Saturday night's ACRN Battle of the Bands was an interesting marriage between venue and performances, filling The Wire with band members, concertgoers and a wandering Snat the Lobster, the student-run Internet radio station's mascot.
Six bands, including Now Hiring Dancers, Chase the Tide, She Never Sleeps and Fine Dining rocked the small stage at the end of the room for an allotted 15 minutes each. Local band Love and Squalor emerged victorious at the end of the night, with Helvetica is for Lovers taking second place.
Love and Squalor, a three-member punk-rock band, played fifth in the line-up, and garnered perhaps the most favorable crowd response, despite a small delay to replace a broken guitar string. Drummer Jeffrey Kell said it was a normal occurrence at the band's shows.
Singer and guitarist Jason Swearingen said he really liked The Wire, a local community space, and said the event was sort of like a house show but professional sound. The benefit helped the bands get heard, raise money for All Campus Radio Network and raise awareness of The Wire, he said.
Bassist and singer Joel Henderson said he had not heard of The Wire before and said it was a laid-back show.
ACRN Programming Director Kim Trick, an Ohio University senior audio productions major, said the station does fundraisers regularly. Other benefits include shows at The Front Room, bake sales and T-shirt sales. Each band paid $20 to perform.
We're always doing something to raise money to keep going
she said.
Judges for the show came from a variety of local music places. They included representatives from OU's School of Music, WOUB's Night Shift and Haffa's Records.
We didn't want it to be a strict ACRN thing; we wanted to get a lot of people involved Trick said.
She said the winning band received two weeks of airplay on ACRN, an on-air interview on ACRN and 10 hours of recording studio time at 3 Elliot Studios. Helvetica is for Lovers also will be played on ACRN.
The programming department ran the Battle of the Bands, and Trick said they wanted to have a show with all local bands, in part to show that the station is a resource for local bands. The station runs School of Rock a show featuring music from local bands from 4 to 6 p.m. Fridays.
ACRN General Manager Liz Reid, an OU junior audio productions major, said the benefit brought in about $100 dollars; 15 percent went to The Wire for using the space. Tickets to the show were $2 a person.
The studio time at 3 Elliot Studios is worth $250, Trick said, which the radio station will repay in on-air advertisements
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Megan Chew
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Jason Swearingen, singer and guitarist for Love and Squalor, a three-member punk-rock band, restrings his guitar before playing for ACRN-sponsored Battle of the Bands at The Wire, a local community space, on Saturday night.
