The Bodog Music Battle of the Bands -- with a cool $1 million prize on the line -- rolls into Memphis this weekend as the 17 surviving bands (out of 7,000) fight to the finish, reality TV style.

The final rounds are being filmed for a program that will air on a national music network, and in each stop on a romp around the country, the bands face a challenge in addition to performing. In Memphis, the task is a press conference in front of local and national media -- at 10 a.m. on a Saturday. That's a bit early on a weekend for this particular local media person, but I can see how you can really gauge the relative rock-ness of a band at that hour (extra points for not vomiting or falling asleep!). This takes place in the lobby of the Gibson Beale Street Showcase, so if you're downtown early in the morning for the farmer's market or whatever, check it out.

The performance phase of the Memphis stop takes place Monday night, also at the Gibson.

Jon Sparks has a much more informative post about the whole Bodog thing, especially the coming reality TV extravaganza. Let him explain it all to you, because I'm about to knock off work for the weekend (gotta be up in 12 hours for the Bodog presser, right?).