Read Online Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate a Cappella Glory by Mickey Rapkin - Free Book Online Page B

not surprising that the Hullabalumni (that’s what they call themselves), nearly a hundred strong, have such fond memories of their collegiate days. Though most never sang again—a few are trying to make it in Nashville, some on the indie circuit— they can take comfort in the fact that (much like Hasselhoff in Germany) the B’hoos are big in the Philippines.
    Though the Hullabahoos would hate to admit it, they’re more of a fraternity than most a cappella groups. (They’re also a bit like the United States Marines. Before each concert they circle up, put their hands in the center, and shout, “Unit. Corps. God. Country. Hullabahoos.” ) For one thing, the Hullabahoos have their own de facto frat house, aka the Hullaba-house—a four-bedroom, off-campus apartment on Wertland Street, across from a local landmark, Georgia O’Keeffe’s old place. Seven of the Hullabahoos live in the house, which, like most college residences, contains a glut of inherited furniture—food caked into the cushions like amber fossils of years past. The attic alone holds an efficiency kitchen, a full bath, a Ping-Pong table, two oversize papasan chairs, a futon, a magnetic darts game, and some scattered folding chairs. There is a thirty-two-inch television, an Xbox, and several predictable DVDs— Fight Club, Reservoir Dogs, the unrated edition of The Girl Next Door . One of the B’hoos also lives in the attic, having sectioned off a corner with a bedsheet and some rope MacGyver-style. The Hullabahoos have been renting the place for three years and it’s home to their postconcert parties.
    It’s like that with the Hullabahoos—most don’t fit the a cappella archetype (such as there is one). Morgan Sword—last year’s president, now the soul of the Hullabahoos—is a six-foot-four prep-school kid, the kind confident enough to wear Birkenstock clogs with white socks. As a freshman he expected to play club baseball at UVA before some girls in his dorm convinced him to audition for the Hullabahoos. When he got into the group he called his high school sweetheart, Lindsay Friedman (then a student at Williams College). She was indignant. “You can sing ?” she said. Morgan’s friends back home in Princeton, New Jersey, still make fun of him for being in an a cappella group. But Morgan is recognized on campus at UVA almost daily, and stardom—albeit the kind relegated (mostly) to a five-mile radius—is a nice comeback to any ribbing his buddies might dish out. “Girls I don’t know will come up to me and say, Hi, Morgan! I’m like, Hey, friend ! I never thought I’d get social respect for a cappella.” Pete Seibert is the music director of the group and his friends on campus make fun of him too. When they see him at a party, they like to run up to him and shout, “Oh, my God, are you a Hullabahoo !”
    If there is one thing the Hullabahoos are most proud of—more than selling out their campus concerts, more than their reputation overseas—it is their intramural flag football team. They’re called Hullabahoos B. What’s with the name? Well, Hullabahoos B implies that there is also an A team. The Sigma Chi frat house might have a Sigma Chi A team and a Sigma Chi B team—such is the demand for flag football among their brothers. “When we beat a frat,” says Patrick Lundquist, a brickhouse of a Hullabahoo, “we like them to think they just lost to the scrubs from an a cappella group.” Patrick’s can’t-miss plan for on-field domination in the 2006-2007 season: “A Peyton Manning-style hurry-up offense.” Before they called themselves Hullabahoos B, the team was known by a different name, the equally ironic Jazz Hands. They’ve placed as high as third in the UVA intramural league. Brendon “Bug Juice” Mason, a onetime high school football star who was recruited by William and Mary, is a second-year in the Hullabahoos, and he’s been a boon. How heated are the games? Last season, during the intramural play-offs,