They come from garages, basements, studios and tour vans seeking the one thing: To kindle flames atop the torch of the Your Music Olympicks.

The emergent local music event, put on annually by Lyon Entertainment for nine years, visits five regions across California. The 2009 pentathlon of rock-offs started in Santa Cruz this February, and after Monterey will travel to San Jose and San Francisco before finishing up in Sacramento this fall.

To accommodate the many diverse groups that compete, each battle covers several weeks of weekend shows which produce finalists who face off in a climactic showdown where crowd noise dictates the winner. The final happens Friday, June 26, at the Planet Gemini; this weekend the vocalist competition happens Friday, June 12, at Ol’ Factory Café, and a three-band show takes place the following night at Carbone’s in Monterey (and again on Friday, June 19).

A main part of the mission behind Your Music Magazine – whose May 2009 issue features interviews from Static X, Realization, and Tech N9ne – is to provide exposure for California bands that are unsigned or on independent labels. Event Coordinator Mike Garing says this event works to do that by providing the bands with free entry into the contest and by booking shows where the bands want to play. The last band standing from the Monterey finals, meanwhile, goes home with $1,000 in cash, an $800 gift card to Wise Music in Salinas and $500 worth of recording time from Indigital studios in Santa Cruz.

In the past, YMO has drawn primarily rock, metal, and punk bands, but in the last three years jazz, hip-hop, reggae, and cover bands have all rallied.

Pride Subject, a metal band out of Monterey, will be competing for the second year in a row. “It’s a good avenue in the wake of everything that happened to the local music scene, with Monterey Live [closing],” says their guitarist, Cody Vaughn. “It lets the bands get their foot in the door where they normally wouldn’t have an in.”

The Music Olympicks vocalist competition is 8pm Friday, June 12, at Ol’ Factory Café, followed by music 8:30pm Saturday, June 13, at Carbone’s in Monterey. $7/prelim show; TBA/finals. 477-0503, www.yourmusicmagazine.com