Shooting the Shit with Sports Bar

11 years ago

Photo by Max Schneller

Have you ever been to a show where the crowd ends up moshing and waltzing? The answer is probably no. Let me tell you about a ramshackle group of friends who call themselves Sports Bar, who actually made that happen. The band recently embarked on a short tour of the East Coast which began on a Friday night in Brooklyn at Death By Audio. Before their show, we sat a bar across the street where we shared gross puns, drank beer, and talked about their penchant for great titles.

Photo by Max Schneller

The band was actually founded by Kemper Blair (bassist/vocalist) and Stuart Holt (drummer), and they eventually added guitarists Brent Delventhol and Mark Miller. Back when it was just Kemper, Stuart and former guitarist Cliff Boyd, the band was called Shart Attack. I thought the name was hilarious and awesome, and when I ask them why they even changed it, Kemper explains, “Well, you know whenever someone would ask us our band name we’d say, ‘Shart Attack’ and then they’d say ‘Shark Attack? That’s awesome!’ Then we’d explain what it really was and they’d just go ‘Oh’ and it got really old.” Fair enough.

Their latest effort is called Tyler Perry’s Sports Bar. When I ask them about the title, Kemper and Stuart both shrug and say they were just sitting around trying to come up with the funniest name. If you look at the album art of Tyler Perry’s Sports Bar, it looks like they all had a craft circle together, everyone adding a touch here and there until their collage was finished and they glued on SPORTS BAR to remind everyone of their extremely un-Googleable name. Guess what? That’s exactly what happened. The album is kind of an Easter Egg of garage rock––every song as catchy as the last and each song title as memorable. The two standouts are “Movie Screams” and “Oh No!”, both which have an earnest sadness to them that reminds me a little of The Replacements. This is a huge compliment, as The Replacements now rightfully stand as gods (on top of stacks of beer cases) of alternative rock. When I ask them about the earnestness behind those songs, guitarist Brent playfully responds, “We’re dynamic dudes, okay!” Not everything is a fart joke for these guys.

Photo by Max Schneller

With one exception: at the end of the night we all jokingly agree that their inevitable Best Of album should be called Greatest Shits. With that, the unassuming crew heads off to play a live set for a bunch of kids who shower the band with Belieber levels of adoration. These guys deserve it, and you can tell they’re having the time of their lives up there as well. They close their set with “Oh No!” and a young man calls out for his girl to come join him up close to the stage, they begin waltzing and everyone makes room, as if a circle pit has just started up. I’ve never seen this kind of thing happen before, but it somehow makes sense that it would happen at a Sports Bar show. The next morning, the band posted a picture of Kemper sitting on the toilet, with the biggest grin on his face. Dynamic dudes indeed.