WAIFUS & MUSIC

Prologue: Liam Speed

So picture this. An audience-less stage in the dark. Standing there are four silhouettes of people with their instruments. It all seems menacing and quiet---such a large room packed with anticipation gradually building up to its breaking point.

And then, all of a sudden, you hear a female voice. "1! 2! 3! 4!" she cries, and then---Boom! The quiet ambience of the stage is suddenly murdered by loud, distorted noise coming from an electric guitar, and the silhouettes are quickly turned into living, breathing punk rockers living in the moment. The stage suddenly turns into your dad's garage. The noise becomes so loud that it's bound for us to get a million complaints from neighbors in the next few minutes, or even hours. We go wild like the crowds who watch us, and play our goddamn music even if it blows their eardrums off.

That's how I picture my life---right on the edge, without warning or regrets.

My name is Liam Speed. I am currently 19 years old, hailing from the suburbs in Toronto, Canada, and I'm the frontman of this punk rock band we like to call "Speed" (Get it? My last name is also my band name. Isn't that so original?)

I've been playing with this band for over 2 years now, all because my childhood friend, Matthew Yvonne, was a beginner at guitar at the time and asked me if we wanted to start a band. To describe him, he's really tall and a bit of a giant, complete with military-like hair---you could say he's got the body of a bodyguard. (Which is because he sort of is, at least in my case.) Since then, we've been touring all across the local schools, coffee shops, gymnasiums and punk rock clubs all over our lovely home in Toronto.

Since then, we've been making punk rock music straight from my filthy, filthy garage---loud, anarchistic, and fast---the type of punk rock music that you and your dads would party to like it's 1977. We're talking Descendents, Ramones-ass punk rock. No producer, no big studio, no Pro Tools---just raw and aggressive energy coming from our music.

We also have two other members in the family; our drummer Kathy A---born with the gift of playing drums so fast, and simultaneously being unable to see what she's doing because of how long her purple bangs are; we haven't seen her face for nearly 3 years. She's like Daredevil if Matt Murdock played for the Sex Pistols instead of defending O.J. Simpson. Our bassist, Nicolas Murphy, is a fresh blonde face in the world of punk rock---he's only 20 years old and his bass skills are already giving Dee Dee Ramone a run for his money. Despite his talent, he's not really that much of a talker. Whenever we'd write songs, he'd only say four or five sentences inbetween breaks. And he's really serious about playing the bass---like a samurai dedicated to loyalty---pretty groundbreaking for the least respected position in a punk rock band.

While all this may sound like I'm having the time of my life, rocking out---devil horn hands and shit, let me just get this out of the way right now that I'm not. While my music life is at the height of its powers, my love life is at the other end of the spectrum. It suuuuuuuucks.

To further clarify, allow me to break down just how horrible my love life's gotten:

1) I'm too horny. It's been a problem I've been having for a while now. When we're not recording music and we're all at home dealing with other things, I would occasionally hit the bedroom maybe once or twice to do some rustling. In one week, I've wasted nearly 5 bottles of lube---a world record, if there even is such.

What's even worse is that when girl talk gets brought up in breaks, my moral ethics just completely disappear from my goddamn soul---leaving me sweaty and overtly tempted about all the worst things I would do to an attractive girl my age. At least Kathy hasn't considered gunning me down yet.

2) Too many exes. Some you may recognize, others you may not. I dated pornstar Eva Elfie for about 2 months---before she dumped me for another guy, metaphorically and literally. I can still remember our last encounter when she gut-punched me and leaving me defeated by the entrance of the Royal Ontario Museum. Not the best thing a man like me would want in their lives. I've also dated various cosplayers, classmates, and even punk rock musicians---all of them meeting a tragic end after a few months, weeks, and even days. I may have been hospitalized a few times from some bruises, too.

But perhaps the worst experience I've ever had with an ex-girlfriend is a story definitely worth telling. Buckle your ass up, because it's going to be one horribly bumpy ride through cringe-town...