Video Killed the Radio Star

On the rare occasion that anyone bothered to ask why he played the drums, Rick Karlsen said that he liked how loud they were - but that was a lie. He didn’t like being loud. He liked being in control. A drummer held the band in the palm of their hand. If he sped up, they sped up. If he slowed down, they slowed down. He was the heartbeat. He had the power.

It didn’t bother him that Rachel was the focus of the band. After all, she was the lead singer. Her face was plastered all over MTV and sandwiched between videos of A Flock of Seagulls and Duran Duran. Blush Response’s first single was rising up the charts mostly because of her - her style, her makeup, her voice, and her lyrics. The music, though, came from Rick - well, partly from Rick - and that felt meatier. He was always scribbling ideas for hooks and lyrics in his little green notebook. They were scraps of songs, sure, but that’s how they wrote the first album.

Well, “wrote the first album” made it sound more purposeful than it actually was. He and Marty Hodge didn’t intend to write much of anything. Marty was the only other boy in speech therapy, and the only boy in school who didn’t laugh at Rick’s stutter. Maybe it was because Marty had a lisp, or maybe it was because he was too busy fidgeting to notice. He was always drumming his fingers or tapping his pencil on his desk, lost in the orchestra in his head.

Rick nudged him. “I-I, uh, I’m a drummer. I g-got a drum set for my birthday last year.”

Marty smiled, his face splitting into a goofy grin that crinkled the edges of his eyes. “Far out. I play the guitar. Do you like the Talking Heads?”

He did - and they realized they both liked Queen and Blondie, too. They exchanged phone numbers and spent that evening tying up the lines, imagining the perfect music festival line-ups until Rachel yelled at Rick that he wasn’t the only one who wanted to talk that night. After school the next day, Marty came over to Rick’s house. Marty’s guitar was much more portable than Rick’s drum set, but that didn’t stop Rick from insisting that he could bring it over.

“It’s fine, man,” said Marty. “Way easier for me to come to your pad.”

Rick couldn’t argue with that, so he hopped into the passenger seat and tried to hide his disappointment. He didn’t really like school, but coming home was easily the worst part of his day.

His stomach dropped as they opened the door to his house and heard raised voices coming from the kitchen. He checked his watch, but it was way too early for his dad to be home….

“Young lady, that skirt is too short. I’m shocked you haven’t gotten detention.”

“Ugh, mom. You’re overreacting.”

Rick exhaled as Rachel sauntered out of the kitchen, tossing an apple into the air. Marty was scratching Daisy, the family’s golden retriever, behind the ears and hadn’t noticed Rick’s panic.

“Oh, you’re home,” said Rachel. She squinted at Marty. “Who are you?”

Marty looked up and froze. He seemed to be fixated on Rachel’s plaid miniskirt and fishnet tights.

“Well?” she asked, taking a bite out of the apple.

“Oh, I’m - ” he started, but when he stepped towards her, he tripped over the dog.

Once Rick made sure that both Marty and Daisy were unhurt, he and Marty set up in the garage. He expected the two of them to work through songs they liked, but instead, Marty asked him if he had ever made up his own music.

“N-no?”

“You’ve never noodled around a bit? See what sounded good?”

Rick shrugged. “I mean, kind of? Not a lot.”

“Oh, man.” Marty shook his head. “It’s going to change your life.”

He pulled out a little blue notebook and shared some progressions he came up with. Rick tried to produce drum beats that complimented them. Night after night, they played around in Rick’s garage until they stumbled upon something that sounded like a melody. When it happened, a shiver ran up their spines and the hairs on their arms stood up. He and Marty would look at each other and grin, knowing the other felt it, too.

“You’re going to need one of these,” Marty said one night. He handed Rick a little green notebook and patted his own blue one. “Write down any ideas you have. Never know when one is golden.”

Soon, whenever Rick wasn’t playing with Marty, he was jotting down notes. When they practiced, they tried different riffs and chords. Slowly, it felt like they were unraveling the enigma. It was starting to sound like a real song.

Marty called it “Nova Girl” and wrote the lyrics:

“Queen Supernova / Shine on in the stars / Shine on in my heart

A future girl / Not from this world / A galaxy apart”

But it didn’t feel the way it had when they wrote the music. There was no catharsis, no euphoria. The lyrics didn’t come together until Rachel barged in to tell Rick that it was time for dinner, and that Marty had to scram home.

It happened every night: Mrs. Karlsen insisted that Marty was welcome to stay, and Rachel insisted that he had to leave. She would lean against the doorway with runs in her tights and safety pins in her shirt. Her criticism was rarely constructive.

“Is that supposed to be a song?”

“Shut up,” snapped Rick.

“Your lyrics sound like they were stolen from a twelve year old’s diary.”

“Oh good, I was hoping you’d recognize your own writing.”

Rachel sneered as they entered the kitchen. Marty claimed his customary seat next to Rick, but stole a glance at the empty chair next to Rachel.

“You have such a smart mouth,” continued Rick. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Try what?”

“Writing your own lyrics. We’ll see how good you are.”

Rachel shrugged as she pulled out a chair. “You’re on, baby bro.”

He bristled, but before dinner was over, he had forgotten about the exchange. The next night, Rachel showed up in the garage with a piece of paper.

“Dinner time already?” asked Marty.

“Nope.” She waved the sheet. “I have real lyrics for you.”

Rick opened his mouth to tell her that he wasn’t serious, but Marty cut him off. “Let’s hear what she has,” he suggested, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

Rick raised his eyebrows at him and smirked, but his smugness was short lived. The moment Rachel opened her mouth and sang, her raw vocals almost knocked Rick into his dad’s tool bench:

“You got a car, boy / I know I’ll enjoy / All I’m gonna wreck

You think I’m candy sweet / But I’m poison to eat / Not what you expect”

Rick turned to Marty, slack-jawed, but Marty was staring at Rachel as if she had just been beamed down from the stars.

Rachel squirmed and crossed her arms. “Well?”

Rick swallowed hard. “Wreck doesn’t rhyme with expect?”

“It’s called a slant rhyme. Don’t you pay attention in English?”

“No,” said Marty. His ears turned bright red and he looked away.

Rachel stopped interrupting practice and started joining it. She stopped shooing Marty home at dinnertime, too. She seemed to realize something Rick figured out long ago: if Marty was around when their dad came home, bad things didn’t happen. For a few hours, they could pretend to be a normal family. It was when Marty left that the fighting began. Until then, he was their curly haired, daffy smiled, deer-in-the-headlights eyed amulet. He was their rock.

He was not, however, their lead singer anymore. With her moody lyrics and gritty voice, Rachel claimed that crown. She renamed “Nova Girl” to “Four Letter Words” and wrote lyrics to their other songs. They were just missing a bassist.

“Him?” asked Rick. Rachel and Lucas Elliot strode into the garage one night, hand in hand, both wearing Doc Martens.

“Yeah. Why not?”

Rick looked at him. Was it only a few years ago that Lucas Elliot and his buddies had taunted him? “R-r-rick-k K-k-a-rls-s-sen,” they shouted down the hallway whenever they spotted him. He tried to find new routes to his classrooms, but that only seemed to goad them. “C-can’t f-f-f-ind h-his c-c-classes!”

They didn’t stop after Rick went to speech therapy. A swift punch from Rachel, though, shut them up.

“Just….” Marty trailed off. “Out of everyone, you had to bring him?”

Rachel didn’t look Rick or Marty in the eye for the rest of practice, but the two boys had to admit that Lucas outclassed them. His bass lines growled like an animal and gave the songs momentum. Just like Rachel’s singing, they didn’t realize how much they needed Lucas’ bass until they heard him.

“So, what’s the band called?” Lucas asked after practice.

Rick looked over at Marty, who seemed frozen in time. Rachel had brushed past him while he was putting his guitar away, and his entire face flushed crimson as he looked anywhere but at her.

“Blush,” said Rick.

“Blush?”

“Yeah. Blush…Response.”

Lucas shrugged. “Alright. Whatever.”

The biggest advantage of having Lucas as their bassist was how many people he knew, and how many gigs he was able to get them. Before every performance, Ricks’ heart and stomach felt like they swapped places, and his guts wriggled like live bait. But when he gripped his drumsticks, he felt like he was holding Excalibur. The power that ran through his veins bolstered him, and nerves felt like a problem for mere mortals. He would count them off, and they would begin.

Rick - and he suspected Rachel, too - was grateful for the opportunities, but was mostly grateful to be out of the house. They came home late from performances, often so late that they missed that night’s fight. Sometimes they tiptoed past evidence of the argument - a chipped dinner plate, a broken beer bottle, their dad sleeping on the couch - but often, the house held no sign that there was a quarrel at all. They could almost pretend that everything was alright.

Both of them knew better, though. On less fortunate nights, they were stuck in their room, waiting out the storm raging downstairs with Daisy curled up next to them. Rick would play a cassette loud enough to distract from the screaming downstairs, but quiet enough not to be noticed by either parent. Rachel, flanked by her Sex Pistols and The Who posters, would hug her knees and cry.

So, Rick encouraged the band to take every job they could. It was Lucas, though, who got them their coolest gig: playing at a party attended by Petey Zed, an actual producer.

“How do you think he managed that one?” whispered Marty.

Rick shook his head. “I dunno man, but if Lucas can pull this off, should we really question him?”

Lucas did pull it off. It wasn’t a house party or a festival, but some kid’s thirteenth birthday party. Rachel looked wildly out of place - her winged liner and red eyeshadow made her look like a bird of prey. Back at home, she had done Rick’s eyeliner. “You look like a rock star,” she grinned, but now that he was surrounded by balloons and sheet cake, he felt as out of place as a stripper at a potluck.

When they took the banquet hall stage, Rick looked around for a spot to throw up. Instead of hurling, he gripped his drumsticks and counted them off. Their entire set went by in a blur of sweat and nausea that he couldn’t quite shake off, even after they left the stage to lukewarm applause.

He was getting a ginger ale from the bar when Rachel found him. “Lucas is talking with Petey Zed. He says Petey wants to talk to you.”

Rick wove through the crowd of children until he found Petey Zed sitting at a back table, lighting a cigarette. He motioned for Rick to sit down.

“Your band is pretty good,” he said, and Rick almost slid off his chair. “I liked your first song - the one about being candy sweet. Has a lot of potential.” He took a drag. “Your singer is a great face for the band. The bassist is good. You’re solid on the drums. The guitarist, though. He’s gotta go.”

Rick stiffened. “Marty? Why?”

Petey wrinkled his nose. “Kid doesn’t have lead guitarist energy. If you stuck him behind on the drums, sure, no one would care. But he doesn’t have the presence to stand up there with the singer.”

“No.” Rick shook his head. “Marty is important to the band.”

“Listen. I am giving you the opportunity to record a demo. It just can’t be with the guitarist you have now.” Petey Zed snubbed out his cigarette and reached into his pocket. “Here’s my card. Call me if you want to go somewhere with this band.”

Rick slipped the business card into his pocket and went back to the bar.

“Well?” asked Rachel. “What did he want?”

Rick didn’t say anything. He was watching Marty on the dance floor, teaching a group of kids how to do the hustle.

But that night, Rick lay in bed trying not to listen to his mom scream at his dad and his dad curse at his mom. He could hear Rachel’s shallow gasps, the sound she made when she tried to muffle her sobs. How much longer was this going to be his life?

He shut his eyes but could only see Marty grinning at him when they discovered a gem of a melody. Marty passing him mashed potatoes at the dinner table. Marty giving him the little green notebook.

Rick rolled over and pressed his face into the pillow, trying to hide his own tears from Rachel.

In the end, he didn’t have the guts to do it himself. At the beginning of practice, Lucas gave Marty the boot. Marty laughed at first, but when Rick couldn’t look him in the eyes, he faltered.

“W-wait, is this real?” he stammered.

No one said anything. Rick wished he could melt into the floor. He could feel Marty’s shocked gaze on him.

“Rick? Rick, tell me you’re not letting this happen.”

Rick closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing and keep the tears from spilling over.

Without saying more, Marty picked up his guitar and left.

Lucas immediately promoted himself to lead guitarist and recruited one of his buddies as their new bassist. When Kyle Burke came to practice, he smirked. “O-o-h, it-t-t’s R-r-rick-k-k.”

No one had a chance to blink before Rick flung himself off of his chair and punched Kyle in the nose. “You don’t talk to me like that,” he hissed as Kyle looked down in horror at the blood pouring over his hands.

Practice ended early that day, but Kyle Burke never said another word to Rick. Three practices in, he commented to Lucas, “Is the band really called Blush Response?”

“The name stays,” said Rick. Kyle jumped a bit and nodded.

This was the lineup that they came back to Petey Zed with. He was pleased that Marty was no longer playing with them, but he seemed even happier that Lucas had taken his place. 

“I think this group is ready for a demo,” he said. The smile that Petey gave Lucas made Rick uneasy.

“Petey Zed is an old friend of his dad’s,” Rachel admitted to him after they mailed their demo. “Owed him a favor or something.”

Rick looked at Rachel. “Did you know?”

She shook her head. “Not then. Figured it out, though.”

Rick’s mouth flooded with a sickly sweet taste before he ran to the nearest trash can and vomited.

The record label liked the demo, and the four were flown out to Los Angeles to sign a contract and record their album. Every time they played a song, Rick could only think about the moment it was written, the moment it was ushered into the world. One minute, those melodies had never been played. The next, their echoes hung in the air between him and Marty as they both drank in their magic. Rick remembered the expressions on Marty’s face as each song clicked into place. He knew which of Marty’s wide-eyed stares meant awe, excitement, or bewilderment. He knew which of Marty’s grins meant curiosity, uncertainty, or delight.

Every time he hit the drums, he was taken back to the times where it was just him and Marty in his garage, wondering when Rachel would come in to announce dinner, and hoping Marty would stay just a little bit longer. He no longer heard his parents fighting at night, but he also no longer heard Marty’s laughter during the day.

“Four Letter Words” was chosen as their first single, and they filmed a music video. It was mostly closeups of Rachel posing and shots of her singing:

“G-I-R-L / it’s a four letter word

L-O-V-E / it’s a four letter word”

Petey was right: Rachel was the perfect face of the band. She was in the center of their album cover, much to Lucas’ annoyance, and she did the talking during interviews.

During a typical interview, Rick was scrawling in his little green notebook. The thrill of new ideas was building up inside of him alongside the pang of not having anyone to share the excitement with. He was barely paying attention until Kyle nudged him.

The reporter had asked everyone the same question: “It seems like Blush Response is having all of their dreams come true. If you could have anything else in the world, what would it be?”

Rachel spoke first. “A duet with Debbie Harry.”

Lucas chimed in. “A pet tiger.”

Kyle pondered a bit. “A Gretsch 6070 Hollow Body Bass.”

Rick looked at his notebook and swallowed. “An old friend.”