Featherless Bipeds by Richard Scarsbrook

"This novel is each highschool boy's rainy dream: drummer Dak Sifter's adventures forming the rock and roll band Featherless Bipeds, traveling, ingesting beer, being chanced on through the large Plastic list Co. and Billy VandenHammer, slicing an album and changing into well-known, let alone facing groupies and girlfriends. Did I point out consuming beer? Dak's choice to take a yr off from college to play in a band with neighbors Akim and Tristan ends up in new institutions with severe feminist and singer, Lola, and the rich, tense, incompetent Jimmy T. whose connections create the band's first gigs. Zoe, the affection of Dak's lifestyles, wishes time clear of him to this point others, yet she constantly returns to aid Dak and the band after they desire it so much, finally turning into their lead singer. twelve months later, in a wrap-it-all-up finale, the now recognized band performs once again on the bar the place they debuted. Zoe and Dak develop into engaged, Lola is now gainfully hired with a countrywide feminist association, the band participants' mom and dad are current and proud (in spite of preliminary doubt and downright competition to their kid's selection of career), and Jimmy T and Billy VandenHammer are uncovered for the crooks they're. Bernice (saved by way of Dak from neo-Nazi skinheads) is now the top of Artist kinfolk for an up and coming recording studio keen to signal the band. Dak's witty, self-deprecating sort is what saves this novel from whole schlock. He tells his personal tale, exposing his personal silly activities with Zoe, his personal cloying lyrics and his personal adolescent ardour for tune principally else. Scarsbrook hits the nail at the head as Dak composes the easy repetitive lyrics that supplement standard rock and roll. His descriptions of small, soul-destroying bars will allure these boys who imagine their destiny is there. The proof that no youth in Canada this present day get engaged at 19, that modern-day band circuit is ruled via medications (not alcohol), that Dak's father's novel is not likely to have come to fruition in just 365 days, and that band star often occurs over an issue of years (not months) will move correct over the heads of the meant viewers who will consume Featherless Bipeds inspite of (or simply because of?) its dream achievement. not just does the hero do what he desires to do, he has a rocking solid time doing it, turns into well-known in a single day (even in tune terms), will get the woman and profits even his mom and dad' approval. In among, he catches a rapist, offers with tough (to say the least) bar audiences, jots down new songs on paper baggage every time notion hits, and encourages his mom and dad to come back to their inventive roots to color and write." — Joan Marshall CM