It all started with two glasses of Jameson 12-Year Special Reserve. Well, it didn’t start there, but this was a Friday and Dwyer and I had already been bowling with our wives and been to a bar. We’re sitting in his living room talking about Eleven Fifty Two’s performance on that morning’s show and as we’re discussing it we started talking about the laundry list of musicians that have come through the 2dorks studio in the past year or so.

We’ve been so lucky to be able to have such great performers on our show like Great White, Devil City Angels, Damon Johnson and Ricky Warwick from Black Star Riders, 3 Years Hollow, The Zealots, Jake McVey, Lexi Parr, and Eleven Fifty-Two just to name a few.

I remember saying something to Dwyer about how I wish we could do more with the performances we have. Having the videos on YouTube is great and all, but it’d be cool to do something really special.

The Rock & Roll Mansion has recently been undergoing some renovations and while cleaning out one of our old offices we stumbled across an on vinyl record from 1982 called 97X-LP Vol 2. Remembering this, Dwyer said to me that it would be cool to make another.

The first idea was to take the performances we already have done and press those into the next volume, but after discussing it with my buddy, Justin Farley from Skylark Recording Studio, it was decided that since these performances weren’t recorded in the correct format it would be dumb to try and press it into a vinyl record.

I thought the idea was dead in the water, but the great thing about working the way we do is that there will still be more chances for ideas to come back around again. Coming up in August of this year 97X / WXLP will be celebrating its 40th anniversary, and we thought this would be a perfect time to go ahead and take another shot at trying to make an album in celebration of it.

Our plan is to record this album entirely in the Rock & Roll Mansion, and with Justin Farley’s help we’re going to be able to make this a reality.

We're going to take submissions from bands starting now until the 23rd of March. Then, we'll have you vote on which ones you think should appear on the LP. We have 44 minutes available for an LP, and we need songs. If you and your band are interested, please submit an original song that we can use for voting.

All genres are welcome. We want this to be a representation of the Quad Cities. In fact it would be cool to see some bands of the 80’s and 90’s come back and be represented on this as well.

Later this year it will be available for free at certain locations in the QCA.

Rules:

  • Bands must submit an mp3 for voting
  • Voting will be from March 26th thru April 2nd
  • Bands chosen need to be available to record in the 97X studios during the weekends of April 21st and April 28th
  • All songs must be originals, no covers
  • We’ll record two live tracks in the studios with options to record extra vocals at Skylark Recording Studios afterwards
  • Any band or musician can submit
  • Songs should be kept to about 4 min or less

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