It's a dog-eat-dog world in the State College bar scene. If you're not making money for the bar owners, you're not making a name for yourself.

It seems the only way for bands to make it in the bar scene is by "going steady" with bar owners and their regular crowds.

What results is a kind of a Catch-22 relationship between the bars and local bands. Committed relationships such as these seem like heaven to some, agony to others.

John Cunningham is a State College musician who has managed to get a set performance schedule at the bars. But even he realizes that the bar-band relationship is an imperfect system.

"In this town, the bar owners don't care," Cunningham said. "You could be the Beatles and bar owners don't care if people aren't coming out and drinking beer. If you wanna play originals, it's a tough town to crack."

Even for success stories such as Cunningham, the bar scene is a never-ending cycle -- some nights, the crowd is really enthusiastic, while other nights, "it's like pulling teeth to get a response from the crowd, but that's the business."

Cafe 210 West, 210 W. College Ave., is a local bar that tends to keep performers in the same slots. Owner Hal McCullough said steady schedules help because the public becomes aware of what type of entertainment is offered on different nights at different bars.

For example, if it's an acoustic night, McCullough said he likes to have the same type of band playing that night so people will get used to it.

But there are original bands in State College who don't mind being left out of the rat race that the bar scene has become. Eggbound played Cafe 210 West last year with The Joint and found that playing to an over-21 bar crowd isn't all it's cracked up to be.

"I'd rather play out to the under-21 crowd definitely," said drummer Jason Ranck (senior-graphic design). "People respect what you do more and they're into it more."

To cover or not to cover is a question local bands have debated for years, and the answer usually lies in who the musicians want their audience to be.

"It depends if you wanna be a kid band or a if you wanna be a bar band," said Ken Kubala, manager of City Lights Records, 316 E. College Ave., and guitarist for Mike Swavely and the Straight Shooters. "My goal is to play cool music and reach people."

Some bar owners, such as Carl Easterling of Stoney's Posthouse Tavern, 146 N. Atherton St., sympathize with up-and-coming bands looking to play original music and who cherish their roles in the State College bar scene.

"There's gotta be somebody to allow the new bands to start," Easterling said. "When Caeser Pink started at Stoney's, they were packed in there. Somebody had to know them. Somebody did their homework."

When bands do their homework, it helps everyone interested in making money within the bar-band culture. Kubala called the fixed-schedule system "mechanical."

"It caters to being unaware," he said. "State College has its core of musicians who are playing the same gig year in and year out."

Bar baby Man Alive said the band members and the bars where they play both realize the advantages of "going steady."

"It's really good because it gets people used to going to one place, and they make a habit of it and you get a good following," said Dana Hawk, drummer of the mostly cover band. "The bottom line is we both wanted a bigger crowd and this is the way to go."

In a way, fixed schedules are easier on the crowds who frequent the bars, enabling them to see their local favorites at the same time and the same place every week. Paul Haris (graduate-electrical engineering) said he always goes to The Saloon, 101 Hiester St., on Fridays to see the Earthtones.

Steady money and larger crowds are big reasons why many up-and-coming bands such as Dogtown Road have bars in their eyes. But space hasn't opened up for the group yet.

"We haven't been able to get a steady slot so we haven't got a taste of what it's like to play at a bar yet," said Cole Hons, lead singer of Dogtown Road. "If you're an artist trying to do your own thing musically and creatively, it's tough in this town."

Still other musicians' dream-come-true scenarios revolve around a life constantly on the road. Queen Bee and the Blue Hornet Band started out as the darling of State College, breaking into the fixed-schedule bar scene fairly easily and eventually graduating to the regional act it is now.

Although Queen Bee guitarist Mark Ross admitted that going steady was fun at first, he said he would go nuts if he still had to play the same schedule every week.

"If I had to play totally just in State College, I would lose my mind," Ross said. "It would just become a grind for me."