INTRODUCTION
Hello, and welcome to Viejas’ Ultimate Music Challenge interactive blog-diggity. My name is Edwin Decker and I am one of the judges. Every Monday, after each round, I will post comments about the bands which played in that round, reasons why we voted the way we did, and other general information and analysis of how the night progressed. The purpose of this blog is for the bands, the fans, and the judges to have a place to express opinions, talk some smack, and squeeze out a few sour grapes when necessary. That’s why we call it interactive. So please don’t hesitate to drop some comments on us. You can also use this forum to ask general questions about judging, booking, and when to double-down in blackjack.
About the Judging Process: First and foremost, this is a cover band contest. That’s a broad spectrum. There a top 40 cover bands, there are genre cover bands, and there are tribute bands. They all have equal weight from the judge’s perspective. And yes, it is true, that we will often be judging Apple bands against Oranges bands, but that that’s just the way it is. Everybody has a shot, and we will be judging based on the merits of what you do within the confines of your genre.
About the Judging Categories: There are three categories of judging, each with their own sub-categories. They are: Showmanship, Musical Ability and Audience Response. Here is what the judging form looks like.
SHOWMANSHIP (40%)
1. Appearance / Costumes
2. Choreography / Stage Presence
3. Charisma / Audience Interaction
4. Overall Style
MUSICAL ABILITY (40%)
1. Vocal Performance
2. Music Performance
AUDIENCE RESPONSE (20%)
1. Participation / Response
2. Crowd Noise / Applause (via decibel reading)
3. Online Voting
About Crowd Noise:
The scoring in every category, be it stage presence, vocals, musicianship or audience response, is 1-10. So, if you win the crowd response battle, you get 10 points. Second place gets 7.5 points, 3rd place gets 5.0, 4th gets 2.5, and 5th (when applicable) gets 0. But those points are awarded on each judge’s sheet. For example, say you’re Band A and you scored 10, well that’s 10 on each judge’s score sheet. So if Band B only got a 5.0, that’s a 5.0 difference on every judge’s sheet, for a total of 15 points – which definitely makes crowd noise a factor, as it should be.
Ok, so, after all the bands have performed, The powers that be take our scoring forms upstairs to the God-office where they apply the scale, and tally the votes. The results are then announced on stage and the judges get booed by the losing band’s fans and cheered by the winners. We are heroes and villains in the same instant.
So that’s about it. Except, I gotta tell you , I’m really looking forward to this year’s Challenge. Last year it was so much fun and we had a great turnout. This year, I predict, it will be even better. See you on Sunday!
Sincerely,
Edwin Decker
Judge
www.edwindecker.com
About the Judges:
Danielle LoPresti is an accomplished musician, producer and event organizer. Her band Danielle Lo Presti and the Masses is the winner of the 2004 Out Music Award for “Outstanding New Recording and Band.” LoPresti is also founder and operator Say It Records, which produces California’s renowned indie music showcases, including San Diego Indie Fest – California’s first and only independent music festival.
Jaime Valle is an internationally recognized jazz guitarist. Among his many San Diego Music Awards include: Best Latin Jazz (1994 – 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002), Best Jazz Album (1996, 1998 and 2004). Valle has performed worldwide in jazz festivals with such luminaries as Steve Allen, Frankie Laine, Sammy Davis Jr., The Four Tops, Bob Magnusson, Big Joe Turner, John Lee Hooker, Salomon Burke and many more.
Edwin Decker is a freelance music journalist and columnist and has published articles in various newspapers and magazines in San Diego and around the globe, including, but not limited to Modern Drunkard Magazine, The National Pist, Riviera, San Diego Reader and San Diego CityBeat which publishes his biweekly column, Sordid Tales. His book Barzilla and Other Psalms was nominated (and soundly defeated) for a 2007 San Diego Book Award. His interview with Tenacious D is widely regarded as one of the worst melt downs in the history of rock interviews.
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May 27, 2008 at 4:21 am
Your band competition rules seem to be somewhat ambiguous. As a fan, it appears as though this competition is about finding new talent to add to the Viejas family but you seem to have a few bands in the mix that ALEADY play there…a little unfair. Also at last Sunday’s competition, one of the judges announced he was at a bar and stayed to listen to one of the bands (in this competition) for quite a while…a little unfair. It seems that not enough lessons learned from last year have been applied to this competiion. While looking and listening to this first group of bands and then examining the weekly winner, it still isn’t clear whether the judges are following the posted judging criteria or something more secretive. How can the bands know what they are being judged against or feel there is a level playing field if the chosen outcome doesn’t correlate to the judging criteria.
May 27, 2008 at 1:59 pm
My guitarist and I showed up around 8pm to check things out. The last band seemed to be a bit of a train wreck and after their performance they didn’t even have the respect to listen to what the judges had to say. They just started rolling up their cables and ignoring everyone. Then one of the band members even said something off color over the PA. It was too bad we arrived late and missed the better bands. Next week we will try to be there before 6pm. One thing I did notice about the production of this event was that the emcee girl was reading everything off a card and seemed a bit amateur. Over all it seemed to be a good time and I look forward to going every week to check out our competition and to learn from other bands mistakes and accomplishments. We perform on the last date July 13th and hopefully we will have all the bugs worked out by then. Rock on!
May 27, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Ben, thanks for your comments and thanks for supporting Ultimate Music Challenge. Allow me to attempt to answer your questions. You say the rules are ambiguous however I think they are spelled out rather clearly.
I have posted the specific judging criteria as well as Viejas’ agenda on this blog. If anything, we are exposing the process moreso than any other contest I’ve seen before. There is nothing secretive about it, unless, of course, the secret is being kept from me too.
Either way though, I can assure you, as one of the judges, we ARE following the judge’s posted criteria. I know, because I posted them. I’m really not sure what it was about last week’s winner that suggested otherwise. As you will see in my upcoming post about Week 1, the competition was very close. (Help! beat out the Stilettos by a half point margin).
Perhaps you could explain, specifically, why choosing Help! As the winner is in defiance to the posted scoring criteria and also, specifically, which lessons we had not learned from last year.
Also, regarding the fact that some of the bands are already playing Viejas, let me just say a couple of things. First of all, this comes as news to me. I have no idea what the Viejas lineup is, and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. When I’m sitting at that judge’s table, and I know this to be true of the others, we are simply scoring each band on the merits of their performance on THAT NIGHT. Nothing else matters to us. We have no interest in seeing any particular band winning the 20k, we strive our hardest to score with the utmost fairness and could give a good goddamn about who has played at Viejas before and who hasn’t.
Lastly, about the Stilettos and the judge who announced that he had, as you put it seen them in a bar and had, “Stayed to listen for quite a while…a little unfair.” Well, that judge was me. and what I actually said was that I had seen them at a bar in which I was bartending at the time (The Harp in Ocean Beach), and that I had really enjoyed their set and even had an extra skip in my step as I was working behind the bar.
Ok, I have several things I need to say about this. First of all, the magistrates for this contest were chosen for their supposed expertise in the music industry: Two of us who are musicans and producers (Jaime Valle and Danielle LoPresti) and one of us who is a music journalist, long time music fan and a bartender who has worked in live music clubs for the last 20 or so years (Edwin Decker, me). We are all, as a function of our alleged expertise, embedded in the local music scene. So it’s only natural that we will know or have seen some of these bands before. Any potential judge they could have chosen for the process who does not know who some of these bands are, would probably not be that good of a magistrate.
So, which would be LESS fair, allowing the Stilettos to come down and join the contest and have a shot at 20k, or excluding them because one of the judges had seen them before?
Remember, the Stilettos lost last Sunday to a band none of us have ever heard of, so I’m not quite sure how there can be any doubt about our fairness on this point.
All that being said, let me just say that you are not wrong to be concerned about such matters. We judges are still human and bring to the table all of our prejudices and musical upbringings. There can never be a completely subjective judging process so long as humans are involved. But let me assure you that all three of us are dedicated to the idea of the fairest contest possible, and are striving our utmost to minimize our subjectivity. Really, it’s important to us, just as, I’m guessing, it would be to you if you were sitting on that panel. Hope that explains everything, Ben, and thanks so much for stopping by.
Edwin Decker
Judge #3
http://www.edwindecker.com
May 27, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Spectacular! I enjoyed the performances and look forward to the weeks ahead. Thanks to everyone who signed on!
May 27, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Hello Bands! Just wanted to say best of luck to all of you that are entering this contest. Just be yourself and have fun! No matter what happens, it will be a great learning experience and make you a stronger band!
For the judges, not sure if you all got my suggestion but, (oh, by the way, my name is Angie, my band Crush was in the competition last year, but anyways,) one thing that I know personally I would have loved was to recieve feed back on each performance after the performance was over. That way I or we would know what to work on to improve as a band and the audience would understand right then and there what you guys liked/didnt like about the performance. I know that I thrive on constructive criticism as it can only make you better. Anyways, just a suggestion. =) Maybe you all are doing this already. Anyways, have fun everyone and GOOD LUCK!!!!
May 27, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Angie,
Thanks so much for the suggestion. I’ve implemented it this year – the judges are taking a few minutes after each set to talk with the bands. I think it’s working really well.
I’m disappointed you guys didn’t come back!
Jason
May 27, 2008 at 9:42 pm
That’s so awesome! I’m glad you implemented that this year. I know that I would have found it incredibly useful and the bands will too! Great job and thanks for all that you and your crew do =) See you soon! Good Luck Bands!!!
May 27, 2008 at 10:03 pm
[...] Viejas’ Ultimate Music Challenge Interactive Blog (This is Edwin Decker’s Blog. Don’t sue us) « INTRODUCTION [...]
May 27, 2008 at 10:08 pm
I had a great time! The show was very entertaining and you can’t beat the cover charge… zero!
I agree that the mc chick wasn’t a professional in that roll. Also a suggestion that the stage manager clue in the band that the judges are going to critique them. It seemed that some of the bands were confused by that segment and where the voices were coming from.
Here’s my observations… The first band was The Stilletos, not The Maykers as the website listed. The band played a rockabilly set and looked the part. You can tell that these guys play out on a regular basis. They played well and had a good crowd response although the room wasn’t full yet.
HELP! was next and they did a pretty good job. They had better and more harmony vocals than any of the other bands. They looked the part too and had a very good crowd response too.
Mercy House came out and did a real good job with the high energy, crowd moving stage show. They sounded pretty good. I agree with the judge’s comment about the guitar sound. (two strats both sounding a bit tinny) The singer was a good front man with a limited range. He had a good look but the rest of the band just wore whatever so they didn’t have a cohesive look. They had the best crowd response of the night.
The Atomic Cowboys were very good. I enjoyed the music but they couldn’t keep the crowd excitement up. They did a rockabilly, 50’s tunes kinda set. The guitar tones were much nicer than Mercy House but the same critisism, two gibsons both sounding full (but the same, no constrast)
Loss of Control brought in the last set. They were fun to watch, kinda like bad karaoke. They were having fun and the crowd enjoyed it. The guitarist had a les paul but whatever he plugged it into was crap. The bass sound was muddy too. The front man was proud to announce that they had been together for eight years but it probably would have gone over better if he said they had just met outside in the parking lot. These were the guys who were most clueless during the judges critique. They were done playing and they just wanted to get their stuff and go. The comment he said during this time was something like “I guess you just don’t understand cock-rock” all I could think of was… you gotta have some cocks to call it cock-rock! ha ha They weren’t being real maliscious though, just playful in there own way.
As far as judging goes, I’m glad they try to quantify the results so it is less subjective. …and if a band is known by a judge then kudos to them, getting around town is part of the cover band scene.
keep rockin’
May 30, 2008 at 6:06 am
Just a few housekeeping observations that need tending to in my opinion. The UMC website is lacking attention. Were already going into the 2nd week of the competition and there is only 2 or 3 bands website links active. Part of the incentive for entering the contest was the exposure and publicity. So far the expectations are high for the bands but I think it would be safe to say that all the bands expect more of Viejas productions and to bring thier website up to speed. As Randy Jackson would say, Just keep’in it real DOG!
June 2, 2008 at 10:42 pm
[...] Ultimate Music Challenge Judge’s Blog (This is Edwin Decker’s Blog. Please don’t sue us) « INTRODUCTION [...]
August 4, 2008 at 9:21 pm
[...] So, without further adieu, here are the tallies from last night, starting with Crowd Noise (for an explanation on how crowd noise is scored please visit the INTRODUCTION): [...]