It’s official. South Bay locals Curious Quail have won the last remaining spot on Live 105’s Soundcheck local band stage at BFD 2013. They will share the stage with nine other bay area bands, three of which are also from the South Bay—Picture Atlantic, Anya and the Getdown, and the Trims. Not only did Curious Quail win, but they did so by a sizable margin, earning a whopping 39% of the vote, with twenty bands total in the running.

“We’ve been working really hard as a band to get our name out there; the community support we got was tremendous. Being in a local band working your way up, you have this series of milestones of people taking you seriously. For a while it was the iTunes factor, then it was Spotify, or Pandora. Well, you namedrop Shoreline Amphitheatre as someplace you played and then that person you’ve known for ten years that knows you’re in a band might actually go and listen to your music and enjoy what you’re doing,” says Mike Shirley-Donnelly, lead singer and guitarist for Curious Quail.

Even though every member of Curious Quail worked hard to encourage people to vote for them, their friends and fans it seemed, were excited to help out. Even Dogcatcher, who were also in the running, told their fans to vote for Curious Quail.

“We threw up a few posts on twitter, Facebook and instagram and like everyone shared them. Everyone! It just kept going. One of the pictures had over 60 shares on Facebook and the Facebook “insights” said “11,000 people saw this post”. That’s insanity,” Says Shirley-Donnelly.

The fact that nearly half of the bands playing BFD’s local band stage this year are from the South Bay reflects well on the scene here, especially considering the degree that the rest of the bay area has long since written off any band that hails from San Jose.

“The South Bay has always felt like the bastard child of the bay area when it comes to the music scene, and rightfully so: our 2000’s era metal/hardcore scene that thrived was not something to be proud of. I should know, I was a part of it. Having so many south bay bands not only on the bill already for the local stage, but also in the contest was encouraging. It’s showing that we as a community down here are actually doing something of note,” says Shirley Donnelly

Another South Bay band could be joining locals, Picture Atlantic, Anya and the Getdown and the Trims on the Soundcheck Local Band Stage at BFD this May.

Live 105 has opened up one additional slot, and the San Francisco radio station is letting its listeners vote on who it should fill it. There are 19 bands in the running and six are from the South Bay: 1989 (from Gilroy), Dogcatcher (from Mountain View) and San Jose bands All City Elite, Conversions, Curious Quail and Sweet HayaH.

Voting continues until 3pm on May 3. The winning band will be announced on air at 7pm on May 5th. Visit the voting page for more info.

More info on BFD 2013.

PHOTOS: Images from BFD 2012

The Morgan Hill mafia will invade BFD this year, when Mike Garmany and James Mellow (better known to many of his early fans by his real name, Grant Averill) will both be playing the Local Band Stage at Live 105’s annual music festival.

Garmany will be performing with the Holdup, whose first two records both debuted at #1 on iTunes’ reggae chart, and who have been in rotation on Live 105 with “Young Fools,” their sorta-cover of Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks.” Mellow will lead his electro-pop group Young Science, who got onto the airwaves last year with “Liquor Store,” the single from their debut EP. Both do production at Garmany’s Morgan Hill studio, where Mellow just completed the first Young Science album.

“We’ve been super good friends since we met in junior high,” says Mellow, taking a break from work at the studio. In fact, he says he picked up his first instrument back then, the bass, just so they could be in a band together. That one never went anywhere, but they do have a hip-hop/R&B collaboration now called Twin City, for which they released a free 17-song mix tape.

In light of all that, it’s a little remarkable that neither their professional collaboration or personal connection has anything to do with the fact that they’re the sole representatives of the South Bay on the BFD lineup this year.

“It was absolute coincidence,” says Mellow. He knows dozens of band are vying for the attention of Aaron Axelsen, the Live 105 DJ who picks the lineup for the Local Band stage, and who first played both Young Science and the Holdup on his Soundcheck show. Many seem to try to figure an angle that will get them noticed, but Mellow thinks Axelsen’s continued success comes from his straightforward approach: “He just has to like your music. That’s it.”

Axelsen says both Young Science and the Holdup are hard-working bands with great songs, who embody what he wants to showcase in the Bay Area scene. “People ask me all the time, ‘How do I get on the radio, Aaron?’” says Axelsen. “I just say ‘look at what Young Science is doing.’”