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The Lottery League: Where lots of Pabst and idealism have turned the Cleveland music scene on its head

By Denise Grollmus 

In the shadow of a highway overpass, an old factory booms and screeches to life — not with the sounds of industry, but with the cacophony of Cleveland rock.

It's just past nightfall on a cold, slushy Tuesday in March. Dozens of musicians, fresh off their day jobs, have retreated to this Ohio City relic of commerce, now the Rock and Roll City Studios. Once home to a bustling manufacturer of hydraulic presses and cement mixers, it's now a labyrinth of 70 practice rooms, each hardly bigger than a broom closet.

Amid the aural chaos of this D.I.Y. conservatory, tucked away in room 408, the members of Ghandi SS set up their equipment. They look like a lineup of the music scene's usual suspects: the urban electronic guy, the cool-chick bassist, the slovenly rocker dude. They're the characters you see in dingy clubs all over town. But seldom do you see them in the same band.

Behind the drum kit sits Matt Fish, patiently waiting to wail. Fish, a 35-year-old punk-rocker, is still in his checkered chef pants, just off work from his trendy grilled-cheese restaurant, Melt. His clean-shaven head is covered in a black beanie, his sinewy arms drenched in tats.

A few feet away, Davis Straub lifts his bass guitar from his grizzly-bear frame and takes a swig from his oversize bottle of Bud. Decked in a well-worn Indians T-shirt, a cig dangling over his untrimmed beard, he looks like John Belushi with a Jew 'fro.

In the middle of 408, Noah Hrbek quietly erects a brigade of guitar pedals. He's a decade younger than Fish and Straub, and an entirely different breed of rocker. While his cadaverous body might be a sign of malnutrition to most, it's the pinnacle of indie-pop hotness. It's shrouded in the standard-issue shoegazer uniform: a way-too-small shirt, plaid slacks, and an old cable-knit sweater.

Then there's P.P. Envy. A minor legend in the local rock scene, she's the longtime bassist for Kent's Kill the Hippies, a band that's been writing irreverent punk anthems for over a decade. Like any self-respecting grrrl, Envy keeps her hair manic-panic red to match her guitar strap, which looks like a skinned muppet.

Finally there's Adrian Bertolone, who sets up his gear — a microphone, some headphones, and a panel of knobs. He's the band's "noise guy" — part hip-hop, part Intelligent Dance Music. With his fitted hoodie, slouchy jeans, and immaculate tricolored Pumas, he's the strutting definition of Urban Backpacker.

A month ago, these five strangers — five working stiffs scattered throughout Northeast Ohio — were bonded only by their need to organize noise into song. But on this March night, with the din of other bands warring in the background, they're setting out to create their own sound. The goal seems modest enough: They must write and rehearse 10 minutes worth of music over the next several weeks, and perform their new tunes at the Beachland Ballroom on April 12.

Gazing at this motley crew, it's impossible to guess how their disparate worlds will mesh in song. After all, they have two bassists, a singer who describes his musical preferences as "noise," and a scrawny shoegazer who hardly seems interested in talking.

But that's the point of the curious Cleveland music experiment known as the Lottery League.

From the Beatles to Black Flag, musicians have long relied on likeminded friends to fill out their bands — an organic process in which one person has a guitar, another a drum kit, and another a mom who'll let them practice in the basement. Even when musicians do resort to "Drummer Needed" fliers, they are always careful to list influences, lest they end up with a Juggalo auditioning for their Britpop group.

But recently, some local musicians wondered what it would sound like if the goth girl teamed up with the hip-hop guy, if the opera singer crooned over the metal dude's riffs. So they devised a plan to draft 147 local musicians into 33 new bands, and force them to write, practice, and perform their own music in less than nine weeks. It's an exercise in idealism, one that disregards everything from taste to standard instrument lineups, all in deference to the experiment's only real rule: No one can be in a band with someone they've played with before.

And it's why these five misfit musicians are looking at each other now, anxiously, as drummer Fish starts clicking the band off into a song. "This is gonna be rough," he warns, and the noise ensues.

It all started with a joke.

Last fall, Ed Sotelo, a journeyman rocker from Old Brooklyn, was sitting at a bar, watching the Cavaliers and nursing a beer. As the images on television barreled into his brain, they collided with the visions of rock utopia that have a permanent home there. And suddenly, Sotelo, a web designer by day, found himself confounded by a nagging, relentless "What if?"

Over the years, Sotelo has played in a slew of local bands. His résumé reads like a Who's Who of the Cleveland rock scene — from Cobra Verde to the New Lou Reeds, Viva Caramel to Proletarian Art Threat.

It's not unusual for such a dedicated scenester to have such a lengthy rap sheet. Cleveland musicians often test the limits of their respective cliques, trying every possible configuration of eligible bandmates until they burn out or, less likely, "make it." Sotelo was feeling the former.

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