Wacom is excited to announce the winner of its ‘Sound of Bamboo’ competition on MySpace.com to find a piece of music for its Bamboo brand video. Chosen from nearly 700 entries spanning five European countries, The Amateurs from the UK scooped the top prize for their song ‘Saturday Night’. The ultimate winner was crowned by a panel of music experts from across Europe, following an online vote through the social networking site, where several thousand votes were cast. Not only will ‘Saturday Night’ be used with Wacom’s Bamboo clip in related marketing activities, but The Amateurs also get to spend a huge €10,000 on music equipment from Music Store.

Launched in April 2010, the ‘Sound of Bamboo’ competition was open to anyone and all genres of music. The panel of five jurors from across the music industry spectrum ultimately chose from a shortlist of three entries voted for by the European MySpace community. The runners up were Big Bang Factory from France and Chasing Pete from Germany.

Alan Branch, jury member and UK based producer, engineer, writer and musician says: “I’ve been really impressed with the quality and quantity of entrants to this competition. It has been a great platform for aspiring artists. With The Amateurs, we have chosen a band which we believe has got a great hit potential.”

The Amateurs are a Birmingham based indie rock band with four members: Matthew Colley (Vocals, Piano), Andrew Fletcher (Bass), Jim Holliday (Drums), Alex Wesley (Guitar). Their debut single ‘Homesick’ was released in March and received a lot of positive response by major music critics. Currently, the band is working on a new release.

Heike Senteck, Brand Communication Manager, Consumer Brands for Wacom Europe and competition panelist, says: “The winner song Saturday Night enhances the Bamboo brand, as it has grown out of the online community. Adding it to our video will start an ongoing dialogue with our users. They expressed themselves and shared their ideas with us. That’s why we have opened the competition to any artist and genre of music and it has shown us that our users can bring the Bamboo brand forward with their creativity.”

The complete social media release for the competition can be found on: www.socialmediarelease.de/sound-of-bamboo-uk

For further information about the competition and to hear the winner song, visit www.myspace.com/soundofbamboo.

More information about Bamboo can be found at www.wacom.eu/bamboo

Seen by many as the most enjoyable console game on the market, Guitar Hero’s makers Activision Blizzard (AB) are planning to cash in on this by launching a ’Greatest Hits’ edition before the end of the year – according to Gizmodo.

In a true legendry music hero style, Guitar Hero ‘Greatest ‘Hits will include selected songs from previous versions to create the ultimate in virtual music gaming. Question is, who decides the legendary songs. Will AB put this to the general public to decide, in turn creating marketing buzz for the release, I know that is what I would do.

Paul Lester, Gizmodo;   

‘In a conference call with analysts, CEO Mike Griffith refused to name any specific tracks but said that a compilation that includes full band versions of previously released songs in the series will be winging its way to us before the end of the year.

We’d expect at least three or four of the previous games to be covered and the news should come as a boon for those who claimed the World Tour set list was comparatively quite disappointing (oh wait, that was me.)

The title will be available on the 360, PS3, Wii and with a new game coming out for the DS in Q3 and DJ Hero in the works, rhythm gamers will be pleased to hear that the franchise is still going strong.’