NationStates Jolt Archive

(OOC: Basically, a "Where Are They Now?" sort of statement about the bands and musicians presented in the Jukebox charts (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=60052). To summate in brief: the company that created the Jukes, the Billco Company, went under. That's really all the explanation necessary, since Billco Co.'s collapse effectively gutted The SLAGLands' entertainment industry for a while.

I hate long OOC intros. Don't you?)

Still Kickin' Out the Jams
The collapse of the Billco Company not two years ago was the cause for what has now been dubbed "The Day the Music Crashed." While the collapse of The SLAGLands' music scene took longer, it was still brief: within six months, SLAGLandic album sales had suffered a nearly 85% cut. What was once a multibillion dollar industry collapsed under itself, sending SLAGLandic musicians back to the glory days of independent music. So how did the musical heroes formerly of the Billco Company cope with this loss?
by Teresa Stonehill-Stoermer

"It was like an explosion, and then nothing," singer/songwriter Day Mascus said regarding the Billco Company's collapse and the fall of the hallowed Jukebox Charts. "What was on top just got too heavy, and the bottom fell out. Now, we're all just left picking up the pieces, trying to put everything back together."

Three years ago, our interview with Mascus might have taken place in an upscale Orgla high-rise overlooking the Emerald Sea, with Mascus sipping expensive champagne and waiting on his limo to pick him up for his latest show. We met Mascus, however, at a back table of the Snot Knot, a Kelder bar and club far past the wrong side of the tracks. Mascus dragged from his joint, wiping his grimy left hand on his denim jacket.

"'Course, it's just fine with me," Mascus said with a small smile. "I mean, I'm used to not making any money. I started with nothing, and nothing's where I find myself again."

Mascus is one of many of The SLAGLands' most prominent musicians hurt by the collapse of the Billco Company. Many of them survived the fall and managed to bounce back on their own terms; others, however, weren't so lucky.

So where are they now? Pick and Fret magazine investigates.

Day Mascus
Age: 28
Best Known For: Breakout album Uh... Hey and hits "Try and Stop Me" and "Uh... Hey."
Currently Resides In: Kelder, Kelderia

When Day Mascus says that he started out with nothing, he means he started out with nothing--except an old acoustic Bender guitar and a gift. Born and raised around the shipyards and factories of Kelder, Mascus earned his breakout selling demo tapes out of the back of his clunky, 19-year-old beater, paint peeling from the exterior and muffler dragging the pavement.

"I'm used to playing the local gigs," Mascus said. "Kelder's my home, and even if it wasn't on my own terms, I love being home again."

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Goin' Electric: Day Mascus, best known for his work with nothing but an acoustic guitar, goes electric for his new song, "Smoky." Here, Mascus performs the song in front of a sparse crowd of 3,000 at the Kelder Celebration of Jams.

Mascus was scheduled to finish work on his album for the soundtrack to the film Lis, a filmic biography of legendary SLAGLandic folk musician Elisabeth Krumpt. With the collapse of the Billco Company, however, the project was put on hold indefinitely. Mascus has an hour of studio work sitting around his apartment now; he plans to re-release the project as a tribute album later in the year.

"What I admire about Lis is the way she never cared if she had an audience," Mascus said. "She would play, and if you liked it, you'd show up. If you didn't, you at least had to realize that there was something going on, and that it was something special."

Mascus said he is optimistic about SLAGLandic musicians pulling together in these difficult times.

"I've had tremendous support from my friends at this point. The former members of the Trapeze Accidents, the old Slayer Hater crowd, my old opening band Bends McCracken... they're all great. Like it or not, we're a family, and we'll be here playing music even if there's nobody left to play to."

Sierra Schweet
Age: 22
Best Known For: Hit album Sierra and single "Watch Me Bounce."
Currently Resides In: Cummupa, Blanteria

"I've always been an entertainer. I'm glad I still have the chance to make people smile."

The first time Sierra Schweet burst onto the scene, she was wearing a skin-tight skirt and a low-cut tube top in her smash video "Watch Me Bounce." Horny teenagers the nation over watched with amazement as Sierra shed her clothes over the course of the video, at last earning a full-on topless shot in the video's shocking, graphic "climax"--literal and figurative.

"What I loved about that video is that it was me expressing myself as a mature woman," Sierra said in an interview at her Cummupa home. The two-bedroom house in the suburbs features a tiny yard, a toilet that only flushes once every hour, and a microwave oven as the only kitchen utensil. "I was proving that I'm a sexual creature without boundaries, no matter what the male patriarchy or my parents has to say about it! I was me in that video, completely unrestrained. You totally have to respect me for that."

Schweet was forced to sell her $10,000,000 estate in Orgla when her second album, My Newfound Maturity, was DOA at record stores. The album was to be the Billco Company's last great effort to release an album; the entertainment conglomerate collapsed the next day.

An unsold copy of My Newfound Maturity--the cover of which depicted a nude Schweet grinding against a buff statue in the Orgla Statue Gardens--lay on her coffee table, a can of beer on top of it.

"These days, I'm glad to be back in the business of entertainment," Schweet said. "Of course, some of the more conservative, Christian establishment might deem what I do a bit too risqué, but that's what I've always been about. I'm about taking risks, shoving it in the face of the establishment, being me regardless of whether people like it or not."

These days, Sierra Schweet is a headlining act at The Sneak Peak, Orgla's most famous and lavish strip club. She dabbles in freelance prostitution when she's not swinging from poles for money--"tons of money a night," Schweet vaguely stated.

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Watching Her Bounce: Sierra Schweet can be found these days at The Sneak Peak. Here, Schweet performs her hit "Watch Me Bounce" before a record-breaking crowd. Her top was on the floor precisely 5.18 seconds after this picture was shot.

"It's about me, you know? It's always been about me. I've got this fantastic body, this gift of being an awesome, powerful, sexual creature. Nobody can take that from me. I'm demonstrating my maturity by showing flaunting what I've got, and if you don't like it, that's just tough."

Sierra said she hopes the music industry gets back on its feet soon.

"I've been working long nights, and that sucks," she said. "I really just want to go back to recording my songs and letting the people in the studio help me express myself in the best way possible. I'll work hard--and I've worked really, really hard in the past--to get back to that point."

J-Fly
Age: 19
Best Known For: Underground club phenomenom The Levels EP, never quite releasing a full-length album.
Currently Resides In: Omaha Towne, SLAGTownia

Some guys have all the luck.

Just when Jason Flynn was beginning to make his break, when the rap/techno sensation was prepared to put out his debut album, the entire SLAGLandic music scene collapsed on itself. J-Fly was promised success, and what he earned instead was a fine example of what might have been.

"I never cared much for being signed, though," J-Fly said. "Wasn't my thing. I just wanted to perform, to let as many peeps as was possibly happening to be all hearing my music. You get led?"

J-Fly has spent the past two years as the Friday night DJ for Red Rover in the small city of Omaha Towne, SLAGTownia. He lives in a small apartment just above the club, which he has outfitted into his own personal studio.

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The Levels: Underground hip-hop sensation J-Fly plays around in his apartment studio. J-Fly has released four EPs since The SLAGLandic music scene's collapse; all have met with some local success.

"I still be putting out new shizzle all the time," J-Fly said. "I gots my four other EPs after The Levels: Ricochets and Crème Brûlées, Neva Die, Still Spittin', and Fight or Flight. All of these are so tight, they probably could, like, keep a boat from leaving the dock, keep the shocks, it'll rock your socks. You get?"

Of course, few quite understand the workings of this man's mind except the man himself. However, he doesn't doubt that he'll someday reach the national fame he almost once achieved.

"People know what they likes. They know who's tight. They know who's down with the right white light. Fame be just in sight."

Lara Gütterhoüsehn
Age: 20
Best Known For: Bass player for Nine-Second Tractor, famous one-hit wonder performers of "The Shanty."
Currently Resides In: Buttertop, Bauxinia

"It took us two and a half years, a lot of arguments, a failed tour, and the fall of the entire music industry to realize it. But hey, we're cool with it. We were one-hit wonders. Nine-Second Tractor was doomed to only have one hit."

For someone who has now twice had the rug yanked from under her (once at the failure of follow-up single "Feathers," the other a shared fate with all other SLAGLandic musicians), Lara Gütterhoüsehn is remarkably optimistic. She wore a smile at our interview in her two-bedroom home that she shares with the members of her new band, By Thunder.

"Liam and Lionel didn't want to be in the business anymore," the former bass player of Nine-Second Tractor said, speaking of her two brothers and bandmates. "So they quit. They're back home in Orgla. Big deal. As for me, I gotta play. I gotta perform. It's what I do. That's why it was so great to meet Leila."

19-year-old guitar prodigy Leila Hoskins met Lara at Nine-Second Tractor's final show. After the performance, the two headed off to a bar and spent the rest of the night talking, flirting, and generally having fun.

"She was such a sweetie, and really damn cute, too. I didn't normally go for chicks before that, but she had something different. And she could shred a geetar like nobody I've ever seen."

Leila and Lara were married last winter in Leila's hometown of Buttertop. The next month, the two joined forces with drummer Alexis Prince and rhythm guitarist Keebs to form By Thunder.

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Those Zany Hard Rock Lix: Lara Gütterhoüsehn has a new band, a new wife, and a new chance to be a success story. Cool as ever, she performs "The Shanty" at the venue the song is named for.

"It's about having fun now," Lara said. "If we make it to the top, that's great. If not, at least I don't have to come home to a lonely bed anymore."

Lara chuckled a bit when we asked her for her thoughts on the possible revival of The SLAGLandic music scene.

"It'd be great, but I doubt it's gonna happen. Too many egos at work; too much at stake now. If it does happen, it's gonna take something big--definitely something bigger than I can provide, of course."

Jane B. Jane
Age: 38
Best Known For: Cello player for The Trapeze Accidents, a band made famous for practically inventing modern SLAGLandic music.
Currently Resides In: SLAGTown, SLAGTownia

It'd be foolish to employ the name "The Trapeze Accidents" in a way that connotes anything except iconic. From their eponymous debut through their swan song, Ballpark Figure, the Accidents sold more albums, sold out more venues, and held more chart-topping hits than any other band in SLAGLandic history.

After the great collapse two years ago, the band met with a different sort of tragedy when vocalist Rede Cornucopia, 35, died of breast cancer.

"I don't think I ever saw five people crying as much as the five of us were at Rede's funeral," Accidents cello player Jane B. Jane said. "All the rest of the Accidents were so torn up. Rede's been like a sister to us ever since we all met back home in Kelder. I know we can never replace her."

After Rede's death, the five surviving Accidents agreed that it was time to go their separate ways.

"Without Rede, we just weren't a full band. So we gave her one last hurrah and left--right about the time the music industry went south."

Shortly after the dispersal of the Trapeze Accidents, Jane B. Jane received a call from the Ministry of The Arts. At the personal request of Prime Minister Bonne Westerburg, she was invited to join the Ministry's Orchestra: the personal orchestra for the Prime Minister and the entire federal government. She is the first member of any SLAGLandic pop or rock band to achieve this honour.

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A New Crowd: After the breakup of the Trapeze Accidents, Jane B. Jane had nowhere to go but up. Here, she performs The SLAGLandic National Anthem, "Better Sons and Daughters," after the signing of the Kelder Accords several months ago.

"It really didn't take much for me to say yes," said Jane, who now resides in a two-story villa with her husband Felipe in SLAGTown. "I'm 38 years old, I'm married, and my band has officially disbanded. There's nothing more for me in pop music--but that doesn't mean I have to give up the beauty of the thing I'm passionate about."

Jane said she is pleased to hear about the optimism in reviving The SLAGLands' music scene.

"I'm glad to see that people haven't given up. When there's nothing else to hold on to, everyone's still holding on hope. That's what music's all about to me."