The Babys Anthology
A/N: I wasn't going to continue this story because of a possible conflict of interest with another author. But things are cool and there should be no problems now. I also wasn't going to continue because the more I thought about the plot of this story the stupider it seemed to me. But then I thought why not have some fun anyway and let the chips fall where they may. With that in mind, here's Chapter 2. Please try to overlook any mistakes. Flame on!
Disclamer: Don't bother me.
Chapter II: The Beginning
A Flaming Pie
Last time...Jimmy, Carl and Sheen decide to reunite the band and also let Libby join, but she will only if Cindy is also allowed to do so. After much discussion, it was agreed to let her join, but was Cindy willing to?
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"We invited her over to Jimmy's house the next day to ask her." remembers Carl. "Jimmy had his mom cook this big dinner just for her and there was like this sort of party atmosphere. It was like it was her birthday or something."
"She didn't know we had listened to her tapes let alone asking her to join." said Jimmy. "So we thought we'd better butter her up first."
"Well, obviously I knew something was up but I decided to play along." recalls Cindy smiling.
After dinner, everyone moved to Jimmy's living room to watch TV and talk about various...things. All evening long Cindy was becoming increasingly curious about what was happening and wanted to know why there was suddenly all this fuss over her, but no one would answer her questions directly. She was becoming agitated but she wouldn't be denied. "Ok, guys. What's going on? What's all this? It's not my birthday."
Again, Cindy's questions were ignored. She was now clearly becoming upset. Libby then eased into the subject of the band.
Flashback
"So, word on the street is that you guys decided to get your band back together." said Libby.
"Yeah, we were thinking about it." Jimmy replied.
"Oh, that lame band you guys had?" Cindy asked
"It wasn't lame." answered Jimmy.
"You guys didn't even play."
"Anyway," Libby interrupted, "I was thinking that I wouldn't mind joining you guys."
"What? Whatever." sneered Cindy.
"We could talk about it." said Jimmy knowingly
"What do you think, Cindy?"
"I think you'd be wasting your time." Cindy said.
"I don't know. It might be fun. Maybe you should think about joining too." said Carl.
"Why would I?" Cindy asked as she folded her arms.
Cindy then looked up as she felt the stare of four sets of eyes upon her.
"Wait a minute. Is this what this was all about?" No one said anything in reply.
"I knew it." said Cindy angrily. "I'm so out of here." Cindy stood up to leave.
"Wait." Libby paused for a moment. "I had them listen to your tapes."
"What?" said a horrified Cindy, "Libby how could you?"
"Relax, Cindy. They liked them. They were really impressed. Especially Jimmy."
"I didn't say that.", Jimmy retorted. "I just said that she was very competent."
Cindy's face softened. "Really?"
"You sounded cool.", Sheen agreed.
"And you can write really good.", added Carl.
"I don't know.", Cindy pondered. "I'm not sure.
"Look, Cindy, I'll be honest with you.", said Libby. "I'm already in but I won't stay unless you join too."
"Think about it." said Sheen.
She looked around at the rest of the group and saw their faces, but she didn't say anything. She was thinking.
"Don't you want to at least hear how we would sound?" asked Libby.
End Flashback
"I agreed to join but only on a trail basis. I had no intention of staying at first but I wasn't sure yet. Although, I was curious to hear what we would sound like."
They all agreed to meet in Jimmy's garage the next day to begin down the long road to stardom. They got off to a pretty good start...at first.
"There we were in my garage the five of us for the first time as a band." said Jimmy. "Everyone was just standing there just staring at each other not knowing what to do next."
"Jimmy said that we should play something simple that everyone knew." said Carl.
"I suggested we play a oldies song called, "Chains". It was one of the songs on Cindy's tapes." says Libby. "I said it was the easiest to play because it only had four chords in it, it only last two minuets and it's simple. I played the tape of the song so everyone could get an idea of what it sounded like."
"So we played it. We played the whole song all the way through without stopping. Me and Cindy sung because we knew the words and the boys just played. She even threw in a little solo. I remember we didn't look at each other at all. Maybe we were just too embarrassed. When we were done we just looked at each other for a minute and then everyone just broke out laughing. That kind of broke the ice."
"We sounded horrible." recalls Cindy. "We were so out of tune. Well, we really didn't sound that bad considering the fact that we were playing together for the first time. I said to myself, 'You know, this could actually be something.', but you could tell we needed a lot more practice."
"Me, Carl and Sheen sounded fine." explained Jimmy. "It was Cindy who was off key. I'm kidding, she actually sounded great. We all sounded pretty good, I think. We were all having so much fun that day playing different songs and stuff it really didn't matter. I think Cindy was having the most fun because she didn't want to stop. I don't think we went home until around 11 o'clock that night."
Flashback
As they all were leaving Jimmy's garage for the evening, Cindy stayed behind to talk with him.
"You know, Jimmy, I had a lot of fun today."
"I know I could tell. I had fun too."
"Who knew we could sound so good together?"
"Yeah, well it's late. I'll see you tomorrow."
"You bet. By the way, there are just a couple of things I wanna say."
"Yes?"
"I'll stay in the band if I get two things in return. First, I want my tapes back... NOW."
"Sure. What's the other thing?"
"We should really talk about changing the name of the band."
"What?"
"Yeah. With us girls in it now, we can't be lords now can we?"
"But..."
"Besides, it sounds so lame. Well, see you later, Neutron. Bye." Cindy then turned around and walked out of the garage.
"I knew I shouldn't have let her join.", Jimmy fumed. "No matter how good she is."
End Flashback
That weekend, the five of them got together to accomplish three things.
One: To discuss the possibility of another name for the band.
Two: To establish some ground rules so no one was injured or killed.
Three: To Practice.
The Name
"Actually, it was Libby who came up with the name quite by accident."
"The 'Llama Lords of Science' just wasn't gonna cut it." said Libby. "We had to come up with a much better name than that."
There was only one problem. Cindy and Libby wanted to change it while Carl, Sheen and Jimmy didn't.
"We had frank discussions about it. No, we just plain argued about it. We tried different names but we kept coming back to the Llama Lords."
Flashback
"What's wrong with the 'Llama Lords of Science'?" asked Jimmy.
"Because it's ridiculous, Neutron." Cindy said.
"Guys, let's figure on a new name later. Let's just play." Libby pleaded.
"I don't wanna change it. It's got the word 'llama' in it." said Carl.
"Were not changing it and it's not ridiculous. It reflects me, Carl and Sheen."
"Then it should be called the 'Lameo Dorks of Science'."
"Hey, don't ridicule the llamas." Carl said.
"Or Ultralord." Sheen added.
"Guys?"
"Were not changing the name and that's final." Jimmy stomped his foot.
"Well, I don't want to be in a band with a stupid name like that." Cindy replied.
"Hey..."
"You know where the door is, Vortex." Jimmy shot back.
"Will you guys just stop it?" Libby screamed, "Your acting like a bunch of babies." Everyone stopped talking and looked at Libby, who was clearly embarrassed by a of the attention.
"What?"
"That's it."
"What are you talking about, Neutron?"
"What was that last thing you said, Libby."
"Um...babies?"
"Whadda think?"
"Are you saying that we should call ourselves the babies?" asked Cindy.
"No way, I'm not a baby." said Sheen
"Think about it. We're all still pretty young. And though were not technically babies, we would be in the eyes of the music world."
"Yeah, and when people hear us play it will totally blow their minds." said Libby.
"But were not really all that good." Carl reminded.
"Not to worry, Carl. By the time we get out there we will be blowing peoples minds."
"OK, we'll be the babies...for now," agreed Cindy, "It's better than Llama Lords, anyway. But, we change the spelling. B-A-B-Y-S. That would look cooler on the album covers."
"...and a girl came onto us on a flaming pie, and she said, 'You are Babys with a 'Y'. And so we were." Carl said.
"What?" said the rest of the group as they turned to look at Carl.
"Nothing."
End Flashback
The Rules
As emotions were still running high it was clear that nothing else was going to get done that day, so every one went home to cool off. At least they had settled on a name. But, petty disagreements and almost constant arguing threatened to split the band before it even got started.
In order to keep the peace, it was clear that there were a few simple rules that had to be established, sort of a band agreement, known as, The Rules, that everyone had to follow. Two days later when the band had reassembled, Cindy bought a short list of guidelines along with her that she had written and read it aloud hoping it would meet with the others approval. The others also added their own rules to round it out. The Rules ended up reading like this:
It is our goal to provide the best musical experience to ourselves and the general public and to have as much fun as possible in doing so. Baring this in mind, certain guidelines must be laid down, known henceforth as The Rules, to ensure that this objective is met. The Rules are as follows:
1. There will be no fighting, arguing, name-calling, punching, biting, eye-gouging, wedgies or any other physical or verbal abuse between band members of any kind. (This rule was often broken.)
2. There will be NO official leader. Everyone stands on equal ground. There are no stars here.
3. Everyone has to contribute material or some sort of musical idea or input.
4. There will be no sampling, overdubbing, mixing-in, or otherwise ripping of parts of songs from other artists.
5. Similarly, please refrain from doing too many cover versions of other artists songs. Try to be as original as possible.
6. Whoever writes a song sings the lead vocal unless given to someone else in the band to sing at the songwriters request. (Didn't happen very often.)
7. Whoever writes the song gets final say on how it ends up sounding.
8. Whoever had the idea originally get songwriting credit.
9. If any money is made it will be split equally between everyone. (Very important.)
10. If there are any issues the band will vote on it unanimously.
11. No one can stop the music. (Unless there are Twonkies around.)
12. See rule #1
13. Everyone just have fun with it! Rock on!
14. There is no rule #14.
After a vote they decided to accept the rules and to follow them.
Of course, rules were meant to be broken and often were.
"Yes, rule 1 was broken with regularity. But the other rules were surprisingly adhered to. Especially rule 3 and rule 11." said Jimmy. "Libby made sure of that one."
"You have to have some sort of understanding between band members if you want to get anything done." adds Cindy. "With us, however, we needed actual rules. Although, we didn't follow them all the time."
"Rule 3 was easy because we all had ideas. No matter how silly or strange they were, they were all listened to." Libby said.
Well they found a name and made a band agreement (The Rules). Now all they had to do was to actually practice. You know, play music and stuff.
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Come back next time as the story continues. Yes, they eventually do get around to practicing and becoming serious about what they were doing, actually becoming good enough to play in front of people (shudder).
Can you tell who wrote which rule? Do you care? Please review.