Outside the Jukebox

by Scott Bradlee

  The gang piled into the two small aircraft—a King Air 200 and a Citation Ultra—and tried to get comfortable. Yes, they were private planes but not exactly the cushy type of plane that I had enjoyed with Niia several years back. For some of the taller members of the group, it was impossible to sit upright; Rook sat in the bathroom for the entirety of the flight, as it afforded his six-foot-three frame more space than did his actual seat.

  Despite a slightly delayed start, the Denver show happened that night, and the cast thrilled the audience with an especially energetic performance—before reuniting with (and promptly passing out on) the tour bus, which had just arrived. Of everyone on that stage, however, no one gave a more inspired performance than Joey. Perhaps it was the dulling of nerves after surviving such an incredibly stressful experience earlier that day, or perhaps it was the newfound swagger that came from having her adorable mugshot splashed across the media, but whatever it was, it led to her finally securing her footing and performing with a newfound freedom and confidence. And just like that, overnight, Joey was no longer the inexperienced one.

  For me, it was a proud moment, being able to watch my team pull together to make the show happen against all odds and still exceed expectations. Just months before, I had feared that the show was fragile enough to fall apart without my onstage presence at the piano. Now not even a case of extreme weather or a day in the slammer could stop our performers from reaching our fans. We hadn’t just grown popular; we’d grown resilient.

  A COMMUNITY THRIVES

  Postmodern Jukebox was, by this time, a roving, rotating, ever-evolving show, but it was also a hub of artistic connectivity for a slew of performers from all around the world. These performers were brought together by their shared passion for our world of “vintage” music and desire to contribute to it, but the connections they ultimately formed with one another rarely terminated there. Our singers would hire the instrumentalists to play on their solo albums and showcases. Our instrumentalists would help one another book gigs and recording sessions between tours. And, when any of them had a concert of their own in New York City or Los Angeles, you could count on looking out over the audience and finding it stacked with other PMJ artists, there to root for their teammate, friend, and fellow creative.

  Similar to the campus-like settings at top Silicon Valley tech firms, PMJ was providing an environment where talented, unique performers could meet other talented, unique performers. However, in our case, we were also sending them to see the world, meet thousands of fans, and share incredible experiences together. I often joked at rehearsals that I was “sending the kids off to school,” but there was a bit of truth in the analogy. Each cast, for the most part, contained a mix of veterans and “new kids,” who no doubt felt a bit of apprehension about embarking on a long tour with a group of people who already knew each other. I did my best to ensure that no one felt like the kid sitting on the curb outside a high school dance.

  By late 2015, this idea of building community had become more and more central to my vision for Postmodern Jukebox. Our fall tour had more cast members coming and going throughout than ever before. Blending his Rat Pack sensibilities with insane beatboxing skills—a perfect juxtaposition of classic and modern—American Idol finalist Blake Lewis brought the house down as emcee in his hometown of Seattle. Sara Niemietz and Aubrey Logan made their debuts and proved to be even more amazing live than they were on video. Maiya Sykes sang her powerful take on “Creep” for the very first time on tour to tears and a massive standing ovation. PMJ veterans like Robyn, Morgan, and Haley appeared at select shows throughout, and when they did, they were treated like royalty. Our show was often described as “Saturday Night Live for singers,” and hopefuls from around the world were sending me unsolicited audition videos. Between them and the various tap, swing, and burlesque dancers who looked to our music for inspiration, it was clear that a movement was starting to take shape around us.

  To further encourage the growth of this community, I decided to run a singing competition of my own.

  “I’m going to run a PMJ Search,” I told Adam, who by now had played more shows than any other performer and was taking on more responsibilities within the group. “We’ll have singers upload videos of themselves singing to our karaoke tracks, and the winner will get to do a video with us.”

  “Perhaps you can offer Simon Cowell–style commentary on each performance, too,” Adam wryly suggested. “Delivered from a chair that spins around. With a buzzer, of course.”

  Adam knew of my disdain for reality television competitions and enjoyed pointing out this incongruity whenever my own ideas veered questionably close to their terrain. My own hypocrisy notwithstanding, we wound up receiving several hundred submissions in a matter of weeks. Singers from all over the world entered, putting their own spin on some of the best-loved PMJ tracks. Some of them dressed up in period-authentic costumes, others played musical instruments, and still others included pets and family members in their videos. Although a few novice vocalists entered, most were skilled performers. Some of them were flat-out incredible. Caleb Lafaitele from Australia shocked us all with his fantastic vocals on “Stacy’s Mom,” an entry that our cast passed around while on tour in Australia. Tara Louise performed a version of “I Want It That Way” that made Shoshana, the featured singer from our version, beam with pride. Picking a contest winner was extremely difficult, but one entry had resonated particularly with me for its simplicity: Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space,” as sung by Holly Campbell-Smith of Scotland.

  Holly was a recently married young mother, with a charming demeanor and a love of music. Her friends had urged her to participate in the contest, and she decided to give it a shot, even though she hadn’t performed in years. She recorded her entry in her kitchen, using the onboard mic and camera on her phone. It was a beautiful and unique rendition and a very memorable entry. I could certainly relate to having to resort to recording in your kitchen.

  We announced Holly as our winner and flew her from Scotland to Los Angeles to record a PMJ video with her in December 2015. Since we didn’t think to give her a letter to show state officials, she had trouble getting through customs and was detained in Ireland; as luck would have it, the officer in charge of her was a PMJ fan and let her go, with a request that she pass along a few of his song ideas to me. (I’m not sure what this says about border security.) She arrived at Bro Mountain late at night, exhausted from traveling but excited to meet us. Over the next couple days, we recorded a swing version of her wedding song—Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud.” She did a fantastic job with a difficult arrangement, and her dry sense of humor made her a joy to work with. When our tour returned to Glasgow the next year, I invited Holly to sing “Blank Space” with us so that she could experience the thrill of performing onstage in front of thousands, backed by the phenomenal instrumentalists of PMJ. She loved every second of it, and the cast adored her right back.

  #PMJsearch started off as a fun, lighthearted way to highlight talent from around the world, but it’s become much more than that. It has continued to prove valuable in expanding the PMJ community globally (our 2016 winner, Devi-Ananda Dahm, came from Berlin, Germany), and it keeps us in touch with our identity as a grassroots movement that strives to always have the door open wide to those on the fringes of the industry. While many of our singers came onto the platform with existing fan bases built through television appearances, Broadway, and other tours, other singers came in with little or no experience whatsoever. Sometimes, the pure enthusiasm and genuine emotions of a first-timer lead to truly magical moments.

  HOW TO SING FOR POSTMODERN JUKEBOX

  I’m asked frequently how I identify the best performers and what characteristics singers should possess if they want to be featured with Postmodern Jukebox. More than anything else, I believe that skill, musicianship, and the elusive quality of uniqueness are the keys to success in any creative field, and singing is no exception. While skill and musicianship are obvious
qualities shared by our performers, successful PMJ singers also radiate uniqueness, whether it’s in vocal quality, image, or personality. It’s what makes audiences not only want to listen to these singers but get to know them, too.

  When I give advice to an aspiring singer who is clearly talented, I usually start by asking what makes him or her unique. Some people give me stock lines like “I was inspired by Amy Winehouse” or “I’m a Broadway singer, but I love jazz and pop, too.” These are all well and good, but they aren’t necessarily unique. I generally tell these performers to dig deeper to uncover something from their life experiences that truly sets them apart—and then draw inspiration from that.

  You communicate what it is about you that’s unique through your own personal brand. When I was growing up, there was a popular Sprite ad that featured the tag line “Image is nothing; thirst is everything.” It’s a nice thought and probably useful in marketing sugar water, but it doesn’t really ring true. We make snap judgments all the time based on the information we have at hand, and in the world of entertainment, this applies tenfold. Part of presenting yourself as an artist is making sure your image is congruent with your art. This remains the case no matter the genre or how “serious” the music is. It’s far easier to regard an artist as authentic if the person’s dress, style, and offstage persona support his or her art.

  Ariana Savalas exemplifies this ideal of consistency. Her love of cabaret and jazz, which led her to develop the witty “Ariana-isms” that she peppers throughout her act, is entirely unforced. It helps, too, that she dresses like one of the “Real Housewives of 1970s Las Vegas.” It just makes sense. When you see Ariana, you instantly grasp who she is as an artist. That should be a goal for any performer who wants to make a memorable impression on an audience: Be authentic, be consistent, and be unique.

  RETURNING HOME

  It was the summer before college, and I was wearing cargo shorts, a beaded necklace, and—probably the worst offense—spiky, frosted-tip hair. I wove through the chaos of Times Square in a hooded sweatshirt, dodging the sandwich board–wearing religious zealots, comedy club promoters, and mascots of popular costumed characters in my path. A few blocks later, above the swirling masses, I caught a glimpse of the iconic marquee of Radio City Music Hall, a historic venue that had launched careers, entertained millions, and withstood the test of time. It seemed to be a beacon of hope shining overhead, a reminder that New York City was still a city of possibility.

  My friends and I weren’t heading to Radio City that night, though; we were getting a quick meal at Sbarro and then making our way to Penn Station to catch a train back to our sleepy New Jersey town. The excitement of sneaking into a bar to see live music was wearing off, along with the effects of the cheap beers we had drunk, and the reality of an upcoming week of high school was setting in. I’ll be back there someday, I thought, in between bites of overcooked spaghetti.

  “Someday” turned out to be nearly twenty years later, but it came nonetheless. As we were beginning to put together the routing of the Postmodern Jukebox fall 2016 tour, I checked my email, and there it was, in the form of a forwarded message from Jaron: “October 7. Radio City Music Hall. Pretty awesome!” I stopped what I was doing and immediately alerted a few of the longtime PMJ stars to save the date. This was a cause for celebration, and I wanted to make it the most elaborate Postmodern Jukebox show in history. Naturally, I couldn’t wait to tell my parents, since NYC was just a car ride away for them, and having them and my sister together for this occasion was an absolute must. After all, they were my first fans.

  Believe it or not, time doesn’t stop just because you book a show at Radio City Music Hall, and whatever other problems you have don’t just fall away. The owner of Bro Mountain had decided to put the property up for sale and would no longer be renting it out, which meant I was—again—without a home. I briefly considered purchasing it, given its role in PMJ history, but ultimately decided to hunt for a house that better matched the PMJ aesthetic. My dream was to have not only a big dedicated space to function as the Postmodern Jukebox set but also the ultimate PMJ living room studio. In the interim, while I searched for a place to buy, I rented a string of Airbnbs to prep for the upcoming tours through Australia and New Zealand.

  When I was twenty-seven and buried beneath a mountain of student loan debt, I had never even entertained the idea of someday being in a position to purchase a house. Now, just seven years later, I had to chuckle at the idea of finding myself contacting a real estate agent to view luxurious Los Angeles properties. Part of me felt silly; I probably wouldn’t have any use for a freestanding home of my own if I didn’t have a plan to turn it into a massive studio and hadn’t had so many problems doing that with apartments. My living habits have largely gone unchanged from my Astoria days, when more space translated (as it does still) directly into more space for me to leave my clothes on the floor.

  To add to the chaos of house-hunting, PMJ had just sent the cast on its longest European tour to date, and my team and I were constantly involved in putting out logistical fires on an especially challenging run. A couple of singers and a drummer had to be replaced last minute due to illness or injury. The bus broke down several times, and the AC stopped functioning in Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria, making it unbearably hot. Will and the rest of our tour crew did their best to cope, at one point even attempting to construct a series of makeshift air conditioners by filling Styrofoam containers with ice and running small cooling fans over the top of them. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

  That’s not to say that the 2016 European tour was anything less than incredible. We brought the cast to more new cities than ever before, including the Baltic nations and Russia. The president of Estonia came to our show wearing one of the “VOTE PMJ FOR A BETTER YESTERDAY” buttons we’d created in a publicity stunt to hijack the contentious 2016 U.S. election. In Moscow, Tambourine Guy made an appearance and got to experience firsthand what it feels like to be a viral star in a foreign country. (One fan kissed his head and said, “In our country… you are superhero!”) In Estonia, our pianist and new music director Jesse Elder (another extremely talented and trusted friend from my Sleep No More days) played a traditional folk song and had the entire audience singing together in a moving display of unity. The cast members rotated pretty constantly through the four-month run, but Adam, Sarah Reich, and Sara Niemietz wound up playing all seventy-four shows—a particularly impressive feat when you realize that they lived on a bus on another continent for a third of the year. Haley—now also represented by Scott Mantell and ICM—was busy planning her own tour, but she made time for us and appeared in a few PMJ shows around the UK, including another sold-out date in London. On the day of legendary Beatles producer George Martin’s passing, Haley and Casey sang “When I’m 64” in the encore set, our tribute to one of the greats.

  But my focus wasn’t on the tour. Rather, it was back in the States, where I had fully immersed myself in house-hunting mode. I looked at a number of very nice houses in Los Angeles, all with different configurations. Some of them had intricate gardens. Others had separate pool houses and outdoor bars. One of them had a garage converted into a large yoga studio (this was LA, after all). Occasionally, Rook would come along to inspect, testing each living room for its acoustics by clapping and yelling, which probably alienated more than a couple real estate agents. Most living rooms simply weren’t built with music recording in mind. After a while, it became kind of disheartening. I got into a pattern of showing up and taking ten seconds to check out the living room before saying “nope” and going on my way. Meanwhile, my attempts at holding rehearsals at the Airbnb I was renting were already generating noise complaints and eviction letters. I couldn’t help feeling that I was getting a little old for this.

  Just when it seemed like I would have to start renting out actual recording studios like normal musicians did, I stumbled upon a house that looked picture perfect. It was much larger than I needed and ne
arly fifty years old, but its appearance just screamed PMJ to me—a mixture of old Hollywood and classic New York hotel design. I had my real estate agent schedule a viewing as soon as possible.

  Stepping inside, the very first thought I had was This is it; this is PMJ Manor. Intricate millwork and exquisite finishes abounded, with wood paneling throughout. The entryway led to a cavernous great room—big enough to fit a full touring cast of PMJ musicians—replete with recording-friendly twenty-foot ceilings. Behind that was yet another room, smaller yet still majestic, containing an old, speakeasy-style bar and a working fireplace. Instantly, I knew it: This was the spot.

  Beyond the obvious visual appeal, the house also checked off another important box for me: It was distant enough from the neighbors that noise wouldn’t be an issue. We could have tap dancers rehearsing at 3 a.m., if necessary. After a nail-biting month of negotiation on my offer, we struck a deal and went into contract. Just a week before our big show at Radio City Music Hall, Postmodern Jukebox was finally going to have a splendid, permanent place to call home.

  I exited the bus and was immediately greeted by a crisp fall breeze and the familiar chaos of Times Square. This place hasn’t changed a bit, I thought, while dodging traffic to retrieve my backpack from the luggage bay. It was the day of the show, but it hadn’t really sunk in yet. I snuck around the side of the bus and caught a glimpse of my name on the marquee; it looked Photoshopped to me, as if this was all part of some practical joke. However, I didn’t have time to dwell on the comedic possibilities of my life—there was something I needed to do.

  The doors of the N train opened. I exited the platform and walked down a street in Astoria that I’d traveled many times before, headed to the three-story brick apartment building I’d called home for six years. But instead of turning my key in the lock, I was ringing Agatha’s doorbell to extend a special invitation to my former landlady, who was never only just a landlady. Tonight was the night I was realizing my dream of headlining Radio City Music Hall, and I wanted Agatha there, as my guest of honor. It was sure to be a proud and emotional moment for us both—one that I’d want to remember forever, so I’d arranged for a camera crew to follow me and get it all on video.