Chapter 6
Chapter 6
The room was filled with the sound of instruments being tuned and the crash of cymbals. Ali sat in a corner as the other four women in the band room got ready to play. She opened her textbook that she was studying out of, just as a particularly loud snare drum hit scared the crap out of her. She took a deep breath and smiled, knowing that Ashlyn liked that she would attend their “jam sessions.”
“Dude, so I actually don’t have that much homework this weekend. It was almost a slack week for me.”
“Shut it Tobs, some of us aren’t so lucky.” Kelley responded.
Ali rolled her eyes at the antics of the freshmen. They had no idea what they were in for when mid terms came around, and when they actually started getting into their major courses and not just taking all general classes.
Finally after another fifteen minutes they were set up in one of the smaller band rooms. Ali pulled out her earplugs and inserted them into her ears. She concentrated on her homework while they ran through a song that had a a driving beat and was a little bit heavier than most of the stuff that they normally ran through. By the end of the song Ali realized that it was going to be impossible to actually get anything done so she put her stuff into her backpack and just sat against the wall and enjoyed the music. Immediately they went into another song, this one Ali recognized as Little Monster by Royal Blood. Another song that has maybe a bit heavier than what they usually played. Ali was intrigued by this sudden change of direction in their music style.
“So is this a new directions?” she asked when they had finished playing the song.
“No, just something different.” Tobin immediately answered.
“Yeah I don’t think that any of us could take ourselves seriously if this was all that we played.” Christen chimed in.
Ali was inwardly thankful that they were just messing around.
“I don’t know guys I kinda like jamming Royal Blood.” Ashlyn said with a smile.
“I mean we could add it to the set list.” Tobin responded.
They immediately took a vote and decided that Little Monster would be a song that they would put into the setlist.
“I guess I don’t really want to be pigeonholed into one style of music.” Kelley said. “I want to be versatile.”
“I thought that this wasn’t that serious.” Ali laughed.
“The more I think about it, the more serious I am about it.” Kelley said.
Everyone in the band quickly agreed that they were becoming more serious about it also.
“So how about a name?” Ali pushed. She knew that if she didn’t bring these things up, they would probably just jam on the weekends and never get anywhere. Despite that everyone was apparently “serious” about being in a band now.
“Yeah we probably need one of those huh?” Ashlyn asked.
“Does anyone have any ideas?” asked Tobin.
“No…I’m not good with coming up with names.” Kelley said with a frown.
“What about The Shootout?” Christen suddenly said.
“I like it!” Kelley exclaimed. This made Ali look up suddenly. She knew something happened between Christen and Kelley and was now even more determined to get to the bottom of it.
Tobin and Ashlyn also liked the name so it was decided that they would be called The Shootout. With the important task of coming up with a name finally completed they proceeded to run through all of the other songs that they knew.
Ali sat back and listened to their set, which she was rapidly beginning to know by heart, and had to admit that they were starting to sound pretty good. She was beginning to think that maybe this being serious about the band wasn’t such a far out idea any more.
*****
Tobin was sitting at her desk listening to some tunes, trying to get some of her homework done for the week, before the weekend came along. She was excited where the band was going and how quickly they had formed a setlist, right now consisting of all covers, but it was coming together. She had found a small coffee shop three blocks away from campus that had local bands play most weekends and was trying to figure out how to get a gig there. She needed to talk with the others of course, but she didn’t think that anyone would not want to actually do a live gig.
She sighed because Ashlyn had her Lit book again and that’s all the homework she had left for the week. She walked down to her room, secretly hoping that Alex would answer the door again, for some odd reason. She wondered why Alex didn’t seem to want to talk to Ashlyn, herself, or any of her band mates. She knocked on Ashlyn’s door and was surprised to when Alex did in fact open the door.
“Hey Alex, is Ashlyn here?”
“Yeah”
Alex stepped away from the door and yelled for Ashlyn. Tobin heard a muffled shout, which had to be Ashlyn before Alex walked back to the door.
“She’ll be right out, she is in the middle of a phone call.”
“Oh cool I just wait I guess.” Tobin said as she stepped into the room and sat in one of the chairs in the living area. “Hey I saw the soccer game last Saturday. Nice goal.”
Alex turned around. “Thanks.”
Tobin noticed the small smile that Alex had as she thanked her. It was a lie of course, Tobin had never been to any of the soccer games, but she had heard that Alex scored the game winner in extra time. She still didn’t understand why she wanted to get to know Alex.
After a few more minutes Ashlyn finally came out of her bedroom and handed Tobin her book. “Sorry I was on the phone with the parents. Ready to jam tomorrow?”
“You know it.” she replied as she walked out of the room.