Saturday, January 9, 2016

Fiasco: Touring Rock Band, The Birds, c7s1 act one and tilt

Act one


Scene one

(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)

The band is on tour. Lynn has sent in a demo tape (or rather a file these days) to another label. They liked it and when the band arrives in a city where the label has an office and studio Lynn sneaks away to show what she can achieve in person. The label representatives hint at bringing in another musician to fill out and step up lyrics writing a bit, maybe someone from the band she's already in? Lynn leaves the meeting mumbling. "Not good enough lyrics, hmpf, I'll show them". Lynn isn't too keen on bringing in the obvious but not straight out mentioned lyrics writer, The Crow. That backstabbing bastard that went to court over the lyrics she clearly wrote. Mumble.

Later Mario returns to the tour bus and finds Lynn writing in her note book and muttering something about good lyrics. She asks him for words that rhyme with heart but only get very pop love ballad kind of words from him. Mario instead suggests to open the lyric with something like I used to have a six-gun but now I only have a bottle of whiskey. Lynn manages to hide her lyric writing behind some attempts to develop the lyrics for the band and asks Mario to not tell the others yet since "there's so much prestige stuff going about with the lyrics writing in the band".


Scene two

(The rest of the group establishes, The Crow's player decides for a good ending)

Concert evening, the pyrotechnics hasn't arrived. The Crow starts to panic but know how to solve it. He knows a guy who knows a guy that can fix pyrotechnics. With Mario and Jeff he meets with the guy on what Jeff thinks is a little too suspicious alley to be really OK but rather alley pyrotechnics than no pyrotechnics. The Crow asserts that it's perfectly OK and safe. They buy a lot of stuff, as much as they can get to the bus to get it to the concert local. When he sees the stuff Jeff feels quite comfortable with his position in the background rather than at the front where all the flames are gonna go off. The concert formally explodes and it's a wonder nothing catches fire although there's a rumour that a few visitors had some burn marks on their clothes. The band hastily leaves before the fire safety guy manage to stop them and question them about the pyrotechnics.


Scene three

(Jeff's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)

They're all in the tour bus on their way to the next gig in varying stages of hangovers. Jeff's somewhere on the way to getting a hangover. He's not really stopped being drunk yet and downs the last of a bottle of really nice whisky as opposed to the low end whiskey most bands has to be satisfied with. Lynn has forgotten her note book open a one of the small tables in the bus. Anyone at least slightly into music could recognise something that has to be either a poem or a song. Seeing the notes startles Jeff which makes The Crow notice first Jeff and then the notes. Mario happily drives the bu when he notices that the company in the back suddenly fall silent. Silent's never good, especially not sudden silence. Lynn suddenly hears her lyrics being read out aloud. The Crow turns to Lynn and asks if that's her lyrics. "Eh, what?" Lynn says "Oh, those, ah, that's just something Mario said and it was inspiringso I wrote it down. Jeff looks at the note book with curly pages that obviously has been browsed back and forth and asks Lynn how much she actually have written. Not just a line or two, that's obvious. Lynn snatch back her note book and shouts at them for poking about in her stuff. Jeff defends him with that it was laying open together with the poker stuff from last night. Lynn says she never left it open and blames Mario for driving like a madman so the bus shakes and the note book turned open. Jeff gets very annoyed since he and Mario has written a lot of songs together with input from the whole band and that the band has performed together and then Lynns sits and writes song text on her own. For whom? For herself?

The crow manages to calm the situation and says that it's good that she practices. She needs that to get better. Lynn doesn't say anything about that to get away from the unwanted attention on her lyrics.


Scene four

(Mario's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)

In the middle of a godforsaken plain they stop the bus to get some food at a small motel-bar-something. They walk in and there sits their arch-enemy The Dogs. For a moment the band stops and The Dogs look up from their drinks and both bands stare at each other.

The  Birds sit down next to them and the war of jeering is on. Lynn asks why The Dogs are around here, are they maybe on their way to visit grandma? Mario follows up with a question how it is to play at retirement homes. As the bartender approaches he recognises The Birds and the coffee is on the house. Of course he states this loud enough for The Dogs to hear. Since it's after lunch and they serve Jack Daniel's Jeff says that "Well, Jack Daniel's, that's booze for someone living a dog's life. Next round for them is on me". The bartender serves and asks if they're friends. The dogs mumbles, knocks back the whiskey and leaves, still mumbling.

When The Birds also leaves a little later The Dogs are still outside having trouble starting their bus. "We'd love to lend you jumper cables" The Crow says "but we're in a hurry to our next gig". "You'll be fine" Mario follows up with "you can ask some fans to push the bus into starting". "If you have any" Jeff laughs as they jump into their own bus and leaves. Before he enters The Crow says "We could help you though. Where's your next gig? We could go there and cover for you". The Bird's bus leaves in a cloud of dust.


Scene five

(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)

The Birds has just finished their next gig a support . Besides a small fire in the rig nothing caught fire. One of the fans got so impressed by this show compared to earlier shows that she sent a case of whiskey to the band. The Birds spend their time in their suite preparing for after show party. They have signed some stuff for their fan and while trying out the whiskey answers some questions from their fan, e g what they're writing at the moment. "Well, we haven't been writing on anything at the moment. We've been focused on live performances - or so I thought" Jeff says and looks at Lynn. "Eh, yes, we have performed a lot lately. That's right" says Lynn. "Is it suddenly my responsibility that we write stuff?" Lynn sounds awkward and nothing gets better when Mario says "But you have been writing on something" and Lynn answers "OK, so now I'm not allowed to write stuff, is that it?" Mario withdraws and The Crow enters the discussion with ""Of course she can write lyrics. We even has a judge that has stated that she writes good lyrics". The fan wonders what she has walked into as Lynn tries to repair the situation by stating that it's actually both she and The Crow that writes good lyrics and Jeff says "Mmmm, on the other hand The Crow tells the rest of us when he has ideas for songs for the band. The argument is a fact and is fuelled by the spirits and Jeff push a a promo album in the hands of the fan and sends her to the door with a "See you at the front line by the fences tomorrow night again?" "Oh, good" Lynn says "good that someone thinks of our image and what to bring up when others are around. The Crow leaves with one of the whiskey bottles mumbling that he's gonna find some party mood somewhere. "Wow" Lynn shouts after him "You and a bottle of whiskey, such a party!". Jeff disappears into a movie on his computer, Mario leaves to find some mariachi music in town and Lynn demonstratively sits down with her note book and over-expressively writes in it.


Scene six

(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)

It's the day after in the hotel suite. Lynn had the least hang-over and has left while the rest of the band still lingers in the suite. A representative for the label has arrived to discuss the next step. Up to now The Birds has had one-album-contracts but now with increasing popularity it might be time for a longer contract for maybe three albums. The representative is all happy and energised and brings fruit smoothies to the tired hang-over band. Jeff pours some whiskey in his smoothie. 

The label representative praises their show although there were some complaints about a curtain catching fire after the pyrotechnics. The band dismiss it and reference to that it ought to be the venue's responsibility to remove inflammable things from the stage. The representative says something about the fine-print and that it's actually their responsibility to check the stage. Jeff looks at Mario the roadie. The representative leaves it with a "It's not a big problem. We can always deduct it from your gage." "Anyway" she says "We thought that three albums would be good for the next contract". Only three?" Jeff says. "and you get 20% of the earnings" the representative continues. "Hey, wait a second" Jeff says much annoyed "anything worse than 50/50 is no deal". The discussion continues and the band promise that if only the suggestion is good enough Lynn will sign it even if she's not here at the moment. The band agrees on 50/50 or better, "especially since Lynn's writing her own songs now" Jeff says. "Oh, so Lynn writes her own songs?" the representative says. The band dismiss her song-writing somewhat. After all it's been The Crow who has written most of the lyrics, some time together with Lynn, and it's been Mario and Jeff writing most of the music.

The representative drops the bomb "Could you think of changing the sound somewhat? "According to our marketing surveys" she continues "there's good reception for a more, say, Justin Bieber-like sound". The band falls silent and Jeff exclaims "For God's sake, you're talking about the soul of the band now. Justin Bieber?!? What the Fuck?!? And smoothies without spirits? I suggest you pay for the next after-show party and then we can discuss some rearranging but no fuckin' change of style" The label representative tries to withdraw by saying that she didn't really mean that they should change their style which makes Jeff ask her if she thinks they sound like fuckin' Bieber. Jeff's really mad by now. Then the representative says something about appealing to teenage girls and now the whole band looks at the representative like she's from another planet. Eventually Jeff asks if she's actually interested in a contract with the band why she's here. After all there's other labels. The representative suggests that they need to adjust to the audience and the band says that if that's the kind of audience they have, which they don't, they're just happy to get rid of it and find another audience. It's a full blown verbal trench warfare. They tell the representative to leave and come back at another time.

Through the door they hear the representative meet Lynn in the corridor. "Hi, how nice to meet you. Walk with me, I have a suggestion for you".

The band returns to the whiskey bottles.


Scene seven

(Jeff's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)

Lynn returns from her meeting with the label representative (the rest of the band knows where she's been). They discuss the meeting with the band and that she had suggested a change to something Justin Bieber-like sound and their dissatisfaction with the suggestion. Apparently Mrs Banks and Lynn also discussed that and maybe there could be other slight changes that could add a dimension to the sound "For fuck's sake, don't say keyboards" Jeff says. "No, no" Lynn says "we were thinking that some violin could do the trick". That's not as far fetched. Mario's happy and Jeff's not so opposite that, after all Slade did some rock 'n' rollish stuff with violin. "Also", Lynn says, "Mario's really good looking". Jeff suggests that they do this but with another label. Lynn says that their current albel are willing to stretch to 60/40 in favour of the band if they do some other style changes as well - mostly with Mario. It would only be for one album but that's OK with the band since that's also giving them a chance to switch label if they want to.


Scene eight

(The rest establishes, Mario's player decides for a good ending)

The band has a song writing session, now while trying to incorporate violin as well. Jeff and Mario has some half-finished material as usual and the group sits down trying to put words to the music and melt it into a song by group effort.

The chorus is unusually melodic so they decide to make it a little more rock aggressive. The session goes well and everyone's creative. Lynn has been out shopping and found a shirt for Mario. It's quite 70's and should according to Lynn be open way down to show off Mario's latino body. They decide to remove the ruffle though. It was a bit too much, a little too Meat Loaf kind of thing. Everyone's happy and satisfied and excited for the next gig where they will try it out.


Tilt
Lynn's and Mario's players get to choose tilt elements. Dice are rolled and we end up with:
  • Innocence: The wrong guy gets busted
  • Failure: You thought it was taken care of but it wasn't
We discussed a little where everything was heading and it's obvious that the solo career is important for Lynn which is in total opposition to Mario's strong wish to keep the band together at all costs. Mario's player even thinks it's better if Lynn dies on stage rather than leaving the band and presumably bringing some of the fans with her and if she dies on stage she never left the band and the band will just be more legendary.

Lynn's player says that it would be fun if the record label had offered her a solo album if she helps to bring about the changes in The Birds. Then Lynn's motivated to make the new album with the new sound happen and also go about her own solo career.

If Lynn were about to die because a mistake that would make all royalty money for the lyrics go to The Crow alone and he wouldn't need to share with Lynn. That could put him in the spotlight of the investigation of what happened when Lynn died.

Also there has been some borderline pyrotechnics so that's also a possibility for "You thought it was taken care of but it wasn't".


--

This was a fun game to play so far but it definitely needs some training and focus on creating the scenes so that you don't e g end up with scenes where all roles are in the scene and there's also other roles that needs to be played. That easily becomes messy so preferably not all roles are in the scene so that someone can play extra role(s) or all roles are in the scene but no one else are. 

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