Festival Days Tab 2016: Rock Lotto debuts at Festival Days 2016

A group of five musicians in a yet-to-be-named band came together for a two-hour practice session the evening of Aug. 29.

Carrying their drumsticks and guitar cases, they met for only the second time as a group at the Hounds Lounge, a dog-boarding facility that doubles as the residence of Matthew Springer, one of the group’s three guitarists and vocalists.

With the sounds of dogs barking on the other side of the building, the five bandmates chatted as they adjusted the knobs on amplifiers and warmed up on their instruments.

It was only their second practice as a group. But after their first public performance at Town Square Sept 17, the group will break up just as abruptly as they were assembled.

The group is one of five with a total of 20 musicians who are taking part in the first-ever KNMC Rock Lotto during Festival Days. Performances will begin at 4 p.m. at Town Square, and the public can bring chairs, blankets and snacks and enjoy the performances for free.

The five bands will perform five cover songs each. Entertainment from established local bands will follow those performances.

Dave Martens, the group's drummer who organized the event and is manager of KNMC, Montana State University-Northern’s radio station, said the event allows musicians with varying levels of experience a chance come together and play without the obligations required of those in a more permanent band.

“This is a responsibility-free, fun situation for them to kind of just let loose and try something,” Martens said.

Rock lottos bring together musicians and singers to form short-term groups that create a set of either original material or cover songs, often revolving around a set theme. After performing at an event, the groups then disband.

Many times, members of the groups have never even played together.

Springer, a farmer who plays guitar in Marten’s group, said he was drawn to the lotto’s format.

“Learning to play in a new band from nothing is pretty cool,” he said.

Martens said rock lottos are common in communities with vibrant live music scenes such as Seattle and San Francisco. He said that he took part in one in Missoula in 2012.

Martens said he came up with the idea to have a rock lotto in Havre earlier this summer to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the rebirth of the college radio station. The station had gone off live broadcasts in the 1980s, rebroadcasting National Public Radio programming. The station was renamed KNMC and started live broadcasts Sept 4, 2001.

Martens said he wanted to do the rock lotto to give musicians, especially those who are not in bands, a chance to play.

“Nobody is demanding perfection,” Martens said. “It is literally just the act of getting out there and making some music and having fun, and that is it.”

It also allows those who know how to play an instrument but have never been in a band to have a chance to jam with others.

Penny Velk, owner of Henny Penny Cupcakes, has played guitar for about 30 years. Though she has performed solo at bars and other small venues when she lived in North Dakota and Big Sandy, she said, she has never been in a band before. She said she always wanted to be in one but never had the opportunity.

After Martens came up with the idea, he said, he took the idea to have a rock lotto to Debbie Vandeberg, executive director of the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce, which developed and maintains Town Square and organizes Festival Days. The Chamber approved the proposal.

He said with the help of some of the more active musicians in Havre he reached out to interested performers. He also promoted the idea through social media including the Havre Online Yard Sale Facebook group and KNMC.

Musicians and singers signed up in advanced and listed their instrument of choice on a signup sheet posted at Bear Paw Meats.

The bands were formed when performer’s names were drawn from a hat during the weekly Sounds on the Square concert Aug. 9.

Martens said each group consists of a bassist, drummer and at least one vocalist and guitarist. Some groups also had members who play harmonica, keyboard or another instrument.

Group members can also switch instruments based on each band's needs and abilities.

After the bands were formed, a second drawing took place where a representative of each group would be assigned a song from the years 1956, ’66, ’76, ’86 and ’96.

Martens said that Rick Linie, a disc jockey at KNMC and former manager of the station — who also worked at its predecessor, KNOG, while it used live broadcasts —  created the pool of 10 songs from each of the five decades.

Martens said that Rock Lottos often have a theme, such as a Rock Lotto last year that involved covers of Led Zeppelin songs. In larger music communities such as Seattle, musicians could come together and in a short period of time write original songs, he said.

“That is something they could do there, don’t know if we could pull that off in a place like Havre,” he said.

Martens said he had trouble coming up with a theme, so he chose songs from five decades. The songs his group will play are “Smokestack Lightnin” by Howlin Wolf, “Psychotic Reaction” by The Count Five, “Detroit Rock City” by KISS, “The Final Countdown” by Europe and “1979” by the Smashing Pumpkins.

Trygve “Spike” Magelssen, a Northern professor and the group’s bass player, who is long associated with KNMC and spurred its revival in 2001, said the theme is fitting for the radio station’s format, which also plays a variety of tunes from a wide time period.

“We play all kinds of music; we are diversified,” Magelssen said. “We are playing ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and 90’s music from various different bands.”

Martens said that the song selections are meant to be “a starting point” for the groups rather than a requirement. He said the musicians have a limited time to put a set together and the songs selected can serve as a guide.

Some groups have decided not to do certain songs, so substituted them with others. For example, one group that selected “The Boys are Back In Town” by Thin Lizzy switched to another song because it was too difficult.

Changes can be made, he said, provided all the group’s members agree.

Martens and his bandmates say that they like their arranged set and plan to stick with it.

But the loose format got mixed reviews, Martens said.

“Some people thought it was a great idea right away, and kind of understood it was going to be a fun thing,” he said. “But some people you really had to talk to.”

Martens, who said he hopes to make the lotto an annual Festival Days event, said seeing how much fun people have with this year’s will hopefully increase interest next time.

“I think it will be bigger the next time we do it because people will be like, ‘I should have done that,’” Martens said. “They are going to see it, see how much fun it is and say, ‘OK, we should have done that.’”