A Battle of the Bands

A few weeks back, in the midst of the NCAA basketball tournament, I got into a conversation with one of my colleagues, known as the Rock Doctor, about the best American rock bands between 1954 and 1974. Those are the end-points for the very fine radio program he does on KDWG (which also airs Dr. John's Record Shelf) called Drive-Time with the Rock Doctor, every episode of which consists of a countdown of records based on some particular theme relevant to that time-frame (Top Twenty Merseybeat Groups; Top Twenty Motown Singles; Top Twenty for 1965; along those lines). Anyway based on our conversation, I decided to add a feature to my show for the new season starting next fall, namely a battle of the bands, formatted the same way as the NCAA tournament, in regions. To keep it manageable, and allow for a few surprises in the lineup, I used the criteria set up by the Rock Doctor-- limiting it to groups in the '54-'74 time-frame and only actual bands, not just backing groups for star front-men. I ended up having to move some groups into brackets that didn't actually match their background, but they do that in the NCAA too, so I don't feel too bad about it. I've seeded the groups based on a general sense of popularity or influence (and the balance between those vary from band to band), and matched them up for first round face-offs. Each week on the show this fall, I'll play two pairs and have a vote among myself, co-host Art Vandelay, and a guest judge as to which bands will advance to the next round. It'll take until Christmas to get through the first round, then we should be able to get through the rest of the tournament in the Spring. Then the next year we can do it again with different criteria (maybe British bands, or a different time frame). If anyone reading this would like to be a guest judge, let me know and we'll figure out how to include you. Meanwhile, here's the Northeast bracket (I'll post the other three over the next couple of days); comments/arguments are welcome:

Northeast
1. Velvet Underground
16. The Monks

2. Lovin' Spoonful
15. The Fugs

3. Three Dog Night
14. The Nazz

4. Turtles
13. New York Dolls

5. Steely Dan
12. Barry & the Remains

6. The Rascals
11. The Flying Burrito Brothers

7. The Raspberries
10. Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show

8. The Cowsills
9. Blood, Sweat & Tears