2005 Best Cover Rock Performers

26.13% Brown Bottle Band* 25.00% Plow* 20.10% Matthew Sturm Band* 9.30% Twelve and Two* 1.76% Nostalgia 1.38% Brother 1.26% Unlikely Alibi 1.13% Teays Vein 1.01% Borrowed Time Band, Echo's Hill 0.88% Freak Brothers, Tenfold Back 0.75% Coda Others with Votes (more than one): Big Dick & The Penetrators, Glitch, Mike Conley Band, ButtonHead, Go Dog Go, Good Night Gracie, The Kegel’s, Legendary Trainhoppers, Migraines, Mimi Burns Band, Pop ‘n’ Fresh, Regalia, Rosemary Gates, RuleSeven, Under the Wake, Un-finished Business 2004 Winner: Brown Bottle Band 2003 Winner: Freak Brothers 2002 Winner: Go Dog Go 2001 Winner: Wailhounds 2000 Winner: Wailhounds 1999 Winner: Actual Size 1998 Winner: Michaelanjelo 1997 Winner: Rushville Whig * On the ballot

How the guys in the Brown Bottle Band keep their collective and individual performance schedules together is beyond comprehension. Consider this: Not only do Dan Smith, Damien Miller, Phil Potts and Jon Ross, play in the band in question, they all play in Legendary Trainhoppers as well. And Miller plays with the Matthew Sturm Band, and Miller, Ross and Potts (I think) play in some other band. And three of them live together in a house with no phones. It’s all too much for me to take. They keep it straight, somehow, which is all that matters. Well, that and the fact that Brown Bottle Band collected its second Whammy for best Cover Band, nipping Plow by a handful of votes. "The Whammys is a cool time," Smith said. "The whole red carpet thing this year and the bands that will be playing is cool. It keeps getting better every year." Life as a part-time cover band seems to suit the foursome just fine. They obviously have fun at it. And why not? Playing 70s rock at top volume for hours on end is essentially risk-free. They have got other musical outlets to satisfy creative drive. But that doesn’t mean they lack drive with BBB. Far from it. At last year’s Joe Bonamassa show at Piere’s, Brown Bottle Band played an opening set that still has my ears ringing from the Marshall amps cranked to bleed. The mention of it makes Smith laugh. The Brown Bottle Band story goes something like this: These guys met up and formed a band. Some of them were from around here. But some of them, well, they weren’t. The first band, Soul Kitchen, formed in high school. The band changed it’s name to Brown Bottle Band a few years later, made forays to New York City to record a demo disc and try their hand at life in the cultural center of the world. They escaped New York mostly intact and got back to doing what they do best - having fun playing 70s radio rock and blowing out the eardrums of aging writers.

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