Barbershop Quartets in SPIN!
Last summer, Brown gave me a fellowship to conduct a journalism project on a topic of my choosing. After thinking for a while, I settled on something close to home: barbershop quartets. For those who don’t know, I grew up in a singing family. My dad is a rabid fan of barbershop music — which is perhaps best described as a stripped-down, old-school version of college a cappella — and my brother and I were once fans, too.
So when I learned that OC Times, a young barbershop quartet out of Southern California, was making waves in the Barbershop Harmony Society by trying to “modernize” the golden-era art form, I had to check it out. What resulted was a 6-page feature in next month’s SPIN magazine, called “Imperfect Harmony,” that chronicles OC Times’ rise to cult stardom and profiles the group of anti-modernists (called “KIBbers,” for Keep It Barbershop) who are fighting the OC Times phenomenon. The article isn’t online yet, but a clip should be available on this site soon, and you can pick the issue up at newsstands everywhere. It’s the Lily Allen cover, and it looks like this:
The reportage for the piece took place over a three-month period, during which I attended the annual barbershop convention in Nashville and spent Labor Day Weekend in Orlando with OC Times (whose real names are Sean, Patrick, Cory, and Shawn). They’re great guys, and all the barbershoppers I worked with on the article were immensely helpful. I’m really proud of the article, which features amazing photos taken by Bob Croslin.
Shortly after it came out, Cory from OC Times sent me a cell-phone photo of the four quartet members reading the article in an airport newsstand on the way to a show.
You can read more about OC Times at their site, and about barbershop music at the BHS website.
UPDATE: A few exclusive photos from the OC Times shoot (that didn’t make the magazine spread) are now up at photographer Bob Croslin’s blog.
Thank you for recognizing and featuring the ever-evolving musicianship of barbershop-style a cappella singing. I am a proud member of Sweet Adelines International and love the energy of this organization and its diverse membership.
— Dana Dunlevy
January 25, 2009, 9:47 am
Hey Kevin, You chose a great topic! Congratulations. I am going out to get an issue today!! Thanks for the heads up.
— Mary Milian
January 25, 2009, 9:59 am
Thanks Kevin for bringing this into a Pop Culture setting. It’s nice to finally see some real music groups being covered instead of the every day crap that goes on the radio. I’m a 23 year old college student that is heavily involved in my chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society and it’s a pleasure for me to be able to pick up an issue of SPIN and see that they too are, in their own way, working to preserve barbershop quartet singing in America and across the globe as the BHS continues to grow. Thanks for the wonderful article it’s much appreciated…even by those who would much rather just “keep it barbershop”.
— Shelby Damron
January 25, 2009, 12:16 pm
[...] blogged about my SPIN article on barbershop quartets last week, and have since gotten a bunch of e-mails from barbershoppers asking where they could read the [...]
— Kevin Roose: The Blog » Blog Archive » SPIN article on barbershop quartets now online!
January 31, 2009, 4:19 pm
Wow I am honestly the first comment to your great writing?!
— Clarence Acosta
June 1, 2010, 1:21 am