It is with profound heartache that I must report the
breakup of H₂Bro. Though turmoil became obvious toward the end of my initial
interview with the McHydro brothers, it’s shocking that such an extreme measure
was taken so abruptly. After repeated inquiries, Willy was the first to return
my phone calls.
“Let
me give you the lowdown, Nate (sic),” he began. “Not long after you left kooky
Kim’s party, I sipped from Billy’s gallon. Big discovery. Of all the shady
shenanigans—he was drinking flavored
water!”
Aquafina’s
Wild Berry Flavor Splash, to be exact. Overwhelmed by the mob, the confession
was forcibly extracted from Billy—his older brother cinched in a “tittie
twister” as guitarist and H₂Bro loyalist Bo Van Dam intervened to “purple that
other nurple.” Willy has condemned the deception, calling it “unnatural.”
“That
phony,” Willy seethes. “This band celebrates Hydrogen twice and Oxygen once. It’s
simple. Pure. And we come to find out that lately he’s been chugging this
gutter runoff that’s only like 95% water. The audacity. Flavored water is for
sellouts.”
Willy
pledges the group will embark on a new era, already gigging on Friday, rechristened
as H₂Broh. With seven members reduced to six, keyboardist Swinkle has been
named Billy’s successor in the spotlight. Though he barely sang at the show I
attended, henceforth Swinkle will be called upon for lead vocals on nearly half
of their songs.
Suddenly
my phone beeps. I’m startled. Billy McHydro is on line two. I blurt a hasty
“Sounds good sorry gotta go see ya Friday” and end the talk to begin another
one.
Immediately
he bellows, “Say hello to Loudmouth Billy Bass!”
To be
clear, he pronounces it “base,” as in the instrument.
“First
show this Saturday,” he continues. “Rockin’ out in Kim’s basement. Gonna bass
jam lots of Earth, Wind, & Fire!”
I
stammer a question about the messy breakup with his erstwhile band.
“Fuck
both water and those guys,” he answers. “Kim turned me on to flavored water to
broaden my horizons, and if they’ve got a problem with that, then we’re done
doing business.”
“OK,
I get that,” I say. “But doesn’t it get tougher than that considering the
fallout included your brother?”
I
hear a disheartened gasp and then a tussle on the other line. The next voice I
hear is Kim’s.
“No more questions!
Billy’s frame of mind is very fragile and anti-water,
and so I forbid you to make him cry tears.
You vulture! Parasite! Hack… OK, do
come Saturday. Toodle-oo.”
She
hangs up. My weekend plans are set.
###
Friday
night. I make it to Tweed’s bar during H₂Broh’s sound check. There is more
elbow room than there was at the previous show. Already I sense disquiet among the
band’s faithful. Willy has a bass slung around his shoulder, meaning that the
group has downsized to not only one McHydro but also a sole guitarist. Uncharacteristically
troubled, Bo Van Dam approaches Willy.
“Any
word from… you know?”
“Him?”
Willy scoffs. “Pfft. Oh, probably falling a few glasses short of the doctor’s
daily recommendation—but who cares? Right, boys?!”
The
others murmur with obligatory support—except for the newly promoted Swinkle,
who has added a rainstick to his repertoire. Before hoisting a gallon to his
lips, he exclaims something that could be transcribed as:
“Peeeyaaaauuuu!!!”
Members of the audience presumably don’t share
Swinkle’s zest. Conversations are hushed. Spirits are curbed. The Drippie I recently
befriended nudges me, points to his H₂Bro shirt and then to Swinkle’s H₂Broh
attire.
“Can
you believe this shit?” He casts a stink-eyed gaze at Swinkle, who waves in
response and anxiously guzzles more. “One of us is a fraud.”
Everyone
winces as a metallic shriek of feedback pierces the air. Daunted but
determined, Willy clutches the mic.
“You
are all witnesses to something so big, so monumental,” he prophesizes. “It’s
titanic.”
With
that, Swinkle twinkles the keys to the sparse overture of “Across the Sea.” A
resounding strum, an earnest falsetto, and they’ve begun. The performance is
solid. I get a sense of genuine anguish from Willy when he belts out the
chorus:
“Why
are you so far away from me?/ I need help and you’re way across the sea.”
It’s
the highlight of the set. Willy struggles through the basslines of the next few
numbers. The frustration overflows and he flubs lyrics. Poise evaporates. He
calls a desperate audible and switches instruments with Bo, groaning “Take this
accursed bass.” When he introduces Billy’s replacement to sing the next song, a
jittery Swinkle thrusts his rainstick upward and accidentally cracks a Drippie in
the nose. The band commences the mournful “Who’ll Stop the Rain” as she rushes
outside, nursing the wound. A few others follow.
“Don’t go lady!”
Swinkle pleads. “I got the cure for what ails ya!”
It’s
a hollow vow. His vocals are creaky and wavering—like a fickle cat who can’t
decide whether to hiss or purr. Matters worsen as the first chorus culminates.
“And I wonder, yes I wonder, who’ll stop the rain” is followed by a grueling two-minute
rainstick solo. Bafflingly, he repeats the solo after the second chorus. Ninety seconds into the interminable trickles, a
Drippie voices his displeasure.
“Terrible!”
he shouts. “Who’ll stop the rainstick!?’”
The band is drowned in jeers. Mortification overtakes
Swinkle. His bladder detonates. Panicked beyond reason, he even sips more and repeats
“no no no no” as the stain widens,
drops, and drips. The music dies. It’s an act of mercy. The crowd is either
laughing or leaving.
“He can’t handle his water!” Todd Pondo complains
with a spike of his drumsticks.
“Amateur!”
Willy rages. “In this band, we only wet our pants at the very end of holiday
shows!”
The
disgruntled frontman storms offstage and barges through the exit. As I walk
after him, the trombonist Chaz Winnebago blocks my path and offers me a liter
of “dank Ice Mountain” to not report what I’ve just seen. I decline. Outside,
Willy is gone.
Saturday. When I chat
with Billy and Kim that evening, he’s glum but she’s actually thrilled to speak
to me—only because I can verify the cataclysm of H₂Broh’s debut. He croaks a
barely audible “fuck water,” and then Loudmouth Billy Bass (pronounced “base”) adjourns
to plug in his gear. Kim detects my unease.
“Yes, I’m a teensy bit
concerned he’s not drinking enough,” she admits as she sets ablaze an H₂Bro
shirt. “‘Mother Nature’s wet dream,’ as he used to rhapsodize, was rather important to him. No matter.
He promised me he’ll have a drink after the encore, to celebrate, when he has
fully enraptured my mind, body, and soul—by playing ‘The Wreck of the Edmund
Fitzgerald.’”
Shortly before showtime, I’m struck by Billy’s
literal devotion to “going solo.” His bass and vocals create all the music.
Adding to the peculiarity is his choice of venue, of course. Kim didn’t obtain
any kind of license, but that doesn’t matter since the bar is totally dry:
Billy has forbidden the presence of water.
While funky, the basslines of Earth, Wind, & Fire hits
“September” and “Let’s Groove” sound eerily lonesome when plucked in a vacuum
for eight minutes. Worse, Billy’s vocal chords sound excruciatingly parched; he
sings like Tom Waits scalding in Death Valley, with none of the smooth
jubilance required to honor the Soul.
Drippies get restless. I lock eyes with a man endowed
with a massive afro. He looks familiar, but a moment later he turns away and
covers his face as though he’s embarrassed to be seen here.
“We
want a water jam!” someone demands.
Billy’s
haggard face crinkles with disdain. Then he twists it into a sardonic smirk. He
plays that ominous Dave Matthews Band song “Don’t Drink the Water” to a chorus
of boos. I feel overfilled with dread and so I scramble up the stairs, outside
for reprieve and a breath of fresh air.
Somebody
follows. The man with the afro.
“It’s me. Bo Van Dam,” he
says confidentially. “Worried about Billy, but I had to come incognito.”
He adjusts his oversized novelty wig. I nod. His
eyes dart.
“Willy
would flip out if he knew I came. It’s bogus. Deep down he cares the most about
Billy. I know he’s stubborn, but come on! His own brother might not-drink himself to death.”
He
elaborates on how terrible he feels about the saga. While he does so, the low
vibrations stop. We hear a woman’s piercing shriek. Before long, a far-off
siren wails, gets louder. Two paramedics arrive and go down the steps with a
gurney in tow. Somber Drippies escape from the basement and linger next to Bo
and me. The first paramedic emerges through the doorway, his hands gripped to
the gurney, whereupon Billy lies wan and unresponsive.
“Worst
case of dehydration I’ve ever seen,” the EMT pronounces.
His
coworker nods gravely and they wheel Billy McHydro into the ambulance.
Then we hear a different
kind of siren, a protracted “Nooooooo”
that originates at a distance and quickly amplifies. Kim rushes outside, into
the open space of a world that can scarcely contain her primal scream. Tears
stream down her face.
“He never played ‘The
Wreck!’” she bawls inconsolably.
