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

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As he watched the Cavs — a group of people with different skill sets but the common obsession of finding basketball nirvana — Sotelo wondered what would happen if he applied sports-influenced principles to the local music scene. In his head, he began shuffling musicians from band to band, considering what could be if every band in Cleveland broke up, and all the musicians were assigned to new groups with total strangers. Soon after, he fired off a rant on MySpace: Fire all their asses and start a citywide draft!

"It was just this smart-ass joke," he says.

But Jae Kristoff thought it was sheer brilliance.

Kristoff is a devoted veteran of the Lorain rock scene, which, like most small-town scenes, is mostly a handful of "weird" kids into punk. "There are probably 20 people from the Lorain scene that are totally interchangeable," he says.

He's known Sotelo for years, through shows at the Grog and Beachland. When he heard of Sotelo's rant, Kristoff's head swam. "I was really fascinated by the communication aspect," Kristoff says. "I wanted to see how people would find ways of coming together. I just imagined it being incredibly awkward."

It was the sort of grand idea that usually dies once the hangover kicks in, but Kristoff is an unusually driven rocker. He'd already successfully pulled off one crazy project — the Land of Buried Treasure — in which he stayed up for three days straight, separately recording 40 different musicians and splicing the cuts into a 72-hour-long song. "Anyone can sit up drinking beers and come up with amazing ideas," he says. "It's a matter of doing it."

Kristoff quickly began firing off e-mails to friends excitedly announcing his plans for a region-wide musical draft. "I didn't want it to be a draft per se," he says. "Like in kickball, where the last person is standing there like 'Why didn't you pick me?' Because I'd likely be the last person picked."

Instead, he suggested that they randomly assign people to bands through a lottery. "If anyone could pull it off," Sotelo says, "it would be Jae."

It's around 7 on a Saturday night in February, and the Asterisk Art Gallery, a tiny space in Tremont, is awash in red, white, and blue, with bunting and balloons giving it the feel of Opening Day. Gaudy centerpieces of exploding gold stars precariously line a long table, on which sits a single Bingo-ball hopper. Because this is an event run by indie-rockers, a Kermit the Frog song squeaks from the speakers.

If it weren't for the clientele, a visitor might think he'd stumbled upon a really weird Republican fund-raiser for seniors. But this is Lottery League Draft Night.

Hipster girls, their makeup-less faces framed by cat-eye glasses, greet men with bushy beards and equally exaggerated eyewear, who lug six-packs of Pabst, bottles of J. Roget champagne, and flasks of Jameson. Scattered among them are older rockers nodding their greased pompadours at young men with Slayer-like locks. The electronic kids in their North Face coats huddle in a corner, checking out the cute violinists in their peacoats.

That the event happened at all baffles many of the musicians in the room. "A lot of people thought it was just another Cleveland thing — a great concept with no follow-through," says Ken Janssen, a singer who books bands for the Beachland.

"I thought it was the best idea ever," adds Fish, the drummer/grilled-cheese magnate. "I just thought it was never gonna happen."

Kristoff knew he'd face serious apathy from Clevelanders, who seem genetically destined to expect disappointment. So he rounded up five go-getters, guys with inroads into every musical clique. "We knew that we needed at least five people with really different backgrounds to pull from their respective groups," Kristoff says.

The five of them spent months recruiting participants and working out the draft details, and even gave themselves a made-for-reality-TV name: the Council of Chiefs. They met every Wednesday in the back room at Gypsy Beans and established the laws of the league. Rule No. 1: Participants had to have experience playing in a band. "We didn't want to exclude anyone," says council member John Delzoppo. "But we needed to make sure that people understood what it meant to be in a band."

But Rule No. 2 was the most important: No one can be in a band with someone they've played with before.

This was no easy task. By the time they stopped accepting applications, they had 147 participants, many of whom had played together. So the guys created algorithms and spreadsheets listing the various incompatibilities among players. They assigned each person a number and printed up packs of sports-inspired trading cards that featured each musician along with band stats and other random facts.

Then they took another page from the sports world: They organized a mock draft. Using a Bingo-ball hopper, they began drawing balls etched with the players' numbers. After several dozen draws, they all gazed at each other in amazement. "The pairings — it was like magic," says Delzoppo. "We were like, 'Holy shit! This is totally gonna work!'"

Now the real draft is upon them. The guys walk onto their makeshift stage, sending the crowd, which seems to believe in pre-drinking, into a wave of whistling and applause. Kristoff dons a Mexican wrestling mask. Chief Matt Majesky wears a gorilla suit. And all of them sport Devo-like lab coats.

Posted on the wall behind them are 33 Roman numerals — one for each band that is about to be created.

They spin the ball hopper, which releases the first number. "Number 83! Scott Pickering," one chief announces over the PA. Another grabs a blown-up version of Pickering's trading card and posts it on the wall under the first Roman numeral.

As the draft rolls along, the Pabst and Jameson set in, and the band configurations seem equally drunk. One band ends up with three singers. Another consists strictly of men with huge beards. The lead singer of Nunslaughter, a metal band, discovers that his newest musical counterpart is an indie-pop songbird. And a married couple randomly ends up in the same band.

By this time, the chiefs don't even need their "sheet of incompatibility." When the council assigns one guitarist to group number 14, the crowd erupts into a drunken chorus of "No!" Having referred to their handy trading cards, even strangers know he once shared a band with another member of 14. "It just spread like wildfire," organizer Mike Pultz says. "It was contagious."

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