From the mastermind who brought you Sonic the Hedgehog: Official Interviews comes a new album --- I mean, story.
Here's the deal, everybody: This story flows like a rock opera, meaning that I have written my own situational lyrics and interspersed them throughout the story. The melodies are in my head, so I can't really explain how they go; that's where your imagination kicks in. If you're big into music and you love classic rock, you're in for a treat and I eagerly await your review. If not, that's okay, you don't have to keep reading it, but I sure will keep writing it. Hell, feel free to skip the lyrics if you're unable to come up with a tune. I won't be devastated. I'm just writing this to have fun.
These go to eleven,
-SpinalTapSoundGuy
Gold on Vinyl: The Story of Sonic Boom
Prologue: The Quest Begins
Rock and roll owes much of its influence to blues and gospel music, dating back all the way to spirituals of freedom sung by African-American slaves in the 1800's. The rise of the blues and the eventual development of rock and roll started in the American south (now southern UFM), during the 1930's, when a young black man named Robert Johnson recorded all of the tunes he knew on his slide guitar. He died young, but his music made history and influenced Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and several other musicians, decades later.
Since then, Blues begat Folk Rock and Bob Dylan; Folk Rock begat Rockabilly and Elvis Presley; Rockabilly begat the British (now Albionic) Invasion and the Beatles; the Albionic Invasion begat the Protest Era and Jefferson Airplane; the Protest Era begat Progressive Rock and The Who; Progressive Rock begat the Golden Age, of Black Sabbath, Queen, Boston, Blue Oyster Cult, Bob Seger, Aerosmith, Foghat, Heart, and Kansas; the Golden Age begat Funk, Disco, and ABBA; Disco begat Punk and the Sex Pistols, Punk begat Metal, Alice Cooper, Van Halen, Metallica, and Megadeth; Metal begat Hair Flare, Europe, Whitesnake, and Dio; Hair Flare begat Grunge, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam.
After Grunge, it seemed that rock and roll was losing the spark it once had, as hip-hop grew into rap and began to replace rock as the popular music of the day. Britney Spears and other teenage pop starlets threatened to undo the progress that feminism had made in rock and roll thanks to legends like Joan Jett and Pat Benatar. Many people who fell in love with the old songs found refuge in the records and tapes of their favorite artists. But not everybody could preserve them forever, and time was not kind to the vinyl…
One thousand years passed since AD 2009, the spark of rock and roll never having been truly recovered. Earth became Mobius, the United States became the United Federation of Mobius, the United Kingdom became Albion, etc. And it is here in Station Square, in the year 3009, that two friends, desperate for music, embarked on an epic journey, a quest to revive the spirit of rock and roll…
To Rock and Roll
[Fast tempo. Key of A minor]
[Drums kick off an acoustic intro, strumming the A minor chord staccato on each downbeat]
-
I don't have the latest album but I just wanna say
I think rock and roll has lost its way.
All the sell-outs get hung up on their image, and it costs them their music.
-
All we have now's Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears,
The former's schizophrenic and the latter bares her rear,
They just can't handle their fame, they only abuse it.
-
[Enter rhythm guitar, bass, and drums]
-
I'm Sonic the Hedgehog, true blue lightning!
My vocal skills are so good, they're frightening!
I'm the fastest thing alive; no one can match me for speed!
-
To me rock and roll has no rival!
And I will bring about its revival!
This is my band; and this song is our creed!
-
[Chorus]
The music we are force-fed has no soul!
All of this new crap is getting old
But Sonic Boom works only for one goooaaalll….
TO ROCK AND ROLL!!!!
-
My buddy Miles Prower here goes by "Tails"
He's a kick-ass bassist, man, it never fails
When he spins his tails around, he can lift off and fly!
-
He's a rad technician and an expert of sound
All he ever learned was just from tinkerin' around
We love him 'cause he can make the groupies multiply!
-
Knuckles the Echidna here wails on the drums
He's a pretty tough bastard, but he's pretty dumb
He locked himself in his car on the way to record this!
-
It took us two hours just to get him out
And when we had a laugh all he could do was pout
The keys were on the dash; took him long enough to notice!
-
[Chorus]
-
[Enter keyboards]
-
Silver the Hedgehog is albino white
But man, that sucker's pure dynamite
And he's psychokinetic, through a strange twist of fate.
-
He uses it for throwing things and bending spoons
At first sight I thought I OD'd on shrooms
He's our keyboardist and he tears up those 88's.
-
Shadow is the greatest lead guitarist of all!
Beltin' out those solos on his Gibson Les Paul!
The licks that he lays down are so sweet that they're tasty!
-
We all call him Eddie Van Hedgehog
His mad skills ain't no hodgepodge
Shad's first solo I heard just about raped me! (AND I LIKED IT!!)
-
[Guitar solo]
-
[Chorus]
-
TO ROCK AND ROLL!!!
TO ROCK AND ROLL!!!
TO ROCK AND ROLL!!!
TO ROCK AND F***IN' ROLL!!!!!
[Song ends]
Station Square, at the crack of noon
Sonic was awakened rudely by the buzzing of the alarm clock. He slammed the off button, annoyed. Why didn't he ever set the alarm to turn on the radio? He switched on the radio. A DJ's voice came over the speakers.
"Yo, yo, wat up dogs? We got some sweet mothaf***in' rap numbas comin' up so stay tuned to 94.7 Da Chain!! Fo shizzle!"
Sonic turned the dial. Now he remembered why he didn't listen to the radio.
He found a country station. What was that doing in Station Square? He continued tuning.
Pop. Ughh. From the sound of it, they were playing Fiona Arizona. He decided to switch before they started playing the Judas Brothers.
Classical. Okay, that was getting better. At least his ears didn't face constant bombardment from it, unlike so many overplayed pop songs, so it sounded fresh. After a while, he continued his search.
Jazz. That might be the closest station he could find to true rock and roll. He sighed and turned the radio off.
Sonic walked into the living room to find Tails on the couch, watching MTV. Sonic sat down to watch without a word. It took him about twenty minutes to notice that he hadn't seen any music videos on it at all. He was hoping to see classic videos from the 80's that he had heard about. But so far it was just two DJ's, a man with glasses and a busty, blonde airhead, yakking back and forth in unintelligible Valspeak.
Sonic finally spoke. "What the f*** is this??? Where are the videos? This sucks!"
"I know! I haven't seen any on here. It's like they're more interested in showing breasts than showing music."
Sonic laughed. "Well, if that's the case Tails, I'm not complaining."
Sonic did a double take.
"What the – Wait a minute! That pair looked familiar!"
"You recognize women based on their breasts, Sonic?"
"Like faces, Tails. Like faces. That pair definitely belonged to Rouge. But never mind right now."
Sonic dialed a number on the phone.
"MTV viewer services, how can we help you?"
"Hey, geniuses, ya got any music videos to show us, seeing as it's music TV?"
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"There's this thing called music. You heard of it?"
"Whoa, okay dude. Like, mellow out, alright? Our DJ's are, like, working on it right now."
"Yeah, they must be playing Valley Girl."
"Like, huh?"
"You know, Valley Girl, Frank Zappa?"
"Umm, like, who is that?"
"You work at MTV and you don't know who Frank Zappa is??? Well what about Jimmy Page? Led Zeppelin?"
"Uhhh…."
"You know, 'hey-ey mama like the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove!'"
"DUUUUDE!!! Your voice is so awesome, I can see it, like, emanating from the phone!"
"Dude, are you high?"
A crazed chuckle met him in reply.
"Man, you are f***in' high, aren't you? Look, forget it. I'm sorry I called."
Sonic hung up.
"Idiots, they are!" Sonic exclaimed. "Ughh, I need a mix tape."
Sonic switched off the TV and dug out an ancient chest, full of cassette tapes. Sonic took extremely good care of them. It paid off; the music on the tapes was thousands of years old. He picked a tape and put it into the boom box. The electronic strains of Van Halen's "Jump" sounded over the speakers. Sonic and Tails sighed, relieved to hear the music again.
When the song was finished and Sonic pulled the tape out, it disintegrated in his hand.
"Dammit, we lost another one."
"What are we gonna do after all of these tapes finally melt on us?"
Sonic thought for a minute.
"Well… maybe we can make our own music."
"Are you crazy, Sonic?? We can't live up to that legendary music! And besides, they all had great equipment! Van Halen had really good electric guitars; Peter Frampton had a talk-box; Brian May even crafted his own guitar!"
"Well, what do we have?"
Tails looked around and spotted Sonic's old acoustic guitar.
"Well, we have that."
"She has a name, Tails, it's Mary Jane. And besides, the equipment doesn't matter. I mean, look at Fiona Arizona; does she have guitars and drums and a full band?"
"Yes."
"Do they rock?"
"Hell no."
"Exactly! The most important parts of rock and roll are spirit and talent, not money and studio quality! Take Robert Johnson, influence of Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, and so many others; did Robert have all of that fancy stuff?"
"No."
"Did he rock?"
"Hell yes!"
"That's the spirit, Tails! We don't have to start out big; there's a lot of gold out there by people who only had an acoustic guitar, like Simon and Garfunkel."
"Okay, Sonic. Let's make some music!"
"Alright! We're taking it all the way to eleven!"