Wasted

Do you ever just sit on the toilet with your phone, looking at memes and pointless shit? Yeah, so do I. So one night, I decided to switch things up a little and get some creative juices flowing. I found a random band name generator and started playing with it. It was spewing out crazy names like Bullfrog Wingman and Ianimate Quinoa Of The Believing Clamor. Inaudible Tornado was a good one, too. At one point, it gave me After Orion. For some reason, that clicked in my head as a cool sounding name. It was a starting point. I wanted something that would have personal meaning to me. But at least I was inspired.

I had been thinking a lot that week about what I wanted to do for a new band. I scrapped the idea of playing bass with my boyfriend. It's not that I don't think I could learn to sing and play bass at the same time. It's just that I don't want to fuck up entire practice sessions for months while I work at becoming proficient. So I had picked up the only electric guitar I owned, a metallic red Squier Affinity series Strat my parents gave me for Christmas when I was 14, and started trying to write with it. I was rusty after months of focusing on ukulele over guitar, my strings were in need of replacing, and the neck was beginning to warp after 11 years, but I still knew what I was doing, and that's the important part. I was still able to make coherent chord progressions with smooth strum patterns. I could still double pick. It was starting to look like I could maybe do some kind of project where I was a guitarist.

It was during this time that I also picked up a ukulele student. I agreed to teach Michelle to play the ukulele in exchange for food. I don't like being paid to share my knowledge, but I'll always take an order of fried rice or a bowl of spaghetti. So I was working on new guitar songs at the same time as I was walking her through chord transitions and strumming techniques on a totally different instrument. Also spending my days handling brainless customers at a big box store, but that's irrelevant.

I put my guitar in drop-D tuning one night, out of a desire to write something unlike the pop-punk riffs I wrote back in high school. My bottom, heaviest gauge string took on a nasty fret buzz that I couldn't get rid of, and which made no sense at all when you consider how high the action is on a cheap Strat. The strings were too far from the fretboard to buzz like that, except, no, they weren't, because they were buzzing. No big deal. I needed fresh strings anyway.

After Orion became After Cassiopeia. She has always been my favorite constellation. Tied to a chair and imprisoned in the inky black of the heavens, she always felt relatable to me, because I frequently find myself imprisoned in places and situations I'd rather not be in. Not usually as punishment for pissing Poseidon off, but whatever works. I ultimately ended up changing the name to Following Cassiopeia. The word After meant nothing to me, but Following was something that made sense. Where am I following her to? It bore a certain intrigue, and I really liked that.

~

I met the drummer of Following Cass about a year ago. Michelle was doing a weekly karaoke gig at this hipster bar downtown, and I went as often as I could. I was there with my foster brother, Curtis. I had vodka and cranberry juice. Curtis had a mojito. Two dudes down the bar from us had three shots of Patrón in front of them, and apparently they also had a problem. "Who does a shot of tequila without salt and lime?" one of them griped. "Straight tequila is so mean!"

"Take it like a girl!" I spat. They turned to look at me, amused smirks on their faces. "You heard me. Like a girl." By this point the bartender was in stitches.

"I told them I'm all out of lime," he said. "They wouldn't listen."

"Last summer, I killed half a bottle of Cuervo like it was a shot. I didn't have salt and lime. Patrón is considerably better. Take it like a girl."

"Damn," the dude on the left said. He was a cute ginger with well done ink and a stylish undercut. "I don't think our friend is coming back, so we have an extra shot here. Do you want to take it?" I only thought for a moment before I agreed, hopped off my barstool, and went to stand near the two of them. "I'm Dakota," the ginger said. "That's your shot." He pointed at the tiny glass on the bar.

"Cool," I smiled. "I'm Rachel." I picked up the shotglass and sniffed its contents, as I often do when I get an alcoholic drink. Satisfied, I raised it. "Cheers, huh?"

~

Present-day, I posted on Facebook about finally having a coherent idea for my new music project. I said I was in the market for a drummer and a bassist. Dakota got in touch and we discussed my plans. He was about it. I couldn't believe my good luck, finding a drummer immediately like that. They're so scarce around here.

I sent a Snapchat to my friend Summer, who I knew was a very passionate bass guitarist. I asked her if she wanted to play bass in my new band. Her response was somewhere along the lines of, "YAAAASSSSSS!!!!"

And just like that, we had our line-up.