There’s a list of rules on the wall of Bub City, a country-themed barbeque restaurant and bar in River North. There are 11 of them in a bulleted list, and an italicized note at the bottom that reads: “You have to learn the rules before you can break them.”
It blends into the rest of the venue’s cluttered decor, but DePaul senior Alexander Lehr points it out above the heads of the gathering crowd. The Los Angeles native is a freelance live audio engineer for venues across the city and for the past three years he’s been working at Bub City’s live band karaoke every Wednesday night.
The room is a sea of Patagonia-clad finance bros in slim fit trousers sipping bottles of Bud Light and women in smart blazers swaying to the music. At the night’s peak there are easily 300 people crammed together.
Alexander is holding an iPad — a sort of mobile audio engineering set up — and with the push of a button or the movement of a slider he can change how loud each member of the band is, what volume the microphones are at, or even mute them altogether.
It seems like the patrons at Bub City might need to read the rules before entering with how often the band has to chastise them for the progressively drunker behavior on stage.
“No backstabbing”
Tim Webb, Alex’s boss and the general manager of Bub City, walks over. Before Alexander can even greet him with a fistbump, Tim teases over the karaoke: “Want to hear all the bad things about him?!”
Tim has only worked at Bub City for about a year — two fewer than Alexander — and looks the part in the barbeque restaurant, wearing a red flannel and blue jeans.
When Alexander isn’t working Wednesday nights at Bub City, he’s taking freelance gigs at Joe’s on Weed Street near Lincoln Park, The Empty Bottle in Ukraine Village and taking on-call jobs at street fairs in the warmer months. He’s on track to graduate in June and plans to keep freelancing afterward.
“I’m happy about it but it has left me with (this feeling) like I’m sitting here thinking what does graduation even mean?” Lehr says. “I’m just going to wake up and go to work the next day.”
“No disco”
“I like to think I bring the disco to Bub City,” he says.
It’s quite a literal statement. There’s a disco ball spinning above the makeshift dance floor that Alexander explains is controlled by a switch over on the back wall. He’s the one that gets to flick it on and off at the beginning and end of his shift.
Alexander takes his phone out of his pocket and pulls up D2L. He starts clicking through one of his class’s content pages before pausing and laughing at himself.
“I was about to download a pdf to my phone to submit to D2L but it’s not due tonight! It’s due tomorrow at 2 p.m.!” Lehr says.
His Sound Recording Technology classes focus on in-studio recordings and less on live performance capturing and how to make that sound good through huge speakers. Alexander says there is crossover between the two audio modes, but they’re not the same.
His classes can’t teach him how to stay employed as a freelancer. He has to figure that out for himself.
“No know-it-alls”
There are plenty of songs on the list of karaoke choices that Alexander is sick of. “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers is sung twice that night, and every Shania Twain song is performed by a man. Alexander can’t remember the last time he actually saw “That Don’t Impress Me Much” performed by a woman.
The only song he knows all the lyrics to (or is willing to admit it) is “Redneck Woman” by Gretchen Wilson. He gives a mock-performance of the song in the back corner of the room while it’s being performed on stage, mouthing along to the words and nodding his head to the beat. His go-to karaoke song is “Love Shack” by the B-52s, but the band doesn’t know that one.
He moves to the middle of the room to check the audio levels there — each part of the room can sound different from each other — when his other manager, Mya Evans, spots him. She’s also greeted with a fistbump.
Over the music she tells him that the day prior, a group of at least 80 people must have shown up for live band karaoke. Tim thinks it was closer to 120 people. They were coming after a work party and even after being told live band karaoke is only on Wednesday nights, they still asked if it could happen that night. They were told no. Alexander shakes his head but doesn’t seem that shocked. Neither does Mya.
“No questions asked”
Toward the end of the night a trio of women take the stage for their live band-backed performance of “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot. The spoken intro is almost hard to watch as the women drone into the microphone to the near-silent room, but as soon as the first notes from the live band ring out, every millennial freaks out. There’s a slight push toward the stage before the crowd begins to yell the lyrics with the karaoke participants. Alexander is standing in the back of the room, watching the spectacle in front of him.
“I’ve liked becoming an adult here, it makes me realize it doesn’t mean anything,” he says.
The iPad lowers slightly to his side. “Baby Got Back” is still being performed on stage.
“I’ve seen people embarrass themselves and get too drunk and sing horribly and throw up and get rejected by the girls they’re trying to dance with. Maybe it’s scary because that means those things don’t stop even when you’re 40. But maybe it means it’s a normal part of life.”
Karaoke ends at 12:30 a.m. There’s a steady outflux of people chugging the last of their drink, fumbling for their coats and stumbling toward the door. Alexander jumps up on stage to help the band tear down.
Tim walks back over toward the sound booth, then looks over at Alexander cleaning up the stage.
“He’s too nice,” he says with a smile before leaving to bring in the tables that were taken away to make room for the karaoke crowd.
Alexander is finally done wrapping up cords and taking apart microphone stands a little past 1 a.m.. He has class in the morning and a few more freelance gigs this weekend. He’ll be back at Bub City next week.
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