"What Does Shivalree Sound Like?" (Patreon)

In addition to his role as an Every Hole principal, [Young] Randall starred in smut short Positive Feedback (which you can read at Filthy Figments, buy digitally from their webstore, or buy in print from me at my webstore). As such, he got more audience exposure faster than otherwise mainer-character Alix, and a question I got more than once (and enjoyed completely I gotta say) was some form of “what does Shivalree sound like?”, and it’s a question I absolutely have a really specific answer to.

Shivalree is a supercharged version of Randall, himself a multi-instrumentalist and a versatile singer with a five-octave range. I imagine Randall making music, alone, via a lot of multitracking, in his attic bedroom, and I imagine Shivalree can sound like just about anything, as needed. In Every Hole's first chapter Shivalree did two songs, and you’re obviously free to “hear” them however you want, but I can tell you what they “sounded” like to me. The first, in Alix’s apartment, was patterned on 90s Britpop sounds, specifically the Manic Street Preachers (who I vaguely gestured at by putting Randall in a vintage Motorcycle Emptiness T-shirt); the second, magical girl rap modeled on 90s hiphop, principally De La Soul, and Hideki Naganuma’s Jet Set Radio contributions—Shivalree’s Vs. Gravity009 look obviously also calling back to Beat (and my own prior nod to JSR in a 2005ish OCT featuring Ray, who could accurately be described as a young proto-Randall). Let me know if going forward you'd like me to call out the influences on his future songs, of which there's a billionty.

... Okay Ben but seriously, what does Shivalree sound like? 

I imagine Randall generally mostly aiming for Freddie Mercury/Brian May but not actually being Freddie Mercury and/or Brian May . . . and therefore sounding exactly like the Struts’ Luke Spiller and/or Adam Slack (but less English).

The Struts routinely just sound like a Queen tribute band (and appropriately have covered a ton of Queen songs) but Luke Spiller in particular can also just choose to sound like whoever, as needed, and in between reaches for Freddie Mercury, sounds like Rod Stewart, Billy Idol, Brian Connolly, and more. Spiller is what I imagine Shivalree to sound like.

I could supply a suggested playlist to illustrate, but I really only need one song because Luke Spiller and The Struts recorded Pegasus Seiya, an English-language cover of MAKE-UP’s original theme song for Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya, Pegasus Fantasy. Randall is a massive dork with a particular penchant for old 80s and 90s anime (just wait, you’ll see), and no single song is as Shivalree as this hotblooded anime theme song rerecorded by Kmart Freddie Mercury.

(If you want, though, check out also Primadonna Like Me, Fire, and Who Am I by the Struts and you’ve got a pretty effective overview of What Shivalree Sounds Like.)