Pop Smellers and the Spine of the Earth - Part 3

Pop Smellers and the Spine of the Earth
Part 3

A rather harassed looking man stepped out of the lift, and after glancing around the lobby, headed over to where I was sitting. He wore a white shirt with thin blue lines running vertically up (and strangely enough; down) the front, yet the sleeves and back of the garment were punctuated with horizontal stripes. The collar was a darker blue, and the buttons were red. He wore a tie of yellow; it was tied with a fat knot, and was several shades lighter than his trousers, which, by the way, were perfectly ironed. I reckoned that one could quite easily cut oneself on the creases. Red socks peeped out from dark burgundy shoes; perhaps leather; perhaps not. I could not be sure from where I sat. Having assessed his fashion sense, I awaited his arrival; I noted that apart from being a walking colour explosion, he was probably gay for he walked with a grace that the average heterosexual male was incapable of. He half-minced, half-floated down the steps to the seating area where I was still reading the latest news on meat prices and restaurant reviews. I pretended that I hadn’t noticed him but I suspected he was aware of this. He now stood in front of me and was clearing his throat, preparing to speak. I beat him to it. “Do you like meat?” His eyes lit up and for a split second lust registered in his eyes. I was correct about his gay-ness. His gaze dropped to the magazine and he realised I was referring to animal flesh, not man-sex. He was disappointed and he tried to hide it, replying in a quavering voice that he didn’t eat meat and was strictly a soy-bean sausage kind of a guy. “But meat is good; all soft and juicy. Bacon. Chops. Come on! Surely you must like some kind of meat?” Innuendo is good.
“No. I’m a vegetarian.” Looking at him, this was easy to believe. He was thin and pasty looking; his appearance bordered on that of a terminally ill cancer patient. Even if I was gay, I don’t think I’d have banged this fellow.
“Why? Moral, religious, or health?”
“I beg your pardon?” He was confused. Confusion is good.
“Are you a vegetarian for moral, religious or health reasons?”
“Oh, I see. None. I just don’t like the taste.”
“What?!” I exclaimed. This made him even more uncomfortable, and I took a perverse pleasure in this because I could tell what was coming next. “How can you not like the flesh of the beasts? Pig. Cow. Deer. Chicken. What about chicken?”
“What do you mean; chicken? I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat meat. Full stop. That’s it. No meat. Do you get it?!” He was upset now. Upset is good. Confused and upset are good. His face was pink and sweaty. For the final assault I stood up, and we were face to face, even though he was a good few inches shorter than myself. “But some vegetarians eat chicken. They don’t eat red meat but they love a bit of chicken. Some even eat fish…can you believe that?”
He visibly buckled with a quiet “Oh…”
“So you do eat fish then?”
“Yes.” His reply was but a whisper.
I pushed home my advantage and asked “Since when have fish been considered vegetables?”
“I suppose they haven’t.”, and as an after thought he added “Ever.”.
“Well, some Buddhists consider fish to be sea vegetables, and I’ve even heard of some Buddhists calling different meats by the names of vegetables, just so they can appear pious and eat the poor little meat-beasts. You might want to think about calling ‘beef’ something else; how about ‘eggplant’? You can go into a steak house and order a steak but call it an aubergine. Or maybe order a piece of cod but call it a sea vegetable? You can use that excuse next time someone gets your goat about the whole fish/vegetarian issue.” He looked at me with gratitude.
“Thank you.” he whispered. “Can I suck your cock?”
“No.”
He looked as if he’d just run a marathon and was all shaky and trembling.
“Sit down. Give me my letter. Get yourself together and then go back upstairs and have a nice herbal tea. I’d recommend Lavender & Cactus Fat.”
He sunk into the chair I’d previously occupied and was about to give me the letter he’d been carrying; he was staring off into space when his gaze returned to me. As he passed me the envelope, he asked limply “You are Pop Smellers?”
I took the letter and replied “Of course.”
Then I walked out. It would have been a very stylish exit but then I returned to collect my coat. Then I walked out again; into the cold, hard rain.
It was nice.
I headed for the last bastion of reason and civility; the nearest pub.
The glass panelled doors swung open with a crash, heavy wood on wood, wall on door, and door on wall. It was quiet in the bar and there were few drinkers left at this time of day. One of the reasons that I love to frequent drinking establishments at this particular hour of the day is that half past two is a mysterious time. It’s generally too late for your average lunch-time crowd but too early for the after work boozers, so it’s only the serious drinker, or flexi-time fellow, that lurks over his, or her, alcoholic refreshment. I cast a quick eye around the place, on the off chance of some-one that I knew being there, but as luck may, or may not have it, I recognised no-one. Stepping inside the joint, I gave myself a brisk dog-like shake to remove excess moisture and flung my coat over a chair at a vacant table, and then I headed to the bar for a stiff drink.
The bar, much like the pub itself, was a long, solid affair of wood and steel; it reminded me of the sad fact that many of our traditional imbibing emporiums have become victim to the insane designs of fashionable interiors that, and I quote “…cater to the younger market yet reflect that indescribable atmosphere of the traditional pub.”. I had been involved with several pub ventures over the years, and I always found that the words ‘conceptual’ and ‘pub’ went together as well as ‘fart’ and ‘packed dinner table with royalty’. Having had experience with both, I long ago decided to withdraw from the whole thing; both farting within whiffing distance of the Queen (or is that The Queen?) and being involved, in a business sense, with pubs. In almost all my involvement with pubs, and indeed life itself, I have found that being served is better than serving. There’s lesson in there, but I’m buggered if I can be bothered to find it.
“Hello” I said to the barman. He was agog. Obviously he was not used to being greeted prior to having an order placed within his capable hands.
“Hello” he replied, and then he followed up with “What can I get you?” entwined in a rather false smile. Recalling my last encounter with the poof, and how mean I had been, I decided not to abuse my position. Ooer! Double entendres; how I love them. I managed to order a pint of Witchspotter Ale without being sarcastic and then I retreated to my table and the mysterious letter. Actually, it was not that mysterious because; firstly I knew that Mr Zagley’s letter would say very little that I could understand, and secondly; I knew he would not meet me today because he’d previously sent me letters via a slinking poofter when he’d been unable to meet me. In fact, he’d done this five times before but he always paid me, regardless of whether I met with him or not. I liked that. Thirdly, and finally, I am often subject to terrible fits of outrageous madness that leave me questioning, and thus confirming my lack of, sanity. Perhaps this is due to the excesses of drug taking in my youth. I don’t know.
But anyway…
The letter, like its brothers & sisters, was in a sealed yellow envelope, with my name typed exactly in the centre. No mailing address, no interesting details for me to use my detective skills on. Nothing. I knew it would state the same business as all the previous ones;
Dear Mr Smellers,
Can’t meet today but must talk to you about a very interesting job. Will call soon. Yours Mr Zagley.
And that would be it. However, upon opening the letter, I discovered that I was wrong…very wrong…very, very wrong.
The pages inside had obviously been torn from a journal of some sort, and the writing was erratic, as if written in a hurry:

Schoenberg at Fat Louies, Brisbane

I dragged myself out of my sick bed to see Schoenberg's first live gig, and I think that those present saw something pretty special on Saturday night; aside from the string breakage in the first two minutes of the opening track, they were tight as a nun's vagina, reproducing some very technical riff work and drums. Everyone appeared relaxed and played together well; vocalist Colin Cadell paced the floor, screaming his heart out, and they even chucked in a one minute drum solo for Nelson (which he undertook with great skill, dexterity & energy...more, please) I reckon these fellas could go a long way, providing they keep their shit together. A top gig only ruined by my relapse into sickness as a result of not staying in bed...
Anyways, here's an interview that I did with Colin on Friday, the day before the gig:

Interview with Colin Cadell, vocalist with the Schoenberg Automaton

A.P: OK, we’ll start with the basics; give us a bit of background on bands you guys have previously played in.
C.C: I played in a lot of jazz ensembles, playing clarinet (laughs) but metal bands; there’s been three; the current one is Schoenberg Automaton, then prior to that was Cross the Lips of Grace, and prior to that was Apex Null, which is sort of a sentient band at the moment; we just write & record but we’re not going to play live very often. Zimi Shabanay (bass) was in Cross the Lips of Grace, Shayne Johnson (guitar) played in Empyrean, Damien Boorman (guitar) from Lytic Cycle, and Nelson Barnes (drums) was in Function Cease.
A.P: What are the influences that you and the other band members have taken into this project? C.C: Shayne (guitar) & Nelson (drums) sort of started the project, with a lot of the influences coming from the modern side of death metal from bands such as The Faceless, Necrophagist, and Cephalic Carnage – the more chaotic stuff. Then on the other side, you have the whole ‘Djent’ influence from bands such as Mesuggah, Periphery, Ion Dissonance...Ion Dissonance is probably the biggest influence on Schoenberg.
A.P: As much as I hate the use of genres; which one does Schoenberg fall into?
C.C: A lot of people are throwing us into the Djent movement, but as a band we say we’re a technical death metal outfit; the only reason we say this is because we’re using a lot of death metal standards such as blast sections into slams, but none of the sections are constant and solid; it’s very rare to have a part that’s the same for more than 15 seconds. We try to change it up a lot more, which is another reason why we get put into the Djent category because we’re a lot more chaotic. We also get referred to as noise core by some...
A.P: So Schoenberg’s playing their first gig tomorrow (Fat Louies, Albert St, Brisbane) – you pooing your pants?
C.C: No, I’m looking forward to it, not so much nervous about performing but just working with new people. It’s that whole thing of playing with people that you haven’t played with before, people you haven’t worked with before; it’s a very different kind of structure. Once you’ve played with the same people for a year, you know exactly what they’re going to do on stage; where they’ll speed up, what parts might get stuffed up.
A.P: Have you seen any of the other guys playing with their previous bands?
C.C: Yeah, I’ve seen everyone’s previous bands; I have a good understanding of what their performances are like; the worst you’ll see is Daimo (Damien Boorman) in footy shorts. He has a habit of wearing stubbies when playing live...
A.P: Nice...a little bit of nut action...
C.C: Yeah, he likes the rugger shorts...
A.P: The music is pretty technical so do you think there’ll be any issues reproducing it live?
C.C: To be honest; no, all the stuff we’ve been jamming has come out 100% perfect; nothing has come out ‘odd’ if that makes sense...it’s all falling together really well – which is why there’s the slight trepidation of how it’s going to go live because in the jam room it’s worked out really well. We’ve had to approach learning the songs a lot more progressively than some bands would because eight seconds of a song may have six rhythm changes...it’s quite chaotic. We work section by section and then try and piece it together as a whole, and when we have the whole piece we can start to see where the weak areas are, and then we enhance those. We just keep moulding it until we’re happy with the final piece. But one of the advantages we have is that all of it’s done digitally prior to the actual gig; Shayne tracks all the guitars to a click, those are sent to Nelson who digitally programs the drums so he can learn them on both his electronic and ‘real’ kit. Before we even hit the jam room, most members have already been playing the songs so that’s an advantage; everyone already has an idea of how the song sounds. I just come in once the vocals need to be applied. It’s a bit different to how I’ve approached it previously, as with my old bands I’d normally had more input with the song writing side of things but it’s really cool – the Schoenberg guys are good enough song writers on their own.
A.P: What was it like recording the demo?
C.C: With Schoenberg, the recording side is so meticulous and we want it to have the attack; we approached the vocal recordings in syllables as opposed to words or complete phrases, which means that every syllable has attack on it, and gives us the advantage that we can perfectly multi-track every syllable. Some of the sections on the demo are multi-tracked eight times so there are four vocal layers with two in each layer. It was definitely a lot more intense and laborious than I was used to; it was lot more full on.
A.P: How many songs are on the demo, and who produced it?
C.C: Three songs; produced by Darren Cruickshank, a bloke from Aberdeen, Scotland. He has a solo project called Bleeding Skies, which is where he honed his production skills. The version of Pineapples which is up on our MySpace page is the mix that Darren did a while back.
A.P: When will the demo be available?
C.C: We’re hoping mid December; I’m finalising the artwork at the moment, so once that’s done...