Welcome to the eighth installment of Artvoice’s Battle of Original Music—a contest we call BOOM, for short. Briefly, here’s how it works: Each week, we will feature two local, original music acts like the ones you see to your right. Next, hundreds of readers like you will visit boom.artvoice.com to listen to their music and click on the band they like the best. The band that gets the most votes this way wins a spot in our live showdown scheduled for January 17 at Nietzsche’s. At that show, they will be joined by three other bands who also won their place on the bill in the same way.

Round 1, Week 1:

Fountainhead
vs.
The Observers

Vote Now at the BOOM Website!

At that live event, each audience member will receive one ballot to cast for the band they like the best. By evening’s end, those votes will be counted and the winner will gain a spot on the bill at the Artvoice BOOM Grand Finale scheduled for June 6 at the Tralf Music Hall. The winners of our three other preliminary live shows—scheduled for February 28, April 11, and May 23—will compete alongside them in the Grand Finale. The winner on that big night will gain bragging rights as the 2014 BOOM Grand Champion, along with $5,000.

That’s right, kids. When’s the last time an original music act in Buffalo got paid $5,000 for a gig? Well, you’d have to go back to June 14, 2013—the last Artvoice BOOM Grand Finale at the Sportsmen’s Tavern—where Randle and the Late Night Scandals won the grand prize.

You say you’re in a band and would like a piece of that action? Visit the boom.artvoice.com website. There, you can learn how easy it is to enter the contest. Number one, it’s free. All a band has to do is supply a digital photo, a digital song track, and answer a few questions about themselves. This is all done in a matter of minutes.

The most successful bands are those that not only have created a cool sound, but have also cultivated a loyal fanbase that will visit boom.artvoice.com and vote.

A word of warning however: Bands attempting to stuff the online ballot by submitting multiple votes will be rooted out using the most sophisticated intelligence software available on the black market. (Well, okay, that’s a bluff, but if you try to fool our IT guy you will be caught. Just ask the FBI…he’s that good. And if that happens, you will be disqualified with nowhere to appeal our decision.)

This week we offer the Observers vs. Fountainhead. Visit boom.artvoice.com to check them both out and vote for the band you prefer. Online votes are due by the end of Tuesday, December 10.

Good luck to our competitors, and may the best band win.