CONGRATULATIONS, MANICS! You collected the most votes this past week, so you proceed to our live quarterfinal at Nietzsche’s on December 26. Up this week, we have A Hotel Nourishing vs. A Fine Farewell.

How can I, as a music fan, participate, you ask? Simple. Start with our selections below for week three - visit and bookmark boom.artvoice.com to check out last week's bands, and watch the contest as it moves forward. Each week, simply place your vote for your favorite. The power, as we just learned on November 4, is in the hands of the people. Bands are encouraged to get out the vote any way they can short of stuffing the ballot box. Our IT guy is very savvy, and he’ll be monitoring the votes more closely than an election lawyer in Ohio. If you’re caught cheating, you can be disqualified. And there’s nowhere to appeal our decision.

The rewards for the winners are great. By next week, one of the two bands below will have collected enough votes to proceed to our first live quarterfinal—scheduled for December 26 at Nietzsche’s. There, each audience member will be issued one ballot, which they can use to vote for their favorite band. At the end of the night, one band will emerge victorious. They will receive a recording package from Audio Magic, and 100 CDs of that recording from ESP CD & DVD Manufacturing. In addition, they will be profiled on WBFO as part of their “Buffalo Avenues” program. We’ll do this four times.

The four winners of our live quarterfinals will face off in our Grand Finale in May. The winner that night will win a slot on WBFO’s Wednesday night concerts live from Allen Hall, a video produced by Artvoice, and a nice cash prize as well.

We’re happy to present this contest with the help of our great sponsors: Audio Magic, ESP, WBFO and Neitzsche's. They all play a vital role in making our town a hotspot of original music.

But we can’t make msic without u. May the best band win.

A Hotel Nourishing You need to have the Adobe Flash Player installed to listen. Download it for free here. Listen to For All Your Debts, Public and Private by A Hotel Nourishing When did the band form? AHN formed in August of 2007. In the City of Buffalo. You might like us if you like: We pull from influences such as Frank Zappa, Tera Melos, Sigur Ros, Joy Division, Tom Waits and many others. Also if you enjoy Richard Gere playing Scott Joplin on a Kazoo. List of recorded releases: Deus Ex Machina EP (2007) Best show ever played: One of our best shows was at the Spazzatorium Galleria in Greenville, NC. Everyone rushed the stage at the end of the set. I jumped on the drum set and Cam (Drums) climbed up into the rafters. The crowd was amazing. Why you should win the Artvoice.com Online Battle of Original Music: We are playing alot, in Buffalo and around the country, just to play. We would love people to come out and see us. We deserve to win, for the fact of just creating music. Put our time in effort into creating something different that we believe in. Contact information: myspace.com/ahotelnourishing

A Fine Farewell You need to have the Adobe Flash Player installed to listen. Download it for free here. Listen to Was it Worth It by A Fine Farewell When did the band form? Depew NY, 2008. You might like us if you like: Blink 182, All time low, Paramore, We the Kings, Mest, New Found Glory Best show ever played: The best show we’ve ever played was our first show at club infinity. It was January 19th 2008 and there was upwards of 200 people there and we were so excited to play our first show. The energy from both the band and the crowd was amazing and the show went really great. Why you should win the Artvoice.com Online Battle of Original Music: I think A Fine Farewell deserves to win BOOM! because we’ve worked really hard on building up the fan base we have now and all we want to do is share our music with everyone. We care most about the music and our fans over everything else and we’re not solely concentrated on making it, and i think that’s what makes our music great. Contact information: www.myspace.com/afinefarewell

Visit the BOOM homepage for more bands and full results from weeks' past.