UKIAH, Calif. – A guitarist from Lakeport won the eighth annual Rising Stars Music Competition held this weekend.
Travis Rinker won first place and the honor of being the top Mendo Lake Solo Artist at the eighth annual event, held Saturday on the Alex Thomas Plaza stage in Ukiah.
His band, Fog Realm, also took third place and top metal honors.
Pairing up with Ukiah Main Street’s End of Summer Show & Shine Classic Car Show, Rising Stars Music Competition musicians started performing at 10 a.m. Saturday.
Ranging from acoustic solo artists to full bands, musicians were placed in genre appropriate categories. Acts were judged individually by local music experts in the areas of talent, musicianship and audience interaction.
After each judge awarded their individual points, scores were added up and winners were presented with awards in solo, world rock, hip hop and metal categories.
First, second and third place overall along with People’s Choice were awarded at the end of the night after a featured performance by the 2013 first place artists, The Whitetrash Superstars.
Winning acts were:
• Mendo Lake Solo Artist: Travis Rinker.
• City of Light Recording and Sound World Rock Artists: The Johnny Young Band
• Max 93.5 Hip Hop Artist: Young Bengy.
• 94.5 Kwine Metal Artists: Fog Realm.
• First place: Travis Rinker.
• Second place: The Johnny Young Band.
• Third place: Fog Realm.
• People’s Choice: Dirty Rice.
Prizes for the winning acts included recording time at City of Light Recording and Sound, cash, gigs at Shanachie Pub, voice recording at K-Otic Studio, and dig! Music gift certificates.
Event coordinator Mary Chadwick is most proud of the fact that Rising Stars Music Competition is a positive event.
“The musicians perform and then stay to cheer on and support the other musicians,” said Chadwick. “They can be found standing in the audience enjoying their counterparts music and applauding their performances. I have even seen musicians loan each other equipment that has been forgotten. It is a competition and every act takes it seriously but they are also there to support the nonprofits, perform for the public and raise awareness of the talented musicians in our community.”
This year also saw the last year of sound engineering by sound-man Jef Brewer.
A mainstay behind the soundboard at most of the eight Rising Stars Competition, Brewer planted the music competition bug in his coordination of 2006’s Band Slam in Alex Thomas Plaza.
Brewer will stay involved in the local music scene in other ways but feels his “work is done” at this event as well as the popular Acoustic Café concert series at Parducci Winery.