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By Scott Bradlee<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Sometimes, inspiration comes from unlikely sources. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n This was one thought that ran through my head on Thanksgiving Day in 2011, as I found my name in online news outlets everywhere for the first time.\u00a0 It was the first time a video from\u00a0what would later become Postmodern Jukebox had made waves in the press, only I had eschewed the Postmodern Jukebox label for a more\u2026provocative band name.<\/p>\n It was called simply, \u201cA Motown Tribute to Nickelback.\u201d<\/span> <\/a>\u00a0Yup.\u00a0 My inspiration had come from Nickelback.<\/p>\n Nickelback occupies that most notable position in the pantheon of modern music of being both extremely successful and extremely reviled simultaneously.\u00a0 Indeed; it is downright fascinating at how angry some otherwise reasonable people get when the subject of Nickelback comes up. \u00a0To me personally,\u00a0they seemed pretty inoffensive in the scheme of things.\u00a0 While I didn\u2019t seek them out, I couldn\u2019t entirely get onboard the Nickelback Hate Wagon, especially when they seemed to play their instruments pretty well, put on a very good show for their fans, and didn\u2019t go around kicking puppies, at least not to my knowledge. \u00a0I\u2019m fairly empathetic to performers that get bashed by critics, since the criticism leveled at mainstream acts tends to be pretty unfair, seemingly justified\u00a0as a means to restore order in the world and knock these incredibly successful performers down a peg or two.\u00a0It\u2019s ok to find Nickelback a bit bland; \u00a0it\u2019s a whole other thing to call them the \u201cworst band in the world.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve been to quite a few open mics and dive bars in my day; let me tell you with utter conviction that Nickelback is far<\/em>\u00a0from the worst band in the world.<\/p>\n Regardless of my feelings about Nickelback, I did know that their name carried a certain connotation that I was eager to exploit for viral video glory in the Fall of 2011, when I was living in a basement somewhere in Astoria, NY.\u00a0 The story went like this: tens of thousands of Detroit residents were so incensed at the fact that Nickelback was booked to play the Lions\u2019 Thanksgiving Day halftime show that they turned to that comfortably low investment form of activism for help: an internet petition.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The inspiration for A Motown\u00a0Tribute to Nickelback.<\/em><\/p>\n The brainstorming session that led to A Motown Tribute to Nickelback took place over sandwiches in a SoHo grocery store,\u00a0with two musicians that would become frequent collaborators on PMJ videos- drummer Chip Thomas and kindie musician Tim Kubart. \u00a0I brought up the fact that I wanted to record a Motown version of Nickelback\u2019s \u201cHow You Remind Me\u201d (which at the time, I \u00a0probably referred to as, \u201cNever Made It as a Wise Man.\u201d). \u00a0After all,\u00a0Detroit was the home of Motown \u2014 what better way to reconcile the differences between both parties? \u00a0Both of them wholeheartedly agreed that this was a great idea, and Tim suggested that I include a tambourine player, since a lot of the televised musical performances in the \u201860s included a square-ish tambourine player enthusiastically bopping to the beat.\u00a0 Of course, I loved this idea.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a tambourine,\u201d Tim volunteered. \u00a0\u201cPerfect.\u00a0 Now I just need a percussionist that can play it,\u201d I said. \u00a0\u201cI could play it,\u201d Tim said.\u00a0 This was not something I anticipated; Tim was a very good musician and singer, but he was not known for his aux percussion skills.\u00a0 At least not yet. \u00a0\u201cYeah\u2026I\u2019ll let you know.\u201d<\/p>\n Putting aside my misgivings about Tim playing tambourine, the biggest challenge was to get a soul singer that could convincingly channel the Motown sound and really sell the arrangement that I had put together. \u00a0I remembered Drue Davis.<\/a><\/p>\n Drue Davis is known mostly as a hip hop producer, songwriter, and emcee, but I had the pleasure of meeting him a few months before on a very different project \u2013 a Yacht Rock tribute band in which we both performed.\u00a0 Funny enough, I first heard Drue\u2019s exceptional singing when he was channeling Michael McDonald singing \u201cWhat A Fool Believes.\u201d\u00a0 I figured Motown Nickelback wasn\u2019t much of a stretch, and gave him a call.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know, man\u2026I got my sister coming over for Thanksgiving dinner, and I have to do all the cooking.\u00a0 It has to be tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n I knew it was going to be a tough sell because of the holiday, so I didn\u2019t want to pressure him. \u00a0 I told him to think about it and let me know, and to my surprise, Drue was in.\u00a0 I rounded up the band \u2013 Adam on bass, Allan on drums, Steve Ujfallussy on sax, and -after some deliberation- Tim on tambourine, and we all gathered in my basement apartment in the evening of November 23rd to record.\u00a0 I had purchased a brand new Canon DSLR camera to upgrade from my cheap Flip camcorder, and I was anxious to put it to the test.\u00a0 Recording went fairly smooth but ended abruptly at 11pm, when my upstairs neighbor started banging on my door and screaming at us to stop; this was a fairly common occurrence at this point.\u00a0 We packed up, and I got to work editing.<\/p>\n This was our Nickelback-esque press picture.<\/em><\/p>\n I had a\u00a0restaurant gig <\/a><\/span>in NYC the next morning overlooking\u00a0the Thanksgiving Day parade \u2013 a fun yearly gig at which\u00a0I would attempt to play the theme music of every float. \u00a0After that, I raced back to Astoria to release the new video and then drove home to New Jersey to spend the holiday with my parents, wondering if my video would get the intended reaction.<\/p>\n Once I logged onto my parents\u2019 eMac computer, I had my answer.\u00a0 The video had racked up 20,000 views in a matter of hours and was already being featured in major publications like the Vancouver Sun<\/i> and the Calgary Herald<\/i>. \u00a0 The comments on the video ranged from hilarious to abusive, but one subject kept coming up again and again: the inclusion of \u201cTambourine Guy.\u201d<\/p>\n When you watch the video after viewing many Postmodern Jukebox videos, it\u2019s clear that this is as restrained a performance by Tambourine Guy as it gets.<\/a><\/span>\u00a0 At the time, however, it was just over-the-top enough for viewers to speculate whether it was an act, or if this man was actually that enthused to be playing tambourine in this video.\u00a0 When it comes down to it, both statements are true.\u00a0 The sheer joy that Tim puts into his performances as Tambourine Guy is infectious; if I\u2019m at a PMJ show and he\u00a0makes an appearance, I\u2019ll often be as surprised and excited as the audience (he\u2019s pretty much given a free pass to just show up at any shows that he wants to play). \u00a0Tim summed up the character of Tambourine Guy pretty well by explaining\u00a0that he represented the desire of every audience member to be onstage performing next to so many great musicians, regardless of whether or not they have the ability.\u00a0 He\u2019s living the dream, and you can\u2019t help but root for him for it.<\/p>\n Reddit comments about Tambourine Guy.<\/em><\/p>\n A Motown Tribute to Nickelback was a huge success, and landed my name all over the internet as the \u201cMotown Nickelback guy.\u201d\u00a0 I even gave a pseudo-academic interview about it to the Village Voice<\/i>,<\/a><\/span> which resulted in my first\u00a0epic hater in the comment section of an\u00a0article.\u00a0 The biggest surprise to come of it, however, came in the form of a phone call by a booking agent for LiveNation, North America\u2019s biggest concert promoter.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re booking a festival in British Columbia called \u2018Live At Squamish,\u2019 and we wanted to see if A Motown Tribute To Nickelback could perform.\u201d\u00a0 She audibly attempted to suppress laughter, lest I take my life\u2019s work of revamping Nickelback a bit too seriously. \u00a0\u201cI would love to\u2026but, just so you know, it\u2019s not a band. \u00a0I only did that one song\u2026\u201d \u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t worry, I know.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been following the story. Do you think you could do other Nickelback songs if you had the time?\u201d \u00a0\u201cSure,\u201d I said, eager to make this happen.\u00a0 Then it dawned it me that I could use this as a platform for debuting the larger Postmodern Jukebox concept.\u00a0 \u201cI also do Motown and jazz versions of contemporary pop songs.\u00a0 I could even do a 1920s version of Britney Spears or something\u2026\u201d \u00a0\u201cActually, we\u2019re just looking for Nickelback songs.\u201d\u00a0 So much for that idea.<\/p>\n I loved this headline from 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n After a few emails and phone calls, A Motown Tribute to Nickelback was booked for Live At Squamish, a legitimate festival that featured real acts such as Chromeo, Charles Bradley, and others. Since we had no press photo or bio and LiveNation was hesitant to use the low resolution still shot from the video that I provided them, I organized a faux dramatic photo shoot in the Cloisters.\u00a0 The photos were pretty funny; in some of them, Tim was the only one smiling, naturally.\u00a0 I also wrote a bio that described us at a group that \u201cpainstakingly translates every song in the Nickelback catalogue into the Motown genre.\u201d\u00a0 I like the image of us dissecting every new Nickelback song and turning out Motown remakes like some kind of bizarre fraternal order of mad scientists.<\/p>\n Motown Nickelback photo shoot. \u00a0Don\u2019t look at the camera!<\/em><\/p>\n All this helped to be taken seriously by LiveNation, but it failed to legitimize us elsewhere. When our name appeared on the festival fliers, most people assumed it to be a joke played by a disgruntled intern.\u00a0 I decided that the next step was to record an album\u2014after all, we had to learn a set\u2019s worth of Nickelback songs anyway.\u00a0 It would be a fun experience, and I figure it was about time that I made my music commercially available.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have much\u00a0money saved up, so I turned to Kickstarter to raise the necessary funds. \u00a0The project was quickly funded, perhaps for the sake of curiousity, and we released our first\u00a0and only album:\u00a0A Motown Tribute to Nickelback. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The funny part about singing Motown Nickelback songs to yourself on the subway is that to others, it sounds exactly like real Nickelback. \u00a0This was a unique\u00a0problem that Drue faced when he took on the challenge of memorizing the lyrics of 8 Nickelback songs.\u00a0 Fortunately, Drue is a real pro, and was able to shake off any embarrassment he might\u2019ve felt when his friends asked about the weird Nickelback project he was involved with.\u00a0 He not only learned the songs, but he brought them to life, delivering them with such honesty that they never felt like a joke. Although I realized that there was some humor in what we were doing, I never wanted the project to drift too far towards parody.\u00a0 There\u2019s something much more interesting about taking these songs seriously and not giving in to peer pressure to deliver everything with a wink and a nod.<\/p>\n Sax player Steve Ujfallussy and myself, living the dream.<\/em><\/p>\n The actual festival debut of A Motown Tribute to Nickelback was one of the most memorable moments of my life.\u00a0 Everything about this was exciting to us; our trailer that was marked, \u201cA Motown Tribute to Nickelback\u201d on the door, the artist-only tent with free snacks and beer, the pre-show soundcheck in which we pretended to know what we were doing (\u201ccan i get a little more 2K in my monitor?\u201d).\u00a0 Nothing prepared us, however, for the excitement of playing in front of 1000 people for the first time.<\/p>\n There were about 100 people there at the start of our set- not many, but this was still significant since they were clearly fans, and we had never met fans before.\u00a0 One girl had even made a very conspicuous \u201cTAMBOURINE GUY!\u201d sign, which was pretty exciting for Tim.\u00a0 As the set went on, however, the audience doubled, then doubled again, then doubled again, until the energy from the crowd reached a fever pitch and everyone was singing along to us (well, to Nickelback, anyway).\u00a0 The high point definitely occurred during the song \u201cRockstar,\u201d when Drue caught a bra thrown onstage mid chorus.<\/a><\/p>\n We were buzzing for quite sometime after this performance; we even kept our suits on after our set and walked back and forth across the festival grounds, so that fans could recognize us.\u00a0 There were a few post show interviews given that probably should be destroyed, since we were drunk on Canadian beer and local fame. I\u00a0had no idea back then that was just a taste of things to come.<\/p>\n Why are we giving an interview on a construction site? We may never know.<\/em><\/p>\n As crazy as it sounds, A Motown Tribute to Nickelback helped to prepare the world for Postmodern Jukebox and the idea that\u00a0an \u201calternate universe\u201d of pop\u00a0songs gone vintage was not just a passing fad, but an actual movement. \u00a0It also introduced the world to many of the performers that would later come to be featured in Postmodern Jukebox videos. \u00a0Although it would take several more years to grow this idea into world tours<\/a> <\/span><\/span>and millions of PMJ fans, this experience gave me the reassurance that this was a path worth exploring \u2013 that perhaps it was<\/em> possible to do something different and find music industry success. \u00a0In the words of Nickelback themselves:<\/p>\n You can\u2019t give up \/\u00a0<\/em>When you\u2019re looking for a diamond in the rough \/<\/em> cause you never know<\/em> the one you\u2019re waiting on.<\/em><\/p>\n -SB<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Screen](\"http:\/\/postmodernjukebox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Screen-Shot-2016-03-26-at-6.42.35-AM-1024x624.png\")
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\nWhen it shows up \/ make sure you\u2019re holding on<\/em>
\nCause it could be the one\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n