right in the eye, I shake it once aggressively before throwing it down.
“Ungrateful lad, pain in my arse,” he complains after deftly catching the bottle in midair.
“I learned from the best!” I close the door behind me and turn to my snickering mum.
“Oh, he’s gonna make you pay for that one.”
“Probably,” I admit, feeling tired. My family is a lot.
I head up to my bedroom, closing the door behind me before plopping on my bed and opening my laptop while taking a bite of pizza. My clock shows it’s nearly ten. I’ve waited long enough. It’s been up for at least an hour, so I won’t look like a completely overeager idiot. Probably.
Behind the Music
By Vada Carsewell
I didn’t choose the thug life; the thug life chose me. Well, okay, probably not. I’m a white girl from nowhere Michigan. But on Friday night, LBJayz struck hard and fast, and whatever they’re selling, I’m buying. Forever. Front man Carlos “El Burro” Dominguez oozes star power, and his vocals burned in only the best possible way. “Fat Chopper” spins a dizzying backbeat that somehow manages to be both the good kind of fuck-you and the sensual awakening we all need.
Am I making sense? I don’t even know, man. I’m a purist, born and raised on vitamin D milk and Pink Floyd, but I feel a conversion coming …
My eyes drink in her words, and I’m grinning ear to ear. She’s incredible. I’ve been reading Vada’s Behind the Music blog religiously for two years, and it sounds just like her. It’s biting and real and brilliant. I don’t think many people realize she’s only eighteen. I’ve seen her blog referenced by top reviewers in the music industry. Of course, no one wants to give her or Phil credit; they’re out of a little college town dive bar. But they definitely have something. I always retweet her article like a fanboy, but she probably thinks it’s Cullen. I’m too self-conscious to tell her what a fan I am. At least publicly.
L8RSK8R comments:
Well, milk does a body good … No.
Pink Floyd, eh? I think my dad once played … God.
What’s the best kind of fuck you could imagine? Pathetic, Greenly.
Great review. You’ve convinced me!
I groan, shutting my laptop, and check my watch. I could go downstairs. Chances are good Zack’s still around. Instead, I move to my keyboard in the corner of the room and carefully plug in my headphones. No point in letting anyone else know I’m tooling around on this thing.
Or that I’ve been tooling around on it for two years. Or three. Give or take.
Ever since the Great Greenly Showdown of 2017, as far as anyone knows, I don’t play. I don’t sing. I don’t write. I don’t so much as fiddle around on the keys. The beautiful Steinway my parents bought me when I was eight sits out of tune in the front room, covered in a generous layer of time. I will go out of my way to cut through the dining room to avoid seeing it. It hurts deep down in my soul to see it dusty.
As long as I live under my parents’ roof, and under the eye of my former music producer dad, that’s how things have to be. Me, playing my cheap Casio-knockoff keyboard in my room, whisper-humming under my breath behind a locked door.
I’ve unlocked my door to my mum holding my laundry and studying me suspiciously on more than one occasion, but I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m watching porn.
Her knowing the truth would be worse.
If they got wind of me playing again, it would mean lessons and YouTube channels and flying into London to meet with a “friend” of my dad’s. It would mean Lasik surgery. Again. And personal training and kale diets and expensive haircuts. It would be months away from my mum because her job won’t let her travel. It would be forgoing college altogether.
It would mean singing someone else’s songs.
Because even if they say you can write your own stuff, they don’t mean it. They want you to sing whatever radio-friendly pop music they push in-house, and after you’ve been sucked dry and become too much of a liability, only then will they release you to write your own lyrics with an indie label for a tenth of the money.
Not that money matters. It’s all of it. I don’t need it. I like writing music. I like singing the songs I write. But I also like being me. Just me. Not