Hard Times In Tourist Town

Written for Lynn McKenzie ’s now sadly redundant Musical Muse contest.

No prompt as such, just things of a musical theme.

Hard Times in Tourist Town

Part I

Daniel worked a dead-end job in what he viewed as a dead-end town. He spent the summers waiting for tables of tourists and the winter wishing there were more people around to boost his tips. Not exactly the stuff of dreams, not even the stuff of nightmares really - just pale existence.

Daniel had dreams; it just felt like they had been cut off at the knees.

Every night he would trudge home from work, slump down on his couch and pick up his guitar. He would then loosen his fingers playing a few old favourites; Dylan, Springsteen, maybe Simon and Garfunkel. Once he had warmed up, he would start work on one of his own compositions. His spirits would rise with his voice.

Once Daniel felt happy with a song he would switch on his old tape recorder.

Daniel could sing and play well. He also knew a lot of songs, some popular, others less so. He could easily have played weddings and other functions. However, wedding gigs were not where Daniel’s dreams put him. He wanted to play his own songs. He wanted other people to hear his melodies and listen to his words.

Here the problem lay.

All the bars in town catered for the tourist trade. Apparently tourists wanted to hear traditional music. Scottish Country Music, with bagpipes and fiddles. Music played by people dressed in kilts. It didn’t seem to occur to anybody that the locals never, not ever, listened to this type of music by choice. That didn’t matter; the bars in town were only interested in hiring musicians in full Highland dress, with ‘Braw, Bricht, moon-licht nicht’ accents. Daniel couldn’t get a gig all summer and in the winter the bars were empty, so they didn’t want to hire musicians.

One night, as Daniel walked home on tired feet, pondering his plight trapped in tourist town, the raucous sound of rock music rent the night air. Not just any rock music, but live rock music, being played by a band - a real band!

The racket was rattling out from behind a nearby garage door. Daniel tentatively approached before knocking on the door. That’s no use, they’ll never hear that, he thought, before giving the door a booming kick. The music abruptly stopped and the door creaked upwards. A sweating face blinked out at Daniel.

“It’s okay,” the face said, “We’ll cut out the noise in a minute.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Daniel blurted, “I just wanted to speak to you guys. You see, I play music too.”

“No way,” the face exclaimed, “Come on in then, pal!”

Daniel ducked under the door to be met by three equally sweat shined, but smiling, faces.

“Guys, this is….What’s your name, pal?” the face asked.

“I’m Daniel,” he replied.

“Right, Daniel, on the drums we have Mikey, on bass we have Tommy, on guitar we have Terrance and I’m Joe. Together we are….well, we haven’t got a name yet.” Joe laughed.

Daniel laughed too, “I’m not surprised, you probably couldn’t think of one with all that din!”

“Ha ha, very funny, big man,” Joe said, with a mock look of hurt.

“I’m just kidding, you guys sounded pretty good, even through the garage door.”

“Thanks, man.” Joe smiled, “What brought you to our door? Besides the thunderous noises from within, I mean.”

“Well, I’ve been looking for some more musicians around town. To see if they knew any way of getting gigs.”

“Aw, you as well, man? We cannae get a gig anywhere either. It would be great if we had our own place,” Joe confided.

Daniel didn’t know it, but at that moment seeds were planted, seeds that would grow into something very special. The lads sat chatting and laughing into the night. Daniel even borrowed a battered old acoustic guitar and played some of his songs for them. He soaked up the applause at the end of each song. It felt good to share his creations.

The weeks rolled on. Daniel had four new friends, but none of them seemed any closer to finding a gig. Then it happened, one of the customers left their music magazine on the table when they left the restaurant. Daniel cleared the table and took the magazine with him when he went for his break. There, on page 37, something caught his eye, something that would help his dreams come true.

He couldn’t wait to show The Braw Brichts, as Joe’s band were now named. After closing up he rushed round to Joe’s with the magazine clutched in his hand.

“Look at this!” he cried, thrusting the publication in front of Joe’s face.

“Truckfest?” Joe looked puzzled, “What’s that?”

“It’s a bunch of bands that run their own festival. They hire a big flat-bed trailer as the stage; hire generators to power the amps; set up a beer tent. We don’t need our own place; we can hire one for the day!” Daniel explained.

A half smile crossed Joe’s face, “That’s great, I just see one problem. There’s only going to be you and us playing, not enough for a ‘fest’”

“I’ve thought about that. The bars in town won’t give us a gig, but if we let one of them run the beer tent they might let us put up posters to advertise. We’ll root out any more acts that might be hiding in the town that way. Plus, we can use contacts from this magazine to find bigger bands that might come and play here. We’ll need more posters than just in the bars though; we’ll have to flyer the whole city closer to the time, to reel in the punters.”

The other half of Joe’s smile appeared, “Wow, you got it all figured out.”

“Well, not really, but it’s a start. I don’t think I really need to ask this, but are you in?” Daniel asked.

“Hell yeah!” Joe confirmed.

*****************

Part II

The next few weeks became a blur of motion. Preparations for the gig filled all the available time Daniel and the lads had. It seemed a lot of budding, and rather frustrated, rock stars lay hidden in the depths of the city. The one day show now had ten musical acts including the Star Attraction: Belle and Sebastian. Daniel was most excited by their inclusion on the bill. The Glasgow band had been a favourite of his for years. They’re story telling lyrics and quaint melodies could often be heard drifting from his window late at night. In addition to the musical line-up, Daniel had also secured a couple of comedians to compere the show. One was a local who had ambitions to become a full time comic instead of doing funny Scots accents for the tourists, the other was a foul-mouthed American comedian who went by the name of Root. Root had recently emerged on the American comedy circuit and had quickly gained recognition. Daniel had no idea why Root wanted to play to a fledgling Scottish music festival, but he was no less glad of it.

Of course, the entertainment was not all that had to be arranged. Joe had been set the task of finding a suitable venue and organising transport to bring the people out to the site. As Joe discovered, organising transport can prove tricky when you don’t know how many people are going to be using it. Terrance, meanwhile, had been assigned the task of persuading his father to allow one of his fields to be filled with people and music for a Saturday in August. In the end, Terrance had to tell his father there was a chance of him becoming famous ‘like that farmer who hosts the Glastonbury Festival.’ They’d all had a good laugh as Terrance told the tale; his dad genuinely seemed to believe he would become a minor celebrity.

With preparations appearing in hand, Daniel was left to fret about his set. He worried that the songs he had worked so hard on and poured so much of himself into would be poorly received. A particular worry was that nobody, apart from the Braw Brichts, would ever have heard the songs before. As luck would have it, Joe and the boys had a little surprise that would restore Daniel’s confidence in his music.

“Listen,” Joe said, “We’ve been practicing one of your pieces and we wondered if you’d like to play a number with us at the festival.”

“You really think my songs are that good?” Daniel was flattered, “How did you learn it? Which song?”

“Och, remember we taped a few things the other night? Well I couldn’t stop listening to one of the songs on there. The one that goes: ‘Sha la la la la, Sha la la.’”

“Oh,” Daniel’s face fell, “That’s not one of mine, that’s a Ryan Adam’s song.”

“I know,” Joe laughed, “Should’ve seen your face. Honestly, though, we learnt that one about escape. Not sure what the title is.”

Daniel smiled with relief. “You’re right, that would sound great with the band instead of just me on my own. It’s called ‘Escape From Nowhere’ actually.”

“Cool title,” Joe nodded, “We’d better have a few practice sessions, then you can come out during our set and we’ll give ‘em hell. That’ll be easier than the lot of us crowding on stage during your slot.”

*****************

Part III

Perhaps frustrated at its own growing irrelevance, the church attempted to latch onto the mild wave of hype the festival had attracted, no doubt wishing to garner some of the publicity for themselves.

In the run up – though it might be added it took a long time for the righteous to catch wind of what was going on on their doorstep – the church had begun kicking up a stink. The church who pressured the local council to maintain early curfews on the pubs and clubs, long after they had been extended in other cities. The church who lacked the foresight or resources to provide car parking for its faithful flocks and subsequently clogged the streets ‘til noon every Sunday. The church who pressured to disallow a ‘sex shop’ in the town, even though such an outlet might be just the thing to keep people interested in those marriages the kirk seemed to hold in so much regard. The church, the lone dissenting voice desperately trying not to be drowned out by the anticipated squeal of guitar and kick of drum. Naturally, they wanted the event to finish before midnight, or better still, be cancelled all together.

The matter was an unneeded worry and a potential spanner in the works.

Joe was livid, “The fucking kirk! What’s it tae do wi’ them?”

“That’s just it, man. They see that this isn’t their place, that they hold no sway here, so they have to crush it,” Daniel tried to disguise his own frustration.

“Aye, but how are they putting the pressure on the council? I mean, what’s their justification?”

“Well, the gig’s on a Saturday, right?”

“Aye. And?”

“And, the day after Saturday is The Sabbath Day! Our rowdy crowd’ll be screaming and yelling into the dawn of the day of rest.”

Mikey cut in with a rare good idea, “I think I know a way to placate them...”

It meant their perfect day was descending into compromise, appeasement and pandering to fools, but it was the only way.

The kirk lapped up the suggestion that a Christian rock band be included in the line-up – naturally with prominent billing.

Luckily, Root emerged to shake up the crowd after ‘The Followers’ finished their set.

“What the fuck was that? If you ask me - which you didn’t, I know – Christianity has no place in rock, I mean RAAAWK music.”

The crowd brayed in appreciation of his outburst, so he continued, “When you hear AC/DC playing hymns, let me know – then we can talk. Go back to choir practice, you bunch of charlatans!”

There was a wicked glint in Root’s eyes as the crowd erupted once more.

“I promise nothing but the finest of the Devil’s music for the remainder of the evening, folks!”

Daniel had never heard Belle and Sebastian referred to as the Devil’s music, but you had to admire the sentiment.

*****************

Part IV

Daniel looked out over the sea of people. He couldn’t resist starting with the only cover version he would play that night, although he had altered the lyrics:

Come you ladies and you gentlemen, a-listen to my song.
Sing it to you right, but you might think it's wrong.
Just a little glimpse of a story I'll tell
"Bout an East Coast city that you all know well.
It's hard times in the city,
Livin' down in Tourist town.

THE END{/enter}

Word Count: 2116

A sequel to this piece can be viewed here:

ID: 1173019   (Rated: 18+) Sunset Songs  A musician attempts to return to everyday life after his latest tour. by Chester Chumley

Author’s Note:

Whilst this story is entirely fictional it is loosely based on my hometown, Inverness. Infested is probably the wrong word, but I’ll use it anyway. Each summer the town became infested with tourists and many bars would play the traditional Scottish music as mentioned here. It must be said that it wasn’t that bad a place to live.

The song verse at the end and the title of the piece were taken from Bob Dylan’s Hard Times in New York Town.

What else? Oh yeah, ‘Braw, Bricht, moon-licht nicht’ comes from a traditional Scottish song called “Wee Deoch An Doris’. Basically it means it’s a splendid bright moonlit night.

Cannae is Scottish dialect, it means cannot.

© Copyright 2006 Chester Chumley (UN: chesterchumly at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Chester Chumley has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.