With A Little Help From My Friends

It was a week after I had left Canterlot and three weeks since I had first arrived in Equestria. Matt, Paul, Vinyl, Octavia and I had all finally finished moving into our new house in Ponyville. It had certainly taken a while to fully set up all of our new furniture and lay out our bedrooms, but it was done at last. This morning I had intended to sleep in, but somepony had other plans for me.

“Jimmy, time to haul your butt out of bed.” I heard Vinyl say.

“Nrmph.” I replied burying my face further in the pillow.

“Oh? Really?” She asked “Well, I guess I best be leaving you alone then.” Suddenly she jumped on top of me.

“OWW!!” I exclaimed.

“Wakey wakeyyyy!!” She yelled as she started tickling me, I couldn’t move as she had me pinned to the bed “Say uncle! Come on!”

“UNC-HAHAHAHAAA!! UN-AAHAHAHHAA!!! STOP I-HAHAHA!!!” I managed to get out as she continued to tickle me. Being tickled by hooves is far worse than being tickled with fingers.

“Come on! Wake up!” She said as she continued her assault.

“Uncle!! Uncle!!” I finally managed to say. She got off of me and lay next to me on her stomach.

“You know what’s supposed to happen now?” She asked.

“I’m supposed to get out of bed?” I replied, suddenly she pushed me off my bed and onto the floor. I let out a small yelp as I fell the two feet from my bed to the floor.

“Bingo.” She said looking down at me with her mischievous red eyes. I figured since I was already out of the bed I may as well wake up. I got up from my increasingly comfortable position on the carpeted floor of my bedroom and looked at the Wonderbolts clock that hung on the wall.

“Vinyl!! It’s only eight in the morning!” I exclaimed “What the hell!!!”

“I am indifferent to your suffering.” She blandly said as she sprawled herself out on my bed and shut her eyes.

“Vinyl… One does not simply take over MY bed…” I said standing at the side of my bed.

“I’m sorry, what was that? I can’t hear you over the sound of me sleeping in your bed.” She chuckled.

“Say uncle.” I said. She looked up for a moment raising an eyebrow to see me jump on top of her and begin tickling her.

“AGH!!! NO-HAHAAHAAAHAA!!! AHH!!! ST-HAHAA!!! STOP IT!!!” She screamed as she squirmed under me holding her down.

“Come on Vinyl! Say it!” I said as I exacted my revenge on the white unicorn.

“AGHHH-AHAHAAA!!! UNCLE!!! AHAHA!!!! UNCLE!!!!” She screamed.

“I’m sorry what was that? I can’t hear you over the sound of me tickling you!” I replied as I continued my barrage of tickles.

“SCR-AHHAHAAA!!! SCREW YOU!!!!” She screamed. I finally stopped as I knew I had carried on for longer than I should have. I hovered over her, holding my upper body just inches away from her own with my arms “Are you trying to seduce me, Mr. Callahan?” She asked me.

“Not today honey, you know I don’t swing that way.” I said getting off Vinyl and sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Aww, come on, it could be fun!” She said sitting next to me.

“Sorry Vinyl, last time I checked, you had a marefriend.”

“Oh come on, it would just be for… Educational purposes…?”

“Sorry, I finished school prematurely; I’m done with education, thanks.”

“I bet that’s not the only thing you finish prematurely.” Vinyl said playfully as she kissed me on the cheek and jumped off the bed.

“Hey! That’s not true! Like you’d even know!” I retorted.

“The only one who would is you~.” Vinyl said as she opened the door “Come on, bitch. Make me breakfast.” I got up from the bed and walked over to her.

“Poof, you’re breakfast!” I said as I wrapped my arms around her and playfully started to bite her.

“Hey!!” She exclaimed “Save that for the bedroom!!” We went downstairs and I fixed Vinyl a bowl of cereal, like the breakfast-making bitch she claimed I was.

“This wasn’t the real reason you woke me up, was it?” I asked her. If it was, I was not going to be a happy camper. I would be neither happy nor a camper.

HA! IS FUNNY BECAUSE YOU HAVE NEVER CAMPED BEFORE!

Oh there you are.

“Yeah. I just wanted some cereal.” She said as she took her trademark shades off the table and put them over her eyes.

“I can tell when you’re lying, Vinyl.” I replied “What’s the real reason?”

“To the studio!” She said standing up carrying her bowl of cereal with her telekinesis.

“Nope.” I said standing in front of the swinging door that led to the hallway “Not with that cereal you’re not.”

“Aww, come on!” She whined “Just this once, please?” She said lifting her shades and batting her eyelids. I gave her a very blank expression that said ‘No’.

“Oh, fine.” She said shovelling a few spoonfuls of cereal into her mouth. Once she finished she levitated the bowl into the sink and ran downstairs. I followed her down into the studio.

The studio now contained several microphones, most of which were around the drum kit in the room or in front of amplifiers. A considerably long keyboard sat on a stand in front of a piano stool next to the drum kit which sat directly opposite the door of the studio in the corner of the room. In the center of the room sat a rather comfortable chair with my Les Paul leaning against it and a microphone on a stand in front of my comfy chair. A little further away was another chair that looked a little less comfortable that had a stand with a cello next to it. Inside the mixing room was Vinyl’s audio equipment which consisted of an electronic turntable and her laptop (which was considerably larger than my own because the keyboard’s size had to be large enough for hooves to use). There was a particularly large sound board on the desk that was hooked up to the laptop as well. Vinyl took a seat at the desk and turned on her laptop.

“I want to show you some of my work.” She said “It’s some new stuff I’ve come up with; I think you might like it.”

“Cool, let’s hear it.” I replied. Vinyl plugged in some rather large speakers to her laptop and opened a .wav file.

“Brace yourself.” She said grinning mischievously as she hit the spacebar. The music that came blasting out of the speakers was dubstep. It was good dubstep too. I’m not really one who enjoys dubstep very much, but this was awesome. It was, however, quite loud. Through the glass window of the mixing room, I saw Octavia, Matt and Paul enter the studio. It seems that they weren’t able to hear what was going on in the mixing room. That’s a good thing I suppose. Matt opened the door to the mixing room. He said something that was made inaudible from the glorious dubstep that blasted out the speakers and into the main studio.

“VINYL!!!! TURN IT DOWN!!!!” Octavia yelled from outside. The song ended as she yelled to Vinyl. Either that or where Vinyl paused sounded like it would be the end of the song “What was that racket!?”

“RACKET?!?!!” Matt and Paul yelled turning to Octavia.

“THAT WAS DUBSTEP!!! THE MOST GLORIOUS ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN EXISTENCE!!!” Matt yelled.

“DUBSTEP IS NOT RACKET!!! ESPECIALLY NOT THAT SONG!!!” Paul continued.

“Who is the inventor of that awful racket?!” Octavia asked. Vinyl put her shades over her eyes and leaned back from the door. She rolled her chair over to the computer and stared blankly at the screen.

“Octavia, calm down a minute.” I said in a cool tone.

“Tell me, who made that nonsense?!” She continued “It’s just a bunch of noises with a chopped up bass-line and beat!!”

“Octavia.” I interjected.

“Who would even find that slightly enjoy-”

“OCTAVIA!” I shouted “Vinyl, made that song.” Octavia’s jaw dropped.

“Oh… Oh my… Vinyl?” She said looking into the mixing room “I’m… I’m sorry… I didn’t mea-”

“You didn’t mean it?!” Vinyl retorted “What the hay do you mean if you didn’t mean it?!” Octavia stood speechless “If you didn’t mean it you wouldn’t have said it!!!” Vinyl shouted banging a hoof down on the desk as a tear made its way down her face.

“Vinyl I’m sorry!”

“Sure you are! Let’s see how long you can take this without calling it ‘awful racket’!!” Vinyl cranked a knob on the speaker and whacked the spacebar again. The dubstep blared at least twice as loud as before. Octavia was unfortunate enough to have her head right next to one of the speakers when it started and almost had a seizure and a heart attack simultaneously as it started.

“VINYL THAT’S ENOUGH!!!” I shouted to no avail, the music was too loud, I hardly heard myself. I reached my hand over to the keyboard and stopped the blasting dubstep. “Enough. Just stop. Vinyl. Not everypony is going to like this music. It’s great for a club or somewhere like that, yes. That’s where you mainly operate. Octavia wouldn’t like it that much because, well, she wouldn’t. She prefers music you make using an instrument rather than a computer and vice versa. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t exactly like classical music very much, do you?”

“No…” Vinyl said sheepishly.

“See? It’s okay if you don’t like each other’s music. But Octavia, you were in the wrong to insult it and its creator before even finding out who it was. Just tolerate each other’s music, if you want to go further than that, learn to love it.” I said as I glanced from each side of me to view the two ponies “So, can y’all make up now?” I said removing myself from between them.

“I’m sorry, my dear Vinyl. I didn’t mean to insult you or upset you.” Octavia said while moving her eyes back and forth from the floor to Vinyl.

“It’s okay; I didn’t mean to snap at you like that either, I’m sorry.” Vinyl said removing her glasses and looking at Octavia. The two stared into each other’s eyes for a brief moment and suddenly embraced each other with open hooves and mouths. Paul covered his eyes while Matt and I watched with the expression that could only be described as one that said “d’awwwwwwwwwwwww”.

Awww that’s adorable, they’re making ou- Where is that hoof going? Oh… Oh my…

BONER CEASE AND DESIST THIS INSTANT!

“Okay, umm, girls?” Paul started “You mind getting a room or… At least removing Octavia from off your face so you can tell us why you brought us down here?” Vinyl gave a hoof gesture that certainly couldn’t mean anything kind “Or you could do that, that’s cool too, I’ll just be playing drums then… So… Yeah…”

“We should probably leave them in here to… Yeah…” I said as Matt and I saw the two mares getting more… Physical with each other. We swiftly exited the mixing room rather than making them get another room as they seemed more than comfortable with that room.

You are a faggot.

Really?

Yes. Two girls fucking in the mixing room and you’re not watching.

They’re ponies.

implying you’re ever going to see girls doing that ever again outside of the porn videos you have on your computer.

Shut the fuck up.

Paul sat behind his kit and started double-pedalling as fast as he could while doing a simple 2nds beat on the hi-hat and snare. Matt started warming up on sax playing Careless Whispers by George Michaels while humping the saxophone. I turned on my amp and pedal, plugged in my guitar and sat down, moving the microphone to my face.

“Okay, guys?” I spoke into the mic. Matt stopped and looked at me, Paul did not pay a scrap of his attention to me and continued with his blast beats and overly-complicated fills “Paul. Paul. Hey Paul.” I said trying to get his attention. I sighed and took a deep breath.

Time to rival Pinkie Pie in the amount of words she could get out without stopping.

“HEYPAULHEYHEYHEYPAULGUESSWHATPAULHEYPAULHEYLISTENHEYLISTENPAULHEYPAULGUESSWHATPAULHEYPAULLISTENTOMEPAULHEYPAULLOOKIEHEREPAULPAULPAULPAULHEYHEYHEYHEYHEYHAYHEYHEYHEYLISTENHEYLISTENLISTENHEYLISTENPAULLOOKATMEPAULHEYPAULLOOKIHAVEAGUITARANDSTUFFHEYPAULLOOKLOOKPAULOCTAVIAANDVINYLAREHAVINGLOUDMAKEUPSEXINTHEMIXINGROOMYOUSHOULDGOVIDEOTAPETHEMPAULHEYPAULWHYDON’TYOUGOVIDEOTAPETHEMHEYPAULWHYDON’TYOULISTENTOMEPAULWHYAREN’TYOULISTENINGTOMEPAULHEYGUESSWHATPAUL”

At long last Paul stopped giving me the most confused expression I had ever seen on his face. “Now that you’re listening, I-” The door to the mixing room opened to reveal a slightly stumbling Octavia who’s mane and tail were ruffled and her bowtie was no longer tidy. She took a moment to straighten herself up a bit and sat down on the chair next to her cello and started tuning it. A wide smile adorned her face as she tuned her instrument while humming Careless Whispers. She looked around the room when she finished tuning to find three faces looking at her.

That awkward moment when everyone in the room is aware you just had sex. That other awkward moment when everyone in the room is jealous of this fact.

“Something wrong?” She asked.

“No, no, nothing.” Matt replied.

“Right, as I was sa-”

“Okay guys, I want y’all to jam something so I can record it. And by jam something, I mean right now. Cuz I’m recording. So go. Now. Do eet.” Vinyl interrupted me over the PA.

“Yes, that’s what I was going to say.” I finally got out.

We all looked at each other awkwardly for a moment. Matt stood up and started playing the melody to the My Little Pony theme. I joined in immediately with the chords Matt had made me learn so many months before. Paul joined at the same time with a few light rolls on the cymbals. As the “vocalising” on the saxophone finished, every instrument burst into a bright and moderately paced song. The “big adventure, tons of fun…” melody was played by both the guitar and saxophone as Octavia played single notes in the places they belonged in the actual song. As we wrapped up the My Little Pony Theme, I held the D chord that it ended on for a brief moment and then got an idea.

I played a single C note. I looked to Octavia and grinned. C. G C. G C G C E G. F. D F. D F D C D G. Octavia’s jaw dropped. She knew this song. It was Eine Klein Nachtmusik by Mozart. I played the sequence one more time with Paul hitting different toms every time a note was played. Octavia and Matt joined in this time too. The third time around, I moved down one half step. Octavia and Matt noticed the change and followed suit while Paul played a proper beat the drums rather than just following the notes I played. After two of those, I shifted the key to E this time, Octavia and Matt were able to keep up this time too. Once again, after two more I shifted keys again, this time back to C and played the sequence twice.

I immediately started a new song. This time, it was the Simpsons theme. Paul was able to sense that I would do something different and did a quick roll on the snare followed by a crash which led into a simple bass drum beat. I went through the famous “Da, da da, dada, da da, da dadadadaaaa.” in C. Paul did a fast roll on the snare while maintaining the bass drum beat as I finished the second time. I then moved down to B again for these two sequences while Octavia and Matt followed suit. I then decided it was a good idea for a solo in A# where Octavia and Matt went silent just for a bit while I soloed with the drums still going. My solo finished on a D# and I quickly started playing the main tune again in E as Matt and Octavia joined me. After those two sequences I slid back down to C and played the outro of the song which was followed surprisingly well by Matt and Octavia who picked up on what I was doing. I turned the last sequence of C notes into power chords and continued strumming quickly, moving to C#, then D and finally D# which I stayed on just a bit longer than the others and yelled “STOP” to the others.

I then played a quick power chord sequence which used D#, A#A#, CC, A#A# twice. Matt played a quick FGF sequence and Paul followed with a fill that signalled Matt to start playing the melody of Basket Case. I jumped from my chair and started head-banging much like Billie Joe Armstrong would while he played this song live. Octavia followed the chords I played by ear. As far as I could tell, she was one of those “perfect pitch” ponies, considering how easily she was following me. Our little group blasted through one verse and chorus of the song as well as the outro where Paul was able to add in several fast and complicated fills as we finished that song. I continued strumming that final A# chord as I tried to think of another song we could go into. I moved the A# to D#. No, I still couldn’t think of anything in that key. Suddenly, I thought of Pinkie Pie and what song she reminded me of. I yelled “STOP” to everyone again.

G, F D# D A# G, C D D# F D.

“YES!!! HAHA!!!” Paul shouted “ONE MORE TIME!!” He recognised it. The song was the Gourmet Race theme from the Kirby series. I played the intro one last time and held the last D note. Four strikes on the hi-hat followed by an erratic snare drum roll and a crash to start the rest of the song. Octavia somehow was able to figure out the actual bass line to the song while Matt simply awaited a chance to join the song where it would not sound like he was simply overdubbing my notes. We reached what I referred to as the bridge where Matt took over the tuba’s role in the song with a string of notes that went: F F G# C D# D C G, F F G# C D# F G. Matt told Octavia to follow him the next time around because she got lost when I stopped and Matt played his part. He asked this while I played the flute’s ‘reply’ to the tuba’s part. Same string of notes, this time played on the cello and saxophone answered with my own reply. My favourite part of the song started now. Paul decided this bit should be mainly guitar so he hit the crash twice and held it on each change that the non-lead instruments had. Matt and Octavia followed this pattern while I simply speed-picked the already fast note pattern. As the first pattern came to a close, Paul did an incredibly fast roll across the drums and started up a continuous beat again for the last part of this section of the song. The intro was played one last time with everyone and the last D note was held. I started signalling to Paul to keep a steady bass drum beat going.

D E, D E, D E, D E~. I repeated several times, Paul and Matt picked up what song was being played. It was the intro of Can’t Stop by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Paul started the beat of the intro on the floor tom and snare lightly while gradually getting harder while Matt copied what I was doing until the main guitar riff was to start. As the verse started, Octavia looked very lost. Matt was playing the melody of the song while I was doing the guitar part which was basically a lead guitar rather than a rhythm, but that’s what made RHCP songs special. A lead guitar being played with a bass that would mimic the lead guitar. I started up my loop shifter and played the entire riff flawlessly and let the pedal loop the riff. I switched on the octave effect on my guitar and came closer to Octavia and gestured her to look at what I was playing. I started playing the bass part to the song. Octavia was able to follow it perfectly after I went through it only once. I waited for the right moment in the song where we would enter the chorus to turn off the loop shifter and start the chorus. When the chorus started, Octavia simply followed the chords I played as Matt and Paul continued what they had to do at this point. Our version of the chorus was played considerably harder than the original would. The chorus came to a close and Paul started playing a simple but fast beat on the floor tom and snare. It took me a while to figure out what he was getting at, but I noticed it and a large grin developed on my face.

“HEY, HO! LET’S GO! HEY, HO! LET’S GO!” I shouted into the microphone. I started playing palm muted A power chords and continued the intro vocals to Blitzkrieg Bop. After just one bar of palm muted chords came a quick barrage of unmuted, classic punk-guitar goodness. I sang the words and played the song using all down-strokes like a true punk-rock guitarist would. Matt made up his own little additions to the song with his sax that fit very nicely into the song. Octavia followed the simple three chord pattern that made up this song, almost looking bored. As this song wrapped up, Matt had moved his mic to his mouth to accompany me on the “HEY, HO! LET’S GO!” which Paul was also shouting from behind the kit. I signalled to Octavia to start playing again as I started the palm muted A chords again and then let it burst again in the final bar of the song and finished it abruptly, but ever so perfectly.

I sat back down in my chair after the long and mostly instrumental jam that just took place. Matt simply sat on the floor even though his chair was hardly a couple feet away. Octavia put the cello back on its stand, leaned the bow against it and stood up to stretch. Paul had done the same while almost tripping over his drum stool and the snare in the process. A slow clap of hooves could be heard over the PA.

“Bravo, you crazy, music-playing motherbuckers, bravo!” Vinyl said.

“Thanks Vinyl!” The four of us shouted in hopes it would reach some of the microphones so she would hear.

“What I’m gonna do with this track now is edit out all the little bits where I can hear you guys talk and do some audio mixing so all the levels are all good and you guys can look back on this as your first proper jam session!” Vinyl said cheerfully.

“Cool stuff, Vinyl.” I said into the mic “So what are you now, our producer?”

“Maybe, I charge though.”

“How much?”

“Well, it’s not in bits you see; it’s more along the lines of alone time with the feminine one in your group.”

“Oh, you mean Paul?” Matt asked.

"Well obviously that's who she means!" I replied.

“Yeah, that makes sense, cuz it's obviously not Octavia.”

“Oh yeah, she's definitely not the feminine one. It's gotta be Paul.”

“Yeah, Paul's totally the bitchy, whiny one, so it's gotta be him.”

“Screw you!” Paul shouted as he sat back down behind the drums.

“Well… I did mean Octavia… But he’ll do fine I suppose…” Vinyl chuckled.

“Goddamnit Vinyl!!” Paul shouted.

The rest of the day continued on with a lot of band practice mainly of songs we had performed in Canterlot rather than new original songs that I had. No one seemed to mind however. Our session in the studio started at around 9 am and finished at 5 pm. Needless to say, we were all beat at the end of it. All of us went to bed straight away except for Vinyl who liked the studio and wanted to stay a little longer. We left her to her devices and each went off to bed. It was far too early for bed as far as time went. But our bodies all had other plans.

As I lay in my bed for the few minutes before losing consciousness I thought of how I would really hate if all of this was some insanely long dream that was incredibly vivid and I woke up from it now. I dismissed the thoughts however because I knew this was real. There was no illusion about this place. It’s real. I’m here. And I fuckin’ love it...