Rock Star Read Online Free

lads.
    The Edwards had two daughters, snobbish little fair-haired girls. Kris developed a crush on both of them, but they never gave him the time of day.
    Mr Terry Terence was his favourite. Avis liked him too. ‘A real gent,’ she was fond of saying.
    ‘He’s a pansy!’ Horace used to sneer whenever his name came up.
    It wasn’t until Kris reached the ripe old age of ten that he found out what a pansy was.
    Mr Terence was an interesting man. He had an autographed picture of Little Richard in a pewter frame on his desk, and a large poster of Johnnie Ray in his hallway.
    ‘Who’s Johnnie Ray?’ Kris asked one day.
    ‘Johnnie Ray is the best bloody singer in the whole bloody world!’ Avis replied with gusto. ‘I saw ’im at the Palladium once. Nearly wet me pants, din’t I.’
    Mr Terence thought that was most amusing. He gave Kris two Johnnie Ray singles, and threw in an Elvis Presley for good measure.
    Kris listened to them on his sister’s record player. He hated Johnnie Ray, was crazy for Elvis, and decided then and there – he was eleven years old – he would be a singer and learn to play the guitar.
    Now, five years later, he was trying to do just that. Only it wasn’t easy. In 1965 teenage boys with aspirations to rock and roll were everywhere. Ever since the giant success of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones every Young Turk in England fancied himself as a future international rock star. The only difference was that Kris was dedicated, and thought of nothing else. Not even girls.
    ‘Ain’t it about time yer got a leg over?’ his best friend, Buzz Darke, asked one day. ‘I got two little darlin’s lined up fer later. Whyn’t yer come with?’
    Buzz was always trying to drag him along on his girl-finding missions. Kris preferred to practise his guitar in the dank and dusty back garage attached to the old house Buzz lived in with his divorced mother.
    ‘I thought we were goin’ to play tonight’, Kris said accusingly. ‘You promised me.’
    ‘Not every night we can’t,’ Buzz replied in exasperation. ‘Cor! I don’t believe it! Ain’t yer interested in crumpet?’
    ‘It’s more important getting our group together,’ Kris said stubbornly. ‘If all you want to do is chase scrubbers instead of practisin’ – fat chance we got of ever gettin’ anywhere.’
    ‘Balls! I need t’get me leg over!’
    ‘I’ll practise without you then.’
    ‘Good. An’ I’ll tell yer wotcha missed.’
    ‘I’m pantin’ t’hear,’ Kris replied sarcastically.
    At seventeen, a year older than Kris, Buzz Darke had developed a look all his own. He never wore anything that wasn’t black. He never smiled. He was thin and agile as a snake, and had a bruised, satanic look. Girls loved him.
    Kris loved him too, because they were soul-mates when it came to music. They could spend hours on end discussing the merits of The Rolling Stones as opposed to the Yardbirds. Or was Bob Dylan’s latest album better than The Beatles? And who was the greatest soul singer in the world – Sam Cooke or Otis Redding?
    Also, Buzz could play a mean guitar – not quite up to Kris’s standard, but pretty impressive all the same.
    Kris had decided long ago he couldn’t be bothered with girls. He had his guitar, his singing, and his treasured import record collection. That was his life. Besides, he always came off like dunce of the year whenever he got anywhere near a female. At school he’d never been able to understand any of them, and once he’d even caught two of them discussing him. ‘That Chris Pierce is a weirdo,’ one had said. ‘Yeah,’ the other replied. ‘He’s got ’orrible starey eyes. Wouldn’t like to come across ’im on a dark night!’
    That overheard conversation, plus the sneering giggles of the two little Edwards girls over the years, put him off the female sex altogether. Anyway, what did they know about music? Exactly nothing.
    Buzz had set up a rehearsal room in the garage of his house.