fandomtownies | Groovy Tunes, Thursday

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Groovy Tunes, Thursday

Jono didn't actually have the stereo on today. In fact, he kept glancing over to see if maybe he'd flicked it on without meaning to, since the shop seemed to be playing one of the old playlists he used to listen to frequently while he was still in high school.

Really, he wasn't complaining. If the island wanted to make his job easier, why would he? He'd probably be trying to put this playlist together again eventually anyway.

There was a Now Hiring! sign in the window, and a lot of 90s post-grunge playing just a little too loudly inside.

The Groovy Tunes was open. And loud.

[OOC: And OCD-free!]

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Bay didn't come this way in town often, but something Professor Ledarsky had mentioned had left her in desperate need of an out-of-print Patti Smith record ... and that meant going to an actual physical record store.

She paused outside the store for a moment, admiring the mural.

"Hey," she said after she finally made it into the store. She sounded a bit startled to see her teacher. "I had absolutely no idea you worked here. Cool store."

//Bay,// Jono greeted with a nod of his head. //I own it, if you'll believe that. Some plonker threw the ownership papers at me and fled the island a few weeks back. I think he'd had enough of the madness around here.//

Jono didn't actually seem all too upset about that, really.

//His loss, I suppose. Can I help you with anything, luv?//

"I can't believe he gave up all this," Bay snarked lightly, and flicked her hair back over her shoulder. "And yeah, actually. So I'm taking this art class on the mainland and the professor is really into Patti Smith, and ... I don't really know a lot about her. Help me out?"

And Jonothon's nonexistent heart grew three sizes that day...

//The Godmother of Punk,// he shared, his psionic voice sounding excited at the prospect of sharing all of this wisdom with a student. //What do you want to know about her, luv? About her music, about her life?//

If you left this wide open, Bay, Jono would never stop talking. Flee. Flee while you still could.

That was why Bay had been put in the world -- to warm nonexistent hearts.

"I was going to start with a CD," she admitted. "But if you know her life story, go for it. I have the girl from Jersey and lived with Mapplethorpe parts down."

//Any CD in particular? She did have almost a dozen studio albums,// Jono noted, stepping out from behind the counter and making his way toward the punk/rock section. //She was considered for the position of lead singer of Blue Oyster Cult once, back when she was dating their keyboardist. Poet, painter, musician... Broke her neck once falling off a stage during a performance. Her son went on to marry the drummer of The White Stripes...//

Seriously, he could go on and on.

//She really is a fascinating woman.//

"Um. 'Horses'?" Bay said as she followed him back, because that was the only album title she knew. "Or ... maybe I should start with a compilation. I don't know. You tell me, record store owner. I didn't even know the thing about Blue Oyster Cult."

//Most people don't,// Jono replied, sounding pleased with himself. Yes, his musical obsession, actually paying off. //And Horses is a good starting point. First studio album and all. 'Outside Society' might be a good one, too. It's her only compilation album so far. Spans her entire career. She's got a cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit on there that... well, I enjoy it, anyhow.//

"Like the Tori Amos one?" Bay asked earnestly. "I'll take them both. You can't really have too much angry girl music."

There was a pause between the songs playing in the store, and another voice dropped into it -- a young man, this time, singing what seemed to be a work-in-progress about love.

Bay glanced to Jono -- a you hear that too? kind of look.

Jono was halfway to pulling the albums in question from the rack for Bay when he heard the music, and then nearly dropped them again, straightening up and looking around.

...

//It's still about a rose, Christian,// he murmured, brow furrowing. //And it's still Bette's.//

He glanced at Bay.

//You don't see anybody either, right?//

Because he remembered this conversation. Vaguely, from practically a decade ago. But he remembered it.

Bay shook her head. "Nope. I was kind of hoping you had a friend in the back room or something."

On the other hand, it was better that he heard it than that only she did. "Who's Christian?"

Edited 2014-01-30 20:09 (UTC)

//Somebody I went to school with, years ago,// Jono replied, shrugging his shoulders and trying to shake it off. //It feels ridiculous to say, but he was a... a birthday present, of sorts. I wanted to start a band. Make music. And my girlfriend-// Ah, that old pang, again. //-met him and asked him to be the vocalist. We never got very far, but it was fun while it lasted.//

Are you going to start telling me I look like some fellow from outer space with a beard?, Christian asked from somewhere in space and time.

Bay decided to ignore the mutual hallucination for the moment, as well as the question of who gave their boyfriend a boy as a birthday present.

"It sounds fun," she said. "My brother's the musician. But I'm really good at buying CDs and staying quiet while other people are singing."

Christian's disembodied voice was definitely an easier pill to swallow than talking to one of his students about Didi. She was never far from Jono's mind. Hell, his voicemail message had somehow reverted to her voice after his time spent in Legion's man-made universe and he sometimes called himself just to give it a listen. But some conversations...

//Both of those are talents that musicians tend to appreciate,// Jono noted, running a hand through his hair. It was nice hair, damn it. Christian had said so, not long after talking about the beard thing.

... Most likely, Jono supposed, for lack of anything else to compliment.

//Hell, I didn't even mind when people weren't keeping quiet, so long as they weren't making it difficult for other people to listen. Of course, I used to play in London pubs. Slightly more rowdy audience, that.//

Bay thought Jono was incredibly cool for a teacher, and would have agreed about the good hair. But still, he was a teacher. It would be weird to ask him about his high school girlfriend.

She chuckled. "Yeah, that does not sound like a crowd that would be on symphony behavior. Do you ever play at Caritas, or are the zombies too" -- She waved a hand vaguely, failed to find an appropriate adjective, and gave up -- "zombie?"

//Caritas? No, never,// Jono replied with a little shrug. //Did used to run the Boards, but these days...//

He shook his head.

//Needed a break from it all, I suppose. Nothing against the zombies, either. If I can co-run a theatre with a vampire, I really have no place judging a zombie band that's actually fairly decent.//

"That's incredibly broad-minded of you," Bay told him. "Though I guess it makes sense, considering --"

She was interrupted by Jono's long-ago voice. //That song is about a rose, mate.//

"Okay, do we know why we're hearing a conversation from years ago?"

Jono needed a moment to process that, because... well, he'd never actually heard his own voice projected into his head like that.

//No bloody clue,// he replied, glancing around. //Next you'll be hearing me crush his hopes and dreams by playing him the song he was making up on the spot, I'm sure. Had this remarkable talent for coming up with lyrics to songs that other people had already--//

"That sounds girlish."

//Yes, thank you, disembodied voice of Christian.//

"What's wrong with sounding like a girl?" Bay asked the disembodied voice. "Also, plagiarists suck."

She shook her head. "And now I'm talking back to the island's weirdo recording trick. Awesome."

//I doubt he meant to sing those songs word for word. He seemed genuine about it. Just...// Jono gave his hand a wave. //A fluke of the multiverse, I suppose. Your world isn't my world, but we both have Patti Smith. Either way, I couldn't have our group perform those songs as anything but covers, even if he did come up with them... too.//

How else could you possibly put it?

//Really wish I knew what was up with this, though. From the sound of radio, it's been going on for at least a week or so, now. Its weird doesn't usually tend to be so long-lived.//

"Bored squirrels?" Bay suggested. "'Cause I totally thought that was what was going on during Sparkle's show this morning. Maybe they have teeny tape recorders and they just wanna mess with us."

Jono considered that, and even nodded a little, though he still looked dubious.

//Doesn't feel quite right, whatever it is,// he hedged. //And... tape recorders wouldn't account for my voice at all. I can't be picked up with a microphone, or I'd still be quite happy to do radio broadcasts myself.//

"Mmm," Bay concurred unhappily. "Wouldn't explain the people who say they're seeing things, either. So ... signs point to not a squirrel prank. And I'm short on other ideas."

//That'd make for two of us,// Jono replied, shaking his head and then offering Bay the CDs he'd pulled from the rack for her. //If this had just hit us for a weekend and gone away, I might've been willing to brush it off as 'one of those things.' As it stands... I haven't a clue.//

But now that he was hearing it himself, he was growing inclined to worry.

Bay took the CDs, shuffled them against each other out of nervous energy.

"But weird doesn't have to mean bad," she said, sounding like a girl who was trying very hard to convince herself. "I mean, Christian sounds like kind of a doofus, but it's not threatening. Just ... strange."

//Strange,// Jono agreed. //Perhaps a touch invasive, though Fandom's quirks are seldom anything but.//

Serously, Fandom. What was up with that?

"No kidding. I only have four months to go," Bay said firmly. "If the island stays out of my underwear until I get out of here, I'll be good."

She headed toward the counter, CDs clasped against her chest.

//We can hope, anyhow. We only just dealt with madmen in the streets, we're about due for some sort of respite soon, I hope.//

Jono made his way to the counter as well, ringing in her purchase.

"And nothing else that wants to kill us," Bay said fervently, passing her debit card across the counter.

More casually: "Oh, hey, I forgot to say when I came in, but -- cool mural outside."

//You like it?// Jono punched her total in, gave the card a swipe, and passed the pinpad back to her. //Thank you, I suppose. Can't say the talent was my own, but a lot of the hours that were put into it were. That weekend where everyone's talents were... all over the map.//

"Oh right," Bay said, less than fondly. "That was when I could barely draw a stick figure, but I could smell every single dirty sock under my roommate's bed."

//I was struck completely mute,// Jono offered, as though perhaps it helped make up for it, somehow. //If it was your artistic talent I inherited for a few days, I apologize. But it helped keep me sane through the weekend, so... thank you, I suppose?//

Nobody had really been able to control what went where, but it seemed like the thing to say, somehow.

Bay shrugged, accepting the bag with her CDs in it.

"I'm probably not the only person on the island who can paint," she said. "But, on behalf of whoever you got it from, you're welcome. I don't think whoever-it-was would have minded, if, y'know, it let you not go crazy."

//Got a half-decent mural out of it, too,// Jono replied, nodding. //I do double-takes going by the outside of the building now. I remember putting it there, but so help me, I wouldn't be able to tell you how, aside from, 'with paint.'//

Edited 2014-01-31 02:16 (UTC)

"'With paint' is about all most people want to hear, anyhow," Bay told him. "Maybe you shouldn't admit it was an island weirdness thing. Let everybody think you have this whole hidden talent."

//Keep them guessing? 'Aside from the obvious, is there anything that man can't do?' 'Oh, no, I hear he's a master chef and possibly a brain surgeon, also.'//

A beat.

//Do not ever, ever let me perform brain surgery.//

...

//Ever.//

"... yeah, I think I can avoid that one," Bay said slowly. "Besides, if we're ever in a situation where the question would come up? No offense, but we're probably screwed anyhow."

//None taken. At all.// Jono nodded toward her bag. //You enjoy those CDs, luv. And any time you have a music-related question, feel free to come in and put my knowledge to the test. I'm no brain surgeon, but I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about where music is concerned.//

"Thanks," Bay smiled. "And hey, see you in class tomorrow."

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Groovy Tunes, Thursday

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