The Demonic Caesars

[The Demonic Caesars’ practice room in a warehouse in east London. Theo’s smoking outside when Jonny arrives, carrying a guitar.]

Theo - Alright Jonny.

Jonny - Theo.

Theo - C’mon, come and meet the family.

[Inside. The room is cluttered with equipment. There are posters and photos of the band on the walls. Adam is distracted by a new piece of fatuous musical technology when Theo talks to him.]

Theo - Adam, this is Jonny, the guitarist we talked about.

Adam - Alright Jamie.

Jonny - Jonny.

Adam - Adam. Welcome to The Demonic Caesars.

[Adam, like the rest of the band, wears black skin tight jeans, vest and leather jacket. Expensive haircut. He’s got a passion for musical gadgets and internet based technology, an annoying technophile, real rock-star-wannabe. Always chewing gum.] 

Jonny [Looking at all the equipment.] - This is quite a setup here.

Adam - All necessary, man, I assure you. We’re like the muso Apache Indians, no part of the Buffalo goes unused.

[The drummer walks up to Jonny and shakes his hand in a slip-me-some-skin kind of way.]

Brett – Brett, percussion.

Jonny - Jonny, nice to meet ya.

[Duncan, The Caesar’s cameraman, is filming everything on a vintage video camera.]

Adam - Theo tells me you play a Gibson.

Jonny - Yeah, Les Paul… 1964 and a half.

Adam - Let’s see it then.

Jonny [Getting the guitar out of it’s case.] - Have you heard the story about this...?

Adam and Theo - No?

Jonny- Well, Gibson released it in June of 1964 and only 2000 were ever made. But six months after coming on the market people started complaining about a fault when they tuned it. In the end they recalled all the guitars. Most people returned them and got their money back, but a few didn’t, and a couple of months after that Whalebone Tiller - the old bluesman -discovered that the guitar could be tuned a certain way to create a wholly unique sound. But it was too late, ‘cos the Gibson warehouse burnt down,and only 150 guitars survived - basically, those that weren’t sent back. This is one of them, you can tell because it has the words point-five signed on the base of the neck. Look...

Adam - Are you getting this, Dunk.

Duncan [Camera on the guitar.] - Yeah man, yeah.

Theo - Where d’you get it?

Jonny – On eBay, off this bloke in Tennessee. Rumour has it that when the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane went down in ‘77, it wasn’t the impact that killed Ronnie van Zant, it was the fret board of one of these - right through the throat.

Duncan – Religious!

Brett - Fuckin cool guitar. Lookin’ forward to jamming with you.

Adam - You heard our songs, man?

Jonny - I listened to them on the website.

Adam - What do you think of our sound? Reckon you could fill in?

Jonny - I’ll give it a go.

Adam - You’ll what? We’re The Demonic Caesars man, you don’t just give it a go; you’re either in or you’re out, you either go hard or you go home. There’s no middle ground in a band like this one. Now let’s see if you’re up to the job.

Jonny - Can we run through the songs a few times first, give me chance to get to know them?

Adam - Listen Jamie...

Theo - Jonny...

Adam - Listen Jonny, half the trouble with modern music today is a lack of depth. Their styles aren’t rooted in a firm system of beliefs; and if they are, then those beliefs aren’t solid enough to generate music which is gonna be unbelievable. And that’s what I want to produce man, unbelievable music. I’m an educator, a creator. I want people to hear our songs and know it’s The Caesars that’re playing. I want to create a sound that makes people shit themselves in delight.

[Camera cuts to Jonny’s face. Then returns to Adam, Duncan’s still filming.]

Adam - I’m punk, man. You say you wanna run through a couple of songs first? Well I don’t believe in rehearsals - I just wanna plug in, switch-on, and play. I wanna give you the opportunity to create something incredible, something perfect. You can’t do that by rehearsing, you can only do it by playing. I want you to produce something so beautifully spontaneous that other bands will surrender their practice rooms and follow suit. Ain’t that right, Dunk?

Jonny - Is he in the band as well then?

Adam - That’s Duncan, The Caesar’s official cameraman.

Jonny - Cameraman?

[Duncan is wearing a top-hat. Leopard skin neck-a-chief, black t-shirt, dark brown suede suit top,black leather trousers and black winkle picker shoes.]

Duncan - ’Sup? Been following these guys for nine months now. I was at that gig in The Old Blue Last, what I saw there impressed me. Approached them that night. Put my proposal to them.

Theo - And we accepted.

Duncan - Been shooting them ever since. Been some high times and low, and there’s been a steady stream of guitarists, but the band have always pulled through. Now they’ve got a chance to progress in the NEWS competition so my film has the perfect ending. Winning that will get them the recognition they deserve, and I will have documented their rise. You’re part of that now, Jonny, you’re a lucky man.

Jonny - What’s the film called?

Duncan - A-roc-alypse Now: Twelve Months With The Demonic Caesars.

Jonny – Right.

Adam - You ready man? You can use that anti-tangle guitar lead there, plug into the amp next to Theo’s. This song’s called Lonely at the Top.

Theo [Shows Jonny a piece of paper.] - The cords are written on there.

Adam - Wanna count us in Brett.

Brett - One, two, three, four!

[They start playing, you only hear a few cords of a song. Then the practice is over.]

Adam - That was awesome man, awesome! Dunk, did you get all that?

Duncan - Yeah man, religious. Right down to the last note.

Adam - Fuckin A.

Theo [To Jonny.] - You were good man, I liked what you did on Henri Murger’s Latin Retreat.

Jonny - That’s a good track.

Adam - I like you Jonny, there’s a rawness to your playing, you’ve got a style I can relate to. You clearly love the spontaneous pressure.

Jonny - You’ve got some interesting ideas.

Adam - We do. There’s room for you in a band like this one. And you’ll be pleased to know you’ve passed the test. Congratulations, you’re in. Shouldn’t be long before we’re back on the circuit.

Jonny - You expecting many gigs?

Adam - Four a week when you’re ready for it, if you can handle that?

Jonny - Yeah definitely.

Adam - The results for that MySpace thing are out soon as well. The final for that’s next month. This is the perfect competition for The Caesars, it fits with my idea of what I want this band to be. A hundred years ago TheFuturists realised that if the galleries and venues weren’t going to give them a go,they’d have a go themselves. They utilised recent developments in printing press technology to get their message across. That’s what I want The Caesars to do, work with technology against the corporate stranglehold. We need to colonise the internet. We’re a post-Futurist movement, but this competition represents a fully Futurist manoeuvre.

Jonny - Ten grand prize innit?

Adam - Pocket money man, compared to the attention we’ll receive from winning it. [Then.] Are we gonna get packed up now lads? I’ve gotta get off.

Theo - We’d normally go for a drink now, but Adam’s got his class and I’m skint, so next week eh?

Jonny - No problem, I have to get off anyway.

Adam - And just one more thing Jonny. While the music is the most important thing, it’s not the only thing.

Adam [Throws him a leather jacket.] - Wear this next time. 

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