A Crush that makes a One Night Band

PUBLISHED by Boston Metro

You never know what you’re going to get when you go out to see a band you’ve never heard before. Boston Band Crush is taking that sensation one step further.
BBC’s ‘One Night Band’ is an experiment that mixes up local musicians and challenges them to create three original songs in just seven hours. Then they have to perform them onstage.


Boston Band Crush is a blog about local music, and its members came up with the project after reading about a similar event in Texas called the ‘Rock Lottery,’ says Ashley Willard, one of the blog’s founders. But whereas ‘Rock Lottery’ involved 25 artists, ‘One Night Band’ will include 40. Each group of five, randomly assigned, must have a drummer and a bassist, and no two group members can have played together before.

“Some of the bands very well may fall flat on their faces,” says Willard. “We’re OK with that.”

Most of the participants play indie rock because Boston Band Crush invited acts they were familiar with, she says. But some musicians, like mandolin player Jimmy Ryan, were selected for their talent and to add some variety.

“I’m hoping to match up a few people who haven’t met before and who find that they are very in tune, no pun intended,” says Willard. “Maybe we’ll see some bands that form out of the One Night Band ashes.”

The proceeds will benefit Zumix, a nonprofit children’s music school in Willard’s neighborhood in East Boston. A band of teenagers who all attended Zumix will open the show, while film students from the Center for Digital Imaging Arts will document the entire process.

The bands will have to work hard all day, because they won’t know their performance time until the last minute, says Willard. She hopes One Night Band will strengthen a cohesiveness among the Boston music community seen at this year’s Rock and Roll Rumble.

“I think we’ll see a lot of novelty songs, a lot of simple sort of two-chord, three-chord songs. Some humor, hopefully,” says Willard. “But I also think we’ve got some really talented people in this group who will be able to really impress with their sets.”

‘One Night Band’
Saturday, 8 p.m.
Middle East Downstairs
472/480 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Central
$10-$12, 617-864-EAST
www.onenightbandboston.com