Instead of spending the evening hunched over a computer searching for their favorite bands on Youtube.com, local music fans spent two and a half hours watching homegrown music videos during the first annual Music Video Asheville on Feb. 6.
"We're a bunch of music lovers and a bunch of musicians and a bunch of lovers of Asheville music. You guys really make this worthwhile," said Jenny Greer, the lead vocalist of Jen & The Juice to a clapping and hooting audience.
Future of Asheville Music presented almost 30 music videos in a sold-out MVA showcase at Cinebarre.
FoAM was formed last year when musicians and music lovers discussed how to better the local music scene.
"We had about 70 bands represented," Greer said of the meeting that started it all. "The whole point is to be diverse. Tonight we had indie rock, jazz, punk, acoustic; just so much."
The videos shown varied in musical genre, visual effects, instruments used and messages conveyed.
One of the highlights of MVA is that there are so many different styles of music offered, according to Greer.
"I want to be a Bohemian hooligan. It's just the state I'm in, a true Ashevillian," sang Jen & The Juice and Fiddle Dave in "Bohemian Hooligan."
Quetzatl offered a different technique with their techno beats. Music Video Asheville included their video "Meta Tek," consisting of a white background with black shapes, mostly geometric or tribal, which vibrated as the beat of the track got stronger.
The trio of women in cowboy boots and sundresses called The Barrel House Mamas presented yet another message and visual in their song "Die in My Bones."
"Life is an adventure or nothing at all," sang the three brunettes accompanied by their two guitars, banjo and harmonica.
River G. played the gongs in his song "Gong Lab."
DJ Mr. The Best danced, strode and frolicked around his DJ equipment, stretching his face into expressive positions.
"Tonight was fun," said Molly Kummerle, lead vocalist for Ruby Slippers. "It was a good representation of the diversity that we have in this town. Whether people are just making garage videos or whether they're really trying to get something different across, it was really kind of everything."
Several of the artists also took the opportunity to champion some of their favorite issues.
The acoustic, techno style of The Wallpaper Project reminded the audience at the end of their song "Gloassolalia" to, "Remember to burn your media."
Other groups used to opportunity to do community service related activities, some even showing documentaries rather than the traditional music videos.
The Chuck Lichtenberger Quartet helped about 50 students and faculty members create a makeshift music program for four days in a local middle school who had to close its music program due to budget cuts.
The band taped this process, titling it "Collaborative Jazz Residency," and presented it at MVA.
"I liked the documentaries. I wasn't expecting that," said 23-year-old audience member Sean Grasty.
Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band also used documentary style for their Pod casts, which they chose to show in lieu of the standard music video.
"I was expecting a lot of live footage really, and I was impressed," said Greer, commenting on the variety of footage the bands chose to use. "I was really surprised with the type of music video."
Vendetta Crème's music video "Cold Cold Christmas," which won the audience's vote for Best Video, took a much more fictional route.
In the video, a cold woman sings to the audience about how cold it is as she attempts to make breakfast for her children that are frozen solid.
Then, she goes ice skating with a snowman.
In addition to the main prize, other bands received gag trophies, including Best Use of Feather Masks, Best Use of a Golden Banana and Best Use of Frozen Children.
Sibling Rivalry's "Poopie & Pink Monkey" received the Catchiest Song Award.
The track repeats itself with simplistic lyrics such as, "Let's go, let's go," "Get up, get up" and "Hello, hello," but the addictive beat enraptured the crowd, helping it to win the award.
Grasty and 24-year-old Alex Tray attended the showcase because they already knew and liked one of the bands, Stephanie's Id.
After watching all the other music videos, the two UNC Asheville alumni said they intend to check out some of the other bands that were featured, such as SeepeopleS, a band that played cardboard instruments in their music video, "Apocalypse Cow."
"I'm going to go home and Myspace them," Grasty said.
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