Complaint Choir

Setting Philly's petty grievances to music

by Shaun Brady

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Published: Nov 5, 2008

Mark Stehle

Chips seem to be a natural fit on Philadelphians' shoulders. No matter the topic, somebody in the city will find something to bitch about.

Hell, in the days before Game One, Shelley Spector is complaining about the Phils making it into the World Series — precisely because it means we can't complain about them losing the pennant.

Complaining is Spector's business these days. The artist and curator of SPECTOR Projects has teamed up with First Person Arts to set Philly's petty grievances to music, adapting the international phenomenon of the Complaint Choir to our own particular pet peeves. Here in Philly, an all-volunteer choir has gathered to vent, in song, its collective frustrations over these perennial hassles: SEPTA, casinos, horse and buggies and especially New Jersey drivers.

"Complaining is a national pastime and a bonding experience," says Spector. "People really unite through negative energy."

The idea belongs to a pair of Finnish artists who gathered the first Complaint Choir in Birmingham, England, in 2005. Since then, the concept has spread around the globe, with Choirs popping up in Helsinki, Chicago, Singapore, Budapest, Jerusalem — there's even a version consisting of orange-jumpsuited Penn State students whining about classes over a medley of pop tunes. The originating artists have given their blessing to these offshoots, with a set of guidelines on their Web site, which then hosts a video of the final product.

Spector first encountered the Complaint Choirs during a trip to New York last summer, where the MOMA satellite gallery P.S.1 hosted an exhibition of Finnish artists. "I wandered into this room and there were four videos playing Complaint Choirs from different parts of the world," she recalls. "I didn't know what I was watching at the time, but I eventually realized what was going on and came back to Philadelphia really wanting to figure out how we could have one here."

Around the same time, Spector was introduced to First Person Arts founder Vicki Solot and thought the project and her organization would be a perfect fit. But with a festival less than three months away, Solot resisted at first. "Then I was standing in the shower thinking, 'How can we pass up this opportunity?'" Solot says. "And I jealously thought, 'What if somebody else jumps on it?'"

The two parties came to the project from different perspectives. Spector originally ran a gallery for emerging Philadelphia artists and has since moved on to a more project-based approach including Art Jaw, a Web site collecting stories from the local art community. She sees the Complaint Choir as an extension of that work.

"A project like this is whimsical on top, but with really hard underpinnings to anthropology," she says. "It tells a lot about the people who made it and when they made it and where they made it. That's really interesting to me."

Whereas Spector approaches the choir from a visual arts perspective, with the final video in mind, First Person Arts' organizers see it as more of a performance piece. "For us," says Solot, "it's a way of getting people engaged so they recognize that their feelings and thoughts and ideas are shared by others. We all have specific, individual stories, but there's also a collective story about Philadelphia and the things that we all share."

Beginning in early September, a team of Complaint Collectors began canvassing the city, and First Person Arts hosted a "citywide gripe session" at the Gershman Y to begin drafting singers (and game non-singers) for the chorus. In a series of rehearsals over the ensuing month, the choir steadily grew to more than 50.

"The people who are here," says Spector, "are here because they like to sing or they like to complain, or they like to sing and they like to complain. So it's been very high-spirited."

Looking to make the song distinctly Philadelphia, composer (and Vicki's husband) Evan Solot gave the piece a Philly soul feel, albeit with a few diversions along the way — such as the litany of automated phone responses ("Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed/ Your call will be answered in the order it was received") in four-part harmony, or the lovely "Bach chorale-style" refrain, which spells out "dog poop."

The end result is a catchy harangue against everything from the government's response to global warming to pot-smoking roommates to gas pain. "We wanted to find a balance of stuff that was really personal and quirky, stuff that was indigenous to Philadelphia, and stuff that was international, that everybody would know and understand," explains Spector.

In the days leading up to their official First Person Arts concert, the chorus will perform a series of public shows in Rittenhouse Square, Suburban Station and other locations, including Love Park. As Spector points out, "It's so wonderful that we're going to be standing in front of the LOVE sculpture singing about things that we hate. That's very Philly."

Wed., Nov. 12, 6 p.m., free, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St.; for all tickets call 267-402-2055 or visit firstpersonarts.org.

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