Chapter 68
“Wait, what is this?”
Without realizing it, Ayoon muttered to herself. The number of fan café members had skyrocketed overnight. She had no idea what on earth had happened, but her Twitter followers had definitely increased too.
“Student, is something wrong?”
“Gasp… No, it’s nothing! I’m sorry!”
The professor’s question was directed at Ayoon, who had been completely distracted. Come to think of it, she was in class right now. With everyone around her staring, Ayoon immediately lowered her head and pretended to listen to the lecture again. The gazes then disappeared from her.
‘What is really going on?’
The numbers had risen to a bewildering extent. Ayoon glanced through the posts to get a rough idea of what was happening. [I joined after seeing Mr. Juhyeon’s concert], [Ha Suyeon was so beautiful at the concert], [The concert was the best]…
What concert? Had there been a concert she didn’t know about? Ayoon wondered. The only thing resembling a concert was the performances at Paradox.
———
[I’m uploading videos and photos from the concert!]
(A video of her playing The Man Who Sold the World)
I went to see Mr. Juhyeon, but Ha Suyeon was seriously so pretty. I got tickets for this week’s Paradox performance too!!
I’m uploading a few photos as well!
———
In the video… Juhyeon was singing, while the Group Sound girls played their instruments around him. Ayoon couldn’t hear the video because of the lecture, but it was clearly a concert filled with energy.
‘So they appeared as the backing band? Support band? Something like that, anyway. Impressive.’
Juhyeon was a singer famous enough that even she knew him. If the girls had gone to support a singer like that, they really had grown… Thinking that, Ayoon casually scrolled down.
And she nearly dropped her phone.
‘Aaaagh!’
Ha Suyeon’s face, unmistakably captured with one of the so-called ‘cannons’ used by idol fans.
Despite the image quality being sharp enough to show every pore, her skin was completely free of blemishes. Her head was slightly bowed, and her eyes looked solemn. The single bead of sweat running down her face and her tightly pressed lips showed how intently she was concentrating on her playing.
There were several more photos of the members below that. Suyeon, Suyeon, Suyeon, Iseo, Hyeona, Seoha. They were all gorgeous girls, so Ayoon felt like she was being treated to a feast for the eyes.
‘No, wait a second.’
After wandering through the posts and absentmindedly devouring morsels of fan content, Ayoon suddenly came to her senses. These kids… weren’t they her competitors now? They were all going to flock to Paradox, weren’t they?
And the Paradox website Ayoon hurriedly opened in a panic… had keeled over from the traffic.
* * *
“Hello~ It’s been a while. Would you like to come in?”
“Thank you.”
Myeongjeon entered the shop with a guitar strapped to their back. Dry air filled their nose, carrying a metallic smell. Despite the atmosphere seeming somewhat damp, the space was perfectly equipped with temperature and humidity control.
“You seem skilled enough not to be constrained by effects units. Why are you looking for such a rare one?”
“It was my teacher’s keepsake.”
“Ah…”
Myeongjeon had grown accustomed to claiming that their own former self had been their teacher, so they lied without the slightest change in expression. The other person looked slightly solemn at their words.
“What kind of person was your teacher, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Guitarist Seo Myeongjeon.”
After saying that, Myeongjeon glanced around the shop. It was the sort of place that would leave effects collectors staring in fascination. Rare items such as a Peterson Strobe Tuner sat on display, while several effects units were kept in glass cases alongside mysterious phrases.
“What’s that?”
“Ah. That’s the Colorsound Overdrive Jeff Beck used when recording Blow by Blow. It’s the original, and I even got Jeff Beck himself to confirm it.”
Myeongjeon’s eyes widened. Something like that really existed? What on earth…
“Then what about this one?”
“That’s the Arbiter Fuzz Face ‘said to have been used’ by Jimi Hendrix when he recorded Band of Gypsys. Jimi Hendrix had already passed away, so I couldn’t get confirmation, and it isn’t certain enough for me to say anything definitive… But it was definitely manufactured during that period.”
“What about this one?”
“That’s the same model as the Colorsound Power Boost David Gilmour used when recording The Dark Side of the Moon, the effects unit commonly referred to as the Mysterious Orange. It’s a 1970s original, not a reissue, and it’s an 18V model.”
Everywhere they looked, there were products enough to make their eyes spin, and Myeongjeon felt their mind go blank for a moment. In particular, they had only heard rumors about that Colorsound Power Boost during their lifetime and had never even seen one in person.
‘Should I buy it?’
Myeongjeon did have a tone of their own. But the source of that tone was David Gilmour. The Binson Echorec and Big Muff they had used, as well as the Dynacomp and Chandler Tube Driver they now needed to track down—all of them were pieces of equipment David Gilmour had used.
Would adding one of them be so bad? Besides, it would bring them closer to David Gilmour’s ‘original’ tone.
But Myeongjeon soon abandoned the thought. Of course, Gilmour was the greatest guitarist in the world—or so Myeongjeon believed—and his tone was undeniably appealing.
But how long were they going to keep imitating other people? To create something of their own, they ultimately had to stop following others.
Perhaps that was why the old Seo Myeongjeon had failed. Afraid of failure, he had chosen only proven paths, refused to stray from them, and, with rigid thinking, had done only what he knew he could do.
But what about now? They weren’t tremendously successful, but it was a better start than before.
That might partly be because they had entered Ha Suyeon’s body and gained her talent… but perhaps the bigger reason was that, after learning to enjoy music, they had stopped imitating others.
Myeongjeon thought about it. Now was the time to move beyond imitation and build their own sound.
‘Still, I need to find my original equipment.’
As soon as Myeongjeon sat down at the table, coffee appeared. Savoring Kanu’s thin aroma, they opened their mouth.
“I’m looking for a Chandler Tube Driver.”
“We do have a few on our end…”
“That may be true, but it was an item my teacher used. If there are any Tube Drivers that came onto the market after he passed away, could you look into them for me…?”
* * *
“Thank you!!”
Leaving the cheers behind them, Myeongjeon and the girls headed for the waiting room. The girls were quite excited by the much larger audience than usual.
“It seems like a lot of people came after seeing the concert. It wasn’t normally that full.”
“I talked to the owner earlier, and apparently the website was nearly brought down by the traffic.”
“Really?”
Iseo and Hyeona were dumbfounded, while Seoha excitedly rattled on about it. Myeongjeon, meanwhile, sank into thought.
‘The concert’s effect is much bigger than I expected.’
Myeongjeon had decided to appear as a concert session partly to steady the girls’ resolve, but also to promote them to people who actively consumed music. Those willing to attend a concert were usually the kind of people who could become the core of a fanbase.
But the audience had grown far more than Myeongjeon expected, enough to accomplish the rare feat of selling out a live-club performance.
‘And my YouTube audience has grown too.’
Myeongjeon thought about it. Their YouTube subscriber count had been increasing gradually, but it had shot up right after the concert. It still wasn’t anywhere near the point where 100,000 subscribers was within sight, but the number had definitely increased.
Even more encouragingly, the videos were clearly getting more views too. Besides the cover videos that had always performed well, the vlogs the three from school had insisted they film and the performance videos were also beginning to draw views.
If this had happened without any event to trigger it… they would have wondered whether it was because of the ‘mysterious algorithm.’ But the fact that it happened after the concert clearly meant the concert’s influence had reached as far as YouTube.
“It means there’s a huge amount of interest in you guys.”
When they asked Dain for her opinion on this phenomenon, that was what she said.
If people were merely somewhat interested in ‘Group Sound,’ they would search for them on YouTube or Twitter and then move on. Since the search results weren’t particularly good, it would end after generating a little buzz.
But looking at the current trend? Their YouTube subscribers were increasing, and so were the members of the ‘unofficial’ fan café and their Twitter followers.
“I think this means we’ve caught a wave to some extent… Because the new people who come in will start talking about you all over again. They’ll say, ‘This group is freaking amazing. They’re so good at playing songs.’ They’ll create what people call ‘noise.’ So then…”
“Then what?”
“Other people will see the noise they created and get drawn in too. Then the same thing will happen again, and again.”
That had been true then, and it was true now. Myeongjeon thought Dain’s interpretation made sense.
‘She really knows her way around the internet.’
Did she spend a lot of time online? Myeongjeon wondered briefly before returning to the original topic: the increased interest in ‘Group Sound’ and the noise that would arise because of them.
But that noise couldn’t last forever, because ‘Group Sound’ didn’t have much to offer yet. At most, there were the Paradox performances, which lately felt like they were plugging holes by recycling covers and jams. Other than that, there were Myeongjeon’s unreleased songs and the drama OST.
Thinking about it, there was definitely one thing they needed…
“We need to make an EP.”
To keep the interest focused on ‘Group Sound’ burning steadily, they needed to add fuel to the fire. And for a band, there was nothing like good songs for firewood. Myeongjeon was certain of that.