The following post has been written in full by one of our new guest contributors, Kyle Kapper. Among other places, Kyle’s work has been featured on KDHX and in Eleven magazine. We think you’ll enjoy the fresh perspective and distinct passion for live music that Kyle will bring to IWTAS. Welcome to the team, Kapper!

The room had grown restless. The strange and beautiful among us pressed against the ugly and the mundane. Scents of incense and cupcakes wafted between towering crimson pillars, but still the host was unseen, the hall brooding over his absence.

“You are early,” Count Jackula seemed to say through a striking blue curtain at the front. Severe lights glared from its crown, interrogating us from above.

Three long quarters of an hour had passed since the doorman’s departing words, spoken with a voice which rustled like cornhusks in the fall. Through arcing tales of grunge and grit, the man named Benjamin Booker had held our interest for a duration appropriate of such a butler. Yet he’d borrowed more time than deserved and doomed all the goodwill he’d won. Our impatience was even shared by the woman who’d errantly offered him her love, comically mistaking a black man for White at the top of the evening’s program. In the end, we cheered more for Booker’s leaving than for his limitless hospitality.

A second man appeared, a small and dapper compère who warned us to keep our pocket machines pocketed. The manner of the manor would be conveyed to us forthwith, he promised, asking that we convey the same to others – to you – by way of memories instead of thumbly gadgets. The emcee disappeared, again leaving us with nothing to do but wait.

Then, the room changed.

Jack was nimble – Jack was quick – Jack was ferocious, precocious, and slick.

He lashed out at us like a startled beast, his white winged boots trampling over the Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground. His silver trousers shined like a tribute to spacewalkers of yore, and he flogged his pale complexion with the long black veil of his mane.

We rose as he approached and recited rhymes of the Stijl-ish dialect. The Count recognized his own stripes, and the prayer pleased him. A cease-fire was reached on neutral Temporary Ground. The skirmish faded, and the harsh glare along with it. Fire-laced ivory globes appeared in a lavish lavender sky, and the host finally welcomed us to his ultimate ball of balls.

Soon enough, he was charmed with fiddles and disarming with riddles: “Shouldn’t your river be named something different when it gets past Mississippi?” He massaged his flock’s pride with some snide on the side: “Your arch was too shiny as I was trying to sleep this morning. Buff that shit up.” Only once did he slip and betray his otherworldly nature: “This is a song I co-wrote with Hank Williams from the grave.”

Often he spoke of his native land, comparing his beloved city of motors to the metropolis where his flock now gathered. He’d even brought some indigenous magic with him, adding Motown to MO-city with a dash of panache.

Once the affair was as warm as a campfire, though, the Count plucked fear into his aural tapestry, infusing chords of discord. A mossy monster of malice rose from the depths, lumbering at the steady pace of an executioner’s tromp.

The festivities turned on themselves thusly, over and once more, just as the horde had hoped. Hostility frolicked with levity, and war waltzed with peace. When an encore of rancor unfolded, the nature of the host truly crystallized, revealing a man ruthless yet sensitive, gentle yet mad. Likewise, like any good Master, Count Jackula left his throng quenched yet voraciously thirsty.

You could say he left us restless, as if he had never arrived at all.