Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate a Cappella Glory (16 page)

“You Had Me” built to the bridge, and Michaela burned with intensity. She sang:
“Vodka and a packet of cigarettes // that’s all it used to be // but now you’re sniffin’ on snow when you’re feeling low // suffocating dreams that could have // Maybe for a minute I’ll be down with that // but it didn’t take long for me to see the light.”

The solo was so overpowering you almost forget the rest of Divisi was onstage—that’s how consuming Michaela is as a performer. But there, just as the bridge came to an end, Divisi marched forward until they were flush behind Michaela, supporting her just like Sarah had said. This is where the choreography delivers—it
complements
the song instead of competing with it. The song ended with Divisi chanting in unison:
“Takin’ it back // I’m takin’ it back // Takin’ back my life.”

Divisi’s performance that night took on a secondary meaning whether they intended it to or not, for anyone who knew the Divisi backstory—the disappointment at the ICCA finals in ’05, the near-entire group turnover—”You Had Me” read as a defiant statement of independence. They were not the old Divisi. They could never be that group. They would honor the memory of those girls, and the reputation they’d built from the ashes of a Beau Tie. But if this incarnation of Divisi was to succeed, these women would need to make it on their own terms.

But was it enough? “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing” had left Divisi vulnerable. In the end, it was just plain luck that brought them victory in that quarterfinal round of the ICCAs. It happened like this. First, Dulcet, a mixed group from Southern Oregon University, had the misfortune of performing “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing” just ten minutes after Divisi. Though not anybody’s fault, it was no less embarrassing for Dulcet. Especially since the song was a hot mess. For an audience member, it was a bit like watching figure skating on television. You know that fourteen-year-old girl is going to end up on her ass. It’s just a matter of when.

But more than that, it was On the Rocks who did Divisi the biggest favor of the night. OTR’s set opened with “Smile Like You Mean It,” by the Killers. While the choreography was impossibly cheesy—there was a lot of air guitar followed by the Michael Jackson lean—it worked for them. “We could never get away with that choreography,” Marissa Neitling says. But ultimately, it was a wardrobe malfunction that sealed the deal. Divisi’s brother group, On the Rocks, wears armbands and vests for a retro barbershop look. Tonight their music director Brenton made a tactical error when, midsong, he tore off his vest in a comic striptease, tossing it to the side of the stage. When it came time for OTR to sing their final song, a medley of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” and Alicia Keys’s “Karma,” Brenton looked confused. The group was staring at him, waiting for him to blow the pitch pipe. He tapped his trousers—both front and back. Doh! While the striptease had looked cool in the moment, Brenton’s pitch pipe had been in his vest pocket. He quickly ran offstage to retrieve it, as the men from OTR just stood there smiling awkwardly. The damage was done. Spooked, perhaps, their final song was disastrously flat.

ICCA West Coast producer, Jen Levitz, appeared onstage, inviting the competing a cappella groups to join her onstage as she read the results. “Can I get a drumroll from the vocal percussionists, ” Jen said. Ha. Ha. Divisi won with a commanding lead. In sports (and a cappella is a sport) that’s called an ugly win. Still, Divisi was jumping up and down wildly, some of them crying through their encore.

Later that night, Divisi retreated to Emmalee Almroth’s house for the postshow festivities. The members of On the Rocks, having changed out of their barbershop gear, were visibly crushed. Divisi’s Megan Schimmer was torn between celebrating with her girls and comforting her boyfriend—a tenor in On the Rocks. To make matters worse, On the Rocks had landed in third place, a mere
two points
behind the second-place finishers, Oregon State’s Outspoken.

Peter Hollens was at the party. He congratulated the ladies of Divisi on the big win. What he didn’t say was that the next morning, when he’d be phoning Sarah Klein to recap the show, he would have to deliver some harsh news. “You can’t win at semifinals with Stevie Wonder,” he will say. “You need to cut Betsy’s song from the set.” But tonight, well, there’s drinking to be done. Andrea Welsh stands in the kitchen and pops open a bottle of her signature pink champagne.

Divisi sold more than seventeen hundred tickets to the show and will pocket fourteen thousand dollars. They won’t have to fund-raise a dime to get to the semifinals, which are scheduled for March 10 outside San Francisco. Divisi books their hotel rooms. They have five weeks to prepare.

What they don’t know is that a big ol’ Mormon torpedo is headed straight for them. Keeley comes home from class one day not long after the quarterfinals to find an e-mail from Catherine Papworth, the music director of Noteworthy, the all-female a cappella group from Brigham Young University. Like Divisi, the Mormon women had won their own regional quarterfinal. The a cappella message boards at RARB had lit up with talk of Noteworthy’s impressive showing—these girls had the highest point totals in the nation.

The e-mail to Keeley went something like this: “We see that ‘Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing’ is in your repertoire. We just wanted to let you know that
we’re
going to sing that song at semifinals. Also, we know that you wear red ties and black shirts. We wanted you to know that we’ll be wearing
green ties
and black shirts. If you feel uncomfortable with that, you might want to wear red shirts.”

Keeley is dumbstruck by what she is reading. Considering these Noteworthy ladies are Mormon, she concedes that this e-mail affront may have been unintentional. Still, she is incensed, and quickly hits REPLY. “We’ve been wearing these outfits since 2001,” Keeley writes. “Why would
we
change our outfits? If you feel uncomfortable, feel free to change
yours
.”

Marissa Neitling is particularly troubled by this note from Brigham Young’s Catherine Papworth. And it has nothing to do with Stevie Wonder or what color ties the girls will be wearing in competition. No, this is
personal
. Marissa Neitling’s ex-boyfriend, the one who was married just seven months after they broke up—he’s Catherine Papworth’s brother.

CHAPTER NINE

THE BEELZEBUBS

Shortly after New Year’s Day, the Beelzebubs descend upon a lake house in Moultonborough, New Hampshire, set deep back in the woods. It’s easily a twenty-minute drive to get milk, farther for anything more substantial. The refrigerator is stocked with dozens of eggs. The kitchen counter is lined with loaves of white bread and jars of peanut butter. Over the next ten days the Beelzebubs will complete most of the raw tracks for their new album. And surprisingly—or maybe not—there’s not a beer in sight. Alcohol would be a distraction. (By contrast, the Hullabahoos regularly show up at the recording studio hungover and carrying McDonald’s.) This seclusion—this a cappella monastery, if you will—is an ideal place to record; the lake house affords the inspirational quiet they found at the legendary Long View Farms but doesn’t cost fifteen hundred dollars a day. In fact, this house is free to use. This New Hampshire estate is owned by the sixty-something founder of the Beelzebubs, one Tim Vaill ’64.

The Bubs have settled on a sound for the new album, though they have a hard time putting that aesthetic into words. “They just want to make it
organic
,” says Ed Boyer, the Bub alum being paid to produce the album.
Organic
is a nebulous word. But Ed knows what they mean. It’s a reaction to the too-perfect, polished (some say computerized) feel of their own most recent albums
Code Red
and
Shedding
. “We wanted to get away from mimicking instruments,” says Alexander Koutzoukis, who just took over as music director of the Bubs. “We didn’t want people to question whether they were hearing voices or not.”

“The Bubs want an album that showcases more of the group’s energy and their live performance,” Ed Boyer says. “As opposed to something that says, Hey, this is what we can do in the studio.” This is easier said than done.

On that second morning, Ed Boyer gathers the Bubs in the house’s great room, with its cathedral ceiling and wood beams, not to mention its panoramic view of Squam Lake. Each day begins with an hour-long discussion of what’s to come, followed by an elaborate set of warm-ups and exercises. Today the Bubs talk about recording Gnarls Barkley’s “Smiley Faces”—that morning’s project. They talk about what the song means. “Even if you’re not happy,” Chris Van Lenten says, “you’re putting on this smiley face and pretending.”

When it comes time to warm up their voices, Ed leads the exercises. After their usual warm-ups and scales, Ed asks certain Bubs to step out in front of the group and sing a song in, say, “the style of Greg Binstock.” Greg Binstock, an alum, had arguably the best solo voice in the history of the Bubs, but he had a certain swishy quality to his trills. It’s a round robin game of imitation. “Sing ‘Smiley Faces’ in the style of Jay Lifton,” Ed shouts, pointing to someone else. “Sing ‘Cecilia’ in the style of Marty Fernandi.” Marty Fernandi graduated before some of these kids were born.

This may all seem haphazard—overkill, even—but there is a method to Ed’s madness. “I’m trying to get the Bubs creatively invested in the recording process,” he says. “Because if they’re not invested they’ll stop contributing. I’m showing them how to sing outside the box. I need them to be spontaneous and unafraid. ” The biggest problem with a cappella recording may be capturing the combustion, the blood presence of a live performance. “I keep telling them,” Ed says, “don’t get hung up on rhythm and pitch.” With Pro Tools, with Auto-Tune, Ed can fix all that. “Just worry about keeping the energy up.”

The Vaill compound consists of two residences—the main house (a cavernous maze of bedrooms) and a guest cabin some thirty yards away. The cabin is outfitted like some Barbie Goes Camping play-set—what with the bedroom set seemingly made of Lincoln Logs. Ed Boyer ’04 has set up his equipment in this bedroom-cum-control room, the Pro Tools rig up on the computer screen, the soundboard to Ed’s right. Across the hall is a second bedroom—now a makeshift studio where the Bubs hang patches of gray foam, the kind legit studios use to dampen reverb and echo.

How exactly can the Bubs get
Code Red-
level professionalism out of this tree house? For one thing, when recording went digital—and portable—everything changed. The act of recording is no longer linear; you don’t have to record in a timeline. “You have the
authority
of the computer,” Ed explains. A great band might still record live. That’s ideal. “A live band finds their groove,” Ed says. “But what are the chances that fifteen guys will have that groove together?” Instead, the Bubs record individually with Ed, each listening to a cue track in his ear and singing directly into the mic. (A cue track is nothing more than a note-by-note recording of a tune—it might even be Ed playing, say, the baritone part to “In Your Eyes” on a keyboard, or a MIDI file of the actual arrangement. ) Since its introduction to collegiate a cappella in the mid-nineties, the cue track has revolutionized recording, in that each member can record separately—knowing that he or she will maintain the same pitch and tempo as the rest of the group. All of those individual tracks are then edited together in a painstaking, boring process. And what of the sound quality istelf? Thankfully, this is all what’s called close mic recording, and a Bub singing into even a half-decent microphone will produce usable audio.

Ed Boyer is surrounded by Matt Michelson, Andrew Savini, and a handful of Beelzebubs laid out across the bed. A freshman, Tim Conrad, sits over to the side, asleep on a rocking chair. It is four-thirty on Monday, January 8, and much of Moultonborough, New Hampshire, has iced over. The sun is starting to set when Ed asks for candles. He likes to work by candlelight when he can. It sets the mood, relaxing the gray matter and setting the stage for creativity. Someone runs down to the house and comes back with a couple of candles, which they light and set about the two-bedroom wood cabin.

Matt Michelson, the president, issues a warning. “Let’s try not to burn
this
house down,” he says. He is not kidding.

Why, exactly, Tim Vaill agreed to let the Bubs invade his New Hampshire residence time and again remains a mystery. Because this man, the founder of the Bubs, remembers exactly where he was when the Beelzebubs burned down another of his properties. “It was June first, 2005,” he says, matter-of-factly. And Vaill, class of 1964, was on vacation deep within the lush countryside of western China, alongside John McCarthy ’68 and fellow Beelzebub alum Ray Tang ’72. At some point in their journey Ray’s BlackBerry managed to pick up a signal—for a split second, anyway—just long enough to receive a message from Tim’s assistant back in Boston. She kept it short: “Your house in Somerville burned down.” It would be twelve hours before Vaill would get a Beelzebub on the phone. “I had no idea if anyone was hurt,” Vaill says. “And I was worried about the guys.” To make matters worse, the house at 157 College Avenue had been on the market, and just a few days earlier Vaill accepted an offer to sell the place.

Tim Vaill grew up in Bethany, Connecticut, just outside New Haven, the son of a Yale man, class of ’35—a man who in his day had been the head of the Whiffenpoofs, the first-ever collegiate a cappella group. There was always music playing in the Vaill household, and more often than not it was one of his father’s old Whiffenpoof records. When it came time to apply to college, the young Tim Vaill wanted to get away from New Haven and settled on Tufts (though whether he had the grades for Yale is another matter). His father’s parting words were, prophetically: “If there is an a cappella group on campus, join it. If not, start one.”