Chapter 47
“HYSTERIA!!”
Suyeon shouted out the song title like thunder, then began riding the rhythm. Some audience members looked displeased at the name, while others seemed unsure what song it was.
"Waaah!!"
But most of the audience cheered.
Because anyone familiar with rock and songs from the 2000s onward had probably heard it at least once.
Then came an intense synthesizer sound arranged for keyboard.
A drum fill came in.
The guitar exploded, accompanied by the guitarist’s dynamic, rhythm-driven movements.
But the bass was different.
The bassist had one foot planted on the monitor speaker and was plucking away roughly, her face expressionless. Her fingerpicking was slightly uneasy and rough… almost unrefined. And yet that was precisely why it suited the atmosphere of the song so perfectly.
And the sun was just about to set. Outside the window, the ominous purple sunset painted the sky as it let out its final scream.
The bass line continued without breaking even once, and combined with the specially tuned speakers, it was more than enough to half-paralyze the crowd. Those standing near the front of the speakers felt not merely the air trembling, but as though a massage device were pounding against their heads.
‘The formation is a little different.’
Watching the high school girl with slightly elaborate makeup hammer away at the bass without changing her expression, Ayoon remembered the first performance she had seen. At that show in Yongsan, the guitar had taken center stage while the others stayed slightly farther back.
But now the bass was positioned separately at the front left, while the other band members had each claimed their own spots.
Thanks to that, Ayoon could get a close look at the bassist she had been unable to see properly because of the distance at the first performance.
She had a solid, powerfully built frame, with long, straight limbs. She was tall, had large hands, and was big in all sorts of other ways too… Anyway, she was that kind of girl.
‘She looks incredibly cool.’
Before coming to see the performance at this place today, Ayoon had fought her way through countless hardships and difficulties. Finding the band’s social media, figuring out what these girls even did… She had scraped together information from the ground up, along with all the posts she encountered during the process.
Even to Ayoon, who was familiar with the internet, many of the posts were clearly malicious. They would praise the guitarist’s skill, then leave comments like, ‘Ah, but the bass is kind of…’ They were the sort of posts meant to needle people.
Ayoon liked band music, but she did not know much about it. The friends she had brought were the same. Talk about instrumental harmony, the guitar, the bass—none of it meant much to them. She honestly could not tell how well the bassist playing now was playing.
But even without knowing much about that, she could tell one thing.
‘The bass… is incredibly cool.’
The expressionless face seemed to show a steely determination. Yet her fingers moved so flamboyantly that they seemed to reveal exactly what a swan’s feet looked like as they struggled to keep it afloat beneath a calm surface.
Seeing that, Ayoon thought that bass characters in anime always seemed to be cool too. Akiyama Mio, Yamada Ryo, Imai Lisa, and so on. Somehow, she felt as though she had liked bass characters for a long time…
The human body was not objective. It did not accept external sensations exactly as they were, but filtered and adjusted them according to its own standards.
The classic example was the nose in front of one’s eyes. Under normal circumstances, humans would have no choice but to remain aware of their noses. But because of the brain’s adjustments, people lived without being conscious of them.
The same was true of the current situation.
The sound setup at Paradox was not so loud that it buried every other sound, but it was certainly loud enough to destroy the image of the bass as the so-called ‘inaudible instrument.’
This was intentional. The bass had been deliberately emphasized as part of the trick that ‘anything sounds better when it’s loud.’
Of course, Iseo’s bass skills were decent. But Myeongjeon did not want them to sound merely ‘decent’… That was why he had repeatedly fine-tuned the venue’s setup.
As a result, every audience member except the hipsters who heard everything negatively came away with the impression, ‘Wow, she really plays bass well.’
And to make sure that impression was firmly etched into their minds, the band had prepared one more device.
A brief instrumental section began with a high note signaling the climax.
Amid the audience’s cheers, the performance began. After that came the part where a flashy guitar solo would normally enter, but…
“Huh, what?”
“A bass solo?”
The guitar solo lowered its volume and receded into the background, while the bass filled its place… A sixteenth-note bass solo came charging in, emphasizing the higher register and incorporating a touch of J-rock-style slap technique.
The audience cheered at the bass’s flashy slap after it had shown nothing but groove until then. A few people scoffed that it was some kind of J-rock cosplay, but they were a small minority. Most of the reactions were expressions of admiration at how well the elements had been blended.
‘This wasn’t supposed to be played this way.’
As he played guitar, Myeongjeon glanced at Iseo. She was playing the bass coolly, without trembling or making a single mistake. It was the complete opposite of how she usually wandered around with a silly grin on her face. She seemed like she might become quite popular.
Myeongjeon had originally planned a bass solo in the style of John Entwistle of The Who, who was known as ‘Thunderfingers.’ He had thought that a solo that mercilessly pounded out the rhythm at lightning speed would suit this song perfectly, but Iseo had a slightly different idea.
"I think this kind of thing is better. Slap itself is kind of cool, too…"
The bass line Iseo had brought in while saying that blended into the song quite well. It was flashy without going overboard, using just the right amount of slap.
It seemed their calculations had paid off. The audience members standing in front of Iseo repeatedly cried out in admiration as they watched her bass slap. When the vocals ended, cheers erupted once again. The band raised its energy all the way to the end…
They brought the song to a close by striking the drums, synth, bass, and guitar at the same time.
“Thank you!!”
Applause erupted again. Some audience members filmed Iseo as she swept her hair back. It seemed their calculations had hit the mark perfectly.
“Did you enjoy that? Our bassist is pretty good, right? We chose a song like this to show you what she could do. They say the bass is an instrument you can’t hear, right? We wanted to show you what it means for it to be heard.
Anyway… once again, welcome to Club Paradox! We’re Group Sound. I’m the lead guitarist and vocalist, Ha Suyeon. That girl over there is our bassist and sub-vocalist, Choi Iseo…”
Cheers poured out each time she introduced another band member. The audience seemed to have been deeply impressed by the first song, because Iseo received especially loud applause. Next came Hyeona, then Seoha. Surprisingly, a few people acted as though they already knew Seoha when she was introduced.
“It’s a little unfortunate that we only have three songs, but what can we do? We’re still a new band, after all. We’ll probably get to see you for longer someday. Anyway… this next one is an original song. The title is…”
* * *
“I’m still searching, for you from that day we never got to meet…”
Then came the solo. The tone produced through the fully configured speakers and effects was on an entirely different level from what she had shown on YouTube. The sound seemed to embody every twist and turn of the music, and even people who had been dancing regardless of what song came on froze in place.
The waves that had been crashing for several minutes gradually subsided. The club grew calm, as though nothing had happened. Myeongjeon plucked his guitar briefly, then took hold of the microphone.
“Thank you. This has been Group Sound.”
The applause had a different character from before. The earlier applause had been cheers for their skill, while this applause was the audience’s reward for being immersed in the song.
Some audience members said things like, “Ah… that was fun,” “Should we go home?” and “Somehow, I feel like I don’t really need to listen to the next performance…” Myeongjeon smiled bitterly as he packed up the equipment.
“Was it originally this kind of song?”
“I put some work into it.”
“That’s more than just putting some work into it… At this level, wouldn’t it be better to just form a blues-rock band?”
Seoha answered Myeongjeon’s comment. But Myeongjeon did not want to take the band in that direction. Whether it was possible or not, well… He had spent more than several decades doing that already, and it felt strange to do it all over again after dying and coming back to life.
‘I took charge of composing this song, but… from here on, I should probably talk with these kids. About the music they want to make.’
Thinking that, Myeongjeon raised his head. Iseo was crouched at the edge of the stage, talking with several girls who had come as audience members.
‘This is a good time for her…’
Knowing that someone likes you and actually feeling that affection were entirely different things.
Even if tens of millions of people on the internet hated you, if a single fan held out a sheet of paper and said, “It’s such an honor… Could I please have just one autograph…!” there were many people who would live on, unable to forget that experience. Myeongjeon gave a small laugh, picked up his guitar, and went into the office.
“We really enjoyed the performance. There’s no need for a long speech—let’s put you on the official lineup.”
“Then what kind of performances will we be doing?”
At that, the owner handed over several sheets of paper. They contained the various rules of Club Paradox. Myeongjeon skimmed them, then passed them back.
“To summarize briefly… There’s a minimum number of performances each month. You can perform more than that if you want. At the beginning of every month, we set the schedule for the following month, and barring any special circumstances, you perform according to that schedule.”
“And the settlement?”
“Normally, it’s fifty-fifty after taxes. Since we don’t use counting pay (Footnote 1), we split the daily admission revenue fifty-fifty after taxes. The artists divide up their half.”
The owner faltered briefly at that point, then cleared his throat. He seemed well aware himself that a fifty-fifty split would not do.
‘You can tell just by hearing them. We’re the kind of band that can draw a crowd anywhere.’
Four high school girls were forming a band. They all looked reasonably attractive, and they did not limit themselves to any particular genre of music. Who wouldn’t be curious?
“But we’ve decided to settle with you at a seventy-thirty split in your favor. So that’s how the admission revenue will be divided… As for the rest, all revenue from drinks and snacks belongs to us, while for merchandise sold on-site, the performing artist takes ninety percent after production costs, and we take ten percent as the agency fee.”
“That sounds like a pretty good deal.”
Seoha answered. Myeongjeon thought the same. The fact that Paradox did not use counting pay already put it among the better clubs. With a seventy-thirty split and merchandise sales on top of that, the terms were more than acceptable.
When the owner asked whether they had any other conditions, Myeongjeon shook his head.
“Please send the contract to this address. I think we’ll need to look it over.”
“Uh… ah, yes, understood.”
The owner was somehow sweating coldly. Leaving him behind, Myeongjeon and the girls left the club.
* * *
“So now we have a place to practice performing for real. And we’ve created a way to make money, too.”
Suyeon drained her coffee in one long pull. Her iced Americano rushed through the straw and into her mouth. Iseo wondered whether she wasn’t cold.
“Whew, that was tough.”
“Still, our skills improved a lot in return…”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to come practice for about a week. I have way too much overdue work.”
At Suyeon’s declaration, the girls slumped over the table. Iseo was no different from Seoha. Since they had suddenly changed the cover song, they had put off everything else and practiced nonstop lately… Now they were in a situation where they could not postpone anything else.
“So does that mean we can finally breathe for a while? Can we rest a little now?”
“What are you talking about?”
In response to Iseo’s hopeful question, Suyeon raised one eyebrow and answered.
“Now we have to prepare for the government support program. When would we have time to rest?”