Metalocalypse Ongoing Bit
Jan. 4th, 2008 06:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dethoratsTitle: Broadening Horizons
Rating: G
Character: Toki
Word Count: 1382
Three weeks had passed since Valentine’s Day and Toki was still buzzing with excitement. Rune had taken him, along with Dag and Magnus and a couple of their other mates, to Jesper’s in downtown Trondheim to see a show. There had been three bands playing; the opening act had consisted of a group of high school boys who had obviously been paying far too much attention to the screaming aspect of the newly emergent black metal scent rather than the instrumentation side, a local collegiate group called Kaizoku that played power metal and mostly sang in English, and finally the headliners. Hemsko Stiger had completely entranced Toki. He’d been having a good time, chuckling to himself as he watched the kids struggle with their chords and then eagerly joining in the approved headbanging behavior that had accompanied Kaizoku’s performance. But then Hemsko Stiger had hit the stage and he hadn’t been able to do more than gape.
He had never imagined he would see fingers moving so quickly over guitar strings and so consistently. Precise, neat movements, notes flying through the air faster than snowflakes in a blizzard, the lead guitarist for Hemsko Stiger had been incredible. Rapt and astonished, Toki had stood next to his barstool, beer untouched and head perfectly still, and his blue eyes had followed every movement of the lead guitarist. The speed was mind blowing and it was precisely the sound he had been looking for, the one he wanted to capture and harness every time he picked up his own red Flying V. He’d lost track of the lyrics, of the bass line and the drums, ears completely attuned to the sounds coming from a sleek custom black Nighthawk, and when the set was over, he’d blinked and stared around in surprise at the cheering, applauding audience.
Rune had been amused, teased him about his reaction the entire way back to Ørland, but Toki hadn’t cared one bit. He was excited and animated and the rest of his squadron had had a difficult time getting him to sleep that night. It had come out fairly quickly that it was the speed and exactitude of the Hemsko Stiger’s lead guitarist that had so impressed him. And so, within the week, Toki had found himself awash in tapes from the other metal fans on the base. Speed metal band after speed metal band and Toki hadn’t really noticed how similar some of them seemed to each other. He’d had ears only for the glory of the guitar playing, the arpeggios and line runs, the high notes that punctuated each song. There had been, among all of the various offerings, one major stand out. There had been differing opinions on which was the best and the fastest band but they all had one thing in common. A relatively young Swedish guitarist who never seemed to last more than a single album, or even just the occasional demo, with a band before moving on, he was universally proclaimed on the base as the fastest guitarist alive. Skwisgaar Skwigelf immediately became Toki’s new idol and he listened to albums constantly. Sausage Assassin, Financially Raped, Objective Morality, Smugly Dismissed, and his newest project, Katten Älskaren, Toki played all of them and began to memorize the flutters and flurries of notes that signified the Swede’s playing style.
Toki caught on quickly, natural talent coming to the fore, and he soon found his friends in the Royal Norwegian Air Force urging him to consider music as his next step. For three weeks he’d been demurring, even as his fragile ego began to finally swell and grow under the constant praise. He was nowhere near as fast or as talented as even the guitarist for Hemsko Stiger let alone beginning to approach Skwigelf. Besides, as he told everyone with a blush and a duck of his head, he couldn’t read music and he had no formal training at all. The structured world of the military was comfortable and familiar. Toki no longer felt chafed and constrained the way he had in Hastanfjord beneath his father’s watching eyes and his mother’s silence. He had enough freedom but not too much and truthfully, even after eighteen months, some parts of the modern world disturbed him. Starting a career in music would mean either facing the rigors of the formal collegiate system, where he would have to confront stiff competition from those with years of practice and training, or giving up a comforting routine for the vagaries of a musician’s life.
So Toki played his gifted, used guitar and talked about metal stardom and music but his dreams did not yet include being in a band of his own. A month after Valentine’s Day found him back at Jesper’s with Rune. Rune was his connection, his major hook-up into the world of metal. The jazz Magnus and Ivar enjoyed and had taken him to hear was all well and good but nothing Toki had heard sparked his brain and fired his blood the way metal did. He liked it fast and loud and vicious with extended guitar solos and the occasional keyboard interlude. The black metal scene, which was currently the buzz of the Norwegian music press, wasn’t too bad. While those high school kids hadn’t really quite gotten it, the current trendy nature of the music belied the bleakness that lay in the lyrics and in the lush, almost symphonic, jarring musical compositions. The accoutrements – the white, black and red face paint, the leather and chains and armor, the blood-drenched stage settings and the pyrotechnics – didn’t hurt either. If Oslog Wartooth had ever wanted to see a vision of hell come to earth, all he needed to do was take in an Emperor or Satyricon performance. Toki got a distinct thrill out of listening to the black metal bands and attempting to decipher their vocals, taking in both the glorification and expanded definition of all that his father feared and hated. He still preferred the sheer pace of speed metal but there was something to the layered, distorted style of black metal that called to him as well.
With Rune, he had gone to see Immortal, a rising star on the scene. Kaizoku had opened for them and Toki had been happy to hear them. Power metal was a little too slow and simplistic for his playing tastes but it was fun to listen to and the fist-pumping anthems never failed to get crowds on their feet. Kaizoku was clearly a local favorite, judging from the crowd’s reaction, and they got Jesper’s primed and ready for Immortal. Toki liked Immortal best of all the black metal bands. They had a thrash undertone, which meant faster guitars, and their vocalist’s deep growls meant the band’s lyrics were actually intelligible much of the time. He and Rune enjoyed the show and then hung around afterwards for another drink and to watch the club’s manager post the upcoming show list. Rune was waiting to see if a piece of intelligence he’d gotten from a friend in Larvik would prove to be good.
Toki ended up spewing a mouthful of beer across the bar when Rune slapped him across the back in excitement but he still promised to come along in two weeks when The Devil’s Advocate would be headlining. That night, making their way carefully back to base through a sudden squall off the Norwegian Sea, Toki felt an unexpected thrill of dread run up his spine. A fear of the dark and the blinding mixture of snow and freezing rain and, unbidden, the last words his father had uttered before he’d left. “The world is larger and darker than you know. You will be eaten up, swallowed, and digested endlessly in the temptations and terrors outside of your proper home. But do not return for you will bring the taint of corruption back with you. Good-bye my son. A special place in Hell is reserved for ones like you.” Hel and Hell, a strange combination of frozen wastes and fiery pits, and Toki clung desperately to the armrest as Rune maneuvered their car and tried not to think of anything but the music. Perhaps, he thought, all that listening to black metal wasn’t such a good idea after all.
A/N: Minor apologies/words about Kaizoku. This is the band I've dreamed about at least 3 times. They will be minor actors in this arc but could be construed as somewhat marty stu-ish so I figure warnings are important. I will try not to inflict them on any reader as much as I am able but they do have one very pivotal role to play at the end of ACT 2.
Rating: G
Character: Toki
Word Count: 1382
Three weeks had passed since Valentine’s Day and Toki was still buzzing with excitement. Rune had taken him, along with Dag and Magnus and a couple of their other mates, to Jesper’s in downtown Trondheim to see a show. There had been three bands playing; the opening act had consisted of a group of high school boys who had obviously been paying far too much attention to the screaming aspect of the newly emergent black metal scent rather than the instrumentation side, a local collegiate group called Kaizoku that played power metal and mostly sang in English, and finally the headliners. Hemsko Stiger had completely entranced Toki. He’d been having a good time, chuckling to himself as he watched the kids struggle with their chords and then eagerly joining in the approved headbanging behavior that had accompanied Kaizoku’s performance. But then Hemsko Stiger had hit the stage and he hadn’t been able to do more than gape.
He had never imagined he would see fingers moving so quickly over guitar strings and so consistently. Precise, neat movements, notes flying through the air faster than snowflakes in a blizzard, the lead guitarist for Hemsko Stiger had been incredible. Rapt and astonished, Toki had stood next to his barstool, beer untouched and head perfectly still, and his blue eyes had followed every movement of the lead guitarist. The speed was mind blowing and it was precisely the sound he had been looking for, the one he wanted to capture and harness every time he picked up his own red Flying V. He’d lost track of the lyrics, of the bass line and the drums, ears completely attuned to the sounds coming from a sleek custom black Nighthawk, and when the set was over, he’d blinked and stared around in surprise at the cheering, applauding audience.
Rune had been amused, teased him about his reaction the entire way back to Ørland, but Toki hadn’t cared one bit. He was excited and animated and the rest of his squadron had had a difficult time getting him to sleep that night. It had come out fairly quickly that it was the speed and exactitude of the Hemsko Stiger’s lead guitarist that had so impressed him. And so, within the week, Toki had found himself awash in tapes from the other metal fans on the base. Speed metal band after speed metal band and Toki hadn’t really noticed how similar some of them seemed to each other. He’d had ears only for the glory of the guitar playing, the arpeggios and line runs, the high notes that punctuated each song. There had been, among all of the various offerings, one major stand out. There had been differing opinions on which was the best and the fastest band but they all had one thing in common. A relatively young Swedish guitarist who never seemed to last more than a single album, or even just the occasional demo, with a band before moving on, he was universally proclaimed on the base as the fastest guitarist alive. Skwisgaar Skwigelf immediately became Toki’s new idol and he listened to albums constantly. Sausage Assassin, Financially Raped, Objective Morality, Smugly Dismissed, and his newest project, Katten Älskaren, Toki played all of them and began to memorize the flutters and flurries of notes that signified the Swede’s playing style.
Toki caught on quickly, natural talent coming to the fore, and he soon found his friends in the Royal Norwegian Air Force urging him to consider music as his next step. For three weeks he’d been demurring, even as his fragile ego began to finally swell and grow under the constant praise. He was nowhere near as fast or as talented as even the guitarist for Hemsko Stiger let alone beginning to approach Skwigelf. Besides, as he told everyone with a blush and a duck of his head, he couldn’t read music and he had no formal training at all. The structured world of the military was comfortable and familiar. Toki no longer felt chafed and constrained the way he had in Hastanfjord beneath his father’s watching eyes and his mother’s silence. He had enough freedom but not too much and truthfully, even after eighteen months, some parts of the modern world disturbed him. Starting a career in music would mean either facing the rigors of the formal collegiate system, where he would have to confront stiff competition from those with years of practice and training, or giving up a comforting routine for the vagaries of a musician’s life.
So Toki played his gifted, used guitar and talked about metal stardom and music but his dreams did not yet include being in a band of his own. A month after Valentine’s Day found him back at Jesper’s with Rune. Rune was his connection, his major hook-up into the world of metal. The jazz Magnus and Ivar enjoyed and had taken him to hear was all well and good but nothing Toki had heard sparked his brain and fired his blood the way metal did. He liked it fast and loud and vicious with extended guitar solos and the occasional keyboard interlude. The black metal scene, which was currently the buzz of the Norwegian music press, wasn’t too bad. While those high school kids hadn’t really quite gotten it, the current trendy nature of the music belied the bleakness that lay in the lyrics and in the lush, almost symphonic, jarring musical compositions. The accoutrements – the white, black and red face paint, the leather and chains and armor, the blood-drenched stage settings and the pyrotechnics – didn’t hurt either. If Oslog Wartooth had ever wanted to see a vision of hell come to earth, all he needed to do was take in an Emperor or Satyricon performance. Toki got a distinct thrill out of listening to the black metal bands and attempting to decipher their vocals, taking in both the glorification and expanded definition of all that his father feared and hated. He still preferred the sheer pace of speed metal but there was something to the layered, distorted style of black metal that called to him as well.
With Rune, he had gone to see Immortal, a rising star on the scene. Kaizoku had opened for them and Toki had been happy to hear them. Power metal was a little too slow and simplistic for his playing tastes but it was fun to listen to and the fist-pumping anthems never failed to get crowds on their feet. Kaizoku was clearly a local favorite, judging from the crowd’s reaction, and they got Jesper’s primed and ready for Immortal. Toki liked Immortal best of all the black metal bands. They had a thrash undertone, which meant faster guitars, and their vocalist’s deep growls meant the band’s lyrics were actually intelligible much of the time. He and Rune enjoyed the show and then hung around afterwards for another drink and to watch the club’s manager post the upcoming show list. Rune was waiting to see if a piece of intelligence he’d gotten from a friend in Larvik would prove to be good.
Toki ended up spewing a mouthful of beer across the bar when Rune slapped him across the back in excitement but he still promised to come along in two weeks when The Devil’s Advocate would be headlining. That night, making their way carefully back to base through a sudden squall off the Norwegian Sea, Toki felt an unexpected thrill of dread run up his spine. A fear of the dark and the blinding mixture of snow and freezing rain and, unbidden, the last words his father had uttered before he’d left. “The world is larger and darker than you know. You will be eaten up, swallowed, and digested endlessly in the temptations and terrors outside of your proper home. But do not return for you will bring the taint of corruption back with you. Good-bye my son. A special place in Hell is reserved for ones like you.” Hel and Hell, a strange combination of frozen wastes and fiery pits, and Toki clung desperately to the armrest as Rune maneuvered their car and tried not to think of anything but the music. Perhaps, he thought, all that listening to black metal wasn’t such a good idea after all.
A/N: Minor apologies/words about Kaizoku. This is the band I've dreamed about at least 3 times. They will be minor actors in this arc but could be construed as somewhat marty stu-ish so I figure warnings are important. I will try not to inflict them on any reader as much as I am able but they do have one very pivotal role to play at the end of ACT 2.
