they actually believed Bose was good. They kneeled before Mist as he kept playing and they gradually transformed back to their human selves. They ripped their fruity-coloured shirts as their past EDM hashtags fell out of their ears. You know like #keepcalmandlistentoEDM and shit like that. Mist finally stopped playing and was thankful that it was Pink Floyd that saved the youngsters. After all, he hadn’t played that particular song’s bassline in a while.
Just then, out of the blue, the radio began to pick up a frequency, Mist began to tune the receiver & there was a garbled message coming through, it was a sequence of beats, Mist could recognize it anywhere, it was the fast paced beat to Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, perhaps it was someone he knew after the altercation at Mt. Alternative, after Radiohead played, and maybe this was a one of them trying to get through.
Within the time signatures of the beats was a garbled message in morse code. Mist pulled out a pen and paper, and began to note the message down. ‘M’, ‘E’, ‘E’ ‘T’ – ‘A’ ‘T’ – ‘E’ ‘S’ ‘C’ ‘O’ ‘N’ ‘D’ ‘I’ ‘D’ ‘O’ – That was it.
Mist tried to activate the walkie-talkie & communicate back, but the message stopped. And he got only static. He was stunned by the message. Surely, it must’ve been a member of the alliance, or his bandmates, or was it a trap?
Escondido was only a myth. A legend. A bedtime story told to kids by the older crowd on planet LAX. It was the place where music was first formulated on plane LAX & very few people knew of its location or had been there.
Mist was in no condition to deliberate. The message was clear. ‘Meet at Escondido’. He had to take the risk and find Escondido.
Meanwhile, Ghost returned from the broadcast room at Fort St. Anger.
“I think he got the message”, said Ghost.
“Where do you think he is?” Shadow asked.
“Beats me, but I hope he got the message”, said Ghost.
“Let’s get on the ship & head to Escondido”, said Night.
Ghost, Shadow, and Night thanked the metal heads & Metallica fans at Fort St. Anger who saved them from the EDM droid ambush, after the incident at Mt. Alternative.
It had been a few days since that fateful night at Mt. Alternative, when Mist was separated from his bandmates, who were saved by the metal heads. They were now waiting to reunite with him so that they could liberate the EDM strongholds one at a time.
After all, the human race on planet LAX needed to be liberated from the EDM machines so that peace & order could be restored & so that future generations could continue to progress, live & thrive in tune with music that would help the planet progress, and evolve & continue.
The EDM virus created by EDM machines was deadlier than expected and was spreading all over planet LAX and the alliance was the only hope for the human race on planet LAX.
Back on the Happy Beach, Mist comforted the three youngsters he saved by playing Floyd on bass, they were young, in their teens, and Mist began to ask them about where he was.
“Firstly, thank you sir”, said one of the teenage kids. “Don’t mention it”, said Mist. “It’s what I do”, he added.
Mist began talking to the teens and trying to find out more about where he was. The oldest teen revealed that he & his friends were into punk and that he was a Blink 182 fan and that the EDM droids managed to hijack their car just up North from the beach. “Sir, this is ‘Happy Beach’ it’s an island founded by the Downtempo & Chillout pioneers of old.”
“Oh alright, that’s pretty interesting, the Downtempo & Chillout pioneers are a tiny bunch, but thank you, at least I sort of know where I am.”
Downtempo & Chillout were niche genres, and their listeners were quiet & peaceful folk who just wanted to be by a nice view & mind their own business; it was bordering on spiritual and really calm & peaced out.
Mist then showed them the harmonica he found, “I found this beside me after I woke up,” he said. And then suddenly one of the teens saw the harmonica and said, “That’s ‘Old Wolf’s!’
“Old who?”, asked Mist bewildered.
“Sir, his name is ‘Old Wolf”.”He’s one of the last remaining Blues musicians on this island”. “He stays in a small rundown hut West from here, at ‘Crossroads point’. He could help you sir. He could point you to someone from the alliance.”
“Alright, thank you, and ditch the ‘Sir’, the names ‘Mist’.”, said Mist as he lit up a cigarette.
“Thank you Mr. Mist”, said the kids as they made their way back to their vehicle.
Mist wondered what a Blues musician was doing on Happy Beach. Blues musicians were an even smaller bunch than the Downtempo & Chillout folk, they liked to be by themselves, didn’t play no Rock n Roll but only the straight natural Blues, they were older and mean & and loved their whiskey.
Mist needed to find some alliance member on this godforsaken beach and had to reunite with his bandmates. Maybe this Old Wolf fella could help him in doing so.
Mist then picked up his gear and began walking.
Mist was filled with indignation and overcome by thoughts of the woman he loved as the sun began to set. Her name was Kasie and she was the love of his life. Mist only met her on a few occasions, but they were electric.
Mist first met her when she visited him while he was learning music at college. She stumbled into his apartment one morning unannounced & unplanned after he took a few bong hits of some really good pot & made his way down the stairs to his roomates’ room. Their eyes met & he was stunned. There was something about this woman. The way she spoke, her jet black short hair & her makeup around her eyes & lips. Mist was lost in her looks when he walked in with a t-shirt that said ‘Smooth’. And he began playing some Electronica for her & her friend.
Mist was usually really cool around women, but this chick was different and he knew it.
He took her to a wall which overlooked a valley which was just behind his apartment. He helped her climb the wall as he checked out here curves.
They spoke & connected, and had an epic night at the pub Mist DJ-ed at. That was his electronic phase and she was into some really cool music too.
They sat by a beach & smoked a couple of joints & just discussed life & their plans for the future. Mist would recollect that memory of Kasie by the beach constantly in the years ahead.
This was when times were happier before the EDM machines struck.
Mist tried to forget her but her eyes pulled him in. He tried to make a move by sending her a few letters. But she didn’t write back. And so Mist decided to just focus on his music. He was still young, then. But years had passed now and despite being with other women, Kasie was etched in his head & stuck on his mind.
As he looked at the sunset, he pictured spending many a sunrise and sunset with Kasie on lesser-known beaches in Indie-a. Where he was from. He dreamed about how her luscious lips would taste, his guess was that they would taste like green apples & her short black hair would shine in the sun as she stared at him with rose-coloured glasses. He loved her but she left under mysterious circumstances & Mist hadn’t heard from her since.
Mist took a break, and played ‘El Mañana’ by Gorillaz as he sang the chorus to himself – “Maybe in time, you’ll want to be mine.”
The sun quietly set into the horizon & Mist decided to play some of the few Downtempo & Chillout songs on his iPod, ‘What the heck, I might as well,’ he thought to himself as he walked along the beachfront.
After about 3 hours of walking along the shoreline as the day turned to night and the Moon shone bright & fiercely, he finally saw a sign that said ‘Crossroads Point’.
He made his way up the cliff and found Old Wolf’s hut on the top of the hillock.
He rang the bell…..
(to be continued)
Words For Reveries 