Art of Noise Field Scouting Report #3981

Subject: Hōkago Tea Time
Date Filed: Thursday, May 20, 2410
Filed by: Field Operative #24-381 (dv'IR NATASHKAN, Azalynn)

Dear Leader,

As requested, I've conducted a first-pass undercover observation of the band whose demo you received week before last. Following are my preliminary findings:

"Hōkago [After School] Tea Time" is the name of the band formed by the five members of the Light Music Club at Asami Sato Girls' Academy, a semi-private¹ three-year high school in Sakuragaoka (which is a coastal city of the western United Republic in Dìqiú). At present, all but one of the members of the band are in the first term of their second (junior) year (n.b. the school year here begins on the first Monday in April). Their newest member is a freshman and so has been with the group less than two months.

In past school years, the Light Music Club has been numerous enough to field more than one band, but the club nearly died out last year when everyone in it graduated. Four freshmen (is that what you call them at an all-girl school? or would it be "freshwomen"?) signed up and saved it from being dissolved, and as mentioned above, they got one new member after the freshman welcome reception this year.

Here's a photo of them I snagged from the Student Council (it's going to be in this year's yearbook).

Yes, they play in their real school uniforms, and yes, they really are that adorable. (I love their tag. We should have one of those.) From left: Tsumugi Kotobuki, keyboards; Ritsu Tainaka, drums; Yui Hirasawa, lead guitar and vocals; Mio Akiyama, bass guitar and vocals; Azusa Nakano, rhythm guitar. Individual dossiers follow!

Members of Hōkago Tea Time

Yui Hirasawa
Lead Guitar / Lead Vocal; Lyricist
Instrument: Gibson Les Paul Standard² electric guitar, Heritage Cherry Sunburst ("Gīta")
Date of Birth: Shiyiyue 27, 274 ASC (November 27, 2393)
Blood type: O

Notes: Often dismissed as an intellectual lightweight, Yui can tend to appear both silly and lazy to the outside observer. And, well, I have to admit there's something to that. She does love her leisure time, and she has a hard time focusing on anything that doesn't interest her (and a hard time not focusing on things that do.) She's the kind of person for whom phrases like "you'd forget your head if it wasn't attached" were coined, she's so honest she can be cruel without realizing it (sort of like Utena), she's clumsy and domestically inept (not like Utena), and she's a bit fuzzy on concepts like punctuality, time management, and personal space. (Keep in mind that these are things her friends said about her.)

On the other hand, her friends have to say those things about her because she doesn't have enemies: They also all say, and I can personally attest, that she's a totally beautiful person. She's relentlessly well-meaning, almost impossible not to forgive, kind-hearted and loving to a fault, cheerful and optimistic. I've only interacted with her in person a couple of times, but that was enough. I'm completely in love with this girl. (Don't tell Liza. What the hell, do tell Liza, maybe it'll motivate her. Just kidding about that last part. I don't really mean it in that way anyway. She's such a total innocent, I'd feel like I was defacing an artwork. I just wanna be with her. Isn't there a Japanese word for that? I can't remember. In Dantrovese we'd call it kha'thanva. Anyway! Uhh, back to work.)

Also - though she doesn't seem to realize it - she's a genuine musical prodigy. I'm told that before she joined the Light Music Club last year, she'd never even held a guitar before, yet in spite of that, her inability to read music, and her notorious powers of sloth, she took maybe half a school year to become a serviceable rock guitarist-vocalist. (She also has perfect pitch! Like you! So jealous!) Her genius is quirky - she claims she can only play her own guitar, and she still doesn't know what most of those knobs on it are for - but it's genius, all the same. And to be fair, the Les Paul really does have too damn many knobs.

Speaking of her guitar, I should note here that, on paper, a Les Paul is totally the wrong guitar for a girl like Yui - it's too big, too heavy, the neck's too fat, and she likes it with overgauge strings, to boot - and yet when you see them together... you just know it's right. It's kind of amazing. I've never seen a musician who has a tighter bond with her instrument than Yui has with Gīta. It's... it's like you and your sword. I'm kind of jealous of it, actually. I mean, I'm fond of my guitar, but I've never felt like it loved me, and Yui is completely convinced that hers does. And... in a weird way, I think she might be right.

Yui is not a bender, which is probably just as well for her own safety and the safety of others. She has a little sister named Ui (I know, right?) who is a year behind her at the same school, and who, I have to say, is also a total doll - but that's a bit outside the scope of this document.

Mio Akiyama
Bass Guitar / Backing Vocal / Alternate Lead Vocal; Lyricist
Instrument: Fender Jazz Bass, 2-color Sunburst ("Elizabass" - this is a pun that makes sense in Japanese, and presumably Kokugo)
Date of birth: Yiyue 15, 275 ASC (January 15, 2394)
Blood type: A

Notes: Mio might be the girl the Smithereens were talking about in "Behind the Wall of Sleep", except that she doesn't wear her hair like Jean Shrimpton did in 1965 and she does wear colors other than black. She is tall and cool and pretty (pretty, hell, she's gorgeous), though, and she does stand kind of like Bill Wyman. Alone among her clubmates, she already looks like a grown woman, and she has an air of mature sophistication that makes her seem older than she really is, as well. She gets good grades in everything, too, but everyone assures me that she doesn't get all Miss Perfect about it. All the underclassmen, in particular, assure me in glowing terms that Mio-senpai is awesome. (She has her own fan club, separate from the one for the whole band.) The two most common adjectives used to describe her personality (as opposed to her looks) are "nice" and "cool".

My research into the Student Council's archives of HTT's performances last year seems to indicate that the "cool" part is kind of an act, though: in spite of being the most grown-up-looking of the group, Mio is painfully shy, timid, and self-conscious about her left-handedness. (I know, right? Preach it, sister.) I'm told she's occasionally paralyzed by stage fright, particularly if the circumstances are such that she has to sing lead. People seeing her in Hōkago Tea Time's music videos (which are brilliant, by the way, I've attached an assortment for your perusal, and I'm trying to find out who directed them) are always a bit surprised when, in person, she's nothing like the confident, badass rocker girl persona she presents in them (she can only do it because they're not recorded before live audiences). They tell me she became a bassist because she thought it was the least conspicuous position in the band. She can also be immobilized by scary or painful stories or the sight of blood.

She's a really good singer and a great bassist, though. I tooootally want to see her jam with Moose. You know that thing you and he do sometimes where you play a bass line on the piano and he counterplays it? That. I want to hear them do that.

Interesting note: Mio is an airbender, descended from one of the Harmonic Convergence airbenders who didn't join the Air Nomads. As far as I can tell, she has only as much training as was required to keep her from destroying the house, and generally doesn't have a lot of interest in that kind of thing. Which is just as well. If she shaved her head, it would be a crime against all sapient life.

Tsumugi "Mugi" Kotobuki
Keyboard / Backing Vocal; Composer
Instrument: Korg Triton Extreme (76-key) synthesizer/"music workstation"
Date of birth: Qiyue 2, 274 ASC (July 2, 2393)
Blood type: O

Notes: Oh, this one fascinates me. So many hidden levels. On the surface, Mugi-chan (as everybody calls her) seems like a proper little rich girl - poised, calm, elegant. She's one of those people who can speak formally without seeming pretentious, and seems to subliminally invite formality in return. I have it on excellent authority that she's studied classical piano since she was four, which would make her by far the most technically accomplished musician in the band, and yet the evidence shows that she loves to switch on her keyboard's cheesiest '60s electric organ voice and just wail on it. (I so want to hear her do the solo from "House of the Rising Sun".)

(As an aside, you would love her keyboard, Kate. It's a Triton Extreme 76, one of the ones with the vacuum tube for a little extra somethin' somethin', like the one I saw you fondling at Conroy's Vintage Music on Kane's that one time. Don't even try to tell me you're not fidgeting in your chair right now.)

Anyway, the thing about Mugi-chan is that I'm pretty sure there's still another level lurking under the Refined Rich Girl Turns Rocker thing. She grew up in a very wealthy household and didn't have many friends her own age until she got to high school and joined this band, and it shows in how completely devoted she is to her friends in the Light Music Club. I'm not even sure the others have ever really noticed how completely in love with them all this girl is, because she's very quiet and un-showy about it, but to me it's like a neon sign. It's not sad, slavish devotion (we've seen enough of that to spot it, you and I, haven't we?), but all the same, I know the signs. I find her really, really interesting.

(Also, this is not strictly relevant, but I'm pretty sure she's gay, or at least seriously bi-curious; she gets Very Interested when any two girls are up to anything the slightest bit intimate-looking when she's around.)

Mugi is not a bender, but she is improbably strong; there is no readily evident reason for this, as she isn't particularly athletically inclined as far as I can tell, but she's more than happy to lug that Triton around in a gig bag on her back with no trouble at all, and that sucker's got to weigh 40 pounds. Also, she's the only blonde I've ever met here. Must be some Big Universe émigré in there someplace? Hmm, I just realized she kind of talks like Kori. Maybe she's got a Tamaranian in her family tree someplace. That doesn't seem too likely, though.

Ritsu "Ritchan" Tainaka
Drums
Instrument: Yamaha Rick Marotta Signature Hipgig drum set, Mellow Yellow
Date of birth: Bayue 21, 274 ASC (August 21, 2393)
Blood type: B

Notes: Now this girl is a live wire. Outgoing, rambunctious, and a natural comedian, Ritsu is the life and soul of any gathering and the heart of Hōkago Tea Time. I've actually hung out with her, more or less by accident - she found out I was a "transfer student" and dragged me off to show me the town one afternoon when the others were busy with school chores of some kind or another. She's a fun date! Not too observant, though. I don't think she even noticed that I have six fingers, although she did remark on my teeth, by way of saying she wished she had a set like that so she could convince Mio she's a vampire. I think she thought they were a weird costume thing. Didn't seem at all fazed by it, though. She's a very whatever-floats-your-boat kind of girl.

Ritchan likes being in charge of things, but isn't always able to follow through (my contact in the Student Council tells me she's forever forgetting to file the Light Music Club's paperwork on time, for instance), and though she's a better student than Yui, that's... not saying much. Some people around here find her hard to take, particularly since she's a relentless tease, but she's such a fresh breeze and so clearly non-malicious about it that it's hard to resent even her most annoying jokes for long, and she is totally the kind of friend who'll help you move a body.

Here's a fun fact: She holds the late Keith Moon of The Who as her inspiration - not from his habit of destroying hotel rooms, cars, equipment, and himself, but because he was such an exciting and innovative musician. Drums-wise, she's a lot like him: wild and a little unpredictable, but so powerful and committed and completely into it that, as with her jokes and teasing, you just can't hold it against her. I'm pretty sure she could accurately bill herself as the best Keith Moon-type drummer in the world.

I am reliably informed (by Ritsu herself, in the course of our afternoon on the town) that Ritsu and Mio have been best friends since grade school (reading between the lines, I'm guessing Ritchan, being Ritchan, probably considered herself Mio's friend some time before Mio would have agreed), and as teenagers they have a girl-on-girl bromance thing going on, kinda like you and Utena. Judging by the looks Mugi gets on her face when they're on their game around her, she tends to reads more into it than I suspect is really there, but they're definitely thal'vai, and in Mugi-chan's defense they are a completely adorable couple.

Ritchan's gold eyes and generally restless, energetic personality are classic firebender hallmarks in these parts. She has a fairly solid grounding in the technique - she's by far the most athletically inclined member of HTT, despite her fondness for loafing - but with her friendly, outgoing personality and tendency to defuse conflict through humor, I figure she's probably never been in an actual fight.

Azusa "Azu-nyan" Nakano
Rhythm Guitar
Instrument: Fender Mustang electric guitar, Candy Apple Red ("Muttan")
Date of birth: Shiyiyue 11, 275 ASC (November 11, 2394)
Blood type: AB

Notes: The junior member of Hokago Tea Time, Azusa is a year younger than the others (and thus a year behind them in school). She joined up after seeing them perform at her freshman class's welcome-to-school reception, and several of her friends tell me she was more than a bit dismayed to discover how non-industrious they are in an off-stage capacity. To judge by the interactions I've seen between her and the others, she still hasn't really gotten used to it, but she's sticking it out because she knows that when they're all clicking together, they're a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline, and that's worth putting up with a few tea parties for. (More on this in a bit.)

The most serious musician of the five, she comes from a musical family (both of her parents play in a professional jazz band) and has been playing guitar since the fourth grade. She's more technically proficient than Yui, but lacks her mysterious spark (which I believe frustrates her), and she can't sing and play at the same time. She finds Yui irritating on many levels, yet admires her talent and, I'm pretty sure, can't help but love her for her big, open heart. (Yui, in turn, appears to adore her unreservedly, but then, that's Yui.) She also has a curious weakness for being hugged, however annoying she claims to find it. She goes all boneless, even while she's grumbling about how she wishes whoever's doing it wouldn't do that. It's pretty funny.

Azusa gets her nickname from an incident on her first day as a member of the Light Music Club in which she was cajoled into putting on a pair of cosplay cat ears and meowing, and her general tendency to react like a cat when petted or cuddled, whether she really wants to or not. She kind of reminds me of me in that respect. Yui really enjoys glomping her, and I can totally see why; she's the perfect size. (Me, well, you know I like a bigger target - I'd spend all day on Mio's back if I thought I could get away with it. I can't spell it, but I'm making that noise Roy Orbison makes in "Oh Pretty Woman" right now.)

Concluding Analysis

A couple of notes on the band collectively: They're a straight-up five-piece rock group, sometimes wandering into pop-punk territory, not so terribly different from the way we were when we first started out. They don't lean on the "all-girl" thing, either, which is refreshing. Their songs tend to sound a little more cutesy than ours did, but that's mainly because Yui has one of those voices (kind of like mine when I was 16, but I don't think she's going to grow out of it like I did); the musical style itself isn't terribly poppy as these things go. When Mio (who sounds more grown-up than Yui) is singing, their whole sound gets more powerful somehow, and even with Yui's chirpy voice they're certainly no idol group - way too many chops.

Mugi composes almost all of the band's music, though the others make contributions to the arrangements when they get down to playing the songs for real. Originally Mio wrote all their lyrics, but Yui has also written a few songs.³ It's easy to tell which ones are by which of them. Mio's kind of an odd poet, much more preoccupied with romance and whatnot than one would expect to look at her, and she has peculiar taste in song titles (well, you remember from the demo - "My Love Is a Stapler", "Fluffy Fluffy Time", "Brush Pen, Ballpoint Pen"), whereas Yui's songs are... well, Yui's songs are about the things she loves, which include her guitar, her little sister, her bandmates, and food. She wrote the one about curry and rice. And the other one about rice. And the one about taking someone to bed on the first day that turned out to be about her guitar, which I have to say, having met her, is a surprisingly risqué little bit of metaphor coming from her.⁴

In their capacity as a school club, the Light Music Club are semi-renowned at Sato Academy for their lack of industry. They meet every day for several hours after school in their clubroom on the third floor of the main school building - they probably rack up more clubroom time than a lot of the school's more prominent clubs, come to that - but to an outside observer (or even an inside one, e.g., Azusa), it would appear that they spend most of it drinking tea, eating cake, and chatting. They jam a lot, but hardly ever do what a stricter musician would regard as serious practice.

And yet... I've seen this on video and in person: when they do play, they can blow the doors off bands ten times more diligent than they are. Because - maybe thanks to all that face time over tea and cake, and all the hanging out together they do away from school - they understand each other on instinctive levels that defy rational investigation. The four founders, in particular, don't need to spend all their time overthinking the details; if they did, chances are they would ruin their sound altogether. They're an instinctive band. I feel a total kinship with that, and I think you will too. They're a great band because when you get them all together, they have to be one. No other outcome is possible.

Recommendation

Get out here right now. Meet these girls. Hang out with them. Jam with them. Play some club shows with them. Book a bunch of studio time and cut four or five records with them, then bring them with us on our summer tour.

I'm totally serious right now, Kate. These five kids are total sweethearts and an amazing band and they deserve a gigantic break just as soon as it can be possibly arranged. Besides, I'm just aching to get to know the rest of them personally now that I've gathered all this intel on them. I had all I could do not to break cover yesterday. I wanted to just blow into their clubroom after school and say, "Hi, I'm not really a transfer student from the North, I'm Azalynn from the Art of Noise. You guys are utterly adorable. Will you all please be my best friends forever? Also, hands up, who likes pudding?" Oh, it was a lonely Terzayyl this year.

Oh, relax, I'm kidding about that last part. I know I'm too old for them, and anyway, they're not that kind of girls. Except maybe Mugi. But I'm too old for her, too. ... Alas.

Respectfully submitted,
AZALYNN

¹ It's a private school, but it's the only high school in its immediate area, and so is under contract with the city to accept all students in the area who pass the entrance exam and want to go there. The city school district pays their tuition rather than their parents.

² Gīta is a model made before 2008, when Gibson changed the Les Paul Standard and made the version that had been the Standard the "Traditional" instead. How such a thing ended up in Dìqiú, much less fell into the hands of a high school freshman in a small western city of the United Republic, I have no idea. It must be fate. Do I even need to mention at this point that Yui has not the slightest clue how rare and valuable it is? She bought it because, and I quote, "it's cute."

³ I figure that Ritsu will eventually start contributing odd songs with long, rambling, only-tangentially-relevant titles, like early Fall Out Boy tracks. Ritchan would totally entitle a song "I'm Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off" or "I've Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea that Says You Should Shut Your Mouth". :)

⁴ Though, that said, I totally believe that she sleeps with Gīta. I've seen her come to school in the morning with six-string bedface.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

In the best possible way, but still.

Also, dear god, the unleashing of Azalynn on Diqiu is something that I suspect even Korra isn't totally ready for.

Kaitlyn did not actually request this.

>Four freshmen (is that what you call them
>at an all-girl school? or would it be "freshwomen"?)

It is; it would not.

>Yes, they play in their real school uniforms

Azalynn hasn't been observing them long enough to know that they do this as a defense mechanism. If they didn't, their faculty advisor would dress them up as French maids. Or meter maids. Or mermaids. Or milkmaids. Or any kind of maids, really. The poor woman's not entirely stable.

>("Gīta")

This is, in fact, simply the Kokugo word for "guitar". Somewhat akin to Zuko naming his dragon "Dragon". Which happened.

>I just wanna be with her. Isn't there a Japanese
>word for that? I can't remember. In Dantrovese we'd call it
>kha'thanva.

Like all Dantrovese words having to do with emotions or interpersonal relationships, kha'thanva is a master's thesis in sapient psychology all by itself and defies direct translation, but it can be very roughly summarized as an intense yearning to share that "it's a cold morning but I have a ton of blankets here and absolutely no reason to get out of bed so neener, world" feeling with somebody else.

>And to be fair, the Les
>Paul really does have too damn many knobs.

Azalynn also feels this way about Miki's Rickenbacker. "Seriously, do I need to control all the pickups individually? That's what the engineer is for."

>It's... it's like you and your sword.

"Once again I have played a worthless chord," said Yui glumly.

>("Elizabass" - this is a pun that makes sense in Japanese, and
>presumably Kokugo)

The joke is that it's the same word as "Elizabeth" when you re-romanize them: "erizabesu".

>I'm told she's occasionally
>paralyzed by stage fright, particularly if the circumstances are such
>that she has to sing lead.

Azalynn doesn't mention to Kate that there's a very good reason for at least part of that. She knows what it is, because she's watched the video of their first school festival show, the previous year, at the end of which there was A Mishap that has left poor Miss Akiyama psychologically scarred. Probably she considered it outside the scope of a preliminary report.

>Hōkago Tea Time's music videos

That is, the ending credits sequences from the TV series and movie (four in all).

>They tell me she became a bassist because she thought it was the least
>conspicuous position in the band.

This is a common fallacy embraced by bassists; I remember being told of it 20 years ago by a friend who played bass in one of the student bands at WPI, in almost precisely the same terms in which Mio describes it at one point in the K-On! manga.

>(I so want to hear her do the solo from "House of the Rising Sun".)

Or the one from "Roll with the Changes" by REO Speedwagon!

>She's a fun date! Not too observant, though.

It doesn't seem to have occurred to Azalynn that Ritsu might just've been being tactful. Admittedly, that's not too likely, but it is possible. :)

Judging by the looks Mugi
>gets on her face when they're on their game around her, she tends to
>reads more into it than I suspect is really there, but they're
>definitely thal'vai

The usual Anglo-Standard oversimplification is "lifemates", but the Dantrovese original (contrary to many humans' expectations of pretty much all Dantrovese words) has no sexual component whatever. There's another word for that part if it's there, and the presence of one doesn't require or rule out the other, in either direction. (Dantrovians don't euphemize about that kind of thing. If they say "sleep with", for instance, they only ever mean proximate unconsciousness.)

>a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline

Said of the Blues Brothers Band by the late Donald "Duck" Dunn, bassist for same, in The Blues Brothers.

>I can't spell
>it, but I'm making that noise Roy Orbison makes in "Oh Pretty Woman"
>right now.)

Also to be heard in "Rattled" by the Traveling Wilburys.

>"My Love Is a Stapler"

Literally "My Love is a Hotchkiss", which is apparently a genericalized trademark for staplers in Japan, similar to the way we talk about Band-Aids in the US or Hoovers in Britain. The singer isn't declaring her love for a stapler, she's saying her love (as in "for someone") is like a stapler. Which doesn't really make a ton of sense to me either, but hey, it's Mio. Also, "Hotchkiss" is one of the funniest-sounding words ever when said by a Japanese person. It just is. The first voice you hear is Mio, the second Yui.

>"Fluffy Fluffy Time"

HTT's signature song, frequently a show-closer. Because Mio wrote the lyrics, it's a peppy, up-tempo rock anthem... about the agony of unrequited love. (Seriously. The subtitled translation of the second chorus, in the one episode where they sing that part of the song on screen, goes something like, "Oh God, why does this dream hurt so bad that I'm starting to like it?")

>"Brush Pen, Ballpoint Pen"

Another of Mio's peppy love-from-afar songs, about writing a greeting card with a calligraphy pen (lines in the subtitles include "Fight on, brush pen, you've come this far" and "Sorry, ballpoint pen, you might as well call it a night").

>And the one about taking
>someone to bed on the first day that turned out to be about her
>guitar

Seriously.

>And yet... I've seen this on video and in person: when they do play,
>they can blow the doors off bands ten times more diligent than they
>are.

Possibly do worse damage than that, but Azalynn knows you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.

>I figure that Ritsu
>will eventually start contributing odd songs with long, rambling,
>only-tangentially-relevant titles, like early Fall Out Boy tracks.
>Ritchan would totally entitle a song "I'm Like a Lawyer with
>the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off" or "I've Got a Dark Alley
>and a Bad Idea that Says You Should Shut Your Mouth". :)

Less likely: "I Slept With Someone in Hōkago Tea Time and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me".

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I scored a couple of photos from Ritchan after school today that may help illuminate my point. (I haven't told her what I'm really doing with them. She'd make a useful co-conspirator? Except she can't not tell Mio things, and, well, then the whole thing unravels pretty quickly.)

You thought I was kidding about Yui and Gīta, didn't you?

They do rehearse sometimes! This is from last year, before Azusa joined.

Still frame from their most recent music video. The weird part is, those are still school uniforms, but they're from Republic City Central High School. (Well, the hoodie isn't. That'd be a pretty progressive school.)

Hey, weren't you grumbling the other day that you needed a student teaching credit?

They've got caaaaaaake...

-- Az

(NOTE: The dates on the Dìqiú emails are all in Siyue, aka April. Also, since Dìqiú's Internet is not directly connected to the galactic one (only accessible through a few secure VPN gateways via Zipang), their fully-qualified domain names don't have to work with the galactic nomenclature.)

From: "Ritsu Tainaka" <drums4life!freewire.ur>
To: "Akane Kubota" <kubota_akane!piandao.ac.fn>
Cc: "Sato Academy Light Music Club list alias" <lmc-l!sato.ac.ur>
Subject: Re: The Art of Noise
Date: Friday Si 23 07:14:49 291 ASC

Akane Kubota wrote:
>Ritsu Tainaka wrote:
>>Akane Kubota wrote:
>>>Ritsu Tainaka wrote:
>>>>but wouldn't it be awesome if we could get them to listen to our
>>>>demo somehow? That's pretty out there as wishes go, though. I
>>>>mean, those guys must get demos from school bands all OVER the
>>>>place, right? They'd have no special reason to listen to ours.
>>>>Still, it'd be pretty awesome. I know Yui would be totally stoked.
>>>>So would Mugi.
>>>
>>>Well, depending on how you got it to them, they might give it a
>>>listen. You know their lead singer is an old friend of Avatar
>>>Korra's, right?
>>
>>Yaright, how does that help us in any way? "Excuse us, Avatar, I know
>>you're like the busiest person in the entire world, but can you maybe
>>slip a copy of our demo to... " I know she's like the honorary
>>provost of our school or whatever, but that's just because she was
>>tight with the person the place is named after. It's not like she
>>WORKS here or something.
>
>You are aware, are you not, that two of the players on Korra's MLB team
>are alumnae of ours? Not just Piandao Academy, but the Pop Music Club
>in particular. Azana played keyboards and Karana was the drummer in
>"DBS", the band before the band before the one I'm in now.

I Did Not Know That.™

>Tell you what. Send me a copy of your demo and I'll get it into
>their hands. I can't /promise/ that it'll get to Korra that way?
>But I think the odds are really good, and if she likes it, I'm pretty
>sure she'll pass it along. She's a musician herself, you know! She
>understands how important these things are.

!!

Would you really do that?! Sister, you are ON! I'm going to the post office right now!

Thank you so much! I take back 75% of the kidding I've given you about going to that fancy school. <3 <3

- Rit
--
automatic sigfiles are for wimps.

From: "Mio Akiyama" <akiyama_mio!sato.ac.ur>
To: "Ritsu Tainaka" <drums4life!freewire.ur>
Cc: "Sato Academy Light Music Club list alias" <lmc-l!sato.ac.ur>
Subject: Re: The Art of Noise
Date: Friday Si 23 07:31:20 291 ASC

WHAT DID YOU DO, RITSU.

--
Mio Akiyama, Class 2-1 | Asami Sato Girls' Academy
akiyama_mio!sato.ac.ur | Sakuragaoka, United Republic

From: "Yui Hirasawa" <hirasawa_yui!sato.ac.ur>
To: "Mio-chan" <akiyama_mio!sato.ac.ur>
Cc: "Ritchan" <drums4life!freewire.ur>
"Sato Academy Light Music Club list alias <lmc-l!sato.ac.ur>
Date: Friday Si 23 07:48:02 291 ASC

Mio-chan wrote:
>WHAT DID YOU DO, RITSU.

Huh? What'd I miss?

YUI
--
Yui Hirasawa, Class 2-2 | Asami Sato Girls' Academy
hirasawa_yui!sato.ac.ur | Sakuragaoka, United Republic
If your message is class-related, you were probably looking for my
sister Ui. Same address, no Y. Don't worry - happens all the time.

From: "Sawako Yamanaka" <yamanaka_sawako!sato.ac.ur>
To: "Yui Hirasawa" <hirasawa_yui!sato.ac.ur>
Cc: "Sato Academy Light Music Club list alias" <lmc-l!sato.ac.ur>
Subject: Re: The Art of Noise
Date: Friday Si 23 07:56:13 291 ASC

Yui wrote:
>Mio-chan wrote:
>>WHAT DID YOU DO, RITSU.
>
> Huh? What'd I miss?

Class, assuming you weren't somehow sending that email from the lobby while you were changing your shoes or something.

- Ms. Yamanaka
--
Sawako Yamanaka, Music Department | Asami Sato Girls' Academy
yamanaka_sawako!sato.ac.ur | Sakuragaoka, United Republic
Faculty Advisor, Wind Ensemble Club / Light Music Club

From: "Yui Hirasawa" <hirasawa_yui!sato.ac.ur>
To: "Sawa-chan" <yamanaka_sawako!sato.ac.ur>
Cc: "Ritchan" <drums4life!freewire.ur>
"Sato Academy Light Music Club list alias <lmc-l!sato.ac.ur>
Date: Friday Si 23 07:58:28 291 ASC

Sawa-chan wrote:
>Yui wrote:
>>Mio-chan wrote:
>>>WHAT DID YOU DO, RITSU.
>>
>> Huh? What'd I miss?
>
>Class, assuming you weren't somehow sending that email from the lobby
>while you were changing your shoes or something.

Oh no!!

--
Yui Hirasawa, Class 2-2 | Asami Sato Girls' Academy
hirasawa_yui!sato.ac.ur | Sakuragaoka, United Republic
If your message is class-related, you were probably looking for my
sister Ui. Same address, no Y. Don't worry - happens all the time.

From: "Korra" <korra!scm.co.zpg>
To: "Kaitlyn Hutchins" <phantomoftheorchestra!nau.edu.zc>
Subject: I told you we have rock 'n roll in Dìqiú!
Date: Mon May 10 15:51:39 2410 (GST)
X-Attachment: hokagoteatime_demo.tgz

Hey Kate,

Here's a little something for you. I don't remember if it came up while you were here back in March, but Karana and Azana went to the same private academy up in the Fire Nation for middle and high school. While they were there, they were members of the Pop Music Club, which always has one or two student bands going - theirs was called the Dragon Brandy Society (some kind of inside joke, I'm not sure of the details).

Now that they've graduated, they keep in touch with some of the kids who replaced them. One of those kids has a friend from grade school who's going to a girls' high school over in Sakuragaoka, and she's in a band in their Light Music Club with a couple of girls who are apparently huge fans of you and your band. (Complicated enough yet? :)

Anyway! The girls at Sato Academy sent a copy of a demo they'd made to their friend at Piandao, and she sent it to Karana, but between MLB and our trip to the South Pole, she was only able to get it to me today. Corwin and I had a chance to sit down and give it a listen this afternoon, and we think you'll probably like their sound.

They're called "Hōkago (After School) Tea Time", because mixing Kokugo and Standard is all the rage with the kids out west these days, I guess. They're pretty darn good, especially considering their ages - most of them are juniors and one's a sophomore, so they're all 15-16.

I ripped it and sent you the files rather than make you wait for the disc to get there in the mail - besides, do you even have a Lightdisc player? Anyway, let me know what you think when you get a chance. Karana says the kids are planning to play the Republic City Rock Fest in June, so if you like 'em, you'll have a chance to see them live.

KORRA

From: "Kaitlyn Hutchins" <phantomoftheorchestra!nau.edu.zc>
To: "Korra" <korra!scm.co.zpg>
Subject: Re: I told you we have rock 'n roll in Dìqiú!
Date: Mon May 10 19:32:16 2410 (GST)

Well! That was a nice surprise to start the week with. Thank you!

So, I've listened to the demo five times now, and I have to say I'm very impressed. The recording's not very good, but it's pretty obvious they weren't in a studio or using a proper mic setup or mixer - probably just a boombox one of them had - so I'm not holding that against them. The band itself is great. Occasionally brilliant. I'd say they remind me of the original Art back when WE were in high school, but that would be pompous of me. :)

I give you fair warning: The third time I listened to it, it was with everyone from my own band I could track down on such short notice, and when we finished, Azalynn mumbled something about the spaceport and ran off. I suspect she's going to be in Sakuragaoka within 48 hours, and by the time she gets there she'll probably have convinced herself that I sent her.

I don't expect you to DO anything about that, I'm just letting you know. I don't think she's going to get herself arrested or anything. She learned her lesson after that business with - well, never mind. I'm sure it'll be fine.

- Kate

I strongly suspect the designation is one Azalynn made up for herself. She uses it whenever she wants to sound all spy-like and delivering intel. It's always the same one, though.

Subject: Hōkago Tea Time
Date Filed: Saturday, May 22, 2410
Filed By: Field Operative #24-381 (dv'IR NATASHKAN, Azalynn)

Kate,

It's a slow Saturday morning, so I thought I would bring you up to speed on a few more items of interest. There are some people here who aren't members of the band, but about whom you should know before you come here. (You are coming here. Right?)

Ui Hirasawa
Date of birth: Eryue 22, 276 ASC (February 22, 2395)
Blood type: O

Yui's younger sister, a year behind her in school (so she's in Azusa's class, and the one I'm undercover in). Her desk is right in front of mine. What a sweetheart this girl is. A lot like her big sister in that respect, although she's completely different in others. Ui is also big-hearted and kind, and picks up new skills fast, but unlike Yui, she doesn't forget something for every new thing she learns. She's industrious, punctual, domestically competent (more than competent - I'll get back to this in a minute), and a gifted student in most subjects.

Though not a member of a band, she took up the guitar after Yui did so that they would be able to talk about guitarist-ing together (which was probably not very successful, since Yui doesn't really know any of the technical parts of being a guitarist). Interestingly, although Yui is devoted to her Les Paul, Ui's a Stratocaster girl, like you. I haven't heard her play, and she's so modest she claims that she's terrible at it, but I don't buy it. I have yet to see Ui be terrible at anything. She's also a great cook and a naturally charming hostess; she runs the Hirasawa household in the absence of their parents, which is apparently most of the time (some of their friends actually don't believe they have parents - our friend Jun has a theory that Ui just claims to be the mother whenever Child Services visits, and she keeps such a nice home that nobody ever questions it).

Interesting side note: Despite the 15-month difference in their ages, Yui and Ui look so much alike that they can impersonate each other. All Ui has to do is wear her hair like Yui normally does, and even their closest friends can't tell them apart until one of them speaks.

See? When Ui lets her hair down, people often think they must be twins.

I know Ui better than I know anybody who's actually in the band, which wasn't really my plan when I came here, but you can't sit within one desk of her in homeroom for more than a day or two before you're her friend. I've been over to her place a couple of times and took the opportunity to observe her sister's habits. I feel a little guilty about using her like that, but I console myself that it's not the reason I'm going, just a bonus. Besides, if I came clean, she'd tell Yui - they're incredibly close, which is really pleasant to watch but complicates making her a co-conspirator (see also why I haven't tried to bring Ritchan on board).

(As an aside, this adventure is reminding me of all the things I miss about high school. When this assignment is over I think I'll just stay here and graduate again. You can never have too many high school diplomas!)

Weirdly, Ui's name means "worry" or "dismay". I can only assume that Mr. and Mrs. Hirasawa (if they do, in fact, exist) did not really intend to imply that their second child was a source of angst, and were just that stuck for a name after the birth of their first child (whose name, perhaps tellingly, can mean "only", as in "the only one"), so went for the cheesy rhyme.

Nodoka Manabe
Date of birth: Shieryue 26, 274 ASC (December 26, 2393)
Blood type: A

Notes: Nodoka has been Yui's best friend (some would say "keeper") since kindergarten, and a good friend of Ui's for nearly as long. She has a reputation around the school for being diligent, responsible, and mature. She's on the Student Council (of course), and is generally the member of that organization who has to deal with Ritchan's chronic inability to do the bureaucracy thing right, but I expect that after a lifetime of managing Yui, putting up with Ritchan is like a vacation for Nodoka.

Anyway, I don't know her very well - I'm trying to avoid drawing the notice of the Student Council - but she's such an old friend of both Hirasawa sisters that it's impossible to hang around with either one of them and not run into her sometimes. She seems really nice in spite of her Responsible Position and whatnot - upright but not uptight, if I may be allowed to coin a phrase. Ui likes her a lot, and she strikes me as a solid judge of character. I'd like to get to know her better if I can figure out a way to do it without endangering my cover.

Sawako Yamanaka
Date of birth: Eryue 31, 268 ASC (January 31, 2387)
Blood type: B

Notes: Ms. Yamanaka is a music teacher at Sato Academy. She's notable in the context of this report mainly because she's the faculty advisor for the Light Music Club, which means you'll end up interfacing with her one way or another. (She's also the faculty advisor for the Wind Ensemble Club.) As such, you should be warned. She seems like a nice enough lady - she's very polite and mild-mannered with the general student population and her faculty colleagues. Don't be fooled. When she was a student here, she was the guitarist and lead singer in a previous Light Music Club student band.

It was called Death Devil.

This is the real Sawako Yamanaka:

She represses it for the sake of her professional reputation, but she's still pretty metal. Trouble is, all that repression leads her to do some fairly bizarre things that wouldn't happen if she just let herself be herself. She has a weird obsession with dressing HTT up in costumes, for instance, despite the fact that they aren't really that kind of band. Now that the founders are juniors, they seem better able to resist that kind of thing, but last year her costumes were directly responsible for Mio's, erm, unfortunate stage moment.

Despite that, the girls in the band all seem very fond of her, and in fact she's popular with the students generally, but I have to say Ms. Yamanaka worries me a bit. She's... not entirely stable, and not always in the fun way. She bears closer scrutiny, particularly since we'll almost certainly have to deal with her in some official or semi-official capacity when we make proper contact with the band.

Hmm. Text from Ui: "Going bass shopping with Jun. Want to come?" ... Are the freshman girls starting their own band or something? I'd better check it out.

When you get a chance, give me an update on when I can expect you. Your semester ended yesterday, right? Don't leave me hanging here...

-- Az

Subject: Hōkago Tea Time
Date Filed: Saturday, May 29, 2410
Filed By: Field Operative #24-381 (dv'IR NATASHKAN, Azalynn)

All is discovered. Fly for your life.

- Az

P.S. Correction: Those are not cosplay ears. Cazart, she's cute.

Haha! Reality trips me up in unexpected ways: Just this week, Gibson unveiled the 2015 models, and they've changed the Les Paul Standard back to the configuration that's been the Traditional for the last few years. So this little historical detail note, while indicative of Azalynn's absurdly deep knowledge of electric guitar esoterica given that she's writing in 2410, is also already anachronistic, since that means the no-pickguard doesn't-look-like-Gīta version of the Standard was only produced for six years in the early 21st century. So it'd actually be odder and rare if she did have one of those, and one isn't sure now how Azalynn can even tell that Gīta is vintage 2008, unless she's surreptitiously handled it and noticed that it doesn't have the newer models' advanced asymmetric neck profile and compound radius fingerboard. Yui's too old-school for that stuff anyway. :)

This stuff is more complicated than classic cars, I tell you.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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