Hangover Days

“KOA” by Pendergast from Between the Bottle and the Pulpit

The phrase love hangover implies one of two outcomes of an evening.

Maybe something bad happened last night. You got your heart broken. You hit the bottle like George Jones falling off the wagon. The last thing you remember is riding your lawn mower to the liquor store.

Or maybe something good happened last night. It was worth spending $30 on Jäger shots. That throbbing headache will go away eventually. You just need some breakfast.

Richard Alwyn has heard plenty of versions of both stories during his first decade hosting the Love Hangover at various dives in New York City and Raleigh, North Carolina. The annual event showcases male-female duets from lovers, strangers and — with a bit of serendipity — exes.

"Unbeknownst to me, I once paired up two people who had dated," Alwyn says. "The only rule is that it's two folks singing about love. I think people have just as much fun doing anti-love songs."

Last year, Alwyn invited Scott Easterday (of the Kansas City band Expassionates) to perform at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn. With only one rehearsal the day of the show, Easterday and his partner, Dana Kletter, knocked two tunes out of the park. This year, Easterday and Alwyn — former bandmates in the Roose­velts and Big Red Fish — will curate the Kansas City debut of the Love Hangover. Here's a sneak preview of songs that the hung-over harmonizers are tackling.

Elaine McMilian and Scott Easterday: "Liza's London" by Expassionates

"I was able to take a tiny piece of my reality and explode the story into something much bigger," Easterday says. "It's set in London during the blitz. There is a lot of inference, nothing is very narrative, but I still think it translates and people can imagine their own story around the framework of the lyric."

Kasey Rausch and Tony Ladesich: "KOA" by Pendergast

"The song is about two people who sort of fall in love at first sight," Ladesich says. That has always sort of been my love M.O. The sentiment is hand-in-hand down the highway — no idea what's going to happen next."

Abigail Henderson and Chris Meck: undecided

"From this camp, at least, love has little or nothing to do with roses and schmancy dinners and more to do with bringing back the bloody head of a guitar thief and sticking it on a pick in the front yard," Henderson says.

Calandra Bidwell and Tommy Donoho: "A Song for You" by Gram Parsons

"It has that slow-dancing-under-the-disco-ball-lights kind of sound," Donoho says. "We want to romance the folks. It's what we were hired to do."