“Alright folks, democracy sucks and yet we are here to participate in the time honored classical tradition of voting.” Baphomet held up her hands to get our attention away from our phones and various distractions. We were at our meeting spot, a converted pool table that we usually used when we talked business, split tips, and planned out new songs and setlists. It was actually pretty comfy and fit us quite well. Baph had gone into her typical manager mode since she “had to earn the money y’all aren’t paying me somehow.” 

She looked at the three of us, giving each of us a nod in turn. Her cateye eyeliner slightly askew in just the way that she liked it. “The situation at hand. We have a potential show for Stacy's Moms, Friday the 31st at Cat’s Alley. The pay is good, and the exposure is even better. Usually Journey Records execs come out to those shows and I don’t think y’all need a reminder of how cool it would be to be signed to an honest to god label, right? Yeah, I didn’t think so. But of course we don’t want to take that gig and suck. Voting will begin in five minutes, all who desire may state your cases now.”

“It would be fucking sick as hell,” I said. “I rest my case, your honor.”

Baph took a sip of her Bell’s Two-Hearted tallboy that she had brought with her when she walked in the door. “This isn’t a trial and I haven’t been honorable a day in my life, Justin. But your case has been filed and notarized. Anyone else want to take to the floor?”

Kev cleared his throat. “Well, I have some thoughts. Some possibilities. I want to do this.”

“Yes,” Christopher did a little fist pump of joy.

“Now wait, Chris.” Kev held up his hand. “I want to do this, BUT only if we do it right.”

“I’m listening.” Baph leaned forward, eyes glowing with mischief. 

“We have to prepare, I mean really really prepare. That means practice every day. Cut back on drinking. Have songs nailed and memorized. I’m not half-assing this. I’m full assing this, okay? My whole ass is hefted in this general direction and it will be a bold and mighty ass. I want to have our own songs. Only one cover, one cover. We can figure that out in a second. And I want us to look good while doing it. I want us to fucking knock people’s socks off and when they go home they aren’t going to be talking about the Killitoris show. Well, who am I kidding, of course they’ll be talking about them. But they’ll also be like, oh wow, Stacy's Moms actually were pretty cool. Maybe I should listen to some of their stuff.”

When he put it like that, it sounded like a little bit of work. Well, actually it sounded like a lot of work, but at the same time that work would mean that we would have a legit honest to God concert. It was possible. But first we'd have to iron out all the other details. And then practice. What could go wrong? Wow I really need to stop saying shit like this. 

~~~

I have this theory, see, about cover songs. It’s really important to listen to a lot of different types of music in your life. To soak in all sorts of different genres, so your covers aren’t boring as shit. 

There’s a reason why people remember things like Goldfinger’s “99 Red Balloons” or Johnny Cash’s “Hurt.” It takes the original song and it recontextualizes it into an entirely different genre. Nobody cares if Metallica does a cover of Megadeath. Well, I’m sure there are a certain type of metal fan who will care, but you wouldn’t catch me dead in a conversation with them. I will be on the other side of the bar trying hard not to get called faggot and have a beer bottle thrown at my head. Thank you very much. 

No, there has to be a reason to cover a song besides just “Well, I felt like it.” Instead you have to try to bring your own flair to it. It doesn’t work if it’s the same genre. That’s why the most boring covers that Skatune Network does is of pop punk songs that are just one trombone solo away from already being ska in the first place. It’s not exciting. But then they fucking bop on the Arthur theme song and all bets are fucking off. I just want to skank all over that bitch. 

Which is why at this point in time I kept trying to get into Chris’s thick skull that no, we should not do a Worriers cover. They were a queer band from Brooklyn, and as much as we loved their sound, it was a little too similar to our own. We had this wannabe pop-punk trio vibe that just would make our stuff a pale imitation. And so I had to tell him that. “Nope. It’s not going to happen.”

Chris looked crushed, but he always looks a little worn down so those puppy dog eyes wouldn’t have an effect on me. “I’m just saying, if we play “They/Them/Theirs,” the audience would know like, that we’re cool?” He was so hopeful, he even did that little upspeak thing where the last word probably wasn’t a question but it really sounded like it. One time I told Chris that it was cute and he was blushing all day; I swear to God he’s such a little softie. I'll never say that to his face, though, because he would completely crush me. Dude looked like Russel from the Gorillaz, a mountain of a man who probably secretly wouldn't hurt a soul. But I wasn't going to test that any time soon. 

“Wouldn’t that be weird, though?” Kev had spent most of the Great Cover Debate silently sitting in the corner, packing a weak bowl of whatever skunk weed Baph had given him a discount on. Hey, he said cut back on drinking. He never said anything about cutting back on weed. “Y’know, a bunch of straight cis dudes singing a pretty personal song about being nonbinary. I don’t want them to feel like we’re mocking them, y’know. Especially because we know we are kind of the outliers when it comes to the audience at Killitoris. They’re hella popular with lesbians.”

“Hella,” Baphomet chimed in with a wink. “I can’t listen to ‘Smash Me, Daddy’ without thinking about this one girl’s strap ga--”

“Alright, thanks, Baph,” I cut in, probably a little too quickly. She was always a little too forward. But in a cool way, not an uncomfortable way. It always just felt weird having your friend be an incredibly open lesbian who wasn’t afraid to get into the personal details. It was something I loved about her; she was so brash. So free. But at the same time whenever she talked about hookups, I felt this pit open up in my stomach. It was so shitty, I know. I didn’t want to be this sexist killjoy. There was just a hole in my heart when I heard her describe all the fun times she had with others. I had the drugs and rock ‘n’ roll part down pat. I just couldn’t really even begin to imagine the sex. And since she was so free with it, all I could feel was a weird mournful bit of loss. 

Everyone was still quiet; damn it, I probably cut her off a little too emphatically. She knew that I had body image troubles, so she usually let it slide. But it was up to me to move the conversation. “Look, Chris, I know what you mean. I think we should do something fun. Something playful that they wouldn’t expect, and maybe a little gender bend-y. But that one seems a little too personal.”

Kev nodded. “We should totally do a song about being a girl! That would be really funny, you get that irony of covers that you’re always blathering on about.”

“I don’t blather,” I whined, knowing full well that I was quite prone to blathering. Everyone just stared at me for a moment, as if testing whether or not I would admit what they all fully knew. I stuck to my guns today though and kept silent. 

“You should do that ol’ country song,” Baph pointed out. “Y’know the one that’s all ‘Man, I feel like a woman. Bum bum ba duh duh dum’.” How she managed to both hold a tallboy, thrust her hips perfectly in time with her vocalized instrumentals, and give me a salacious wink I couldn’t tell you. 

“Nah, isn’t Shania Twain like, super right wing?” Kev asked.

“A little bit. Not like super right wing, but definitely loved Trump. But separate the artist from the art,” Chris murmured. I bet he had a country phase when he was younger. It was kind of hard to escape the jangly grasp at times in the South. 

“Chris, bud, I love you, but sometimes that is very very impractical. Ask me what my favorite Hogwarts house is.” Baph glared at him, causing the large drummer to shrink in his seat. He wouldn’t take the bait. Everyone wanted to keep the meeting on track, there was no point talking about the Terf Who Lived. 

“Alright, getting things back on track, ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman’ is out, but I think that’s close. We just need to keep down this direction and I’m sure we’ll find something. How about ‘Run the World  Parentheses Girls End Parentheses’? Who doesn’t like Beyonce?” I said. 

“That’s the problem,” Kev interjected. “Everyone likes Beyonce. In fact, everyone loves Beyonce. If we do a bad Beyonce cover, they’re going to eat us alive. It’s just facts. You don’t mess with the Bey Hive. Next thing you know, they’ll put a video of us on the Internet and our nonexistent social media will be destroyed. Just a smoking crater where the three of us used to stand. A lonely plaque that says ’This is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.’ Etc., etc.” 

"It's true," Chris chirped. "I told my cousin at a cookout one time that I liked Beyonce but I didn't love her, and she hasn't spoken to me ever since. I don't even know if I'm welcome back and I really miss my Nana's Nana Pudding." 

“How about ‘Hollaback Girl’? It’s from the 2000s. People like it in like a kind of kitschy way. Premium cover material there? I could see ol’ Kev trying to get his Gwen Stefani on.” Baph winked again, this time aiming her flirtation arsenal at Kev. She can’t keep getting away with this, she’s too powerful. 

“Mm, I’m not sure if that’s my shit, if that’s my shit.” I paused for a moment, scratching at the straggly strands of facial hair that I kept forgetting to groom. They were getting to that itchy and annoying point where I really needed to decide if I was going to shit or get off the pot. Grow a full beard or continue living in this weird scratchy purgatory. “But Gwen Stefani, well, that we can work with.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Kev asked, knowing that I was pulling from one of his high school guilty pleasures.

“I just might be. Think you can handle it, big boy?” 

“No doubt.” Kev smiled, extremely proud of himself. “What about you, Chris, think you can handle ‘Just a Girl’?”

“I-I mean, I guess. If we have to. I do like that song.” He had been quiet for a while, probably was sulking with his heart set on that Worriers song. He was a hard man to read, reserved. It was easy for him to get lost in the quips when the rest of us were really rolling. He always told me that it was fine, though; he liked listening and apparently, we were extremely entertaining. 

“Alright.” Kev clapped his hands together and made his way towards our fake little practice stage that we had cobbled together over a long drinking session. It wobbled and held itself defiantly under his weight. Baph and I had a bet on how long the stage would last, but for now it was doing its damndest to stay strong. “I think that’s enough talking with this band meeting. We’ve got our cover picked, and I haven’t had enough time to write any new shit. So instead, let’s get playing. We’ve got a concert to get ready for!” And like that, the meeting was over. We had a goal. We had a plan. Now all we had to do was practice our little hearts out.

DerbyGhost

Hi there! Derby here. Hope you're enjoying the new story! Magic will come eventually but for now I hope you're liking them just being dorks together. 

If you like adorable trans tales written by cool cute ladies, might I suggest Devil's Claw by the utterly badass Originalzin. Or if you haven't read any of the poggersverse stories by Ravenkane, well you are sorely missing out! They Were Roommates just wrapped up and it is probably her best work yet!