The Book of Dema

CHAPTER SIX + Don't Take It

"What's wrong with that light, Greg?" Tyler was pointing up at a yellow light that seemed to be stuck on his microphone position on the stage.

"Hang on. Let me reset the bus," Greg responded from the sound booth in the back of the club. Tyler continued to shield his eyes from the rogue light while Greg made adjustments on the computer. The clubs were getting better lately. Randy's had been a little divey place across the state line. This one was closer to home, a slight improvement, but it also had a programmable light grid. Greg had been spending more time with the band, assisting with the pre-show setup and sound balancing. Light systems were not his area of expertise. Resetting the bus did not help. He clicked the keyboard again, and after a few more tries, the yellow light suddenly swung back to the drumset where it belonged.

"I had to delete the path and upload it again from the thumb drive. I think we're good now," Greg said, flicking hair out of his face and giving Tyler a fist bump from across the room. Tyler returned the gesture as Greg tested the move out again. The light rotated to the piano and then back to the drum set.

"Yep, we're set." Tyler was grateful for his help. When they first ventured out to the road, he was at the mercy of whoever the venue hired to run sound. It often led to unpredictably messy sets and had become a source of anxiety. His mom had remembered Greg's offer to help the band and had made the call. Each of the last few shows was running smoother than the previous. They hadn't forgotten their set list order more than twice in the last month, and the sound was definitely improving. Maybe he'd buy Greg a book on lighting controls. Greg would probably get excited about that.

Attendance had been improving as well. Randy's place had been a downtown club in a place outside the range of his mom's marketing efforts. Since then, they were averaging seventy people per show. Once he came out on stage to at least 150 people. He found out later the club was running some kind of drink special, but even if he was just background noise for their party, the experience of playing in front of that many people was gratifying.

Tyler looked around this place. It was dingy like many of the clubs in the region. The floor was sticky in places where too much beer had been spilt with too little effort to clean it thoroughly. Beaded lights hung from the ceiling in a haphazard pattern. There was no a/c, which meant the windows in the front of the place would be open. That was bad for acoustics. The walls were covered with hand-written scrawls, lyrics from bands who had played there, stickers from music equipment, weird rock drawings mostly from the punk bands that played there, pictures of performers, and more promotional posters than he'd seen in one place. They were even affixed to the ceiling.

The stage was a little wider than most he had been playing on, which meant Josh was able to use his full drum set for a change. He had been pleased to see that and had eagerly unpacked gear that usually remained in the van. It also meant that Tyler would have some room to move around for once. Most of the small stages he'd been performing on during the past two months were so cramped that once he'd moved the piano up there and set up his keyboard and bass stations, there was little room left to move. He'd taken to jumping off his piano just to release some of the energy that built up during the first part of these shows.

Tyler looked back at Greg, who was still making adjustments to the lighting controls. The guy was about thirty years old, and like Josh, seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He was a little shorter than Tyler. He had a mop of brown hair that flopped to either side of his head. He was good natured and eager to help. Most importantly, he knew enough about sound engineering to ensure Tyler could start introducing the more complex soundscapes that he had been writing recently.

When the guys had left the band, he knew he could keep the music going. He was doing most of the work as it was. He hadn't considered the performances. Even though he had told the skeleton man that he made the music for himself, this was only partly true. He was certainly his harshest critic, but that did not mean the mere existence of the music was ever enough for him. It wasn't real, wasn't alive until he pushed it out into the world on a stage. The music wouldn't stay alive unless he performed it again and again. But performances were complex, even in these little clubs. In fact, he imagined large shows would probably be easier because by that time, the production companies handled most of the design and set-up details. Greg was the production company now, and he was doing it for almost nothing. Tyler had to remember to fix that, especially if their shows continued to grow.