Rock Lottery

This past weekend I participated in an annual event called Rock Lottery which celebrated its 10th anniversary with a two-night event. I’m not going to go into details about the event rules since you can read about that here. Suffice it is to say that RL is an exhausting but very rewarding process, that takes a few days from which to recover.

This year was a little different in that there was the possibility that a band could be drummerless. I was in that band. Also, I was in a band with arguably the most experimental musicians on the roster. I would like to say that I had a really great time and that working with the people with whom I was assigned introduced me to ideas and working methods that I had never tried. My bandmate Sarah Alexander especially had some really cool improvisational techniques that really opened my eyes to new ways of working. Although I listen to a lot of experimental kinds of music, my own music is folk based and rooted firmly in traditional American and British songwriting structures.

As a band, we intentionally avoided going for the comedy or outrageous stage show angle and really tried concentrating on making interesting sounds. I will agree that our performance could have had more polish, but overall I was happy with the direction and ideas. All of my bandmates agreed that we could have used a few more hours practice (and some sleep). The reaction of the crowd was definitely mixed. Some saw us as a mild disappointment while others were supportive of our more experimental approach, while there were others who didn’t like us at all. The best compliment I had was from my friend and Rock Lottery 9 alum, Ian Johnson, who said the band sounded like what the Replacements or another 80s Minneapolis band would have sounded like if they were from a parallel universe and played experimental music. We were definitely the strangest band that night in terms of the kinds of music we were playing, which veered from rhythmic and textural experimentations, electronic dance, Velvety post-punk stuff, to powerpop.

Ultimately I think we played in the best spirit of the Rock Lottery, and I’m happy with many of the things we did. I also had a really great time working with Cory, Sarah, George, and Rob, and hope to have the opportunity to play with them again some day.