fandomtownies | The Boards, Thursday Evening

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The Boards, Thursday Evening

Jono had had big plans for tonight at the Boards, but the events of the last few weeks had thrown something of a wrench in the gears when it came to organizing the showcase he'd wanted to hold.

... Or even finding people to perform in it. Which meant that he was going to have to adjust his plans somewhat.

A lot.

There was a new sign up where the old one had been.

Due to Unforeseen Circumstances, The Fandom Showcase Has Been Cancelled.
Come in for an Open Mic Instead!
There's Beer.

When all else failed, bribe people to participate. And if anybody needed Jono, he'd be on the stage playing his guitar for the duration of the evening or until somebody else showed up who wanted to perform. Whichever came first.

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//At this rate, I figure 'What Is Truth' or 'God's Gonna Cut You Down' would work fine, too,// Jono noted, shrugging. //Only problem with Johnny is that his work suffers a bit without the vocals, and...//

Casual gesture to the gaping fire chasm, there.

//Shame I won't be able to do him the justice he deserves.//

Now that just wasn't playing fair. Eliot saw what you were doing, Jono. There's a reason why "don't try to con a conman" was a cliche.

"You can't sing with whatever that whole. . . ." He gestured vaguely around his own head. "Mind voice thing is?"

Oh, Jono wasn't trying to con anybody. He'd totally get up there and play Cash without a vocalist. It would just be sad and repetitive.

So sad.

//It's telepathy. Tried it plenty of times, and it never quite fits in with actual audio.// He shrugged. //Trust me, mate, if I could make a musical career work with the voice I've got, I would've done it years ago.//

You'd heard him play, Eliot. Don't think he wouldn't have.

"Ain't you the one was just tryin' to make a point about this thing not bein' about making the audience happy?" Eliot pointed out.

That wasn't even touching the part where you didn't have to sing to make a career as a guitarist.

Hey now. Just because Jono was an excellent guitarist didn't mean that's what he'd wanted to do in the first place. He'd gotten better because he'd blown his mouth off, at first, and then kept up with it later.

//I was,// Jono agreed easily. //It's about being happy onstage yourself. And being upset about not being able to sing while I'm onstage is the reason I left this place to fall to dust years ago and only just came back, so I'd rather not.//

He shrugged. Ball was back in your court, Eliot.

What, and he thought stage fright didn't make someone unhappy on the stage?

"Suit yourself, man. You're right about Cash not bein' instrumental, though. Might wanna pick a different artists if you're gonna go that way."

Well, Jono never claimed not to be a hypocrite, either.

//True enough,// Jono mused, shrugging his shoulders. //Or I'll just play it all fingerstyle. I have all night to work out how to approach it. All I'm really saying is, if your concern is that nobody wants to hear country, you'd be wrong. And hell, you wouldn't even be the only one up there playing it.//

"Yeah, well. I'll think about it." And then Parker would make him do it, in that Parker way of hers. "If there ain't too many other people waitin' to go up and give it a shot."

//Hey, thinking about it is all I ask,// Jono replied, holding up his hands. //If you'd rather sit back with beer and take in the room, you're welcome to that, too. And if you simply don't want do, just say so. I'll back off.//

But if you didn't say so, Jono reserved the right to be a pest about it. In the past, it had been the only way he'd ever gotten people onto the bloody stage at all.

"Good," Eliot grumbled. "'Cause thinkin' about it is the only answer you're gonna get."

Pestering him into it was practically a traditional method of getting Eliot to do things. Especially ones that he really did kind of want to do, but couldn't quite get himself to do otherwise, because he actually had very limited experience being brave about things that wouldn't actually likely kill him.

Oh, Eliot. You were adorable when you weren't homicidal.

And Jono? Jono was just giving you an amused look and reaching for his guitar.

//In the meantime, any requests?//

Hey, Eliot could be adorable while homicidal, too! Jono seemed to like that in guys. . . .

"You should play that blues number you played for me couple weeks back," Eliot suggested. "Works perfectly well with no lyrics and you do a good job with it."

Jono seemed to like that in people in general, really. Jono's tastes always had tended to run a little on the death-y side.

//Thank you,// he said, because hey, at least he could take a compliment, these days. //And you mean Layla? You aren't even the first one today to request it, you know.//

Which was great, really. Jono appreciated anybody who appreciated Clapton.

"Ain't surprised," Eliot said. Jono played it well. "Who else brought it up?"

//Dante mentioned it,// Jono replied, shrugging. //Of course, it was in protest to Free Bird. Not that he even knew what Free Bird was.//

Dante made his music-loving heart hurt sometimes.

Though he still wasn't complaining about being asked to play Clapton.

". . . You know, I'd grumble about kids these days, but honestly, Free Bird's before my time, too. I ain't gonna hold not known Lynyrd Skynyrd against anybody."

There were definitely better songs from the 70s for kids these days to get to know.

//Hell, it's before my time,// Jono admitted. //I can't hold not knowing it against him, but vetoing it before I even got to the good part?//

Jono. Jono. The 'good part' was five minutes in.

"Song's like ten minutes long, man, you maybe shoulda just skipped to the good part." Really now. "Hang on, how old are you?"

Eliot was pretty used to being one of the older people on the island, by now.

Oh, there was a painful question right there.

Very painful.

//... Chronologically, cumulatively, or going strictly by dates?//

Right.

"Let's go with dates," Eliot said. "Since we're talkin' 'bout whether a song's before anybody's time or not."

Oh, thank God. That was the easy answer.

//Born in '77,// he replied, shrugging. //Which puts me, what, four years after Free Bird?//

As if he didn't know.

Eliot nodded. He wouldn't have put Jono at any older than maybe his late 20s, but apparently Jono's life had been just a bit too complicated for an accurate guess, anyway. "'76," he volunteered. "Most classic rock I know's from my dad."

Really, after his second complete physical reset and his third lifetime's worth of memories, Jono had given up keeping count.

//I picked mine up in pubs I wasn't supposed to be walking into for a few years more,// Jono confessed. //Then moved to America when I was 18, and the rest of my musical taste was rounded out somewhat by MTV.//

And it was a bloody crime, what had come of MTV, really.

"You know, this explains so much." The obsession with grunge, for instance.

//Does it?//

It really sort of did, Jono.

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