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Prologue I - My Life The Day Before Yesterday.
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.
Prologue II - My Life Yesterday
That same night.
I remember this night like it was yesterday. Every detail, every thought. When I finally returned home, I very quietly and very sneakily pushed my front door open, only making the tinniest of creaks and the faint sound of the bottom of the door rubbing against the hall carpet. Much to my relief, I could already hear the disgruntled snoring of my old man upstairs so I felt I could come out of stealth mode for now. I was in the clear. Only one thing was on my mind. Water.
I trotted into the kitchen and poured a large glass of water for myself and guzzled it down, the clear liquid flowing over the sides of the cup around my mouth and spilling onto the floor with a gentle trickle. I swear, more went on the floor than in my mouth, this young Pony was truly uncouth; it was unacceptable, as her mother would have said.
I remember pausing at that thought and looking down at the puddle that was spreading around my front hooves. Hurriedly, I grabbed the nearest tea towel and began pressing the fabric into the cold mess on the floor. "Sorry Mum," I would whisper as I soon began to imagine her response, Don't use the bloody tea towel Vinyl! We have- Vinyl stop! We have kitchen roll, use the kitchen roll! Oh, what am I going to do with you? I giggled at the thought and my Mum's overly tight-arsed ways.
My small family kept a spacious, well kept, four-bedroom house near the far end of Canterlot. It was quite roomy for only two current residents, what since my dearest mother's passing and my older, loving brother moving out to go to Manehatten University. I was very happy living with my Dad, he was hard working, kind and he had a buckin' moustache. That was all I really thought when it came to my Father. Needless to say, he bored me considerably. He didn't really drink or watch sports; he just kind of kept to himself and did various DIY jobs around the house to keep himself occupied. He was getting on in years but, truthfully, at that point in my life, I couldn't think of anyone I would rather live with. He did something in banking or something or other but I never really cared or paid much attention. If it involved numbers, I thought, screw it. That won't get me on a stage performing to a crowd. Just one of the many ignorant thoughts which plagued my young mind. How wrong I was.
With that sudden revelation however, I remembered what I had wanted to do the moment I got home! I dashed out the kitchen, scurried through the hall and sprinted up the main stairs to my small room. And then... FREEZE. I remember freezing in place, becoming very aware of the noise my tough hooves were making against the hard, wooden stairs of the house, creating a clip-clopping that echoed violently through the house. Damn acoustics. My breathing became shallow. This was it. This was the end. I'd wanted to do so much. I was too young! It wasn't my time! I closed my eyes and drew a desperate cross across my chest with my hoof as I waited for the vile manticore of a pony that was my father’s wrath to fall upon me. Five seconds past. I squinted one eye open, eyeing my Dad's bedroom door. Ten seconds. He's probably just getting out of bed and grabbing the cricket bat. Fifteen seconds. The loudest, most vile snort of a snore erupted from the confines of my Dad's bedroom, much to the relief of our young pony-friend. I gave a sigh of relief, thanked Celestia and Luna and very quietly tiptoed to my room. Moments later, I was home free! Again, quietly, I opened the door and closed it, quiet as a mouse and flicked the light switch upwards, allowing light to flood my bedroom.
Oh my, oh my, Vinyl, you should be ashamed. That room was always an absolute tip. Upon inspection, it was unclear if I actually owned a bin, there were so many chocolate bar wrappers and pizza boxes littered across the floor it looked like an poverty stricken slum, all that seemed to be missing were the damp patches and the used heroin syringes. But again, I had no care for that sort of thing. I was a good filly. Mostly. The mess would not stop me from my mission though.
I dodged through the wreckage of my room and headed straight over to my computer, where it sat upon an equally filthy desk, already booted up from my recent teenage shenanigans, namely poking that high class, stuck up bitch Octavia on a particular social networking site. I shudder to this day simply thinking about her. Her entire essence screamed order, structure and she was so damn condescending. She was only popular back then because her family was so wealthy. Urgh. Totally not a cool pony in any regard.
To the interwebs! I remember proceeding to ask the (sometimes) reliable search engines how I should go about making electronic music. A few forums and websites later I settled on fairly simple looking piece of music software to begin my booming musical career, software which I now realise is the epitome of awful, but I shan't get into technical details or name any names lest I find myself being sued. I shuddered with excitement as the torrent began downloading, slowly but surely, onto my train-wreck of a computer.
This was it. She kept glancing down at her flank in the foolish hopes that by some miracle she would get her music making cutie-mark in advance, the universe having decided that this was, absolutely, what she most certainly was supposed to dedicate her life to. Unfortunately to no avail, but she remained unfazed. Her grin went from ear to ear, her deep red eyes lit up in excitement.
Two dragging hours and a couple of my favourite albums later I squee'd with delight as my computer made the unmistakable sound of a file being fully downloaded. I struggle to remember exactly what albums I listened to unfortunately, that one memory seems to elude me. Although I can't help but feel that one of them may have been the glorious album, 'With The Pegasus Over The Sea.' A truly awesome album and I suggest anyone reading this should go listen to it and pray to Celestia I do not meet any legal ramifications from mentioning it in this story.
Twenty minutes and half an album later, I would squee with delight a second time as I finally installed the (illegal, but don’t tell anyone) software packages and booted up the program. I grabbed the small midi keyboard that I "borrowed" from her high-school's music department and hurriedly plugged it into one of the USB ports located at the side of her box shaped computer.
If I disappear for a few years after this story reaches the public, it will almost certainly be because the law has caught up with me for my crimes, even if I held them with all good intentions.
I was practically jumping in my seat. I could already hear the awesome, spellbinding, floor-mashing track that I was about to create. The build-ups, the melodies... The drops. It was all there, ready for me to do with as I pleased. I was going to be the best DJ Equestria had ever seen! Mark my words, it will happen! Celestia and Luna be my witnesses! High School be damned! Science and maths can suck it! This was all I needed, a partly broken keyboard and... I paused as the software stretched across my screen. And... And. This… Program. Huh.
I took my mouse in my hoof and began clicking around... cautiously. So... wait. How?
I shook my head in confusion. So where should I start? Where do I start? I very carefully pressed one of the white keys on my 49 keyed keyboard and hoped for the best. No sound. No wobbling bass or humming melody.
Thirty minutes and a couple more websites later I discovered a new word. Synthesisers. It all seemed so straight forwards now! A few clicks and I would be good to go! A synthesiser popped up on the screen and, for a third time, I squee'd. Now I could begin! Our young DJ on her first musical endeavour! This was exciting! I'm practically bouncing in my seat as I write this!
Once more, I took my hoof to the keyboard. Buuuuuuuzz. A low, droning note hit me with force and filled the room, fortunately not loud enough to wake the sleeping lion. But if I was to create some bad-ass, floor mashing, roof shaking beats I would need it to be loud, loud, LOUD. How naive I truly was, but my thoughts held some wisdom. I reached across my desk and grabbed my small bud headphones and popped the mini jack into the headphone port, inserting the small devices into each of my ears. Celestia, those headphones were dreadful. Again, I pressed the note and, for a fourth time, squee'd as the musical note reached my ear drums, much similar to the way all my music I had ever loved would reach me. Here we go! It's time! Let us see what our young pony can do. To anyone not me, all that could be heard that night was the gentle tapping of little hooves on the keyboard and the faint humming of the sick sounds and beats I was creating from my computer as I worked all through the night, the soft white glow of her computer monitor against her fur fading as Luna's moon fell and Celestia's sun rose and shone in through the window.
Prologue III - My Life Today
JULY 16th 2016
Here I am. I'm sitting in my Las Pegasus high-rise, the sun shining in through the opened skylight. We're too far into the city and way too high up to hear the tweeting of birds and the rustling of trees, but not quite high up enough to miss the precociously timed blaring of car horns below, just like in all the movies. It’s a clear and swelteringly hot day in July and from my vantage point I can see the entire expanse of the city before it reached the hills where it met the large, white and dominating Applewood sign. ‘Las Pegasus was where all the stars lived,’ that was the conventional wisdom I shared with many of my peers back during my glorious youth in Canterlot. But there was place not far beyond where I can see called The San Ferneighndo Valley, and the Valley was the place where all the losers or ponies that tried to hard and failed went. I was never going to live there, I wouldn’t allow myself.
Now I’m waking up every morning, excited to look beyond the expanse, knowing it’ll be as glorious this morning as it was the last, and I hope to experience that everyday, until my last. My morning reverie is interrupted by a knock on the door. I trot over to open it and there stands a beautiful mare. She enters the room; a black saddlebag flung over her back and begins to set up her equipment in my living room. Her preparations complete, she dons sterile rubber hoof gloves and then sits next to me on the couch. She wore large, thick mahogany rimmed glasses, which complimented her sandy coat and red hair wonderfully. The mark on her hind simply being a red cross, with ivy vines wrapping around. She never looked into my eyes. It was hot. She prepares a syringe. It’s attached to a single spaghetti shaped tube of plastic that contains a small micro-filter so no impurities will pass and enter into my bloodstream. The needle is brand- new, completely sterilized micro fine butterfly variant.
Today, my beautiful friend here forgot her normal medical tourniquet, so she made do with removing one of her leggings and using the rough yet elasticised material to tie my arm.
Eventually, her preparations done, she dabs my exposed vein with a swab of alcohol and proceeds to prick me with the long syringe, a syringe of Prench decent and make. It was so thin I could hardly feel it until it reached the bone in my foreleg. Then it hurt. A lot. I see my blood come oozing up into the spaghetti tube before she slowly pushes the contents of the syringe into my arm. And then I begin to feel it. I immediately experience a familiar weight in the centre of my chest, so I just lie back and relax. She removes the syringe and repeats the process with a second dose. I used to let her go at me four times.
After the second needle is removed, she holds down on my puncture wounds with a swab of alcohol, to avoid marks and bruising. Finally, she attaches it to my arm with a strand of electric tape.
And then, we sit and talk about how good it feels to be sober.
About three years ago there probably would have been a hallucinogenic in that syringe, or some cocktail of drugs that was completely beyond me or which I simply didn’t care about so long as it got me high and I could see all the pretty lights and feel weightless and invincible again.
For years of my life, whether it be cocaine, LSD or speed, I’d want it in my bloodstream. I can describe how thankful I am that I stayed away from that heroin shit, although there were some very close calls. But my beautiful nurse, what she injects me with is pure. I feel it course through my veins, cleansing and forgiving all my mistakes. It’s known as Ozone, and it’s the only thing that I intend to have injected into my blood stream for now. You see, somewhere down the line of my drug experimentation I contracted Hepatitis C. The big C. My liver was practically shrivelling and it is only because of this ‘Ozone’ that I can regulate it and prevent it from causing me too much grief. So every week, I get my injections from my beautiful nurse and try and carry on.
I’m not sure what needle it was that eventually dropped that ball on me. Maybe it was at the orgies I attended, or from the manager who wanted to keep me under his wing, or the company I kept on all those many nights out to clubs and bars. Whenever, whomever, or whatever it was, I didn’t care. This view is far too good to care.
But one thing I don’t regret is all of my youthful indescretions. I spent the majority of my life looking for the quick fix and the deep kick. I shot and smoked drugs under freeways and in one-thousand bit hotels with my musical idols and in the backs of strangers vans and… I could go on. But now I drink vitamin water, and seek wild as opposed the farm-raised salmon. I’m not even 30. For almost 10 years I have channelled my love for music and performing and been able to tap into the universal slipstream of appreciation and adoration and I love it. On stage, performing to 17,000 ponies, that’s what this all led to. This is where I am now. This is my account of those times and well as the story of how a kid who was born in Canterlot migrated to Manehatten, then Prance, then Las Pegasus and found more than she could handle at the end of the rainbow.
What follows from these little prologues is the story of my life, for better and for worse. The good times, the bad times and the shit times. The times I almost gave up, the times and situations which led to me forming some of my greatest friendships and the times which almost killed me. My name is DJ Pon-3; Vinyl Scratch... and I approve this tale.
May 2006
The journey to school that morning in May was the same as any other, if not a little chillier, but it didn’t phase me. Nor would nearly dying as I crossed the street, in such a miasma of thought that I was completely oblivious to the oncoming carriages hurtling towards me from my right side. Fear not, no harm came to anypony, just the occasional screeching of wheels stopping emergently which I was also oblivious to seeing as my cheap and cheerful headphones were currently residing in both of my ears, blaring out some of the more nostalgic tunes of my childhood. Various funk inspired house beats from the late 80’s and early 90’s that my brother Needle Drop introduced me to in my more naïve years. As naïve as I was though, I could understand the appeal that music had on me, but not necessarily the aesthetic. It was quite quiet which, I admit, was something that I thought dance and electronic music should have been against in an almost rebellious sense. But the rhythmic trotting, bobbing head and swishing clumps of electric blue and cerulean tinted mane as I listened to these songs indicated otherwise. I was quite a sight to behold, gathered I remember not having showered at all since the last, sweaty night. My coat was greasy, my hair was stiff and knotted and my eyes confessed the night which had gone by without much sleep. But, in spite of all this, I had never been more awake.
Everything seemed to be swept under the rug that morning, because I knew that I currently had, in my saddlebag, the most valuable piece of music in the world and, as far as I cared, the best song in the world. My first song was in my saddlebag, and it was glorious. I hadn’t felt that sense of achievement before, having neglected the majority of my homework over the years and sleeping in to ungodly hours on the weekend and it would grow to be something I absolutely relished in. Being able to smile to yourself after a hard nights work was an orgasmic feeling to say the least.
I had the day pretty much planned out, the plan for that day was simple; show the other ponies in my class the song anonymously. I understood the rules of friends and peers all too well however. All those goody goodies would say about the track, if I told them it was me who had made it, was that it was; great, fantastic, bitchin’, regardless of whether or not they thought it was shit. But at that time I thought that wasn’t even something to worry about. What was there to worry about? I know they would love because I loved it like my own child.
The security guard at the gate, Safe Keeping, nodded to me sullenly as I passed and I did the same, as had become customary. I had never spoken to him but I knew his name from the badge he wore proudly on his lapel. Living in the rough part of Canterlot, as we did, wasn’t necessarily tough, but I pin that relatively easy living on the jobs of ponies like Safe Keeping and the various other law enforcement workers in the area who worked tirelessly to keep to honest citizens safe from the muggings and bludgeoning that were more common than anypony would like around this area. It was nice to have a sense of security, but it never hurt to be too careful.
My friend Fabia had learned that the hard way. She was a wonderful girl, utterly loyal and painfully charming, but she was inclined to show her crueller and more bitchy side at home from what I gathered. It wasn’t uncommon of her to sleep on the streets some nights or up on a cloud somewhere after a punch up or thrown words at home. For a Pegasus, she had always preferred the ground. She was quite cowardly when it came to flying for a Pegasus with such a big mouth, but there you go. One night on the streets she was beaten so badly by some passing youths that she spent the majority of that month in a hospital bed, her parents and me at her side hoping and praying that her liver or heart didn’t give out from her merciless injuries, watching helplessly as nurses and doctors ever so slowly did their best to bring her back into the normal world. What was even worse was the fact that the perpetrators were not caught and that it was most likely those same ponies that beat a poor old stallion to death some days later before they were, eventually, caught and sentenced.
I apologise for bringing down the mood of the story there. I know right? The nerve of me. But that was where we lived and they were the kinds of ponies were shared our common space with. I thought you deserved to know.
My school was described as a hell-hole. It wasn’t bad, mind. Hell, it was probably one of the best schools in the area. Everypony just hated school. The teachers were always nice enough if you stayed on their good side (which we rarely did,) but it was always seemed to end with the entire class sneaking out the nearest window as the teacher wrote some notes down on the board, only for us to knock on the door and walk nonchalantly back into the room like nothing happened and enjoy the detentions we would all be issued. Harmless fun, it was absolutely necessary.
I always said, I love education but hate school. It never made sense to me why I would need to bother to learn maths when my eyes only really came alive when sat in a music classroom. Who is ever going to use Ponythagoras Theorum in their entire lives, am I right? What angered me most was the fact that we were constantly told that what happens in school and college will be what shapes you for the rest of your life, deciding your fate. Bullshit. We have cutie-marks for a reason. Well, some of us at this point. I know for certain that Fabia had her fairly boring cutie-mark at this point, but me and Lyra were still lacking in ours.
Lyra was another close friend of mine, unlike Fabia I had known her practically my entire life. For those of your more in tune with classical music, you’ll know her as the mare that grew up to be the first chair lyrist in the Canterlot Symphony Orchestra. Yeah, that’s her. Mint green coat, lyre cutie-mark. And she always said she hated classical music.
The story of her cutie-mark is rather funny and kinda cute. You see, all Lyra’s life she had condemned to the very depths of her soul that classical music is the single most uncool thing a single pony could do. She didn’t even just mention it, she straight up raged about it. Beethoofen, forget about it, Lyra would tear your oesophagus out if you so much as mentioned him. Her and Octavia got on like a house on fire, let me tell you. So, the summer of 2006, me, Fabia and Lyra go our separate ways. Fabia did some generic shit like skiing, I would remain home and learn about MIDI and various other components of EDM. Lyra was “going to visit relatives.” We believed her at first, why wouldn’t we? When we got back to school, Lyra was suddenly wearing a dress. She never wore a dress. She wore this dress none stop for about five months, never letting anyone see her flanks. Well, dear old Little Miss Lyra was a Little Miss Liar. She adored classical music, in fact she attended band camps regularly. Not only that but she played the Lyre, which none of us were aware of. And, buck me, she played it well. It would be a few years before we saw her play but, oh boy, that pony could play. Tears in my eyes just thinking about it. The dress was a means of covering her brand-spanking new cutie-mark, which was simply a Lyre. I won’t lie, I was so proud of her and I couldn’t give two damns if she liked classical music, although my exterior couldn’t help but tease her about it mercilessly.
The only other pony that held much relevance in my life was Octavia, another pony you classical-heads may be familiar with. But the story of the relationship Octavia and I shared is far too wonderful and progressive to tell in one short paragraph.
Entering the common room in the early hours of the day was the rite of passage for the day. It made the days seem slightly less hopeless when you were reassured that you would spend those days with the ponies in this room. It was a fairly large room, which was shaped like a cross, with two little alcoves wandering off to either side halfway into the room. Our common-place was the right alcove along with several other ponies who I had very little social interaction with. Of course, Fabia and Lyra were there before me as they were everyday. I wasted no time approaching them and putting my promotional plan into action.
“’Sup guys!” I said that every morning.
Lyra would always reply with ,”Heyya Vinyl,” and Fabia with a very forced, “Whaddup Scratch.” I always hated being greeted like that but years of knowing this girl have put those qualms to rest.
Idle chit-chat will always pursue. Which one of us had the best weekend. I won this one by a landslide by seeing Dead-Pon3 at a club that I was three years to young to even be attending. 50 cool points to me. Fabia would tell a fairly mundane tale about how many stallions she had fucked at the weekend but we always knew better than to believe her. Lyra, similarly, would come up with some lie, anything that she believed was as far from, “I play the Lyre and I love classical music,” as possible.
Showing them the song I had created the previous day was proving to be more difficult than I had anticipated. I believed in the very depths of my soul that what I had created was a tour-de-force of Electronic goodness but something was pushing that belief further into the realms of uncertainty. I narrowed it simply down to nerves but, truth be told, something was telling me that this song was simply no good. My younger self, being as naïve as I was, was sure this song would be adored.
“Hey, do you wanna hear this song? Some pony outside the club last night handed it out to me, he must be a local artist or somethin’ but I thought it was pretty good.” And the plan was now in motion. I couldn’t help but smirk as I thought about the moment when they would finish the song and start begging me for the name of the pony who created it. And I would them… It was me.
Lyra hesitated before sullenly saying, “Eh, is it really that good? Something about handing out music at a gig doesn’t sit right with me.”
Fabia quickly countered by saying, “Hey, it’ll be a good laugh if it’s no good though won’t it?”
Yes, yes it would. But that wouldn’t happen.
…
Would it?
I let out a nervous and girly giggle, “That won’t be necessary, here, I have it loaded into my Walkpony. Have a listen!”
My CD Player was a simple thing. Given to me one Christmas a while back by my brother when I first began showing a noticeable interest in music. It was simple and cheap but it went everywhere with me. I also carried around a little booklet of my favourite compact disks with me. Literally everywhere I went, those two items went with me. Try separating me from it, I dare you. I would sit in the middle of some classes and sneakily hide my headphone under my mane and just bob my head slightly to my favourite music. I never got caught doing that, or maybe our teachers noticed and decided that so long as it was keeping me from disrupting the class like I normally do then it was a welcome addition to my list of wrong-doings, although they never actually brought it up. I wish I still had it. I threw it out many years ago to replace it with a digital MP3 player, but it never held the same quality or sense of musical adventure which I had developed from owning it that many years.
Lyra and Fabia at first looked like they were listening intently, which was a very good sign for me. I even began to develop in that moment an uncontrollable smile as I saw the fruits of my labour become appreciated. I really believed in that moment that this was all it took. I was good enough to just sit down for an evening, create a song and everypony would love it just like that. I began to contemplate the possibilities. I was already excited about sending this song off to a record label and getting signed. I was going to be world famous, rich and adored by everypony. Nopony could deny that I was the best and it would stay that way until I died… And it all started with my two best friends.
Those thoughts were quickly dragged to the trash when Fabia let out a giggle, quickly followed by Lyra.
Now is the time to try and describe to you how truly awful this thing I had created really was.
…
Maybe it me not being much of an author… or maybe it’s simply that no pony can put into words how abysmal this song really was. I was just straight-up bad, okay? I hate to admit it but there it was. I sucked.
The two were soon in hysterics and I couldn’t help but feel utterly confused. I honestly had no damned clue why they would find my musical sex so funny. I mean, it was awesome. Fabia finally removed the headphones and filled me in on what I was asking myself.
“Vinyl this is terrible.”
Shit... No. Oh Celestia no.
Lyra’s turn, although she had become a bit more serious at this point... That stung, “Yeah Vinyl, it seems like this ‘guy’ really has no idea what he’s doing. There is nothing good about this whatsoever.”
No. No, no, no.
I tried to salvage what little credibility I felt I had left. "Aww come on guys, it's not that bad right? I mean, for a guy giving it out at a gig... You really didn't like any of it?"
Fabia retorted with further obscenities about the song I had created. My song. The song I believed I had put my heart and soul into. It was as if I had suddenly found myself in a pit. A pit with no escape where, no matter how hard you tried, you were doomed to remain in for the remainder of your days. Dad had said to me once, “Life’s a bitch, then you die,” and at this point in time, I truly believed this to be true.
The metaphorical pit was a cold and dark place that I would find myself in more than a few times throughout my so-far short career. Whether it was a bad review or a feeling at a complete loss when trying to produce a song, the pit became a second home for me. And I hated it. I hated it because at the times I was in this pit, I felt that I was completely alone. That no pony else feels this. It was a feeling of complete and utter isolation.
As Fabia and Lyra continued to discuss how much they hated the track I could feel the ground give out beneath me as my pit got deeper and deeper, my life seeming to plummet further and further into complete helplessness and shame. The walls of the pit became slippery and impossible to climb up out of. The humidity rose and resulted in me sweating profusely and I became incredibly uncomfortable. I felt a very real stomach ache come over me and I felt somewhat light-headed. I would take me a few to years to realise something horrible.
The pit is real.
Lyra and Fabia at this point had taken their attention off of me and were now talking about something else, as if they had would have already forgotten the song had it not been for how dreadful they believed it was.
I look back on it now and I understand that it was simply a matter of me not trying hard enough and completely underestimating the time and effort that needs to go into electronic music to make it sound nurtured and cared for. I look back on it now and I realise that this experience was what I needed more than anything. I look back on it now as the moment when my career began.
Of course, at this time I didn’t realise this. I had to get out of this pit. I grabbed my CD player and ran. I didn’t literally run of course. I felt sick, or that was what I had them believe. I just had to leave. I had no desire for school that day. Truthfully, I felt no desire to do anything but lie down and cry. And that was just what I did on a mouldy bench in the local park.
As I look back on the entire thing, I’ll admit that running out into the hot air, cursing Celestia and screaming to the tallest tower in Canterlot Castle was one of my more childish escapades. But I couldn’t blame myself. The reality of things began to corrode at me. Yesterday I was an enthusiastic young mare who thought literally anything was possible and now I was preparing for the worst in life with no way around it.
The park bench which I resided on was dedicated to some poor pony who probably died of old age. The bench was frail and rotten now, it’s original brownish tan now invisible under the layers of moss that had gathered over the many years. The small piece of metal which once bared the old guy’s name was rusted and completely unreadable.
I loved that bench. I loved how rustic it was and that no one ever wanted to sit on it because of their fear of the unknown. Never trust anything that’s green, you know? It was essentially my bench, and it would remain that way until it gave way under my weight a few years later.
It resided directly infront of a large and highly active pond. A tall, concrete water feature in the middle let off the distinctive trickling of water which became all too familiar whilst the ducks loudly quacked to each other. Birds chirped, all that lovely nature-y stuff. Just stuff which filled the air and made this place special to me, I suppose. Tranquil, is the word.
These sounds paired with my gentle sobbing led to an encounter, which to this day, I am so grateful for.
“Yo. Y’alright?” Were the first words I heard coming out of the colt’s mouth. Little did I know it was going to be the first of thousands if not millions.
I said, “I’m fine. Go ‘way.” Nice and polite, like.
“You don’t look alright. Look, you’re crying.”
I got up and started to walk away, still avoiding eye contact.
“Why are you crying?” He persisted.
“I’m not crying. I’m just wet.” He snickered, probably at my unintended innuendo.
“How’d you get wet? Did you go swimming or something?” He laughed.
His conversation was so forced but there did seem to be a hint of almost brotherly concern in there. I wasn’t having any of it however, and politely informed him that he could fuck off. He didn’t.
“Look, just tell me what’s up.” He persisted. His voiced remained calm and steady.
I turned around to get a good look at this anonymous annoyance. He wasn’t much taller than me and slightly on the chubby side, but not obscenely so. He had a cream coat, similar to mine, and a jet-black mane. His eyes were a cerulean hue. Nothing special to look at really. He looked a little too well fed and pampered in my opinion so I was struggling in that moment to take the colt seriously.
“Please just go away.” I reached into my saddle-bag and pulled out my walkpony, plugging it into my head and quickly trotting away, genuinely becoming a bit unnerved by the pony with the loose bottom lip behind me.
A couple of paces down the path and I felt a hoof tap on my back.
I screamed, “WHAT?!” He wasn’t phased at all, infact he just smiled warmly at me.
“What you listening to?”
"Please just... Huh?”
“What are you listening to? I love music. What are you listening to?” He was speaking like a broken record and I couldn’t help but find it a little adorable. He sounded so dumb it was almost cute. This would be kept a secret, I decided in that moment. I think I was more content at the time with him think I hated him.
“Coltrate.” I replied sheepishly. In truth, that was far from the truth. I was listening to something I still to this day refuse to tell anypony. Seriously, you don't need to know. You wish you knew now but you'd regret it if you made me tell you. Turns out it was the right move because the young colts eyes quickly dilated and I could have sworn I saw his hair begin to stand on end like he had static running through his chubby little body.
“Oh man, I love Coltrate! I love his stuff from when he was more underground personally but personally I think that he really came into his own when he realised his fan base was going and personally-,” Yadda yadda yadda and so on and so forth. He spoke with a great amount of conviction and although it seemed like his train of thought was as organised as an unbound book in a hurricane he spoke with an enthusiasm which was quite contagious.
When he had finished justifying his reasons for liking one artist in particular, we got to talking. We were quite similar in mind and spirit and when I believed he was a bit more comfortable around me he could actually be quite intellectual. We talked about stupid things like astronomy and physics and he would ask me stupid hypotheticals such as, "Would you poke Princess Celestia in the flank with your horn for ten-thousand bits?" or, "Which would you prefer, lobster claws for hooves or a snake for a tongue." I would never have appreciated it at the time but that would be what would eventually lead to one of the strongest friendships I'll ever form.
His name is Caesar.
It was a peculiar name it still holds some level of intrigue for me today. It’s the only thing I’ve ever called him by, being completely unaware of his last name at the time, unaware if he even had one. He explained he was named after some prolific politician in history from a country well away from Equestria that his parents shared a distinct interest in, but he also went on to say he was very happy with the name which said a lot right there and then about his optimistic exterior.
After the general chit-chat and “isn’t-the-weather-nice” small talk that all ponies need to endure at more points in their lives than they would care to came to a close we began making things a little more personal. Family, dreams... And...
“Ready to tell me what all the crying was about?” He said quietly.
Honestly, I had forgotten about it having spent the remainder of the day in an enjoyable state of mind, but I suppose as embarrassing as it would be to admit why I was crying it would probably help to at least talk about it. That's what my brother always told me when he thought I was upset.
I fleetingly described the scenario which led to my bout of depression. The concert, the song and the criticism. Explaining it again wasn’t as difficult as I thought it might have been, having to relive the experience in order to explain to Caesar why I had been crying. In the moment it certainly didn’t feel like it had helped any. The entire time I couldn’t bare to look as Caesar, almost feeling ashamed of having to tell him.
But when I did look up at him, he was simply smiling. A big stupid grin and I found myself growing slightly frustrated, because I certainly could not see the amusing side of things.
“Is my misery funny or something? Seriously, what’s there to smile about?” I snapped.
His smile didn’t fade as he replied, “You produce? That's so cool!” He exclaimed as he stood on his hind legs in what appeared to be a childish celebration.
“Well, no, not really. I mean, it was just one song. I wouldn’t exactly call it a hobby…” More of a catastrophic failure.
“Exactly! Why do you think it didn’t live up to the expectations you set for yourself? Come on Vinyl! It takes at least ten years to get good at anything. Heh, you should have heard my first song, but alas it is lost to the ages.” He finished his little speech with a solemn yet exaggerated hoof to chest which encouraged a giggle from me, but I was more interested by what he had said before that.
“You produce too?" This revelation that I was talking to someone who was at some point in the same boat as me was as exciting as it was scary. The thought of dedicating a great portion of my life to one skill, as Caesar described, was nothing less than daunting. It would take me a while to realise that any amount of time spent nurturing a skill is time well spent. "That’s… cool. That’s so cool!”
“Yeah, I’ve been going at it for a few years now. It’s fun but, take it from me, it isn't easy. Practise makes perfect.” I heard adults say that kind of thing all the time. Practise makes perfect. However, it felt so much more invigorating and inspiring hearing it from Caesar.
I was intrigued, “Could I, uh… Listen to some… maybe?” I whispered hoarsely, as though I was telling somepony that if they show me theirs, I'll show them mine. An almost childish ideal of sacredness slipped my lips as I asked. I'm still unsure why I was so timid to ask to this day, mostly because, now, my opinions on sharing music with others are the best kind of tyrannical.
“Buck yeah you can!” He shouted a little too loudly before he began rummaging around in his own saddlebags.
“Urgh, don’t say ‘buck’, it’s so uncool. Just say 'fuck,' I won't tell your Mother .” He didn’t humour me with a response. He had already pulled out a modern looking MP3 Player which he was already tapping his hooves all over, triggering various magical nodes.
A few yards down the path later he finally said, “Here we go. I did this one just last month.” Stupid grin, initiate. He passed the Mp3 player to me and I hastily placed the headphones over the top of my mane and over my ears. The music had already begun.
It was… somewhat indescribable. It certainly did not live up to the clarity and sheer professionalism of many of the mixes I had heard in the past but it fucking spoke to me. The day was drawing to a close and as the pads and thumping kicks washed through my head the sun was setting. I stopped and sat down against the banks and watched out over the lake and deeply into the long, long skies stretching over Equestria and I could, in that moment, sense all the raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge towards the distant ocean, all the grass and trees and birds and all the ponies dreaming about the immensity of it all but never fully understanding it. But in that moment I understood it. Here I was, sat listening to the song of a young colt most ponies would still regard as a stranger. As melodies that were pulled from the mind rolled elegantly over the many layers of the music I could compare, quite definitely, the beauty of the music and the beauty of my country. On the other side of the world, the stars will be out and ponies will be watching them in ignorance as their foals cry into the night. The pegasi and the unicorns and the earth ponies. The gryphons and the dragons and the dogs. They all see the same thing but only I could hear what they should be hearing in this moment. This is what the music spoke of. Beauty in simplicity and simplicity in beauty. And as the sun began setting over the prairie’s beyond the curves the stars began showing and sparkling their dims over the same stretch of seemingly endless land just before the night envelopes this side of the world, darkens the lakes and rivers, cups the peaks of Canterlot and folds the final shore in. And as all this happens, nopony, nopony knows what’s going to happen besides the forlorn feeling of growing old.
And then the music ended. Seconds after the final note diminished into nothingness I removed the headphones. Slowly.
“Geez, I was starting to think you’d gone into a coma!” He gave a loud chuckle, “I have to admit, not many ponies seem to want to get past the first minute but I knew a pony of your musical calibre could manage with a fifteen minute song!” He spoke with the over exaggerated conviction which I had grown used to over our first hours together and I still couldn’t speak, “Now, now, please hold your criticism. I’m sure you have plenty to say, heh… Vinyl?”
I was still a little unsure of how to reply to the overwhelming experience of it all. So I simply spoke my mind, “How do you do that?”
“Well… Like I said, practise. Practise makes perfect, that’s what they say!”
“No, Caesar. You make it sound good with practise. And it didn’t sound that good anyway. How do you make it feel so good? Everything just… I… It just…”
“You felt it?” Caesar spoke quietly.
“Yes. I think I did.”
“Well there’s not really an answer I can give to that. A lot of ponies draw on... personal tragedies or experiences when trying to create that kind of music." He waved his hoof around as he tried to explain before dropping it to the ground with a loud 'thump,' clearly giving up, "Well… Shit Vinyl, I don’t know. I’ve never had to explain this before, don’t make me try.”
“Sorry but… Caesar it was fucking awesome.” I eyed Caesar with such admiration.
I turned to look at him but his shit-eating grin wasn’t there. It was more a look of confusion; the same kind of confusion if you heard that pigs had grown wings overnight and just found out it was true. And not only that, they were pillaging your home.
I couldn’t stand to look any longer. I felt pathetic.
“Vinyl… How much do you want this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to be an engineer when I’m older. I’m studying really hard for it. I’d love to build bridges one day across the ocean. I really want that. I’m willing to work hard for it.”
“What’s your point?”
“How much do you want your music to be heard and loved?”
I once more turned back to look at him and something in that moment suggested to me that I would never have to look away from him again. He had stepped closer silently as he was speaking and was now within hoofs width away from me. He looked down at my slumped form with the same caring eyes I saw in my brother. Sincere. He question still hung in the air and after a moments thought I believed I could give him a truthfully blunt answer.
“More than anything.”
And then came the massive, fuck-off, shit eating grin I knew and secretly admired. He held out his hoof. I took it. He pulled me so I arched upwards and was once more stood on my hooves, a sense of invigoration growing inside of me. Then the cheeky bastard gave me a patronising two soft slaps on the cheek.
“Then I’ll teach you!”
