NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Oct 4, 2012) - The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) will host their annual showcase as part of New York's yearly CMJ Music Marathon. Designed to spotlight the best unsigned bands and provide them with an opportunity to perform for the music industry, ASCAP Presents: CMJ 2012 will feature a dynamic mix of up-and-coming talent from across the musical spectrum and will take place at Tribeca's Canal Room, located at 285 West Broadway, on Wednesday, October 17^th. Doors open at 8:00pm and admission is free.

This year's lineup is a geographically diverse group that represents a wide range of musical styles and genres prevalent in today's music scene. These include Brooklyn-based The Lone Bellow (formerly Zach Williams and The Bellow), London electro-pop outfit Get People, Boston Music Conference's "Best Indie Rock Act" of 2010 Air Traffic Controller, recent musical guests of Jimmy Kimmel Live Monsters Calling Home, Texan indie rock trio Purple and Chicago electronica group Gemini Club.

In past years, ASCAP showcases at the CMJ Music Marathon have featured an array of promising acts, including GROUPLOVE, who scored a #1 hit on Billboard's Alternative chart with their single "Tongue Tied" earlier this year; recent musical guests of TBS's Conan Good Old War; rising New York five-piece Caveman; self-described "experimental psych pop project" Incan Abraham; and NME-dubbed "greatest punk rock'n'roll disco soul band on the planet" Gossip.

In 2003, a Las Vegas band called The Killers were just one of the unsigned acts tapped to perform at the annual ASCAP CMJ showcase. Since then, they've seen massive success in the form of album sales in the millions, sold out shows around the world, seven GRAMMY Award nominations and a variety of MTV, BRIT, and NME awards. The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers reminisces: "I remember being the first of three unsigned bands in an ASCAP showcase at CMJ. Two days later, Island Records signed us. When record labels were not willing to step up, ASCAP took us under their wing and gave us the opportunity to have our music heard."

Adding to ASCAP's presence at the 2012 CMJ Music Marathon, ASCAP's Erik Philbrook and Marc Emert-Hutner will both be sitting on separate official CMJ panels. Philbrook's panel, "The Pitch Party: A Daily Lane for Opportunity," will be made up of select professionals from various yet critical worlds in the music industry, including record label A&R, publishing, radio, music supervision and entertainment law. These panelists will listen and offer candid feedback to media pitches and demos from attendees. It will be held at 11:00am on Tuesday, October 16^th at NYU Kimmel Center, Room 802 Shorin, 60 Washington Square South. Emert-Hutner will act as a panelist for "I'm A P.R.O.! Performing Rights Updates and Info," which will be an overview and Q&A on Performance Rights Organizations at 11:00am on Thursday, October 18^th at NYU Kimmel Ctr. Room 905/907, 60 Washington Square South.

For more information and a detailed lineup schedule of ASCAP Presents: CMJ 2012, visit http://bit.ly/SwLgpc.

About ASCAP
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is a professional membership organization of songwriters, composers and music publishers of every kind of music. ASCAP's mission is to license and promote the music of its members and foreign affiliates, obtain fair compensation for the public performance of their works and to distribute the royalties that it collects based upon those performances. ASCAP members write the world's best-loved music and ASCAP has pioneered the efficient licensing of that music to hundreds of thousands of enterprises who use it to add value to their business -- from bars, restaurants and retail, to radio, TV and cable, to Internet, mobile services and more. The ASCAP license offers an efficient solution for businesses to legally perform ASCAP music while respecting the right of songwriters and composers to be paid fairly. With 450,000 members representing more than 8.5 million copyrighted works, ASCAP is the worldwide leader in performance royalties, service and advocacy for songwriters and composers, and the only American performing rights organization (PRO) owned and governed by its writer and publisher members. http://www.ascap.com