Last Saturday, ten area bands descended on the Vaudeville Mews in Des Moines for the latest iteration of Under the Microscope.

The concert is part of a project to help highlight bands from Ames and Des Moines.

“It’s good for local music,” said organizer Adam Haug. “It gets bands that are known and unknown on stage.”

The concert is only the final part of the project. Now in its third iteration, Under the Microscope is held approximately every six months, and consists of both a compilation CD and a live show. The UTM staff solicit bands in the 515 area code using such tools as MySpace and 515crew.com, a music-oriented message board.

Haug said the staff received a great deal of submissions, and putting together the lineups for the CD and the concert was difficult.

The CD has 25 bands on it, but the show can only host ten to twelve.

Bands are selected for the project with an eye toward variety and a good performance.

The show was opened by hip-hop group Varsity Street Walkers, who combined honest hip-hop sensibilities with a slight element of self-parody. Fellow artist Prophecy, who had performed with them in the past, joined them onstage for a few tracks, blending styles seamlessly.

“The best hip-hop you’re gonna get is when you’re not so serious,” said Prophecy, whose real name is Ryan Earles. “Still, every song says something about something that was pissing me off.”

They were followed by American Ghost Band, a noise-oriented thrash band. Their ghost-masked 11-member lineup consisted of, among others, someone making toast and a singer simply shrieking along with each song.

Despite the band seeming to make up their songs as they went, lead singer Brendan Wells insists they are all quite good at their instruments.

Ned Kelly were the next performers, combining themes inspired by “The Wonder Years” with two shrieking vocalists and a wall of distorted guitars.

Death metal band Sender Receiver was the most brutal band of the evening. Amid a cacophony of feedback, vocalist Angus McPherson jumped into the mosh pit that formed in response to the band’s first song, continuing to sing while thrashing with audience members.

Closing out the first half of the show were Ames stalwarts Poison Control Center. Although their set was shortened by Des Moines’ ordinance requiring minors to leave by 9 p.m., they put on an excellent set. Lead singer and guitarist Patrick Fleming frequently entered the crowd – at one point both he and second guitarist Devin Frank were rolling spastically on the floor together, continuing to play.

The height of Fleming’s antics, however, was when he responded to the attentions of fan Ashley Bellman in kind, by sweeping her off her feet and kissing her intensely.

“It was energetic – it just felt natural,” Bellman said.

The second half of the show, for ages 21 and up, started out much more mellow than the loud, angry bands of the first.

Indie rock band Deep Sleep Waltzing, in which UTM organizer Adam Haug plays guitar, used a variety of obscure instruments as they meandered through their set. The band seemed to strike a chord with the audience, who latched on to their mellow, slower tempos.

Things were perked up a little by Beati Paoli’s upbeat pop-rock. Their sound is hard to place, but frontman Greg Goode cited post-punk bands such as The Cure, The Pixies and The Smiths as their main inspirations.

Ames industrial artist killmesara took the stage – the only solo artist of the night. He used a variety of equipment to sequence his songs live, accompanying his metallic machine noises with a video screen showing images such as old sports footage, monkeys and blood cells.

Closing out the show was metal band Skin of Earth, assaulting the crowd with their plodding, grating sounds.

The environment of the show was very positive and supportive. Fans and bands alike uniformly applauded the idea of the show.

“It’s just a good idea,” said Andrew Freed, senior in liberal studies. “It’s nice to get everyone out here, to get their names out. And we don’t have to pay much.”

For more information on the UTM project, as well as downloads of the three compilation CDs, go to www.underthemic.com.