The Cellar, a former music venue in a Columbus home, sits empty. Credit: Juliana Hilton | For The Lantern
In the spirit of being thankful, Team Ball — a local artist collective — will host its first “Thanksgroovin’ Get Down” event Saturday, showcasing multiple Columbus bands.
The event will be held at local music bar Double Happiness — located at 482 S. Front St. — with doors opening at 6 p.m. and music starting at 7 p.m. Presale tickets can be purchased for $5 by messaging Team Ball on Instagram, with tickets at the door sold for $10, according to its Instagram.
According to their website, Team Ball is an artist collective founded in 2019 with the goal to further its exposure and career in the music scene. In the past, Team Ball used its house as a makeshift concert venue called The Cellar. However, according to its Instagram, it was met with a cease-and-desist order from its landlord early November, ordering it to stop hosting shows.
Although this may sound like a setback, Ted Woyak, public relations coordinator for Team Ball, said this obstacle is a push for the collective to develop.
“I think as soon as the cease-and-desist happened, we all came together that night and were like, ‘Alright, well, it’s time to get even more serious about the things that we’ve been building,’ and it’s not even been like two weeks, and the amount of work that we’ve already put in has just been insurmountable,” Woyak said. “This is not the end. If anything, it’s the pivot into something even bigger.”
Max Tuber, the creative director of Team Ball, said this is the collective’s first show outside the house, and it’s excited to work with Double Happiness for the Thanksgiving-themed event.
Isaac Roe, the live events coordinator for Team Ball, said there are four bands performing, each with a unique sound contributing to the groovy vibe of the show.
“We’re pretty stoked about the lineup for this show,” Roe said.
Included in the lineup is Roe and Tuber’s band Dairy Family, and Tuber said he is excited to have the collective’s good friends in the show.
“We’ve kind of got a nice extended lineup of a bunch of our friends that we’re excited to have featuring with our band and, yeah, we’re just excited to play as well,” Tuber said.
Nico Linik, the media director for Team Ball, said finding acts for the event was easy, as the bands made connections with each other as local artists.
“Just from like, playing shows or even, like, getting to know the people in the bands,” Linik said. “Just through playing shows in our bands and meeting people, we’ve built those connections that just make it so much easier to be like, ‘Hey, you know, we’ve played with you before. We know you’re sick. We want you on this bill that we’re putting together.’”
Ariyah Wallace, also known as Riyah, the first artist performing at “Thanksgroovin,’” said her first gig was in July ,and she’s excited to be part of the event.
“I’ve been kind of performing consistently since July, but I’ve never had, like, a holiday-themed bash, which is really exciting just because it’ll get people more excited to come and listen to music,” Wallace said.
Wallace said she plans on performing both original music and covers at the event. Because she is new to performing, she said she is having fun trying out new types of music.
“I’ll be doing ‘Prototype’ by OutKast, what else will I be doing? I’ll be doing ‘Diddy Bop’ by the rapper Noname,” Wallace said. “I started rapping a little bit too with my music. I’m just experimenting with my sound currently, right now, so I thought that was, like, a really good song to cover.”
Wallace said she performed at Double Happiness before and is excited to experience the ambiance of the venue again.
“I love performing at Double Happiness because it’s such an intimate space, and you can be intimate with your audience and actually interact with people,” Wallace said. “It’s a very accepting place, anybody can come, and I really love that. I love just having a really diverse audience watching me because I think my music is for everybody.”
Tuber said his band, Dairy Family, will play mostly original music but also plans on playing some covers.
“We’ve got some stuff that we’ve never played before that we’re going to be playing at this show that we’re really excited about, as well as debuting a new cover we’ve never played before as well,” Tuber said.
Tuber said the name of this show is fitting as the news the collective received from its landlord has allowed the group to take the next steps to become something bigger.
“I think it even goes back to the name of the show, like, we’re genuinely thankful for the kick in the a** a little bit,” Tuber said. “Getting to do something Thanksgivingwise makes sense.”
