A show about a band. About the fun, the exhilaration, and above all the sense of belonging, that come from being in a band.

This band is a real, working, low-rent five piece, rehearsing in basements and cheap rented spaces, everyone living on pizza and beer, with day jobs or no jobs, dealing with each other and with their screwed up families and friends. The characters are not pretty, hairspray types, and they should be played not by lip-synching, pretty, hairspray types but by real musicians who can act, or actors who can really play. I want the players to rehearse as a band, to write their own songs—-to really become, musically, the band they portray.

The setting is Pittsburgh, a relatively small "scene" with a varied but finite number of characters, where there isn’t much hope of hitting it big, and only one major venue for "indie" music, which provides a regular haunt for our characters. The year is indeterminate; it could be now, but perhaps it should be 1985, in the ferment of the years between punk and grunge.

drums: Jimmy Blanchard

In the summer after high school graduation, Jimmy Blanchard, with his childhood friend Matt Mockus, has taken to driving into the city (in Matt’s vintage 1975 AMC Matador) from Jones Rocks, the dead steel town outside Pittsburgh where they grew up. They come to see and hear bands, local and "big time," that play the Savage Breast, the chief (sole) venue of Pittsburgh’s indie scene. Jimmy and Matt are the co-proprietors of a largely theoretical rock band, and they are looking for inspiration and a bigger pond to swim in. While his friend took up the guitar at age 12, Jimmy’s musical experience consists mostly of two unhappy years behind the tympani in the high school concert band. But he has recently invested two hundred hard-earned bucks in a battered kit of seventh-hand Slingerlands. But where Matt is an obsessive music fan, an idiot savant of rock and roll knowledge, not to mention a prodigy of the electric guitar, Jimmy’s interest in the drums has always seemed somehow less than musical. Being in a band seems less of an end, and more of a means to something else.

Jimmy is a good-looking young man who cultivates a "clean" look derived from the British Mods of the sixties. He rides around grim dead Jones Rocks, a considerable anomaly, on a vintage Vespa tricked out with mirrors and a Union Jack. He carefully launders and irons his own clothes; his hair is close-cropped. He doesn’t drink, smoke or do drugs. But what strikes you most about him is first the look of sharp intelligence in his eyes and, most of all, the amazing unstoppable current of his speech. Jimmy never shuts up, and most of the time you don’t want him to. He is a classic bullshit artist, charming, flattering, ingratiating, quick thinking, astute, smooth. People tend to like him, and those who don’t he just works on and works on and works on until finally they surrender. Naturally he is a liar. Calculating, scheming, political, cunning, and all the other qualities that are the obverse of the coin of charm. And, though in a world that places sellouts in the innermost circle of Hell he knows instinctively to conceal it, very, very ambitious.

Meeting him, natty and bright and well-spoken, you would never guess at the dirt poverty and bone-deep misery of his life. He has lived his whole life alone with his mother, in a decrepit shack on a wooded hillside outside Jones Rocks, reachable only by two hundred and seventeen rickety wooden stairs. Chickens in the yard (three). One of those houses that reminds you that Pittsburgh and its surrounding towns are squarely part of Appalachia. His mother is quite fat and an alcoholic. She gave birth to Jimmy and a twin brother named Francis, who died when Jimmy was a baby. Jimmy’s father ran off years ago. Mrs. Blanchard alternates in her treatment of her son between paroxysms of bizarre almost incestuous adoration and violent venomous rages.

All his life Jimmy has had an obscure but powerful feeling of destiny--perhaps dating from his having survived Francis--of feeling himself the one chosen to live. But he never knew for sure what form his greatness was destined to take. Then, in the eleventh grade, he was expelled from St. John Vianney. Enrolling in public school, he became reacquainted with his old friend Matt. And when he heard Matt Mockus play, he felt that he had found his calling. It would be his job to evangelize the Church of Mockus; and if along the way he became famous and respected in his own right, so be it.

Soon after his arrival on the scene, he perceives the disunity in the ranks of CARL KRANCEK’S and GINA BARBAGLI’S band, Loam—-and sees in it an opportunity for Matt and for himself.

He gets a job at a copy shop, starting as a machine operator, ending up as the manager; and also a comic book store.

Lead Guitar: Matt Mockus

I said above that MATT MOCKUS took up the guitar at the age of 12, but it would be more accurate to say that the guitar took him up. He is a true prodigy, a guitar hero in the making, the closest thing Pittsburgh has ever seen to a Jeff Beck or a J. Mascis. Like those guys who sculpt redwoods with a chainsaw he can carve off a great steaming slab of noise with his guitar, nimbly dice it, shave long curls from it, or send it toppling over, flattening bystanders. Coming from another context, from another world, he might have turned to the piano or the violin; he has perfect pitch, total retention, can play any lick or lead after hearing it only once, can sight read music. Coming from Jones Rocks, the eighth child of a policeman, in a house that knew only Mitch Miller records, Slovenian chants, and the "album-oriented" rock and roll of his older brothers and sisters, he and his gift did the best they could. A hand-me-down Gibson was his first guitar; the entire Yardbirds and Who catalog on scratchy LP were his first teachers.

Like all prodigies, he is a fairly strange young person. "Intense," is the most common euphemism. He looks even younger than 18, with a sweet, baby face under a pair of heavy black spectacles, but he walks with an old man’s shuffle. He rarely bathes, wears the same clothes for days on end, and is a compulsive saver, of magazines, cookie fortunes, string, and bits of random jetsam--lipstick-kissed cigarette butts, crumpled napkins, bus transfers, tampon applicators—-left behind by girls in whom he takes an interest that is perpetually undeclared (and unrequited). He plays—-he insists on playing—-sitting down. His retentive memory has enabled him to amass the comprehensive and minute knowledge or rock and roll history, dating back to the mid-sixties, alluded to above, but few people know this because he is shy and unassertive. When he drinks, however, he turns surprisingly voluble—-almost aggressively so, weaving elaborate personal versions of conspiracy theories or detailing the permutations of and connections among, say, New York bands of the late seventies. Drinking is a problem for him; in general all of his problems center around the balance between total control and wild release. The fire of his playing is a cold fire: his approach is thoughtful, artsy, even mannered. His personal heroes are Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. He grew up and remains tightly under the control of his cop father, and he is so out of touch with his own feelings, keeps them so tightly under control, that he will struggle more than any of his bandmates with the desire to break free, to lose control—-and, if he can, to channel that desire into his playing.

He gets a job as a janitor in a bizarre research laboratory in a sub-sub-basement deep underneath Carnegie-Mellon University.

Rhythm Guitar: Scott Lipman

In some ways Lipman is the heart of the band, and of the show. He has entered the world of Garageland curious and inexperienced and not really sure what has drawn him there. He grew up in Squirrel Hill, in the heart of East Pittsburgh, the son of the husband-and-wife owners of a piano and organ store. Lipman’s father inherited the store from his father, and cherished unfulfilled dreams of becoming an art historian; Lipman’s mother had studied art at Carnegie Tech. When she got pregnant they married and gave up their dreams. But their house was always filled with talk of art and artists and Lipman, at 23, harbors serious ambitions of becoming a master of... something. He has played the piano since he was a kid, and he studied art at Pitt. He has tried painting, sculpture, installation, ceramics, and photography, and has excelled or at least done well at all of them. But none of them seemed to fit, to satisfy him.

Lipman, dark-haired and dark-eyed, has been a loner all his life. All of his pursuits have been solitary, his measure of success or failure his own conscience and his own satisfaction. But he is a sensitive young man, good at listening, thoughtful and considerate, the kind of person who is often taken into the confidence of others while somehow keeping aloof, not giving over an equivalent portion of his own heart. He has truly romantic, sort of Ayn Randy ideas about art, and is passionate about modern mavericks such as Beckett, Joyce, Klee, Pollack, Monk etc. There was no rock and roll or popular music or art of any kind in his house, when he was growing up (apart from jazz), and until he was into his twenties he thought that he despised "that amplified crap."

In the summer that Jimmy and Matt start driving night after night into the city from Jones Rocks, Lipman too has begun to hang out at the Breast. This will be, he thinks, his last summer in Pittsburgh. He has been accepted for the fall into the graduate film program at USC, having convinced himself that moviemaking is "his" art form. He is also looking forward to getting away from the increasingly poisonous atmosphere in his home, as his parents have begun to dismantle their peculiar marriage. On the scene he begins to make friends and realizes, for the first time, how lonely he has been. The music has begun to grow on him; but mostly he is impressed by the collective nature of the enterprise, and the easy closeness, the camaraderie of the band members. CARL KRANCEK, a universally admired veteran of the scene, has taken him into his confidence and through him Lipman has come to know and like his girlfriend GINA BARBAGLI, too. When Carl and Gina, having conferred with Matt and Jimmy, surprise him by asking him to join their new band and play guitar, an instrument he has never touched in his life, he is taken aback at first, then seized with a sudden certainty: he says yes. Part of the early struggles on the part of the new band to coalesce will be Lipman’s at times comic, at times frustrating, at times exhilarating struggle to master his axe.

He works in his father’s store.

Bass: Gina Barbagli

When Matt, Jimmy, and Lipman appear on the scene, Gina is on the verge of quitting Loam. Gina has been on the verge of quitting every band she has ever played in, almost from the moment she joins it. Nobody takes this shit seriously enough to suit her lights. She is an exacting, tireless rehearser, dedicated to the bass, to songwriting, to being taken seriously as a performer, as someone with something to say in her lyrics, and above all as the inveterate chick with a bass. Naturally the appellation bitch has not infrequently been applied to her over the years, and she has often been prey to the accusation that she doesn’t know how to have fun. All the ancillary stuff to being in a band—-the endless hanging, the bullshit sessions, the beer drinking and illegal activities, the feuding and gossiping and fighting—-matters much less to her than, it is widely felt, it should. People don’t seem to realize that to Gina rehearsing, working on the music, nailing a song in performance in front of a roomful of people, is deeply absorbing fun. She loves writing songs, especially lyrics; a mutual admiration of Arthur Rimbaud is the initial bond between her and Lipman when Carl introduces them.

Gina is a big girl, five-eight, a hundred and forty. When she’s on stage, a little to the side, half turned away from the audience, she looks so fucking great with her big Fender slung over her shoulder and her eyes shut that everybody forgets what a pill she can be and they just stand there and go, Whoa. She is known for playing huge, fat bass chords that loosen fillings and unhook bone joints and send people’s patellae bouncing along the floor. She was actually discovered, in the old fashioned way, by Carl Sasquatch, a few years back. He came into the book store in Oakland where she was working—-he was still in Sasquatch at the time—-and, after looking her over, famously told her, "You ought to play the bass." She had a some piano and guitar experience and at the time was feeling somewhat frustrated in her ongoing life’s work of enraging her parents; the bass, and the world of Sasquatch and the Savage Breast, seemed like a novel tack. She had no idea that she had just been handed a key to herself. For this, though he irritates and infuriates her no end, she will always be grateful to Carl.

Unlike any of the others in this band, Gina comes from a background of privilege. Her father is a wealthy local developer and real estate magnate, a part owner of the Steelers. Though she has been and continues to be in an almost constant state of rebellion, inside her lie the same impulses and values—-perfectionism, hard work, being as unsparing of oneself as of others—-that made her father a success. She is deeply frustrated by Carl’s lack of ambition, of "seriousness," and by the general go-nowhere, who-gives-a-shit attitude in which the Pittsburgh scene is awash. When she meets Jimmy, she dislikes him, and understands him, at once. His drive and ambition are apparent to her long before they are noticed by anyone else, and though she pretends to have reservations about joining yet another Pittsburgh band of losers, she has a feeling from the start that Jimmy, and his pet dork genius Matt, may really be going somewhere.

Cocktail waitress.

Vocals: Carl "Carl Sasquatch" Krancek

It is impossible to understate the central importance of Sasquatch in the history of the Pittsburgh scene. Before their explosive break-up into three endlessly feuding bands, the Fortunatoes, Colostomy Bag, and Loam, they set the standard for the hard-playing, hard-drinking, happy-to-be-angry, post-punk, independent Pittsburgh band. They were not the first, by any means, but they were the best, by far. They toured extensively throughout the east, midwest, and south, and cut three albums on a well-known independent label. They opened for R.E.M., and Nirvana. And, during the heyday of "alternative," they came within a short hair of signing themselves to a big label deal. The only thing that prevented them from reaching the questionable paradise of MTV and arena shows was the utter disintegration of their leader and lead singer: Carl Sasquatch. While negotiations with Innerscope were ongoing he suffered a collapse and was hospitalized with an acute case of pneumonia brought on by exhaustion and excessive drinking. On recovering he entered a rehab center and quit drinking; when he got out, Sasquatch had dissolved. Since then he has formed Loam, and stayed sober, and avoided like poison anything that smacks to him of the hysteria, conflict, and pressure that surrounded the headiest days of Sasquatch. At thirty, Carl is the old man of the scene. He has been at it for over twelve years now, and this summer, as Loam has squabbled and feuded, he has just begun to ask himself why he still does it.

Carl can sing; from his earliest time with Sasquatch it has always been acknowledged that he is the only person on the scene who can lay claim to having soul. Even when shouting out the lyrics of the angriest, most industrial, or most ironic song, he seems to catch hold of something simpler in the music, something he can really feel, and to pass that along to the listener as well. He can dance, on stage, and make it look inevitable and not self-conscious.

Carl is an ordinary-looking man, made handsome by his relaxed, confident manner, well-built in an old-fashioned, working-class way. His mother, a housewife, is of Irish descent, his father a Slovakian steel-worker. Carl was the youngest of eleven children and his parents are by now elderly people living on the edge of poverty. He is old enough to have reached some kind of peace or accomodation with them, but his numerous siblings, many of them drunks and troublemakers and a few of them criminals, are a persistent source of trouble to him. He is deeply in love with Gina, but he senses that she loves him on sufferance, and when Jimmy first approaches him about forming a new band Carl agrees mostly in the hope that it will keep him and Gina together.

Carl is a cook, of all things, at an Indian restaurant.

Pilot

The first episode, in addition to introducing the major characters, and some of the important secondary ones, will tell the story of how Jimmy triggers and engineers the break up of Loam, and the formation of a new band with Gina and Carl. Carl, thinking the new venture may fall through, insists on keeping it secret from the rest of Loam, with whom he and Gina are about to go into the studio to cut a record. Gina is for telling them, but unhappily goes along.

They need a second guitarist for the new band, and so they covertly interview and audition various candidates. None of them work out, and at the end, they take the somewhat unlikely step of asking Lipman to join, even though he doesn’t even know how to play the guitar.

When other members of Loam find out that Gina and Carl are leaving, they retaliate by informing Joey Breast, the sleazoid music-hating owner of the Savage Breast, that neither Matt nor Jimmy is of age—-so they can’t play there.

Jimmy starts to work on Joey Breast, trying to persuade him to hold an All-Ages gig, something that Joey has never wanted to do because you can't sell liquor.

Season Arcs

The first season will portray the journey of the five from discrete units into the seamless whole of a solid, hard-working band. Along the way we will see the various fragmented and unhappy families from which they spring, and the way that for each of them being in a band (and in particular, being in this band) is a substitute, a replacement, for the sense of closeness, wholeness, even love, that they have been missing.

They will, by the end of the season, having wildly, desperately, gleefully, randomly, angrily, mechanically and hopelessly tried half the words in the English language, pick a name for the band. The endlessly changing band name will be a running gag, with posters going up each week advertising a show under a new, immediately discarded name. Every week, under this week’s name, in parentheses, it will always say (CARL SASQUATCH’S NEW BAND), which is what everyone will naturally call them until they finally settle on a name.

The relationship between Jimmy and Gina will start off badly--bantering dislike and teasing by Gina, relentless but ineffectual charm-working by Jimmy. But as Gina sees more and more how driven Jimmy is, how effective he is at setting up gigs, doing their posters and word-of-mouth, getting them free studio time, a rehearsal space—-the more he becomes the band’s working manager—-her increasing respect for him begins to change into attraction. This will end by producing the first bad rift in the band, between Carl and Jimmy.

Matt will become obsessed with an older girl on the scene, and grapple with his drinking problem, which gets worse with his inability to express his feelings for the girl or to channel those feelings into his playing. But Carl takes it upon himself to act as a mentor to Matt, trying to help him to loosen up, to feel what he feels, to put that into his playing.

As Lipman becomes more and more proficient on the guitar, the big decision time looms for him: stay in Pittsburgh with this still nameless band that has no sure prospects, and with his parents carving each other up, or leave for LA and graduate school. He becomes a kind of unofficial tutor to Jimmy in art and literature—-Jimmy is like a sponge. And most confusingly of all to him, he falls for Gina.

The Savage Breast, with owner Joey "Joey Breast" Righietti and his ex-exotic dancer wife.

The character’s apartments. Jimmy and Matt move into Hell House, a semi-condemned rowhouse on Ward Street in South Oakland, where a shifting population of other scenesters semi-squat. Lipman lives alone at first, then moves in with Carl. Gina has a place of her own.

Lipman Piano and Organ, with Mr. Lipman.

The basement of Carl’s place, where they rehearse at first.

The rehearsal space that Jimmy finds for them.

The Indian restaurant, with its owner Vikram.

The indie record store, Discharge Records, in Oakland, with its obsessive compulsive proprietor Mark Discharge.

The animal-research lab underneath Pittsburgh.

© Michael Chabon. All rights reserved.