Imagine being forced into a band without any knowledge of who you’re going to work with, and what genre you’re going to play. Worse yet, you and your new band will only have one day to put together a full set of music and perform to an audience of other musicians and discerning fans.
While the stress of band dynamics can be bad enough as it is, the pressure has been cranked up to 11 for the second annual Toronto Rock Lottery, happening this Saturday at Sneaky Dee’s. Modeled after similar events across North America, the Rock Lottery takes 25 musicians whose work runs the gamut of the Toronto scene, from heartfelt singer-songwriters (Great Aunt Ida), to rock n’ roll bands (The Golden Dogs, The Old Soul), to truly avant-garde composers (Slim Twig, Nif-D) and rearranges them, creating five new bands by luck of the draw.
“Going into it, you don’t know what [the band] will be. It could be a rock act. It could be a punk act, it could be a country act,” says Jane Duncan. Duncan started the Toronto version after participating in the Rock Lottery in Victoria, B.C. for four years as a musician. “It can be so diverse, it’s just really thrilling.”
The process is intensified by the lack of time—each new band has seven hours to get to their assigned rehearsal space and write a twenty-minute set list of original material to be performed that night. No one is allowed to come in with anything prepared.
So how do professional musicians deal with the pressure?
“I’m both very excited and very nervous,” says Kyle Donnelly, who plays bass in Toronto bands The D’Urbervilles and Forest City Lovers. “It’ll be a definite adjustment to go from years of experience working with some of my closest friends to seven hours working with strangers.”
While Donnelly says he’s looking forward to playing with new musicians, he’s worried about every other part of Rock Lottery that remains alien to him.
“There will be no time to dwell on the tiny elements of a song with Rock Lottery, which is not how I write. I write songs with people who I’ve known for four years. We usually spend weeks on songs, sometimes just deciding on structures. With Rock Lottery, it’s quite possible that I’ll be writing songs with people whom I have never met before and whom I have never heard play music.”
Donnelly’s concerns are far from unique. Judging from the other participants, a general sense of dread seems to be pervasive. But how much of this anxiety is justified?
“I’ve never seen a truly disastrous performance,” notes Duncan. “Even if it doesn’t make any sense musically, it’s still entertaining. In fact, those are the bands that have the most fun.”
Past participants agree that writing music is rarely the problem for the assembled bands.
“Coming up with a band name took up more time than anything else last year,” notes Woodhands’ Paul Banwatt, who played with Sook-Yin Lee and Brendan Howlett from Gravity Wave for last year’s show. Their band ended up putting together a set of surprisingly polished post-punk, while other configurations ranged from airy electronics to intricate choral melodies. Other bands were not quite as productive. “People wasted time in a lot of funny ways.”
In the past, Duncan reveals that some groups have spent their rehearsal time buying “band merchandise” from Value Village, while others have squandered valuable hours working on stage costumes and orchestrating banter. Last year, a group led by Wavelength music organizer Jonny Dovercourt spent their rehearsal time trying to work a mentally unstable homeless man into their act. “They just found him on the street outside the rehearsal space and thought it would be amazing to include him. But he was just far too crazy,” deadpans Banwatt. “It had the potential to be awesome, but it was just such a failure.”
In the end, the best Lottery bands are those that focus on having fun. “Some aren’t the most developed or polished, but those tend to be the ones that have great concepts,” says Duncan.
Nearly all the former participants said the experience itself was excellent. Some groups even consider keeping the new band together.
“We’ve talked about it, but everyone’s so busy. Sook-Yin’s probably the least geographically reachable. But if it came together again I’d be really happy,” says Banwatt, remaining adamant that he would do the Rock Lottery again in a heartbeat.
“I would definitely do this again, but I wouldn’t want to take a space from someone else. It’s just really fun.”
The participants of the Toronto Rock Lottery 2008 will unveil the outcome of their day’s work at Sneaky Dee’s on Saturday, November 29. Doors at 9 p.m. Tickets are $7 at the door.
