Estranged Individuals win Battle of the Bands at Milpitas Library
Moon Dough takes first place in the adult category.
Teen and adult bands faced off live on July 22 at Milpitas Library at the Battle of the Bands produced by the Santa Clara County Library District.
With this second annual event, the district hoped to give a chance for these half a dozen bands to make an impression and maybe make it big, and to celebrate and encourage the local music scene in Santa Clara County.
The local bands competed in teen and adult categories. Interested bands first submitted their application online with an audition tape of one song. Over 5,000 votes from the community helped selected the top three bands in both categories to perform live. Each band invited to the showcase had 20 minutes on stage to wow the audience and the judging panel.
The teen division featured the Funky Monkeys, made up of Bradley and Zach on guitar, Josh on the drums and Isaac on piano. The Estranged Individuals, a Milpitas band, had Mohamed on bass, Aiden on drums and Lucas on vocals and guitar. Znnia took the stage playing the audience favorites from the ’80s to rock classics.
The adult division featured Charles Bronson & the Sundance Kid, a comedic experimental new wave duo based in the East Bay Area. Smokehouse and their lead vocalist Emma brought country rock to the auditorium, performing covers and originals. The last band of the night was Moon Dough, a Filipino cover band composed of Gavin, Christian, Yuri and Jude, whose set covered many musical genres.
Bands were judged by Juan Guzman, George Peter Tingley and Chris Dang for musicianship, stage presence and technical ability. Guzman is a professional mariachi musician with experience playing in jazz, classical and brass ensembles throughout his high school and college years. Tingley is a composer whose music has been heard on TV, in film and in concert performances; he served as composer for Olympic figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi in the 1990s. Dang is a Santa Clara County Library District employee who’s been playing guitar for 10 years and piano for 20.
The Estranged Individuals won first place in the teen category, Znnia took second and the Funky Monkeys came in third.
Moon Dough won first place in the adult category, Smokehouse came second and Charles Bronson & the Sundance Kid took third place.
The master of ceremonies for this event was Mighty Mike McGee, a former Santa Clara County poet laureate who has supported and emceed music, youth and poetry events since 2005 at the Milpitas Library. Hundreds of residents and visitors in the audience were entertained in between sets by McGee’s sense of humor, energy, poems and jokes.
The $2,000 in prize money awarded to the musicians was provided by charitable donations from the Friends organizations at the Cupertino, Gilroy, Los Altos, Milpitas, Morgan Hill and Saratoga libraries. Fog City Audio Visual provided the sound equipment for the event to complement what was rented by the Santa Clara County Library District.