The Skylarking Gala

Barkeep here.

Epsilon.

BLACK METAL QUEEN HELL YEAH

…right. this is black queen noisy. let's get this over with.

Baseline

A concert event during the month of August, titled "The Skylarking Gala", is held at one of several West Coast venues, but typically have been at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington, United States. This event is organized by the group Are We Cool Yet? and has a heavy focus on emulating sunshine pop and psychedelic rock from the 60s & 70s. All acts on the bill feature some type of anomalous effect triggering during one or more of their songs, the vast majority of which impart neutral to positive effects on the audience. Attending the concert is always free. I'm pretty sure that the music is by-and-large protest music in nature, or if not that, at least heavily political. It only happens once per timeline, even though talk of a second event usually happens afterwards.

Once in a while some fucked up stuff happens! Either it turns into some Sicily-Oslo '87 mess, or those fucked-in-the-head Fifthist dudes sneak onto there and start playing even more godawful music and make everyone feel queasy. And those are just the shit I've heard hearsay about!

Prerequisites

the number one cause of these events happening is that are we cool yet? must have come into existence prior to the year 2000. these events are exponentially less likely to occur in universes where AWCY? has not formed by the year 1995. if i had to guess, the correlation between the psychedelic revival in music around the 90s and its influence on indie musicians play a role in this, especially in pre-established art communities. although there are art communities that get established after this revival, including awcy? in some universes, there seems to be no impetus to capitalize on this specific influence.

outside of this, there's no actual prerequisite in each other universe, although several will alter the odds. the west coast fifthists existing increase the likelihood by 120%, with the band constellation starfish increasing it by another 12%. gamers against weed existing decrease chances of negative outcomes by 70% by interfering with fascist groups who attend said concerts. george w. bush becoming the president of the united states is the next most influential figure, increasing the likelihood of events at around 18%. it's worth noting that aside from the west coast fifthists existing, there's no major

THERE'S NO MAJOR FACTOR FOR BAD SHIT HAPPENING YEAH YEAH, you talk too much! Lemme kick this off already, jeez!

only if you promise to never yell again.

Utility

All Skylarking is useful for is acquiring information on targets likely to be connected to other anomalous going-ons.

Vulnerability

Dangerous as well. The above covered it. Anyone with information should be main priority in rescuing when things go wrong. They seem to flock to these sorts of gatherings.

Instance: Timeline A-934:

Us included, hey, speaking of which, lemme talk you freaks! Lucky you, I went to this one myself, and it was one hell of a show. Music was pretty lame, but some exciting shit happened after an hour when some protestors arrived to intimidate everyone. People got pretty heated, and then it turned into a noise show as things ramped up before the crowd just got knocked out cold. When I woke up it was like a whole other day later and I got this wild bruise on my arm. Shit ruled! I almost wanna hop universes just to keep that going.

Why would you willingly go to places where the chance of you being hurt is more than likely?

When your blood starts pumping you just wanna get more of it! Danger fuels adrenaline fuels your body, you know!?

…

you realize that if you get seriously injured there isn't an easy way for another queen to help you out?

I got it, I got it. Hop over here then to watch my back, Noisey!

Maybe organize that later.

Instance: Timeline A-972:

This actually comes from my timeline too, although I didn't have the luxury of going to it. This one patron was pretty vague about it; I couldn't get any information out of him until I paid him in booze to talk.

how devious.

Loose lips sink ships, after all. Anyway, after about four free drinks on me, he was more willing to talk, but it still wasn't much. Apparently, there was only one act that played one song. They had some kinda bonkers Grateful Dead set-up. Two hours into it, the crowd just levitated into an ethereal plane. I don't know what happened, but the whole thing weighed real heavily on him. The band gave everyone water bottles and a synthesizer before the concert stopped. I paid for his ride home, of course. Three weeks later, he comes in to give me a few thousand dollars out of nowhere and then just leaves. Haven't heard of him or seen him since.

Instance: Timeline B-009:

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Two hundred in attendance. Four bands played on four different constructed stages across the park. All bands performed traditional darkwave standards, with lyrics modified to encourage building communes to support others and build class power. During songs, people appeared to feel compulsions to build communes in front of the stage. When the concert ended, attendees dismantled the stages and equipment for use in communes. When law enforcement arrived, various members of the bands and the concert promoter joined attendees in fighting back against law enforcement.

Nice.

Sure. As police were exiled, bands had asked various attendees for their equipment and stage material back in a forceful manner.

Instance: Timeline B-500:

Here's another one a patron of mine gave me, this time for free. This one was actually very recent, as of two weeks ago. The only ? Huh? …? How? Oh. The Black Queen sort of sits in-between a few dozen other universes and a half-kilometer away from the closest Library entrance. It's the only way I can reliably get any sort of information from places not my own. Not too bad for a tavern that needs some upkeep.

Anyway, this one was fairly mundane all things considered. Only two odd things really. The first was that this was held at the Hollywood Bowl. The second was that all anomalies seemed to involve summoning giant robots to fight each other with the music as backdrop. It seemed to cause quite a bit of panic and uproar, understandably.

FUCK YEAH, they fought to metal, right?

what kind of robots?

Yes, and a lot of it was more or less generic cheesy mechas. It was whatever the audience who was willing to fight could will into existence. One dude had some kind of mock-up military thing and was real showboat-y about it. Got a lot of laughs, and attention. The Foundation found out by the end of the concert and everything got really wild. The patron left her camera behind, or else I would have photos of it for you guys. A shame.

Instance: Timeline D-092:

this was a pretty heated event. the music was a lot more ragtime and abrasive, and there was some actual speeches being given in-between acts. eventually, the concert took to the streets and people started to peacefully protest. the upside to this was that there weren't many folks in attendance; about 85% less people. the downside was that it made it easier for them to get overwhelmed. riot police showed up and various hecklers went to bother both sides. the situation started to turn into a clash when additional police arrived on scene and started to somehow disrupt the original police's own progress. some of the protestors got arrested but most managed to go back home safely. interest in political activities and protests grew, with about 293 more demonstrations up in washington until my last count. the cost of living in washington decreased by 2%, though i dont know if this is actual correlation. worth mentioning.

Instance: Timeline D-500:

Despite Are We Cool Yet? organizing this one, no actual band from the group attended. I think it somehow transformed into Pitchfork organizing the lineup to the point where it became Pitchfork Presents: The Skylarking Gala. Aside from James Murphy becoming a member of AWCY?, this was a very standard event.

Instance: Timeline E-005:

Greek Theatre, Los Angeles. Some individuals hijacked the show 30 minutes in and performed. The sky changed. The world started to shake. Luckily, I stood on a hill to watch, so I was spared. I had binoculars so I could look. I thought by looking I could get some useful information. It was a mistake to look, no one has to look. The guitar strings droned and keys entered my ears. The ground rose from water. Below, that is where I went. I drowned and came back.

Uh…

Instance: Timeline E-055:

Greek Theatre, Berkeley. The bowl filled with blood. Our faces rearranged. I wear this mask to hide its truth now. A dead deer dragged itself onto me. It made me snap its neck in parts. You and me.

hold on, i'm trying to figure out how to shut this down before the document gets affected by anything. i don't like how this looks.

Greek Theatre, Berkeley. Greek Theatre, Los Angeles. Two of them at once. A sun opened up and cried on us and I saw my grave. Fuck. Make all future catalogs screen for hazards next time please. Cover your ears. What's going I wear this mask to hide its truth now. The siren roars its tune. Sagrada Família.

HEY NOISEY GET THIS MENTAL BITCH TO SHUT UP She's deep in there. hold on! Points and screams at the pallbearers. ~~~~~~ Smoke rose, and I turned~~~~~~.

ok, that should do it. filter went up just in time to remove whatever images she posted there. barkeep, you organized this, your thoughts?

Let's just… warn the other Queens to be on-guard. I feel responsible for this, and while I can't lead anyone, let alone other Queens, I'm not keen to mess around in any of that group's shit for the near future or have anyone else do so. We can start another file if we have any updates on the gala, but this is locked for now.