TORRANCE, Calif. — Send2Press(R), a leading targeted newswire service, announced today it has joined the sponsors of the 12-week Battle of the Bands, hosted by A&R Select, the music industry’s benchmark in independent promotion and marketing. Over 80 local and regional bands will perform for an industry panel of well-known record labels, music supervisors, managers, music directors, and publishers. Other sponsors for the event include Music Saves Lives and Sam Ash.

The competition is being held at BB King’s Bar and Grille, located at Universal CityWalk in Hollywood. A cash prize of $2,500 awaits the winner along with radio airplay. The competition began performances in mid-April and is continuing every Monday night for 12 weeks, and is viewable via web stream on A&R Select’s MySpace page: www.myspace.com/arselect.

“We’re excited to have been one of the sponsors for this event since it started,” said Christopher Simmons, president of Neotrope(R), parent company of Send2Press. “With the shift in the music industry from record stores to online, and the growth of social networks and video streaming, this mixed-media event makes an interesting venue for an online concert series, while still having a ‘live’ presence in a real club.” Simmons is a member of PRSA, and ASCAP, and has been both a marketing expert and professional musician for over 25 years. He is also the editor of MuseWire (www.musicindustrynewswire.com).

About A&R Select
A&R Select(TM) offers artist development and marketing services for musicians. The company’s goal is to provide a variety of solutions where talented artists with a drive to succeed can get their music to the people who make career building decisions. More information: www.arselect.com.

About Send2Press Newswire
Founded in 1997, Send2Press (www.Send2Press.com) is one of the leading online-based news release creation and distribution companies helping small businesses and start-up companies reach and inform their target media. It is the only online newswire service to provide a single source for news writing, rich media, media coaching, targeted distribution, search engine marketing, and media representation.

Send2Press is a unit of Neotrope(R), established 1983 in California, and is the only news distribution service with a staff entirely comprised of accredited PR professionals and working journalists. Send2Press was the first news service in the world to optimize content for search engines in 1997, using Neotrope’s proprietary ContextEngine(R) technology. Prior to 2000, the company was known as MindsetNetwire.

For information on Send2Press services, visit:
https://www.send2press.com/services/

All trademarks acknowledged.

[tags]Neotrope Entertainment, Christopher Simmons, Send2Press, A&R Select, battle of the bands, indie music promotion, unsigned bands, myspace concert, ContextEngine[/tags]