WAIFUS & MUSIC

Road to Ruin (Mami Nanami)

NOW PLAYING: "Infected" by Bad Religion

We were preparing for a tour unlike any tour our band's done before---with the plan to step outside of our comfort zone in Toronto, taking on the entire country of Canada. Day-in and day-out, we were taking time off college to rehearse our material, ranging from our original music to covers from some of our favorite bands/artists. It didn't matter about how tired we were; we had to spend a majority of this time restless and ensuring our fans would have the show of their lives.

A month before the big tour began, we were taking a break from rehearsals when I saw Matthew exchanging banter with a cute, young blonde girl with a short bob-like hair, dressed in a white blouse and a yellowish skirt. The moment the two noticed me watch them from the distance, they did not hesitate to get closer.

"Have you met my friend from Japan? This is Mami Nanami...", said Matthew. "...or as I'd call her, Mami-chan." She seemed to take it pretty lightly with a cute smile and reddish cheeks on her face.

"Oh, you!", she replied. "You must be Matthew's friend..."

"Yeah, my name's Liam.", I said as a slightly flustered me introduced myself to her with a handshake. "We're in a band together called Speed. Basically, we play really loud rock music...are you into that kind of stuff?"

"Oh, not necessarily..." she happily replied. "But I have a brother who listens to classical while studying.", she continued before laughing.

"Well, our music isn't exactly what we'd call classical...", I blurted with a laugh.

"Says the guy who listens to the Drain Gang.", Matthew sarcastically remarked.

"Bladee isn't part of the Drain Gang, Matt! Come on...", I replied with slight annoyance, while playing along with his tease.

But just before we could continue our conversation, our break had reached its time limit, forcing us to rush back to rehearsing for our tour.

"Well, shit...we're out of time...", I remarked in disappointment. "You wanna talk some more later tonight?", I then asked Mami.

"Sure thing! There's a cafe nearby if you're down." Mami kindly responded.

And thus began my relationship with the worst girlfriend I've ever had...

NOW PLAYING: "Судно (Борис Рыжий)" by Molchat Doma

Despite sounding somewhat gloomy and raw, this Russian post-punk song is actually from 2018, even if it sounds like a long-lost song from 1981. Not that I'm complaining---but the bleak and dreadful melody of this song personally summarizes just how horrible things were going to get from here---at least for me and Mami. (How naive we were back then...)

This song reminds me heavily of two memories at the time---vibing to this song with the homies during rehearsals, and my dinner with Mami that night. It was in an average run-of-the-mill cafe, complete with relaxing concrete paint and fresh plants in vases, with chairs being ditched for highly comfortable couches by the windows.

At the table I was on, I was contemplating my concerns about the tour while waiting for her to arrive. To put it this way, we were playing as a band for about a year at the time. My hands were next to a cup of coffee, clamped together and resting by my chin, spacing out as to how our tour would go and problems that could arise---for us, for our audience, for our venues, and what not. We had no sound engineer, no bodyguards, nothing---just us playing as a band. So what would happen to us given how lo-fi and stripped back our performances are? Are we going to make it somewhere afterwards? Will there be personal tensions between us as the tour goes on? What if we just reach our breaking points and become mentally tired in the long run? Are we going to get signed by a record label, and if we do---are we going to veer closer into losing ourselves as a group of friends playing music together, and selling out as corporate pop punk like Blink-182 did? (Which, for the record, is the last thing we ever want to happen to Speed.)