B-roll. An ambulance shrieks through the dark streets of London at night. A saxophonist busking for change squeaks out a tortured tune. We zoom in on one of the windows of the top floor bedrooms at Attention Deficit Manor and on the other side, we are shown a conversation happening between Lars and Mike. Lars reclines like a Teutonic satyr on one of the couches, pouts, smokes cigarettes, and reminisces about throwing parties in Berlin and all the work and risk involved. Mike listens intently while wearing a hockey jersey and lying on the other couch with his knees spread out and his hands over his package. Lars tells Mike that he is not a DJ, he is a party planner. There is a difference.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Kat watches Neil thumb through a tabloid-sized newspaper which I'm guessing is a London music publication like N.M.E. Oh, and I'm not making this part up. "Why is everyone in the world famous except for me for being a musician, Kat?" asks Neil. Now, if it had been me sitting in that kitchen instead of Kat, I'd have answered, "Because your music sucks." But Kat, who is getting laid and therefore in some sort of "I kneel before man" mood, is way more diplomatic. "Have you ever had any offers?" asks Kat, referring to record companies. Oh, as if Neil iswithout a record deal right now because he turned one down. Neil agreed to be on The Real World, for crying out loud. He'd work for Lou Pearlman. Neil tells Kat that the record companies have never noticed him, except one time when Sony had some interest in them and then changed their minds after they heard them play. "I think we're a little too noisy for them," says Neil. Whatever.
Meanwhile, Sharon's at speech therapy. The irony of Sharon having to go somewhere to learn how to speak again is not lost on me. Her speech therapist takes her through some scales. In an interview, Sharon mentions that she hasn't seen much of her band lately due to the operation earlier in the season, of which they remind us by rerunning the scene where she freaks out because she's getting an injection. Her tonsillitis was yet another setback. Sharon's speech therapist asks Sharon whether she is singing these days. Sharon tells her that she is, but that she wants to start training again. In an interview, Sharon reminds us yet again that music is her life.
Music is Neil's life, too. Let's hope it's a short one. He performs with his main band Unilever at yet another dive-y club. For all I know, it could be the one where he got his tongue bitten off. Neil passionately shouts a series of numbers at the crowd. "Oh one! Eight double one! Eight oh five five!" Punk bingo? In an interview, Neil laments the fact that Unilever might not last much longer if they don't get some "support." Apparently the British music press is hard on new bands. Or at least that's why Neil thinks he's not a full-fledged rock star. Oh -- that and the fact that Neil's music isn't "fashionable at the moment." I guess Neil needs to wait until pointless experimental music performed by talentless toffs from Oxford becomes fashionable. Then he will be recognized as the genius that he is. At that point, Jay will probably also have a Nobel Prize in Literature. Neil decides to bite the bullet and do a little networking. He and one of his bandmates visit a record company and drop off a demo tape. The guy behind the desk -- who must get thousands of these demo tapes dropped in his lap each day -- informs them that it might take a month for an A&R person to listen to it. Neil and his friend are outraged. In an interview, Neil reveals that he's convinced his tape will be dropped in the trash. Neil, I think you're right. They try another record company. Neil complains in an interview that he's not good at "selling himself." Um, maybe the problem isn't the sales pitch as much as the product you're trying to sell. ["If I've learned anything from movies, it's that Neil needs to regroup by getting a job in a pub where he wears skanky outfits and dances on the bar." -- Wing Chun]
Sharon is back rehearsing with her band for the first time since the operation. Never mind that they're using footage from the first episode to show the actual rehearsal (or so I surmise from the serious continuity problem between Sharon's rehearsal hair and Sharon's interview hair). Sharon's voice is flat, but she wastes no time in telling the band what they're doing wrong. In an interview, she talks about how nerve-wracking the experience was for her, but says that after she warmed up, she felt great. The song she's singing is some poor man's version of Des'ree's "You Gotta Be." It's a series of self-help proclamations strung together. "You can't get what you want/ And two wrongs don't make a right/ You like to think you're needed/ and you're searching for the light/ Put your feet back on the ground!"
Lars rounds everyone up to go out clubbing. He picks out an appropriate outfit for Jay: a v-necked basketball t-shirt that perfectly shows off Jay's waif-like physique. For some reason, Jay feels weird about wearing a big pair of boots. Lars points out that boots are all that Lars ever wears. Finally everyone is out the door and walking the streets of London in search of a club. Lars explains in an interview that he's been checking out the club scene for the past few months, and that he eventually wants to put together his own event. "Right now, I am looking for the venue because I first need the venue to come up with a creative idea," says Lars in the interview. Lars goes around and sees several potential venues while he voice-overs how important it is to put together a successful event so that people know his name.
Back at Attention Deficit Manor, Jacinda and Neil have breakfast. Jacinda asks Neil how much money he made from his last gig. Neil, whose fluffy hair makes him look like a Samoyed, replies that the band made a grand total of £10. In an interview, Neil mentions that he's running out of money, and that he's nervous about it. Jacinda suggests that he get a 9-5 job. Neil concurs that he just might have to do that. Wow, what sacrifice! Working for a living! "I suppose I could become a prostitute," Neil bitterly tells Jacinda. thing you know, they're showing him walking into an agency called "Manpower." Hee! Manpower! Prostitute? Geddit? I'm sorry, it takes so little amuse me these days. He tells the nice lady at the temp agency that he has computer skills, and that he can type a little. The day, the phone rings; the agency offers Neil an assignment doing data entry for £4.75 an hour. "You get a subsidized lunch as well," says the nice lady at the temp agency. Neil and the lady share a laugh at the idea of a free lunch. What's wrong with me? I thought a free lunch sounded like a good deal. Maybe in London they still serve gruel like those Dickens novels or something. thing you know, Neil is in that double-breasted Botany 500 suit he was wearing a few episodes ago and getting ready to go to his first day of work. Lars comes up behind him as he drinks juice in the kitchen and caresses his manboob. It's so cute! Meanwhile, some singer I can't identify sings about affording a "rock and roll lifestyle." ["That would be Cake." -- Wing Chun] I guess I'm suddenly immune to the charms of the suit, because I get really irritated hearing Neil say, in an interview, that "poverty" forced him into doing something he swore he'd never do: "Put on a suit and get out of bed in the mornings."
Now, I don't know what amazes me more: that England can call itself a society if its citizens make their untalented musicians work for a living, or that Sharon's band wants Sharon to show up on time for rehearsals. Sharon is three hours late for a rehearsal when she calls to tell them that she lost her way to the new rehearsal space. In a confessional, Sharon admits to having a "punctuality problem," but only cops to being an hour and a half late for the rehearsal in question. Finally, she arrives and Nico -- some male band member with floppy hair and a periwinkle-blue lambswool turtleneck -- tells her that he's going to "walk out" if she's that late again. In a confessional, Sharon refers to this as "drastic." They rehearse. They have yet another Oprah-esque song in their repertoire: "Hold on to what you're dreaming/ be what you have to be/ stay where your heart is happy/ make sure your devil is dead."
Lars and some guy check out another venue. This one holds eight hundred people, which is the perfect size for Lars. The guy who owns the club wants an up-front fee of £1,500. Apparently, Lars is getting a deal. The guy wanted to charge more, but he heard that Lars was bringing "American DJs" and thought he'd make more at the bar. In a confessional, Lars "confesses" that he's been speaking to some American DJs, but that "nothing is confirmed yet." Apparently these DJs' management people want to see Lars's "concept" for the party before they give their DJs to Lars.
But let's not forget about the real tragedy here: that Neil has to work for a living. In an interview, Neil claims that his data-entry job could be performed by a "lobotomized hamster." That's just too easy comment on, so I won't. In the kitchen, Mike rubs it in Neil's face that Mike makes more money teaching rollerblading lessons than Neil does at his office job and that, furthermore, Mike gets to be outside. "You have money and I don't," says Neil, flipping veggie burgers on the grill. "Something's very wrong. I should be the one getting money." Why? Because you make crap music that no one wants to listen to, whereas Mike actually possesses a marketable skill? In an interview, Neil reveals that he has been offered three more weeks of work to do the same thing, and that he's turned them down. "I'd rather be poor," says Neil. , we see Neil on stage while his band warms up. He's got a new look going on: he's wearing a white suit jacket over a pink shirt. Oh, and Patty Smyth from Scandal called. She wants her makeup back. While he dejectedly stomps around the stage, he voice-overs a complaint that "no one else has to worry about" money in the house except him. Yeah -- it's so unfair the way people who work for a living don't share the same anxieties as those who refuse to.
Oddly enough, Sharon -- who doesn't make quite as much noise as Neil does about "pushing back the frontiers of music" -- has an actual meeting with an A&R person named Ruth. Ruth seems to run her own record company out of her own apartment or something. Sharon shows up to the meeting wearing that outfit she's been wearing lately in her interviews, with the tomato-red jacket and a big That Girl hairstyle. Sharon and Ruth talk about her music. Sharon proves that she's intently listening to Ruth by leaning in with a cup of coffee and supporting her cheek with her fingertips. Ruth likes Sharon's band, but liked their earlier work better. She doesn't think she can market their current sound. In an interview, Sharon admits that although this current deal depends on it, it's going to be hard for their band to change their entire style. The band has a meeting and tries to write some new material that's more "rock-y." Sharon is in full creative mode for the month. We see Kat and Jacinda listening in on a rehearsal and giving each other a Jan and Marcia glance as if to say that Sharon's new sound is groovy and far out. In an interview, Jacinda says that Sharon is talented, but that she might not make it, since talent isn't what it takes to make it in the music business. Unfortunately, she's right.
Lars is still floundering over the party. He can't find a "major major DJ" and can't expect much of a turnout if he doesn't have a big name to advertise. "I have run out of time," says Lars in an interview amidst shots of him working the phones from Attention Deficit Manor. Despite the fact that no one asked him to, Neil tells Lars that he can't help him. "It's not my scene at all," says Neil. Not that I know anything about party planning, but I would think that when someone as anti-social as Neil feels compelled to help you, you're on the wrong career path. Once again, Lars explains that not having a DJ will ruin his party. It looks like he'll have to cancel. He mopes around the house to the ruminations of Soundgarden.
Sharon's band is rehearsing their new material at some pretty professional-looking recording studio. Okay, remember that scene in Mommie Dearest when Joan Crawford is retired from acting and is in bed watching some award show given in her honor and her hair is in this tremendously stiff do that goes really wide just below her ears? That's what Sharon looks like in this interview. She's even wearing what looks to be a nightgown. There are tensions among the bandmates. They don't have enough material to rehearse. Sharon starts bossing everyone around, and no one is having any of it. "We don't get to rehearse as much as we need to," says Sharon in her Joan Crawford interview. They start to rehearse a song that Sharon's never seen before.
Meanwhile, Neil and Lars are chilling at home. Neil asks Lars how the party is shaping up. Lars laments the fact that he's had four months to put something together and that he only started working on his party a couple of weeks ago. Lars can't find a suitable DJ. Yeah, we know. All of a sudden out of the blue, some record label calls a meeting with Lars. Fresh Squeeze Records is having a party at The Ministry of Sound, and they want Lars to DJ. Lars explains in an interview that Ministry is a "massive" club in London. "The first exclusive London appearance at The Ministry of Sound by a German DJ," says a Fresh Squeeze bigwig trying to pretend that Lars's appearance on The Real World has nothing to do with their decision. They give him the 11 PM - 1:30 AM slot, which they assure him is "prime time." "You're on the spot, buddy!" says the Fresh Squeeze bigwig. Everyone laughs heartily and shakes hands. "It's very very prestigious if you can say that you played at The Ministry," says Lars in an interview. "So I'm quite happy about that."
I guess we're supposed to feel bad for Neil when he goes and knocks on this record company's door. You see, when they buzz him in, the buzz is really loud, so it hurts his ears. I wonder what kind of primitive country England is that they'd make musicians walk on their own two feet and knock on doors with their own bare hands to find work. Neil explains in an interview that his band "is friends with" another band called Flinch as in "what people do when they hear Neil's band play." Apparently some record company is producing a CD of Flinch cover songs, and Neil's band (I don't know which one) was chosen to record one of these songs. Because, you see, Flinch has been such an influence on popular music that it was only fitting that a bunch of musicians get together and do a cover album like they did for The Carpenters or Leonard Cohen. And you'd think that it would be hard for Neil's band to get such a prestigious recording gig, but thanks to the friendship between the bands, Neil's band has insider status and is chosen to record a track on this super-duper-popular album. "This is a genuine compact disc," Neil proudly tells Mike. "And it has me on it!" It is later explained that Neil recorded this track only a week after his tongue was bitten off. Yes, folks, Neil's music is only palatable when he can't sing lyrics intelligibly. Shocking, I know. Neil plays the CD for the house. Jay makes a lame attempt at "dancing" to it even though it's about as danceable as a Joy Division song played on a low speed. Jacinda thoughtfully eats some rice. Kat leaves the room. "Is this an underground thing?" asks Mike. "Extremely underground," answers Neil. Lord, he looks pleased with himself.
As the opening bars of Björk's "Isobel" play, Sharon holds a meeting for her band at Attention Deficit Manor. Okay, I love Sharon's hair right now. I also love her navy blue v-neck sweater worn over a starched dress shirt. She's working this Velma from Scooby Doo look and it suits her brilliantly. Unfortunately, it seems that Ruth -- the record executive -- is no longer interested in the band. Apparently, Sharon misunderstood her and thought that if they changed their sound, Ruth would sign them. But, according to Nico -- the floppy-haired band member -- Ruth made no such promise. Unfortunately, Nico is no longer interested in working with the band if there's no "record-company interest." In other words, now that Sharon's Real World connection ain't getting them a record contract, it's time to ditch Sharon. The band breaks up right then and there. "It took a while to sink in and I didn't know how to feel," says Sharon in a voice-over as the band members slowly file out of Attention Deficit Manor. Everyone says goodbye to each other. "Your band just broke up five minutes ago?" says Mike, entering the kitchen. "While I was in the shower?" Sharon assures him that her future is still bright. In a confessional, Sharon claims that it hasn't upset her that much because she must believe that she's capable of continuing without them. Yeah, because it's not like Sharon is ever simply out of touch with her feelings and hiding behind her chirpy exterior or anything. "Keep on Moving" by Soul 2 Soul plays while Sharon insists that she'll get by because she's "vocal and chatty" although she has her "insecurities like everyone else."
It's time for Lars's club gig. He puts on his shoes with a shoehorn and gathers his LPs while Mike follows him around asking whether he's nervous. The housemates get ready for a night out. Jay "dances" some more and Jacinda enters the living room in a black dress the neckline of which goes all the way down to her waist. Jay puts on a pair of leather pants and comments that he feels "like Mick Jagger." It's all so wrong. At the club, Lars plays records and people dance to these records. The housemates each voice-over their reactions to the fact that Lars has everyone dancing. Well actually, folks, it's the music that has these people dancing. Lars simply selected the music and placed it on the turntable. He's not even doing that scratchy thing. "It is very exciting," says Lars in a voice-over, "moving a crowd and getting people to dance." Yeah, if you're the musician who produced the dance music. The night ends and the gang walks home, passing that saxophonist from the beginning of the episode.