001; intro
The five of them live in a two-bedroom apartment in the middle of the city. It's not the nicest place, but it's the best they can afford - especially since their residency at the Dust Factory got cancelled (the venue hadn't complied with council regulations in years and after one too many noise complaints from the gentrified new tenants they'd finally been shut down). There's one bathroom and a kitchen that just barely fits a hot plate and a kettle on the bench next to the sink. Their fridge is usually more full of beer and vodka than anything resembling food, but their dinners are usually a mish-mash of ingredients from their day jobs: Jun is able to snipe a few vegetables from the cafe, Ohno takes leftover bread rolls from the bakery, and Aiba brings home a dish from the Chinese restaurant he works at (it's usually mapo tofu, but Aiba manages to use it creatively). Sho works at the local newsagency, so he brings home day-old newspapers and magazines with the covers ripped off, keeping them educated and entertained when there's nothing on terrestrial television. Nino dodges his taxes and picks up rent assistance and unemployment money from the government while he gets paid under the table by the local pub to do magic tricks during the week.
What brings them all together, however, is the band that started out as a dare.
"I dare you to try to make a living out of your stupid garage band!" It was the last thing Jun's girlfriend said to him before she dumped him for a biochemistry post-grad she'd been seeing behind his back for three months. They don't remember how they all met (Nino tells it differently every time he explains it to someone, so everyone has stopped trying to look for the truth), but the band had just been a natural progression from their conversations that started, steadily, to take up more and more of their time. The ex-girlfriend's parting words had been the kick in their proverbial asses that they needed to take themselves seriously.
After two years of playing gigs around the city, cutting their own EP with Sho's computer set up in the living room, they're only just making ends meet. They've had some higher-profile gigs, following their better-off musician friends around on tour, and have had enough exposure that they've got a few loyal fans who turn up at every gig they play - who they use as their street team to hand out flyers and make their myspace page and sell their EP, and occasionally invite around to their place for beers and games of Twister as payment. It's not exactly how any of them had imagined they would spend their mid-twenties, and they're not without their spats and creative differences, but the fact that they live their happiest moments together - and often, for each other - counts for more than anything.
What brings them all together, however, is the band that started out as a dare.
"I dare you to try to make a living out of your stupid garage band!" It was the last thing Jun's girlfriend said to him before she dumped him for a biochemistry post-grad she'd been seeing behind his back for three months. They don't remember how they all met (Nino tells it differently every time he explains it to someone, so everyone has stopped trying to look for the truth), but the band had just been a natural progression from their conversations that started, steadily, to take up more and more of their time. The ex-girlfriend's parting words had been the kick in their proverbial asses that they needed to take themselves seriously.
After two years of playing gigs around the city, cutting their own EP with Sho's computer set up in the living room, they're only just making ends meet. They've had some higher-profile gigs, following their better-off musician friends around on tour, and have had enough exposure that they've got a few loyal fans who turn up at every gig they play - who they use as their street team to hand out flyers and make their myspace page and sell their EP, and occasionally invite around to their place for beers and games of Twister as payment. It's not exactly how any of them had imagined they would spend their mid-twenties, and they're not without their spats and creative differences, but the fact that they live their happiest moments together - and often, for each other - counts for more than anything.