This is an excerpt on a two part interview featuring John Wozniak of Marcy Playground. I only added in the section pertaining to Stabilo. You can find the rest of the interview (part I and II) in the link above.
"....I’d bang down the door of the local radio station and get them to spin it on one of their “Featured Local Artist” segments. Most big stations have a segment in their programing like that, where they match your song up against another local band’s.
I’ve seen those contests work for artists. In fact I recorded a band in Vancouver called Stabilo that had won one of those. Their demo for a song called “Everybody” was getting some spins on 99.3 CFOX in Vancouver. I owned a major recording studio there for over 7 years, called Mushroom Studios, so I was in town on business when I heard their song come on the radio in my car. I was surprised that it was a local band because it sounded like a hit to me.
Shortly thereafter I went to see them play at a club on Granville Street called The Royal. There were 10 people in the audience, but the band was great. So I went up to them afterwards, introduced myself, and invited them to come to the studio the next day to discuss their career plans. We all hit it off, so I did a few recordings with the guys, pitched them to some labels, and did my part to help them become a national act in Canada. They’ve gone on to do quite well. If they hadn’t entered that CFOX local contest… who knows what would have happened. That sort of local success becomes incredibly valuable, because it gives you something tangible you can build upon and, hopefully, translate into something bigger. If you’re in an urban market, and your song is being played for millions of people, so much the better....."