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AKG's Unsigned Heroes 2008
The winners of AKG's Unsigned Heroes 2008 competition have been announced. The annual competition seeks to find the best unsigned band in the UK and Ireland and is sponsored by Austrian microphone manufacturer AKG and their UK distributor Sound Technology. The lucky winners of this year's competition, which has been running since January, were self-starred 'smooth indie band' The Headliners, from Sheffield, who netted the most on-line votes from the eight acts that made it to the Vote Off, the final stage of the competition. The runners-up were ENL and Tall Stories, both from London.
The Headliners were only formed in 2006, but already they've attracted quite a following, winning a Channel 4 unsigned competition last year and also reaching the final 20 bands in AKG's Unsigned Heroes 2007. Now, having won first prize a year later, and fresh from a five-day Carling Academy mini-tour of Britain's major cities, they're busy honing their live act and polishing some new material, which should be released later this year. In just a few days, they'll be playing on-stage at the Glastonbury Festival as part of their Unsigned Heroes prize, courtesy of Strummerville, the Joe Strummer charity for the promotion of new music in the UK.
Later in the year, The Headliners will have one of their tracks remixed by UNKLE's Aidan Lavelle. The track that won them the competition, 'Run', will also be appearing this summer as the lead-off song on The Break's Lucky 8, a NoCarbon Records/Universal Music compilation of the acts that entered the competition and played at The Break, the new music event in Shoreditch where the live heats of Unsigned Heroes 2008 were held. ENL and Tall Stories don't go away empty-handed - ENL get to play at the Jersey Live festival in late August, while Tall Stories are performing a set at July's ZooThousand festival in Kent. All three winning bands also received an AKG endorsement deal and a set of AKG live mics.
"This year's Unsigned Heroes was another great success, with well over 2000 entrants," comments Amanda Chester, marketing manager at AKG's UK distributor Sound Technology. "This year, the competition was bigger and better than in 2007, with a greater emphasis on the band's live performances - something AKG have always been keen on, with their recent emphasis on microphones for live performance in their product line - thanks to the involvement of Unsigned Heroes with The Break. The live heats in Shoreditch had a very special atmosphere, and it was a pleasure to be involved with something that was so creative and so much fun. As usual, the only difficulty was deciding who got to play - there were so many great bands that we couldn't include. But there's always next year..."
The Headliners will be playing live on the Strummerville stage at this year's Glastonbury Festival, which runs from June 27th-29th.
25th June 2008
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