Cory Case, The Union Line, Win OCMA Showcase Finals

This past Friday and Saturday's OC Music Awards
live music finals are over and done with (seeing as how it's, y'know, Monday), and they have winners.

The Union Line (pictured) beat out The Living Suns, The Jakes, The New Limb and Venus Infers on Saturday night at the Yost in what was surely a close competition (still not sure what the point of pitting bands that are really pretty different musically, and in essentially the same position in their careers against each other, but maybe that's just me). All five bands sounded good; The Union Line definitely earned that victory, but The Living Suns plowed through depite being the last of five bands on a long night, The Jakes surprised me with their energy and charisma--I interviewed them two days earlier and they were very friendly and cool, but rather low-key, The New Limb were the best of the three times I've seen them, and Venus Infers were their usual, well-polished, well-coiffed selves, despite having to deal with some truly heinous sound problems. They're all winners, if you ask me! Or at least, non-losers.

I didn't see all of the acoustic music finals, but Cory Case--who Rex Reason interviewed back in October for us--beat out Melanoid, Yellow Red Sparks, AJ Degrasse and Hong Kong Six.

This means Cory Case and The Union Line have now both been added to the OCMA lineup, this Saturday at the Grove of Anaheim. Yep.