By NICK TODARO

Staff Writer

Cottingham Residence Hall's front porch will become a stage for a group of nine bands scheduled to play at the Cottingham Front Porch Music Festival Feb 6.

John Lary, event coordinator and a junior history major, said the show will start early, "about 4 p.m.

"We're planning it to be over around 11 p.m., but we'll go as long as we can."

So far bands playing include Statues Cry Bleeding, Midwest Caravan, Lego My Ego, Shortbread (formerly Striped Shortbread), 2 o'clock Traffic, G-7 You Sunk My Battleship, The Burning Issue, The Beauty Within and Rivers, Indiana.

The event will be free to all.

"This isn't about me or the bands or anybody in particular," Lary said. "It's about music. I love it.

"Last time, my [resident assistant] was great about helping me set the show up and coordinating it. It helped him with his program requirements for the dorm as an R.A., and it was something he wanted to do, so he had a great time with it. Everybody did."

Ryan Borne, a resident assistant for Cottingham and a senior professional aviation major, said he is almost as pumped as the bands.

"It was great last time," Borne said. "This is the kind of event people have wanted to get going for as long as I can remember, but nobody has had the ambition that John has. He's our guy to make everything fit together.

"It's going to be great if it's anything like the one before Christmas. I hear Shortbread practicing all the time. Those guys are like 'The Cottingham Band.'"

Lary said he gives credit to the people he has sent e-mails to, begging for anything he could to help the festival succeed.

"It was a kind of grapevine, friend-of-a-friend event," Lary said.

Judd Smith, a junior photography major, is a guitarist for G-7 You Sunk My Battleship, and said he is friends with Lary.

"We've known each other for awhile, and he's been talking to me about the Front Porch Fest," Smith said.

"We're a kind of crazy hardcore band. We didn't get to play the first festival; it should be fun."

Lary said the last festival lasted until late, and the six acts that played had a blast.

"I was in Striped Shortbread," Lary said. "We were really into it. Eventually, the night was getting close to finishing when I saw a campus police officer coming.

"He told us that he'd heard about it and wanted to come if he hadn't had to work, but we had to wind down the show."

Lary said Tech Police have also been working with him on possible new venues.

"We wanted to do it at the Art Building this time," Lary said.

"That front porch is big, and some of our performers can't stand still, and Cottingham's front porch forces them into a smaller stage. We've got some red tape to cut before we can, though."

Lary said he has high hopes for the upcoming show.

He said, "I want it to be so good it's almost obnoxious."