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Last year's Young Guns winners are...

Muzak Heart & Soul Grand Prize

Congratulations to Richard Saunders and the Too-Cool-for-Yous of Hartford, CT—the winners of the 2010 Young Guns Muzak Heart & Soul $5,000 grand prize for Best Teen Band in the Land!

Here's what our panel of music industry judges had to say about Richard and his band:

Amazing vocals; uber sophisticated musicality, fearless songwriting. • My favorite. Good vision of what they are trying to achieve and cool sound overall. Not the most mainstream, but pays dividends for those who have patience. He's mature sounding for his years. • Innovative compositions, great phrasing, and tight band with complete sound palette. Fully finished sound. • Unique professionalism for high school. Very mature sound.

listen to the song that brought them first place: "I Love You, Richard"

Richard Saunders and the too-cool-for-yous like to spend their time in the quiet suburbs of Connecticut listening to music and generally being real. Richard likes to listen to Donny Hathaway, Björk, and his mom. Jake Goldbas likes to listen to Kendrick Scott and Latin salsa bands. Andrew is like Alex in A Clockwork Orange when he listens to Beethoven, and the back-up singers know all the words to the songs that play on our local R&B station. They are just too cool.

Second Place

Kudos also to the Calendar Effect of Abingdon, VA. Their fans helped them break a tie for 2nd Place to bring home a Hear Technologies Hear Back Four Pack personal monitor system!

The Calendar Effect, formed in 2007, is a band from Abingdon, VA including Blakley Leonard and Ruthi McNerlin. The band began with Blakley Leonard when he played with various members. With a blend of acoustic and indie styles comes a unique sound that is a must hear. For some live shows session bass players, accordian players, and drummers are used. Currently The Calendar Effect is recording a demo due out by the end of March. Mostly new songs are being written for the Demo.

We are delighted to note that Blakely Leonard is now a popular music student at Catawba College. Thanks to Young Guns, Blakely learned of Catawba and we learned of him.

ASCAP J.A.M. Prize

Congratulations to Evan Blaine of Palm Coast, FL for his ASCAP J.A.M. Prize for Best Original Song, "Dreams for Stars"! Evan was the hands down winner for a great song that he performed to wow them at the ASCAP I Create Music Expo at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles.

Evan performing "Dream for Stars" at the ASCAP I Create Music Expo.