Push Play Contest Becomes Labor of Love for Local Organizer
By Gabrielle Salerno, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.
Sep. 1–The battle of the bands has come to the 21st century. No longer are unsigned, local musicians just going head-to-head at the community fire hall; they’re doing it online.
A new “Push Play” competition, organized by 23-year-old Allentonians Jeff Storm and Eric Reilly, began in June on MySpace. After several rounds in which users could vote for their favorite song, the contest finals will be held Sunday live at the Allentown Fair.
“It’s all about motivating your fan base, your consumers. In the local music scene that’s the most important part,” says Storm, who speaks from experience; he and Reilly play in indie-rock outfit Nine After Nine.
They brought the battle-of-the-bands concept online as a way to encourage musicians to promote themselves using MySpace, a site bands use to distribute their music for free to their target audiences.
“If you’re a band or an artist and no one knows who you are, no one’s going to risk a hard-earned dollar on something they’ve never heard of before, so that’s what we’re trying to play off,” says Storm.
The Allentown Fair got on board when they saw Push Play’s potential for attracting a younger audience to the fair, says fair spokesperson Terry Schwenk.
Storm and Reilly got the contest off the ground by putting in many glassy-eyed hours in front of the computer writing html scripts. “We didn’t know what we were getting into when we started,” says Storm. “We thought we’d just stick this MySpace page up, put some songs on it and the contest would run itself.”
They sent out mass messages to musicians to promote the contest and received 24 entries. They got PulseWeekly magazine to sign on as sponsor.
Round one of the contest in June consisted of 12 mini-competitions in which two artists’ songs were pitted against one another for two days. A dozen artists whose songs got the most “votes” or plays advanced to the next round.
“The online voting thing was kind of weird because people could vote as many times as they wanted to, but I don’t know how else they could do it and still have as many bands be a part of it,” says Rob Harvey, singer-guitarist for Push Play finalist Vose, who admits he voted for his band more than a few times.
“But I liked that it was run by a band who knows how hard it is and what it’s like getting your music out there and getting people out to shows and getting opportunities to record and be listened to.”
During round two in July, three groups of four artists competed. After four days, the artist in each group with the least amount of votes for their song was dropped. Nine advanced.
Storm says there is no way to tell how many votes were cast, but the site received 27,000 hits over the contest duration and there were 22,000 song plays. Sixteen-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist Amanda Thorpe of Zionsville received the most votes — close to 5,000 — for “Holly Holly,” a folk-pop song about politics and her father.
“I thought entering the contest would be good exposure,” she says, “I didn’t think I would get this far. I was so excited when I heard I got the most votes I was jumping up and down. I’ve never gotten this much attention before with this many people listening to my music.”
At the semifinals on Aug. 18, the nine artists performed at the Sterling Hotel in Allentown, the first live portion of the contest. Each artist had 30 minutes to show off before five judges.
The top five acts — 39 Goodbyes, Rachel Copeland, Vose, Amanda Thorpe and John Scarangello — are in the finals. Each has 30 minutes to play. Prizes include a two-song demo package at Westwires Recording, 10 hours of recording time at Dan’s House and gift certificates to the Pocono Music Exchange.
“The Allentown Fair is a great place for these relatively unknown acts to get exposure to a new audience,” says Storm, who hopes to make the Push Play contest an annual event.
gabrielle.salerno@mcall.com
610-820-6108
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