Humble Beginnings

May 13th, 2006.

The streets of Canterlot were dabbled with puddles from the heavy rainfall that had arrived most unwelcome, especially on a Saturday night, when the youth of the city would take to the streets and, for one night, forget the coursework assignments. Forget that your boss is an asshole and forget that your just a regular pony. This was a night to be invincible, a night to be alive and young and free. But not, apparently, if it was raining. If it was raining you were just one of many other ponies huddling in the dry spaces below a club doorway. All, say for one pony in particular.

One of these ponies however, was not like the others. Where most stood up to five feet tall, had deep, adolescent voices and firm, defined jawlines, this one in particular was much smaller, much more inexperienced and, if she said so herself, much, much cooler than all these other dweebs.

A small unicorn. She was a flash of ghostly white and electric blue as she sprinted as fast as her filly legs could carry her, which granted, wasn't all that fast. To say she was a flash was a slight exaggeration as well. It was more a... stumble. Still a run but... yes, it was most certainly an abhorrent combination of the two. She stumbled through the damp and well lit streets of Canterlot, the majority of the strength and energy in her legs having left her after a night of jumping joyfully and dodging much larger and much drunker patrons of the Bodega Club. This pony, unlike many other of the ponies holding their heads in agony or screaming at their stallions after a drunken mistake (at least, that was what they all called it. "A drunken mistake"), wore a grin which went from ear to ear, her ears perked up in her unwavering excitement from what she had just seen. This Unicorn was me.

September 29th 1991 was the day that I was born and named. Vincentia they called me; but that name was not to stick. They call me Vinyl now, Vinyl Scratch to be specific. They, of course, referring to anyone who didn't want to feel my hoof to their lower spine. This is the story of my life; more specifically, the story of my life when I decided, finally, to be the one to take control of my own life. A story of my ambitions, my emotions, my struggles. It's a journey that I'm going to take you on so you can maybe begin to understand where I was, where I went and where that finally took me.

"That. Was. So. *Awwwwesome.," she squee'd to herself in a raspy yet quite adorably high pitched voice. Her electric blue hair drooped down over her eyes in a combination of the sweat she worked up from that very same evening and the gentle pattering of rain which fell onto her head. There was a skip in her step- sorry. There was a skip in her stumble. She was on the high of a lifetime, a high achieved without the use of narcotics and the like, this pony was certainly not that foolish. It's uncommon for a young filly of her calibre to not be seething in sheer joy from what she had just witnessed at the Bodega Club. The world-renowned Deadpon3, playing the opening night of his debut album right here in the heart of Canterlot. And Vinyl Scratch was there. She wasn't supposed to be there, oh no no no. She was a naughty little filly, sneaking out in the late hours of the evening when she was sure her father couldn't hear her, using the money she had saved up in preparation for that very night to get a carriage into town and then sneaking ever so sneakily into the club itself. Venues like that can only cater to the older generation, but nothing would stop Vinyl from going to that concert. Not even Nightmare Moon would stifle her, not even Discord would hold her and, may god be her witness, not even Chrysalis could prevent her from going to that concert that night.*

I was, as I always preferred to describe, a humble pony yet at the same time having an ego that would make Prince Blueblood do a double take. I'm passionate and I knew it then and I know it now. I just had no idea what to be passionate with at the raw age of fifteen. It was certainly there though, I could always feel it in the pit of my stomach. So much passion to give, nowhere to give it. It certainly wasn't going to be all the High-School coursework assignments which seemed to just back me into my own personal torture chamber. My shoddy grades and my obscene blank flank should have been the indication to me at the time that, 'you know what, maybe you're just not good at anything.' But there was one thing I was amazing at. A skill so frivolous and clad that many ponies wouldn't even bat an eyelid at it, but to me it was my everything. Listening to music. Listening to music, I could do. Whether it's music that my father used to listen to or the rambunctious anthems blowing out of the radio every morning, I felt it was all mine. Their sound-waves entering my skull like a jellyfish to a jar and making their permanent home there.

Disclaimer;

Vinyl Scratch would like to bring to everyponies attention that these genre's in particular she finds undoubtedly, uncool:

Country

Classical

Polka

Rockabilly

Gospel

It was hard for me to find time to not listen to music you see, I could never, ever seem to get a break away from it, which in many ways was less of a curse and more of a... gift. Not a gift I could give to others, nor a gift which others would be grateful of. It was like a battered teddy-bear, meaningless to everyone say for their single loving owner. But my teddy-bear came in a slightly different form to the stuffed monstrosities most fillies younger than me would drag around with them. Mine was small. No bigger than my hoof and constructed from a healthy combination of plastic, silicon and metal.  On my 8th Birthday, my parents had gotten me a brand spanking, new, shiny 8GB MP3 player. I had never been so delighted in all my eight years of existence, and oh boy, did I use that small piece of technological joy! I took it everywhere with me. Whether it was at home or at school it was there, never leaving my side for a second. Of course, only being able to store roughly 300 songs was beginning to take it's toll on this poor young pony, this poor young pony felt oh so depraved! To hay with those first world problems! Oh woe is me! Only 300 songs. It sounds reasonable you might think, but you, mere mortals, do not understand the extent to which this young pony illegally downloads music. I bring shame upon myself, I really do. Support the artists, dude. 17,000 songs and 1 Hard-drive later and this young pony had built up quite a collection of music, one that would make most music fans jaws drop to their hooves. Sometimes I would download albums and not even listen to them, encourage by the fact that, should I ever need them, they were just... there, you know? It's hard for me to explain.

So, it's only to be expected that a pony like me would eventually begin going to see some of these magicians that we call musicians perform their art live. That's where I have just come back from.

My mind couldn't help but think about what I had just seen. The lights, the music... The mask. It was all so surreal, so damn perfect I didn't care if I went blind and deaf, if that night was all I would remember. I felt an indescribable sense of warmth and gratitude in my stomach for the stallion who had performed and given me that night all those years ago.

"That. Was. So. AWESOME!!!" She screamed the last word at the top of her lungs, attracting some confused looks from many of the older ponies on the street. No time for a carriage, just run straight home. Need Music. Need Computer. Need... Inspiration.

This young pony, in her 3rd year of high-school; still living at home, tax and rent free... This simple, same old, boring, generic young pony... she now knew.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And that's how all of this began. And how it all seemed to end.