FALL FROM GRACE

After being bilked out of a tidy sum from a local venue, the Pleiades’ rockers Hydra At Heart went on a sonic rampage. Promoters were stiffing them with bills chock full of trumped-up charges and used their pay to even the tab. Without a Space Buck to their name, they sold their touring vessel and used the money to record a scathing condemnation of the local scene. Rotten was as much a rise from despair as it was the undoing of paradise. The ones that had come before had never had it this difficult, and Hydra At Heart was determined to shed light on the state of the industry. Not only did the record prove to be a commercial success (which helped recoup the money for their shuttle and the stiffed bills), but it cemented them among critics, and fans, as traveling poets, able to condense the anger they had felt into melodic and tasty beats that would have soothed even the most savage of beasts. Rotten went on to find success on the stage as well, when a theater troupe just outside the Pinwheel Galaxy filled in the gaps between songs with a narrative of the journey of the band, although with certain liberties, and the addition of a giant, talking apple.