Whale Music by Paul Quarrington

Author:Paul Quarrington [Quarrington, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-36410-4
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 1997-05-19T16:00:00+00:00

I wake up in the music room. My mouth is fuzzy and my head aches. I have a hangover, how quaint. This hangover doesn’t know what it’s up against, trying to inhabit the body of Desmond Howl.

I dreamt I was a whale. I swam in the ocean contentedly, occasionally rising to the surface for a little blow. I ingested huge quantities of plankton. Some dolphins told me that a silver star had fallen out of the sky and burst into flame upon the waters. Those crazy dolphins.

Fay was a great believer in dreams and was always after me to write down my dreams immediately upon rising. Then my dreams could be examined, my inner thoughts and feelings discerned. This dream, wherein I dreamt I was a whale, means that I want to be a whale. There, what’s the big deal?

The Yamaha 666 is asleep, perhaps dreaming machine dreams, producing a soft purr. I gently reach up and press its power button. The Beast lets out a sigh, the energy collapses.

The Whale-man is tired, these hours of drug-induced stupor do not really rest one, you know, they lay one out in a coma, allowing the various humours to conspire to more deviltry. The Whale-man is jangly, though, energetic and exhausted at the same time, my hands shake and there is a ball of gas about to go nova in my belly. Let’s face it, people, I have ended badly. Why couldn’t I have been a baseball player, why couldn’t my worst problem be that after four beers I like to arm-wrestle with guys named Sparky and Lynn?

I pull myself up gripping the Yamaha 666, the Stradivarius of emulators. I took the Beast so far outside that we started spotting igloos, and there was never a peep of rebellion. The Beast knows no fear.

Let us listen to the “Song of Congregation”. I wander into the control room, power-on, switch switches, the music pumps out octaphonically, the mouth of the Beast filling the world. This is okay. This sounds like Venusian footsoldiers, this says whales, get the fuck over here STAT!!

Now the real work begins. Mixing.

Even with the computers, the digitalizers, even with the sound enhancers and graphic equalizers, mixing is a tough game. What wouldn’t I give to have Freaky Fred sitting beside me, looking off into vacant space, staring almost at the music, suddenly reaching out towards a pod, panning a sound half a degree to the right, and kerpow, it’s like da Vinci getting the Mona Lisa’s smile just right: “Dattsa da teeket!”

Did you hear that? That sudden loud noise buried in the music? Oh my goodness, I hope there isn’t some imperfection on the tape. I throw it into reverse and listen again. Yes, there is a loud noise, but—I swack the power-off. A loud noise, but it’s coming from the studio itself, someone is stumbling around in the gloom, uncertain of their footing. I crouch behind the console and peer out. My eyes are used to it, night

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