RAPTOR

A Black techno-nerd, a Chicano gang-banger, a whiteboy jock, an aging prodigy, but with one thing in common: they all very definitely died, but revived with deep desires to play music and move to another area. Where they are drawn together and form a band. A band that immediately starts re-creating their out-of-life experience in listeners, and bringing them under a spooky control.

Not a big deal when they're just jamming in the tenemant they call the "Needle Arms", but when they are signed by Big Red, a major talent agency, their powers are obviously being focused at a wider target... and it's obvious that Big Red has been controlling them all along. But by then they are Raptor: have a studio, recordings, tours, a cute little fire-dancer groupie, and original songs. Their control has brought them a roadie and a veteran blues guitarist, so they're on their way.

But they have a hard time living with the slave-like condition of the groupie (for whom one member is starting to feel unaccustomed tender feelings) or their own lack of free will dealing with management, and another band member is head over heels for theie beautiful manager, although she is so much property for higher ups in the... firm? conspiracy? alien invasion? religion?

Whatever it is, they want out. But as soon as they start plotting against the machine (or expressing their emotions to the women) they are gripped by terrifying, hallucinatory "morphing"--making monsters of each other. The morphing is worse when they meet other bands--from other management machines--and battle it out with them. All they have to do is cope with their new fame, deal with love thwarted by madness, and attempt to escape what might just be the bigest, oldest conspiracy of all time. And they'd better do it before the big concert in the Superdome, because that's when the real World Domination Tour kicks off. And when they make their move, it's going to be a phantasmagoria of creepiness and chaos.

Along the way, it's just a bunch of young people hanging together, sharing laughs, fighting things out, discovering new kinds of feelings and probing some brand new ancient truths.