There's a new competition in town looking to give unsigned musicians a chance in the limelight. For it's first run a singer-songwriter from Swindon won over the judges.
Earthworm Recording Studio, based in Swindon, recently launched a new music competition ‘For the Song’. The entry is simple: record a demo of an original song of any genre and send it to Earthworm. With a team of creatives on hand, the idea behind the competition is to assist independent musicians in getting some deserved recognition for their singer-songwriting skills.
Since the competition was announced last year, entries came flooding in – but only one song could win the prize: free studio recording and music production at Earthworm, photography shots and video promotion. This year Swindon's Paul Lappin blew the judges away with his demo ‘Life Was Good’.
Jon Buckett, producer at Earthworm Recording Studio, said: “In October of last year we launched ‘For the Song’ – a collaborative idea of Earthworm Recording Studio and local music and media professionals to find a great song from an independent artist and lend it a collective hand through production, recording, photography, video and promotion.
“When we closed submissions on 1 November it was clear we had so many impressive entries across a wonderful spread of styles and genres. Great song writing is alive and very well indeed. It’s been fun to listen to them all and also very challenging to decide on our winner.
“We poured our collective ears over all the submissions and by Christmas had selected a long list of 15 songs, all of which had scored top marks from at least one of the panel. Over the following weeks we considered each in detail; lyrics, melody, arrangement, scope for us to make a real difference to the production/recording, suitability for live shows, visually stimulating for video, radio friendliness, originality, and many other factors. We narrowed it down to our Top 3 – ‘Good Shoes’ by Pete Goss, ‘Fuzzy Love’ by Jess Tuthill and ‘Life was Good’ by Paul Lappin.
“All great songs were submitted with wonderful musiciality and performance energy. We would have been thrilled to work with any one of them.
“We could only however choose one song for this year and ‘Life was Good’ by Paul Lappin won us over. We’re excited to be working with Paul and can’t wait to get started and aim for a release in a few months time!”
The winning song will receive more than £500 worth of free recording time (at Earthworm Recording Studio), music production, professional photography shots, and video promotion alongside an interview and review of the finished single – after a team of industry experts have selected the winning track. The musician, or band, will also be given a live set to debut the finalised song.
Sound too good to be true? Well, our sister publication, The Ocelot, will soon be following up on the progress of For the Song's first winner – Paul Lappin. In support of the competition, The Ocelot will be publishing an interview with each winner alongside a review of their winning single.
For further information about Earthworm Recording Studio visit www.earstudio.co.uk
For further information about The Ocelot visit www.theocelot.co.uk
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