The OC Music Awards

Nestled between San Diego and Los Angeles, Orange County's music scene can often get overshadowed by its big city borders. Yet the Orange County Music Awards [OCMA] honor this area's musical acts proving this region has just as much talent. Now in their eighth year, the OCMA drew influence from their metropolitan neighbors, but shifted the spotlights to give the local artists the recognition they deserve. "The purpose of the awards is to create awareness and opportunities for local musicians through recognition of talent," explains Luke Allen, producer of the 2009 OCMA. "We have had a lot of press about the nominees and other artists that have participated in the showcase series and hopefully people will start taking notice of the scene and the artists in OC and get inspired to open more venues, labels, studios, publications, etc."

Martin Brown, the former house agent and booker at the Galaxy Concert Theatre in Santa Ana and publisher of Live magazine, founded the OCMA in 2001 and hosted the first show at the Galaxy. A few years later the show was gaining momentum and switched venues to the Grove of Anaheim. Last year, Brown decided to move to Spain and passed the torch on to Allen, owner of the Santa Ana rehearsal studio Gemini Studios.

"[Gemini Studios] started sponsoring the Awards and Martin [Brown] simply asked me at the Best Live Band finals last year," says Allen of his newly appointed producer position. "He just mentioned that he was moving to Spain and that he was looking for someone to take over the awards. So basically I said 'okay' and then we worked out the details."

THE ACADEMY & SHOWCASES
This year under Allen's direction, the OCMA made the jump from a submission-based process to a more predominantly nomination-based one - Twenty-one total categories covered all genres of music from Best Pop rock to Best Surf and Best New Artist with 18 being academy-nominated, two live submission-based [Best Live Acoustic and Best Live Band] and one People's Choice Award.

"We looked pretty closely at two neighboring awards shows that have both been around for 18 years - the LA Music Awards and the San Diego Music Awards," says Allen.

The LA Music Awards is a pay-to-submit process and the San Diego Music Awards are an academy-based process, and after observing the good qualities in the San Diego show, Allen says that in the "long term changing the Awards to a nomination based process was the best way to make it a relevant and effective show for the community." Next, they chose key tastemakers in the local Orange County music scene to make up the academy.

"What makes the academy so great is that it provides diversity," says OCMA academy member Ashley Elliot, Orange County DJ on KUCI Press Pass and editorial assistant/video producer at Churm Media. "Everyone has different back- grounds in the music industry and of course different musical tastes. This allows for a broad spec-
trum of artists to be considered for the awards."

Tazy Phyllipz, Orange County DJ, founder of Ska Parade and promoter for The District, has also been involved with the OCMA "even before they started," he says. The community- proclaimed "man behind the Orange County scene" knew Brown through Live magazine and was approached by the founder to be involved in the original awards show as a judge, presenter and band recruiter. This year, Allen contacted Phyllipz to continue his involvement, and Phyllipz helped put together some of the members of the academy as well as signing on as an official member himself.

"This was the first year that it wasn't artist-submitted and we had to really come from our expertise as to who, in which categories, deserved the award for this year," says Phyllipz.

For the two submission-based categories, Elliot, Phyllipz and Hazel Quimpo from Yelp judged weekly live showcases to narrow down the nominees, running every Tuesday from January to March. Allen said they kept these two categories submission-based to allow new bands "to get involved even if they were not really well-known in the community." The judges rated the applicants on a 1-10 scale based on musicianship, originality, song composition, stage presence, interaction with the crowd and crowd response and overall performance.

OC vs. LOS ANGELES & SAN DIEGO
This talent is what the OCMA aim to highlight for the area and hope to give these local musicians the recognition that they deserve, both locally and abroad. This is something that all of the people in the Orange County music scene passionately agree on.

Commenting on the Los Angeles versus Orange County scenes, Elliot says, "Bands think they have to go to LA to hit it big and I don't believe that. It's true that LA has an enormous music scene with many venues and outlets for artists, but what OC has that LA is lacking is a real community. In OC, musicians look out for other musicians and venues look out for other venues. There is a support system here."

Phyllipz adds, "There's a big reason why Orange County has been a haven for good music for a long time and it's because there's a nurturing body behind the scene and within the scene... There's also a lot of suburban kids that like to support music and the arts, and they have the money to do so, and they're not afraid to take a chance on new music."

Even Allen agrees that the Los Angeles scene is "oversaturated" with many bands trying to do the same thing. This gives Orange County and the OCMA the opportunity to give credit to the local musicians' abilities.

"I would like to have a great show that really creates awareness and opportunities for local musicians," says Allen about this year's OCMA. "I hope this year sets the stage for next year and each year is better than the last.