Album cover by John Wilkins
Dear Sun by John Wilkins
Track 12: Title Track
Koi sat backstage at the Finnegan Lancaster Centre, where a Battle of the Synths was being held within the massive, domed stadium. Most of the electronic musicians were still in high school, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was a teen-exclusive event; Koi knew a few bearded musicians had come in from Toronto, and a few stragglers from the mid-Nineties IDM scene would be making an appearance as well. He had learned all this from Ryan, who had promised to keep tabs on the local music scene for him.
As Koi sat backstage at the FLC, sipping his Orange Crush, he felt a trembling nervousness.
‘Well,’ he said to himself, covering his mouth with his can. He then shook his head.
He tried thinking about other things: he thought about the Orange Crush, which sat in his stomach like acid sitting on a thin layer of plastic wrap; he thought about Haskell and then tried not to; he thought about Dana; he thought about Ryan and how Ryan would be writing him into a novel.
Koi knew he wouldn’t read the novel due to his dyslexia. He had tried reading the stories of Josh Tierney and saw that Ryan had read them too. He wondered if Ryan’s Koi was him or if it was Josh Tierney’s version of him, and if so, who was Josh Tierney and why did Josh Tierney know about him? Perhaps he had read about him in Ryan’s stories.
Koi set the can of Orange Crush on a wooden step. He watched as the FLC stagehands walked busily to-and-fro, each of them putting more effort into this than he ever would – all he had to do was get up on stage, push a button and unleash his creations into the stadium. And he was sweating like a pig as this would be the single most difficult thing he had yet to do in his entire life.
An overdriven synth faded to a tremor. The crowd cheered, their coarse cries jiggling the muscles beneath Koi’s skin. A stagehand with a headset came up to Koi and told him he was on next. Koi looked up at the stagehand’s face and then looked at the stagehand’s knees. The stagehand walked away and a pair of sweating scenesters dripped past Koi in their black leather jackets, skulls dangling from their zippers on chains of silver.
Koi muttered ‘three two one’ under his breath and got up. He grabbed his notebook from a nearby table. On his notebook was a sticker; all of the other electronic musicians he had seen live had had stickers on their notebooks, so he decided he should have one too.
His sticker was of Kowie – it had come free with Kowie’s most recent album, Had Had Had. Had Had Had was a very good album, Koi felt, and he secretly listened to it while lying awake at night, keeping away thoughts of Haskell.
The stagehand came back.
‘What’s your handle, man?’
Koi looked at him. He didn’t understand the question.
‘What’s your name? There’s a blank spot here . . . I was told it was you, but there’s no name. We need to shout something over the PA, you know?’
‘Uh. What?’
‘Just give me a name.’
‘Uh . . .’
Koi accessed the folder in his mind that contained all the words he liked.
‘Radar.’
‘Radar? Okay. Radar. Radar, you’re up.’
Koi nodded and headed in the wrong direction. The stagehand pointed him in the right direction and Koi was soon onstage.
In the middle of the stage was a folding table. Beyond that was an audience consisting of more people than Koi had ever seen in one place. He set his notebook on top of a bloodstain on the table, doing his best not to look at the crowd.
That first glance at the audience had been enough to send him to bad places; his sweat was electric and he could already feel his hair becoming drenched and wild. He wondered which was worse – how much of a wreck he felt like or how much he looked like one.
A strange huffing sound irritated his spine. He realised he was panting, so he stopped panting and swallowed. A stagehand came onstage and helped him out with the cables. They could only communicate in primitive, makeshift sign language as the sea of white noise drowned out any words. Koi was at least grateful he could not pick out a single shout or cry from the crowd – he could not hear if they were making fun of him or yelling at him to make room for real talent, for people who would have been hitting Play by now.
‘Okay, you’re good to go,’ said the stagehand’s display of thumb.
‘Uh, okay,’ said Koi’s nervous nod.
The stagehand left the stage and Koi was left with his thousands of new friends. He leant towards the microphone beside his notebook. He looked over the crowd, bristling with heads of brown hair, and he opened his mouth as if he were about to speak. The microphone caught the opening of his throat and sent a shiver of rusted screeching through the crowd.
Koi winced and then looked at the crowd again. For a moment he thought about Haskell. He thought about her standing in the back of this huge centre, looking at him.
‘Okay,’ Koi said. He hit Play.
Track 0: Uh
Track 1: The Nerd Wave
Track 2: Playing Koi
Track 3: She had said the only words that could have affected him totally and truly
Track 4: A Sudden Loud Knocking
Track 5: A Two-Man Play to Be Performed on a City Bus
Track 6: Now It's Summer
Track 7: Study of a Drawing by Bobby Myers
Track 8: Loose Change
Track 9: Foam
Track 10: The First Person
Track 11: Please Be True
Track 12: Title Track