Chapter 1: On the Flyer

March 2002, Costa Mesa, California

The air in the club was still ringing after the show. The ceiling ran low across the whole room, so the sound had nowhere to go — it came off the walls, off the metal lip of the bar, off the glasses, and finally off them. The air was thick with sweat, beer, and some old noise that had dried into the place. Vex leaned against the wall and watched the crowd thin out. The faces that stayed until the end weren't the same ones as a few weeks ago. That was a good sign. Just not a good enough one.

"You do get it, right," he said, "that they're not walking out after the third song anymore."

Cayde propped his guitar case against his leg and grinned. "Yeah. That's progress."

"They listen to the whole thing," Roxy said, spinning a drumstick between her fingers. "Almost all of them."

Nova nodded. "And they're actually watching. Not just standing there."

Vex looked out at the room for a second, then back at them. "Okay, so what's missing?"

Cayde raised an eyebrow. "You mean before world domination, or after?"

"I mean," Vex said, "how does a band get to the point where Eli isn't the one chasing down slots for us. Where they call us."

Roxy answered instantly. "We need to get on a bigger bill."

Nova glanced sideways at her. "One with bigger names on it?"

"Yeah. Exactly that."

Eli was standing at the bar with his usual cola. He didn't jump in right away, just listened, then turned around slowly.

"Sounds great," he said. "It's just, like, impossible. Currently."

Cayde laughed. "Cheers for the pep talk."

"I'm not saying you're bad," Eli said. "I'm saying you're small. Not the same thing."

"It always sounds so lovely coming from you," Roxy muttered.

Eli shrugged. "You've got no name in this business. A promoter doesn't look at how much fire you've got in you. He looks at how many people you move."

Vex folded his arms. He wasn't offended, something in him just tightened. Because put like that, in those words, it was too blunt — and still true.

"Okay," he said. "So how do we get from here to them calling us?"

Eli took a sip, then leaned back against the edge of the bar.

"There are always two ways."

"Oh, this starts well," Cayde said.

"The first," Eli went on, "is you play the small club shows. As often as possible, in as many places as possible. You don't pick and choose. You play. Again. And again. And again."

"And the second?" Roxy asked.

Eli looked at her. "Same thing. With more luck."

Cayde snorted. Something moved at the corner of Nova's mouth.

"I'm serious," Eli continued. "You have to get on flyers. Even once. That's advertising. People see your name, people talk about you. That's the whole point. That they talk."

"How much does one flyer actually matter?" Vex asked.

Eli put on his math face for real now. "More than you'd think. If a flyer gets into twenty pairs of hands, that's not bad. If five of them remember your name, that's good. If two of them pass it on, that's noise."

"That's fucking math," Roxy said.

"Of course it's math," Eli said. "Just word of mouth."

Nova leaned an elbow on the bar. "And how do we get onto a flyer?"

Eli looked at her, then shrugged. "Working on it."

"That's reassuringly vague," Cayde said.

"Until then you just be loud," Eli said. "Hold on to your crowd. And leave a demo everywhere you go. I don't care if you're eating bread and butter by the end of the month with nothing left over for beer. You still carry a few demo CDs."

"That's beautiful," Roxy said. "Almost moving."

"This is the beginning," Eli said. "Not the pretty part."

Vex looked down at the floor for a moment. A soaked scrap of paper by his shoe, a cigarette butt, spilled beer. Everything looked exactly like it did after any other night. And still something was different. Because for the first time he didn't just feel that they were going somewhere — he felt that there was an actual way to get there. Even if it was a shit one.

"Fine," he said finally. "Then we make noise."

Cayde grinned immediately. "A fucking huge one."

"No problem there," Nova said. "That part we know."

"That part at least," Roxy said.

A few weeks went by. Three shows, maybe more. The days ran together a little. The same load-in, the same cables, the same beer-smelling back rooms, the same dull tiredness behind their eyes. Only the crowd changed, slowly. Not much. Just enough to notice.

That night Eli was already standing at the bar when they came off stage. He had the usual cola, but he had something else with him too. A few sheets of paper.

"Here," he said as they walked over. "Take a look at this."

Roxy reached for it first. "What is it?"

"Flyer."

He spread the stack out on the bar in front of them.

Cheap black-and-white print, the photo a little too contrasty, the type crammed together, three band names, a date, a venue. Nothing special. Nothing elegant.

The top name ran the full width of the page. The second one was half that size.

Cayde whistled. "Bloody hell. Next to them?"

Roxy leaned in. "I've seen these two on posters. More than once."

Eli shrugged. "Told you I was working on it."

And there was their name.

Small. Off to the side. Almost nothing.

But there.

Nova was the first to really take hold of it. She pulled it closer, and her voice dropped.

"Our name's on it."

Roxy ran a finger across it, like she was afraid it would smudge. "The Dainka Effect…"

Eli nodded. "Maybe a hundred, hundred and fifty of these go out."

"That's a lot," Cayde said.

"That's nothing," Eli said. "But it's enough to start."

Nova was still looking at the paper. "If even one person sees this…"

"Then more people know about you than yesterday," Eli said.

"And if they pass it on, more again," Roxy said.

Eli nodded, then put the math face back on. "Right now you're at, like, fifty in this town, if I'm being generous. A hundred if I count the ones who've heard of you but haven't come out yet."

"Thanks for the compliment," Cayde said.

Eli didn't smile. "If every flyer gets into twenty pairs of hands—"

"—five of them remember our name, two of them actually show up," Nova cut in. "I've got it. Keep going."

"I've already forgotten it," Cayde said.

"I know," Nova said. "I'll remind you."

Eli looked at her for a second, then went on. "If that starts, and they stick around, that's where the turn is. Where you stop begging for slots and they start asking you to come."

Nova nodded slowly. "How many does that take?"

Eli looked up. "You don't need a stadium. Look at the numbers. If you've got five hundred people who know your name and show up when you call — that's a different category. That's not Costa Mesa anymore. That's a level."

"Five hundred," Cayde said. "That's the whole club row on Broadway."

Eli shrugged. "Five hundred, six hundred, whatever. The point is that when a promoter checks how many of you there are, it isn't just your mates getting counted. There has to be something showing there's a crowd that's actually with you."

"That's not that many," Roxy said, but her voice wasn't sure about it.

"No," Eli said. "But from where you're standing? It's not that few either."

Vex pulled a flyer out of the stack and looked at it up close. Their name really was small on it. Almost lost among the rest. But it was there. Somehow that was exactly what made it hit harder. It wasn't important yet. It wasn't featured yet. It just existed now.

And right then that was enough to kick something in his chest.

"If they see this," he said slowly, "then they have to hear us too."

Roxy looked up at once. "So at this show…"

"We make the biggest noise," Vex said.

Cayde practically laughed out loud. "Finally, a plan I like."

"The kind," Nova added, "they don't forget."

Eli raised his glass. "That's your whole job right now. Blow the place up."

"That actually sounds realistic when you put it that way," Roxy said.

"It doesn't have to be pretty," Eli said. "Just memorable."

Cayde tilted his head. "And the demos?"

"Scatter them," Eli said. "Clubs, the bar, the sound guy, wherever. Leave a trail behind you."

Vex tightened his grip on the flyer. Cheap paper, weak ink, nothing special. And still he looked at it like it was some kind of official stamp saying that maybe something was actually happening to them.

Not much. Not yet.

But something.

"Fine," he said at last. "Then let's make sure everyone who's at that show has something to talk about afterwards."

Nova looked at him and nodded. "Now I like it."

"We'll be fucking loud," Roxy said.

"Same as always," Cayde added.

"No," Vex said, and now he was smiling too. "Louder."

The neon buzzed above the bar. The club emptied out around them. Somebody was stacking bottles in the back, somewhere a pint glass hit the floor, and nobody turned to look. The night ended the same way every other one did.

Except now they had something in their hands that they hadn't had before.

Their name.

On paper. Out in the city.

And a thing like that makes noise all by itself.