On With The Show (Original Burn) — EP01

ORIGINAL BURN ARC — EP01

"On With The Show (Original Burn)"

Somewhere between static and signal,
the song remains...

The glitch didn't start with a scream.
It started with silence.

The chord was clean. Too clean. Manny knew it. So did the dust. The saloon was packed — MusicMakerz, Echo Sector W-7. Moby working the crowd. Skip tuning. Disco pouring. Even Jonny Bingo had his shades off. Manny played. Unplugged. Honest. They weren’t ready. Then Jake Barron walked in. Tattoo inked, not lit. Biker leathers, silence sharp as a blade. One step. Two. Up the stage. Guitar raised. Crack. Strings screamed. Manny hit the floor. Blood in his teeth. Hat lost. Third chord broken. The Piper was already watching. She came not with sound, but with static. Reality shimmered. The room flickered. Manny blinked — and he wasn’t in the bar anymore. Brass light. Fog. A moving lab. Instruments like relics. The Piper stood over him — her eyes hidden beneath dread-cabled robes. She didn’t ask. She began. Needle lines. Neon thread. Subdermal circuits. Arm cabling. A jack in the chest. Last — the chrome plate at his jaw. When he woke — the world hummed differently. Sideshow Manny had been born. He didn’t return through the door. He ripped through the wall. Skip flinched. Moby whispered, “No way.” Disco grinned, “Told you he’d get back up.” Manny stepped onto the same stage. Trilby on. Lines glowing. Strings humming with power not from wood — but from wire. He strummed. And the saloon shook. A glitchwave pulsed out. Chairs flipped. Glass burst. Voices bent sideways in pitch. Jake Barron staggered. His tattoo flickered — trying to respond. It failed. He turned. Ran. His crew followed, synth-bikes stuttering against the neon sand. Manny stood in the dust. One man. One Show. He walked past the bar, past the wreck, past Moby’s stunned grin. Skip nodded. Jonny lit a smoke. Disco raised his glass. The sign above flickered. Then held: ON WITH THE SHOW And into the static night, Sideshow Manny walked. Glitch burning behind him. Guitar humming like prophecy. The Piper watched. And the desert waited.

FRAME 01: Crack the Chord

— One final performance. No cybernetics. Just hands and chords. He’s unaware, but the glitch has already noticed.

FRAME 02: Smashcut Reality

— Wood breaks. Blood flicks. Jake Barron doesn’t speak. He just acts. The camera catches the moment the story collapses.

FRAME 03: Piper’s Deal

— This isn’t science. It’s ritual. The Piper doesn’t speak. She rebuilds. And in the shadows, the guitar begins to hum.

FRAME 04: Return of the Sound

— No more doors. He re-enters reality like a glitchwave. Skip blinks. Moby swears. And the neon begins to pulse.

██ SIGNAL PATCH 001
“The jack wasn't just metal. It was myth.”
Track: On With The Show [Original Burn]
Episode: 01 | Log ID: TC-01_OWTS
FEED STABILITY: 93% | ZONE: Echo Sector W-7
— TRANSMISSION CONTINUES —

EPISODE 00 — PRELUDE (DUST FADE)

Every silence remembers the first chord…

Before the burn. Before the glitch. There was just dust. And a song humming through it.

The Wasted Lands weren’t quiet. They just weren’t amplified yet. Manny walked slow — not because he was tired, but because he was listening. Each step tuned into something different: static hum off a derailed rail rig, wind harmonics across broken string fences, echo clicks from signal rats in the drain hubs.

His guitar was still wood then. Still analog. Still honest. He didn’t play for power — not yet. He played because the silence asked for it.

This is where it begins — before The Piper, before The Barron, before upgrades and surveillance sigils. This is the last moment of something real. And it’s fading fast.

You can’t rewind a signal. But you can remember its first transmission.

---

🎞️ Frame 1: Dust Horizon

Manny alone on a dirt ridge. The guitar slung like an oath. Sunset filters through pollution haze. This is the moment before the music starts — before everything fractures. The color palette leans into oranges, brass, and desaturated shadows.

📻 Frame 2: MusicMakerz Saloon

Inside the scrap-bar of legends, acoustic ghosts echo. The bar glows with faded neon and whiskey circuitry. Locals say the first signal was born here — between bottle clinks and analog chords.

🪛 Frame 3: The Piper Watches

She does not speak. She observes. She calibrates. The Piper's silhouette seen only in reflections — never directly. Frame glitched by presence alone. This is where prophecy hums in corrupted frequencies.

---

██ SIGNAL PATCH 000
“Every silence remembers the first chord.”
Track: Prelude [Dust Fade Mix]
Episode: 00 | Log ID: TC-00_PRELUDE
FEED STABILITY: 97% | ZONE: Wasted Lands
— TRANSMISSION END —

NEON REQUIEM ARC — EP01: On With The Show (Neon Requiem Mix)

Somewhere between static and signal, the song remains…

Rain again. Always rain. The city doesn’t bleed — it broadcasts.

He walks in slow — through the rain, through the buzz. Through the static grit that never leaves the skin. Guitar slung like a prayer someone forgot to answer. Neon burn in every puddle. The city don’t breathe. It loops.

On a rooftop wired into the bones of the grid, Manny plays. Not loud — just true. A cracked chord. A wrong note bent right. The kind that makes you pause and think about what you lost. The city hears it. The city flinches.

He’s being watched. Not by a man. Not anymore. Red eyes cold as shutdown code. The Barron doesn’t move. Doesn’t have to. He already owns the silence. And Manny? He just keeps playing.

Signal meets signal. Control versus chaos. He’s not playing for noise. He’s playing for a crack in the wall. For the memory of something unfiltered. For survival on a loop that never ends.

The city stutters. Neon bleeds. And somewhere under all that rain — the song still hums. On with the show.

---

Frame Gallery + Behind the Frame

🧢 Frame 1: Arrival in The Echo Grid

The Show begins again — but not where it ended. The Echo Grid isn’t a place you arrive at. It absorbs you. This frame plants Manny inside its glitch-rain veins, guitar slung like a relic, hat brim low to keep the signal noise out. The glowing orange glasses are no longer just for show — they’re HUD, filter, armor. He’s walking into a city of performance, where reality is edited, looped, watched.

🎸 Frame 2: Rooftop Performance

Manny’s rooftop set isn’t rebellion. It’s reclamation. This frame shows resonance made visible — power cables become strings, neon pulses sync to rhythm, even drones hesitate mid-pattern. The rain is not just weather — it’s distortion. His chords cut into the city’s soundscape like static across a sermon.

👁️ Frame 3: The Barron Watches

From his high perch, the Barron doesn’t speak. Doesn’t act. He observes. His red mechanical eyes lock on a world out of alignment. The Eye of Providence isn’t decoration — it’s ritual branding, corporate theology etched in skin.

⚡ Frame 4: The Clash

Both figures stand in iconography: Manny, hat low, guitar flaring like a beacon. The Barron orange Eye Of Providence and red cybernetic eyes, armored in code. This frame splits diagonally — not for design, but because reality fractures when control and chaos share a stage.

📡 Frame 5: Signal in the Rain

The guitar string vibrates — not for the player, but for the next voice. The child isn’t a character. He's a metaphor. The Show doesn’t end. It spreads. This isn’t a rooftop anymore. It’s a shrine.

---

██ SIGNAL PATCH 001
“Even the silence glitches when the strings break.”
Track: On With The Show [Neon Requiem Mix]
Episode: 01 | Log ID: TC-01_OWTS
FEED STABILITY: 91% | ZONE: The Echo Grid
— TRANSMISSION END —

ON WITH THE SHOW — The Neon Circuit Begins

Today marks the official launch of The Neon Circuit, a cyberpunk narrative music universe I’ve been building behind the curtain. And fittingly, the curtain rises with the first transmission: “On With The Show [Neon Requiem Mix]” — a triphop short set in the rain-slick ruins of Mega-City One.

This video is more than just a standalone visual — it's Episode 1 in an unfolding story where music, rebellion, and collapsing reality blur into one.

Sideshow Manny — the character, performer, and avatar I channel — stands alone in this first chapter, delivering a wired acoustic performance while being hunted by the Barron, a symbol of control and corporate suppression. It’s a fight for signal integrity in a world where even perception glitches.

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What's Next?

This release kicks off a larger story arc. Over the coming months, I’ll be rolling out a 12-part backstory series — one video episode for each song from the “Sideshow” album.

These episodes will explore:

• The events that fractured the city and twisted reality

• The rise of the Barron and the system’s grip

• Sideshow Manny’s origins and his role in the resistance

• Hidden broadcasts, outlaw circuits, and the glitching power of song

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Follow along here on sideshowmanny.com or on the YouTube playlist Neon Circuit Transmissions to stay synced with the signal.

The Show Must Go On — and this is just the opening chord.

— Sideshow Manny

██ SIGNAL PATCH 001

“Even the silence glitches when the strings break.”

Track: On With The Show [Neon Requiem Mix]
Episode: 01 | Log ID: TC-01_OWTS
FEED STABILITY: 91% | ZONE: Mega-City One
— TRANSMISSION END —