The Talent Show (5 page)

After a few shouting matches, Mrs. Villa realized she couldn't force the great American songbook down Elke's throat. She also realized she could have the next Taylor Swift on her hands if she played her cards right. In fact, Mrs. Villa thought about moving the family to Los Angeles or Nashville, home of the country music business. But her husband refused to move.

As Elke was getting known around Cape Bluff, people began to gossip that Mrs. Villa was an overbearing stage mom who lived vicariously through Elke. And if you don't know what that means, it's a lot like those dads who push their sons to be sports heroes because they struck out with the bases loaded when
they
were twelve.

But the truth was that nobody was twisting
Elke's arm. She loved to sing, she wanted to become a singer when she grew up, and she had a competitive streak in her. Elke had grown up watching an endless parade of teenage girls—Hilary Duff, Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan, Miranda Cosgrove—come out of nowheresville and become superstars. Every year, it seemed, some new fresh face would appear on Nick or Disney and become the next big thing. There must be a constant need to supply the world with young female pop stars. Everybody was always telling her that her voice was much better than any of those teenybopper girls.

To most people in Cape Bluff, it was inevitable that Elke would become a superstar one day. The only reason she hadn't hit it big already was because her parents didn't have the money to get her to the next level. Acting lessons, voice coaches, fancy wardrobes, and hair stylists are expensive. It's hard to get noticed in Cape Bluff, Kansas. You've got to go to Hollywood.

When the talent show was announced, Mrs. Villa thought it could be Elke's springboard to the next level. There would be local media there. The video would be on YouTube. It could go viral. You never know. This was how careers got launched.

The word around Cape Bluff was that Elke Villa winning the talent show was just about a done deal. It was in the bag. Some people even felt they shouldn't bother having the show at all. They might as well just give the Hummer to Elke and get it over with. The rumor was that if she won, her mom was planning to get a divorce and drive Elke to the West Coast or Nashville to take a shot at the big time.

There was just one problem.

Elke Villa was not even going to be
in
the talent show.

Paul Crichton

While Elke was a reluctant celebrity with a lot of talent, Paul Crichton had very little talent but wanted to be famous
very
badly.

He wasn't at all musical, at least not when he was little. His dad had a huge CD collection that played constantly in his car and every room of the house, so Paul couldn't help but absorb some of his dad's love of 1970s rock and roll. But for his first ten years, he had no interest in music at all.

In second grade, it was a requirement that every student at Cape Bluff Elementary take up a musical instrument. There was an assembly in which the music teacher demonstrated the violin, snare drum, trumpet, cello, and several other
instruments. Then the students got to pick the one they wanted to learn, and they rented that instrument from the school.

Paul chose the flute. He didn't particularly like the sound of the flute, or the way it looked. Paul chose the flute for one reason—it would be easy to carry to and from school. Who wanted to lug a French horn on the bus every day?

In the end, he didn't have a clue about how to read music or play the flute. Blowing air over the thing while moving his fingers to push down the pads over those little holes was confusing. It didn't come naturally. Paul spent more time polishing the flute than he did practicing with it. The day the students no longer had to take music lessons, Paul was first in line to return the flute to the music room.

He ignored music and turned to skateboarding through third and fourth grades, deciding that he wanted to become a famous skater when he grew up.

“After I win a gold medal in the X-Games,” he told his friends confidently, “every company in the world will want me to endorse their products. I'll make
millions
.”

Unfortunately, Paul soon discovered that in order to get really good at skateboarding, you have to be at least a little crazy. You need to take risks and fall down a lot trying to perfect your tricks. The best skaters tend to get hurt a lot. They bleed. They break bones.

Falling down, bleeding, and breaking bones were interesting to watch on video, but not things Paul wanted to experience personally. That stuff
hurts
! So much for a career as a pro skater. He toyed briefly with the idea of being a famous skateboard designer, but lacking any artistic ability, Paul gradually admitted to himself that maybe skateboarding would not be his ticket to fame and fortune.

Then one day, he was on vacation in Oregon visiting his cousin, who had an electric guitar lying around his bedroom. A song came on the radio—“Seven Nation Army” by a group called The White Stripes.

It consisted mainly of seven notes.

Duh … duh-duh-duh … duh-duh … duh

Duh … duh-duh-duh … duh-duh … duh

“Cool tune,” he told his cousin.

It was a simple, catchy melody, and it repeated
over and over again. Paul picked up his cousin's guitar. He plucked the A string, the second one from the top, and slid his finger up the neck until the sound matched the first note of “Seven Nation Army.” It was the seventh fret. The second note was the same, so he plucked it again. Then he slid his finger up to the tenth fret, where he found the third note. Then back down to the seventh fret. Then he slid his finger down to the fifth, third, and second frets. Before the song was over on the radio, he had figured out the seven-note musical phrase.

Duh … duh-duh-duh … duh-duh … duh

At the time, he didn't even know what notes he was playing—E … E-G-E … D-C … B. He just knew they sounded right.

Paul played the phrase over and over again until it sounded just like The White Stripes. The rest of the family was impressed that he could pick the song up so quickly, and Paul felt good when they complimented him. In the next few days, he played “Seven Nation Army” so many times, everybody started telling him to knock it off.

“Can't you play something
else
for a change?” his aunt begged.

During that week, something clicked in Paul's head. Rock and roll had grabbed him. When he got home, he put his skateboard down in the basement for good and made an announcement at the dinner table.

“I decided that I'm going to become a rock star when I grow up.”

He raided his piggy bank and bought a used Fender Stratocaster and a cheap amplifier from a high school kid down the street who was happy to get rid of them.

Paul's parents wanted to encourage his new interest, which was certainly a lot safer than grinding rails and attempting kickflips off the church steps. But there was no money in the Crichton budget for guitar lessons.

So Paul went to the library and found a sheet music book that had guitar chord diagrams. On each page, above the musical notation, there were pictures of chords, like this:

After a bit of fumbling, Paul figured out that the vertical lines represented the six strings on the guitar, the horizontal lines were the frets on the neck, and the black dots indicated where you put your fingers. He strummed his first chord.

And as it says in the Bible—it was good.

Paul quickly learned the major chords, the minor chords, and the seventh chords. Now he could play songs.

He began to listen to music, almost obsessively. The pop stars that most of the other kids at school idolized didn't grab him. He didn't like rap, hip-hop, or techno music created by machines. The boy bands and teenybopper girls who were on Radio Disney all the time just sounded silly to him. The music that really got his juices flowing was the “old time rock and roll” his dad had been pumping into his ears since he was a baby. The Beatles. The Stones. The Who. Led Zep. AC/DC. Clapton. Page. Hendrix. The ancient guitar gods of yesteryear.

The next step, of course, was to put together a band. A
killer
band. Not many kids in Cape Bluff were into old rock and roll. Paul asked around, and finally found a fourth grader named Jim Conlin
who could play bass guitar a little. A guy named Victor Iannone was drumming on the table at lunch, and it turned out he had a full drum set at home—bass, snare, tom-toms, cymbals. The works. Paul asked him to join his band. Hanging around the music store at the mall, Paul found a sixth grader named Rob Goodman who could play the lead guitar part to “Free Bird” without even looking at his fingers. That was the
only
song he could play, but at least he could play
something
. With a little gentle persuasion, Rob joined the band too.

A practice was scheduled over at Victor's house, because the drum set was in his garage and it was a big hassle to set it up and take it down all the time. Paul could tell after a few minutes of jamming that the other guys weren't very good. But you don't have to be that good to play basic three-chord rock and roll. Just about anybody can play “Wipeout” without embarrassing themselves. Most importantly, the four boys had fun playing together as a band. None of them were into sports—unlike just about every other guy at school—but they all liked to play music. And being in a rock band—like being a skateboarder—was cool.

The band needed a name. The Fender Benders. Death By Squirrel. Ambidextrous Scissors MagneticBunions. After a night of throwing out a few hundred ridiculous ideas, they settled on The BluffTones.

None of the boys could sing particularly well, which can be a problem unless a band is just going to play “Wipeout” over and over again. But Paul knew there was one kid in the school who had a great voice.

Elke Villa.

Paul had heard Elke sing in chorus. Her voice just soared over everyone else's. With that voice and Paul's guitar, he imagined The BluffTones would go far. Maybe all the way to the top.

As founder and leader of the band, Paul took it upon himself to approach Elke. He was a little nervous. After all, she was a sixth grader and he was just in fifth. But he worked up the courage and walked over to her locker at the end of eighth period one day.

“Hi,” he said. “You have a really great voice.”

Elke looked at him. Was this little fifth grader asking her out on a
date
or something?

“Thanks,” she mumbled, shutting her locker and turning to walk away.

“Listen,” he said, stopping her. “Me and some guys formed a rock band, and we're pretty good. But we need a lead singer. And I was thinking—”

“I'm not really into rock,” Elke said simply, “but thanks anyway.”

She walked away and left him standing there. Paul wasn't mad. Disappointed, definitely. Well, maybe he was a
little
mad. Nobody wants to be rejected.

The great thing about rock and roll, Paul convinced himself, is that you can have a lousy voice and
still
be a star. Plenty of rock groups have lousy singers. Half of them just shout anyway. The heck with it.
He
would be the singer. The singer is the front man, the face of the band. Who needs Elke anyway? He didn't have to play second fiddle to some chick singer.

Once The BluffTones had learned how to play a dozen songs, they got their first gig—a birthday party for Victor Iannone's brother in third grade. It was at a bowling alley. The boys loaded up all their gear in Victor's mom's minivan, and felt like a real touring band. At the party, they ran through all the songs they knew, and the little kids jumped around, having a great time. Paul felt exhilarated
performing in front of an audience, even if it was a bunch of little kids who didn't know The Beatles from Britney Spears.

At the end of the party, while the boys were packing up their equipment, Victor's mother came over and handed each of The BluffTones a twenty-dollar bill.

“Wow!” Paul exclaimed, “I didn't know we were getting paid for this!”

“If we hired a clown or magician,” Mrs. Iannone told him, “it would have cost us a lot more. You guys are good. You could make some real money doing this.”

That was all it took to get the wheels turning in Paul's head. He printed up a hundred business cards on his computer: