A Legend in the Making: Antstock 2006

Brush up on your guitar chords and practice keeping a steady drum beat. The first annual Antstock music festival will be held Nov. 14.
Antstock was put together by the Computerstore as a counterpart to the highly successful ’24-Hour Mad Film Dash’ competition, which will be held again next quarter.
‘This is like the last part of the equation,’ said third-year music major and Marketing Coordinator for the Computerstore Andrew Capra. ‘When we did the film competition it was really just a shot in the dark. We didn’t know if it would be successful or not. But the students loved it and started asking us for more amateur competitions like that. And we’ve been doing that.’
The event was designed to give music students a chance to publicize their work. As a music major, Capra has seen first-hand how few outlets there are for musicians to gain exposure on campus.
‘I hope we have a wider sense of the music on campus, and that this gives musicians a chance to promote their work,’ Capra said. ‘It is hopefully a way for everyone to realize what kind of arts community there is on campus.’
Interested students may submit their music to http://www.computerstore.uci.edu until Nov. 5. The application requirements are simple. Entries must be reasonably high-quality mp3 files that are 30 seconds or longer.
‘People make music in so many different ways, there was no way we could ever make a strict set of rules for this,’ Capra said. ‘We want to give as much flexibility as possible.’
Entries will be judged by a panel of professors from the music department. Winners will be chosen in six categories: best vocals, best instrumentals, web award, song of the year, best sampling and most original.
The awards ceremony will be held on Nov. 14. Several of the competing bands will perform and winners in all categories will be announced.
‘We wanted to give away awards, but we did not want to have a strict awards ceremony,’ Capra said. ‘Since we have a lot of musicians, I just wanted to get some to perform live. So we worked that in. … We are combining [a] festival and [an] awards show into one. So we want the free-flowing outdoor concept feel, and also to be able to recognize our winners at the same time. It’s going to be pretty seamless.’