[ Featuring Tommy Mars ]
Epilogue TOUJOUR MUSTACHE
Later that fall the Willy Nickerson Quartet launches a tour, their longest ever. Many new doors are open to the group after its success in Hambrook. Now, nearly thirty years after he left Guitback, he has become a jazz veteran, and has more gray quills than blue. The beloved family film Willy of Hambrook attracts full houses all over the world, and in their kiddie menus, hamburger chains include blue plastic porcupines wearing sunglasses and carrying a double bass.
Meanwhile, the group continues its tour. They encounter a heavy fog while driving through a mountain pass. It's almost impossible to see the road, so the wagon creeps slowly through a washed-out landscape. No sharp contours at all are visible. There is a powerful headwind, and it seems as though they are standing still and the landscape is coming towards them. They drive further and further into the unknown. After several hours in the fog, they finally see a glimmer of light ahead, growing larger by the moment. It is a roadside café: Toujour Mustache. They stop, and can hear fantastic music coming from inside the café.
A dusty quartet is sitting and playing in a corner. The weak 40-watt light bulbs in the ceiling can't conceal the spider webs that are hanging from the bass. The rest of the café is empty, so the musicians come to life when they finally have someone to play for. The group consists of Django and Zappa on guitar, Piazzolla on accordion, and Dalí on bass. They all have neatly trimmed mustaches, and two of them also sport an imperial goatee. Between tunes they hold earnest discussions about the importance of having a mustache. The bassist's cosmic antennae erupt optimistically upwards, and sparkle as though lacquered. Willy Nickerson immediately recognizes
Blue Beard Wax No. 9™ for surrealists who are exposed to the elements, usable to five degrees below zero Celsius
A classic Guitback product.
After a long night of jam sessions and musical fraternization, they part at dawn as old friends. The fog lifts, and the rusty circus wagon glides soundlessly away, gaining more and more speed. They are beyond the clouds, supersonic, and the heavens are black with an explosion of stars. They are in space, and pass by the moon on their way to Mars. Continuing for all eternity among the stars.
