A BATTLE-of-the-bands competition run by The Scotsman’s website has chosen its inaugural winner.
The Radar section of the site is devoted to showcasing unsigned bands and it has chosen Glasgow outfit, French Wives, as the victor in its first competition. Over 100 demo tracks were listened to by a nine-strong judging panel, including the newspaper’s popular music reviewer, Fiona Shepherd.
Scotsman.com writer, Nick Mitchell, told allmediascotland: “It wasn’t an easy decision to launch the Scotsman Radar Prize, given the fact that most of our readers online are music fans who are a bit fed up with shows like The X Factor or the multitude of brand-orientated unsigned contests. So we had to be careful to give it some legitimacy, and I think prizes like the recording session, as well as the fact that we resisted opening it up to a public vote, helped it to retain its credibility among our audience.
“I was taken aback by the response as the entries started flowing in. It never ceases to amaze me just how many unknown bands there are out there, and running this competition has turned up some we’d like to hear more from.
“The Radar site started life early last year and this is the first time we have organised a competition of this kind. So it was uncharted territory for us, but we seem to have engaged our audience rather well and the feedback so far has been positive. It was also great to see the integration with the newspaper, with their double page spread in the arts section about the winner.
“Radar seems to be going from strength to strength and things like the competition really drum up more interest and debate. The culmination of the competition came on the same day we were nominated in the UK-wide Record of the Day awards for the second year running, so it’s been a good week.”
