Tournament play to determine—once and for all—Rock’s Greatest Backing Band continues with the Rebel Conference, composed of backing bands for some of rock’s most rebellious, iconoclastic artists. Please use this space to argue for your favorite backing band in each contest, using any or all of the following criteria, including criteria not listed here:
Ability to support the bandleader’s musical agenda/vision
Additional musical contribution to the bandleader’s sound/vision
Look and other supporting “rock superhero powers”
Catchiness of backing band’s name
You may log your vote on each contestant in the Round 1 games through the polls on the following page. Please make sure to register your support and votes for the other conferences at their respective threads:
Tournament play to determine—once and for all—Rock’s Greatest Backing Band continues with the Classic Conference, composed of backing bands for some of rock’s most classic Classic Rock bands. Please use this space to argue for your favorite backing band in each contest, using any or all of the following criteria, including criteria not listed here:
Ability to support the bandleader’s musical agenda/vision
Additional musical contribution to the bandleader’s sound/vision
Look and other supporting “rock superhero powers”
Catchiness of backing band’s name
You may log your vote on each contestant in the Round 1 games through the polls on the following page. Please make sure to register your support and votes for the other conferences at their respective threads:
Tournament play to determine—once and for all—Rock’s Greatest Backing Band continues with the Expansion Conference, composed of backing bands for some of rock’s initial genre-expanding bands as well as a few newer backing bands supporting artists working in similar a similar ’60s rock revolution vein. Please use this space to argue for your favorite backing band in each contest, using any or all of the following criteria, including criteria not listed here:
Ability to support the bandleader’s musical agenda/vision
Additional musical contribution to the bandleader’s sound/vision
Look and other supporting “rock superhero powers”
Catchiness of backing band’s name
You may log your vote on each contestant in the Round 1 games through the polls on the following page. Please make sure to register your support and votes for the other conferences at their respective threads:
Please review the contests and all supporting material, including any you may present in the Comments section, then cast your votes through the following series of polls.
Tournament play to determine—once and for all—Rock’s Greatest Backing Band begins with the Legacy Conference, composed of backing bands for some of rock’s founding fathers as well as a few newer backing bands supporting artists working in similar a similar roots-rock vein. Please use this space to argue for your favorite backing band in each contest, using any or all of the following criteria, including criteria not listed here:
Ability to support the bandleader’s musical agenda/vision
Additional musical contribution to the bandleader’s sound/vision
Look and other supporting “rock superhero powers”
Catchiness of backing band’s name
You may log your vote on each contestant in the Round 1 games through the polls on the following page. Please make sure to register your support and votes for the other conferences at their respective threads:
Please review the contests and all supporting material, including any you may present in the Comments section, then cast your votes through the following series of polls.
At the strike of midnight EST Tuesday, December 12, the first round of the tournament will begin, allowing Townspeople to argue for and vote on the opening matches in each conference. Please use this space to study the matches, reflect on the selections, and speculate on the battles ahead.
Rock Town Hall is not responsible for any wagering placed on the outcome of this tournament.
#2 seed Silver Bullet Band with some guy named Seger.
In what promises to be one of the most-definitive Once and For All tournaments ever, Rock Town Hall seeks a field of 64 specifically named, dedicated backing bands for a competition to determine—once and for all—rock’s greatest backing band ever! Before the competition can take place, we need YOUR help in determining the field.
Entry criteria are simple:
The backing band must have an official name, used on an album cover or other branded piece, and be tied to a specific artist, such as Bill Haley & The Comets.
The backing band cannot be merely a backing band for hire and/or studio backing band (eg, Booker & The MGs).
The backing band’s official name must have been officially in use while it was backing its lead artist (eg, The Band was not officially known as “The Band” until after having backed Bob Dylan, so they would not qualify).
Unless the leader and his or her backing band are an a capella group, strictly vocal backing bands do not qualify (eg, Smokey Robinson’s Miracles).
Additional criteria may be added, as necessary.
Backing bands will be bracketed into 4 conferences of 16, as follows:
The Legacy Conference
The Expansion Conference
The Classic Conference
The Rebel Conference
Only one backing band has been seeded at the start of this process, The Silver Bullet Band (Bob Seger), drawing a #2 seed in the Classic Conference. They were offered the top seed, but chose to begin play at a slight disadvantage.
Let us begin the selection process for the remaining 63 contestants. You may suggest a conference and any supporting documentation with your nominations. Following seeding, which is expected this weekend, the tournament will proceed!
It’s funny how you can be very happily married to somebody and still have significant behavioral differences that ought to drive you ape-shit crazy.
My wife, for example, is perfectly happy to sit and stare out the car window for hours at a time — whereas I require a fairly steady stream of conversational blather to stay happy (and awake). In order to bridge the gap between our preferences, and give us something to talk about, I frequently insist that we play a stupid game as I drive. Many of these, you probably know: “20 Questions,” “Ghost,” a non-Rock version of perennial RTH favorite “Last Man Standing.” But I am the proud inventor of another, lesser known, particularly idiotic game, somewhat awkwardly entitled “Guess What Song I Have In My Head for 20 Dollars.” It’s this game that I bring to RTH today, under the slightly cooler brand “Read My Mind.”
Here’s how the game works when my wife and I are on hour 6 of a 9-hour drive:
HVB: Hey, Catherine, guess what song I have in my head!
C: Sigh. Do I have to?
HVB: Come on, guess. I’ll give you 20 dollars if you guess without a clue!
C: How on Earth am I supposed to know what song you have in your head?!
HVB: That’s why it’s worth 20 bucks! If you don’t get it on the first guess, I give you a clue, and the prize money gets cut in half. You guess again. If you guess right, you get 10 dollars. You guess wrong, you get another clue, and the prize money gets cut in half, to five dollars. And so on.
C: Groan. Seriously?
HVB: Come onnnnnn… I gotta keep my eyes open. Come on, guess!
C: Okay, “Love to Love You Baby.”
HVB: (affecting best Alex Trebek impersonation, much to Catherine’s irritation) Oh, no, I’m soh-ryyyyy. For 10 dollars… this song was popular in the 1970s.
C: Uh… “Torn Between Two Lovers.”
HVB: Good guess, but NO. For five bucks: this song was an unexpected foray into disco music by a major rock artist.
C: Hmm… Oh, “Some Girls” by the Rolling Stones!
HVB: (barely concealing scorn) I think you mean “Miss You,” but (cheering up) wrong again! For $2.50 — this band starred in their own TV movie.
C: Oh, come on! How am I supposed to know? I don’t obsess over that stuff like you do!
HVB: Guess, come on!
C: I don’t know, the Partridge Family.
HVB: Now you’re not even trying.
C: Honey, I don’t know!
HVB: You give up?
C: (rolling her eyes) Yes, I give up.
HVB: (gleefully) It’s “I Was Made for Loving You” by KISS!
C: That’s nice dear.
Now, in fairness to my ever-tolerant wife, she frequently sticks it out until the very end of the game, when the “prize” goes down to 12 and a half cents or something, and the clues get ridiculously easy. I reckon you guys will be a bit more eager, and a lot more rock trivia-savvy. But the prize remains the same! I promise to mail you however much money you win by being the first to guess the song inside my head. Each clue will halve the prize money — so be smart with your guesses. One guess per Townsman, per clue round.
Are you ready? For 20 dollars — and no clue, in this first round — can you guess what song is inside my head?
