Chattanooga Times Free Press - ChattanoogaNow
The best ’20s party since The Great Gatsby
Time-twisting musical collective Postmodern Jukebox is traveling the country with its latest stage show, Welcome to the Twenties 2.0 Tour, to usher in the upcoming decade of the 2020s.
“Last time round, the 1920s gave us jazz, America’s one true art form. Who knows what is possible in the 2020s,” says Scott Bradlee, founder of Postmodern Jukebox, commonly referred to as PMJ.
“One thing that is for sure is that there are a lot of folks that are tired of the clickbait headlines, mindless reality TV and smartphone addiction that has only served to divide people in the last decade. We’re using our small corner of the pop culture space to tell people to forget their troubles, and join us for a night of celebrating true musical talent and timeless style.”
Postmodern Jukebox became a phenomenon on the strength of its musical mash-ups that put a vintage twist on current pop singles.
Bradlee, who started out shooting videos in his basement apartment, is the musical maestro who achieved fame through the power of social media. His 2012 debut video — in which Robyn Adele Anderson covered Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop” in a 1920’s style — topped a million views its first week online. To date, it’s gotten more than 15 million hits.
Last week, the newest video was added to the PMJ YouTube channel — Dani Anderson’s cover of “Chandelier.” She will be among the 11-member cast (five singers, 6 instrumentalists) traveling with Welcome to the Twenties 2.0 that stops in the Tivoli Theatre tonight, May 2.
“It (the PMJ twist on ‘Chandelier’) has this chamber orchestra, vintage vibe that has a real classic feel to it. One of the really cool things is that Dani can do operatic style, but this has a horn section and electric guitar in there, too. It’s very unique, very cool,” said Adam Kubota, PMJ bandleader and bass player, during a telephone interview.
Kubota has played with PMJ since its early days in 2011-12, when Bradlee was first posting on social media. He met Bradlee while getting his master’s degree. Both guys eventually moved to New York; Bradlee called and asked him if he wanted to play and Kubota agreed, even though he was in Brooklyn Law School at the time.
“I didn’t drop out of law school, I just did both and didn’t sleep ever,” he jokes. He got his law degree in civil litigation with a focus on intellectual property and copyrights.
For fans who saw PMJ in its April 2018 show in Chattanooga, tonight’s performance will be a new experience, says Kubota.
“We never do the same show twice; every time we come to a city it’s going to be completely different songs and performers. We are always sending new people to places we’ve been before. We improvise a lot and we are all, by nature, improvising musicians,” says the bass player.
Concertgoers will hear him featured on “All About that Bass.” He predicts Gunhild Carling will be an audience favorite.
“I am constantly amazed by her. She sings, tap dances, plays trumpet, trombone, bagpipes, oboe, bass and sometimes multiple instruments simultaneously. She usually gets a standing ovation every time she performs. I’ve never seen anybody else in the world who can do what she does,” says Kubota.
However, it’s the audience that the musician says is the X factor at PMJ shows. Kubota says the PMJ cast includes some dancers and they never know when a spontaneous dance may break out onstage.
“But keep an eye out for the audience, because the crowd really knows how to dance. We’ve found that sometimes there are some pretty talented people in the crowd.
“Any rules or conventional ideas about concerts you’ve been to before — pretty much toss them out the door.”