I should have left right then.
Instead
I mean, the size of the floor, the circumference and the haze and the far horizon of the floor. I step on to the boards, kinda fearful, feeling the expert suspension give gentle breath to my weight. All around me, hanging from the walls, the projection system glimmers with wanting. Somebody tries a record out, making a hole in the air where the bass prowls loose. Hits in the stomach, like a deep-sea memory; bells in the head as the treble makes wing-glitter.
'What do you reckon? Bit better than Blazer's, eh?'
It's Margo, of course, bending close to whisper above the music. Always makes it, doesn't she? Taxi-sealed, looking like she's never been away. But how can I speak? Blazer's Nitespot was where I learned my trade, spun my baby grooves, called up my first ghost. The bleak suburban long dark disco of the soul.
To which this is the mothership. Under the spasm-lamps, inside the music, which breaks into sick, dark crackle even as Margo moves closer still to kiss
Operate all mechanisms! I am Lizard Ninja Tongue of PERFUME SWORD DJ acrobats. With my mercury poison repartee I shoot sticky death to all known enemies. Skinvader will be mere housefly to my exterminating hip hop tongue tactics. Play game with me. We bring plague by poetry.
Tonight, the same floor is a temple of sweat, noise, crush, sweaty noise crush, flavour beats, heartache, naked flesh, head fog, spilt beer, tarnished love. I'm forcing my way through the miasma, the wet flesh of dance, getting sticky with it. People recognize me from the flyers, which is more than I do. It's somebody else they're clawing at, calling fuck-off names, some stranger hanging loose inside this prickle of skin.
The warm-up DJ is playing floor-fillers only, no adventure, and strictly human. Every so often and just for a second, the lights dim, the music cuts out, leaving the crowd in quantum jerk mode.
Shit!
I should never visit the floor before a gig, especially one this big, and me the visiting team. Margo's out there, jam-dancing amid the crowd, her face a miles-per-hour glaze of bliss, when she's supposed to be looking after me. And there's one too many stabbing hand, one too many bad name screamed out, it's getting so I can't see the good way forward any more, so I'm turning
Turning around, trying to make it to the big doors to the doors trying to make it to the doors being dragged under trying to make it to the doors dragged under when a bouncer beam swoops down on waves of ice and all the dancers around are stuck sudden on full freeze and I'm caught in the same cold crush jungle slow-motion overload and running now like tepid flesh smoke too much fucking glitch in my system! straight into the arms of corporate security with the MC's voice booming over the speakers It's soundclash time!
Operate all mechanisms! I am called Metal 6-String Boy, belonging to PERFUME SWORD. With my special Guitar Ghost powers, I eliminate all known Moonchester madness on one thousand riffs of steel. Together we six-string strangle evil Skinvader Deathbeat Squad. Play game with me. Make sonic graveyard explosions!
They're strapping me into the DJ machine. It's dark in the booth, and the world closes in. My challenger is a blur of movement in the chair across the room, spinning away from me. No Margo. I'm feeling lost without her, because it's lonely going under and without a hand to hold, no matter what it's made of. The twin faces of the turntables come up to meet me, already speeding, so that even calling out Margo's name does nothing to stop my hands moving on impulse to caress the slip and slide of the grooves. The visor clamps down on my eyes, as my fingers merge with the spinning, then my hands fully, sinking into the soft, melting plastic and I'm through
into the music, projected from the one thousand speakers.
Operate all mechanisms! I am Godzilla Bass member of PERFUME SWORD fighting-beat maniacs. I walk on orbital legs, heavy pregnant with Ultra Low Reverb action. Play game with me, feel Mighty Earthquake inside deepest stomach, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Together we destroy all lesser-known monsters of music!
All is calm, floating, prepared, on a tremble.
Below me, miles away, the dance floor; a boiling of faces, stretched-out arms, jeering voices. I'm suspended above them all, giant in my shape, made out of intersecting beams of knowledge. I sweep down a magnified arm; it moves through the crowd like a wavelength. Some of them fall back, others just let the illusion pass through their bodies, defiant. What do I care? I am the almighty Godzilla Bass, of the Perfumed Sword. There's no sign of Skinvader yet, the floor is mine, so I start a growling riff that gets them dancing; a charge so deep, they just have to move, even to the opposition. The club lights fuse and pop, a tiny darkness, split-second followed by a stutter to the beat, before the system kicks back in, and there I am, scouring the air with blades of bass, loving the flash of it all.