1968 Conqueror of American Rock - Chapter 167



Only Noblemtl

167. NAMM Show (4)

“Angela! Angela!”

I carried Angela, who had fainted, out of the practice room and ran down the hallway.

‘I’m sorry, I should have stepped in and stopped you… … .’

But something felt strange as I ran. If I had passed out, I should have been lying down, but my arms were tense, as if I was trying to carry myself.

“James, Angela. What are you guys doing?”

Annie, whom I met in this urgent situation, asked while leisurely eating bread. I couldn’t tell the truth because I swore not to tell anyone. As I was thinking about what kind of excuse to make, I felt a trembling sensation in my back.

“Annie, call 911. Quickly!”

“Hey, don’t just give Angela a ride, give me a ride too.”

What the hell is this guy talking about?

“Pfft, puhahahahahaha!”

“Oh, surprise! Angela, are you okay?”

Angela continued to giggle even after getting off my back.

“I’m sorry… … James… … hahaha!”

Angela calmed down for a moment and then explained the situation.

“I was curious. Why did Sister Maria make me not play this song? But after hearing Siyoon’s story, I became even more curious. Why is it that they say that this song cannot be played without going crazy? So I borrowed a music book from Siyoon with the intention of giving it a try. The music score was really complicated, like reading a newspaper. But when I looked closely, the music score started to look like a picture to me. I got lost in it and played. It was not painful, but rather enjoyable. I didn’t even realize how 40 minutes had passed.”

“But why did you faint after finishing the race?”

“Oh, that’s not fainting… … .”

Angela’s white face quickly turned red.

Gulp.

Angela’s face turned even redder as she clutched her stomach.

* * *

Cheeeeek.

“Come on, Angela. Oh, try it. It’s an anime-style wrap. Try it.”

Annie, who had a small mouth, always liked to eat big wraps of meat until her mouth burst open. She was fine with eating like that, but she made sure to make big meat wraps for Angela too.

“Ugh… … Hey, it’s so big (Annie, it’s so big)… … .”

This guy is definitely a pervert.

Angela said that she didn’t faint, but that she had just slumped down on the keyboard for a moment because she was exhausted from playing a 40-minute piece on an empty stomach. I may have overdone it, but I couldn’t help it as I had to watch.

The Korean town restaurant that Siyoon introduced me to was really great. It completely captured the taste of American Angela.

“But Angela. If you weren’t passed out, why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep carrying me? You… … You’ve learned how to ride James, haha. He’s like a dolphin when you ride him in the water.”

“Ah… … That’s not it. It was my first time being carried since I was born, so it was a bit new and strange.”

Angela was probably left behind in the church when she was five years old. Still, she might have vague memories of her mother… … Annie was also aware of this, so she didn’t bring up the subject of her mother.

“When I came to Koreatown, I saw a lot of people walking around with babies on their backs.”

“Isn’t that obvious? How can you carry a baby around if you don’t carry it on your back?”

“In America, we usually just carry them. When they start walking, we let them walk.”

Angela ate the meat, even though she said she was hungry. Of course, Annie also ate without stopping.

“That’s strange. So, American mothers don’t carry their babies?”

“Yes. Not only in America, but in most Western countries.”

“Let’s see. Angela, you don’t seem to be a completely white person from England… … .”

Annie bent down and looked closely at Angela’s face.

“I was Russian-American. My birth parents… … .”

“You look unusually white. You must be from Russia.”

“It’s also because Wisconsin has such long winters.”

Perhaps Rachmaninoff is also known as a Russian-American… … Is there any chance that he is his descendant… … Oh, no way. I guess not.

I had a wild idea for a moment.

But in the movie I saw in the future, the main character suffered from schizophrenia while practicing this piece, and I know that Rachmaninoff in real life also suffered from depression.

Perhaps Sister Maria was worried about that and asked me to do that. Still, it’s fortunate. Angela, who finished the song, is now eating meat and laughing with Annie.

I decided that Angela’s positive energy had overcome the superstitions of no source. I would have to keep watching, but somehow I had a feeling that the situation Sister Maria was worried about would not occur in the future.

* * *

Western Market.

The Nam Show is held here for two days, today and tomorrow. It wasn’t the fancy Music Expo Convention Center that I’d been to in the past. It was just a huge rectangular warehouse, with endless booths of various music brand companies spread out like a Hollywood set. There were many famous companies like Gibson, Fender, Marshall, and Vox, but there were also many names of companies that I had never seen before.

Our brand was also new, so we were given a small space in the corner. All the companies had finished setting up their booths and instruments by yesterday. From today on, the key was to somehow attract the attention of investors and weekly magazine reporters with an attractive demonstration.

Many people have been visiting this place since early morning, and the sounds of instruments can be heard here and there. It was a place where you could experience a wide variety of instruments, from band instruments such as drums, electric guitars, basses, and amplifiers to pianos, organs, and various string and wind instruments.

Since it was a booth for demonstrating musical instruments, unlike other festivals where the booths were made of tents, there were temporary soundproof walls erected at each booth. Of course, some sound could be heard, but everyone was polite enough not to disturb the booths next to them. Many people came to watch after hearing the sound coming from the booths next to them.

We were in the most remote spot, but we proudly hung a nice wooden sign that said, “Garage Brew.” It was the work of Miguel, who was in charge of the design. The letters were hand-stamped on the well-dried maple wood with a hot iron, which was beautiful. It was a design that fit well with our brand’s purpose of emphasizing homemade products.

“James, this place feels completely different from a festival. There are a lot of guys in suits who came to see it.”

Annie glanced at the booths of other brands.

“But isn’t it comfortable that not many people recognize us?”

“But, but why is it the smallest booth in the corner?”

“It’s a new brand and we’re a small, home-based business. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

Most of the people gathered here were in the musical instrument business. Of course, there were famous artists among the musicians performing, but there were many more performers who were not well known.

We came dressed deliberately in plain clothes. Annie and Angela didn’t even wear makeup. The PR people from the CW put together the promotional materials that Brad and I had made, and director Robert Smith came with a Super 8 camcorder and a microphone.

“Okay, everyone, look here.”

Click, click.

Bao was in charge of the photography.

“Okay, shall we start playing? Annie and Jake, start first. Angela, just lay down the strings.”

Annie was now skillfully connecting her guitar and effects to the amp on her own. Jake also took out his Gibson Flying V and set it up.

As the two guitarists looked ready, Angela laid down some soft strings on her first synthesizer, the Initium-X. It was a far cry from the realistic string sounds of the future, but it was the first time in this day and age that a single keyboard could produce the sound of multiple string instruments playing together.

The eyes of the EGO members watching the performance shone with confidence.

Annie’s beautiful melody began to flow gracefully like a swan over Jake’s steady arpeggio lake. It was Annie’s first official guitar performance. Perhaps because she was a vocalist, the guitar solo line was natural, as if she was singing. It was a performance that fully reflected her efforts.

As Bach’s Aria on the G String resonated with the sound of an electric guitar amidst the jazz and rock ‘n’ roll performances coming from the next booth, people began to gather one by one.

Everyone who entered the booth had the same expression as, ‘Oh, was that a girl playing it?’ Perhaps, in all of the men’s shows, Annie was the only one who played this with a rock sound, not an acoustic guitar or hollow body. And she was the first woman to do so.

People started to murmur. And more and more people in suits started to flock in. Reporters with cameras were busy taking pictures of our performers.

As the two took turns taking turns, Annie smiled and backed with a more relaxed expression, and Jake began his high-difficulty solo in earnest.

Click, click.

The reporters were busy clicking their shutters so as not to miss Annie and Angela’s bright expressions and Jake’s expression of absorption in playing.

When the performance ended, cheers and applause poured out, something rarely seen in a Namsho show. Nine out of ten people gathered were middle-aged men in suits. In their eyes, Annie and Angela must have seemed like cute daughters.

“This is the first time I’ve seen such young girls perform at Namsho. Could you briefly introduce yourself?”

A middle-aged man in a dark gray suit asked in an excited voice.

Annie looked at me, and I nodded.

“Actually, I’m not a guitarist, but I’m Annie Kim, the lead singer of a band called Sparkling Ripple. This LA Metal pedal was developed by our team’s guitarist, James Choi. The proper effects demo will be done by our two guitarists.”

“S, Sparkling Ripple… … The Sparkling Ripple that paraded down Sunset Strip last week?!”

The middle-aged man’s shouts started a commotion among the people, and soon a crowd of people gathered outside our booth.

Annie, who had done her part so well, came out on stage while putting away her guitar, and I started explaining to the staff about the booster pedal ‘LA Metal’ in earnest.

“If I just put this between the amp and the guitar, the sound will be more powerful?”

“Yes, that’s right. However, the texture and sound pressure will differ depending on the brand of the amp and the speaker cabinet. In addition, the sound will also differ depending on the shielding condition of the guitar, the pickup, and the quality of the cable. However, this pedal basically makes the sound stronger and tighter in any situation.”

I demoed a quick twin guitar solo with Jake, showing the stark difference between not engaging the pedal and engaging it.

Next, Brad presented the world’s first modular synthesizer. Everyone was amazed by the variety of sounds that could be produced from a single, thin keyboard.

“Can you imitate the sound of a Hammond organ?”

“It won’t sound exactly the same, but compared to a big, heavy, expensive Hammond organ, you can imitate a similar sound with just a few button presses.”

Brad explains his innovative synthesizer by switching between banks of instruments.

“Above all, this product is thin and light and can produce a variety of instrument sounds with just one keyboard.”

After Brad selected a bank of electronic drums and played a simple drum rhythm by hand on the keyboard, cheers erupted from all directions.

“Garage Brew was originally a small club at UCLA’s College of Engineering. Then, by chance, I met a Korean friend at a music store. Surprisingly, he was the bassist for Sparkling Ripple, and one day, he brought James Choi to our garage, haha. That was the beginning. So we started in earnest… … .”

Brad met us and calmly told us about the story of how he developed the instrument, debuted as a band, and even filmed a commercial. The musical instrument company officials were engrossed in the interesting story, and the reporters took out their notebooks and busily wrote it down.

“We developed the Initium-X, but the musicians who can use the full potential of this instrument are these two girls over there.”

Angela and Siyoon were standing side by side in front of the keyboard where Brad had pointed.

“This is probably the first time in the history of Namsho, no, in the history of music. The piece we will be demonstrating this time is the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, newly arranged by the two girl keyboardists and the genius guitarist James Choi!”