I stood watching my band mate, Heather, as she fiddled with the mixer.
"Play a C everybody," she commanded and we all complied. I arranged my finger on the second bass string and plucked. Cris strummed her guitar and Steph pressed a note on her keyboard. Heather fiddled a little more with the mixer and then went to position herself behind the drums. "Recording!" she announced.
We had been here, holed in Heather's room for the past five hours, trying to get this one song right.
"Okay everybody, we can do this!" Heather decided we needed ANOTHER pep talk. "We gotta get it perfect this time! I KNOW we will get it perfect this time!" I smiled back at Heather and when she wasn't looking exchanged a meaningful glance with Cris. I rolled my eyes. She grinned back. Steph saw and stuck her tongue out at me. We all laughed a little as Heather clicked her sticks together.
"Five...Six....Five Six Seven Eight!" We began.
A...1...2...3 and 4 ...G...5 ...6...7 and 8...F...1...2...3 and 4...E... I concentrated as hard as i could, but it was difficult. The tips of my fingers were red and raw, my muscles cramping, my palms sweaty. I hands slipped and I lost my fingering. I threw my hands up in despair and Heather stopped drumming. The other two stopped soon after. Heather stared at me.
"WHAT...THIS...TIME!" She very nearly yelled at me. I shrank back onto the bed. I said nothing.
"Somebody stop the damn recorder!" Heather commanded. Steph quickly got out from behind her keyboard. She hit the switch stopping the recording. She turned and tried to give me an understanding look while making her way through the cords back to her spot. She ended up instead flying through the air and landing with a thump on the floor, tangled up in Cris' cord. Suddenly we all burst up laughing. Steph laughed the hardest of us all.
"Are you okay?" asked Cris as she and I helped Steph up.
"Yeah fine." We all giggled. "Can I do it again? That was fun!" At that I ended up on the floor laughing my head off. I couldn't even figure out why it was so funny. My other two friends were right next to me laughing just as hard. It was two in the morning, we had been practicing for hours, and we just cracked after the preceding tension. I laughed so hard my ribs hurt. Suddenly Cris stopped laughing. Steph and I looked and saw why. There was Heather, looming over us, a frown on her face, clenched fists at her side, looking like she was about to blow up. Then she did.
"What is wrong with you guys! That is not funny! You guys don't take this serious enough! We have to record this so we can release it to people and I refuse to give them the crap that we have been dishing out! We need to buckle down and do this and stop goofing off! Don't you guys care about this as much as I do? I would do this all on my own if I thought I could get away with it!" She fumed and stomped and yelled. The three of us got to our feet. We fumed back.
"What is wrong with us? What is wrong with you?" said Steph hotly.
"This whole thing is for fun. FUN!" I very nearly yelled that last word. "that was why we formed this band. That is whole reason we are doing this. What is the point of it if we don't have fun? tell me that huh? I'm not having fun doing this your way? Are you?"
"No! I'm not having fun because you guys aren't serious! We aren't getting anything DONE!"
"Stop." said Cris. We all looked at her startled. Cris, the quiet one, the one with all the sense in the group. The peace maker. "You guys are both right to a certain extent. Yes, we do need to work seriously to get this stuff turned out, but considering the equipment we have, nothing we are ever going to do will be perfect, not the way you want it Heather. That requires a producer and a studio and MONEY, all of which we don't have. We are all just as serious about this band as you are Heather, but our wonderful bass player here is right, the whole point of this, the reason why we started was not to get famous or anything like that, but to have fun. If we can no longer do that, I don't see a point in continuing this."
We all looked at each other, our blazing fires of anger quenched. Cris was right. She spoke for all of us on this. I looked at heather and she looked back. "Friends?" I asked.
"Friends." She, Cris and Steph chorused. We had a group hug then and there. We all laughed when we fell over toppling the cymbals of Heather's drums. Even she laughed. We had all learned something. No more early morning practices for us. Plus, I think Heather's parents were relieved when we finally went to bed. We had plenty of time to finish our demo tape.