Rock All Night(118)

There were things that stood out, of course – both good and bad.

One of my favorites was the time we were walking down the street on one of the band’s nights off. I don’t remember what city; it doesn’t even matter. But Derek, Ryan, Riley, and I were passing by a karaoke bar downtown when we heard somebody inside start singing one of Bigger’s hits.

“HEY!” Riley yelled, drunker than usual. “That’s our song!”

Ryan seemed to have an almost telepathic ability to tell what she was thinking. “Riley – no – ”

But it was too late. She was already inside, up on stage, and grabbing the mic away from the startled singer.

“That’s not how you sing that song!” she yelled. “THIS is how you sing that song!”

As we raced inside after her, she launched into one of the worst renditions imaginable.

It became readily apparent why she was the drummer.

Only a handful of people knew who she was. They cheered and took pictures – but the rest of the place was mystified at who the tiny punk-rock pixie was butchering ‘Go All Night.’

Fifteen seconds later, Derek bounded up on stage and grabbed the mic away from her.

“That’s not how you sing that song,” he said in his rumbling voice. “This is how you sing that song.”

Then he proceeded to give one of the most awesome mini-concerts in the history of the world.

The entire place knew who he was, and they went INSANE.

Then some people recognized Ryan, and he was thrust up onstage, protesting all the way. So it turned into Derek singing the main lyrics to three Bigger hits, Ryan singing backup, and Riley drumming on the speakers with a pair of spoons she stole from the front row of patrons.

It was f*cking awesome. And news of it basically blew up Twitter and Instagram over the next fifteen minutes.

Now that was a good memory.

A not-so-good memory was when Derek asked me what I talked about with Riley on our wild night out.

After relaying several of the things I’d learned about her, I happened to mention the whole thing about Ryan writing the melodies to the songs.

Oh boy.

Derek immediately went cold and angry. There was a palpable temperature drop in the air.

“Well, that’s a load of bullshit.”

I tried to clarify. “She wasn’t saying he wrote all the songs – ”

“I know exactly what she was saying,” Derek seethed, “and she’s wrong. She doesn’t know shit. Ryan and I work on stuff all the time when she’s not around. She’s a f*cking drummer, for God’s sake. She doesn’t know shit about songwriting. It doesn’t matter who comes up with – you know what, f*ck that, at least half the melodies are mine. I come up with just as much shit as Ryan does. And he doesn’t come up with any of the lyrics, so f*ck Riley.”

Jesus.

“I think she just meant – ”

“I don’t give a f*ck what she meant. If she wants to be a f*cking idiot, then good for her. But I’d be careful what you print from her, because she obviously has her head up her ass.”

All I thought was, I’m glad I didn’t tell you the part about how you turn into a dick if your ego doesn’t get stroked.

He even lit into her about it at the next band meeting.

While he was yelling at her and Ryan was trying to calm him down by agreeing with him that, yes, Derek did write half the melodies, Riley looked over at me.

Sorry, I mouthed silently, cringing and wincing.

But she just looked amused and gave me a look like, See? What’d I tell you?

She’d been right.

Which scared me even more about some of the other things she’d said.

To his credit, Derek realized in the next few hours that he’d been a complete douchebag.

First he apologized to me.

“I don’t think I’m the one you should be apologizing to,” I said.

So he sucked it up and tracked them both down separately, and apologized in my presence for being a complete f*cking * about the whole thing.

Ryan was nicer than any human being ought to be. “Nothing to apologize for, man.”


Riley, however… was Riley.

“SO… you’re saying Ryan actually does write all the tunes, then, Word Boy?”

There was no apology forthcoming for the fight that happened after that.





100




There were some sexual memories that stood out, too.

Not all of them were good.

Like the fight we had about oral sex. Specifically blowjobs.

Fellatio is not my favorite act in the sexual pantheon. I don’t think I’m very good at it, and I always feel like I have a loaded gun in my mouth, ready to shoot a bunch of bad-tasting gunk at my tonsils.

Blech. I have the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

But I’ve done it for boyfriends in the past. Not often, but I figure if they went down on me, I should reciprocate.

Derek went down on me several times. The first time he was great – that time he ‘relaxed’ me. But he only did it a couple times after that. As time wore on, it became obvious that his enthusiasm lay elsewhere.

But I still had the whole guilt thing about him going down on me and I hadn’t returned the favor yet. So there was this running dialogue in my head: Should I go down on him? He did it for me. Should I? Is he expecting it?