Battle of the Bands Update

Spirit

This week on Dr. John's Record Shelf, we matched up the 6 and 11 seeds in the Southwest and Northwest brackets in our ongoing Battle of the Bands competition. That meant the Monkees (6) took on Spirit (11), and Steppenwolf (6) went up against Moby Grape (11). While the Monkees offered a strong track in "Pleasant Valley Sunday," they ended up being upset by Spirit's rollicking "I Got a Line on You," the second maor upset of the competition so far. All three judges (Art Vandelay, Squeegy Beckenheim, and Tom Rosiek) gave props to the Monkees (Art actually voted for them) but the split decision went Spirit's way, so they move on to round two.

Steppenwolf

In our second contest, Steppenwolf was represented by one of their true classics, "Magic Carpet Ride," while we heard "Omaha" by Moby Grape. Once again, it was a split decision, and again a couple of judges (Squeegy and Art; the third judge was Natalie Rosiek) almost talked themselves into a different conclusion. But Steppenwolf eked out a close victory. I feel a little bad about this one for selfish reasons: since Squeegy was visiting the studio, I gave her my vote and I would've opted for "Omaha" if that weren't the case. Oh well-- such is the nature of such a tournament; sometimes personal favorites fall by the wayside.

If you are a newcomer to the blog, and want to see the four regional brackets in our little competition, you can find them here, here, here, and here. In earlier action, The Byrds, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Lovin' Spoonful, the Gants, the Cowsills, and the Outsiders all advanced to round two. The whole competition will unfold over the next ten months, on my radio show, which can be heard at 90.9 fm if you happen to be in SW Montana.