Ever wished you could sit at a pub with a bunch of friends, new and old alike, and sing rousing songs together with a drink in your hand and delicious food on the table?
Now, at Treetown Pub Sing, you can.
Hosted by Forrest Hejkal and Laura Crouch, Treetown Pub Sing currently meets monthly at Conor O’ Neill’s. It’s a capella, so anyone can stand up to lead a song without any need to worry about instruments and there’s no signup or registration required.
“We had kids dancing through the middle of the room at the last pub sing,” said Crouch. “It’s a very informal ‘gather at the pub and order food and drinks’ event.”
Hejkal and Crouch introduce the premise and welcome people every month, and Hejkal usually kicks things off with a song. In-between songs it gets rowdy as people are eating and drinking and talking, sharing in the event’s communal and accessible nature with others.
What sorts of songs do people sing? There tend to be a fair number of sea shanties, work songscand traditionals that lend themselves well to pub sings with simple repeating choruses, said Hejkal.
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At the last pub sing, they had someone stand and say, “I’m so confident everyone knows this song that I’m not going to teach a word of it,” and then launched into, “What do you do with a drunken sailor?” “And yes,” said Hejkal with a laugh, “the room knew it!”
Hejkal said he’ll encourage the room in a certain direction, but they welcome all (semi-family appropriate) songs. At the last pub sing there were a lot of protest and spiritual songs, and someone sang an improvised song where they did a “repeat after me” and made up each line as they went. Someone sang a song in Nigerian with a simple chorus. One person even sang, “Sweet Caroline”. A microphone is available, but the organizers don’t emphasize its use—the norm is for a person to stand up and just lead a song from right where they are.
Crouch and Hejkal are drawing on the traditions of England, Scotland and Ireland, where there are a lot of pub sings there. Hejkal notes that many major U. S. cities have pub sings as well—“The model exists here, in slightly different ways.”
The organizers see Treetown Pub Sing truly striking a chord amongst its attendees, in both an immediate way but also in a reverberating way.
“Welcome to your local anti-fascist pub sing,” said Hejkal with a laugh that belies the intentionality behind his statement. “Treetown Pub Sing touches some kind of chord: this desire for a communal, social, participatory experience. There are people of all persuasions and all places here, but there’s something to the statement that, ‘If anyone knows about occupying forces and how to stand up to them, it might be Ireland’ This community is resistance and anti-fascism, but it’s also just holistic humanity. How we fight fascism is also just how we build a better world.”
Crouch said she’s seen the event as so impactful, that people are just on a high from it afterward.
“In the month since the last pub sing,” she said, “everyone I’ve met who was at the last one, the first thing they say is how much fun it was and they want to bring friends next time. Lots of enthusiasm!”
Hejkal hosts a lot of events, including a couple of monthly open mic nights, and he said, “I love open mics, but that’s still just one person getting up and sharing while the rest of us listen. This is something that is participatory, and you can bring something of yourself that you love, but it’s everyone singing it with you.”
Hejkal notes a lovely anecdote of someone whose kid kept asking him to sing the lullaby he sings to her at night, and he felt insecure about his singing voice, so he tried to find someone else to lead the song. The room encouraged him to sing it, because it’s not about how good someone can sing: “If it’s good enough for your daughter,” says Forrest, “it’s good enough for us.” And other people knew the lullaby, and the room joined in.
The event maxed out Conor O’ Neill’s event room capacity at the last pub sing at 110 people. Hejkal notes that the first pub sing, he and Crouch knew at least 70% of the attendees; the second pub sing, he didn’t know half of them. He loves that new people are coming in and trying it out.
It’s still new, so the schedule and location is in process of being formalized. Depending on growth, it may become a twice-monthly event. You can follow Treetown Pub Sing on Facebook and Instagram, as well as messaging them to join their email list.
Crouch believes that the people who are really resonating with the pub sing are all in a space of wanting to connect with and know their neighbors right now. She loved seeing individual people come in and join tables where they don’t know anyone, and then everyone ended up singing the songs together. “We’re all sharing these songs and feeling love and neighborly community, and yes there’s this wee thing about how fascists are going to lose. We don’t beat around the bush with that.”
Hejkal reflects, “I read an article last month entitled something like, ‘Seven reasons to host that silly little potluck,’ and it was talking about the notion that there are tactics in standing up to fascists, but they’re not actually that complicated. Blowing a whistle, being there, calling a number, showing up, standing in a crowd, all of these things are important pieces–but you’re not going to be able to mobilize in that way if you don’t have these community connections built. If you don’t know your neighbors. If you don’t know who you can trust and who’s there. These are the building blocks of resistance, of a better world where we are in local community.”
Hejkal notes a quote by J. R. R. Tolkien that he believes truly encapsulates the purpose of Treetown Pub Sing: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
“We just want to be together,” said Hejkal. “This is humanity. This is our nature. We want to be together in a participatory way, and that’s what singing and art was for 99% of human history: a communal experience.”
Follow Treetown Pub Sing on socials or email to join their next pub sing!
