On Monday, March 10, 2008, NUROKSOL will be competing at Center Stage in Atlanta, GA with 11 other bands in the regional finals for the second season of reality TV show The Bodog Battle and for a million dollar recording contract with BoDog Entertainment (Wu Tang Clan, DMX, Fall From Grace). The 10-part series began last year with over 7000 bands competing online, 350 live battles nationwide and finally 10 bands ending up in the first season which aired both on Fuse TV and BodogTV online. Johnn "Rotten" Lydon of the Sex Pistols was one of the judges. Lucky for us, NUROKSOL bassist GT (Flint/Detroit) has written down what the experience has been like so far, beginning with the local competition which took place at The Shelter several months ago, including the prophetic words of "Papa Smurf" and his magic beads and on to the House of Blues in Cleveland.
Click "read more" below to read GT's post and for links to BodogTV so you can see the first season.
The NUROKSOL BoDog Experience as told by bassist "GT":
It all started with a chance contest entry. Who knew, four months later, we’d be getting the phone call that launched our Bodog experience? At first, Ant thought it was a prank call. Calling out every band members name till the Bodog rep said… I don’t think you believe me, so I’ll send you an email. Our dreams were about to become a reality. First was the audition round, held at the Shelter in Detroit.
Upon arriving to the Shelter, NUROKSOL was pretty relaxed. A homeless man named Papa Smurf asked if we were a group. We replied "Yes… a ROCK GROUP". He said good. “You’re going to win? Here, take these silver beads for good luck.” We took the beads, walked into the Shelter and the first thing we notice was… everyone was looking at us. Maybe they’re sizing us up? As usual, the first question one of the other band member asked is, are you guys a reggae band? The second comment came from one of the Bodog reps saying. “You guys look like you mean business”.
We listened to the other groups audition, and there is definitely a lot of talent here. You never know what the judges are looking for. It’s finally our time to rock the stage. We have 20 minutes to set up, play our set, and impress the judges. Our worry is not getting through our set before time runs out. They have a timekeeper on the side of the stage constantly holding up fingers to tell you how much time is left. We get through most of our set when the timekeeper says our time is up and we have to stop immediately in the middle of our tune, “They All Fall Down”. It wasn’t a smooth ending so we were wondering how it would play out. At the end of the night they called out all the bands that made it to the next round. NUROKSOL got the go ahead. We walked out the shelter to find Papa Smurf guarding our cars and saying “Told ya you were going to win.”
Next was the “Impress The Judges” round. This round was held at Saint Andrews Hall in Detroit. We got there, signed in and chilled. In this round we have 20 minutes to set up and play our set like the audition round. This time the bands were very friendly. It seemed all the bands were supporting each other. We couldn’t help but notice, all the people there yelling NUROKSOL. One thing that stood out was the very gorgeous ladies walking around to all the guys asking them and telling them they were voting for NUROKSOL, and they all were saying ok. To advance in this round we had to impress the judges and have the crowd vote for us.
We finally hit the stage, look at each other and knw we're having an off night. We finish our set, and know we’re probably not going to make it any further. We talk real quick back stage and say….Well, we have no one to blame but ourselves, and go out to the audience to take our medicine. Surprisingly, everyone is telling us we rocked the house. We’re wondering if they heard what we heard. At the end of the night, after all the votes were cast, they announced NUROKSOL would be heading to the semi-finals at THE HOUSE OF BLUES in Cleveland. Wow, the dream is still alive and we make a promise to bring our A-Game from then on!
We couldn’t wait to get to The House Of Blues. Everything was flowing like clockwork. We found hotel rooms right across the street from the venue at less than half price. Our ticket sales were good (yep we sold tickets). Once again we had a lot of support. (THANK YOU EVERYBODY). A lot of people bought tickets and told us to give them to someone in Cleveland. The only bad thing was one guy asked for a ticket at our hotel. We gave it to him and went up to our room. Ant looked out the window and saw the guy scalping the ticket we gave him! Sign of the times we guessed.
We go to the HOB for registration. Michigan bands are well represented, as well as bands from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois. This time we had fun, but we were all business. We said our prayer, and hit the stage. Everyone was on a mission to wreck the stage on this night. It was a feeling you really can’t explain. We finished our set and everything clicked - and clicked hard!!!!!! The crowd roared so loud, you could feel it bounce of your chest. The end of the night finally came and a lot of great bands truly put it down. The announcer comes out, and proclaims the first band that’s advancing. All of a sudden, before he can announce the final band that advances, the crowd stars yelling NUROKSOL...NUROKSOL, so loud that it distracts him, he halts, and grins. He finally says, “NUROKSOL advances to the finals”, and the crowd goes into an uproar of cheering that rattled all of our souls! I must say, the Cleveland crowd really made us feel at home.
On Monday, March 10, 2008, NUROKSOL will be competing at Center Stage in Atlanta, GA with 11 other bands for an opportunity to be one of eight bands contending on a reality TV show for a One Million Dollar Record Contract with BoDog Entertainment (Wu Tang Clan, DMX, Fall From Grace). WE ARE READY & WE WILL REPRESENT.
NUROKSOL is:
Marlow – Lead Vocals of Flint, MI
Ant – Guitars/BkVoc of Ann Arbor, MI
GT – Bass/BkVoc of Flint by way of Detroit, MI
Baron – Guitars of Detroit
Chef – Drums/BkVoc of Flint, MI
Thank you for your support!
Hear NuRokSol @ Myspace.com
http://www.myspace.com/nuroksol
Watch The First Season of The Bodog Battle at BodogTV:
http://tv.bodoglife.net/shows/battle/episodes/