The Catapilla Project

Dedicated to harnessing the incredible power of music

Rockin' Garage

Little Steven's Underground Garage Battle Of The Bands 2004

Little Steven's Underground Garage is a nationally syndicated radio show that celebrates and showcases unsigned underground bands from all over the country and is hosted by Steven Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen sideman and The Sopranos co-star. A competition was held to decide which unsigned band was the best garage band in the country. Many large cities held regional finals and Philadelphia's turn came May 14-16, 2004 at the Pontiac Grille on South Street. For the first two nights twenty local bands competed to be in the final four and come back on the final night. Each band only performed two songs in the semi-finals so it was difficult to get into any of them. Obviously, there was a lot of downtime for set-up between acts. Non-competing headlining acts had full sets at the close of each night so about 24 different groups were heard at the event. It was very exhausting and I only was there for the last two nights!

The winning group in Philly were the Dipsomaniacs but the real story was the variety of bands that played. However, only a few stood out, mainly on style or look and not the music. I would say it was overkill. Just ten bands competing would have been much better. Still, I got to see a lot of good music and music fans and might have appeared on MTV2's coverage of the event. I managed to get to know one band, Suns Of Ivy, and get their album. I only came back for the finals because they made it. So, I felt bad for them when they didn't win. One image stands out for me - one of the members sitting on the sidewalk outside the Pontiac and being comforted by their girlfriend. I saw their disappointment first hand and told them they got at least one new fan from the competition. That's a part of being involved in local music and the experience will stay with me forever.

Gallery

I took lots of cool shots of the event. However, I need some help. There were a bunch of the bands I can't remember the names of and can't find the line-up for the event anywhere. Anybody who knows these bands please drop me a line.


The Place: The Pontiac Grille
The Contestants (night two and the finals)

Suns Of Ivy	Faux Bear	Sissy Mary

Doughnuts	Dipsomaniacs	Desoto Jones

Jukebox Zeros


The Headliners