Weekend of local rock volume 18

When I heard about a Battle of the Bands, that became a must-see date on my calendar. Where else could I catch eight bands slugging it out for cash and prizes chosen especially for them?

Ok, the "chosen especially for them" was made up, but the competition was real. Kudos should go to 96 Rock for sponsoring the event, Pirate Rob at delmarvanightlife.com for lining up the bands, and Brew River for hosting.

I have one confession to make though. Since I have a previous commitment on Friday nights which involves what I call "heaving the rock", I missed the first two bands in the bracket, which I'm putting below.

I realize the writing wasn't all that great (maybe they started on the Ketel One vodka a little early), so here's the way the brackets worked out. For your convenience, I added the Myspace band links too. Wasn't that thoughtful of me? And no, I did not try the vodka drinks.

Top left: Cottonmouth (Princess Anne, MD) vs. Code Anchor (Commack, NY)

Bottom left: Left of Avalon (Shadyside, MD) vs. Agents of the Sun (Baltimore)

Top right: Funksion (Virginia Beach, VA) vs. Pasadena (Pasadena, MD)

Bottom right: Bob (Washington, DC) vs. Below Sixth (North Beach, MD)

As I got there after the first skirmish between Cottonmouth and Code Anchor, I missed out entirely on Cottonmouth because Code Anchor won the judging fairly handily. Seeing that they're the most local of the groups, I'm sure I'll catch up to Cottonmouth sometime though. I picked up the action just as Left of Avalon was getting set to take the stage. They're my first band photo of the post.

When I saw them up there, I said to myself, "I've seen these guys before." Then I remembered that they used to be known as Project Sideways and played a lot around Salisbury. (I even have a picture of them from a couple years ago. That may have been the very first local music post I did, even before the 'Weekend of local rock' series.) So I got to enjoy once again a great song they did back then called "Wasted Dreams."

Next up was the veteran Baltimore rockers Agents of the Sun.

These guys have been around awhile, too. In fact, they were one of the bands at the very first local show I saw, which was a show out in the parking lot of the Civic Center held as part of the late, lamented Beast of the East custom bike show in April, 2005. And while I didn't necessarily agree with the judges, it was Agents of the Sun who advanced to play again the next night against Code Anchor.

Coming up from the south to perform next was Funksion.

I've seen these guys a few times and they remember me, too - they're nice folks who I'd like to see make the trip up here more often, although they're certainly popular around their home base. But they ran into a tough opponent in Pasadena, who had the crowd dancing with their mix of rock and hip-hop.

I only ended up with a few Pasadena shots on Friday. They're fine musicians but their musical style isn't really my cup of tea. However, they were the ones who moved on to meet the winner of the next bracket.

This picture was taken at one of those rare times when Bob was relatively still.

Bob hammered out about a half-dozen intense metal songs which I enjoyed, particularly "F*ck Cali." They went up against another group in a somewhat similar vein from the same area, Below Sixth.

The battle between Bob and Below Sixth took forever and a day to straighten out, but Bob narrowly edged Below Sixth. I'm not sure that having a few sound problems on their first song didn't turn out to be fatal to Below Sixth's chances because it was that close. For being a last-minute addition to the bill because one band dropped out I thought Below Sixth did a tremendous job and hopefully they make some return trips to our neck of the woods.

I'm adding an extra photo of their guitarist just because I thought it looked pretty cool with the single light behind him.

So Friday night's quarterfinals was in the books, and Saturday's semifinals shaped up to be Code Anchor against Angels of the Sun in one bracket, with Pasadena facing Bob in the other. But a funny thing happened over the next 18 hours or so - a family emergency involving one of their members forced Bob to pull out. That left just three bands and the potential of a bye for Pasadena.

Instead, Pirate Rob decided to have each band play twice and the winner would be determined by the average high score. They played in the order they would have had the competition gone as scheduled, which meant the New York-based Code Anchor led off.

Code Anchor put together a good set with songs that both have a hook and a sense of humor, even taking a brief time to rehash the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' theme. Most of the songs they'd play though came off the CD they had available for sale.

Then Agents of the Sun made their first trip to the Saturday stage. On Friday, they needed to get the crowd going (lead singer Ray said something along the lines of having a better crowd in an OC bar with 25 people in it) but Saturday's gathering was more to their liking.

Wrapping up round one was Pasadena. They didn't have as big a crowd as they did on Friday night so I got better pictures.

One thing that I found interesting but I believe better for the competition was that they didn't reveal the first-round scores to the crowd. So the bands may not have known whether they were ahead or behind, although I don't see any of these guys resting on their laurels or playing it safe in an event like this.

Again, Code Anchor started round two.

Agents of the Sun followed with a blistering set. I thought they were the only band which improved between sets, Code Anchor and Pasadena seemed to be about the same.

Wrapping up the competition was Pasadena, who again delved into the regions of hip-hop and rap.

I'm going to deviate from the actual order just a bit here. Because there was still some time before closing after the judging, the bands decided to have a free-for-all jam session. In looking at this picture though it appears only Code Anchor and Pasadena members decided to participate.

I saved three final pictures, one from each band. They'll be in reverse order of how the judges rated them, so in third place it was:

Agents of the Sun was just edged out for second by:

Personally I would have flipped second and third, and arguably Agents of the Sun could have been first. But your winner, representing the peeps of Long Island, was Code Anchor.

I definitely enjoyed the competition, although I didn't always agree with the judges. Had Below Sixth made it past the first round, it would have been two really good semifinals and perhaps they would have won the whole thing. And certainly I favored Funksion over Pasadena as well. (I also was handed a copy of Funksion's CD as well - told you they were nice guys. Sometimes it pays to be a regular fan of local music because a lot of bands are pretty generous.) Anyway, Funksion put together a solid set of 10 songs on their effort, called 'Selling Fiction'. It's a little heavier than Code Anchor's CD but still radio-friendly in the vein of Nickelback.

If it were up to me, it would have been Code Anchor vs. Left of Avalon (barely) and Funksion vs. Below Sixth (again by the thinnest of margins.) After that, anyone would have been a good winner.

I'll have more pictures sometime tomorrow on my Myspace site (they may just comprise a new photo album because I took a LOT of pictures and over 100 came out decently) - but wait, there's more! I'll also post my thoughts on the recent Staind/Seether/Papa Roach show I attended as well. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures from that show but that's all right - those guys have plenty of exposure anyway.

Aside from that, have a Happy Thanksgiving!