Brain Time Now ebook

By Christopher Nadeau

A noise punk fairytale about creativity as a self defense weapon against brain invading advertisement technological advances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312804203

Book preview

Brain Time Now ebook

BRAIN TIME NOW

Christopher Nadeau

No Clear Records

2012

Copyright © 2012 by Christopher Nadeau

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2012

ISBN 978-1-312-80420-3

No Clear Records

Dedicated to everyone who creates and means it.

Part 1

Chapter 1

Waves of sound crash across jigsaw brains spliced together with memories of cable television transmissions.  Cultural references jam packed into giant puzzle frames within their minds.  More than ten but less than fifty faces fixed on the source of the noise.  Two electric guitars, drums and singing (hollering) fill their ears and shoot straight for the source of complacency.  Multi aged youth with a gaggle of different upbringings and ideals dumping out years of programming and brain wash tactics in favor of the new beat.  Not really new, but more a combination of influences less enmeshed in the style of normal.  Normal, Ralph Modern thinks to himself from behind his guitar, what a con.  Performing in a small room, he allows the spastic howling of sound to pierce his brain and fill the gaps in memory and space time.  As he rakes a piece of a ratchet set he bought for $3.95 at Home Depot six years ago across the strings, his thoughts continue to drift.  The electric whine cuts through the drum beat and other guitar noises. The future is a con.  What have we learned about the past?  Circles.  Circles spinning and colliding at breakneck speed, destroying themselves and every trace of where they came from.  The pieces dust themselves off, survey their surroundings and reform.  Not into straight lines pointing forward but back into circles.  The spinning resumes, the gunk builds up, we forget to change the oil and it all happens again.  So, where is the future?  Ralph yells into the microphone and stomps on an electric pedal box at his feet, slams his hands viciously against his guitar and dives to the ground, rolling and squirming.  A crunchy, new sound soars and crashes into the heap of volume of the other two instruments.  He leaps past the other guitarist, Dan Friction, hopping the other way and bashing at his guitar with stabs of sound exploding out of his amplifier.  The pounding of the drums quickens, and both guitars squeal with a cold, electric glee.

Man, they are really into what they are doing, Charlie Gammon thinks to himself, but I just can’t grab onto these sounds.  He stands rigidly, hands thrust in his coat pockets.  Under his coat he’s wearing a Buzzcocks shirt, Dickies pants and Chuck Taylor sneakers. He turns to his right and yells, What the hell is this crap?

Sarah Brits, his girlfriend, puts her mouth to his ear and replies, Do you wanna get out of here?  I’m down.  You look like you’re having a crap time.  They clasp hands, turn around, push a couple tranced faces out of their way and bust out of the front of the room and out into the street.  As the door opens, the volume from insides escapes into the crisp night air, roaring with its own sense of determination before the slamming door muffles the sound once again.

Ralph sees them walk out in his peripheral vision as he sings into the microphone, I don’t wanna be free/Restraints you’re putting on me, I wonder if they left because they were offended, didn’t like us or just had other plans, I believe in the individual/and maybe some imagination, Ralph continues to sing as his internal insecurities well up.  Ralph feels a combination of brainless trance-like religious fervor mixed with painful consciousness of the world around him. I saw a sign on the side of the road/It said, ‘Private Property’/I looked at the other side/It didn’t say nothin’! Woody Guthrie’s ghost continues to ramble throughout the land with banned lyrics and a tune that would make a more meaningful national anthem than the current converted drinking song.

Well, Charlie begins from outside the club, I just could not get into that. 

My ears hurt, she replies as they walk down the sidewalk of the semi busy avenue.  Her blue dress and jet black hair flow in the breeze as she continues, and I can’t quite think straight.  I’m not drunk, I just don’t have all my bearings.  I’m just not used to those sounds, but they were growing on me.

I think Bobby told me about this show.  I’m gonna have to give him some shit for that.  I mean, I know we’ve been wanting to do something besides get drunk every night at the same old bars or sit at home and watch the tube, but that was a waste of money.  We’d be better off pulling on the jukebox at Chap Diddy Bar.  Thoughts of the friendly bartender/owner, Chappy, comfort his aching head.  He thinks about Chappy’s bad jokes and boisterous laughter and sighs longingly.

I don’t know, Charlie.  Something about doing something different made me feel good.  Something something.  Yeesh, what am I saying?  I need to go back to school.  I think I’m getting dumber.  She looks at her boyfriend and thinks about another boring night at that crummy bar.  Her thoughts drift to a video she saw online of The Cramps exploding with raw energy and Lux Interior sexually lifting his sunglasses from his pants and shoving them on his face.  She sees Charlie in the audience wearing a New York Dolls shirt and covering his ears.  Shit is always wilder live, she thinks to herself.  We are so used to the comfort of recorded rock n roll music, we forget that wild sounds, new ideas and busted ear drums are part of the music we like.  

Naw, you ain’t getting dumber, he drawls in a fake country accent.  You’ve just been hanging out with me too much.  What time is it anyway?

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and reads, 9:30.  I’ve got work in the morning, just take me home.

Aw, c’mon, don’t you want to watch that show we love so much, Good Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. He whines.

Naw, I’ve got to work at like friggin’ 5 AM.

As they walk up to their car, Charlie pulls the keys out and says, Yeah, I’ve got some meeting I’m supposed to be fresh faced for, too.  I think the company is getting ready to go another direction.  I’m so glad I got a job with Advance Advertising instead of any of the other crappy companies in town.  I worked really hard and it paid off.  I’ve got a feeling we’re going to revolutionize the way people buy all those products that they need.  Even as the words pour out of his mouth so seamlessly, his stomach turns at their sound.  Charlie’s guts rumble with the pressure of pretending to care about his crummy job.  After all, where else will he find existential fulfillment?

Need?  Ha!  C’mon, you’re not actually getting sucked into their crap, are you?  You’ve only been working there for six months!  And aren’t you worried about another war breaking out?

Give me a break, Sarah!  This is the first job I’ve had that I feel like I’m part of the solution instead of the problem.  Did you know that Advance gives a considerable amount of money back to the community?  And they are aggressively into office recycling, he recites as he starts the car and pulls into traffic.  And there haven’t been any skirmishes between advertising companies for quite a few years.  The fact that these companies, lead by his current place of employment, took up arms against each other for clients and dominion still seems to Charlie like an embellishment cooked up by some random smelly, bearded conspiracy theory nut.  

Alright, alright.  You’re lucky you got a job you actually enjoy.  I’m still stuck and that Goddamned Coffee Slut.

The Coffee Hut has always treated you fairly.  That’s another good company.  Forbes magazine says…

Oh, I don’t give a wet crap what Forbes Magazine has to say about anything, she interrupts, I’m still into punk.  And you can’t be into punk and Forbes Magazine.  It’s a law, I’m pretty sure.  Patronizing mcfucking asshole.  Surprised by her snap negative reaction, Sarah furls her brow and attempts to shift her thoughts somewhere else. 

Punk?  Punk is dead.  It’s not like it used to be.  We’d go downtown, bash it out with righteous bands like Butt Burger and Righteous Swill and get super drunk.  Now we try to go out to a show and what happens?

Inside the venue, the sonic squall continues.  Vocal hooks float behind abrasive guitar attacks and steady, aggressive drums keeping the whole mess chugging forward.  The sounds cream together and escalate in speed and pitch in a bizarre crescendo.  Dan climbs up on his amplifier and lets the guitar squawk feedback conversations with the other noises and the crowd’s internal dialogue.  Shelly Vox, the drummer, flails her head around and pounds on the drums incessantly, tom heavy simplicity mapping the route back to primitive rhythm land.   Ralph falls a second time and his guitar makes an unholy sound of radio frequency mixed with faux Theremin.  The high pitched sound shrieks and cuts through the other sounds, bounces around the room and shoots directly into every ear canal in the room.  He jumps up, lets out a long Iggy Pop Fun House rip off holler into the microphone and all the sound stops.  The sound sucks back into the amps like Michael the Archangel sheathing his sword of fire in liquid metal, and the hollow void lasts only a few seconds before clapping and hollering from the modest crowd roars its approval.  Ralph nudges up to the microphone and sheepishly mutters, Thank you.  We’ll be at The New Flesh on Saturday night.  Thanks to this joint for putting up with us.

Sweaty and bleeding a little from fingers and popped blisters in the web between fingers, Ralph, Dan and Shelly begin the process of picking up after themselves.  Good show, gang, Ralph says while wrapping a guitar cable around his arm.  I think we turned a few heads, he continues as two guys and a girl walk up to the band.

Man, the first guy says, What do you call that type of music?

Punk, Ralph says with a smile on his face.  Nice to meet you, I’m Ralph Modern.

Yeah, we dug your show, the girl replies, but that wasn’t what I consider punk.  You guys are more post punk.  And No Wave.  And maybe post hardcore with elements of noise and post rock.

Well, I prefer Avant Punk.  Someone said that to me one time and I thought it was funny, Ralph continues, chuckling, I’m glad you guys dug it.  I really love playing out.  It’s so much fun.  Let me tell you something though.  I’ve been feeling weirder and weirder while we play shows.  Random thoughts gripping my brain while I’m trying to concentrate on the music I’m playing, he takes a breath as he feels sweat drop from his eyebrows.  But even with all these jumbled messages bouncing around my head, I haven’t been messing up any of my parts.  Not that we’re the most structured band, but I almost feel like I’m playing better.  It’s kind of creeping me out.  My brain doesn’t run away on me any other times.  And I’m not into drugs or anything…

Well, it was nice meeting you, the genre girl slips in, enjoyed your set. 

As they turn around and walk away from Ralph the second guy says, I don’t know why we try to talk to bands after their show.  They’re always so weird.

"We meet them so we can steal their mojo, Jay.  Shake hands with someone who does something amazing so it can be passed onto you.  And that show was amazing.  I can’t believe we saw a set like that in this jerkwater town.  And they live around