The silk road to stardom [1a/?]
anonymous
July 13 2009, 22:10:47 UTC
Anon is giving a shot at this but be warned! This anon really was not exaggerating when she said that she knew nothing about bands.
“Yo, guess who’s on the front cover of NGE’s Band Wave again?” Gilbert burst into the practice room, grinning and waving a glossy magazine above his head.
Francis plucked the magazine from Gilbert’s hand, nodding approvingly at the choice of cover.
“Why, who are these handsome young men?” he grinned at the three familiar faces staring back at him with the words Bad Friends! pasted across in bright red letters.
Gilbert threw himself onto the long leather couch in the corner of the room, arms outstretched along the backboard with an air of powerful ease, he tilted his head back and laughed.
“So are we all set for our gig at the Butterfly, yeah?” he asked as if this was given.
Antonio, who had been quietly changing the strings of his guitar suddenly looked up, alarmed. He exchanged unspoken glances with Francis, daring one another to be the first to break the news.
“Ah, about that,” Antonio lost the dare.
“They are already booked for tonight,” Francis frowned.
As expected, Gilbert jumped to his feet with a look of outrage. They had come a long way from their college days, performing gigs in the back of dingy old bars for the generous pocket-change of wasted businessmen. They were big news. They were stars. They had a record label behind them and a contract worth more than their combined student debt had ever been. God bless corporate giants.
“Well why don’t they unbook?” Gilbert scowled, offended that such a small place such as the Butterfly could reject the sheer awesomeness of the Bad friends. “C’mon, that dingy little place can’t afford to turn down big names like us! Wouldn’t even play on that tiny stage if it wasn’t for the fact that that’s where we played when we were just starting out!”
Antonio nodded in agreement and Francis had to admit that he was rather upset that their fame had not managed to worm them the privilege of booting out the smaller names, not at the Butterfly at least.
“Well, they’re booked. You know what Berwald’s like. He’s the kind of person who does what he says and never changes his mind once he‘s made a decision.”
“Blockhead,” Gilbert snorted. He grabbed his guitar in frustration - an old, Prussian blue Fender he had managed to haggle from an elderly, almost blind, gentleman for thirty five dollars - and began running through chords at a rate he only reached when he was frustrated.
Francis threw the magazine onto the couch. “Never mind. I’ll go again tonight. Perhaps I will be more successful in…the art of persuasion.”
XX
“The Bad Friends are on the cover of Band Wave again,” Alfred said with a mouth full of fries and a hand reaching into the bargain bucket for more.
The backstage room of the Butterfly was a cramped affair. There was hardly any room for all four members to sit comfortably, let alone practice, though Arthur was lovingly tuning his guitar from his perch on top of the dressing table.
“Fucking posers. What’s so good about them anyway?” he muttered. His E was refusing to sound like an E and less like an A.
“Ah, Arthur has a grudge against the group, da?” Ivan, decked in a heavy trench coat despite the humidity of the cramped room, smiled. He tapped his fingers over a long mahogany walking stick - an object he had become oddly attached to since buying it off an old war veteran - pretending as though he were tapping against the taut skin of a drum.
Arthur screwed his face up in disgust. “It’s not my fault they’re the worst band since…since…” he paused. He could not think of a band that was just as bad as the Bad Friends.
“When Arthur was just a solo artist he went to the Bad Friends and asked for a place in their band. I believe he was told to ‘Fuck off, limey’,” Alfred grinned, appreciating the story more than Arthur cared for.
“That sounds unnecessarily harsh,” Matthew shook his head.
Alfred laughed at his brother. “Shouldn’t have told the leader that he couldn’t…hey, what did you say to Gilbert Weillschidmt?”
Re: The silk road to stardom [1b/?]
anonymous
July 13 2009, 22:14:39 UTC
“That he couldn’t sing for shit,” Arthur snorted. Finally, the E was sounding like an E! “I was right wasn’t I? After that they changed their lead vocalist to Antonio and they’ve been doing much better, the fuckers,” he could not help but add with bitter animosity.
“Ah well, we’re here now,” Matthew smiled comfortingly, though from the way Ivan left him only enough room for a five year old to stand he looked as though he did not appreciate being right there at that specific moment.
“Yeah, that’s right, we are so much more awesome than the Bad Friends!” Alfred threw more fries into his mouth.
“Our vocals are batter at any rate.”
There was a heavy knock at the door. A stage hand popped his head round the door, holding up a hand with his fingers outstretched.
“Five minutes guys,” he gestured.
The band obediently slid off of dressing tables and chairs. Band Wave and the frozen smiles of the Bad Friends were left forgotten on the table next to a half-eaten bargain bucket of take-out burgers and fries.
XX
“Merde!” Francis swore under his breath, running through the streets towards the squashed frame of the Butterfly.
He rounded the next corner and slammed into another body crossing in front of him. Francis staggered back but managed to retain his balance. The other unfortunate soul, however, was thrown flat on his back.
“Ah, excusez-moi!” Francis hurriedly apologised, offering a helping hand to the poor man he had knocked over.
“Ve, no problem!” the young man - Italian, he guessed from his accent - refused the hand graciously and picked himself up.
Francis nodded and resumed running again. Though he knew that it was far too late to ask to play instead, he still felt duty bound to pester Berwald until the man grunted, muttered something unintelligible and booted him out as he had done on so many nights after a good gig and a few too many bottles of great wine.
However, by the time he burst into the Butterfly it was too crowded to locate Berwald and the curtain was rising to the cheers of the excited audience.
Francis had checked the posters splattered along the side of the Butterfly; they announced that a four-man group named Cellophane was playing - the weirdest name for a group Francis had ever heard since the band Those Guys And Their Dog.
The curtain was all the way up now and the four men on stage stood ready to start. Francis counted a drummer, bassist and a guitarist - staple positions one would find in all the other one hundred and fifty million rock bands across the world.
There was something odd though, something Francis did not notice upon first glance. The bassist, a tall blond man with thin-rimmed glasses had a saxophone strapped to his side - strange for a rock band. Oh, and how could he overlooked the fact that there was a keyboardist too?
However, stranger things were yet to come as the guitarist stepped towards the microphone, identifying himself as the lead singer with just that simple gesture. Francis’ eyes widened. He almost laughed when he realised that it was that rude man who had called Gilbert’s voice ‘a piece of shit’ or something and had been promptly told to ‘fuck off’
“So he made a band himself,” he muttered, amused.
He was about to turn and leave when the bassist ripped into a round of furious chords that tore through the silence of the hall.
XX
“Alfred!” Arthur placed a hand over the microphone to hiss at his bassist
Alfred, oblivious or, more likely, ignoring Arthur, grabbed his own mic and freed it from the stand. “Whoo! Hey there guys and gals are you ready to rock!” he shouted, punching the air with infectious enthusiasm.
“Alfred!” Arthur hissed over the deafening roars.
“We haven’t been doing gigs for long but we hope you’ll like what we got and that you got what we like! Can I hear a hell yeah?!”
Re: The silk road to stardom [1c/?]
anonymous
July 13 2009, 22:17:41 UTC
“That’s what I like!” Alfred cried, turning his head to grin at Arthur’s darkening scowl. “And now, without further ado, here’s our leader and vocalist - feel free to throw tomatoes if he sounds like shit - Arthur Kirkland!” he let a few chords fly as introduction and even Ivan pitched in with a little drumming.
Arthur‘s expression foretold a world of pain for Alfred as soon as they were offstage.
“Personally, if you’re going to throw something at the stage, I’d rather it be your wallets. Then I might sing like shit if you did that,” he managed to grin at the audience. “Anyway, here we go with our first number. Are you ready?”
The crowd cheered in response.
Without keeping their fans waiting any longer, the band threw themselves into their first song.
Francis, lingering at the back away from the jumping guys and dancing girls, listened with reluctance. They were…passable, he had to admit. Maybe a little bit more than passable. They had obviously practiced and that man - Arthur the bassist had introduced him as - had been right the day he had burst into their dressing room; he was a good vocalist.
“Ve, ve, they’re good! Take pictures! Take pictures!” the young Italian Francis had knocked over was now standing with someone who looked like a grumpy mirror image of him. The enthusiastic one was elbowing his twin - clone, Francis rather suspected - insisting on a million click a minute.
Francis wanted to snort at all this enthusiasm but, in that moment when his eyes drifted over the stage again, he felt his eyes meet with Arthur’s gaze and he froze.
Surely no one’s eyes were naturally that green. Surely no one’s gaze was naturally that piercing.
‘What are you going to do about it?’ Francis grinned back at the vocalist and he was sure that the man scowled right back.
anon tried looking for Sugiyama's songs but finding a translation is hell so sorry for lack of lyrics
Oh anon. Hi, would you like some free internets? My soul?
Asdfjkl;seriously, thank you so much for filling this! You have my everlasting love for doing this. And it looks like the beginning of a wonderful FrUK so I'm really looking forward to more =D
Re: The silk road to stardom [1c/?]
anonymous
July 16 2009, 15:32:38 UTC
Lovely, lovely characterisation here and I adore Arthur and Alfred's interaction. So IC! And Prussia is being a loveable bighead as usual. Not much on Francis just yet but I do hope that'll be changed soon!
You have this FrUK shipper HOOKED! More, more, more! <3
“Yo, guess who’s on the front cover of NGE’s Band Wave again?” Gilbert burst into the practice room, grinning and waving a glossy magazine above his head.
Francis plucked the magazine from Gilbert’s hand, nodding approvingly at the choice of cover.
“Why, who are these handsome young men?” he grinned at the three familiar faces staring back at him with the words Bad Friends! pasted across in bright red letters.
Gilbert threw himself onto the long leather couch in the corner of the room, arms outstretched along the backboard with an air of powerful ease, he tilted his head back and laughed.
“So are we all set for our gig at the Butterfly, yeah?” he asked as if this was given.
Antonio, who had been quietly changing the strings of his guitar suddenly looked up, alarmed. He exchanged unspoken glances with Francis, daring one another to be the first to break the news.
“Ah, about that,” Antonio lost the dare.
“They are already booked for tonight,” Francis frowned.
As expected, Gilbert jumped to his feet with a look of outrage. They had come a long way from their college days, performing gigs in the back of dingy old bars for the generous pocket-change of wasted businessmen. They were big news. They were stars. They had a record label behind them and a contract worth more than their combined student debt had ever been. God bless corporate giants.
“Well why don’t they unbook?” Gilbert scowled, offended that such a small place such as the Butterfly could reject the sheer awesomeness of the Bad friends. “C’mon, that dingy little place can’t afford to turn down big names like us! Wouldn’t even play on that tiny stage if it wasn’t for the fact that that’s where we played when we were just starting out!”
Antonio nodded in agreement and Francis had to admit that he was rather upset that their fame had not managed to worm them the privilege of booting out the smaller names, not at the Butterfly at least.
“Well, they’re booked. You know what Berwald’s like. He’s the kind of person who does what he says and never changes his mind once he‘s made a decision.”
“Blockhead,” Gilbert snorted. He grabbed his guitar in frustration - an old, Prussian blue Fender he had managed to haggle from an elderly, almost blind, gentleman for thirty five dollars - and began running through chords at a rate he only reached when he was frustrated.
Francis threw the magazine onto the couch. “Never mind. I’ll go again tonight. Perhaps I will be more successful in…the art of persuasion.”
XX
“The Bad Friends are on the cover of Band Wave again,” Alfred said with a mouth full of fries and a hand reaching into the bargain bucket for more.
The backstage room of the Butterfly was a cramped affair. There was hardly any room for all four members to sit comfortably, let alone practice, though Arthur was lovingly tuning his guitar from his perch on top of the dressing table.
“Fucking posers. What’s so good about them anyway?” he muttered. His E was refusing to sound like an E and less like an A.
“Ah, Arthur has a grudge against the group, da?” Ivan, decked in a heavy trench coat despite the humidity of the cramped room, smiled. He tapped his fingers over a long mahogany walking stick - an object he had become oddly attached to since buying it off an old war veteran - pretending as though he were tapping against the taut skin of a drum.
Arthur screwed his face up in disgust. “It’s not my fault they’re the worst band since…since…” he paused. He could not think of a band that was just as bad as the Bad Friends.
“When Arthur was just a solo artist he went to the Bad Friends and asked for a place in their band. I believe he was told to ‘Fuck off, limey’,” Alfred grinned, appreciating the story more than Arthur cared for.
“That sounds unnecessarily harsh,” Matthew shook his head.
Alfred laughed at his brother. “Shouldn’t have told the leader that he couldn’t…hey, what did you say to Gilbert Weillschidmt?”
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“Ah well, we’re here now,” Matthew smiled comfortingly, though from the way Ivan left him only enough room for a five year old to stand he looked as though he did not appreciate being right there at that specific moment.
“Yeah, that’s right, we are so much more awesome than the Bad Friends!” Alfred threw more fries into his mouth.
“Our vocals are batter at any rate.”
There was a heavy knock at the door. A stage hand popped his head round the door, holding up a hand with his fingers outstretched.
“Five minutes guys,” he gestured.
The band obediently slid off of dressing tables and chairs. Band Wave and the frozen smiles of the Bad Friends were left forgotten on the table next to a half-eaten bargain bucket of take-out burgers and fries.
XX
“Merde!” Francis swore under his breath, running through the streets towards the squashed frame of the Butterfly.
He rounded the next corner and slammed into another body crossing in front of him. Francis staggered back but managed to retain his balance. The other unfortunate soul, however, was thrown flat on his back.
“Ah, excusez-moi!” Francis hurriedly apologised, offering a helping hand to the poor man he had knocked over.
“Ve, no problem!” the young man - Italian, he guessed from his accent - refused the hand graciously and picked himself up.
Francis nodded and resumed running again. Though he knew that it was far too late to ask to play instead, he still felt duty bound to pester Berwald until the man grunted, muttered something unintelligible and booted him out as he had done on so many nights after a good gig and a few too many bottles of great wine.
However, by the time he burst into the Butterfly it was too crowded to locate Berwald and the curtain was rising to the cheers of the excited audience.
Francis had checked the posters splattered along the side of the Butterfly; they announced that a four-man group named Cellophane was playing - the weirdest name for a group Francis had ever heard since the band Those Guys And Their Dog.
The curtain was all the way up now and the four men on stage stood ready to start. Francis counted a drummer, bassist and a guitarist - staple positions one would find in all the other one hundred and fifty million rock bands across the world.
There was something odd though, something Francis did not notice upon first glance. The bassist, a tall blond man with thin-rimmed glasses had a saxophone strapped to his side - strange for a rock band. Oh, and how could he overlooked the fact that there was a keyboardist too?
However, stranger things were yet to come as the guitarist stepped towards the microphone, identifying himself as the lead singer with just that simple gesture. Francis’ eyes widened. He almost laughed when he realised that it was that rude man who had called Gilbert’s voice ‘a piece of shit’ or something and had been promptly told to ‘fuck off’
“So he made a band himself,” he muttered, amused.
He was about to turn and leave when the bassist ripped into a round of furious chords that tore through the silence of the hall.
XX
“Alfred!” Arthur placed a hand over the microphone to hiss at his bassist
Alfred, oblivious or, more likely, ignoring Arthur, grabbed his own mic and freed it from the stand. “Whoo! Hey there guys and gals are you ready to rock!” he shouted, punching the air with infectious enthusiasm.
“Alfred!” Arthur hissed over the deafening roars.
“We haven’t been doing gigs for long but we hope you’ll like what we got and that you got what we like! Can I hear a hell yeah?!”
“Hell yeah!” the audience responded willingly.
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Arthur‘s expression foretold a world of pain for Alfred as soon as they were offstage.
“Personally, if you’re going to throw something at the stage, I’d rather it be your wallets. Then I might sing like shit if you did that,” he managed to grin at the audience. “Anyway, here we go with our first number. Are you ready?”
The crowd cheered in response.
Without keeping their fans waiting any longer, the band threw themselves into their first song.
Francis, lingering at the back away from the jumping guys and dancing girls, listened with reluctance. They were…passable, he had to admit. Maybe a little bit more than passable. They had obviously practiced and that man - Arthur the bassist had introduced him as - had been right the day he had burst into their dressing room; he was a good vocalist.
“Ve, ve, they’re good! Take pictures! Take pictures!” the young Italian Francis had knocked over was now standing with someone who looked like a grumpy mirror image of him. The enthusiastic one was elbowing his twin - clone, Francis rather suspected - insisting on a million click a minute.
Francis wanted to snort at all this enthusiasm but, in that moment when his eyes drifted over the stage again, he felt his eyes meet with Arthur’s gaze and he froze.
Surely no one’s eyes were naturally that green. Surely no one’s gaze was naturally that piercing.
‘What are you going to do about it?’ Francis grinned back at the vocalist and he was sure that the man scowled right back.
anon tried looking for Sugiyama's songs but finding a translation is hell so sorry for lack of lyrics
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Asdfjkl;seriously, thank you so much for filling this! You have my everlasting love for doing this. And it looks like the beginning of a wonderful FrUK so I'm really looking forward to more =D
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Ahhhhh~ I think my F5 key has been smashed up. *resorts to using the mouse-pad*
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You have this FrUK shipper HOOKED! More, more, more! <3
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Yes, more please^^
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MOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMOREMORE
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ILU ANON
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