Ryanhood was invited by Students Against Destructive Decisions (S.A.D.D.) to host Battle of the Bands Friday night in the Rincon/University auditorium where seven bands went head to head in a rock out frenzy. First place earned five hours of recording time at Allusion Studio, and of course, bragging rights. All of the competing bands were talented but only one drew inspiration from the Jurassic period.
It takes quite a bit of brain power to come up with a band name like Jurassic Parking Lot, no question about it, but it takes four well practiced musicians devoted to creating original music to win a cutthroat competition. Jurassic Parking Lot is comprised of lead singer and guitarist, Elliott Morse, drummer, Zach Wojtowicz, lead guitarist Chad Vietti and Phil Hielman on bass.
They had planned on “wingin” their performance, but really, in anticipation of the battle, Elliott scoped out his opponents on Myspace as well as posted and re-posted his bands website, http://www.myspace.com/jurassicparkinglot three or four hundred times a day on Facebook in order to increase popularity and establish a group of Jurassic Parking Lot lobbyists. In addition to politics, it took passion and countless hours of practice to win.
Zach has only been playing the drums two years but practices the most out of his bandmates. His rhythms are a tremendous ingredient in the euphonious music the band creates—they are unique, complex, and extra loud. When asked how he expected Battle of the Bands to turn out he answered, “They’re all better than us, but we’re gonna win.” He was confident in Chad and Elliott, who have been guitarists for over a decade, in Phil who has been playing bass five years, and in their originality and hard work.
They put in several hours and string multiple ideas together in order to meet their musical standards. The most important aspect of creating pre-historic new music is the originality factor. Jurassic Parking Lot pledges to focus on making music that has intrinsic value—music with both instrumental and lyrical meaning. The band believes that music is a “fun way to create art” and has found it to be a habitual outlet for expression. When asked if they have a formulaic approach to constructing music they answered like true pragmatists—they do whatever works, exploring every possible approach to music making. No formula’s, no rules. They just want to be proud of the music they orchestrate and they want to have fun doing it. Incorporating each musicians musical tastes, however, is a difficult task.
It took roughly a year to agree on an overall sound and it takes several days of debate and compromise to write a single song. Luckily, in the end, the four members always find themselves at a consensus. All of them agree that “The Problem” is their favorite Jurassic Parking Lot song. It took a combined effort to develop and it holds an enormous emotional significance to the band. It began as a guitar melody and grew to be a truly original piece. It’s the kind of song that gets stuck in your head and you can’t stop yourself from singing it and nobody around you asks you to stop singing it because they like the way it sounds. It evokes the exact response any band would want and need to survive a Battle of the Bands competition. Maybe that’s why they chose to play it last Friday night. The audience absolutely loved it. Many leaped on stage enthusiastically, danced with the band, and ran around the stage with bright cut-out dinosaur signs. Elliott’s posts had obviously worked.
Jurassic Parking Lot is anxious to get in the music studio and produce more tracks. Keep an eye out for them in upcoming performances, or book a gig with them, whatever the venue they are sure to deliver a star quality performance.
GO SUBTLE!!