Everyone’s a winner in Austin We Are The Lottery League

"That's the whole game," Erick Sanger said, a participant of the first Austin We Are The Lottery League. "Lottery league is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

Six drummers and 18 musicians arrived at Red 7 on April 9. Each drummer randomly picked names out of a brown hat in order to form bands that would be performing on stage within 24 hours.

After the names were drawn, the new acquaintances took promo photos and brainstormed names such as Vacation Bible School, Black Mike and the Make a Holes, Boner Patrol, So Long, Judas, Drug Sex, Afrobocop and the Tjöõrd Bjöõrglars.

Deriving the idea from previous lotteries held in Denton, TX and Cleveland, OH, the Austin based league was developed by Red 7's office manager, Johnny Sarkis, with the help of Riverboat Gamblers' vocalist Mike Wiebe, who had previously participated in a lottery in Denton.

"It was such a good idea," said Wiebe. "It always seemed like well, it's almost a no brainer to do it in Austin at some point considering how many awesome musicians there are in town."

One of the six bands, Drug Sex allowed me to follow them through their entire experience leading up to the final show.

Drug Sex consisted of drummer Eric Green formally of Riverboat Gamblers, saxophonist Darin Girndt from The Dugat Project, bassist Clay Fain from Ideal Soul Mart, and vocalist and guitarist David DiDonato from Rat King.

By 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Fain, Green and DiDonato had already gathered at their North Loop practice space and written the basic structure of their set.

"I showed up fashionably late, and all the songs were written with vocals," said Girndt.
After writing and practicing the set throughout the day, the bands regrouped at Red 7 that night to randomly select the lineup order. When Sarkis had me draw a name, he asked if I was drawing the fourth band or the headliner. I chose headliner and was amused when I discovered the headliner would be Drug Sex.

Every band mainly performed punk inspired sets with very little disaster. Some vocalists performed with written lyrics on hand while others needed a quick reminder of the melodies from their bandmates. However, the quality of songs and performances exceeded the crowd's expectations.

"Everybody came out prepared," said Green. "I expected so many more train wrecks."
Talks about upcoming lottery leagues have already been thrown around including a lottery where bands would receive longer time to write and practice.
"We're definitely gonna do it again," said Sarkis.