The Association of Music Producers’ (AMP) West Coast chapter hosted its first “Battle of the Ad Bands” competition on Monday night (11/19) at The Mint in Los Angeles. The event–with proceeds benefiting The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation–drew a full house of 150 and six competing bands. Winning the $500 Grand Prize was the Crash Kings from S! Studios.
“The AMP Battle of the Ad Bands in the West is a great opportunity for the community to come together to seek out new talent, and help a really worthy cause,” said event chairman Liz Myers of Trivers/Myers Music. “We’re really excited with the turnout, knowing that we’ve raised much-needed funds for Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, the charity that supports public school music and gives instruments to talented musicians who otherwise couldn’t afford them .”
The musical acts competed in an American Idol-style talent competition. Judges included: Scott Cymbala of Elias Arts, Julie Ward of Groove Addicts, and head judge Stephen Dewey of Machine Head. Bands were invited from the ad business at large, including production companies, mix and editorial houses and ad agencies. Each group was allowed one ringer, and had 12 minutes to perform three songs. Covers were permitted—with one exception: a performance of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” in its original form was grounds for immediate removal from the stage. Bands were judged on originality, stage presence and talent.
Competing in the competition were: Devastating Karate from Rubin Postear & Associates; Hard to Nailer from AddMarketing; Crash Kings; Joanna Equilibria of Latin Sphere; The Monthlies out of TBWA/Chiat/Day; and The Exaggerators of WongDoody.
The style of the Crash Kings was described by judge Cymbala as “Ben Folds lives in a trailer park and runs a meth lab.”
AMP was founded in 1998 for the purpose of educating its members, and the production and advertising community as a whole, on all facets of music production, from creation to final use. Headquartered in New York, with regional chapters in Los Angeles, Chicago, Florida and Minneapolis, AMP is the first organization to represent the commercial music industry on a broad platform of creative, business and community matters.
“A Complete Unknown,” “Wicked,” “Sing Sing,” “Baby Reindeer” Among Guild of Music Supervisors Award Winners
The Guild of Music Supervisors held its 15th annual awards ceremony on Sunday night (2/23) at the Wiltern Theatre in L.A., honoring the best achievements in music supervision and songwriting with feature category winners including “Wicked,” “A Complete Unknown,” “I Saw the TV Glow” and “Sing Sing.” Among the TV category winners were “Baby Reindeer,” “English Teacher” and “Agatha All Along.”
Stephen Schwartz was awarded the Icon Award to celebrate his contributions to the music and film industry. Schwartz performed his song “Beautiful City” on stage from his musical “Godspell.” Music producer and supervisor Bonnie Greenberg took to the stage to accept the Legacy Award for her outstanding career in music supervision. Music supervisor and executive at EA Games Steve Schnur won the most awards for the evening with two wins for his work on video games EA Sports FC 25 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
Keeping their promise of live performances from Best Song nominees, Oscar-nominees Abraham Alexander & Adrian Quesada performed their nominated song “Like a Bird” from “Sing Sing,” which took the prize for Best Song Written and/or Recorded for a Film. Danielle Ponder performed her nominated song “Egún” from Apple TV’s “Manhunt,” and the artist Role Model gave a rousing performance of their song “Sally, When The Wine Runs Out” as the Spotlight artist of the evening.
The complete winners list for the 15th Annual Guild of Music Supervisors Awards is as follows.
FILM
Best Music Supervision in Major Budget Films
Maggie Rodford - “Wicked”
Best Music Supervision in Mid-Level Budget Films
Steven Gizicki - “A... Read More