1,300-member suburban congregation northwest of Chicago.
Kyle Cartwright (right) and her son, Adam, are pluckers.
words like “genius” to describe him. This year’s show theme is “new and improved,” partly because the church’s recent renovation enables the band to perform their fall show in air conditioning for the first time. If his- tory holds true, surely there will be a sellout crowd at each show come Sept. 23, 24, 25 and Sept. 30, Oct. 1 and 2. Plenty of Bottle Band groupies will be in attendance, but some folks will be dragged along for the first time. Band member Steve Jaracz said that’s the most fun—“watching people who have no idea what they’re in for.” The band is divided into two groups of blowers (treble and bass), pluckers (those who pluck or pull fingers out of the bottles) and bottle- phones (those who strike the larger wine or liquor bottles with a mallet). The pluckers and bottlephones aren’t used in every number, so they also play (blow) the bottles.
Band member Sonia Hayden describes the bass bottle players as “the younger, studlier” men, plus bagpiper Emily MacArthur “because you need a lot of air to play the bass bottles.” The pluckers are also mostly men, in addition to Kyle Cartwright, who Phillips calls the band’s “lead- ing lady.” You have to have fingers large enough to seal the bottles, and be able to read music and have rhythm, Hayden explained.
Hayden is one of seven bottlephone
players, who are all accomplished musicians. With all the flashy pluck- ing and hitting going on, it’s easy to discount the treble bottles, she said. “But they’re the glue that holds every- one together. They’re the oompa. They provide the chords, the bass, the cornerstone. ... And when it goes well, it goes really well.” Hayden’s parents play the treble bottles, her husband plays the bass bottle and is a plucker. Bottle Band members are the first to admit to nepo- tism. “Someone literally had to die for me to get in,” one member said, only half-joking. Roughly 50 people have played in the Bottle Band over the years, many of them coming to the group by marriage. The band includes 12 couples. Four members have died and about 20 have moved away. Three of the current 26 members have par- ticipated from the beginning, includ- ing Phillips. All are members of the
OFTEN IMITATED •
Through the years, the band has raised more than $200,000 for chari- ties and their church, all the while putting on a good show and giving its members a chance to be completely silly in front of a crowd. As one mem- ber described it, “We get to be our- selves about three times a year.” “They’re here because they enjoy doing something different,” said Phillips, after listing off all the accomplished musicians in the band, delicately adding that there are also those “who don’t have an excessive amount of music talent. ... But they can read numbers and play on a bottle and they have a sense of wanting to have fun and do something slightly irreverent once in a while. They’re bankers and lawyers and accountants who have a chance to do something that’s very different from what they do at work.” “We enjoy being able to entertain, to make others laugh,” added Phil- lips, who names P.D.Q. Bach (Peter Schickele) and Spike Jones as his inspiration. “Humor is a great [gift], particularly when times are rough. We need opportunities to laugh. It’s good for the people in it, it’s fun for the audience. And it appeals to a wide variety of ages. Kids love it because it’s silly and funny, but we also do sophisticated music that musicians love.”
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