A Visit To The OC Music Awards

Last week I attended the OC Music Awards in Anaheim for the very first time and learned quite a bit about a music scene that has not gotten much press. Living in the shadow of Los Angeles, the OC has had a thriving music scene for years, I learned, but it's only been in the last decade or so that, courtesy of bands like No Doubt, The Offspring, Social Distortion and others, people began to really notice what was happening.

The ceremony was held at The Grove which is located across the parking lot from Angel Stadium and in addition to live performances by a dozen or so up and coming artists, included a nice retrospective that covered the history of OC music.

I was there because my artist Molly Jenson was nominated for best pop artist and although she didn't win (she's a San Diego native who moved to the OC last year) we have a secret plan to have her continue to move up the coast each year and pick up awards in the various cities as she moves-so on to L.A. next, then Santa Barbara and eventually Seattle. Not really.

We lost to a band called The Bolts which I admit I'd never heard of, but we did get a chance to listen to a number of interesting artists including a band called Japanese Motors.

The one glitch was that we had to stand in line for a long time and I decided to pull the "artist" card and ask if nominated artists had to stand in the long line as well. Another band, Venus Infers had the same idea and we briefly hung out only to be told that, yes, we had to go back to the regular line and wait our turn. The guys from VI could have thrown a fit, especially since they went on to win three awards, but they didn't and seemed to very nice, laid back OC guys.

I spend about half of my time in LA and half in the OC but I admit I knew little about the OC scene and I'm looking forward to learning more. For you newbies, here's a primer on rock in the O.C.