The Long One: The Documentation of Nefarious Rehearsal Sessions The Long One: The Documentation of Nefarious Rehearsal Sessions

By

Malkmusian

Chapter 6: More Juice! Please

August 13, 2000. Lammy was on her bed, her hair all wet from using the bathtub, her feet bare, and in shorts. She was listening to her vinyl records of the Good Captain when in occurred to her that she should try thinking about making a new album. She knew that the band had a meeting the next day over at the Beard Burger, but she also knew that she had to continue her education in case if the band didn’t get really popular with their sophomore album. She was enrolled at Stanford University, which was near her new home, a one-bedroom-one-bath house in Los Angeles, and was gaining credits to earn a degree in teaching.

Because of the choice of college, Lammy had to move away from her family, Katy (who still crashed with her parents in Palmdale), and Ma-San (who lived with Don over at his new house in Humboldt County until she could afford her own place). She was about 50-60 miles from Katy and about 150 miles from her godfather and Ma-San. Yet, despite all of this, she still had a good job as a music engineer at The Sound Recorder, near the empty shell of A&M Studios, and as the guitarist/vocalist in MilkCan. However, she had no control over the band. On that fateful day in June 1999, Katy took every bit of control from Lammy, even stating that Lammy should not sing on any of their albums.

But Lammy felt good. When she listened to “Bills Corpse”, “Zig Zag Wanderer”, or “Owed T’Alex”, she felt like that with her advanced guitar skills and with her coincidentally distinguished voice, she could be on the way to start a solo career, but she had fallen back into the same fear that plagued her for almost 11 years: the fear that nobody would like her as much as they did with MilkCan…

But that all changed with one fateful phone call.

The phone rang.

Lammy answered it, “Hello? Who is this?”

The caller replied, “Oh, hey, Lammy. I’ve been trying to contact you for almost a year now, but you keep hanging up on me. I’m not a total stranger! I’m the sequel to both the flower power and Gothic generations!”

Lammy sighed and replied, “What do you want, MilkCan fan? Do you want my autograph for your vinyl, cassette, or CD copy of ‘Make It Sweet’? I don’t give out the autographs. Katy does. She also handles the artwork and music videos. Hopefully, I get to change all of that…”

The caller, now noticeably angry with Lammy’s rambling, yelled, “I’m not a MilkCan fan, you son of a bitch! Are you that naïve? I’m Rammy! Rammy Wiggin! Your friend from high school!”

Lammy hung up the phone and slid down to the ground, breathing very heavily. Rammy was supposed to be dead, in Hell, playing with Teriyaki Yoko at that never-ending concert. As Lammy had remembered her, Rammy was trying to be nice, but there was something that ticked Lammy off. Whatever it was, even if it was the way she dressed or it could be that her mother was Rachel Wiggin of the Shaggs, it ticked Lammy off, making Rammy sad. One day, Rammy got so depressed that she became happy and killed herself with a gun from Wal-Mart. Lammy didn’t know, but Rammy earned her freedom from Hell and went back via the multi-dimensional fax machine. Ever since June of 1999, she had been searching for Lammy all of this time.

Lammy screamed. Suddenly, a knock was heard from behind the door.

A voice said, “Pizza delivery! AAAAUGH!!” and Lammy opened the door.

She screamed, as she saw a decapitated pizza delivery boy with a cantaloupe as a head and shaking in his final spasms. Finally, the body fell down on its knees, revealing the killer: Rammy. Lammy screamed even louder.

Rammy replied, “You want your head chopped off, just like that cocksuckin’ pizza boy? Well, answer to me next time, you imbecile!” and revealed both the pizza boy’s real head and a shotgun.

Lammy said, trembling with fear and backing up very slowly, “Rammy, why do you want to kill me?”

Rammy smiled and replied to the fearful lamb, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to mutilate you to the point that you cannot play your guitar anymore! You were always the popular one in school because you had a band! You always made me late to my practices, causing me to get the pink slip from every band, and you wanted me to get into things I hated, like sports and student aide programs! Now, it’s time for me to gain the spotlight!”

Lammy ran away and locked the door. Suddenly, Rammy shot down the door and chased Lammy throughout the room. During this, she shot at various objects, causing them to explode. At that point, Lammy ran under the bed and hid from Rammy’s terror. Also, because of an overdose of fear in Lammy, she zoned out to her dream world, 1969’s Los Angeles.

Over at the Trout Mask House, Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band were so excited that they got to get out of the house to celebrate a victory well done.

Zoot Horn Rollo saw Lammy and said to her, “Hey, Lammy! We’re heading out to lunch! We finally know the whole entire album! We’re going to record it in a studio after that!”

The Captain, who was next to Zoot, said to him, “You’re paying for lunch. I pay for Lammy and I. After that, Frank pays for the studio rent. However, I want Lammy to come to me.”

Lammy blushed and followed her musical idol to the car.

In the car, Lammy was looking outside. Everywhere, there were many false hippies, most under the influence of LSD. Even though Frank Zappa was right, she didn’t take into account of his opinion. All she could think about were the hot looks of Don Van Vliet.

Beefheart, who knew that Lammy was looking at him, said to her, “Hey, Lammy…are you tired of being pushed around?”

Lammy replied, “Yeah, by my friend Katy. Why?”

“Well, I thought I could help you gain control over the band by putting them under the same trial I’m putting them under. Instead of writing shitty pop songs and letting them go to their comfortable homes, why not write some experimental music and lock them in a house for a long period of time? It can be a month or so, but with the control you gain, you can keep your band from selling out! Sounds fair?”

“Well, Beefheart,” Lammy said, crossing her feet, “I don’t think I could do that.”

“Why?” Don asked, “It’s easy: perform some covers of mine! It’d be good and I’d be in love with you. I’d finally love somebody instead of that teenybopper Jan. What’s greater is that I’ll be in love with a lamb. I dig lambs.”

Lammy nodded her head to understand that she understood and removed her shoes. She stood up and saw Sunset Boulevard in all of its glory. That famous billboard of the model, La Brea Tar Pits, Mt. Wilshire, In-N-Out Burger, and a certain grayscale figure on the sidewalk, pointing a gun at the car.

At that moment Lammy screamed and turned her head around as to not see that person. When she poked on Zoot Horn Rollo’s shoulder, she saw that it was Rammy.

Rammy said to her, “I CAN FINALLY KILL THAT BITCH AND SHOW HER WHAT HELL REALLY IS!” and shot the gun at Lammy.

Lammy felt the bullet go into her forehead, instantly blacking her out due to the pain, and bleeding from her mouth. She died. However, at the moment she died, she woke up.

Lammy woke up to find Rammy in front of her, face to face. Rammy still had the gun pointed at Lammy, but suddenly, her hand shook and she started to bawl in tears. At that moment, Rammy got into a fetal position and Lammy climbed out of the bed.

Rammy said to Lammy, “Lammy! Please forgive me! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to kill the pizza guy, but I knew you thought I was dead! Well, let me tell you something: all I wanted was to be in your band! That’s all I asked, but you decided to be macho and call me a traitor and stuff like that. Do you forgive me?” and she sobbed even more.

Lammy replied with haste, “Not now, Rammy. I got a band to talk to!” and grabbed her guitar.

She also put on a pair of pink socks and shoes and ran out of the door. Rammy sat there, crying, until she stopped.

At that moment, she said to herself, “Wait a minute…I could try to tell my friends to talk her out of it, but I couldn’t interrupt their meeting. They all think I’m dead. Well, we’ll just wait until they cause some damage that I come in,” and walked over to Lammy’s vinyl collection.

She dug around and saw a few Nick Drake albums. She grabbed the “Pink Moon” LP, which had her signature on it, and ran out.

The next day, at Beard Burger (aka a Rodneytown tradition), MilkCan were at a table, eating their food. While Ma-San and Don were eating their 5-patty Beard Burgers with medium curly fries and Mega Gulps of Dr Pepper, Lammy and Katy were munching on salads, medium curly fries, and medium Dr Peppers.

Don stood up and said, “Well, band, I was asked by Drumbo if I could join his revival of the Magic Band for about 200 shows. I said ‘Yeah’, so I’m leaving this band on a hiatus so I could focus on my real band. I heard that it’s a mixture of the lineups I’ve had of the bands. Of course, Zoot’s in it, but Jeff Morris Tepper, Bruce Fowler, Rockette Morton, and Alex St. Clair are in there. One thing’s for certain, we need to change our name. I don’t want all my old fans to come in, asking me to autograph their ‘Trout Mask Replica’ master tapes and then smoke them.”

At that point, he sat down and noticed that the band was sleeping from his long announcement.

He stood up again and said, “Meanwhile, we finally got 2x Platinum sales from the RIAA for that album we did last year.”

At that point, the band woke up and cheered about the sales. However, Lammy was just cheering to please Katy. If Lammy didn’t do any little thing Katy thought of, she’d be fired and replaced by another guitarist.

However, Lammy stopped cheering when Don continued, “I’m leaving the band.”

Lammy replied, “Why would you? We’re cute, nice, and sexy!”

Don sighed and said, “Lammy, sometimes you need to learn that you have to switch bands as you get along in life. MilkCan is just a lowly garage rock band with a gimmick that somehow revolves around me being its saxophonist. You have to grow up, Lammy. You can’t keep on holding on to me forever.”

Lammy cried as Don left.

Katy said to Lammy, “Oh, hush it. He’s too unimportant. Besides, MilkCan will always live!” and Lammy zoned out into her own little world, a place she hadn’t been to in years.

In Lammy’s world, she was in the middle of a white room, surrounded by various deceased rock stars. All of them were repeating the same movements over and over, even mouth movements and sounds.

The Lizard King, tall, brave, and on LSD, had to say this to her, “Do the album. Now.”

Janis Joplin, drunk from a bottle of Southern Comfort, said, “Write the album now.”

James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix, with a reefer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, slurred out, “Oh…d-d-do…and write…the…AYLBUM!”

Bon Scott, his face turning blue, said in his heavy Australian accent, “You know my guys made ‘Back in Black’ when I died, right? Well, do this album for your hero.”

John Lennon, nude and fire covering his eye sockets, slurred out, “Turn me on, dead man. Turn me on, dead man.”

Kurt Cobain and Frank Zappa, guitars in hand, played “My Human Gets Me Blues” while Cobain’s mouth spewed out blood, staining the caverns of Lammy’s mind. Lammy suddenly blacked out.

“ETHEL, WANNA GET A CUPPA CAWFEE?” a voice screamed.

“Howard Johnson’s! Howard Johnson’s!” a screech female voice screamed back.

“AH! THERE’S A HOWARD JOHNSON’S! WANNA EAT SOME CLAMS?!”

As the voices passed through Lammy’s now-dark mind, she regained consciousness, the white room transformed into the interior of the Trout House, and the dead rock starts became the Magic Band. Captain Beefheart came out of nowhere.

The Captain came up to Lammy and said to her, “Why aren’t you making the album yet?”

Lammy stuttered, “W-w-w-well, Mr. Don V-van V-v-v-v-v-vliet, sir, I need to get my, or Katy’s, band together.”

Captain Beefheart said, “They’re with you right now!” and with a snap of his fingers, he transmogrified Rockette Morton and Drumbo into Katy Kat and Ma-San.

Katy said to the fearful lamb, “Don’t worry. We are always with you! We are MilkCan! Rocking to the rhythm, rolling to the beat! Here we come, here we come! Hold on to your seat!”

Lammy smiled and jumped up in the air, playing some Zappa-esque guitar solo and with an LSD-influenced backdrop next to her. However, since it was her own world, she was snapped out of it.

For the past 5 minutes, Katy was trying to get Lammy to come out of her world until Lammy got out by a slap on the face.

Katy said to Lammy, “Lammy, Lammy, listen to me. If you are that desperate, you are the official band leader.”

Lammy grinned and said to her band, “Come with me to our rehearsal spot! Hurry!”

The band followed Lammy, uneasy at best.

TO BE CONTINUED.