Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate a Cappella Glory by Mickey Rapkin

,” he says. “I’m glad I don’t have to be there to figure it out. I’m glad that isn’t my problem.”
    No, that would be Ben Appel’s problem.
    The first thing one should know about Ben Appel is that he’s young. He ran for music director in the spring of 2006, at the end of his freshman year. It wasn’t so much that he felt ready for the job—he just felt he was more ready than the other prospects. “I felt it was my duty to run,” he says. It seems the group agreed.
    Still, Ben did not run for music director on a whim. You can’t in the Beelzebubs. There is an established protocol for seeking higher office here and it involves consulting every current member of the Beelzebubs individually , stating your intention, presenting your platform, and opening the floor to questions. (It becomes especially awkward when one candidate for music director must approach the other candidate for the job.) Second, it’s become customary for candidates to call a litany of past officers— Bub alums stretching back forty years—to get an understanding of what the job entails. In some cases, a phone call with Danny Lichtenfeld ’93 or Deke Sharon ’91 might turn into a three-hour conversation on the intricacies of the university administration or on navigating internal group politics. Ben Appel ran on a platform of the Bubs’ motto: Fun Through Song. “He didn’t want to rule with an iron fist,” says Matt Michelson, the current president. “Ben didn’t want to do things just because of protocol.” How so? “There have been times when the Bubs ran like a machine, ” Michelson says. “We’d have a gig. We’d sing. We’d leave. Ben wanted to focus more on the performance.” He wanted to take the machine apart.
    In the fall of 2006 the Bubs returned to campus with plans to record a new studio album (as decades of Bubs have done on alternate years practically since the beginning). And this group was taking the task seriously, to be sure. Early in the year, the Bubs had a nine-hour meeting where they did nothing but debate the title of the new album. They have had similarly endless conversations about the direction the album should take, about the problem with verisimilitude. When your music is indistinguishable from the original tracks, what do you do next—get more real? That will be the essential question of this album, and the biggest hurdle for Ben Appel and the Bubs. The group will have help with the task—namely, from Ed Boyer, who shared music-director duties on Code Red and is now a full-time a cappella producer living in the Bronx. Boyer—paunchy, red-faced—graduated in 2004 from the dual-degree program at Tufts and the New England Conservatory. He and his business partner, John Clark (an alum of the coed Tufts Amalgamates), have made a name for themselves in a cappella circles. “Bill Hare got ninety percent of the credit for Code Red ,” Ed says, “which is fine, even though I did most of the work.” Boyer has agreed to produce the new Bubs album, which is scheduled for release in the spring of ’07.
    But the album’s direction falls squarely in Ben Appel’s lap. And Ben has his own ideas—ideas the Bubs are thrilled about. There is talk of going in an entirely new direction, opting for a real organic sound. Ben is even talking about making this a concept album, with tracks leading directly into each other, possibly with dialogue as connective tissue. But Ben Appel’s biggest asset may be his attitude. To lead a group with such rich history, a group whose alums are often still involved in the day-to-day business of the undergraduates, one must not be awed by the legacy. And Ben isn’t.
    Unfortunately, though most of the Bubs don’t know it yet, just a few weeks into the 2006-2007 school year, Ben Appel, their new music director, is about to drop out of school.
    In late August 2006, just before the Orientation Show, Ben Appel disappeared for three days. He’d literally left rehearsal for