 Only four songs from Japandroids ended up on this countdown, which would have been very surprising to me a decade ago, when I was obsessed with the drummer/guitar 2-man band, possibly because my 2nd novel featured a drummer/guitar 2-teen band who were in many senses attempting to emulate the Japandroids. There was a whole scene with interspersed lyrics of "Lucifer's Symphony" but I couldn't figure out a way to contact the band and my publisher didn't have a way and so we didn't get the rights and I had to make up lyrics for their own music to substitute for that song. So here it is now. The cut scene from The Best Hardcore Band in PA: Jeff signals for me start, the way I’m supposed to start, clicking my sticks together with a quick riff on the snare. There’s some reverberation on the microphone when Jeff starts out droning, low guttural vocals that match his guitar, just like Japandroids does. There isn’t much drumming at the start, a few repeated steps—steady bass then the snare between kicks. And we’ve done this part all afternoon so it’s almost rote memory now, thirty seconds, sixty seconds, ninety seconds of building before breaking with the wave of anticipation as the song explodes—Jeff faster than me almost immediately—so I pick up my pace, elbows straight with alternating repeats, cymbals and bass, slipping to the snares, both hands focused on my quickening sticks as Jeff’s voice emerges around me, filling the space with his sound. “We know what you’ve done. We know what you’ve done!” The adrenaline sweeps through me as Jeff’s vocals turn to screams, my foot on the bass trying to keep up with his pace but no one can drum at this clip. I almost miss and lose my sticks but Jeff keeps playing so I step up my steps, not on the beat of the song anymore but keeping my own tempo, kicking on the down beat, spinning through an awkward fill as Jeff turns to me, pointing. “There’s no blood me.” I scream the response: “No blood on me!” “There’s no blood on me.” “No blood on me!” “There’s no blood on me.” “No blood on me!” Jeff gives me the cut-it sign from the side of my eye but it doesn’t register in the part of my brain still playing, this rush of energy sucking me in like the endorphin spin at the end of a cross-country race, my sticks on the snare then splashing at the cymbals as Jeff sets down his guitar and moves behind me, his hands on my shoulders. I keep playing. He squeezes on my shoulders, his breath on my neck, and I’m slamming at the skins, faster and faster as he pushes closer, his fingers on my skin ringing down my spine until I elbow him on instinct and he yanks me back, off the kit and into the wall, down to the floor. And then we’re wrestling, clutching and grabbing on the faded brown carpeting in the corner of the basement. Jeff is stronger than me so he’s holding me down but I’m not putting up much resistance or just enough to keep him guessing because he’s peppering me with punches and I'm breathing him in, the ocean breeze or the summer sun, the sweat on his skin. It’s everything. "Lucifer's Symphony" - Japandroids // No Singles (2010) Comments are closed.
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