Part 59
So dreamer picked out her bandmates herself. "Okay...I can't play guitar and sing at the same time so I need someone who can play rhythm and lead on occasion. Daniel, that's you. I need a drummer - " Ben looked at her hopefully - "so I think I'll give Patty Schemel a call since Bastard's not touring or recording yet. But if she won't do it I guess Ben here will do. I need a couple of bass players...Chris, are you interested?" He shrugged as if to say he really wasn't. "Hmmmm...I don't see James anywhere, so can you play bass, Ben?" He nodded. "Perfect. Kelnino, you and Scars can sing backup. Does anyone play anything else?" Back to silverchair stuff
"Hey! We almost forgot our plan! We'd better take out the pop boys before they get loose!" rockstar piped up.
"Good thinking," Kelnino said. "Ben, Chris, and Heath, lock Lou in that soundproof room and keep an eye on him." They did so, while Daniel fiddled with the stereo. Within seconds, Lydia's raw, scary voice came over the speakers...and it was only a matter of minutes before N'Sync and LFO were piles of ashes.
"Now where were we?" Junta asked.
"Who else plays instruments?"
"I do!" Scars said, jumping around. She took out her sticker-covered Fender electric guitar, plugged it in, and played a sample of her work.
"Excellent," dreamer said. "You're in...think you can handle working with Daniel?"
"Sure!"
So the band lineup was set...all that was left to do was get some songs on tape, build a website, generate some underground-scene buzz, set up a tour, you get the idea. dreamer had quite a bit of almost-finished material in her notebook, so she had to decide which of her fellow pioneers was going to help her get it finished so they could plan recording already...but before they could start Angie had another annoying and out-of-the-way-question. "What should we call our band?"
"How about Frozen Muffins?" Melinda asked. "Wait, that sounds familiar...Oh yeah! It's my friends' and my imaginary band. Let's see. Where'd my list of cool band names go?" Melinda rummaged through her pocket for a few minutes and took out a piece of paper. "Here it is. Let's see. Noose, Llama Liberation, Psycho/Psychotic Llamas, Rock Angels (my friends Amanda came up with that one), and Homicidal Arsonists (we both came up with that one while watching a boring movie in history). What do you think?"
"How about The American Dream or Bloodshot?" Scars asked, hiding behind Junta.
"I got it!" yelled Angie. "Let's call ourselves Sack of S**t!"
"Great idea, Angie!" said Chris.
"But Angie, if we call ourselves that, the censors will have a fit," Kelnino pointed out.
"And what's your point?" Angie asked.
"If the censors have a fit, parents will dislike us too, and kids will be kept from buying anything we release and going to our shows. And if we can't reach the kids, how can we have any hope for the world's future?" Junta elaborated.
"Got any other ideas, Angie?"
"Um, you guys?" KelNino piped up.
"What now, KelNino?" dreamer sighed.
"Why don't we just call ourselves the Bathroom Pioneers?" KelNino shrugged.
"Oh yeah...duh!" dreamer slapped her forehead. "Well, with that out of the way, why don't we get some demos done?"
Daniel pointed out that they still had to do some run-throughs, and that their drummer hadn't arrived. They agreed to finish writing that one last song while waiting for Patty, who strolled in at 2 a.m.
"Hi, guys," she said, breathless. "I got here as soon as I could."
"Daniel's just finishing up the drum tabs," dreamer told her.
By the time dreamer, Daniel, Ben, Patty, Scars, and Kelnino finished the demo tape, it was almost dawn.
"So now what do we do?"
"Go for some food. We haven't eaten in two weeks of this mission," Junta growled.
"Yeah. That's because you salted the hell out of all our canned food and crushed all our crackers with that damn spork of yours!" Heath pointed out.
"It was a religious ceremony!" Junta pleaded. "It had to be cleansed!"
"Yeah, well, thanks to you, Junta, now all our food is inedible and we're hungry, so you have to go out and get us food." dreamer shoved Junta out the door with 20 bucks. "And hurry, for Pete's sake! Daniel's looking even skinnier than usual!"
"Am I really?" Daniel flexed his arm hoping to see a little muscle.
"Daniel, if you lost any more weight, we could hang you on a clothesline to dry after you shower," rockstar giggled.
"Oh." Daniel scratched his head. "I guess it's a good thing I don't shower then, huh?"
"So that's what that smell is!" KelNino ran to the other side of the room, away from Daniel.
"KelNino, can we please concentrate on our project here?" dreamer scolded. "We have to find a producer!"
"Let's just get into the studio and record something!" Ben said.
"Oh! Oh! Can we use subliminal messages so I can push these multi-flavored freezable condoms I made?" Angie asked eagerly.
"Multiflavored eh?" Daniel asked shyly. "I think I love myself more than ever..."
Angie handed Daniel a trial packet. "But Daniel, remember that the red coloring is made out of processed pork fat and natural colorings-"
"EEEEK!" Daniel squealed in horror and dropped the packet of condoms on the floor. "EEEEK! EEEEK!"
"Oh shut up, you pansy. It's just pork fat," Heath grumbled. "You sound like Mini-Me for %@$#'s sake."
"EEEEK! EEEEK!"
"Whose brilliant idea was it to use that kind of coloring anyway?" dreamer wondered aloud. "Calm down, Daniel, it's not like you've tried them yet."
Daniel continued whimpering and twitching, so Kelnino said, "Why don't you go take a nice warm shower and forget about this?" What she didn't say was that her real motive was taking care of Daniel's stench.
"And where would I do that? We're in a recording studio!"
"There's a high school across the street," Jill told him. "It's 10 a.m. and it's Monday, so summer school's in session. And from those kids jogging around the campus in gym uniforms I'd say the locker room is being used. Just find an outside door near the gym and sneak in."
About fifteen minutes later, Daniel came back in, possibly the cleanest he'd been in years. Junta was close behind, carrying several bags of takeout food.
"There's Chinese food, pizza, donuts, and who knows what else," she said, panting from exhaustion as she plopped into a chair.
The pioneers dug in, but when they got to the Canadian food, which resembled chunky Alpo dog chow mixed into Pepto-Bismol, they all started vomiting uncontrollably, so they gave it to James. He sloshed it around his mouth happily, milky-colored Canadian food juice running down his chin, as dreamer chose her producer.
"Okay everyone!" dreamer hushed the pioneers. "I've made my decision on who will produce my hit album! I want Ozzy to produce it. I mean, he's probably here somewhere. I think we left him with Ricky Martin or something."
"Yes, I have the good fellow in my backpack!" Daniel reached into his backpack and pulled out Ozzy, whose joint had now burned down to a little nub (although he was still trying to smoke it). Everyone shook hands with the shock-rocker and he amiably agreed to produce dreamer's record (he was probably too stoned to make any good decisions at the time). As Ozzy and dreamer got things under way, Heath turned to Daniel. "Hey Dan, why'd you have Ozzy in your backpack?"
"Well, I uh...I was...uh..." Daniel stuttered.
"He was your lover, wasn't he?" Heath gasped. "Damnit, Daniel! I told you to stop doing that kinda stuff! That's totally dodgy!"
"I couldn't help myself!" Daniel whimpered.
"How could you, Daniel?!" Robin shrieked.
"Yeah, Robin is right. Ozzy is a married man, Daniel!" KelNino put her hands to her cheeks in shock.
"Well, that wasn't what I had in mind..." Robin shoved KelNino out of the way. "You two-timing lying sack of-"
"S**t?" Heath intervened.
"Well I was gonna say 'wanking s**t', but that works too-"
"Hey, do you guys mind?!" dreamer banged on the glass of the recording room. "We're finishing up our last song!" The pioneers turned to watched dreamer as she sang the words to her future hit single.
"Wait, Daniel, why don't you have them all? You know, like an orgy?" Angie suggested.
At this point KelNino started beating up Angie for suggesting that her husband was gay. So then of course Robin and Daniel had to pull Kelnino off Angie...not an easy task. The four of them lay on the floor, gasping for breath, until Daniel realized it was time to go record his killer riffs.
Robin spoke first. "Kelnino, you knew I liked guys when we got married."
"Yeah, I know," she said softly, still not looking at either of them. "But it's not like you're gay. You still fancy me, don't you?"
"Of course I do," he said. "Hey - Jill left the keys to her car on that table..." He winked.
Meanwhile, inside the booth, dreamer was just wrapping up the vocals for the first single, "Rotten Candy."