Free Emerald City by Chris Nickson

and see Craig. About half the time I’d end up crashing at his place then take the ferry back on Sunday. He’d gotten really serious about music and he started playing me his stuff. At first I was just surprised that he could sing so well, then I began to realize what a good writer he was.” She drank, taking half the beer in one swallow. I brought her another. “I mean, he was seriously talented. He was getting better on guitar, too.”
    â€œDid he practice a lot?”
    â€œAll the time, and I mean all the time,” Carla said emphatically. “We’d be sitting in his apartment and he’d be strumming chords or picking out licks. If he found something he liked he’d play it over and over until he remembered it. He had this little shithole one-bedroom on First Hill, more like a studio, really, but at least nobody cared if he had his amp turned up.”
    â€œWas he in bands back then?”
    She shook her head quickly. “Nothing that lasted. He was playing solo here and there. There was one Saturday he had a little spot at a place nearPioneer Square.” She paused, breathing in the memory. “He was opening for someone, I don’t even remember who. This was, like, three years ago. He did a couple of songs and then Tony just appeared out of nowhere, sat down and started to play along with him. I don’t think they’d rehearsed. Shit, I don’t even know if they knew each other before that. But suddenly everything turned beautiful. There was this instant chemistry, you know, a real trust between them. Suddenly it freed Craig up to really play. Before that I’d never understood just how good he’d become. It was stupid, it was just these two guys with acoustic guitars, but there was something special happening.” She looked at me. “You know, I even cried, and I gave Craig this big hug after. That’s how Snakeblood started. Tony brought in his brother and then Mike. Everything before had been working up to that.”
    â€œAnd it all built up from there?”
    â€œOh yeah,” she nodded. “I’d moved over here by then and I was working, playing my own music, and living with this jerk I’d met, so I didn’t see Craig too often. But I know they took about six months to get everything right. We met up for a drink one night and he told me all about it, he was really excited, more than I’d ever seen him about anything before. He was writing a lot, they were practicing three times a week.” She began to smile. “He invited me down to their first gig. It was up at the Five-O. They just played a short set, supporting someone, but they blew me away. Really tight, and they sounded so passionate. It wasn’t like anything else happening here.”
    â€œI remember people saying they were good.” I’d heard about them not long after they’d begun playing, but then three months passed before someone seriously advised me to check them out. Even then I hadn’t bothered until a friend gave me the demo tape they’d made and the power in the music hitme. It was fully-formed, mature, not just a band still struggling to find itself. They had something special. They made me feel like a kid who’d found a secret and I wanted to share it. I’d written the first short piece on them and caught them live a few times here and there.
    Each time they were more commanding, the material better and better. Craig grew in confidence to become a charismatic figure on the stage; whenever he moved you couldn’t take your eyes off him. He wrote about being the outsider, the disaffected young man, but he avoided all the clichés, and the band hammered like a fist behind him. They had everything going for them.
    â€œThe word still got out pretty fast. By the time they’d played out four times they already had a few hardcore fans.” Carla laughed. “I know, I was one of them. The music was so