After doing the random "Make your own album cover" exercise on Facebook, I decided to write the story behind my fictious band, La Malbaie.
Band: La Malbaie
Debut Album:
I don't remember, but it's good
(Album cover to the right)
La Malbaie was the name of the seedy bar where Jasper and I first met. I had just moved into the one-room apartment above the establishment after my father evicted me from the dilapidated bungalow we shared on the outskirts of town. My dad didn't like the yellow bursts of nail polish that dotted my fingertips or the smudged charcoal around my eyes. He complained that my singing gave him migraines.
"Besides," he growled, in that deep, Jack-Daniels-and-cigarettes drawl. "You're 21 now. It's high time you faced the world on your own."
I worked as an assistant at the public library in the middle of town. It was close to where I lived, only a 7 minute ride on the 512 bus. I usually wrote lyrics in my pocketbook during the commute and silently composed songs while restocking the Reference shelves at work. You see, singing was my passion, not books. In the evenings, after a long soak in my grimy, old-fashioned tub, I ventured downstairs for a drink in the dim bar.
Jasper didn't make any sense in those dingy surroundings: his brightness and energy made everyone around him seem as tarnished as the ancient ale taps behind the bar. It was impossible not to stare at him, with his tangled red curls and electric green eyes and the black suspenders that always hung loosely around his thighs; or, anyway, it was impossible for me not to stare.
"My name's Jasper, if you're wondering." That was first thing he said to me and, even in that introductory moment, I already knew there were things I'd never be able to tell him. "I'm going to be famous one day."
He was the lead guitarist and vocalist of his band and they had just finished playing a free show on the lofty stage at La Malbaie. Standing next to me at the bar, he popped a small bright pill, downed it with a shot of vodka and then invited me to sing the encore with the band. He had noticed me before, he said, and had heard that I could sing.
I started to be a regular with the band, playing gigs at our favourite bar and other dives in the nearby townships. Locals said that La Malbaie hadn't been so packed since the adored, smoky-voiced Martine (the bar's founder) swooned the crowded room night after night with her sensous covers of Edith Piaf and Ella Fitzgerald. Martine started coughing up blood and finally went to see a doctor. He said it was lung cancer and that she had four weeks to live. Martine's bittersweet finale was the last time the bar had served so many patrons.
That was the sunshine of my life. I loved singing, composing and performing, but most of all, I loved being around Jasper. Sometimes after practice, the two of us would take a case of beer up to the rocky precipe overlooking the dark lake and we would talk until sunrise. I felt like an orchid flower in bloom during that time, my petals slowly unfolding, absorbing new light, becoming something beautiful and complex.
A few months later, Jasper introduced me to his cousin, Clinton, who had recently moved back to our small town after his band in Toronto broke up. He ran out of money and ran back, however reluctantly, to his boyhood bedroom. He said that he missed the pulse of the big city and that he might die in this godforsaken place. I often used to wonder who the embittered Clinton would've beaten up if he didn't have his drums to bang on. In many ways, Clinton's drums were his salvation.
"We're making a new band and you'll be our singer." I never objected to the demand that Jasper made that night. I could tell that he was bored of the small town circuit. He was ready to court the fame he had always prophesized.
Clinton knew people who knew the right people in Toronto. His contacts were good on their promise and two record execs arrived in town one day, clearly outsiders with their fancy suits and shiny smiles. They stopped for a scotch and a smoke at La Malbaie; they wanted to hear us play.
When we finished, the fat city slickers shook our hands and said, "We want to sign you to our label."
Well, that just about blew my mind.
Ecstatic, Clinton, Jasper and I wrote and recorded twelve new songs and for a while we got along famously. But tensions built and the band began to crack. You know the cliche: inflated egos from new-found fame leads to increasing sense of invincibility and dependence on candy-coloured drugs or amber alcohol, which leads to missed practices, fist fights and sloppy strumming, which leads to tragedy. The boys grew sullen and thin; our manager threatened to pull the plug on the deal. I wanted fame just as voraciously as Jasper and Clinton did, but their antics were sending us straight to the gutter.
The climax occurred when Clinton and I found Jasper's limp body draped over an amp at a party on New Year's Eve. Our record release date was only three weeks away. A stoned witness said that a very beautiful woman called Jasper a "talentless hack" just moments before he downed the entire bottle of his trusty tablets.
As I stood in the dark street and watched my friend disappear in a frenzy of orange lights and screeching sirens, I regretted that I never told Jasper that I loved him. Not that it would've made a difference either way.
Three weeks later, our debut album launched. Disgusting rumors swirled around the Internet, claiming that Jasper's death was fake, a vulgar publicity stunt staged to create intrigue around the band and hopefully sell more records. Those who believed in Jasper's death seemed more interested in the troubled, charming, enigmatic guitarist than the music itself. The sadness over our recent loss shrouded our elation at the release party; I hardly sipped a drop of the sparkly Veuve that filled my champagne flute.
Regrettably,
I don't remember, but it's good, will be our first and only album. Clinton and I would like to thank everyone who helped us create it and our fans for your unwavering support.
I wonder if every song that I write from now on will be about him?
