A bloody battle

Who won a local battle of the bands? The out-of-state promoters.

by Sam Pfeifle

ONCE IS ENOUGH: even the battle of the bands winner, Riot Act, say they'll "never do anything like that again."

When asked about the recently concluded battle of the bands at the Asylum -- or New England Live Music Showcase, as it was officially titled, but never called -- Johnny "Jam" Martinez, lead singer of Riot

Act, sighs wearily, "We'll never do anything like that again." Sour grapes from one of the 45 bands that came away losers? Nope. Riot Act won the whole shebang.

In a relatively small market like Southern Maine, local, young, and up-and-coming bands are as desperate for attention as your typical 12-year-old latch-key kid, and the battle of the bands can seem like an attractive way to make a mark. A band like Riot Act takes home the title and, along with a passel of music-related prizes, they get a nice line on their resume to show to club owners and concert promoters, all the while playing gigs with a bunch of other young bands who bring their own fans out to see everybody play. Or so the theory goes.

"There was a van in the prize package and studio time. We thought it might be worth our time," reasons Martinez in hindsight. "But it got a little weird." After hearing other bands' tales of broken contracts and pay-to-play battles, that seems like a gross understatement.

The finger pointing is coming from numerous directions, and the majority of it is directed at Chris Viarella and Mark Gianelli, independent promoters of the Asylum event. "The whole thing where you have to sell 100 tickets to play, that seems sketchy to begin with," says Christian Muccino, guitarist for Liquid Daydream, one of the seven bands to make the finals. He's referring to the fact that each band had to sell 100 tickets, at five bucks a pop -- or come up with $500 out of pocket -- in order to continue on to each successive round of the battle. "The most tickets sold got the best slot," says Muccino. "We sold 150 the first two shows, 240 for the third show. In the semis we got the best slot."

That's $2700, all going to Viarella and Gianelli, from just one of the seven bands that made it as far as the finals. Forty-six bands paid for the first round alone, pulling in a cool $23,000 right off the bat.

Of course, Liquid Daydream, a relatively established band from the mid-coast area who've been playing club dates for years, had an easier time of it than others. "Whenever we handed in our tickets," says Muccino, "the other bands had to hand over their own money."

The Valkyries, a three-piece, heavy-rock outfit from Brunswick, worked hard to promote their night, pushing their show on WMPG and on their Website, and posting flyers around town, but still weren't able to get all the way to 100 tickets sold. "It really did feel like we were paying $500 to play the Asylum," says Rose Larkin, the Valkyries' manager. "But I think you could play any club in the USA if you went up and offered them $500. Most bands were paying the money out of their own pockets."

Larkin is even more perplexed about the ever-changing contracts, which originally stated that WCYY would sponsor the event at the Stone Coast Brewing Company. Neither ended up participating in the battle of the bands.

And the rules seemed in a constant state of flux, too. "The same bands were playing that hadn't won in the previous rounds, because they were able to come up with the money," says Larkin. "Some of these bands must have come up with a few thousand dollars." Viarella claims that wasn't the case: "The ticket sales only settled ties, but they did matter because it's the music business." He reasons that bands selling more tickets is good for everybody. "It initiates more people to the bands, and makes for a better night. Hey, we're all in the rock scene, we want to pack the house." Of course, a packed house meant full coffers for Viarella and Gianelli, who offer no apologies.

"It was something that we did in Massachusetts with a heavy Budweiser sponsorship at the Rock Pile in Saugus, at Mamakin in Boston," says Viarella. "We did one in Manchester at Chantilly's. The normal course was to go north to Portland." And despite what anybody else claims, Viarella maintains he's the one who got screwed on the Asylum deal. "Portland was a whole different beast," he says. "People didn't promote the thing well.

"A lot of bands came up lame in Portland," Viarella continues. "Twenty tickets, 40 tickets. We supply them with a Friday night at one of the biggest rooms in the area, we have advertising, a prize package. We're giving them everything they need to succeed, but they need to go out there and promote."

To prove his magnanimity, Viarella notes that he did let one band, Angry Child, continue on after not raising the required cash. They were jettisoned when the same thing happened in the next round.

According to the contract with the bands, moving from round to round depended on "songwriting, musicianship, originality, presentation, and crowd response, with ties determined by ticket sales." But if you didn't come up with $500, you didn't go anywhere.

As for the people evaluating the songwriting and other qualities, Martinez has just one question: "Who the hell were the judges?" Throughout the event, Viarella and Gianelli refused to reveal their identities. Jen Barnes, the Asylum's manager, best sums up the doubters: "Every show, besides the finals, the judges left before the last three bands even played. And they can't get away from it because there wasn't anybody in the place at all. I knew everyone there."

"That's not true," Viarella contends. "If you were a judge would you stand right in front? They [the judges] could have been a sound man or light man. Some of them were sponsors, and they didn't want their names going out. You can't put judges in a bad situation. We had musicians. We had record people."

Regardless of the judges' secret identities, it was clear what was really important. "Read the contract," says Martinez. "I realized how important it is to sell your allotment of tickets. Read between the lines and you can see what they really want." Hence, the bands had to take on the mantle of promoter, advertiser, and street-corner huckster, as well as supplying the talent for the event. For the finals, Riot Act went on a "ticket-selling rampage" to ensure one of the best slots, says Martinez. "I did a hard sell, and I didn't like doing it." But the opening rounds were another matter.

"When we realized we weren't going to make the quota," says Martinez, "we were at like 72 tickets. We bought our own tickets and gave them away. I'm not afraid to say it. All the bands did it. In the opening round, you knew that they bought the tickets, because the place was friggin' nowhere. There was nobody there."

The promise of making new fans, playing in front of a diverse audience, all went down the same drain the bands were throwing their money.

As for Viarella and Gianelli's purported $10,000 in advertising, the bands would love to know where that went. "I heard something maybe once a week on the radio," says Liquid Daydream's Muccino. "The Asylum had a little bit in their ad, but they said they were going to be really talking the bands up, and our names weren't even in the Asylum's ad." And Viarella admits that they advertised on WJBQ only. "We do radio only," he says, "and in-house stuff," whatever that is. With 'JBQ sponsoring the affair, it's hard for anybody to believe the pair spent very much at all on promoting the event, as a sponsorship usually involves providing discounted radio ads in return for linking the radio station with the event.

Martinez certainly has his doubts. "I didn't read a lot about it," he says, "there was nothing on the radio, even the Q, and they were supposed to be promoting it. I'm not sure how much was allocated for promotion, but we did say, `Jeez, it would be nice to read something about this.' " Then he laughs, "We're not going to write anything about it, that's for sure."

All this adds up to a Maine music community that hopes Viarella and Gianelli stick to Massachusetts. Says Larkin, "I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anybody. Some bands got really abused."

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com.