By Tommy Cha
We are back again with another round of the Sounds of the Underground!
The second round happened on Wednesday, May 16, at the Underground Coffeehouse of course. Just like Cat Valley, last week’s winning band, the bands in the second round face off against each other and get a chance to play at this year’s annual Lawnstock. The bands who performed at Round 2 were Middle James, Dirty Ferns, Great Snakes and Laughingstock.
Middle James is an indie band that is based here in Bellingham. There are four members: two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer. Collin Crose, Dawson Van-Cise, Gideon Wolfe and Michael Hughes are the names of these talented folks. If you were to see Middle James play, you can see the confidence in their performance.
Check out their website at: https://www.middlejames.com
Dirty Ferns, a soul, jazzy, funk band, also based out of Bellingham, played at the Sounds event as well. They contain six members in total: Rainey Aberle – Trumpet, Gaetano Demartino – Guitar, Lincoln Humphry – Drums, Kendall Lujan – Vocals, Jacob Kleiman – Bass and Ben Mead – Keys. This band is very unique as you may not see very many bands in Bellingham with a trumpet, but they are a soul kind of band. I guess you could say that they can lift your soul as you listen to them!
Great Snakes is another great band hailing out of Bellingham. The members of this band are Paul Ligon, Augie Ballew and Sam Stringer. I would say, to me, they played very soothing and relax music for the audience members to listen to. The Great Snakes did well!
You can listen to their work at: https://soundcloud.com/thesegreatsnakes/sets/1-16-18demos
Laughingstock is yet another amazing band from here in Bellingham. The members are Aiken Muller, Josh Hughes and Alex Eaves. Laughingstock is a boy band who plays “sometimes folky, sometimes emo” works of art. I guess you can tell why they are called Laughingstock; because back in the day, people would laugh at emo stuff! Good joke, right? Yeah, I know, it was not worthy of a joke. Well, Laughingstock did play with great EMOTION though!
Check it out: https://laughingstockmusic.bandcamp.com/
At the end of Round 2, the winner was selected by the audience. But wait!
We can’t forget about the wildcard vote that was mentioned from last week!
A band from Round 1 was able to move in to the list to battle for the spot of performing at Lawnstock. And the winner of the wildcard vote was India Glover!
And to conclude, the winning band of Round 2 was… Laughingstock!
Laughingstock won Round 2 of Sounds of the Underground and get to move on to the finals in order to open for Lawnstock! But for the Final Round, there can only be one winner who can open for Lawnstock. Stay tuned and join in on the Battle! Sounds of the Underground FINAL Round will happen next week, Wednesday, May 30, at the Underground Coffeehouse.
For more information about the event, contact:
VU 422
360-650-6803
as.productions@wwu.edu