Ten bands from Jersey City and nearby communities will compete this Saturday for cash and prizes at JC Studios' first Battle of the Bands, set for 5 p.m. at Porta on Newark Avenue.

JC Studios, located on Columbus Avenue a block from the Grove Street PATH, has been at the epicenter of Jersey City's music scene since 2011, offering state-of-the-art recording facilities, production assistance and rehearsal space for a wide variety of local musicians.



The Battle of the Bands is the brainchild of Jess Charle, one of the studio's engineers.

"The idea originally came from 50 Ft. Furies, a band that practices at the studio and will also be competing," explained Charle (pronounced Shar-lay). "The lead singer does a pep talk to her bandmates after every practice or before a show with, 'We're gonna win this one, girls!' She did that in front of me once and I asked if they were in a battle of the bands. She answered, no, it was just the way they psyched themselves up, but it got me to thinking how much fun it would be to really put on an old-fashioned battle of the bands."



In recent years, the "battle of the bands" has been relegated to the finale of cheesy teen movies, and that's very much the vibe here.

"I loved the idea of having a fun, corny, kind-of-silly event; our first-place trophy is actually a bowling trophy," Charle said. "So it's a very light-hearted, high school-esque affair and yet we're bringing all these local bands together and giving them a stage and a chance to perform, plus it's a way to get the audience to check out bands they might not normally see.





"At the moment, we have two metal bands, two punk bands, and everyone else is more or less indie rock," Charle continued. "The idea was to have a pretty good variety of music."



Competing bands include Jersey City's hard-rocking AMINAL, the all-female 50 Ft. Furies, Hoboken vets P@tomic & The Bombs, and the dub/reggae fusion of Universal Rebel. Other competitors are JC rockers The Yet Shivers, industrial metalheads Dark Matter, rock duos The Components and The Famous Few, Bad Signal, and The Dirty Mops.



Each band will only have 15 minutes to impress the judges, and the lineup will be randomly determined on the night of the event.



"Todd Friend (from the NYC hardcore band H20) is an old friend of the studio and he's someone we wanted to be one of the judges," Charle said. "Todd is good friends with Lou Koller (of Sick of It All) and when Lou heard about what we were doing, he got very excited and wanted to be a part of it."

The other judges will be DJ Stashu (who does a polka program on WFMU) and this reporter.



The first-place winner will receive three hours of recording time at JC Studios, a $100 cash prize, a drum tune-up at Hoboken's Drum Den, and the aforementioned bowling trophy. In addition, local promoter "Dancing Tony" Susco will set up a Jersey City show for the winner. Second place wins three hours of rehearsal time at JC Studios, tickets to a show of their choice at White Eagle Hall, and a trophy. The third place winner will receive a gift certificate to Porta and a trophy. There are fourth- and fifth-place awards as well.



"We were really happy that so many sponsors stepped up and offered to donate prizes," added David Satkowski, owner of JC Studios. "We're really blown away by what we'll be offering these bands."



Several of the competing bands offered thoughts on the event and their reasons for participating, almost unanimously agreeing that while every band will play its hardest, just being a part of the event outweighs who eventually wins.



Dark Matter: Our roots to Jersey City span over 10 years so we are glad to be part of this event, mainly for the involvement in the music community and to expose people to our Industrial Metal sound that has grown over the years. Thanks for reaching out and we are looking forward to playing and enjoying a good night of music.

The Yeti Shivers: We are friends with (owners) Dave Satkowski and Sam Palubniak and have been using JC Studios as our home base for nearly two years for practice and recording. One night, before practice, we saw a flier on the door for the Battle of the Bands and thought it would be a fun thing to do. Once we learned it was a chance to play Porta's rooftop during the All About Downtown festival, there was not much discussion left to have! We want help spread the word of JC Studios. ... The studio is a piece of Jersey City that we don't want to lose, and we hope this show will help promote JC Studios for other musicians who weren't aware of it in the first place. Plus, the exposure we'll get just by playing can't really hurt us! Winning would be sweet, but we are more interested to see the other working bands on the list and how our take on music adds to the night. If we can make some heads bob and toes tap, we'll have done our job.



The Components: We actually rehearse at JC Studios so we heard about from the Battle from the staff, who are all awesome! Zoe and I really love playing music and being a part of the scene so we're in it for exposure, fun, and to meet new people who share the same passion that we do. Winning also looks good on the press kit!

AMINAL: AMINAL has been in and around the JC music scene for a while now. We actually entered the battle too late but were then called back when another band dropped out. We hope for the same thing from this show as we do from all shows: The fun of the music and the fun of being part of the JC music scene. Obviously we'd like to be the winners (and I think we have a pretty good chance, haha!) but to have a chance for the amazing talent pool around here to shine is always the payoff. Good luck to all!



P@tomic & The Bombs: This seemed like an excellent opportunity to get involved with downtown Jersey City. We haven't played downtown very much, and we wanted to mix it up a bit with some of the bands who frequently play in that neighborhood. We also feel that we have a really strong sound and stage presence. In spite of the fact that I generally don't view musical performance as a competition, we're quite confident that we belong in any good lineup.



50 Ft. Furies: We wanted to share our message of female empowerment and we thought the show would bring us closer to world domination. Also, we are very materialistic and we want the trophy!

IF YOU GO:

The JC Studios Battle of the Bands kicks off at 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16, at Porta, 135 Newark Ave., Jersey City. A donation of $10 will be requested at the door to benefit the All Stars Project (www.allstars.org).