Three nights down. Nine bands tested.
The battle is on.
You can taste the dreams in the air, the moist sweetness of hope and excitement mixed with the seductive bitterness of ambition and ego. The upstairs performance space of the Science Fiction Museum - the venue hosting the 4th Annual Sound Off!, Experience Music Project's 21-and-under battle of the bands series - has been transformed into a bubbling cauldron of adolescent emotion.
Groups of teenagers from around the state cluster in cliques reminiscent of a high-school hallway. They congregate around their friends, separating according to which city or town they hail from, what styles they choose to endorse.
Here we have the punk rockers, their foot-high Mohawks and liberty spikes bobbing up and down in time to heated conversation. Over there are the hip-hop kids in doo rags and baggy pants, arms folded, waiting in steely composure. In the middle are the mop-headed, indie-rock hipsters, their as-yet-untried emotions worn not on their sleeves, but on the dangling ends of colorful silk scarves.
The smell of sweat and sexual tension intensifies as the room fills up. Boys and girls eye one another with as much cool decorum as they can muster. Girlfriends cling to the arms of boyfriends. Boyfriends pose and posture for the benefit of girlfriends.
The tension is not solely the result of crude hormones. These young people are in the midst of trying on identities, modes of being, acting, feeling and thinking that are tied more closely to collective tastes in music and style than they are to something deeply personal. Each group of kids here is starving for validation. Whose town will be the best? Whose musical style will come out on top? Whose choice of icon will rise triumphant from the ranks of competitors?
The battle takes place over four Saturday nights in February, all emceed by DJ Harms from local rock station 107.7 The End. The first three Saturdays were elimination rounds. Each night, three bands took the stage and one band emerged victorious. They were judged on song composition and arrangement, creativity, originality, musicianship and audience response, and the winners were decided by a revolving panel of judges made up of local musicians and music-industry professionals. The fourth night - this Saturday, Feb. 26 - marks the showdown between the finalists.
The atmosphere in the crowd is tempered with the presence of other generations. This is truly an all-ages event. There is a roped-off section of chairs to the right of the stage reserved for family members, media people and music-industry representatives. Parents and grandparents pull out cameras in anticipation of their descendants' performances. Reporters and recording-label scouts sit quietly with open notebooks.
Running around the chairs and passing between clustered groups of teenagers are small children, the younger siblings of performers and fans alike.
Like the teens waiting in front of the stage, these older and younger folks are hungry for their own brands of validation. For the parents, this is a matter of family, of support, and many of them are as giddy, in their own way, as their offspring's age mates. As the teens in front of the stage want to see the standard-bearers of their own personal style emerge victorious, the family members want their children, their grandchildren, their brothers and sisters to be successful in their endeavors. Regardless of who wins, they are thrilled that their sons and daughters have this opportunity to show what they can do.
The momentum has been building steadily since the first elimination round on Feb. 5. Handshakes, a Tacoma duo that fuses electronic instrumentation with rock styling, easily won the opening round against Seattle rock bands The Neons and Paper or Plastic.
The second round, Feb. 12, boasted a larger crowd and a more eclectic lineup. The Tacoma punk band Nameless Danger faced off against Seattle hip-hop crew Aluzjun (pronounced "illusion") and the Marysville indie-rock band The Last Romance. None of the bands displayed all that much originality, but Aluzjun and Nameless Danger at least put on deft performances that really got their fans and friends moving. The Last Romance was decent, but their vocals were shaky and their arrangements a bit overwrought.
After the performances were over, DJ Harms called out the names of the bands in succession and asked the audience to cheer for their favorite. Aluzjun was the clear favorite of the audience poll, but The Last Romance, for some unknown reason, was picked as the winner by the judging panel.
The third round on Feb 19 had by far the biggest turnout and the most memorable and original lineup of bands. It was a tough call to decide the winner between Tacoma's The Paramours, Bainbridge Island's The Gruff Mummies and Anacortes' Squid vs. Shark.
The poppy rock stylings of The Paramours were tight and catchy, but the real contest was between the Theremin-infused, theatrical glam-rock of The Gruff Mummies and the whimsical ferocity of Squid vs. Shark (whose roster includes an absolutely fantastic 11-year-old drummer). In the end, Squid vs. Shark swept the audience poll, and The Gruff Mummies were picked by the judging panel to move on to the final round.
It was so refreshing on the third night to see some girls performing. The Gruff Mummies have a female keyboardist; Squid vs. Shark, a female bassist. Considering that Sound Off! is in part a way for teens to say to other teens, "Hey, look what people our age can do," it was important to showcase a feminine presence on stage, especially for the benefit of the girls in the audience.
The lines have now been drawn. It's a three-way contest in the finals this Saturday between Handshakes, The Last Romance and The Gruff Mummies. The prizes on the line include an opening slot for the band Presidents of the USA at one of their local shows in 2005, the opportunity to play Bumbershoot, guaranteed airplay on 107.7 The End's local music show "The Young and the Restless" and professional production on a demo CD. Regardless of who wins, it promises to be a charged evening, full of teen drama and white knuckles. If you've forgotten what it's like to be young and passionate about popular music, the Sound Off! finals are your chance to reacquaint yourself with the melodramatic highs and the lows of teenage hood.[[In-content Ad]]
