Awards

Finalists announced for Rock The House, plus House The House launched

By | Published on Monday 28 May 2012

Houses of Parliament

The finalists have been chosen for this year’s Rock The House competition, the parliamentary new talent initiative run by former music businessman and now MP for Hove Mike Weatherly.

As previously reported, with Rock The House Weatherly’s fellow parliamentarians are invited to nominate artists, bands and small venues from their local constituencies for the three categories in the contest, and then a panel of artists, journalists and industry types pick the finalists. In the musician categories, the ten shortlisted acts will then play at a battle of the bands evening on Wednesday where overall winners will be selected.

165 MPs made nominations in this, the second year of Rock The House, and from the 195 artists, bands and venues nominated, the following finalists have been picked (with nominators and their constituencies in brackets):

Solo Artist
Victoria Ward (Johnathan Lord, Woking)
Jen Armstrong (Julian Smith, Skipton and Ripon)
Kevin Pierce (Bob Russell, Colchester)
Lauren Wright (Harriet Baldwin, West Worcestershire)
Marc Otway (Greg Mulholland, Leeds North West)

Band
Centre Excuse (Alan Duncan, Rutland)
Manukah (Louise Ellman, Liverpool Riverside)
The Verdict (Steve Rotherham, Liverpool Walton)
Blackbyrd (Chris Bryant, Rhondda)
Narrow Plains (Dr Andrew Murrison, South West Wiltshire)

Venues
The Electric Palace (Oliver Letwin, Bridgeport Dorset)
The Picket (Louise Ellman, Liverpool)
Korks (Greg Mulholland, Otley)

The overall artist winners will get a stack of kit and other useful prizes, plus bookings at various festivals and a shindig in the Houses Of Parliament. Commenting on this year’s competition, Weatherly told CMU: “It is fantastic that Rock The House has such widespread support from the Prime Minister and Ed Vaizey, the minister for the creative industries, to music legends. Rock The House has been all about bringing together musicians, parliamentarians, the music industry and government and I’d like to think this paves the path to ensuring we protect our world-leading creative economy”.

And if you’re a DJ thinking “but why don’t I get the chance to play in the halls of power?”, well, never fear, because a new DJ competition has been set up by dance music charity Last Night A DJ Saved My Life called House The House, the prize of which will be a parliamentary gig, plus a range of other music production goodies and an Ibiza booking. The competition will be launched in London on 19 Jun with submissions accepted from 25 Jun. The parliamentary DJ party won’t take place until next March though. More here.



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