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St. Ed's Battle of the Bands - Rebecca Butler

The St. Edward’s Battle of the Bands is approaching, and from the 20 something options available for online voting - now only 6 remain. University Programming Board chose to use the CollegiateLink online system that provides a way of connecting students and groups alike. Becca Butler will be one of the lucky six, but says she didn’t exactly find the organization all that accessible.

Becca’s been playing in South Austin clubs for a while, usually at open mike nights, but has recently started playing more and more clubs. She and her bandmates are St. Edward’s students who have remained active in the local music scene. But while they may be experienced in the Austin music community, for Battle of the Bands, they were left scratching their heads.

In an effort to make the battle of the bands more audience friendly, University Programming Board put all voting for all bands online, but only on CollegiateLink, with each student getting at least three votes. The problem is many of the students trying out for BOTB didn’t understand the system. While, Student Life is understandably weary about the Collegiate Link website, students feel like the site doesn’t work with the ease of Facebook.

Jazz student Fred Tan plays in the St. Edward’s Jazz Band and is familiar with Student Life’s promotion of CollegiateLink, which is why he’s opted out of the BOTB. Tan says that the process needs to be on Facebook and that the voting system for CollegiateLink only complicates the voting process. He suggested even sending out an email for students to vote, saying that would be better than the “disorganized” site.

So, Tan and his group of jazz enthusiasts, the Altered Five, won’t be playing this year.

Pierce Saxon, with his group Once Per Axis, agrees with Tan, but even consorted to Facebook for voting promotion. Saxon updated his Facebook status for the voting, only to find that the link to the CollegiateLink voting site in his status didn’t work. Saxon, unaware, figured he would get at least enough votes to get in the top 6, but he didn’t.

So, Saxon woke up on March 1st, after voting concluded to find his band out of the running for BOTB.

Though Saxon and Tan will have to sit out this BOTB, Butler and her band are ready to take on the other 5 groups. The grand prizewinner will play at the Spring Concert, opening for Bright Light Social Hour, a local band that recently played at Austin City Limits last October and won the 2010 Austin Music Award for Best Indie Band.
In addition,the lucky St. Edward’s musicians will receive 12 free hours of recording courtesy of St. Edward’s.

The Battle of the Bands will be in Mabee Ballroom on March 28, starting at 8 pm. Each of the six bands will get 10 minutes to wow both the judges and the audience and the winner will be crowned at the end of the night.