Local promoter Steve "Psyko Steve" Chilton may have borrowed the idea of assembling a bunch of local musicians and randomly assigning them bandmates, a "rock lottery," from bigger cities like New York City, Seattle, and Dallas, but the resulting show was all Phoenix. In February, members of Captain Squeegee, Jimmy Eat World, the Whisperlights, The Stereo, Avery, Source Victoria, Ladylike, Where Dead Voices Gather, Snake! Snake! Snakes! Wooden Indian, and other Valley luminaries took the stage at Crescent Ballroom, with only an afternoon's worth of time to prep, and performed brand new material.
The ensemble names tended toward the silly — Beer Barbacoa and the Ballroom Burros, Bitch Choir, DCKSPLT, Auto-Tune-Workout — but the resulting music was surprisingly, okay, astonishingly cohesive. The idea was likely a goof, but it ended up being yielding goods that had Phoenix feeling pretty damn great about its music scene.