BRATTLEBORO — Fierce competition is expected between six area youth bands playing in Youth Services' Battle of the Bands on Friday, Nov. 3, from 7 to 10 p.m., in the River Garden on Main Street.
This is the fourth time Youth Services has hosted a Battle of the Bands over the past decade. The public is encouraged to attend and vote for their favorite group with their applause. Competing bands are: Raspberry Jam, Notion, Fiig, Moxie, Outer Space, and Impending Exorcism.
Opening the event will be a performance by the indie-rock band Nomad vs. Settler, who gained visibility when they won the Battle of the Bands in 2015.
The youth bands competing include the alternative music of Raspberry Jam, from Turners Falls and Greenfield, Mass., which blends pounding rhythms with intricate guitar work heavily influenced by The Strokes. They have a collection of original music that will soon be released as a free album.
Local audiences were first exposed to Notion, a Manchester, Vt., band, at the Brattrock 2017 Youth Rock Festival. Notion emulates the indie rock style of Mac Demarco, Phish, Talking Heads, and many others.
Fiig, of Westminster, plays rock and funk, while Impending Exorcism, all 17-year-olds from either Brattleboro or Whitingham, have spent the last year and a half growing “into their skins” as punk musicians and performers.
The band Moxie is described as “opening a fine bottle of classic soda pop, a SoVT mash up which emits a non-stop effervescent fountain of all-original, bubbly, super-danceable, 80s-esque indie rock.”
The youngest and smallest band, Outer Space, features the two Paquette brothers of Brattleboro on four instruments playing space rock and sometimes punk. They also competed in the 2015 Battle of the Bands.
Masters of Ceremonies will be Brattleboro Union High School seniors Rhys Glennon and Miles Hiler, both musicians and performers in their own right.
Judging the Battle are adult musicians Samirah Evans, Spencer Crispe, Eugene Uman and youth judges Owen James, 13, and Archer Parks, 16, from the 2015 Battle-winning band, Nomad vs. Settler.
First prize for Youth Services' Battle of the Bands is a full day (up to 10 hours) of recording time donated by Guilford Sound, valued at $1,500. A residential recording studio retreat on 300 private acres in Guilford, the high-tech studio is owned by sound engineer David Snyder. The first-place winners will also receive 12 custom-designed T-shirts of their band logo, donated by Pure Green Tees.
Second prize is two-hour rehearsal and band coaching session at Headroom Stages, a local musical venue at 17 Elliot St., Brattleboro.
Third prize is two private vocal lessons with Samirah Evans, a professional jazz and blues vocalist who performs regionally.
“The Battle of the Bands is an exciting event for everyone in the region. Please come help cheer on the budding young artists in the area,” Youth Services Executive Director Russell Bradbury-Carlin said in a news release.