The Music Makers

The Music Makers

A short story by

DWK

‘The Dogbreaths’

December 2009



The crowd screamed and shouted in tense anticipation as their feet stomped the beer and vomit stained floor. A push from the rear sent the young ones in front crushing against the barrier some falling lifeless; their breath squeezed from their thin bodies. A glass bottle launched from the balcony shattered into a million diamond pieces against the face of a teenage girl and the crowd roared their approval. She screamed and held a bloodied hand to her torn face, punching out, her fist crushed the nose of a boy in front. The throbbing mass, with an obsessive urge to get closer, pushed forward toward the towering sound stage. An animal growl rising with the steam of their sweating bodies as the stage lights lured them on.



Hells Angel bouncers fought back the surging mass armed with shining cleavers and iron batons safe between the stage and the barrier. They sliced into climbers and those wanting to escape the crush with no mercy, grins fixed to their drunken, drugged fucked faces. One with a scar across his deformed eyes spat into the crowd as his cleaver came down into a sharp curve. Catching the light and exploding into a flash of crimson, caught by the strobes, like ruby rain for a brief moment.



A young girl with frenzied hair and crazed make-up climbed the front barrier and a greasy biker raised his gun. The sound of a retort rang out and the body fell back into the raised hands of the crowd, carried off like a prize to be devoured by the animal flesh eaters in the rear. The crowd roared their approval.



Then music like chains ripping through a steel yard began to throb through the speakers. The huge amplification seemed to come alive with the bass sounds as they throbbed in time with the strobes . The sound of a chainsaw cutting through meat hooks rang out and the crowd surged forward again; lost in their anticipation. Those crushed at the front just bent limply against the barriers as the bikers looked on laughing at the ridiculousness of their situation.



The stage lights dimmed momentarily making the crowd wild with excitement, they roared their idols name above the amplified sounds of screaming band saws. Together, their voices in tempo, reverberating through the hall, booming out and calling the idols forward.



‘Death Squad, Death Squad…’ The roar became a blasting bullet of sound. ‘Death Squad, Death Squad…’



The crowd surged again and a boy with red hair fell to be crushed under their feet, never to rise again.



‘Death Squad, Death Squad....’ They pointed, wailed and spewed the words out of fragile voice boxes in time with the hypnotic beat rising like smoke from the speakers. Then suddenly a roar gripped the crowd and filled the venue and another surge made a further row of kids collapse breathless at the front. The music makers were tripping onto the stage, all black leather and torn velvet, vomit stained and smelling of death. The wings of the stage became full of flashing photographers as their cameras lit up the black stage and the monsters upon it.



A Hells Angel with a burned face brought his cleaver down across the fingers of a girl who reached out towards her idols, her blood staining the steel red, her fingers caught in the strobe lights as they arched towards the stage. She screamed with delight.

Then, like a steamroller the band struck their first cords blowing out the eardrums of the first twenty rows of people. The hysterical crowd reeled towards the sound; screaming in exstacy. Then they bounced to the sound of the throbbing bass as it kicked a deafening retort, a spotlight like a thick laser beamed down from the balcony illuminating the lead singer in a shimmering haze of drug-like beauty.



He stood like a frozen statue in the glowing beam, his pin pointed pupils surveying the scene with disgust; shoulders back and bony hand on hip stroking the Uzi machine gun over his shoulder. His wild locks falling across his white face and blackened eyes. The jaw moved softly as the lyrics thundered through the speakers. No one understood what he said, but that wasn’t the point; he was there and they wanted to adore him.



The song was about high rise desolation, a world without meaning, the death of care and the betrayal of love. The words rang true for the mass of outsiders that chose that moment to be there with him; they did not care that the sound of his voice was actually emanating from a tape deck at the rear of the stage. He was there to re-enact the massacre and that was the whole point.



The veins in his forehead stuck out like snakes creeping down his white face. His etched expression tense and contorted, the distain clear in his snarl. Then Silence.



The crowd roar their appreciation like animals in the darkness. A cigarette is tossed from the balcony and falls into the hair of a girl in the crush but she cannot raise her arms to stop it burning into her scalp. That made him smile. He placed his dead lips to the microphone and mumbled ‘Welcome fuckers, this is the theatre of hate…’



The crowd roared their appreciation and pushed in jagged lines towards the barrier, like a mangled car crash, a brain damaged jumbled of sweating bodies. ‘ You fucking scum.’ He shouted. ‘Choose your idol and kill him.’



The beat struck up again excitedly, now throbbing like blood through the veins of a speed freak at midnight. An adrenaline rush of hot chemical diversions; stamping, thumping and banging into the crowd like bullets from a gun. The sounds blew holes through the crowd and manic haired men danced in the spaces.



The spot light moved from the stage and over the crowd, piercing individuals as they reached up towards it. A girl in the front stormed the stage but was beaten back by the but from his Uzi, she fell limply into the Angel’s pit and they set upon her like savage dogs. A girl with stunning emerald eyes is picked up in the beam. For a moment a look of understanding passes between them and the idol calls her forwards. She is lifted by the crowd and passed over their heads towards the stage. The music gets louder and she reaches the barrier; the Angels reach up to pass her forward. The girl cryed with pleasure. She lay at the idols feet stroking his boots with her fingers. The song stopped abruptly as she is given the microphone; he nods his ascension and she smiles. The bass line ripped through the venue as she mumbled the words of the song. They spoke about pain and longing, the death of reason and the rise of indifference. She cradled the mic in her tiny fingers and rattled through the words as he unstrapped his Uzi and gave it to her.



The music stopped. The crowd whistles and roars with excitement as the girl fumbled with the gun in her sweating fingers. Her idol leaned forwards and planted a tender kiss on her pail lips as the bullets ripped into his flesh. He fell to the floor of the stage and twitched gently as she pushed the barrel into his gaping mouth and blew out his brains.  A helpful Angel tossed her his cleaver and as the music struck up she attacked the body, ripping into it, tearing it to pieces. She flung these to the audience for their keeping. Those lucky enough to rip warm flesh from the bone eagerly devoured it, filling their tight bellies with the idol’s flesh, savouring it with greedy zest.



When the last sinue had been devoured and the last bone struck dry the green eyed girl slung the Uzi over her shoulder and mouthed the words to the last song. They spoke of salvation through bloodlust, the realisation that stardom is fleeting and only the music lives on. The stage lights go out and she leaves the stage with the band to live the next few days as the star. Until the next concert when it will be her turn to be the idol. Her turn to pick her murderer and make them the star for a night.



The venue lights go up and a thousand blood stained people look into blurred faces as they pick their way to the exits. Each one clutching a screwed up ticket. This will become part of their home shrine, a shrine to the idols of the past and the idols of the future. Those that have been and those yet to come, in the hope that one day it may be them, lit up by the stage light and called forwards to stardom.





                                            c: The Dogbreaths

                                                    circa 83