Groovy Tunes, Friday

[rebelseekspizza]

"This island is so stupid," Dante muttered.

There was just no way to slouch with effortless cool when you had a Santa hat on your head.

In the end, there was only one thing he could do: take his shirt off. Sure, it was cold, but he ran warmer than humans anyway; he'd live. And so would his cool. He kicked back in his seat with a guitar, looking satisfied with himself.

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Comments

[justice_undone]

Obviously Breq had a hat too, but at least worse things had happened this week. Her shift at Groovy Tunes yesterday had left her in a bad mood, and she thought that Dante might have better luck with the stereo than she had.

Maybe he could play her some songs. He seemed good at the angry ones.

"The hat doesn't suit you."

It didn't suit her either but Breq figured Dante cared more.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Not sure it suits anyone," Dante said, craning his head to see who'd approached. Oh, Breq. "But I make it work."

[justice_undone]

Breq wasn't going to argue about it. She found a chair and sat down. This might not be a good day, but she had told herself she needed to practice to come across as more human, so her voice sounded less flat than usual when she spoke.

"You might be right," she agreed. "You're not cold?"

She didn't really care, but it was a reasonable question to ask.

[rebelseekspizza]

"No, not really," Dante said, shrugging. "I run pretty hot."

He raised his chin. "You been practicing your bass?"

[justice_undone]

Breq saw no reason to comment on that.

"I have," she said, looking at Dante, almost smiling. "Have you found any new songs?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Kind of wanted to come up with some of our own," Dante admitted. "But hey, I can cough up a few we can play. What're you in to?"

[justice_undone]

"That's an impossible question to answer," Breq said.

She could find something of interest in most kinds of music.

"But you know some very aggressive music, don't you? You played something to me once."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante sat up, looking amused. "Yeah," he said, "But it's really different shit from what we've done before."

[justice_undone]

"Does that matter?" Breq asked, deliberately tilting her head a little.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Not to me if it doesn't to you," Dante said, reaching out with his foot to turn on his amp.

[justice_undone]

"It doesn't," Breq said. "Or I wouldn't have asked." She added a smile here.

[rebelseekspizza]

"All right," Dante said, shrugging, and put his guitar over his leg, and started in on a spinning, repetitive guitar riff, like a stomping factory housing a carnival.

[justice_undone]

Breq listened for a while, then got to her feet and walked over to pick up a bass, plugging it in to the nearest amplifier.

It wasn't that hard to find something that matched, but the sound was a bit flat.

[rebelseekspizza]

"You want me to send you some tabs?" Dante called.

[justice_undone]

"Tabs?" Breq called back.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Notations for how the guitar bits go?" Dante asked, slowing his roll on the song.

[justice_undone]

"Show me?" She walked up to Dante, tugging the cord to the bass with her.

[rebelseekspizza]

"All right," Dante said. He reached into his pocket for his phone, clicking on the browser. He'd been messing around with some Tool song before - Sober - and still had the tabs loaded on his phone.

He held it out for Breq.

[justice_undone]

"I've seen something similar," Breq said. "The lines are the strings and the numbers the frets, right? How is the rhythm notated?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"It's not, just frequency," Dante said. He shrugged. "The idea is you know what the rhythm is 'cause you've heard the song."

[justice_undone]

Breq didn't reply, just began to play, trying to find the right bass line from the tabs. She didn't get it right immediately, but soon enough it didn't sound to bad.

"Useful," she said. "People share these?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"There's a ton of websites," Dante agreed. "People'll listen to a song, figure out what the tab should be, and put it up."

He was leaning back now, idly playing along with her efforts.

[justice_undone]

"That's generous." She smiled at Dante, not that he seemed very bothered when she forgot about making facial expressions.

[rebelseekspizza]

It was a little weird? But it wasn't Vergil, clearly-I'm-above-all-you-peasants-level weird.

Just a little off.

"What's the point of music if you can't share, right?"

[justice_undone]

"I agree," Breq said. "Not everyone is generous, though. But music has the advantage of being very hard to contain, if you're good at remembering it.

[rebelseekspizza]

"There was this guy who paid like, millions of bucks to get his hands on the only copy of this new Wu-Tang album?" Dante ventured. "I don't get that. Release that shit."

[justice_undone]

"Some people collect things just because they're rare," Breq said. "But wasn't the album going to be released anyway? Did they make just one copy?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Just one copy they sold to the highest bidder," Dante agreed.

[justice_undone]

"Now that," Breq said, "isn't very generous at all."