March 31st Battle fo the Bands

Some of you may have noticed that we've been shying away from the results of last Saturday's "Break Into The Big Gig" contest at the Up & Under, sponsored by 102.1 FM. There is good reason for this... THE CONTEST WAS BULLSHIT!!

We tied for second place with a great band called Billy Dreamer who were PHENOMENAL. The winning band however, was a Kings of Leon wannabe band from New Berlin that was still in high school. Brodie (Up & Under owner) informed me that the drummer was only 14!! Some "fans" (2 parents and a bunch of teenagers with fake ID's) were seen buying multiple ballots. They beat us and Billy Dreamer by 20 votes, and there was no way IN HELL they had 20 more people than we did. Here's an email I sent to 102.1 FM concerning this issue:

"Greetings,

Last Saturday (March 31, 2012), my band was part of the battle of the bands competition that was connected to 102.1 at Up & Under on Brady Street, with a chance to win a spot on a main stage at Summerfest this year. I have been involved in this contest with 2 different bands over the last 3 years. Generally each one has gone as expected and we've enjoyed participating, with the exception of last Saturday.

2 out of the 3 bands (including the one I'm in) tied for second place, and are bands that have been a part of the music community in Milwaukee for years (13 in my case), but the winning band was a high school band from New Berlin that none of us had ever heard of. This band consisted of musicians that were not old enough to drink, and the owner of Up & Under informed us the drummer was only 14. This seems concerning, in that persons of no less than 18 years of age are allowed to work in a drinking establishment (playing in a band falls under this umbrella), and patrons of that establishment are to be no less than 21 years of age (and their "fans" were definitely not). The situation was highly uncomfortable for those of us of legal drinking age, not to mention that we were informed that the parents of these children were buying multiple ballots. Their vote total at the end of the night was 34, and in a venue the size of Up & Under, 34 people that were not the regular non-voting patrons or fans of the other 2 bands would be highly noticeable in means of the place being filled beyond capacity.

In the future, if you want to open up a contest like this to children, you may want to consider using an all-ages venue, and not a legal drinking establishment.

Thanks for your time,
David Wiese"

What I didn't rant about in the email was the overall appearance  of this band. They were a Kings of Leon wanna-be band and reeked of every stereotype of trust fund baby band. The band consisted of 2 guitarists that had 7 guitars on stage with them consisting of Gretsch, Fender, Gibson, and a few others (none of which were less than $500 in value). The bass player had a '61 reissue Fender Jazz Bass (at least a $1700 bass) as well as a Ric 4003 (also over a grand). One guitarist had a Vox AC-30, and the other had a tweed I couldn't make out. One of their moms was even carrying guitars for them as they were leaving. They couldn't stick around for the ballot count because it was apparently PAST THEIR CURFEW!!

So with all this bullshit, we have decided not to attach anything to this contest as a band.