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BLASTBEAT BATTLE

Presented by Emo's

May 31, 2008

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Forwarded by the Texas Music Office (512) 463-6666 http://www.EnjoyTexasMusic.com AUSTIN HIGH SCHOOL ACT HEADS TO IRELAND FOR CHANCE TO WIN INTERNATIONAL RECORD DEAL; YOUNG ENTERPRENEURS COMPETE FOR SEED FUNDING Finals of Blastbeat Battle Event to take place from 2:00 to 7:30 p.m., Saturday, May 31 at Emo's. Blastbeat, an international award-winning music business and social entrepreneur program and competition for High School students, will be hosting the southern region of the USA Finals of the Blastbeat battle of the bands for Austin schools on Saturday, May 31 from 2:00 to 7:30 p.m. at Emo's located at 603 Red River in Austin. The event is open to the public and is all ages. Tickets are only 5.00 USD in advance and are currently available for online purchase at Emo's (www.emosaustin.com ) and at Waterloo Records. Tickets will also be sold at the door for 7.00 USD. The winning band from the May 31 competition will receive a recording session by the Austin School of Music's award-winning studio, a music video shot and filmed at Austin's ME Television studios, and an all expense paid trip to the Blastbeat World Finals in Dublin, Ireland. There, the winning bands from four continents will compete for a recording contract with Blastspace Records and a world tour. The winning student-run music and multi-media company (MMC) from the May 31 event will also go to Dublin to compete for a prize of 5,000 EURO (approx 7,500 USD) seed money for their own ongoing social entrepreneurial project. MMC projects will be exhibited at the May 31 event. Blastbeat is a non-profit program that teaches social entrepreneurial business skills, promotes young musicians, and supports youth communities on a local and global level. Austin bands are competing from Akins High School, Anderson High School, LASA High School and Austin Can Academy. Judges will include high level music industry veterans from the Austin area. Sponsors for the event are the Austin School of Music and Strait Music. The bands confirmed to play are the El Guapos (Akins winner), The Diving Captains (LASA winner) and Next (Austin Can winner). The winner from Anderson High will be chosen on May 17. Opening the show will be Super Pal Universe, a band featuring five Austin-area students, ages 13 to 17, who actively encourage teens and pre-teens to increase community involvement and creativity through music and web-viewable programming. The Blastbeat program, which is free to schools and youth organizations, currently operates in Austin, Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC, Ireland, the UK, South Africa, Belgium and Central Europe, and is expanding into Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Atlanta, New Orleans and Houston in September 2008. Students, under the supervision of a teacher/advisor and a Blastbeat mentor form a social enterprise music and multi-media company and through the Blastbeat program learn how to run a good "Battle of the Bands or Acts" event. The MMC students choose six unsigned acts to compete and showcase. The program has a full suite of business roles from Chief Executive Officer to PR, sales, A&R, marketing, journalism, web, event planning, finance management, and even DVD video filming, editing and production. "Austin is at the center of the global music industry, and with our program, mission and network we want Austin-based musicians and young entrepreneurs to achieve new outlets and opportunities for success, not only as artists, but also as social entrepreneurs and mentors for young people who want to make a change in the world for the better," said President and Founder of Blastbeat, Robert Stephenson who will be flying in from Dublin to attend the event as a judge. Stephenson will be presenting the winners with a once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity including a trip to Ireland for the world finals. "The people of Austin have always reminded me of the Irish in their genuine openness and great sense of hospitality to visitors. Austin is a really great Capital City, and like Dublin, it has charm and a huge amount of talented musicians and creative young entrepreneurs." The Blastbeat program has been running successfully in Ireland for five years. January 2008 marked the first World Finals attended by MMC's and bands from Los Angeles, Austin, New York City, Chicago, South Africa, Belgium and Ireland where they were judged by industry VIP's from the US and Europe. Recently writing about Blastbeat's inventive family of enterprises, Bill Drayton, Founder of Ashoka, a global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs, said: "It was instantly obvious how Blastbeat could make the real difference in our effort to help young people develop the experience of being change makers as young people so they can be change makers as adults." For more information on the organization, please see www.blastbeat.org or Blastbeat's social networking and creative collaboration site www.blastspace.com . # # # For more information on Blastbeat, please contact Jacquelyn Sorcic at jackie@blastbeat.org. For all media inquiries, please contact Heather Wagner at heather@juiceconsulting.net -- Jacquelyn Sorcic US Regional Manager - South e: jackie@blastbeat.org m: 512.470.5148