What is Pub League? 20 musicians are put into five groups of four, and expected
to come up with a 20 minute set of material in a single afternoon at our local
establishment Ivory Jacks. The goal is to forge new relationships and expand musical
talents through exposure to new styles. Creativity, co-operation, leadership skills and
time management are of course put to the limit. It's just like being in a real band on
fast forward; as there's no time to practice but there's a decent draw with 20 musicians
and their friends packing the place. There is a competition, with awards going to best
band, best vocalist and best instrumentalist, but tongues are firmly in cheek and fun is
more important than winning.
"Pub League encourages you to dig long abandoned styles and influences out of the
closet and enjoy a fresh perspective with new faces," says Craig Brookes of Paper
Scissors.
I myself am a veteran of Pub League, with three previous adventures under my belt,
this time I found myself paired with three people I had never played with before, and we
got a late start. The fast paced nature and a desire to please an audience with something
familiar leads to playing covers. A previous winner played an epic mashup of Van Halen's
"Jump" and Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight." I may have forgot to mention this was
sung as a duet into a vocoder. This was Caleb Kuntz of Work, Ephy Wheeler of Feeding
Frenzy, Ben Adamson of The Brine, Casey Smith of Thought Trade Andrew Paris of Night of
the Iguana and Chris Meurlott of The Scurvies.
With that success in mind I suggested to our band that we play some old songs, I
imagined a mash up of "Them There Eyes" performed by Billie Holliday and Louis Prima,
among many others, and "Digital Love" by Daft Punk. What we ended up doing was playing the
old song as an electro jam- and the '90s hit as an "old timey number" with ukulele and an
affected "Louis Armstrong" intonation, of course, both "covers" were radical departures
from the original melody and timing.
A comment about not being able to find a song on the internet due to a confusion on
whether it was Lil Wayne featuring someone or someone featuring Lil Wayne gave us out band
name: Lil Wayne (feat. Lil Wayne) which tickled us pink.
At a previous pub league my band Cock Sauce had success with a hip hop song via a
writing exercise where four or more lyricists write whatever they feel like on a piece of
paper and pass it around in a circle. This results in a disjointed "exquisite corpse"
style rap, which can be awkward or hilarious, but is perfect for the fast pace and low
expectations of Pub League. So, within an hour we had some ridiculous raps about
Buddhists, janitors, contortionists, sexual innuendo and plenty of in-jokes about our
friends in other bands.
Hannah Corral of the Ba'cuntry Bruthers encountered a slight disaster at her band's
rehearsal: there was no microphone, no drum set and only a single guitar among four
members and so they agreed to be an 8th grade lunch room cover band, Brutal Hate covering
hits that were popular when they were 11 and emphasizing their characters in an improvised
skit to hide their lack of rehearsal on their instruments.
"I had a blast, its always fun meeting new people and combining different tastes in
music, that is what helps you grow as an artist," said Dan Vogel of the "real band"
Paragraphs. Pub League really wouldn't exist without the efforts of Connor Rainy, who
organizes and makes the phone calls. Are there other pub leagues out there in other towns
under different names? Write me and tell me about them at strangecharm99@gmail.com.
Links:
myspace.com/thoughttrade
myspace.com/paperscissorsalaska
thescurvies.com/
myspace.com/bacuntrybruthers
prgrphs.com
Look up Work at myspace.com/thesedoors
I play as Isaac and the Awkward Situations, at myspace.com/strangecharm.
To see local mash-up band Turducken play a Modest Mouse song, head to fbxshows.com, and
click on videos.
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