Brian Slattery Photos
Christoph Whitbeck of the MacGuffins howled into the microphone, blood streaming down his chest. A man in a white plastic mask played the saxophone. Someone caught the “man flu.” And crowd members learned to do the squid.
These were among the highlights of the finals for 2019’s “Rock Lottery,” the eighth in its storied history, held Friday night at the State House.
The Rock Lottery is essentially a band competition, with the winner this year receiving a free day of recording at Firehouse 12 on Crown Street and a $50 gift certificate at the bar of the State House.
The brainchild of Nancy Shea and Bill Saunders of Ideat Village, the lottery remained devoted to the departed festival’s ideals of great musicianship, zany humor, and a healthy dose of weird.
Musicians signed up to participate in the Rock Lottery; bands were formed by lottery drawing on Sept. 14 and named by Shea and Saunders. Enough people signed up to create eight bands.
In early October, these bands performed over two days at Cafe Nine before a panel of judges, who determined which bands would proceed to the finals on Friday night. Four emerged victorious: Liquid Squid, Abandin Town, The Real Nobodies, and the MacGuffins.
The theme of this year’s Rock Lottery was Mad Magazine, the satirical comics magazine founded in 1952 that helped shape the worldviews and comedic sensibilities of a couple generations of skeptical young people. The bands thus had musical four challenges to complete. First was the “What, Me Worry?” challenge, which required the band to pick an apocalyptic scenario — from pandemics to solar flares — and write an original song about it. Second was a Spy vs. Spy challenge, which required the band to write lyrics to narrate a specific Spy vs. Spy comic using the theme songs from spy movies. Third was a fold-in challenge, based on the classic back covers of Mad Magazine, in which the band was given a specific back cover and made to write a song about that. Finally, the band had to create a song that epitomized a mashup of two classic albums that Shea and Saunders had created — say, The Feel of Neil Diamond Dogs, mashing together the 1966 Neil Diamond album and the 1974 David Bowie album.
So, as Saunders put it, the bands were on the hook for “two and a half original songs.” Though for the judges, everything else would count, too — musicianship, theatrics, and general ability to rock the crowd’s faces off.
On Friday, the four finalists found themselves performing for not only the panel of five judges — Leroy General, Marice McNeil, Val McKee, Rob Zott, and Corinne Seiser — but for a crowded floor at the State House, ready to see what the bands had come up with to set themselves apart from the pack and have a shot at victory.
Shea and Saunders.
“Everything that’s put together counts,” Shea reminded the crowd — everything from the programs that the band had put together for the judges (containing their original lyrics) to the merch they’d created for the show. Saunders noted how pleased he was that this year’s contestants had come from all over the state, and that most of the musicians were Rock Lottery first-timers.
First to the stage was Liquid Squid — Jeff Abelli, Matt DeSanti, Ashley Hamel, John Holland, and Dan Vitello — who, even before they played a note, impressed with their cross-dressing aquatic theme. The Squid proved to be an upbeat, charming band, setting the stage for the evening with chants from the stage taken up by the audience (“Squid! Squid! Squid! Squid!”) while band members encouraged those in the crowd to take an eyepatch from the merch table to get in the spirit. They even had a dance move, called “doing the squid,” that involved undulated like a, well, squid. The highlight of the band’s strong musical set with a thoroughly catchy song about the apocalypse that had members of the audience singing “we’re all gonna die!” right along with them.
Shea congratulated the members of Liquid Squid for a job well done and turned them over to the panel of judges. “Each of the judges has been in Rock Lottery twice, so they know how hard it is.”
“Allegedly,” General said.
The judges highly enjoyed Liquid Squid’s set. “Everybody up there is working. Everyone is pulling their weight and showing their strengths. You’ve allowed everyone to shine. You’ve stayed in character,” McKee said.
“‘We’re All Gonna Die’ — I’ll be singing that in my sleep,” Zott said.
Abandin Town — Ian Applegate, Anthony Apuzzo, Kelly Kancyr, Dustin Kriedler, and Ryan McDonald — was up next. Their slightly quieter sound belied their darker, more satirical concept, as they first played their original apocalyptic number about a “man flu.” Kriedler distinguished himself on various saxophones (“Is that a baritone sax?” General asked. “Or are you just happy to see me?” McNeil finished) through originals and a mashup that employed the famous sax line from Wham!‘s “Careless Whisper.”
“‘Man Flu’ — you’re really appealing to the women on the panel, which is a good move,” McNeil said. The judges were a little concerned about one of Abandin Town’s mashups, and wanted a little more Public Enemy in the band’s assigned B‑52s/Public Enemy combination, though General had kind words for McDonald: “If Fred Schneider and Flava Flav ever had a baby, Ryan, you would be that manchild,” he said. The judges congratulated the band on a job well done.
The members of the Real Nobodies — Zachary Hollback, Mike Illian, Scott Fitch, Mike Volpicella, and Al VanLeuvan — came to the stage with a truly elaborate shtick, leaning hard into their given name to create a public persona that was part Anonymous, part Devo. This persona was aided by a problem that they turned into a strength. They were a band without a drummer. In response, they programmed a drum machine to do the lifting and built their sound on that while also wearing face masks to conceal their identities. The overall effect was mesmerizing — and groovy.
“You got the people dancing!” General said. “Your drummer is so tight!” It was a joke, but also a nod to how well the band had used it.
“You guys melted my face,” McNeil said.
“I couldn’t take my eyes off of you,” McKee said. “I didn’t want to miss a thing.”
“The one thing that you did that nobody else did was that you brought Mad Magazine to life,” Zott said. All the judges agreed, however, that the band’s most valuable player was VanLeuvan on bass.
It felt as though the Real Nobodies, with their taut playing, their sardonic lyrics, and their theatrical stage presentation, had raised the bar. Could the next band clear it?
The MacGuffins — Tim Kauffeld, Freddy Kaeser, Steven Michels, Killian Mitchell, and Christoph Whitbeck — took the stage and almost immediately started raging. Unlike the Real Nobodies, the MacGuffins had a powerhouse drummer in Kaeser and the band used him. He pounded out beat after beat as the rest of the band members switched instruments, from guitars and bass to trumpet, sax, and bongos. On vocals, Whitbeck explored his range as a singer, sometimes low and guttural, sometimes shouting through a megaphone, sometimes climbing to the top of his voice. Near the end of the set, he produced a vial of red fluid, took several mouthfuls, and let the liquid pour from his mouth to cover his chest and back. It was a spectacle, and musically, it was fierce.
“You had people from other bands dancing to you, which was tight,” General said. “The blood was gross,” he said to Whitbeck. “You are a gross person.” Whitbeck smiled.
“I just got my face melted off again,” McNeil said.
“We are in danger of becoming professional,” Zott said. “Congratulations, MacGuffins. You guys killed it.
The judges retired to the State House’s green room to deliberate while bands and general crowd milled about the State House. Within the crowd the general consensus was that any differences among the bands were outweighed by their general excellence; the theme was of camaraderie rather than competition. The judges returned and took to the stage.
It was a “split decision,” Zott said, but in the end the MacGuffins, with their blood-spattered rock ‘n’ roll, ruled the day.
Zott took the chance at the microphone to thank Shea and Saunders for organizing. “We are all friends as a result of your work.”
