2025-07-14 - Papered Over

The practice space on Crescent Island is pretty typical, as such places go. Arranged with old but still comfortable furniture, blankets and rugs strewn about as baffles seemingly at random, and a mishmash of equipment on most days... but today is not most days, or at least it isn't for the eight-hour reservation Brandon O'Donnell's paid to hold the space during the workday. Today, stands of guitars and a pair of their bass cousins, a rig of various keyboards and a professional drum kit have been configured in the garagelike enclosure. Despite all the battered, travelworn hard cases stacked off to the sides, there's a polish to this setup that the space hasn't seen before.

The singer himself is seated on a stool in more or less the center of the room, strumming away in the midmorning hour as his friends tune up their gear. Over the occasional plucking of a bass string from Jake, or the experimental tap of a stick from Steve, Brandon's voice lifts, clear but deep and somewhat melancholic.

So I'd better let go of the dream...
Understand what I mean?
It's a terrible scene
when you're WALKING HOME
Will you remember what it was
when you're walking home
Will you remember who I was
when you get back home
Will you remember that it was
only rock and roll....

As Brandon's voice fades, he stares down at the floor for a long, quiet moment.

It's Jake who breaks the silence, hands still on the bass, looking over at his friend from where he stands stage right.

"That's kind of a sad one, bro. You okay?"

The air of bittersweet letting go that permeated not just the words, but the tone of Brandon's singing is reflected in his deep blue eyes as he glances up to smile wanly at the bassist. "It is, and yeah, I am. That one stuck in my head this morning on the way here, and I had to get it out. It's just...."

"Just a good day to be playing together again," Steve supplies from behind the drumkit, grinning insouciantly.

"Well yeah, but no," Brandon returns, chuckling softly as he sets the Gibson acoustic he'd been holding back on a nearby stand. "It's just hard to say goodbye, you know? Especially when it isn't...."

Jake nods slowly, understanding, not wanting to push his bandmate and college friend. The slender, shaggy-haired bassist wanders over to place a brotherly hand on Brandon's shoulder and look the singer in the eyes.

"I know," Jake says. "Believe me, I know. But sometimes we have to."

"All of this? I don't buy it," Brandon agrees, "not fully. I'm not sure I ever did. But it was fun to pretend, for a while." He essays a small smile.

"It's what you call a palimpsest," Steve calls out from behind the drumkit, causing the others to both turn and regard the muscular drummer with looks of shared incredulity.

"That's an awful big word for you," Jake quips, grinning.

"Just because I'm not the English major doesn't mean I can't use the ten-dollar words," Steve returns with equal good humor.

"He's not wrong," Brandon adds with a shrug and a smile. "This is all just papering over the real world. When we get back out there, it fades in the sun, y'know? Like it never was. Nobody here ever likes to talk about it, think too deeply about it...."

"I mean," Jake frowns, "why do you? If it's really so tempting to just buy in."

"We all learned to question things, didn't we? To deconstruct? To ask why? I guess I can't help it."

Steve leans forward toward the others. "And you don't like the answers?"

"I don't know the answers," Brandon replies, lips pursed a moment in thought before explaining, "and that bothers me most of all." With that, he reaches for a different guitar, another Gibson but this one electric, a Les Paul.

"Well," Jake says to that, starting to pluck out a bouncy, McCartneyesque melody on his two-tone Rickenbacker bass, "It won't be your problem much longer, now will it?"

"No," says Brandon, picking up the flow and beginning to drop bright, optimistic little notes on top of it, a more playful smile returning to his visage, "I suppose it won't be."

The drums kick in, a poppy beat, as the boys lock in and launch into a new tune they're calling 'Blow My Mind'. Despite the closed doors, the sounds of their airtight partnership resonate in the alleyway outside.

There's a week until they launch the new single, and The Silvertones sound like a band that's going for the brass ring.