Monday, March 4, 2019

Microstory 1051: Bert

No, you’re not the first person to realize how many Berts we have at this school. Bertha, Herbert, a freshman named Bertil, and me. It’s actually my full name; it’s not short of Albert, or something. My parents came up with something simple, because they’re pretty lowkey, unremarkable people. That’s why I decided to start a band. Chester probably made you think it was his idea, but I’m the one who first suggested it. It may sound petty, but if we ever break up, it’s important to know who the name belongs to. Without any legal clarity, the primary founder basically has dibs. Besides, who’s ever heard of a drummer who’s in charge, am I right? I may not be much of a singer, but I can pluck a guitar with the best of ‘em, and nobody’s fawning over his drum solos, lemme tell you that. The truth is that I play a lot of instruments, but most of them aren’t heard much in bands. Many of them are brass, but I’m not much into ska, so we really need to keep away from that kind of sound. I suppose you could say we’re like Cherry Glazerr meets Of Monsters and Men. We’re great with that really rough, noisy grunge, but also love to focus on crystal vocals for some songs. Pearl was really great with that, and we’re all going to miss her. Hearing Addie, though, that’s really made me think that we’ve been going about this all wrong. She was the voice we were missing. They should have been handling that together. I don’t think we should be using her in a temporary capacity. We need to be finding a good, feminine voice that meshes well with Addie’s. I would rather sound more like Tegan and Sara than Chester’s Drum Circle Emporium. I didn’t make that up, by the way. Before I found him, he was trying to get all the percussionists in the high school band together to do an all drummers act. Can you imagine how terrible that would be? I love the guy, but he’s got some crazy ideas. I gotta remember to be more positive, and less critical, though. All bands fall apart because the members can’t work together. I don’t care what you say about your Yoko Onos, or that bullshit term “creative differences”. The one and only reason is they can’t get along, so it’s important that we continue to communicate, and find a new second singer who wants what we all want. Viola knew that, she was my girl. I don’t mean, like, she was my girlfriend, but she really understood what we were going for, even when we didn’t realize it ourselves. Did Chester tell you she designed our website, and supported us before anyone else did? She also got us this huge festival gig in Jordan that I’m really looking forward to. We can’t go in there with only three people, though. Duos and trios can sound great, but we’re not making it work. We need a fourth. I would even propose a fifth if we weren’t already in such a heavy transitional period. I’m thinking about asking Dolly if she wants to audition. Then we could change our name to ABCD. I’m fine with goin’ second. Wadya think? You ever hear her sing?

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