For a local band trying to “make it big” or even play a show in Athens, it’s not a bad idea for it to spread its music to the freshmen who stream into the dorms each year and don’t know the Caledonia Lounge from the Classic Center.

Power-pop band Doctor Squid, Athens veterans of two years, had the chance to reach out to the map-clutching masses on campus. Now they are taking that opportunity and running with it.

At the beginning of this year, Bulldog Bucks passed out download cards to incoming freshmen. The codes on these cards would allow students to download songs by a range of local artists from the Bulldog Bucks Web site.

Doctor Squid contributed a song, and the decision paid off. The download code offer, which has now ended, resulted in more than 2,200 redeemed codes.

Doctor Squid has played a show at the Melting Point with Venice Is Sinking, another band included in the downloadable giveaway.

“[That show] was on the first day of move-in, so I don’t even know how many people were back, but we had a great turn out for that,” said Mark Spurlock, guitarist for Doctor Squid. “At that show, we did a thing where it was cheaper to get in with a UGA ID and over half our tickets were sold that way.”

Although there is no University ID deal for the show tonight, Doctor Squid will perform with another band included on the Bulldog Bucks download card, The Warm Fuzzies.

“The whole point of [this show] to begin with was to introduce freshmen to the Athens music scene,” Spurlock said.

Though the band is happy to have a crowd of fresh faces, they’ve had time to establish their own base.

“We’re very energetic,” Spurlock said. “We have a penchant for getting just about every song to be a sing-along with the crowd – they’re a pretty loyal bunch.”

Spurlock described Doctor Squid’s music as “old Weezer with a lot of adrenaline that tends to be very exciting and catchy.”

The four-piece uses its energetic power-pop to reach out to the crowd, whether it’s a throng of loyal fans or lucky freshmen getting an early look into what Athens music has to offer.

Athens, the doctor is in.