Liquid Rock

In 2001 Dr Gervaise Concept was a senior analyst working at the Heidelberg Nuclear Particle Smashotron in Geneva, developing a new theory about the decay rate of positrons in weak magnetic fields. Being a smart man, he had long ago realised that this kind of thing was never going to get him laid, so instead he decided to find out what would happen if you placed music into the accelerator instead of matter. Rather than smashing particles together, what would happen if you fired two musical notes at each other?

Dr Concept sought permission from his superiors to conduct this extraordinary experiment, but they refused because they were a bunch of wankers. Dr Concept went ahead and did it anyway. He took two notes - a b-flat and a c-sharp - and collided them together at energies of over 400 electronvolts. The resultant thwack could be heard over fifty miles away and wasn't particularly tuneful. It was, however, unlike anything anyone had ever heard before.

The following night he tried again, this time at even higher energies, and suddenly something extraordinary happened. Music started to pour from the receptors. Not ordinary music, but music you could see, music you could touch. It issued from the machine, spilled across floors, seeped into every corner and every crevice as it flooded the room. It turned out to be a nightmare for the cleaners and, because they had a particularly powerful union, it resulted in Dr Concept's dismissal.

For Dr Concept this turned out to be only a minor setback. He went on to develop the Unfeasibility Principal, which basically states that shit happens when you least expect it. He won the Nobel Prize for Bullshit and died a rich man, surrounded by hookers. But this is not his story. This is the story of what happened to all that liquid music after the cleaners recklessly swept it down the drain.

Lady Steffani Von Gaga, heir to the famous Pink Panther fortune and Olympic class pole vaulter, had long since abandoned her inheritance and had set up a stuffed animal sanctuary. Being right next door to the Smashotron, her ladyship was forever going round to complain that streams of antimatter were being carelessly ejected from their facility. When the wind was in the wrong direction it would get into her washing as it was drying on the line, peppering her second best bed sheets with tiny black holes that were a nightmare to get out, even when using a biological powder on a really hot wash.

But that was nothing compared to the fallout from Dr Concept's experiment. The liquid music that was washed down the drain got into her drinking water, and Von Gaga found herself ingesting near lethal doses of pure, undiluted pop music. Such a high concentration might have floored an ordinary person - and indeed, Von Gaga was confined to bed for three weeks, experiencing delirium, hot sweats and manic uncontrolled outbursts of harmonising. But Von Gaga's iron constitution was more than a match for the choral toxins and rhythmic contaminants, and she was able to assimilate the music. When she finally emerged from her sickbed she found that she was literally buzzing with melodies, musical phrases and exciting new sounds.

But although she was fizzing with this raw musical talent, she found she was unable to control it. A pure, unrestrained burst of a cappella could pulverise solid rock, and when she tried to give an impromptu concert in her local village she nearly killed three people. She knew she had to bring her wild talent to heel. And so, taking nothing but a few simple utensils, a rudimentary tent and a stuffed leopard called Nigel, she disappeared into the mountains where she intended to live as a hermit until she could finally get her destructive musical abilities under control.

For years she roamed the snow-capped peaks, howling, crooning and yodelling across the blizzard-swept valleys. Mountaineers came to learn of the legend of the wailing woman and her trusty dead leopard, and there were even expeditions to find her, tracking her footprints across the snow. But she was too quick for them and always led them a merry dance. Von Gaga came to know the ways of the wilderness, communing with nature and improvising to stay alive. She found that she could survive purely on a diet of snow and she fashioned clothes entirely of meat. Until...

Until finally the time came for her to come down from the mountain and unleash her talent upon the world. And if anyone's interested, she'll be doing a request spot at The Old Queen's Head in Exeter next Tuesday night. Tickets on the door.