Introduction
I stepped off the plane, my black combat boots making dull plodding sounds as I made my way down the stairs and to the pavement of the runway, towards the airport as I scuffed along. Once I'd checked my bags, I stood there dumbly, looking around at the tiled floor, the industrial looking ceiling, the bustle of people pushing their way in and out of cafes and gift shops and speaking with an accent foreign, yet comforting.

"I have gift for you!" a man in orange and red robes shuffled up to me holding flowers and pamphlets, speaking in another language. Amidst the commotion I caught sight of a familiar face. As we locked eyes we both grinned, and, pushing the man out of my way, I took off running, dragging my suitcase by its leash and trying not to lose my carry-on bag and keep my balance at the same time. We crashed into one another in a ecstatic embrace.

"Kali! Can you fucking believe it? Heathrow! We're in bloody HEATHROW airport!" LC shrieked, clasping my hands and jumping up and down.

"Well it's 'aboot' time, I'd say."

LC and I turned around to see Jess and Jules standing behind us, laden down with cargo bags and smiling brightly. More hugging ensued as Red returned from the snack bar to see what exactly all the fuss was about.

"Ohh, where's little Gaby?" LC looked around with a motherly expression on her face.

"Could that be her?" I pointed to a tanned girl with beautiful dark wavy hair, her face buried in a map as she stood in the middle of the airport's pedestrian traffic.

"Oh it has to be." LC said, waving and jumping up and down manically in an effort to get the girl's attention.

"It is!" Red yelled as the girl put down her map and ran over to the group.

"Wow, guys, its like, Rukaland is finally all in one place. No more of this poncing about the world to each other's homes to record shitty two person demos." Jess smiled, looking around at her bandmates.

"Well it only ever happened once. And it wasn't two people, it was four, only because Red won that money for that photography she did and could afford a ticket to Canada and Kali was wacky enough to drive to meet you guys. And we only got the vocal cos you guys called me at 4 in the morning to do it over speaker phone." LC corrected.

"Okay, so Jess and I didn't ponce about, it was only Kali and Red who were nutty enough to come see us." Jules concluded.

Red and I shrugged.

"So lets get a taxi and get the fuck outta here." Jess directed, looking around at the airport security. "These dudes make me nervous..."

We had to split into 2 groups of three to get a taxi, so Jess, Red, and Jules hopped in one while LC, Gaby, and myself piled into another.

"Gabs, dyou have like, bones sticking out of your leg or something?" LC tried to move her leg away from being squished against Gaby's but only succeeded in squishing me against the window. Gaby grinned and lifted up the leg of her jeans to reveal two drumsticks shoved into her sock, resting against her calf. LC giggled. "Now that's a real fucking musician, mate."

Even though the hotel was complete shite, we managed to get adjoining rooms so that we could just leave the door open so we wouldn't be seperated. Yknow, not having to choose favorites or something for sleeping arrangements. LC and I decided to share a bed just because we have the same grooming and sleeping habits, while Gaby nabbed her own bed in the other half of the room and sent Red packing to me and LC's side. Jess and Jules gleefully agreed to share the other bed, for obvious reasons. We stashed our stuff on the dressers and in the closets and inspected the whole room. Not too bad. A bit out of style and dingy but no roaches or other alien life forms in sight either.

"So what now, guys?" Gaby asked, sitting up and looking around the room.

We'd come to London to meet up and be a real band once and for all. I was from America, Jess and Jules from Cananda, Red and LC from Australia, and Gaby from Venezuela. LC and I had been writing songs together for three years through letters, email, chat rooms, telephone conversations, you name it, any form of faceless communication we could get our hands on. Jess and Jules (though Jules decided she'd rather be our photographer and a stand-in musician rather than a full time band member) as well as Red and LC lived in the same town and were able to write music to go with the lyrics and record some of it, mail it to the others or post it on the internet so we knew what we were dealing with. We also gave each other individual recordings of ourselves playing solo so we could see exactly what kind of sound we were going to end up with. And what we ended up with, after all the seperation of countries and cultures, was british indie rock. We didn't sound like anything American, or Canadian, or Venezuelan, we sounded like a fucking British rock band, born and raised in the U.K. And of course, there's nothing wrong with that. The only problem was, the UK was varitably the only place we were going to ever get our music heard. We made a pact that in 1996, when we were all 18 or older, we would fly to London, live together and work together and become stars. So here we are, all of us at least 18, all of us prepared to work our asses off to get what we want. It's August 9th and in two days Oasis are destined to play Knebworth, which will turn out to be one of the largest outdoor gigs ever in the UK. But who knew that? Who cared?


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