Thousands of miles away from its point of origin, the legend that is Rock Lottery lives. Chris Weber (former Benefit Coordinator for the Good/Bad Art Collective) has taken his pet project from Denton, TX to Seattle, WA, where he currently lives and works as the Program Director/Director of Music at Consolidated Works Contemporary Arts Center.

Hailed as "genius" and "rad" by local press, Rock Lottery is a high-speed, mixed-up, crossbred musical adventure, which delivers suspense and surprises for both the audience and the performers. Simply put, 25 musicians from various bands meet at the performance space at 10am and are randomly shuffled into five new bands. Twelve hours later, each band returns with a new identity, and three to five new songs (only one cover song allowed!) which they perform for a waiting audience.

For Seattle's first, Weber and his team have managed to round up a phenomenal group of performers, including Built to Spill's Jim Roth, and Smoosh's Asy and Chloe (ages 12 and 10, respectively). We spoke about the start, the surprises, and the significance, of Rock Lottery.

kp: Let's start with how this whole thing began.
cw: Rock Lottery was inspired by two earlier G/BAC events, Glitches be Damned (the one-day video festival organized by Dallas filmmaker Dave Austin), and Good/Bad's ongoing Inflicted Music series that Martin Iles and I had been working on. One night I was talking with [club owner] Rob Peters, and from that conversation, Rock Lottery was born.

kp: Was it originally conceived as a G/BAC benefit?
cw: I had just started organizing benefits for Good/Bad so it just made sense to link the two.

kp: How did you choose the first 25 musicians?
cw: I started by making a list of every band in Denton, then listing each of those bands' members. I ended up with this huge 10- or 12-page pamphlet. I would pass it around and ask people to give me the 25 musicians they would like to see in the Rock Lottery.

Everyone liked to look at the list and make corrections, but no one ever gave me feedback, so I just started picking the participants myself. That's pretty much how it worked until I started organizing the event from out-of-town. Now a Participant Committee is put together to more fairly select a balanced group of musicians.

kp: Do you still have that Denton band member list?
cw: I wish. No the computer I used crashed and I don't know where the hard copies went. Some one might have one; I made five or six of them.

kp: So how did the first one go? Were you pleased?
cw: All I remember is that I was really stressed out before the show began and then I heard the first thumps and squawks of "Dong". I was completely relieved of all anxiety, and I just had this ridiculously big grin on my face for the rest of the night.

kp: You've since done four more in Denton, with another scheduled for October, and now your first in Seattle. What inspired you to continue the event?
cw: Selfish reasons--so that I can smile again. Also, The feedback from the participants is always so positive and wonderful.

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