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/with AMX. This episode is brought to you by Hyundai. Think you know what an electric vehicle should be? Think again. From the charge time and range in the IONIQ 5 and 6 to the 601 horsepower IONIQ 5 and Hyundai is redefining what EVs should be. Learn more about Hyundai EVs at HyundaiUSA.com. EPA estimated 303 mile driving range for 2024 IONIQ 5 SESEL limited rear wheel drive and 361 mile driving range for 2024 IONIQ 6 SE long range rear wheel drive with fully charged battery. Actual range may vary. Is it time to reimagine your future? The right business skills may make a difference in your career. At Capelli University, we offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals, like business management, strategic planning, and effective communication. And you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capelli University. Learn more at Capella.edu. Rock is lit. Rock is lit. Rock is lit. Rock is lit. You're listening to Rock is lit with Christy Halberg. Rock on, Christy. [Music] Rock is lit. [Music] Hey there, Lit 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 at Christy Halberg, and at Rock is Lit podcast on Instagram. For more info, head to ChristyAlexandorHahlberg.com. Got a rock novel you'd like to see featured? Drop me a line at ChristyAlexandorHahlberg@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe. Leave a comment and give us a five-star rating on your favorite podcast platform. Wyatt, the Rock is Lit mascot, and I thank you for your support. In this installment of the season four reading series, we're so excited to feature the winner of the very first Bill Holberg Rock and Roll short story contest in the category of undergraduate college student. Congratulations to Sonami Kablinu. Here's Sonami reading her winning story, Goat and Pearls. [music] [music] This is Sonami Kablinu and you're listening to Rock is Lit. I'm a senior at UNC Chapel Hill double majoring in English and French with a minor in information science. I wrote Goat and Pearls for the first time in the fall of 2022, and I didn't touch it again until this past summer actually. It's a totally different story now, basically only the characters are the same, and I like it better. It's about a band and their manager, but it's also more about their interpersonal conflict than their music. I spent a lot of time thinking about character and background. I just wanted to write about people that you wouldn't always expect to see in the metal scene, or that aren't always given the chance to be seen. Minus a short flashback, the whole thing takes place over the course of one night. It's just a conversation in a parking lot, so the hardest thing for me was avoiding passivity on the narrator's part. And to be honest, I'm still iffy on how well I manage that, but if nothing else, I think his motivation is clear and full of depth, and maybe that makes up for it. [Music] Bobbie Pukes, lead guitarist of Mons Puvus, was still bleeding from the lips. It had been almost an hour since he'd taken a punch from the livid boyfriend of a fan, or "X" fan, as the band was exiting the stage of the fine line. Toucher again, asshole, the knee-high man challenged. This was how Gabe came to think of the guy, clearly a foot shorter than Pukes, even without the guitarist spiked black platform boots, which he kicked off mid-concert. His performances could seldom be described as anything less than striking. He sang with the zeal of a religious devotee, and strummed his electric guitar as of begging for the attention of something far from the earth, or buried deep within it. Pukes in the band delivered nothing short of that at tonight's concert, Mons Puvus's last hometown gig before setting off on their long-awaited East Coast tour. Whether the knee-high man thought the same about the performance was a revelant. Gabe started to rethink the moniker. If the attacker was the knee-high man, then Gabe supposed that that would have made himself the wise old owl if it weren't for the irritating fact that he hadn't imparted any wisdom on the guy, much less on anyone else, and that the punch had in fact been meant for him. Gabe sighed. His breath escaped in a soft white puff that went curling and writhing into the dark cavernous Minnesota sky. He was leaning against the side of the band's black van, with his arms crossed defensively over his chest. In the commotion that thrummed through the preparations for the final concert before the tour, he'd forgotten his coat and his car parked on the other side of the venue. Rather than go grab it, Gabe stayed and watched Vijay add another blood-soaked tissue to the small pile on Pukes's lap. She stretched on her toes to reach a slender arm over his shoulder and pulled a clean one from the tissue box balanced on the dash. Then she pressed her cheek against Pukes's and Gabe kept watching. In the back of the van, there were the industrious sounds of Sydney arranging and rearranging road cases. Gabe had warned the bassist more times than he could remember about being rough with the equipment, but tonight he didn't bother. "I told you to wait until after the tour to get more piercings," Gabe said. His voice, a slight and tenuous as the torn flesh of Pukes's bottom lip, was like a muffled recording. It lacked the ardour and conviction that had elevated Pukes, Vijay, and Sydney from their initial status as garage-band nobodies to underground sludge-middle idols. Two years ago, he successfully hopped on the digitization frenzy and curated the band's online presence, designing Myspace pages and setting up blog interviews to a master effervescent fan base that made Mon's Pukes's upcoming tour possible. He couldn't count the hours he'd spent on the phone with concert venues, graphic designers and photographers, feeding them assurances and promises, many of which would later become unwitting lies, to haggle down production costs. Today, Gabe couldn't even find the words to admit that he was the cause of the attack on Pukes. That shortly before the concert, he'd hung up a fraught phone call with a bank that had culminated in Gabe pleading with an aggravatingly stoaglement to just give him a little more fucking time, despite knowing that she was no more than an incapable messenger. That in his frustration, thick and tangible and hot, he spotted the girl, the ex-fan, walking from the restrooms to rejoin the impatient crowd, like a small animal separated from its family, and steadily making its way back to them. That he approached her, introduced himself as the manager of Mon's pubis, and offered her free band T-shirts if she gave him her phone number. It certainly wasn't his most graceful effort, but similar proposals had scored Gabe plenty of dates with Mon's pubis super fans in the past, mostly bored 20-something-year-olds, tattooed and pierced, looking to be a part of something special. He could do that for them. Gabe was a manager. He could build them up, take their flesh, and loosen it up, and stuff them full of potential, just as he'd done with each member of Mon's pubis, starting with DJ. But he hadn't offered the girl that, just T-shirts. After she refused his offer, claiming that her boyfriend was waiting for her, Gabe grabbed her by the waist and tried to pull her closer. His finger slipped underneath the hem of her top. This was not an accident. Before Gabe could think of what would come next, the girl yelled, slapped his arm away, and rushed into the crowd. "The hell was that even about, man?" Pike said, once Vijay pulled away again. Gabe knew better than to assume that Pike hadn't heard him. His comment about the piercing had most likely been ignored. "I didn't do shit to anyone." The bleeding had trickled to a stop. The lurid, yellow, interior light of the van painted Pike's dark skin sickly. Gabe made out the deep red flecks of dried blood crusted on his lips and chin. Most of it had hardened around one of the fresh snakebite piercings, now torn open and missing its gleaming silver stud. Gabe pinched the skin of his inner arm. He wondered how large of a stud it would take to fill himself up. He had this sudden image of his body like one big swollen piercing, hot to the touch and gaping with missing flesh. You said he was going to get us some security. Sydney appeared from behind the van and planted herself between Gabe and her bandmates, blocking his view of pukes and his wound. Gabe was looking into her eyes, fathomless black, from pupil to slara. She still hadn't removed her contacts, making it impossible for Gabe to tell exactly what part of him that Sydney was staring at, if she was even staring at him at all. For all he knew, she was staring into him and seeing, finding, nothing. What happened to that, huh? If we had a nigga there, this wouldn't have happened. Gabe had a headache, the same throbbing pain that had been punishing him for days now. He sighed again, flatter this time, and waited for his breath to disappear before saying, "I've been working on it." Y'all get that hiring a guard means money, right? And I've been putting everything into the tour. But what did he have to show for it? The truth was that Mon's pubis's East Coast tour was dead, struck down before it even had the chance to wobble to a shaky, yet eager feet. Gabe didn't have anything left than him to mourn with. Sydney made a sound like a scoff. Yeah, okay man. She went to plant herself on the other side of Vijay, pink braids slicing the air behind her. Vijay, who's back, until now, had been turned as she worked on pukes, was finally facing Gabe. Her arms were crossed over her chest, mirroring his stance. He liked that. He hung across his own arms and let them fall limp at his sides. But Vijay didn't do the same, only regarded him under thick eyelashes. Her nose piercings gleamed, a multitude of unremitting eyes. Gabe remembered the first time he'd seen her. The night that unyielding snowfall made the world soft. Long before Mon's pubis was even an idea and thinking that she had more piercings than he'd ever imagined a nose could hold, thinking that she had it all. Gabe found himself listing all the things he didn't have, the respect of the band, money to pay off what they didn't yet know he owed them, someone to massage his neck when his headaches got too bad, a body that didn't feel devoid of its vital organs. It was hard to believe that these were once things that he didn't lack, and harder still to pinpoint when this depression, more profound than any he'd experienced before, began. Who was that Gabe? Vijay asked. There was something about the way she said his name, not angrily or forcefully, but punctuated with that slight infection that Gabe had learned to detect in her words. The one that hinted that, at best, Vijay had an inkling of Gabe's involvement in the attack, and that at worst, she knew exactly what Gabe had done to the ex-fan, and perhaps much more than that, because to speak is to conceal all that which is left unsaid. Maybe that was why Vijay consistently refused to oblige Gabe's request for her to backpuke his vocals, despite having a singing voice more special than anything he'd heard from the dozens of wannabe rock stars he pulled at Mont's pubis' concert. She didn't want to alert the audience that there was more of her to know. Instead, Sydney covered backup vocals and bass, and Vijay stuck to drums. Some angry dude. I don't know, Gabe said. This headache pulsed with an electric intensity. He pressed the one palm, chilled by the biting air to his forehead, closed his eyes, and held it there as he waited for the pain to diminish. Puke's voice reached him through the darkness. She still got that headache, man. Gabe opened his eyes, but it was Vijay who spoke. And what was that dude so mad for, nigga? What did you do? With that, Gabe was sure that Vijay had seen it. He thought that he was the only one to notice in the confusion that followed the knee-high man punching pukes and destroying the piercing that Gabe told him not to get, but this wasn't true. After pukes were coiled from the blow, his body jerking as if something nestled inside his damp chest were demanding to be let out. Sydney got all up in the pink man's face, shouting obscenities in a voice like ice water. In the dim and dyed lights of the fine line submerged in a growing crowd of onlookers, she was almost ethereal, all bright pink braids, white teeth, and boundless eyes. The knee-high man seemed unaffected by Sydney's tirade. Instead, he leaned towards his girlfriend, the ex-fan, with whom he was head-to-head in height, until her purple lips were at his ear. Gabe watched his face shift while the girl whispered, expressions ushered in by a procession of shadows. There was the confusion, then, eyes froling from pukes to Gabe, the realization. His anger seemed to falter and lose its footing before picking up again with renewed vigor. Gabe took that as his cue. He pulled Sydney away from the couple by her shoulder, then herded the band around the stage, threw a back door, and into the bitter night. It was no wonder that the knee-high man had mixed up Gabe and pukes. They shared the same body type, tall, broad-shouldered, thick-limbed and slim-faced, and the same deep brown skin tone that shone blue under the light of the waxing man. Most notably, both Gabe and pukes sported locks that cast sharp, bragged shadows over their eyes. But Gabe's were nowhere near as long as pukes is, because he'd started him a year ago in a desperate and admittedly embarrassing attempt to win back Vijay when she left him for the guitarist. Vijay noticed that, too. She saw everything. I got an idea for a music video, but I don't know how to make it real. Can you help me? It was the first thing Vijay had ever said to Gabe back when she was an obscure solo artist, and he didn't manage anything but a dying electronic store. She said that she'd seen him playing with cameras in the parking lot. Gabe didn't recognize her, but agreed to film and edit the video for next to nothing, because who was he to deny a request from a pretty girl? She was short and ghastly, with thin eyebrows and sharp, dramatic eyeliner. That day, she was leaning over the front counter next to a large window that siphoned sunlight amplified a brilliant white by the snow. The light gave her an archaic complexion, illuminating her tight, coily hair, gathered in two buns, dyed emerald. At first the song was called "Headless Goat" with pearls spilling out of it, because Vijay had apparently been inspired by a sculpture she'd seen of one such thing at an artist market. But Gabe easily convinced her to shorten the title to "Go" and "Purls". It was all distorted bass, fervid drums, and monotonous vocals layered over one another. A cacophony from which Gabe could not discern a single lyric or pick up on a clear melody, but the whisper of a sweet, hesitant chime in the background. But then there was also her voice, and Gabe knew that he had to create something special, because he wanted to work with her again, and he wanted to see her again. The next day, they filmed in a decrepit gazebo nestled invisible and rose short in park, minutes from the electronic store by foot. Gabe had looked forward to it with an intensity that almost startled him in its newness. It was as if his body was home to millions of ants, tunneling through his flesh and getting drunk on his blood. There wasn't enough space for them all. The gazebo had remained undisturbed throughout the snow days, winking white dust sliced smooth and unmarred on every surface of the little structure and the ground around it, glittering in an attempt to steal all attention for itself. Gabe took his position a few feet in the front of the gazebo, while Vijay, wearing a heavy earth brown dress that concealed all but her head, entered it from behind so that her betraying footsteps in the snow wouldn't be visible in the background. As soon as the music started wailing from the portable speaker, Vijay curved and twisted her body and seemingly random motions. Gabe could have said she was both off beat and on it at once. This must have been what it was like to be an insect. As Gabe stepped side to side, supplying drastic angles while keeping his body low as Vijay had instructed, he felt he might be swallowed at any moment. The angle rendered her haunting, taking her figure into starting it inhuman. Gabe was dizzy from all the looking up. His hands were freezing but sweat dampened his body. The den was devastating, amplifying all his senses. Vijay was everything. Gabe had never been more dreadfully mesmerized. When the song ended, Vijay rushed off the gazebo, panting, eye shining, asking Gabe when he thought he could get the footage edited. Her crunchy footsteps in the snow slowed as she registered Gabe's bare arms in shivering form. The hem of her dress was caked in snow. She was born from the white carpet and rid to the spot. I just felt so hot for some reason he explained before she could say anything. He nodded towards his jacket, which he shrugged off midway through the song. It laid discarded in the snow like a pelt. "It's so cold though," Vijay said. She looked like she was about to laugh. "Look." She closed the distance and grabbed his arm, raising it between their faces. Gabe held his breath and he didn't know why. With her other hand, Vijay brushed a calloused palm along Gabe's skin from his elbow to his wrist. It was covered in goosebumps. Vijay looked up to meet Gabe's eyes, emerald hair pulsing with the shadows of snowflakes. It was then that he noticed that the snow had picked up again. "Gus pimples," she said. Gabe furrowed his eyebrows. He'd never heard anyone call them that before. Vijay smiled, first a flicker, and then a grin like the daylight. "You're full of them." Gabe couldn't hold his breath any longer. "You're full." He gasped. Gabe. Vijay, Bobby pukes, and Sydney were staring at him. He felt as if he just resurfaced from that feverish delirious state between consciousness and unconsciousness that reminded him of being a child sick with the flu. "Who the hell was that guy, and what did you do?" Sydney said. "What did I do?" Gabe ran to hand over his locks and looked up, searching and hoping for signs of snowfall. "I didn't do shit. That's the problem," peaks groaned. "Nigga, there's not gonna be a tour." I messed up. Sydney narrowed her eyes. Missed up how? I spent a lot of money on shit, like drinks and bitches and shit. Once he started, it was easier to keep going. I don't know. I just wanted to feel good. Not a lot of shit makes me feel good these days. Sydney buried her face in her hands, and it was the worst thing Gabe had ever seen. The silence didn't last as long as he thought it would. Sydney hit the side of the van. The sound sunk its canines into Gabe's head. He winced and pressed his cold fingers to his temples. "Why am I not fucking surprised?" Sydney said. And there was that ice water voice again. It invaded his body, slipping through his pores and adding a chill to his blood that should have been a welcome respite to the now unbearable heat of his gaping wound body. But it wasn't. Gabe already regretted confessing the truth about the East Coast store, admitting that he'd come on to the knee high man's girlfriend might have made for a more relieving and fulfilling experience. "You stay feeding us all this shit about feeling sick, depressed, whatever the fuck," Sydney continued. "But all I'm hearing is you aren't doing nothing. You don't have anything in you. Fucking useless." She disappeared around the van. Pukes watched her go, then looked wordlessly at Gabe. He parted his cracked lips as if to say something. He closed them. He searched Gabe's face, eyes darting bird-like, and when he didn't find anything, he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and dialed a number. No doubt aiming to find out the extent of the damage that Gabe had done. He said something that Gabe couldn't hear to Vijay, whose back was turned again, and rubbed her back. The pile of red stained tissues tumbled from Pukes's lap and melted into the wet concrete as he pulled his legs into the van. This was the only snowfall Gabe would get tonight, a mess of bloody defemora. Gabe walked to his car. He'd stopped riding to Giggs in the van with Mom's pubis when Vijay and Pukes became a thing. It made things less awkward for everyone. Now, Gabe heard Vijay's light footsteps behind him. He arrived at his car, a lightly used CRV that he bought a year ago with the money he'd made off Mom's pubis's digital pulse. Vijay stopped at the passenger side door. As he slipped the key into his door, Gabe considered not letting her in. Whether in a petty attempt to show her that he didn't need her, or because he truly wanted to be alone, he wasn't sure. But once he was in his seat, he unlocked her door. He couldn't get himself. Who was he, if not the guy that helped himself to the thing he wanted, as it tangled in front of his face? Gabe didn't start the car. They let the silent stretch on for a while. It was weird, Gabe thought, that this quiet creature was supposed to be part of a sludge metal band. He grabbed the pill bottle from the door panel and screwed the cap and shook out two capsules of ibuprofen. When he didn't find any water, he swallowed them dry. Vijay still wasn't saying anything, just staring into the mouth of the dark alley before them with her lips pressed tight, so he thought of goat and pearls. The completed music video came out a nonsense and phantom escort spectacle that looked exactly how the song sounded. Vijay said that it was just what she wanted. They uploaded it to YouTube and it peaked at 6,000 views. Gabe, feeling so heavy with snow and song, went on to create Montes pubis. There was the flick of a lighter. Gabe looked over and watched Vijay take a drag from a cigarette. She hadn't bothered to crack the door. She exhaled. Want me to take you home? Vijay started to bring the cigarette back to her lips but paused mid play, making a face like she was in pain before putting it out in the cup holder. Yeah, she said, but Gabe still didn't start the car. He was waiting for Vijay to bring up the east coast tour, the knee high man, pukes, the ex-fan, his headache. She didn't. We're gonna get a new manager, by the way, she said, in case that weren't obvious. Okay. Vijay retrieved the cigarette and flipped her lighter, but this time she didn't light it. She extinguished a flame and rolled a cigarette between her fingers. Gabe wanted her to make up her mind and either smoke the thing or not. "You know what I just realized?" she said. Through the rear view mirror, Gabe spotted his coat lying among a mess of cans and crumpled paper in the back seat. He didn't move. What? I never really told you why I stopped seeing you. She looked at Gabe, but he didn't say anything. She continued, "You just had this thing about you. Like you can make me sad without even doing nothing." Vijay was pressing the cigarette tighter now between her fingers, crinkled strips of tobacco fluttered onto the seat. I noticed her early on, you know, but I ignored it. And I wish I hadn't, 'cause at some point, I found myself standing at the edge of a giant hole, and I got all scared, 'cause I almost fell in there with you. She shook her head. I almost fell in you. Vijay didn't say it, but she didn't have to. Gabe was already looking for the right string of words. It was hidden somewhere in him, that secret code that would keep her from depriving him of the pleasure of working with her, of just looking at her sometimes, one of those few things that made him feel good. Gabe rubbed his arms. He felt the little bumps dotting his skin, and tried to imagine that they weren't just his body's response to the cold, or the fence of reflex, some ancient instinct to make himself appear larger than he really was, because he never felt as afraid as he did now. He tried to imagine that there was something beautiful taking up all that empty space under his skin, like thousands of tiny pearls. [Music] Thanks for tuning in, Lit listeners. If you enjoyed the 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 rocking and reading and getting lit. Rock Is Lit. [Music]
Congratulations to the winner of the first Bill Hallberg Rock ‘n’ Roll Short Story Contest in the undergraduate college student category, Senami Kugblenu! Listen to Senami read her winning story, “Goat and Pearls,” in this episode.
Senami Kugblenu is a Nigerian-American writer, Johnston scholar, and Honors student at UNC-Chapel Hill. She is majoring in English & Comparative Literature and French and minoring in Information Systems. Her main interest is in fiction writing, but she has also explored copywriting as a copy staffer at ‘The Daily Tar Heel’, technical writing, and print and publishing. Her writing has been published in Cornell University's ‘Rainy Day’. She is treasurer of Earthtones at UNC, a multimedia art collective of POC creatives. Senami worked as a Student Assistant in the Microforms and Government Documents department at Davis Library until leaving this position to spend a semester abroad in Montpellier, France.
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”
Doom Style Industrial Metal—Torn Flesh//Royalty Free No Copyright Background Music
Royalty Free Heavy Metal Instrumental – Game Over
Pointless Tool Imitation—Alternative Metal—Royalty Free Music
[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
Senami Kugblenu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/senami-kugblenu/
Christy Alexander Hallberg’s website: https://www.christyalexanderhallberg.com/rockislit
Christy Alexander Hallberg on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube: @ChristyHallberg
Rock is Lit on Instagram: @rockislitpodcast
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