As a child, Nick Svalina showed scant aptitude for the guitar. At age 12, after two guitar lessons, he announced that he preferred playing football. His parents didn`t argue.
”They could see my lack of talent,” Svalina recalls.
Nevertheless, when he decided to pick up the guitar again a few years later as a budding singer and songwriter, Svalina didn`t let a lack of formal training or ability stand in his way. He`s been playing for fun ever since.
Today, at 37, he still doesn`t know any chords. It doesn`t matter whether he`s banging away at the strings of an acoustic guitar or an electric guitar at his home in Calumet City-he admits that it sounds ”crazy” either way.
Fortunately, Svalina has other skills that are in demand; he`s a tax attorney for a legal publishing firm in Deerfield. But these days, there`s a gleeful edge to his guitar playing.
Svalina doesn`t want to seem immodest, but he figures he has as good a shot as anyone at winning the 1992 World`s Worst Guitar Player Contest-and, presumably, a little respect at last, along with prize booty that includes an electric guitar, a trip to Rochester, N.Y., and a one-way bus ticket to Canada.
That`s right, the World`s Worst Guitar Player Contest. Now in its third year, the cacophonous competition is the brainchild of guitar-playing brothers Armand, Bruce and Blaine Schaubroeck, founders of House of Guitars Inc., a Rochester music shop that reports sales of $7 million worth of new and vintage guitars each year and boasts a clientele that includes Ozzy Osbourne, Chubby Checker and members of Def Leppard.
”In 1990, the music industry declared April to be International Guitar Month, and there were a lot of `best guitar player` contests. We didn`t see why the best should get all the prizes, so we decided that we should have a contest where the worst would be the star,” explains Armand Schaubroeck, a 47-year-old free spirit who has done local TV commercials for his shop sporting rabbit ears and a T-shirt with a bull`s-eye and the phrase KILL ME on the chest. (”It just felt right, and the public seemed to like it.”)
”Besides, a lot of today`s guitarists sound alike,” Schaubroeck says.
”We thought that the worst guitarists wouldn`t be following a conventional music system, so they might have something new to add musically. Even if you`ve never played guitar before, you have a good shot at the title.”
The inaugural contest, won by a Connecticut art gallery owner who was unable to tune his guitar, drew more than 3,000 cassette tape entries from all over the world, according to Schaubroeck. He says that more than 5,000 hopefuls, one-third of them women, entered last year`s competition, which was won by a Scottish guitarist whose tape caught the judges` ears thanks to his rendition of Deep Purple`s ”Smoke on the Water.”
”I used to like that song, but not any more,” Schaubroeck notes. ”His version was absolutely terrible.”
Thanks to snowballing media attention, Schaubroeck expects the 1992 contest, which ends Dec. 31, to be the biggest and most musically impoverished yet.
”Usually, most of the tapes arrive right before the contest closes, but we`ve gotten more than 1,000 entries already,” he says. ”A lot of them are really wretched. Especially some of them from Chicago and the Midwest. There must be something about that part of the country that brings out the worst in guitarists.”
Entering is easy. Grab your guitar (or borrow one), tape a couple of songs, and mail the tape with your name, address and phone number to World`s Worst Guitar Player Contest, House of Guitars, 645 Titus Ave., Rochester, N.Y., 14617.
”Last year we started to get a lot of entries on video, including one from an elderly woman who sat on her couch playing country and western songs,” says Schaubroeck. ”But audiocassette tapes are fine, and they cost a lot less.”
Attempts by other World`s Worst wannabes to capture the judges` attention by enclosing their photos with their entries or decorating the mailing envelopes are also in vain.
”One person sent their tape in a box 6 feet tall,” Schaubroeck recalls. ”But the only thing important to us is the artist`s musical inability.”
The task of judging the tapes falls to the House of Guitars sales staff, which numbers around 15. Schaubroeck freely admits that it`s a subjective business-there are no formal criteria for ascertaining awfulness-but maintains that generally everyone agrees on the winning tape.
”The worst usually jumps out at you. It`s just something you can`t ignore,” says Schaubroeck, who describes the judging process as a ”grueling experience” that goes on for months and often involves listening to countless renditions of Led Zeppelin`s ”Black Dog,” the Kingsmen`s ”Louie, Louie”
and the Troggs` ”Wild Thing.”
”We get all types of music, though, from punk to country, and a lot of original compositions,” he says.
”We do a little listening to the entries as they come in, but most of it is done at the end of the year.
At that point, we start playing the tapes constantly over the public address system in the store so that the staff hears every single tape.”
Schoebrauck acknowledges that customers who come in to buy a guitar or browse through the CD and tape bins often express dismay about the sounds blasting over the P.A. system.
”A lot of them complain that the music is driving them crazy and ask us to put something else on,” he admits.
Prizes galore
”Finally we had to put up a sign explaining what we`re doing.
”I think it`s exciting to be able to hear this stuff and realize the depth of the horrible playing out there, even though it is actually painful.” The lucky contest winner, to be announced in February or March, will be treated to a free round trip to Rochester, where he or she will stay in what Schaubroeck describes as ”a good hotel.”
Other prizes include an electric guitar valued at $400, a guitar instructional video, a deal with Mirror Records (the Schaubroeck brothers`
indie label), and a one-way bus ticket from Rochester to Canada.
On Lake Ontario
”We`re located on Lake Ontario, just across from Toronto, and we hope that the winner will go deep into Canada and not come back,” Schaubroeck explains.
”If a Canadian wins, they`ll get a round-trip ticket.”
World`s Worst hopeful Nick Svalina couldn`t care less about the record deal and the ticket to Canada. He just wants the guitar.
His acoustic model ”died of old age,” and the electric guitar was damaged in a recent move.
”I figure there`s no point in buying replacements for my old guitars, since I can`t play them anyway,” he says.
”But I`m hoping to win one.”
Even if first-time entrant Svalina doesn`t win, he will have the satisfaction of knowing his instrumental skills will be preserved for posterity.
Each year`s contest entries are placed in a time capsule, which is then buried on House of Guitars property with a note indicating the capsule is not to be opened until the year 2410.
Explains Schaubroeck, ”We figure that someday our tapes will contribute to the social understanding of musicians in the 20th Century.”
