Soul Music

find your office anywhere—”
    Dibbler spread his arms wide.
    “This is my office,” he said, equally expansively. “Sator Square! Thousands of square feet of space! Excellent communications! Passing trade! Try these on,” he added, picking up one of the sacks and opening it. “I had to guess at sizes.”
    They were black, and made of cheap cotton. One of them was XXXXL.
    “A vest with words on?” said Buddy.
    “‘The Band With Rocks In,’” Cliff read, slowly. “Hey, dat’s us, isn’t it?”
    “What do we want these for?” said Glod. “We know who we are.”
    “Advertising,” said Dibbler. “Trust me.” He put a brown cylinder in his mouth and lit the end. “Wear them tonight. Have I got a gig for you!”
    “Have you?” said Buddy.
    “That’s what I said!”
    “No, you asked us,” said Glod. “How should we know?”
    “Has it got dat livery on der side?” said Cliff.
    Dibbler started again.
    “It’s a big place, you’ll get a great audience! And you’ll get…” he looked at their trusting, open faces, “ten dollars over Guild rate, how about that?”
    Glod’s face split into a big grin. “What, each?” he said.
    Dibbler gave them another appraising look. “Oh…no,” he said. “Fair do’s. Ten dollars between you. I mean, be serious. You need exposure.”
    “There’s dat word again,” said Cliff. “The Musicians’ Guild’ll be right on our necks.”
    “Not this place,” said Dibbler. “Guaranteed.”
    “Where is it, then?” said Glod.
    “Are you ready for this?”
    They blinked at him. Dibbler beamed, and blew a cloud of greasy smoke.
    “The Cavern!”

    The beat went on…
    Of course, there were bound to be a few mutations…
    Gortlick and Hammerjug were songwriters, and fully paid-up members of the Guild. They wrote dwarf songs for all occasions.
    Some people say this is not hard to do so long as you can remember how to spell “Gold,” but this is a little bit cynical. Many dwarf songs * are on the lines of “Gold, gold, gold” but it’s all in the inflection; dwarfs have thousands of words for “gold” but will use any of them in an emergency, such as when they see some gold that doesn’t belong to them.
    They had a small office in Tin Lid Alley, where they sat either side of an anvil and wrote popular songs to mine along to.
    “Gort?”
    “What?”
    “What do you think of this one?”
    Hammerjug cleared his throat.
    “I’m mean and turf and I’m mean and turf and I’m mean and turf and I’m mean and turf,
    “And me an’ my friends can walk towards you with our hats on backwards in a menacing way,
    “Yo!”
    Gortlick chewed the end of his composing hammer thoughtfully.
    “Good rhythm,” he said, “but the words need some work.”
    “You mean more gold, gold, gold?”
    “Ye-es. What’re you thinking of calling it?”
    “Er…r…rat…music…”
    “Why rat music?”
    Hammerjug looked puzzled.
    “Couldn’t really say,” he said. “It was just an idea I had in my brain.”
    Gortlick shook his head. Dwarfs were a burrowing race. He knew what they liked.
    “Good music’s got to have hole in it,” he said. “You ain’t got nothing if you ain’t got hole.”

    “Now calm down, calm down,” said Dibbler. “It’s the biggest venue in Ankh-Morpork, that’s why. I don’t see what the problem is…”
    “The Cavern?” screamed Glod. “Chrysoprase the troll runs it, that’s the problem!”
    “Dey say he’s a godfather in der Breccia,” said Cliff.
    “Now now, that’s never been proved…”
    “Only ’cos it’s very hard to prove things when someone’s scooped a hole in your head and buried your feet in it!”
    “There’s no need for this prejudice just because he’s a troll—” said Dibbler.
    “ I’m a troll! So I can be prejudiced against trolls, all right? He’s one mean mutherlode! Dey say when dey found der De Bris gang none of ’em had any teef—”
    “What is the Cavern?” said Buddy.
    “Troll place,” said Cliff. “Dey say—”
    “It’ll be great! Why worry?” said Dibbler.
    “It’s a gambling joint, too!” *
    “But the Guild won’t go in there,” said Dibbler. “Not if they know what’s good for them.”
    “And I know what’s good for me, too!” shouted Glod. “I’m good at knowing that! It’s good for me not to go into a troll dive!”
    “They threw axes at you in the Drum,” said Dibbler, reasonably.
    “Yes, but only in fun. It’s not as if they were