Old News: Pop Culture Fiction

By Philip Squires

For the last few years, Dregs Marrows life has followed a pattern: get far, experience collapse, start over, fail again. Now, the twenty-six-year-old seeks to build a band from scratch and is looking for like minded people to join him in this venture in Portland, Oregon. After placing an ad online, Marrow meets with a variety of talents who espouse different philosophies about creativity and making music.

Spanning a year in Marrows life as a struggling musician, Old News focuses on musical aspirations, social paradigms, mental lapses and breakthroughs, current affairs, the dichotomy of personal motivations, and creative thinking.

This novella provides insight into Marrows most inner thoughts and emotions while providing a glimpse into the music world, how music is made, and the expression of art. Old News narrates a story of perceptions in the creation of musicit is conceivable by hard work, an open mind, fearlessness of failure, and practice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475914344

Philip Squires

Philip Squires earned a degree in English composition with an emphasis in creative writing from the University of South Dakota. He writes poetry and short stories. This is his first novella. Squires lives in Vermillion, South Dakota.

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Copyright © 2012 by Philip Squires

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-1433-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-1434-4 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-1435-1 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012909320

iUniverse rev. date: 06/06/2012

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Endnotes

Chapter 1

T he last band I was in was called Rostrum. We had a sound that was in the mists of grunge meeting culture, or in simpler terms, loud sound masqued by time and tempo changes. I have been playing guitar and singing about seven years now. Ashing my cigarette would be easier if I had longer arms. Walking with this guy, he doesn’t know what he is talking about. He feels he doesn’t need samples to offer examples. That makes zero sense to me, these days most who claim to have talent cannot be taken on their word, and I am afraid I follow that train of thought with this guy.

So what are your top five albums Tim? A question to gauge his type of musical concerns.

Well, I guess I would say I have a top five in bands, not really albums. I would say albums tell a better story than the band that made them, in terms of marketable music. I would like to be different on every song I make; I think that is more profitable to a wider range of a demographic. Tim says.

This complicates me, You feel that once a band makes an album that they stay in the cannon for the rest of their careers, they don’t mature and make their weakness a strength? Without giving him time to answer, You don’t want to know how they make their creative mantras come alive through the different stages of their lives?

Yea I do, I feel that they find something that speaks to them and they continue to meet those markers. The facets that led them to the sound that influenced them. I don’t think they have a clue until they start playing together. Tim says this while looking towards the curb as we sit down for coffee drinking.

His words belong in the gutter.

Well, I have a problem with that statement because I feel artistry and creative balance need to experiment beyond the realms of safety, therefore, giving new perspectives towards the creative process, while allowing the artist to catalogue what works and what doesn’t. They simply do not come up with it on the spot, sparingly yes, but most often they have jotted ideas down to expand on.

That’s a good point, I guess I feel if you have the talent than it will always be there, and whatever you do, it comes out right. Tim tries to keep his leg still, but his constant leg shifting shows odd anxiety.

Sorry Tim, to me, that is not how it works, it’s a battle from routine to inspiration everyday, and that battle is sometimes lost everyday to multitudes of people. So, when you see something that makes you feel anything; that inspiration has started to soak your skin. In which, that moment was not forced upon you.

I am ready to leave this meeting.

It was nice meeting you Tim, once you get samples down for advertisement, I would like to work with you.

Right on, take care, Dregs.

You too, Tim.

In terms of musical framing, that guy seemed to have less of an idea, than those from the Midwest. The frame showing how creating sounds for any group comes to be a influential band. Portland, thus far, has not been critical in its progress. That meeting seemed he was left behind in the artistic freedom department, when he was made. To think that hit songs make the band now is just crazy; I feel singles from albums only show the marketing side of album research, and not in how the way that first or second album was created. It would be nice to hear the first song recorded on new albums, with that first song being the single released by the recording label. I think that would show the timeline of the album’s creation, which a lot more people are interested in. The followers of artist’s want to feel how the passion was put onto the page, and how it was recorded. The artist decides what goes where; but the listener would have to have some interest in the art themselves, and not the product that is sold. That concept is lost on most I talk with.

The pink doughnut boxes seem to be from the establishment of Voodoo Donuts. Diabetes runs in my family, but I like the tooth that is mostly sweet. One glance into the case of bakers delight, I see the Challenger. The logistics that go into this belly cement of dough would be a list of ingredients. Coincidently, I do not know these ingredients outside of the finished product. I will try to paint a picture. The size is the most notable aspect of the Challenger. If a professional football was to be de-inflated, then that would give you the base of the Challenger. The rows of dressing: maple syrup, chocolate (dark mostly, mostly in the dark way you would feel full), caramel, raspberry swirls, angel cream filling (that is as white as most people are in the face who try to dominate the challenger). The cost is free if you eat the 20lb baker’s challenger, in a certain amount of time.

I took a while to decide if I wanted to fight for my meal, but I just asked for one of the raspberry filled-glazed doughnuts. I have to pay cash, because this locally owned store does not want the extra credit charge for its usual purchases between three to five dollars, costing them an extra $.60 cents per transaction.

I have found cash-only signs to be popular in the independently-owned businesses. They would not exist if their system were anything less convenient for their customer. The small business has to make changes that are less convenient to the customer, while still providing a stable buisness for its customers. The little issue of non-plastic transactions is nothing that keeps me awake. More power to those who own and operate a successful store in their local community.

There must be hundreds of thousands locally owned stores here, starting from the corner grocery mart, to the independent music stores. With the prices being a bit more at the local stores, I feel like I am giving to the community in a trade for them being stable in town, a different patron/merchant mentality. In comparison, the music stores are about four dollars more than the online/chain stores for newly released albums. While you purchase the album in a physical store location you get to keep the inside booklets; that quality is left to the artist. Most of the lyrical books, and art/photos of the band itself are a sentimental profit that serves as a whole product.

The everyday music spot provides an excellent escape being that it’s five blocks from my place and right across the street from the Crystal Ballroom. The Ballroom is the best venue in town, and the floor is on a rubber inflatable foundation that stretches the whole second floor of the building. It creates some fine standing ground for the band that is making it uneasy to stand in one spot. If I could open for a band here, I would be on the right path, but I stand outside of the venue everyday.

I should grab a beer inside the bar, and see if any one person is having a qualified bad day, or a slow day to be exact. I find fewer walls are up in stranger-to-stranger conversations. The attitude shows the courage, and moral fiber when one is down; to see what they say to pick themselves up for tomorrow, or how adversity creates situations for us. Be positive in those. People are proactive to complain when something has been taken away. Figure out how to get it back.

Just the forty-year-old crowd is on the clock today; it seems I picked a bad afternoon to have a beer. If they were in a bad mood, I would not want to hear it because I