Local Bands Compete

Five local bands, all with ties to the Harvard community, competed last night in a Battle of the Bands.

The Humming, a group of two Harvard students teamed with childhood friends from Vermont, and FinkFankFunk, a 10-piece funk cover band, shared the first-place prize of $500.

Stovepipe #9, whose lead singer works as a security guard at the Science Center, walked off with a second place check for $100.

The Dudley House Committee organized and promoted the event, which was staged at Lehman Hall in the southwest corner of Harvard Yard.

Robert Paluzzi, lead singer for Stovepipe #9, said he was excited to have the opportunity to perform at an event with such an eclectic mix of musical styles.

"We were like a mudslide coming in after a bunch of concrete. I felt like we brought an organic element into the mixture," Paluzzi said.

UsagiPop, the band that performed immediately before Stovepipe's set, featured an electric guitar, bass, keyboards and a DJ with turntables and a drum machine.

W. David Marx '01, UsagiPop's guitar-playing lead vocalist, said the band has gotten much of its influence from ambient and electronic backbeat sounds currently coming out of Japan.

Marx said his band, which currently uses long sampled interludes in between instrumental segments, is still searching for its own unique sound.

"We don't have a real drummer," he said, adding that the band prefers the artificial drum sound. "We're trying to fit somewhere in between that DJ sound and the rock sound."

The two winning bands boasted the largest and most active audiences of the evening. However, the prizes were not awarded by popular vote. A panel of three musically-inclined graduate students gave each band numerical points in four categories: originality, quality of composition, stage presence and audience participation.

FinkFankFunk performed last and featured the largest musical arsenal of the evening: five horns, drums, keyboards, guitar, bass and a feather-boa clad lead singer, who spent most of the set on the floor crooning and strutting amidst the audience.

The Humming, a Vermont band that has evolved from a funkier sound into something more akin to pop, went on second in front of a contingent of loyal fans. Humming member John Thomasson, who is a member of the class of 1999 and plays the trombone, the flute and the didgeridoo, a long pipe that emits low sustained sounds, said he was glad to have the chance to perform again at Harvard.

"It's so hard to have live music at Harvard. Everything is set against you," he said. "It's great that the Dudley House Committee went through all the hurdles to put this event on."

The concert featured a professional sound and lighting system. The event attracted an energetic crowd of around 100, although organizers said they had hoped to attract more.