KELSEYVILLE — There are more talented young musicians in Lake County than you can shake a stick at; drumstick, that is. Many of them showed up to compete on Thursday evening at the first Kelseyville Kicking in the Country street dance of the summer. Music Chairman Bobby Rowe thought that an old-fashioned battle of the bands would get the summer series off to a good start.
Master of Ceremonies for the evening, Joey Luis, introduced the first of the five Lake County teenage bands to do battle during the evening and four young men calling themselves Pond Scum took the stage. Pond Scum played a number of original songs.
Diatom went next and offered up some well done classic rock covers and an original tune.
Smooth was third and performed some funk and classic Santana.
The Lost Boys roared out of the gate with their version of Johnny B. Goode and added a nice cover of Come Sail Away by Styx.
Chamber Puppet finished the battle with a yin-yang type of set. They opened with an eloquent instrumental all on acoustic guitars and then switched to electrically charged heavy metal.
Judges for the contest were Robert Callahan, marketing manager at Robinson Rancheria Resort and Casino, Paul Buttita of Earmite Music in Kelseyville and Gary Dickson of Lake County Publishing.
When the scores were tallied, Smooth wound up as the winning band. Smooth consists of Hamed Hokamzadah on keyboards, Alicyn Yaffee on lead guitar, David Ferrarrio on base guitar and Isaac McQueen on drums. The band received a check for $600 from the Kelseyville Business Association for their winning effort. Diatom placed second and will receive some free studio time.
An additional element of the Main Street event was the raffling off of an electric guitar signed by the legendary English musician, Joe Cocker. The proceeds from the raffle will help the KBA fund future events for the public.
The winner of the guitar turned out to be an interesting side bar story. Carla Gallagher produced the winning ticket when the number was called. But, she said she had been given the ticket by a young girl who had to leave early. The girl had asked her to give the guitar to the keyboard player of the Lost Boys, if her ticket won. It did and Matt Weiss and his band didn”t win the battle of the bands, but Weiss went home with a Joe Cocker signed guitar. Not a bad ending.
At the end of the evening, a lot of proud parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends left with good memories of seeing their family member or friend perform in their band, live, on stage, in front of a big audience on Main Street. That”s a good gig when you can get it.
Contact Gary Dickson at gdickson@record-bee.com.
