It's time to update your wardrobe with JCPenney. Fall has arrived and so have a great range of amazing deals to help you express your style this season. Shop for everyone in the family from suits, trousers, sweaters, denim, jackets and more. And finish off your look with your favorite makeup and skincare brands at JCPenney Beauty. Shop in store or online today. JCPenney, make it count! With AMX Gold, you can experience the gold standard. You get access to exceptional dining, plus four times membership rewards points on eligible dining purchases. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms apply, cap applies, learn more at americanexpress.com/withamx. The forest doors are everywhere you are, so just pop in when you need a brown lip to match your 90s playlist. A confidence boost before your interview or a last-minute gift for mom's birthday. There's always a Sephora near you, just pop in. Use our store locator to find your local Sephora or Sephora at Coles. Rock is lit. Rock is lit. Rock is lit. Rock is lit. You're listening to Rock is Lit with Chris D. Halberg. Rock on. Rock is lit. Hey there, lip listeners! Welcome to Season 4 of Rock is Lit, the first podcast devoted to rock novels, and also the 2024 American Writing Awards Podcast of the Year in the categories of music and arts. Rock is lit is a proud member of the Pantheon Podcast Network. Hey, I'm John Stewart, and you're listening to the Pantheon Network. Rock is Lit is hosted, executive produced, and edited by me, Christy Alexander Halberg, author of my own rock novel, searching for Jimmy Page. Big shout-out to this season's incredible team, social media intern Keely Clats, and our three production interns, Major Lagulin, Tyler Elcock, and The Air Lower. This season we're shaking things up with a fresh new format. Instead of our usual author interviews, we'll be rolling out a weekly reading series, giving you a deeper dive into the world of rock novels through curated readings and literary explorations. To keep up with all things Rock is Lit, follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube @Christie Halberg, and @RockisLit podcast on Instagram. For more info, head to Christialexanderhalberg.com. Got a rock novel you'd like to see featured? Drop me a line at Christialexanderhalberg@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe, leave a comment, and give us a 5-star rating on your favorite podcast platform. Quiet, the Rock is Lit mascot, and I thank you for your support. This is Brendan Gillin, and you're listening to Rock is Lit. I'm a writer and creative director based in Brooklyn, New York. I run my MFA at City College, and my writing has been nominated for the Pushcar Prize and Best Small Fictions, and appears a rule appear in Electric Lit, The Florida Review, Wigglyff Necessary Fiction, Taco Bell Quarterly, X-Ray, and many other journals. My first novel, Static, was released in July via Vine News Press. You can find me on the line at beadgillin.com and on Twitter and Instagram @BEEGillin. For perhaps more than any of that, I'm a music lover. I've DJ'd and collected records for over 25 years, so I guess it makes sense that my first book is a music novel. One static for our protagonist Paul is stealing is easy. When he's hungry, he strolls into a bow day again, steals lunch. When rent is due, he steals records and slips up for cash. As a lonely kid growing up in Ohio's Rust Belt, stealing was the only way he could score the hip-hop records and production equipment that fueled his musical dreams. Now he's in New York City fighting to keep his once-assented band alive and his life the falling apart. His bank account is flat-lining. The love of his life has broken his heart. Funky, pos wealthy and connected bandmate is ditching him for Eloise, a soulful vagabond with an intoxicating voice. When financial trouble forces his parents from their lifelong home, Paul ramps up as stealing to save his family from financial collapse. And in a fever of creativity, he begins to steal from the voices in his life to make the music he's sure will save his soul. Set against the modern music industry, where a single social post can change your destiny, static is alive to the weight of familial expectations, with the pursuit of our deepest hopes and dreams, and the struggle to make meaningful connections in the anxiety of the digital age. My goal as static was to write the kind of book that as an avid reader and music fan, I would be excited to see on the table or on the shelves of my local bookshop. But this meant that the book, and especially the sections of the book were Paul's Band, which is named Vay Is, after a line in the Tobias Wolf's short-story bullet in the brain, makes music, had to feel real and authentic. And though a DJ for a long time and been to hundreds of live shows, I've never played an instrument or been in a band myself, so I was faced with a dilemma, how to write about the band's music. As a bassline, a shape Vay Is, around bands whose ethos was rooted in DJ culture, who deemed heavily on samples and synthesized production. Porter's head, the XX, everything but the girl, massive attack, beat your own music, contemplative and moody. As a fan, I was confident in my ability to write authoritatively about the elements of this music that speak to me and translate it into a fictional setter. I've also made some rudimentary sample-driven beats myself, so I've been working knowledge about the technical aspects of creation. And years of reading music journalism, especially Pitchfork, opening me up to writing about bands in unexpected and evocative ways. Each of the tracks that I quote unquote "root" for Vay Is were inspired by the songs I love. Songs that not only have distinctive audio fingerprints that translate well into prose, but also that I return to again and again as a listener, for comfort, for inspiration, or simply to lose myself in. Songs like Midnight in a Perfect World by DJ Shadow, Undenied by Porter Sid, Fading to You by Mazza Star, and writing static, I hope to translate the elements of these songs that move me into text that gives the reader the same feeling. Without further ado, I'll read the first chapter and a half about 30 pages or so of static. I hope you enjoy. Back to chapter 1, Paul stepped into the bodega on Bleaker and Sullivan, instinct and routine guided him to the open-faced cooler along the wall. He eyed the shelf of pre-prepared wraps and sandwiches which sat in a tidy row beneath a flotilla of colorful beverages. He pretended to browse, then selected two turkey bacon wraps. He made his way to the narrow, middle aisle, inspected a bottle of shampoo, and waited for a young mother and her little daughter to leave the aisle. When they were gone, he discreetly slipped one wrap, then the other threw his open fly, keeping his back to the camera in the corner. He felt the cool cellophane slide down his leg until the sandwiches came to rest against the bottom of his pant leg, which he had tucked into his sock. This maneuver, he had first observed in the movie Kids, the scene where Casper steals a 40, an impossibly brazen and bulky item, and saunters out of a bodega much like this one. Paul went to the counter where the mother was paying for detergent in a bouquet of flowers. The mother shushed her daughter who was tugging on her yoga pants and begging for a bag of fruit snacks. When they left, Paul asked the cashier if he had yesterday's times. By the time the man had bent down, rustled through a box of old papers below the counter and re-emerged to tell Paul, "No times." Paul had mapped two snickers from the low slung tray and slid them into the pocket of his parka. "All good," Paul said, "and for the first time in weeks," he meant it. He went around the corner, put the sandwiches in his shoulder bag, and descended a set of metal steps that led to a glass door of long-sense caked over by a manic jumble of stickers. Beyond was the oddly pleasing flat-smilled dust. Low ceilings, narrow isles, walls coated with faded ephemera. The impression was entropy and implosion. It was a throwback and a stalwart, and to Paul, it was everything a record store should be. From behind the nicked-and-battered counter in the back of the shop, Dante tipped his chair. Paul nodded back, shuffled by the morning's sole digger. A rowful kid in a brown hoodie flipping through the reggae rack. The early hours were like this, slung in the language, dotted by bored students, older jazz heads, and eager tourists. But by afternoon, the shop would come to life, buzzing with a milling array of customers navigating the bins, sizing up the records others cratered in their arms with snap judgments of moral fiber. Dante rested his elbows on the counter and scrolled through his foe. He wore a delicious vinyl tee, one of a series of vintage pieces he wore like a badge, and a black beanie meticulously cocked atop short dreds. What's this, Paul asked? He gestured toward the speakers hung in the corners from which a floral voice drilled. "Tie folk," Dante said without looking up. "Nika?" Dante nodded, his phone dawned twitching in many spasms. Of course. Last week it was a collection of Gregorian chants before that Turkish psych. It was a custom of theirs to go around the horn picking the music that played aloud in the store. He could just see Nika flipping through the racks, pushing in the huge frames of her glasses up the narrow bridge of her nose. After a fail, she opted for something left field as though to prove a point. "I don't get it," Dante said, scanning his phone. People are still obsessed with Radiohead. It's like Tommy York Farts and it's considered a profound artistic statement. He looked up and held his phone screen a lot for Paul to assess an Instagram post. Then he registered Paul's appearance and twisted his face in confusion. "The fuck happened to you?" Paul cleared his throat, played dumb. "What do you mean?" "What do I mean?" Dante studied him closely. "You in a lottery or something? Because I know damn well you didn't get laid." "Appreciate that." "For real, what happened? You can't just roll in here looking like Mr. Rogers, you're scary." Reflectively Paul straightened his shoulders, sniffed. It was true. He had entered dead wax in a bubble of giddy likeness. Not because he'd gotten away with a free lunch, by now stealing was easy, and not because he felt most at home surrounded by stacks of records, but this was true. It was because he felt something he hadn't felt in quite some time. Hope. He and Bunky, his bandmate, had just received a bit of fresh news. They'd been given a second chance. "It's about, wait, what the fuck happened to you?" He touched his chin and winced. Dante said this. He proudly displayed a raw half dollar scrape that hadn't yet scapped over. Tried to kick flipped the 12th stare at the courthouse. He smacked his palm together and Paul winced. He survived, though, he trailed his lip back to prove it. Wish we could say the same about your brain. They heard Mika's voice before she materialized from the stockroom with the deadpan gaze shoe wore like an accessory. Her Kool-Aid red bangs, the same color as the frames that encircled her pale blue eyes, fell in an angled line across the forehead. You know we don't offer health insurance. Do I look worried? I'm a quick healer, Mika. He's skating this city 12 years and only broken like six bones, seven if you come my year. You can't break an ear, Mika said. Your drum. Tried to gnarly a low tree branch, and you know what? Forget it. But you almost broke your face, Paul said. Dante raised a finger. Almost. Takes more than a scuffed up chin to stop me. Mika expelled a puff of air, said about straightening records that slumped in her racks. She looked up at Paul and narrowed her eyes, or a use of chipper, rolled up in here looking like a bowl of sunshine Dante said. I mean, Paul said, "If you really want to know, me and Bunkie are a headline of a farm in it." Dante and Mika stole a glance. "See?" Dante said. I knew we didn't get laid. Mika snicker. Paul shoulder sank. "Fuck both of you." "You know I love you," Dante said, fighting laughter. Paul glared back. "I'll take the bait," Mika said. "How?" "You guys were in a rut." This was true. He and Bunkie had been in a rut. It was one thing not to release any new music in two years, which nowadays may as well have been two decades. It was another thing entirely not to complete a single song from months running. At this point the rut was starting to feel more like a ravine, and Paul knew he was larger to blame. Bunkie, despite his own issues, was still laying down some of the filthiest baselines Paul had ever heard in his life. He on the other hand, found it increasingly difficult to produce the lived-in soulful beats that had first caught Bunkie's attention and propelled their brief ascent. By now it was no secret to either of them that his struggle started right around the time Sarah decided to leave him to pursue her own music career and turn his heart into tartare. But tonight, tonight they would set things straight, chart the course that was rightfully theirs. Paul said none of this to Dante and Mika, with these two, vulnerability was a foolish game, so what he said instead was, "Sureful to nonchalance was, Greg still believes in us," which was partially true. Greg, the farm's promoter, did still believe in him. He was, after all, the first to give Paul and Bunkie a shot, and over the course of their development had become a friend and trusted sounding board. But Greg's faith alone was not responsible for tonight's opportunity. No. In reality, he had called Paul that morning in a breathless panic looking for a last-minute fill-in. The British post-punk band that had been booked to headline had had to cancel because their drummer was arrested taking a leak off the Williamsburg Bridge. Still, a chance was a chance. That's huge, Dante said. He must have clocked the weariness in Paul's expression because he doubled down. I mean it. Time to get that way back. He held out his palm and Paul slapped it. "You guys want to swing by?" Paul asked. "Always so helps to see some familiar faces. Can I put you on the list?" "Nah, Dante said." Shaking his head. "No can do. Told myself I'd put in work tonight. The truth is, I'm writing some momentum myself right now. Almost finished writing a new join." "Get out of here!" Mika said flatly. "You know how to write?" "Hey, Miss Prolific. Talk to me when you finish a track." "I make music when I feel I have something to say." And Mika argued. Dante could followed. In the case, you should have a discography like Scratch Perry. Paul wasn't entirely sure what Mika was trying to say with her songs. To even call them songs was to imply at least a base level of user-friendliness. Under the monitored drones, she recorded dense electronic sludge that sounded to him as if she had jammed a mic into the guts of a garbage disposal. Her tracks made Lou Reed's metal machine music sound like medicine. He had once tried to codify her music. Kind of an ambient electronic thing, he had instantly said when he first heard one of her tracks "Curl" from the shop's speakers. It was a tactic she often deployed to drive customers from the store in her closing time. "Johners are bullshit," she snapped in return, a comment that perfectly embodied her almost militant views on authenticity. Category is a purely a manifestation of the consumerist impulse, Paul. He bit his tone and held back on addressing the irony of her managerial position in a record store whose interest it was to make money, and which adhered to the very categories she railed against. "I may not be prolific," Dante, she replied. Her back now turned as she went row to row, sorting and straightening records, but at least I have the balls to follow through in my chosen mode of expression. She had a point. Dante loved to talk about being a rapper while doing very little actual rapping. He liked to tell Paul all about his aesthetic, which drew more from the southern, syrupy stylings of Houston or Memphis than it did his homebrew of Queens. But whatever style he did possess was undermined by a fractal attention span. He really went more than a minute or two without slipping his phone from his pocket and refreshing for likes and updates, and a preference for kickflips over kicking rhymes. "You can't rush greatness," Dante beamed. "I've got an idea," Paul said. "Why don't you two just collaborate already and get it over with?" Dante smirked. "I'll collaborate whenever Mika's ready," Mika said, showing back a slumping row of records with an emphatic fub. "I wouldn't collaborate with you if the last three people on earth were you, me and James Blunt." Dante screwed up his face and straightened the beanie on his head. "That's cold." "I'm going out for a smoke," Mika said. "I'll allow that to sink in," Paul had to admire her. She embraced the role of villain with ruthless ease. There was a heart in there somewhere and you just had to dig for it. They felt quiet and washed in the throne of Northern Thailand. Dante went back to his phone and Paul said about opening a roll of new release posters for the window display. He finished pacing up one of the posters and was set to start in on another when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He hesitated, felt it buzz again. He relented and checked it. Sure enough, a pair of texturing is landlord. The first message was crammed with dollar signs the second with question marks. She ignored them and went about his business, unreal the next poster from his plastic sheath. "Yo," he said at last, breaking the meditative air. "Hmm," Dante said. "What do your parents think of you doing this?" Dante looked up, tried to read Paul's face. "You mean like working at a record store?" "Well, yeah, and you know, wrapping, making music." Dante shrugged. "I don't really care what I do, to be honest, as long as I'm making a little bread and staying in trouble." "That's the way it should be. What about you?" He called the mirror, directing his attention back to the box of posters. "Don't do that," Dante said, forming his arms. "Do what?" "Bring up some shit and pretend like you didn't do it for a reason, or you don't have something to say." "My folks think I gave up music after high school." "For real?" Dante said. "What do you think you're doing up here?" "Working in at cubicle." "So what? You're a fucking adult, bro." Paul shook his head. It goes deeper than that, though. It's like I constantly need to prove to them that I'm not a complete fucker. Well, at least that leaves you with one option, then. Make it happen. No pressure. And relax. You're the one who brought it up. What's up with Bunkie anyway? He's got his own problems, but talent like that doesn't come knocking too often. Facts. Dante shrugged. "Kids nasty." "We just gotta get that feeling back. I'm telling you, tonight is exactly what we need." It takes worth to get it back, though. Like, running around too stood come easy to me as a kid, back when it was just fun. He scratched the spot in his scalp through his beanie. I guess what I'm trying to say, you just can't take it all too seriously. At that moment, the door jangled, and Mika entered the shot. Her eyes jumped from Dante to Paul. "Did I just walk in on therapy?" And the hot Paul said, "Forget it." Big shout tonight, Dante said, "Paul's ready to make some noise." "Mika crossed her arms, tipped her chin. Her ruby red hair quivered." "Are you now?" She studied Paul for a moment, and he swore to saw her pale eyes soften a touch. Just as quickly as the flinty gleam returned. "Funny, because I could've sworn he were allergic to work. There's a stack of boxes in the back that need to be logged. Go make some noise, but no one can hear you." The stock ring was cramped and musty, and noticeably grimy or climbing it in the one on the sales floor. Dustin Mildew from battered boxes of used records created a dense pocket of claustrophobia. A boxy PC, yelled at with age, sat atop a cheap fiberboard desk. This was Paul's domain, his haven in workspace since Mika hired him as a staffer. He sunk into a rolling chair, hunched over, and sliced the tape holding together a U-line moving box. The shop had just received several crates of used LPs, the fruits of an estate cell. It was his job, as always, to press the records, log them, and place them in the bins on the sales floor. He began to flip through. Not a terrible haul, a ring-worn copy of Superfly, Latter-day Royal Years, and a wholly unnecessary amount of hauling oats. Paul looked at a selection of about a half a dozen records and slid the albums into his shoulder bag. The cheap used records were far and away simpler to steal, easy to come by and easier to forget, and he was always careful not to take too many. He had begun stealing early on in his dead wax tenure and without giving him much thought. It was an impulse he'd nurtured since he was a team, when stealing albums was the only way he'd been able to get his hands on them. His mother and father had little in the way of discretionary cash, not that they'd have bought him records if they had the money. But at dead wax, he didn't even really consider it stealing. He was purely supplementing his hourly wage, feeding his bank of samples for beats, contributing to the universe of music. Besides, how many copies of privatized did the shop really need? He booted up the computer with a word of clunk and said to work, losing himself in the numbing repetition of his tasks. He punched digits into blank spreadsheet cells, tore up in more boxes, slipped a battered copy of hot buttered soul into his bag, because to him, walk on by a sound at its best and most alive through the murky static. It was a record he already had when he'd bought on a trip to dead wax when he was just a customer, or more accurately, a loiterer. After sold destroying days as a go for its crim shot duff, he would burn whole evenings meandering the aisles, consuming liner notes, listening to stacks of wax on the turntable by the register. Eventually, he would begin to feel the heat of scrutiny from Mika and Dante, though he didn't yet know their names, and resort to carrying an armful of dog-eared, psyched jazz and funk records of the counter to take home. Dead wax was, you felt, a spiritual refuge. And then we rarely spoke to anyone in the shop, he knew he was amongst the community of kindred souls, bloners, nestologists, fetishists, who merely by spending time in the shop were staging a protest against the codification of music into an ether of ones and zeroes. Though it had been a bleaker-street staple long before we arrived from Ohio, Paul had witnessed the many roles dead wax and played for the city's independent music community, hanging out, venue, promoter, ticket vendor, crash pad, and for many bands, including him and Bunkie, source the first record sale by we have the consignment crate at the foot of the counter. But found a fan of clockwork in Dante. "Shit Nox," he said enthusiastically by phone after he'd given in to listen. "We'll take ten and let you know if we need a rea." They'd gone through eight boxes when Paul was hired a month later, as a part-time utility man he swept the floor and scanned for stray stock and absorbed a barrage of daily harassment. Considered a badge of honor, Dante said, "Your real payment," Mika would say, "is the boundless knowledge we selflessly bestowed upon you." When he was finally brought on full time as a stock is to log inventory, he was thrilled. He felt he was finally setting into the life he was built for, but he was paid $16 an hour for it didn't much matter. He had joined the rarefied era of record store clerks, and an even more heightened tier of record store clerks who not only shilled obscure music, but made it themselves. He zipped his bag shut and thought about what he had said to Dante, the feeling. That's what it all came down to. Did he want the band to succeed? Of course, his bank account was on life support. What he really wanted, what was imperative, was to recapture the thrill. The joy he had felt when he and Gallaud began making songs together, his first taste of the band life. The same warmth that descended upon him when he and Sarah, her violin and his drum machine, made what he's still considered to be some of the best songs he'd ever recorded. The same blend of yearning and possibility that accompanied his early partnership with Bungie back when it felt like something, anything, might happen. The hour slid by contentedly until two minor incidents gave the afternoon a pulse. The first occurred shortly after lunch when a bespectacled man with a horseshoe of green hair walked in to sell a stack of first press blue note out of peace. Paul was filing an arm full of ear releases when the man approached the counter. He washed his Dante, slid the records from their sleeves, whistling as he inspected their condition. Records like this, Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham, didn't just walk right into the shop very often, much less in pristine shape. Man seemed departed and looked at me, looking on wistfully as Dante tied up his offering press. My kids will appreciate him if he shrugged, hopefully someone else will. Paul empathized with the man, filling a certain vicarious sadness as he witnessed himself off what were obviously objects of depersonal meaning. He wished he had the money to buy them himself, guaranteed the man they were going to a worthy albeit shabby home. Like any collectible records came with their own story, developed their own personality, became as reliable as old friends. They knew the records would move quickly, Dante would post them on the shop's Instagram page, snapped up by a younger version of this very man with a taste for the finer things. Or, more cynically, buy an enterprising capitalist who would flip them for an even more outlandish press. In either case, the half-dozen records would help cover a sizable chunk of the shop's monthly rent. The second incident unfolded just as the pale disc of November Sun dipped behind the low buildings of Bleaker. By then, Paul was finalizing the pricing of a box of budget classic rock when he heard an eruption of laughter on the other side of the door. He poked his head out to see Dante snapping a photo of Nika, straight-lipped, middle-finger raised, standing next to a young man with a shaggy mop of hair. It took Paul a moment until Dante began belting the chorus to "you're beautiful to be exact," to realize it was up. The young man was a dead ringer for James Blunt. As Dante later told it, in the aftermath of the uproar he had thought the guy was James Blunt. He even worked up the nerve to ask if he was the millipreener himself, at which point the illusion was punctured by a beautiful combustion of laughter from both clerk and darker gang are alike. Paul gave Mika credit for being gay and chalked it up to further evidence of her in Dante's awkward courtship, and he couldn't help but see the episode as some sort of hairy talisman. On a normal day, as late afternoon bled into early evening, it would have been Paul's turn to close up the shop, punctuating the day by yanking down the thundering, graffiti-scrawled metal grate and fasting the chunky padlock. But tonight, you get more pressing business to attend to, so Dante agreed to assume the duty. You owe me Dante said as Paul headed for the door. I don't have much to give at the moment, Paul said, but I won't forget it if that means anything to you. It does, Dante said, especially if you save me a guest first when you and Vulcan get a deal. It was Dante's way of saying good luck. Mika looked up for the stack of receipts at the counter and nodded in his direction, her own way of wishing him well, or at least not ill will. He nodded back, shouldered through the door, and strode headlong into the New York City Night. Chapter 2 Paul scanned the buoyant faces looking up at him on stage, open and expectant, chins tipped, and wash and candy colors. Bunkie stepped into the cone of light. He ran a hand, the knuckles of which were tattooed sink in old-timey letters through a stringy hair to clear it from his face. With the hand that was inked swim, he gripped the mite and introduced them with the same unassuming phrase he'd use from the beginning. Where they is, get to know us. They launched into one step, the first track they'd ever recorded together, just as they had rehearsed. The foundation was a polyrhythmic drum break, edged with the crackle of dust. Paul triggered it by tapping out the beat on his drum machine, who was emblematic of their sound, the prickly or cousin of the moody R&B served up by Portis head or everything but the girl. The lifeblood of the song was Bunkie's bassline, warm and subcutaneous. Paul washed his bandmate, find the groove on his toothpaste blue bass, then lift a tattoo to hand to the sky to instruct the sound engineer to give him more volume. Steadily, the low end enveloped the room until Paul's legs vibrated where he stood. To offset the purring menace of the rhythm section, Bunkie introduced his viscous crew and sang about being man enough, about a father's love, about a thunder loud enough to touch. He fed his vocals through reverb until a heavy swirl embraced the room. Paul again scanned the crowd. Those who weren't outwardly dancing stood slack jawed and searching, ready to succumb. He looked over at Bunkie and his bandmate nodded back, cool and confident, and looked Paul hadn't seen in months. Here again it seemed was the guy with the monster basslines happy to just play. The guy Paul had been so excited to partner with him in the first place. For the song's outro, Paul layered in a bubble of woozy record scratches, dragging a gutted Etta James record back and forth beneath the needle of his turntable. They interrupted the burst of claps and whistles by surging into their second track, kick drum tough as a manhole cover, snare cracking like whiplash, and Paul felt a thrill run up his neck. This was it. Where he and Bunkie were supposed to be all along, casting a spell on an audience would amount into a cosmic sleight of hand. He'd had no illusions that a headlining gig at a small club like the farm alone was enough to relaunch their careers, but it was a confidence boost, and I knew all it took was one review, one IG post, one lucky break to shake them from their complacent stupor to regain the momentum that had bloomed around their first record two years back. So here they were grabbing an opportunity by the balls and would be damned if they let it go. The question was no longer what had been holding them back, it was now what would stop them. The answer Paul felt as his lips formed a sort of snarl as his beat wound around the room was nothing. Nothing would stop them. But then, like an uninvited dinner guest, another question, sharp edged and dangerous elbowed its way into his brain. The fuck was Sarah doing here? Because she had unmistakably stepped into the room. Bunkie was mid-chorus when Paul saw her pull open the door in the back, a sliver of warm life from the barroom beyond announcing her silhouette. He felt a cold spark in his chest. She hadn't been to one of his shows and ages, a few months before she picked up and left him for LA. Now she was here, unannounced to see him play. His heart sped in his ribcage and it was only when his eyes drifted back to Bunkie glaring at him that he realized he had missed his cue for the second verse. He improvised a bridge and found his footing before anyone in the crowd seemed to notice. Bunkie stared at him through slit lids as he began to sing again. Fuck, he had to focus. He also felt a magnetic pull to find Sarah again in the crowd. He scanned, spotting her once more, the way she swayed with the groove. But it was right then, as her head tilted side to side, that a light beam swooped across the room and passed over her face where she stood by the sound booth. It wasn't Sarah at all. The woman was the same height, had her dark hair swept up in the same way, moved her shoulders, a kind of off-kilter shimmy the way Sarah used to. She was even mouthing the words to the song. But the nose was too slender, the ears a little too prominent, and her blonde friend was someone he'd never seen before in his life. The reality mowed him down like a truck. In a matter of seconds, he had gone from thinking the woman he loved had by some spell of magic come back to catch his ascendance, to thinking about how he would salvage a song that he had sent off balance by fucking up the tempo. Bunkie was forced to draw the song to a close prematurely by dropping out the bass, letting Paul fade down the beat on his own. He tried to regain his composure, tried to conjure the electricity, but the spell had been broken. He and Bunkie were no longer a body in lockstep, but rather two separate entities who happen to be playing the same songs. There had been a rupture, like a pin to a balloon. It was a delicate thing in the exchange between crowd and performer, and once a fissure had disrupted the energy, it was damn near impossible to repair. Bunkie didn't look at him for the rest of the performance. Paul at the drum break of their last song fade and merged with the murmur of the room. Bunkie mumbled thanks, there was a bemused polite applause and they began to break down. Paul powered down his turntable and his boxy MPC sampler and placed them in their cushion metal boxes. Bunkie brooded over his velvet line case, laid to rest his bass, and didn't say a word. The heat of disappointment radiated from his area of the stage like a repellent magnetic force. Paul felled hollowed out and cold, and couldn't bring himself to a dress as band-made. They had headlined a show for the first time in months, and hadn't bombed exactly, but they hadn't stood out. They had been fine, which in many ways was the worst thing you could be. With the lights up, the room looked much smaller than it had in the airy darkness, a handful of kids milled about performing a casual march to keep shoes on glued from the cup stream floor. From his periphery, Paul saw a figure glide from the side stage shadows. Greg greeted him with a dab in a grin. He wore a western shirt, the kind with snappy metal buttons, and atop his round red face, his trademark page boy hat that Paul still hadn't worked up the nerve to tell him as much too small. He unballed his clammy hand, pressed him to Paul's palm, a crumpled lot of bills, their cut of the door split. He could tell without looking it was modest, maybe 500 tops for him and bunkie to split, but for him right now, anything would do. Paul expected Greg to say tough luck to get him next time or any number of coach-like aphorisms. Instead, he said solid set, and it was possible he believed it. Paul had to hand it to him. The guy was relentlessly positive. He continued. Last one fresh. Brand new, Paul lied and winced. Greg deserved better. The truth was that it was their oldest full song, and their most popular one, or at least the one that had jump-started their fleeting attention. They had simply sped it up and segued in and out of Shadde's paradise to fill out their set. The fact that Greg didn't recognize it, Greg, who by sheer proximity and exposure was perhaps the non-bim member most familiar with their work, said everything. Right on, he said, "More where that came from?" Working on it, Paul said, in a way, at least that part wasn't totally false. Ian Bunkie were always working on it, but there was a big difference between working on it and having the stuff he were working on work. That's what I'm talking about, brother. Greg raised his lumpy knuckles which Paul tapped with his own, then Greg's face rearranged itself into a sort of constipated smirk, and Paul had a queasy hunch what was coming. So he said, nudging Paul with his elbow, "Sara around?" He tried not to flinch at the sound of her name, to laugh at the cruel irony of it all. That he had already owned spooled the thread of lies made this one easier. She had to duck out, he said, rehearsal in the morning. Greg tilted his head back and narrowed his eyes. "You're gonna lock that up or what?" It was Greg's playful way of saying she's out of your league. Paul did his best to hide the pain and said, "Soon." Greg winked like a conspirator, though his face felt serious and he looked over his shoulder as though someone might have been listening. He looked back and lowered his voice. "Listen, if others need an opener, all right, a couple Fridays from now, a warm-up gig before they go on tour. If you guys want to test out some more stuff, all you." Paul tried his best to look grateful. Overall, Greg didn't know them shit, especially after tonight. He knew Greg's largesse was doing a large part to the fact that he simply liked Paul and Bunkie, considering them good people, or rariting the music business. "Appreciate the look," he said, tipping his head in genuine gratitude. "Let us talk it over." He stole a glance over at Bunkie to ensure he hadn't heard, confirmed. He had already hopped down from the stage and was lugging his cases out of the room. But why? Why did it have to be feathers? He pictured Dee Gallo, grinning beatifically through his new band Steady Rise and wanted to punch the air. Greg shrugged. "Fine, but you gotta let me know by morning. Their manager, some young shitkeeper, keeps busting my balls. Guy told me he'd snatch my soul, but how does that even mean?" Around the corner, Paul found Bunkie stuffing gear into his rust-parked pathfinder. He slammed the hatch with a show of force and the keys clipped to his belt loop jangled like a wardens. "What did Greg want?" he snapped. His gray T-shirt still darkened patches from the humid room clung to his wiry frame. "Not nothing, Paul," said with a wave of his hand. Said he dug the shot day cover, but he's excited to hear some new stuff. "Shit," Bunkie said, makes two of us. He fished a ruffled pack of Paul Malls from his back pocket of shaking one free. He could afford a lifetime supply of Dunhills, and yet here he was, smoking mulches if to prove something. He placed a cigarette at the corner of his lips and lit it, punching against the November chill. He leaned against the side of his truck and smoked an edgy silence. The sounds of the city rushed in to fill the hush, and Paul pretended like he didn't know what was coming. For six months now, tension had been building, and Bunkie had begun to make it abundantly clear who's to blame for their lack of momentum. He was no longer the kid with the easy smile, the loose wound confidence, and patience, Paul knew. That was part of it, at least. Lately, Bunkie had developed a habit of showing Paul images on Instagram of friends, acquaintances, people he'd read about who were breaking through, realizing dreams. An echo chamber of success stories, young success stories. A woman from his class at Columbia whose plages opened at the public with Patricia Arquette and who was already fielding streaming offers. The siblings from his Tribeca block, whose startup, a wine delivery service called Grateful that issued recommendations using a patented algorithm, was in its second stage of funding. A childhood friend of his, Carla Bonucci, was his name, a name Bunkie referenced often with a hint of awe, who had been signed to a major art gallery in Chelsea, and whose debut show was set to open in January. And on, and on, and on, yet it wasn't jealousy that fueled Bunkie's frustration. Now, unlike Paul, he was too proud for jealousy. Paul knew it was because there was an invisible deadline looming on the horizon like a warship Barrows drawn, a Steinway suspended overhead by a frame rope. He knew it because he felt it too. Thirty. The possibility that his dream was dying before he even exited his twenties. If he failed, he went back to the Ohio Rust Belt, back to a mother or father who never had time for his music, and certainly no time for his dreams. Paul often let Bunkie's attitude slide, knowing it also festered in the tall shadow of his parents, who had reached a level of success as visual artists that he and Paul could only dream about. He knew it affected Bunkie's confidence, which was crazy because he was good. Now, he was better than good, he was a beast, and everyone could see it, but Bunkie himself. He wanted to take Bunkie by those bony shoulders and make him think back, don't you remember our first record? This used to be fun, we were and still can be, on our way. Check it out, who said as a diversion, he nodded to the space over Bunkie's shoulder. Bunkie craned and then clocked two X sorority girls in high heels and bedazzled tanks wobbled across Essex like giraffes spindling through the savanna. A force field of entitlement seemed to propel them into the night as though the city had been erected just for them, the whole cavernous maze that run away. They clocked around the corner out of sight, and Paul's thoughts drifted to the woman he had seen in the crowd. He made up his mind. "Bunkie, leave my stuff with you. Why? I'm going back to reap the fruits of our labor." Bunkie rolled his eyes, sucked the last one to cigarette. "Fuck sake," he said. He flipped the nub into the narrow river of grime where his treatment curbed. I caught her eye, Paul reasoned, as much with himself as with Bunkie. How about a little confidence in your bandmate? "How about you show me something worthy of confidence?" Bunkie sniffed. "Fuck happened back there." He could have told the truth, should have told the truth. It should have said that during the first few songs he had for the first time in ages felt the thrill of creative kinship, that he was sure the show would be a turning point, get them back where they were supposed to be. Shit, he should have even been honest about Sarah, that he was still heart sick and that a trick of shadow and light had tripped a wire in his brain. Because who knows? Bunkie might have understood, heard the passion in Paul's voice and let bygones be bygones. His study led his pride to take center stage and said, "What do you mean?" Bunkie smirked and shook his head, "Fine," he said. He shoved off the side of his trunk and took a step closer to Paul and looked like he was ready to take a swing. "To be honest, I don't know how long I can keep playing these bullshit shows. Bullshit," Paul said rocking back, "we're a band, we get to go on stage and play the music in front of people. Isn't that enough?" When was the last time we made a song we were actually proud of? I mean shit, how much do we even pull today? People retrieve the wad of money from his pocket, leaf through to counter it up. Without speaking, he divided it and handed over Bunkie's share. Bunkie sneer. "Keep it, man." "Come on, don't be like that. Take your cut." "I'm telling you, I don't want it. I'll take it when I feel like we earned it." "Don't want it or don't need it." Paul knew it was a soft spot and poked it before he'd even given much thought to the words. Bunkie flinched and spit a white jet of saliva onto the sidewalk. "You really care about this?" Musicky said, jabbing a finger in Paul's face. "I got a suggestion. Stop moping about Sarah. She's gone. And instead of going back in there and chasing some woman that'll probably shut you down, go home and finish a beat." He unclipped his nest of keys, shaking the window's truck. He watched a kid ride past on a skateboard with a thunderous scrape and clack. Then he turned and climbed in, shut the door and fired the ignition. Talking heads bellowed from the stereo, the book I read, Tina Waymouth, his childhood hero, kept slinky time on the base. Paul stepped to the driver's side, tapped the glass in desperation. "I've got something cooking," he lied. "For real. Can't wait for you to hear it. Tomorrow, practice." Bunkie cracked the window, spoke over the music. "Good luck," and there he said, "hope you remember what to do." Then he lurched from the curb and left Paul glaring at a lone working tail light, wondering if by tomorrow they'd even still be a group. "I've got something to do with this." Thanks for tuning in, listeners. If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe and leave a rating and comment on Good Pods and Apple Podcasts, links in the show notes. Wyatt, the Rock Is Lit mascot and I really appreciate your support. Until next time, keep rockin' and readin' and gettin' lit. "Rock is lit." Thanks for watching! [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
In this episode of the Rock is Lit Season 4 Reading Series, Brendan Gillen reads from his debut novel, ‘Static’, and offers insight into the story’s themes, characters, and music. The novel follows Paul, a struggling musician in New York City who resorts to theft—of objects, opportunities, and even voices—just to survive and fuel his creative ambitions. As Paul battles heartbreak, band tensions, and family crises, he becomes desperate to hold his life together and make music that matters. ‘Static’ paints a vivid picture of a young artist navigating the challenges of modern life, set against the backdrop of the ever-changing music industry.
Brendan Gillen is an Emmy-winning writer living in Brooklyn. His fiction has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and appears in ‘Wigleaf’, ‘Taco Bell Quarterly’, ‘New Delta Review’, ‘HAD’, ‘X-R-A-Y’, ‘South Carolina Review’, and elsewhere. His debut chapbook, “I've Given This a Lot of Thought,” is available now via Bottlecap Press. His first novel, ‘Static’, was published by Vine Leaves Press (July ‘24).
As a partner and writer/director at Boomshot, Brendan has developed content for ESPN, FanDuel, Condé Nast, Fox Sports, BBC, the U.S. Open, Resy, Anheuser-Busch and others. Before joining Boomshot, he developed his creative and storytelling capabilities at ESPN, producing original content for the FIFA World Cup, the NBA on ESPN, Sunday Night Baseball, Grantland, Monday Night Football, and more.
His work has received attention in the ‘New York Times’, Mashable, the ‘Washington Post’, USA Today’s “For the Win,” SportsIllustrated.com, the ‘Huffington Post’, and People.com, among others. He earned a Sports Emmy for his work on the campaign for the 2014 FIFA World Cup on ESPN.
MUSIC IN THE EPISODE IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:
Rock is Lit theme music
[Guitar Instrumental Beat] Sad Rock [Free Use Music] Punch Deck—“I Can’t Stop”
“Midnight in a Perfect World” by DJ Shadow
“Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star
“Undenied” by Portishead
[Guitar Instrumental Beat] Sad Rock [Free Use Music] Punch Deck—“I Can’t Stop”
Rock is Lit theme music
LINKS:
Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Goodpods: https://goodpods.com/podcasts/rock-is-lit-212451
Leave a rating and comment for Rock is Lit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rock-is-lit/id1642987350
Brendan Gillen’s website: https://www.bgillen.com/
Brendan Gillen on Facebook: @Brendan Gillen
Brendan Gillen on Instagram: @beegillen
Christy Alexander Hallberg’s website: https://www.christyalexanderhallberg.com/rockislit
Christy Alexander Hallberg on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube: @ChristyHallberg
Rock is Lit on Instagram: @rockislitpodcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
