Power Trio

Son of Raymond Houper in Fairfolk Rock Band Romance

Evan Houper, the only child of musician Melanie Houper and infamous radio personality Raymond Houper, is the current bassist and only human member of Legendary, a New Laytham-based rock band, Buzzard has learned.

His surprising vocation was discovered by Orion Mencia, a Virginia-based luthier, after Mr. Houper brought the bass in for repairs. “It had this sizable crack down the middle,” Mencia recalls. “And while I was clamping it, I just kept having this thought: ‘I know I’ve seen this bass somewhere.’ I look up a video of [Melanie Houper’s former band] Thunderhead. And it’s in her hands.”

Pictured: the bass repaired by Mencia, side-by-side with an image of Melanie Houper holding the same instrument at 1989’s Samhain festival.

Mencia, after repairing the bass, conducted a personal investigation and discovered that Houper, who was on tour with his band in the Richmond, VA area, damaged the instrument in a bar fight with a local orcish pack. Onlookers describe his use of the storied bass as an improvised weapon.

Buzzard has confirmed Evan’s identity after contacting family, friends, and former associates. Numerous people familiar with the band have confirmed Evan’s involvement; and many allege his romantic ties to not one but two of his bandmates, both fairfolk women.

“Evan let me know he was seeing [drummer Kellax Falrak] at an afterparty we were at,” one fellow musician in the New Laytham scene recalls. “[Thekla] Kamiyon, that’s their guitarist. Everyone knows she’s crushed on Kell for years. And if she hasn’t quit, you can bet the triangle thing is true.”

Pictured: Evan Houper onstage in Brooklyn, New York, with other members of Legendary visible.

Legendary is already attracting buzz and interest from many publications. Our own music critic Al Carni, in a recent roundup, described their first single “Fossil Fuel” as “urgent, bleeding-edge rock… [Legendary’s] ripping sound demands you sit up and take notice.” It isn’t currently clear to what level the band or its promoters are aware of their bassist’s background. Legendary’s current label, Warcry Records, declined to comment for this article.

The daughter of pioneering rock musician Lyle Garett of the Rainsticks, Melanie Houper was a style icon of the 80s and the celebrated bassist for legendary rock outfit Thunderhead, memorably featuring on the cover of their sophomore album Backstroke. Among enthusiasts of the band, the persistent rumor that Thunderhead fell apart because of romantic entanglements between Houper and elf guitarist Lysander Tressic remains under debate to this day.

After a battle with lung cancer, to which she succumbed in 2014, her husband Raymond Houper rose to prominence as one of the foremost anti-fairfolk voices in America. In its brief time on air, Raymond’s television series, Seeking Truth, advanced numerous conspiracy theories centered on the fairfolk diaspora. After a class action suit successfully argued in civil court that his rhetoric was in part responsible for the Powell Spring riots, during which 14 fairfolk were hospitalized and 3 killed, Houper’s show was cancelled, and revived on internet radio, where it remains.

Raymond Houper declined to comment for this article. When contacted via email, the press office of Seeking Truth sent this response:

“Ray is dedicated to exposing the cover-up being perpetrated upon humanity to this day by its elected officials. Human interest stories like this one have no bearing on

Kell throws her phone across the room. It skids under the couch, one of the few pieces of furniture they’ve moved in. Evan sits on the middle cushion, head bowed, hands clasped. He doesn’t even react.

“Maybe it’s the Streisand thing. Like you said.” Thekla paces their bare floor. “Maybe it’s okay.”

“They called Mel Houper a fucking pin-up girl and talked like Ev is running around smashing her bass over fairfolk skulls.” Kell’s breathing is shallow. The world is sharp around the edges. “Fucking ghouls. Fuck Buzzard. And fuck that Orion dipshit. And fuck that ‘fellow musician.’ I got three fucking guesses who that is, and the first two don’t count.”

Evan’s phone buzzes on the table. Kell glances at it. Another Unknown Caller. He sends it to voicemail. He’s barely said a word since they discovered the story. It’s everywhere. Kell’s already gotten the link from half her contacts.

Their follower count has doubled overnight. Hard to be glad when every post’s comments are like a bomb went off in them. Empty praises of bravery from Gen X family photo accounts, excoriating #FUCKRAYHOUPERs from the kids, default profile pictures with numbers at the end of their names posting “Seek the Truth” dogwhistles. Dalma handed control of the account back to them. Apologies, my beloved, she told Thekla. But this isn’t the sort of drama I prefer.

They’re the main characters of the day. It sucks.

“I felt it coming.” Evan speaks in lifeless monotone. “I kept feeling it coming, and I pretended I didn’t. Now it’s here.”

“This doesn’t have to change anything.” Thekla crawls onto the couch with him. “We weather the storm, we don’t acknowledge it, we live our lives, we keep doing shows. Maybe it goes away.”

Evan takes her hand and keeps staring at the floor. Thekla’s mother has gotten back on her case, now that it’s common Kamiyon clan knowledge she’s dating a human. Kell feels terrible, but Thek shrugs all of it off. There’s always gonna be something, she says.

Another phone buzz, another unknown number, another voicemail.

They play Glorie’s again. The bar is jampacked for Legendary’s set. Their opener, a local quintet called Anthracite Burner, stare at Evan the whole time they’re in the green room, speaking in awed whispers. The lead singer, this slip of an elf, she must be barely out of high school, asks to see Evan’s bass.

“Sorry.” He indicates his replacement Reeve. “It’s still coming up from Virginia.”

Kell takes her frustration out on the bar’s backline, pounding the drums like they’re that stupid Richmond tech’s stupid face. She breaks a stick in the middle of Tremendousness, hurls it carelessly skyward. Its jagged end spears into the soft ceiling tile and stays there. The audience goes apeshit at the gesture. Kell tries to absorb that, tries to feel like the world’s still on her side.

There’s paparazzi, actual real fucking paparazzi outside as they’re clearing out. Jesus Christ.

Mr. Houper, do you have anything to say to your father? Mr. Houper, where’s your bass? Mr. Houper, are these your girlfriends? Kell remembers her breathing, all of Harwin’s lessons. She coaches her face into neutrality. Her mind is her matter. Her thoughts are her reality. Tend your fire; don’t stoke, don’t engage.

A halfling with extensions and thick frames sticks a smartphone in her face with one of those dongle microphones. “Do you wanna explain why you’re sharing a stage with a Houper?”

Kell removes the phone from her fist, to a squawk of protest. Half a dozen recording videos swing the orc’s way. She turns the camera on, takes a cheerful selfie with her middle finger extended, and returns it to the incensed woman. “Print that.”

Next day the photo’s trending. The quotes below it are at war. @CandiReportsIt should try getting an actual job and stop harassing these people. #FUCKRAYHOUPER. Can u posers plz actually listen to legendary before u post about them. Traitor to her own kind, playing music with the son of the enemy. Orc girls are baddies wtf Hoopers onto something. Typical orcish inability to control your temper. New Laytham CANCER rates TWICE NAT’L AVERAGE. Get the inside scoop here. Evan Houper better take care of himself during TTOTM, laughing emoji.

The cardboard boxes pile up. The walls stay bare. Nobody’s got the wherewithal to unpack. A would-be journo tries to interview Sion as he’s brunching with his polycule. They watch the video: “Did you know who his father is?”

“I’ll have another of these, please.” Sion wiggles an empty mimosa glass at the camera.

“I’m not your waiter.”

“Then I suppose we’re useless to each other.” He gives the unseen recorder a canid smirk. “Kindly fuck off.”

Rahul’s studio is the only spot outside home they don’t feel under siege. The sound engineer doesn’t mention any of what’s going on, doesn’t ask questions, just gives them his effort and his calm smile. “Let’s get some of the heavy stuff down today,” he says. “Let’s work some of this nervous energy off.”

And they do. They obliterate these songs. The music is still as good as ever, the connection with Evan just as strong, maybe stronger. Rahul is thrilled. The album sounds incredible, every time they do a listen-through. Somehow, that just makes her feel worse.

There’s a winter fury behind Evan’s eyes as they thrash through Thunder Thighs (fuck coming up with a new name; fuck everything). He’s breathing heavy at the end. Kell goes to him and holds him in silence, feels him deflate.

She wants to protect him, but she doesn’t know how.

They play a show at Raison D’Etre, a real grimy dive despite the francophone sobriquet. That’s the show someone throws a beer at Evan’s head. It sails past his skull by inches, spurting golden foam, soaks the guy.

Kell stops playing as she lunges to her feet but there’s his blue eyes, locking her into place, beseeching her back into his sound, and the bouncer is already hustling the hollering hobgoblin out of the spot, anyway. They do the rest of the show with Evan dripping wet.

The booker babbles an apology to Evan backstage as he squeezes lager out of his shirt like a dishrag. Sion is showing Thekla something on his phone; she covers her mouth.

“What?” Kell asks.

Thekla’s eyes are wide as she pulls Sion’s arm down. “It’s nothing.” Kell snatches the phone. It’s The Vail. The full lineup in a splashy graphic, for all three days.

Masonry’s on Saturday afternoon. Legendary isn’t anywhere.

Do not break your bandmate’s phone, Kellax. Do not squeeze until it crumples. She carefully hands Sion’s phone to Thekla. Then her feet take her to the emergency exit and her arms throw it open into the night.

“Kell!” Thekla cries out after her.

She forces herself to slow down. “I’ll be back,” she says. “I need a rec spot. I’ll come back here, okay? I promise. Wait for me.”

Thekla looks on the verge of tears. “I love you,” she says.

“Love you too.” And Kell’s out on the street, feeling like she wants to tear her skin off.

She pulls up the communal map, burying the fizzing impulse to crush her own phone in her fist. It points her two stops away on the J train, which she rides, repeating tend your fire. Tend your fire in her head the entire way. The world is so goddamn loud. This city is a tight, suffocating shroud. Why the fuck does she live here? A rangy dude is selling candy bars through the subway; he approaches her, sees something in her face, and keeps on going. What does she look like right now? Who gives a fuck.

She hustles out of the station and ducks into a corner store. Down tunnels of cheerful plastic and empty calories, an alpine-colored orc mans the counter, tapping at a block-busting game.

Kell marshals herself into calm as she walks up. “Yo,” she says. He looks up. “My fire burns too high. You’re on the map. You got anything?”

“Aye.” He peers down the aisles, then slips out from behind the counter, opens a back door and bids her follow. They pass a rack of goggles and heavy gloves; she takes a pair of both. “How bad, sister?”

“Like an eight.” Don’t crush the goggles. Don’t snap the strap. “I need something big.”

He lets her into a room lit by a guttering fluorescent. Sitting in the middle of the tiled floor, unplugged, is an old washing machine. “You buzz when you through, okay?” he says, soft and paternal, and indicates a wall fixture that looks like an automatic doorman.

“Thanks, brother.”

He goes out and shuts the door behind him.

Kell breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth. The second exhale comes out as a guttural warcry and she drives one gloved fist into the side of the washing machine, puckers the metal. She brings her arms down in an axehandle that warps the lid and pops the glass cover out in a shattering rainbow cascade. She lifts the machine and hurls it into the concrete wall.

It takes all of five minutes to reduce it to jagged scrap.

She curls up next to the wreckage, gazes at the ceiling, feels the embers flickering low. Tend your fire, she commands herself, and manages it this time. She is threadbare in its wake. Under the gloves, her knuckles are bruised.

She picks her way through the fragments, buzzes the counter.

Half a minute later, the orc is back. He escorts her down the bare hallway. She sweeps glass dust off the gloves as she returns them to their cubby. “Thanks, man. Seriously. You’re a godsend.”

He shrugs. “Is tough, the city sometimes. The pack weathers the storm, you know?”

“Aye.” She shudders and glances around the corner store. “Can I give you anything for this? Pay you? I don’t use the map that much.”

He shakes his head. “Not how it works. But you want to buy something, you buy something.”

She walks out with a bag of Thekla’s favorite spicy chips and a 2-liter of ginger ale, grateful to the ligaments in her jaw for finally loosening up. The city’s still loud and Vail is still gone, and the night is still dark. The golden thread she felt pulling her into the future has snapped.

But her lovers are out there in the night, waiting for her. She holds onto that instead, like a tether in a waterlogged cavern, and lets it pull her back into the world.