Jay Zastoupil is not dead — maybe

As Memphis Burns, John Ferguson sings.

The third Band Scramble showdown hit the Brick last Thursday night. Four bands, all of them formed by drawing names out of a hat (or perhaps an inadequately scrubbed vomit pail, or a frozen pumpkin, or a baby … I don’t know) played the three songs they had been writing and rehearsing over the past month. I joined five other judges to pick a winner to take home $150.

As in years past, the event was organized by John Ferguson, who plays in In the Pines, Bacon Shoe, Federation of Horsepower and the Monitor. He might be joining another band, too, because he’s going for a world record, evidently. I like John, and if my saying that makes you not like him, then I beg you to reconsider. He’s one hell of a guy.

But about me. I got to the Brick way early, and I joined John and one of the other judges, Pat Hopewell, at the bar. Pat still hasn’t forgiven me for posting “Jay Zastoupil is dead” on a local forum when I was looking for Jay’s phone number. Jay Z, by the way, is the Last of the V8s guitarist who books those kickass shows on Sunday nights at P. Ott’s. I didn’t think I would alarm anyone with a thread subject line like that because if Jay really had been dead, I wouldn’t have been the one to break the news, and I wouldn’t have broken it like that if I had been. But whatever. A few minutes later, the man himself, Jay, drifted in the door in the form of a vapor, solidified into human form and bit my neck — because he is, in fact, undead!. Kidding, actually, Jay was already there. He said he thought that whole thing was funny and that I’m “a good kid.” I swear! He said it! Pat was not swayed, however, so I had to attempt to stump him with a trivia question. Pat, you see, is the host of Trivia Clash at the Record Bar. The totally sweet movie Tron was playing on the bar TVs, so I asked Pat if he knew what ’80s TV show starred Bruce Boxleitner, who plays the title role in that masterpiece of computer-circuit minimalism and glowing cardboard. He didn’t know. (Ha!… but I didn’t know either, actually; I just knew there had been one.) A good trivia master is not without Internet access, however, so he booted up his laptop and looked up the answer.

Then, it was time for the unscrambling of the Scramble to begin. The first band was a three piece that called itself Awestrich. The judges were to rate bands on four categories: Originality, Musical Ability, Stage Presence and Name. All were on a 1-10 scale, except for Name, which was 1-5. I gave Awestrich a 3 on the Name because it was kind of clever, but also dorky, and because I sort of like ostriches — I used to date one, in fact.

Well, I wanted to hide my head in the sand when Awestrich started playing. Actually, that’s a little extreme, but the clunky, not-well-rehearsed punk-meets-’90s-rock sound of the band certainly left no one awestruck. They seemed pretty nervous, too, which wasn’t surprising given the short amount of time the bands had to work up their material to the level of “owning” it. Kudos to Awestrich for playing, anyway.

Next up was Persevere. I gave this band a 1 on its name for evoking hair metal faux rebellion. Turned out that Persevere couldn’t have been farther from that, as the band was comprised of two really sweet-looking ladies: a singer and acoustic guitarist with braided pigtails and a black girl drummer. The songs were solid and workmanlike but lacked creativity and catchiness. One of the songs was a ditty about the Legend of Zelda, but it sounded like a breakup song, and if you’re going to sing about Zelda, then it freakin’ better convey the epic magnitude of Link’s heroic quest to recover the Triforce, defeat Ganon and save Princess Zelda, dammit!

Third, we got to see Melophilia. They got a 2 on the lame name, which means “love of music.” But their set was actually quite impressive. A five-piece — two guitarists (one of whom blew sax), bass, drums, and a singer-keyboardist — that must have had a hell of a time getting together for practices. Melophilia crafted the most original and musically challenging songs of any band that evening. They had great energy, too, playing like they’d rehearsed every day since the drawing. Vocalist and keys player Shay Estes sang the first song in French, which softened me somewhat to the poshness of the band’s name, but not enough to actually earn a point. They definitely earned points in hitting the New Wave dance vibe without going overboard and sounding like a female-fronted Interpol ripoff .

Finally, Iron Rainbow took its turn. Now they got it — the names should be as ridiculous as the enterprise. Straight up 4 for them. The buzz among friends was that IR was going to be classic heavy metal with a chick singer. Well, it was. The singer, Megan Metzger wore flashy tits and a shamelessly cleavage-revealing top. Guitarist Gregg Todt, who leads Federation of Horsepower, thrashed around the stage, hammering out chunky chords and devil-horns-deserving riffs, and by the end, very few strings remained on his guitar. The bassist was a girl who works at the Brick and plays in the Sixteens, but I forgot her name. Still, she kicked ass.

However, by the end, I was pulling for Melophilia. Iron Rainbow was definitely the crowd favorite, and many a judge praised that band for coming up with a great gimmick, but I was more impressed with Melophilia’s songwriting, which was better than a lot of local bands I see in clubs. I must not have had many like-minds on the panel, though, because Iron Rainbow won and triumphantly mounted the stage to get its prize.

The contest was over, but word was quickly spreading that a beloved past local band was going to have a spontaneous reunion because all three members were there for the scramble. The event’s host, John Ferguson, was the singer and guitarist of the legendary As Memphis Burns, while bassist Andy Walker had been in Awestrich and drummer Mike Wade had been in Melophilia. AMB set up quickly — John borrowed a guitar from human guitar tree Gregg Todt — and, after tuning down, kicked the door in on a set of hardcore rock in the vein of Helmet, Shellac and Unsane. The songs came right back to them, too. As Ferguson flailed out dissonant, minor-seventh chords, screaming into the mic like the devil was twisting his balls, Walker screwed down the bolts to riffy basslines and the whole thing tore ahead like a runaway killer robot with a people-grinder dragging behind it. Fuck yeah it was intense. Though the audience shouted out for more, AMB could only remember four songs with any degree of accuracy, so the reunion was short lived. If John weren’t already in a million bands, I’d demand an AMB reunion tour, but I don’t want the dude killing himself.

The very generously provided judges’ tab (thank you, Brick!) at the bar had carried me a loooong way, and a good Samaritan drove me home. I woke up in the morning with a hangover and a bad case of melophilia.