BANDING TOGETHER MUSIC GROUPS VYING TO WIN LOCAL CONTEST.

Byline: Peggy Hager Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Some are hoping for stardom. Others are just looking for an audience.

More than 20 local bands are signed up for Schooner restaurant's seventh Battle of the Bands season, which starts Sunday.

``A lot of these bands and kids are looking for a place to play, and, this way, they get some exposure,'' said Pat O'Donnell, one of the Schooner's owners. ``A lot of times, this is the first place that people can see them.''

Four bands will perform from 6 to 9 p.m. each Sunday at the Lancaster restaurant, 43807 15th St. W. The top two bands each Sunday will move on to the semifinals. When the semifinals will occur depends on how many bands sign up, and registration is still open. One competition lasted for nine months.

Some winners have gone on to better things. Past winner 13th Hour just finished recording an album. Sixty Cycle Hum, a winner from two years ago, has recorded a demo CD and signed contracts for the use of six songs in videos.

``Of course, we'd like to make it, but we haven't quit our day jobs yet,'' said Sixty Cycle Hum bassist Jim Agostinacci. ``We'd like to sign with an indie or a label ... but competition's tough. We're still having fun doing it. When it becomes not fun, we won't do it.''

The members of Sixty Cycle Hum - which plays heavier alternative music, with positive messages and no profanity in the lyrics - entered the 2003 competition to see how they'd fare against other groups.

``I guess we thought we were good, just wanted to see what other people thought,'' recalled Agostinacci.

Of the competition, he said: ``It's awesome. It's really good fun and you can get a lot of fans from it too.''

Agostinacci, 39, and his bandmates - lead singer Nino Agostinacci, his brother; drummer Steve Mosman, 32; and guitarists Rob Pritchard, 42, and Ryan Gillespi, 27 - won a custom truck from Robertson's Palmdale Honda, which they sold to finance their CD.

They also won a $1,000 gift certificate to Guitar Center and a recording package from Paradoxx Studios, which they gave to another band because their CD was already in production.

So far, the band has sold 800 copies of their CD ``Haloid,'' named after a street in Ridgecrest, where the band is based.

Most of the 250 Schooner's competitors over the last seven years performed music from the rock genre - hard rock, heavy metal, alternative and punk. One entrant, however, was an instrumental duo who played accordian and acoustic bass.

The bands are rated in 10 categories that include visual image, vocal performance, musical arrangements, material, crowd response and originality, taken from a format used to sign acts at Warner Bros.

The judges will have entertainment industry backgrounds.

``They have to like all types of music; they can't judge somebody because they don't like that type of music,'' said Heidi Plester, the competition's band coordinator.

The competition was started seven years ago by Schooner's manager, Marshall Garrison, who, four years later, was killed in a shooting blamed on a disgruntled patron.

``(Marshall's) intent was basically for bands to get exposure and practice and grow and make it a learning experience,'' Plester said.

Band hopefuls can sign up at the Lancaster Schooner's, 43807 15th St. W., or at Guitar Center, 1011 W. Rancho Vista Blvd.

Peggy Hager, [phone]

peggy.grimm-hager(at)dailynews.com