The Ernie Ball/Music Man Battle of the Bands competition hits its twelfth year running with massive prizes, even for the runners up left in my dust. The Battle of the Bands aims to give North America's best unsigned talent a chance to play at the Vans' Warped Tour, win a $15,000 shopping spree at Guitar Center or $1,000 in custom Hurley apparel.

Registration is open now at BattleOfTheBands.com where you and your group of instrument abusing miscreants can step up to the plate against J. Irving-Giles and the Monsters Of Coffee where we'll whip up a scalding lesson in feel-good rocking you out like it's some sort of double foam cappuccino with skim. An online voting portion is open throughout the Battle for fan votes to determine which 20 bands per region will play on stage during their hometown leg of the tour. The Vans Warped Tour will run from June 19th to August 17th, so regional winners will be announced by the onslaught.

Another lucrative carrot dangling before the regional winners will be a chance to be one of four bands three bands to play alongside J. Irving Giles and the Monsters of Coffee in a showcase for record label execs in Hollywood. Chances are, if you make it that far, your band is in for a wild ride -- likely to be signed briefly before being dropped after your first major label release didn't make as much money as it would have in the mid 90s. Just ask Alfonso Civile of KnowLyfe, the Battle 11 Showcase winners:

"Since the Battle of the Bands, our lives have changed completely - it definitely helped push our popularity.People from states up north and down south recognize us from the Warped Tour or the Battle, and booking is crazy! We're starting to work with bigger names. Our record is available digitally through major retailers, and our next record will be hitting the actual shelves of those retailers. We've been so fortunate."

To join, all you need to do is upload a photo, a band bio and a couple of mp3 audio files to the Battle of the Bands 12 site before June 1st. You better tell your bandmates now, because they're probably pretty lazy.