And the winners are….

Detroit Underground

Anger is a Gift

Monsters of Rock

Alice and the Cooper Gang (which did not win any money, but have won my heart forever, I will never forget you guys).

So, can you believe that show last night? Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! I am still buzzing on it. Every band just blew me away. Starting with Alice who put on such a performance: so good, so fun, so nutty – the whole time during their set, all I kept thinking was, Well these guys obviously have it in the bag.

Then, MOR came up, and I thought, Oh shit, how am I going to pick between these two bands? Well, whatever, clearly Alice AND Monsters will end up in the top two spots.

But then Anger came on, and I thought . . .

Cut the shit dudes! You can’t honestly expect me to choose between these three bands. Oh well, there’s no doubt that these guys will all place because poor old Detroit Underground doesn’t have a chance in Hell and oh, look, here comes DU now. I sure hope they suck so I won’t feel bad when they lose and… hmm, that riff doesn’t sound so bad, nor that horn arrangement, nor that part, or that, wow, that was good too, and that! – that was really good – and that, and that and, holy fucking shit on a sugar cube, these guys are CRUSHING it!

Damn you Detroit Underground! Damn you all to all-Hell for being so spectacular! And damn you Alice, and Monster, and Anger for making this the hardest decision anyone’s had to make since Metallica decided to cut their hair.

There were just so many goose pimple moments, like when Alice entered the stage by coffin and burst into “Feed my Frankenstein,” and of course, the outrageous finale, with the beheading of Alice. Then there were the myriad of goose pimples for Monsters of Rock – such as on War Pigs – which was unbelievable, and during Anger’s set, when Johnny screamed, “Wake up! Wake up!”; and DU’s unbelievable, original take on “Midnight Hour” – I had some many goose pimples running up and down my arms and legs last night, you would’ve thought we were in a meat locker. In fact, I figured it might be a good idea to use the amount of goose pimples moments (GPMs) each band had given me to determine my picks.

Anyway, before getting to the scoring, I’d like to say a word about Alice and the Cooper Gang. Now, I am not going to sit here and spout the tired cliché of, “There were no losers tonight,” because that’s a kettle of bullshit.

There are always losers. But with 32 thousand dollars on the line, to go so far as to chop off your head and still walk away with nothing except a bloody stump where your neck used to be, well if that ain’t losing then I don’t know what is.

However, I’d like to make a distinction between a “loser” in a competition, and “loser” as in, a state of being. Because, while Alice and the Cooper Gang did not win any money, they are the farthest thing from “losers” I could imagine. These guys put on, no question, the most memorable show of the night. And their performance is engraved in my memory.

When I was on stage announcing the winner last night, and I said, “It breaks my heart that somebody has to lose,” I wasn’t exaggerating. My heart was truly broken. Really, I just loved the Alice Gang so much, it was killing me inside to send them away with nothing, and my innards were bleeding all over the place when I saw them at the side of the stage, waiting anxiously to hear the news, then to see the disappointment in their faces – ugh, that was difficult. Guys, seriously, you were great and I really, really really hope you come back next year.

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):

Crowd Noise

DU – 121.0

Anger – 120.6

Monsters – 119.6

Alice – 117.1

You may have noticed, this is in direct correlation with the order of the sets (the later your set, the louder the crowd noise), and, in direct correlation to the prize places each of them took – so yes, it’s beginning to seem like your position in the set, especially this late in the game, can be hugely important. As you know, we select it randomly.

Next I’ll break down the judges’ scores for you, minus crowd noise. In other words, who would’ve won if crowd noise was not a factor. And the answer to that question is, we have a tie:

Judges’ Picks – Combined

Anger – 257.5

MOR – 257.5

DU – 255.5

Alice – 242.5

Next, let’s look at individual judge’s scores.

Judges’ picks – Individual

Judge #1) Jaime Valle

MOR – 88

Anger – 85

DU – 84.5

AC – 79

Alternate Judge #2) Alicia Champion

DU – 86

Anger – 86

MOR – 84.5

Alice – 82.5

Judge #3) Edwin Decker

Anger – 86.5 (+ 8 GPM’s)

Mor – 85 (+7.5 GPMs)

DU – 85 (+7 GPM’s)

Alice – 81 (+6 GPMs)

So there you have it. As you can see, it was extraordinarily close, with ties all over the place, and almost no consensus, which seemed to mirror the crowd’s reaction since everybody I spoke with pretty much had different combinations of winners. It was just too close to call and really, honestly, I didn’t want to.

Lastly, I want to say thanks to everybody involved. I was going to rattle off a long list of “thank you” shout outs, but then, realized, that would be a huge mistake because I undoubtedly would forget somebody – somebody important – and that person would feel left out, and then he or she would be sad, which would make me sad, which would make me want to eat ice cream, which would make me fatter, depressing me further and sending me on a drinking binge, after which I would come home and beat my wife, who would divorce me, making me suicidal, then I’d jump of a bridge, and then Colleen and Shaaron would have no one to pick on so it really just wouldn’t be good for anyone. Suffice to say, thanks to everybody involved with this show: Thanks to the stage and sound crew, the bar staff, the management, the bands, the judge’s, the tribe and most of all, thank you – you wacky, crazy, nutty, adorable kooks – YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU!

Oh, and to the people who wished me a happy birthday last night – please click here for a special thank you message.

Edwin Decker
Judge #3
www.edwindecker.com

* Please mark your calendar for September 9 for a very important benefit for a special friend of Ultimate Music Challenge. It’s called “Banding Together for David,” to help our good friend, David Nevin, vocalist for Detroit Underground, who’s been having some serious health issues recently. BTD will be held at Humphreys and will feature Detroit Underground, Ruby and the Red Hots, Haute Flash (of UMC fame) The San Diego Charger Band, and others TBA. For more information, contact Evonne at info@thedetroitunderground.com

]]> http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/at-last-the-finals/feed/ 474 edwin decker http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/semi-finals-round-2/ http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/semi-finals-round-2/#comments Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:04:37 +0000 edwin decker http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/?p=133 ]]> [Author's Note: [Author’s note: If this is your first time visiting the UMC blog, you might want to check out the INTRODUCTION first.]

And the winners are…

Anger is a Gift and Detroit Underground! Congratulations you two bands who are totally different from each other but both rock in your own ways! We’ll see you in the finals.

So, wow. What a great night of music. All the bands were excellent. Also, with respect to the vitriol dispatched upon the judges, the night went a lot smoother than last week. Not only did we only receive a handful of angry comments by disgruntled fans (compared with the dump-truck-full we received last week), but the losing bands themselves were beyond gracious. The guys from both Gin Pistons and Old School came up to us, shook our hands, said “Thank you,” and smiled the whole time.

I can’t tell you how much those smiles meant to us. It’s like the smiles were saying, “Hey man, we get it. It’s just a game, and we lost… this time.”

The drummer for Gin Piston, bless his warmy, fuzzy soul, even gave me their original CD to send to The Mother, who has become a GP fan. The Mother will be delighted.

Indeed, the only people who gave any of the judges any perceptible level of grief was Danielle, my wife, and I, who viciously attacked Alicia on the ride home. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

Just like last week’s blog post, I don’t think it’s necessary to give you all a play-by-play account of each performance. I’ve already written about these bands before, and most of you were there last night anyway, so I thought I’d focus more on the scoring and, maybe at the end, talk a bit about some of the differences between each band, and also, whether each band improved on their first performance in the preliminaries.

Now, a lot of people approached me after the winners were announced and asked which band got which scores. I told them I would be happy to publish my scores on the blog, and if Danielle and Alicia gave permission, that I would publish their scores as well. And they agreed. So let’s take a look shall we?

I’ll start with the db readings. (To understand how crowd noise is applied to the judge’s score sheets please review the INTRODUCTION). The loudest crowd response was received by Detroit Underground (118.7dB), then Old School (117.5dB) followed by Anger is a Gift (115.8dB) and lastly Gin Piston (114.1dB).

Here are the scores and rankings per each judge.

Danielle LoPresti (Judge #1)

Anger is a Gift = 88

Old School = 88

Detroit Underground = 79.5

Gin Pistons = 62

Alicia Champion (Judge #2)

Detroit Underground = 87.5

Anger is a Gift = 86

Old School = 77.5

Gin Piston = 62

Ed Decker (Judge #3)

Anger is a Gift = 83 points

Old School = 82 points

Detroit Underground = 80.5

Gin Pistons = 72

As you can see, two of the judges did not have Detroit Underground advancing. Keep in mind though, these are the scores before crowd response was factored, so a quick tally of these numbers will tell us what the order would have been had crowd response not been factored.

Anger is a Gift (257)

Old School (247.5)

Detroit Underground (247)

Gin Piston (196)

So, basically, the main reason Detroit Underground is in the finals, and Old School is not, is because of crowd noise. Oh, and also because of Alicia’s dementia. You know, the dementia that caused her to rate Detroit Underground over Old School.

And boy did we give her a hard time about that. See Alicia, Danielle, my wife (who we’ll call “W”), and I often carpool to Viejas. As soon as we got into the car to go home, I turned to Alicia and said, “Girl, what is your major malfunction?” Why on Earth did you give DU a better score than Old School?” And with that, everybody in the car got up in Alicia’s grill:

Dani, who had Old School as a tie with Anger for the win, gave Alicia a whole ration of shit. And W., my wife, who damn near fell into a full state of depression upon hearing that Old School had lost, was just hammering poor Alicia with insults. Naturally, I was having my way with her as well.

It was quite fun, actually, and nice, for once, not to be the lone person getting jumped by everybody else in the car. To Alicia’s credit though, that girl stood her ground. She said (I’m paraphrasing) that Detroit Underground is a much stronger group of musicians, playing much more difficult material, and that was her opinion and she stands by it.

I said, “Alicia – it’s great that we have a diversity of opinions, and your opinions are always welcome in this car… Even when your opinions are so very wrong, wrong, WRONG.”

Please do not misunderstand; Detroit Underground is a great band. They took second place last year! And that wasn’t because the other bands sucked. Even when they’re not on the top of their game, they’re still a top shelf act. But Old School, well they surprised the hell out of me. Talk about stepping it up! When they played in the prelims, I thought they were good, but last night, they were effin great; just a sliver better than DU, but it’s all about slivers now, because we’re in the semi-finals. At this level, little things become big, important things, like a sliver of glass in your foot – such a tiny thing, can cause such disparity.

Such as the sliver that was DU’s suboptimal start. They were a little stiff at first, and sloppy, especially vocally; not at all up to par with their previous performance. And they seemed to be just going through the motions.

As Danielle said (paraphrased), “Even if you’ve played that song a hundred times, you have to find a way to make it sound like the first time.”

For me, that early part of the set, you could just tell they had played those songs a hundred times. Kudos to DU, however, for pulling it together in the second half, and for crushing it on the finale, and for winning the crowd noise game (another testament to their greatness), but for me, I think Old School was – I won’t say “the better band,” rather, that Old School had “the better night.”

So yeah, we gave Alicia a beat down for that. But, in the name of fairness, I thought it prudent to give Alicia the floor for a moment to explain her decision.

PLEASE don’t get me wrong – I LOVED Old School and personally wanted to take every single one of those boys home with me (and yes, I’m still a dyke). They had passion bursting at the seams, they looked gorgeous, their song selection KILLED, and I loved their original take on each song in their set. Were there intonation and tuning issues throughout their performance? Yes. Do I have to take that into account? Absolutely.

I thought lead singer Brian was wonderful, and yes, I would love to have him sing on something I’m producing. In fact, I’ve already started fantasizing about producing a big rock duet of some sort, JUST to feature both him and Danielle on a song together – that’s how much I loved his tone. I just feel that for about 50% of his set, he pushed so hard that it affected his pitch. He’s got a beautiful scream, when applied correctly. But when you scream so hard to the point you compromise pitch… well… that’s a problem.

Then we have tuning. Les Paul studio-models and capos. Ugh.

I don’t want to blame him for this because it really is the guitar…. but at the same time, if you’re rehearsing this exact set (for a competition of this grandeur, no less), you REALLY need to take this into account. “Ironic,” while truly fun in its third verse adaptation, was a tonal mess across the board. The lead guitar sounded a half-step (one fret) higher than the rhythm guitar, the lead vocals were matching neither, and this issue persisted thru to the next song. In fact, while the energy was great, the lead guitar solo in “You Give Love a Bad Name,” sounded so sharp (as in opposite of flat), it made me want to bury my head.

The background vocals were also hit or miss. 50% of the time they were spot on, 50% they weren’t, and sometimes…. they weren’t there at all because the lead guitarist/ background singer missed his cues.

They regrouped and took care of these problems before closing with Rush, and my god… did they finish with a bang. That closing performance was the first in this entire competition to bring me to my feet in applause.

Detroit Underground – I agree with both Ed and Danielle in thinking this performance was considerably weaker than that from their preliminary round. However, I still believed them to be the strongest act of the night, next to Anger Is a Gift. They did have some lead vocal issues, and the pocket was lost in the horn break of “Fire.” Regardless, the background vocals were spot on 100% of the time, and the musicians that make up the rhythm section of this ensemble are so talented, it’s humbling. This was the only band of the night with which I experienced constant improvisational flavors. The keyboardist, guitarist (and especially) the bassist, were throwing in all sorts of juicy, delicious line clichés and subtleties, it inspired me to go home and practice my chord scales. There’s no way I can mark down a band that brings me to that place. They are truly a musician’s group, and I related to that. As a producer/ arranger, these are aspects I’m trained to hear. I also know full well that details such as these always go unnoticed by the general listener, which is all the more reason I felt the need to acknowledge them.

I will say this though – If Detroit Underground plays a show like they did last night for Finals, I’m not confident they’ll have a shot at the prize. Even Alice and The Cooper Gang will give them a hard run for their money if they’re not 100% on their game.

Alicia Champion – Fill-in for Judge #1

Hey gang, Ed again. So, as you can clearly see, Alicia really should get tested for that dementia problem I mentioned earlier. Although she was right about the mortal danger DU is currently facing. They had better bring their A-game if they want to qualify for any cash. Because I’m starting to think Detroit Underground might be the Alex Rodriguez of music contests.

Like A-Rod, Detroit Underground always seems to play spectacularly in the regular season, but once they get into the playoffs they struggle.

As for Anger is a Gift, I don’t think there was any question in anyone’s mind (except the people who hate hardcore rock/rap) that Anger was going to advance to the finals. But, like DU, their set wasn’t as good as the prelim round either. But even Anger is a Gift’s B-game is several times better than most bands’ A-game. And when they vomited out “Killing in the Name of,” all the little slivers of error were forgotten, especially after hearing the shocking climax, with the singer howling, “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me!” over and over like a banshee.

And not just any banshee, but a heavy metal banshee – a bänshee – who wears studded leather bracelets, black concert tee shirts, and who shakes his fists in the air like he’s trying to punch holes the ceiling so all the other a bänshees can get a look at what they’re missing.

Finally, Gin Pistons, chin up, ok? You guys were outgunned and that’s all there is to it. But I would check out a GP show any day of the week. Because you’re a ton of fun to watch and hear, you picked great songs, and you definitely stepped it up from last go-round. In fact, now that I think of it, it was the two losing bands who improved on their first performance, and the two winners who had deteriorated. So really, had any of these bands taken a half-step in either direction, we might be seeing a totally different finals lineup.

Anyway, that’s it for this week, except, to say, “Wow, are we here already? Are the finals really upon us? Well I, for one, simply cannot wait: Monsters of Rock, Anger is a Gift, Alice and the Cooper, Gang Detroit Underground – you are all class acts and it’s an honor and a privilege to be the sonovabitch who gets to decide your fate.

Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha.

General Edwin Decker
Judge #3
www.edwindecker.com

Click here if you would like to bribe the judges
You must have a PayPal account to bribe the judge.
All bribes are final, and disputes to be settled by arbitration

This photo provided by John Marquez

Before I let her take it away, let me just drop her street creds on ya:

Alicia Champion is an acclaimed record producer and performer who’s endorsed by artists such as Steven Tyler, Melissa Etheridge, and Petty Larkin. Winner of VH1′s nationally televised reality-based competition, “You Rock With,” Alicia is also co-founder and producer of the San Diego IndieFest – the nation’s first and only exclusively indie music and arts celebration.

By the way, Alicia will be in the lion’s den this coming Sunday, filling in for Jaime, so beware the wolf in filly’s clothing.

Anyhoo, enough of the chitchat, let’s here what she had to say about last Sunday’s semi-finals. ..

Hey everybody, Alicia Champion here, guest-sub-judge-extraordinaire, posting my thoughts on Week 9, per Ed’s request. I subbed for Danielle in Week 1, and for Jaime in Week 8, and in both instances, while never 100% certain of the judging outcome, I felt good and justified to see the bands of those respective weeks advance forward. As a spectator in Week 9, I shared many of the same reactions and opinions to that of my colleagues, but was nevertheless stunned by the outcome.

When HELP! started their set, I was immediately swooned by the song selection – something both Jaime and Ed disagreed with. “I Am The Walrus” is a bold, bold choice. Period. What’s more, is that they killed it. I loved seeing David sit at the keys and show true versatility. They used no keys in Week 1 and it was a real treat to see the band introduce a new element. In my opinion, that’s a prime example of a group that stepped it up for the semi-finals. And yes, while David is no Stevie Wonder on the ivories, neither was John Lennon. John was a very simple keyboardist. And with that in mind, let’s not forget that David not only covered the keyboards, he ALSO COMPED THE STRINGS, and SANG! Beautifully!

“Norwegian Wood” was another remarkable choice. The introduction of the sitar-processing on the lead guitar was simply gorgeous, and another surprising treat. I love a band that keeps surprising you, and I feel especially at this point in the game, where the stakes are so high and the talent so strong, each band needs to pull out all the stops and make each song in their set as entertaining as their first.
It’s very common for bands to start strong and plateau (or burn out) halfway through their set. I saw this happen to bands last night at The Dreamcatcher more than once. HELP! however, was not of them.

Surprise number 3 – HELP! not only included wonderful impersonations of John, Paul, George and Ringo… they brought in Eric Clapton too!
While I agree that there were some minor pitch issues in the lead vocal performance of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” it didn’t ruin my experience of that number. Besides… I can’t imagine what it must be like to emulate both George Harrison and Eric Clapton simultaneously.

“Twist & Shout” brought it all home because older Beatles is what HELP! does best. I can’t say enough about how fantastic it is to experience David Reynolds’ transformation into John Lennon. And on this number, there was nothing about him that was anything less than John. It was so beautiful, it was goosebumps giving. It irked me when Jaime commented that the band should have started their set with this song. I fear my esteemed colleague might have forgotten about pacing oneself vocally. There’s no way anyone can sing and scream as hard as David did on that song, and finish their set as strongly as this band did. Even John Lennon himself would save this song for last. Yes, the pocket was lost between the drums and bass during the interlude sections of the song, but it was less than a footnote in the entirety of their setlist, and didn’t affect my enjoyment of their show.

Closing with “Revolution” was lovely, and also a sobering reminder that while their performance was not flawless, they without a doubt, tackled the most difficult music to play of the night. And for that, I say bravo.

MONSTERS OF ROCK were truly spectacular – a group of very skilled musicians, playing and singing their asses off. There were some super minor pitch issues in the harmony vocals, but for the most part they were spot on. Great showmanship, energy, smiles and attitudes. Two things were challenging for me in this set. The first was guitar tone (which was later explained on mic, due to one of their two rigs malfunctioning prior to their show, and the borrowing a rig of 6ONE9′s, which is undoubtedly unfamiliar to them, etc…..). The second was stage volume and dynamics. While guitarist #1 was at a disadvantage using an unfamiliar rig, guitarist #2 seemed to care little about listening to his comrade’s tone and complementing it. As it was already, both guitars were Les Pauls, and both guitars were set to the highest pickup (big faux pas in my opinion). Also, when your band is already playing with a disadvantage, it’s ever more important to listen to each other. But it’s impossible to listen to one another when your stage volume is so high that you’re playing right over each other, and right over your singer who’s fighting much too hard to be heard.

Earlier I mentioned bands burning out or plateauing halfway through their set. MONSTERS OF ROCK was the first example of this. They started out at a fantastic energy level……. but then stayed there and didn’t grow. And I think partially due to the stage volume of the guitars, their lead vocalist burnt out before the end of the set.
Right away, he demonstrated VERY strong vocal talent. He had beautiful tone, range and energy. However, his pitch started to waver in their third song while the band’s presentation started to plateau. I think bringing out the zombie-mummy-human-prop at the end was a smart thing for them to do because my attention was starting to wander.

6ONE9 – I loved their song selection. They played some of my favorites of all time. Which is why I had to move to the back of the room. Just when I thought M.O.R. couldn’t have been louder, 6ONE9 surprised me.
And this time… not in a good way. They were so loud, especially in the bottom end that it was painful. And since my ears are my livelihood, I left my seat next to Jaime and made my way to the bar.
Some kind gentleman felt inclined to remind me (with sour mustard and beer breath no less) that “This is metal, honey.” While I refused to join him at his level of intellect, I thought to myself, “No, metal is music. This is noise.”

Now I know many people will argue that this is not the fault of the band’s. I say that when it’s THIS loud, it is indeed the fault of the band’s and their responsibility to fix it, because they’re eliminating all avenues of effort from the front of house engineer/ mixer. Any trained engineer would have been able to tell that there was no guitar and bass coming out of the mains during 6ONE9′s set. The distribution of sound was uneven and the drums and vocals were lost in the mix. The amps were so loud that the singers had to scream so hard that all pitch and tone was shot to shit. Technique was sloppy and tempos were inconsistent (again, probably because the drummer had problems hearing over the volume of the amps).
When you’re stage volume is so loud that the front of house engineer has to take you completely out of the system, that’s your bad – not his/ hers. The band did however, have the most impressive crowd of the night and their stage banter was engaging, fun and gracious.

ALICE AND THE COOPER GANG – Ok, I know so many peeps don’t get why this band moved on. I’m going to share why I think the judges voted the way they must have, in order to have advanced this band.

They had dynamics. They were the first group since HELP to demonstrate this extremely crucial element to live performance technique. And after two extremely loud bands with no dynamics whatsoever, the sound ALICE AND THE COOPER GANG brought was a breath of fresh air.

They had the total visual package – from costumes, to props and set design, to persona, to stage presence. Frontman Bruce Bartley became Alice Cooper, almost as convincingly as David Reynolds became John Lennon. Their set accessories, while of course not necessary, brought their entire presentation to a level no band that night had. Every member of the band dressed in character, and every member in that group was 100% committed to the moment, and so wonderfully lost in the joy of playing this music that it was undeniably permeable. And of course, there’s Mark “Big Toe” Goffeney who is nothing short of mesmerizing to watch.

Yes, there was a bit of a train-wreck in “School’s Out.” However, when you have THAT much of your visual presentation together, the audience forgets (or doesn’t even realize) the mistake. I also did hear some intonation discrepancies in the rhythm guitar (it sounded like the A string was a hair flat). But then I realized… HE’S PLAYING WITH HIS FEET! And it didn’t matter to me anymore. I don’t think this aspect mattered that much to the judges either.

Anyone who is serious about becoming a professional performer/ entertainer needs to understand that visual presentation is equally as important as being musically strong, especially when you’re competing for the prize this competition offers. Aside from the cash, you need to be entertaining on all levels. If this was a contest about musicianship, then HELP! should’ve won, hands down.

My, oh my, oh my my my people, you really have been some busy bees today. Actually, more like hornets. I woke up at the crack of noon today – ears still ringing — to see the blog chock full of comments about this week’s performance. And oh yeah, the hornet’s nest is a-buzzing.

And not the normal type of buzz, you know, that low frequency hum of bees happily working and mating and building their hive, rather, the high frequency buzz saw sound of an agitated colony just before the attack.

People sure are angry this week. I think the judges received more hostility last night than ever before. For example, during our comments, some people were screaming, “You suck,” and “Nobody cares what you think.” And after the winners were announced, we were flooded by a deluge of angry fans, including one disgruntled 6one9 fan who blurted, “You have no business being a judge.”

Another guy told me how much he hated the Alice band, and that I had to be deaf and blind to have picked them. A woman told me that all three of us are morons.

Other delicious adjectives hurled at me and/or my fellow judges were, “Stupid, offensive, distasteful, atrocious, and disgusting.”

So, um yeah, things are heating up, to which I say… Fukken-A!

I mean, come on people, don’t you just love this stuff? Ain’t it fun? Ain’t it totally and utterly most awesomeifically excellently fundacious. I, for one, am happy and proud to be a part of the Ultimate Music Challenge, and any time somebody calls me an idiot, or finds me atrocious, or is disgusted by what I say and think, it only exponentially increases my fun quotient – so bring it on people.

On to the main event….

I think – since the conversation has already begun, and you all saw what I saw last night – that I won’t waste your time with a play by play discussion about each set, but instead get down to the the nitty-gritty – and by that I mean, the controversies: starting with the main controversy, the controversy of all controversies – the controversy which allowed Alice and the Cooper Gang to advance to the next round instead of (insert your band here) _____________ .

Let me begin by saying that I had an extremely difficult time judging these bands last night.

They were/are all such excellent groups and I truly enjoyed every set. My scoring sheets had them very close to each other and I was just as surprised as many of you that the Alice band had won.

No disrespect to Alice intended.

In fact, in the spirit of full disclosure, I will give you the totals of my score sheet… and, as you will see, it was very, VERY close:

• Monsters of Rock – 82 points
• 6one9 – 81.5 points
• Help – 79.5 points
• Alice – 72.5 points

That’s right people, I scored Alice the lowest – so get off my tip! In fact, of the three of judges, only one of us had Alice advancing. So, before you all get yourselves too deep in your dizzies, you should keep in mind that I am not the only judge in this competition. There are four judges: Jaime, Danielle, myself, and YOU!

Right? Remember that? Crowd participation? Turns out, Alice had the loudest audience response on the decibel meter, which vaulted them into a winning position. So before you take off our heads, maybe some of you should ask yourselves what was your role in delivering a victory to Alice? Did you clap for them? Did you cheer – because somebody sure as Hell must have.

And then you have the booers. Did you hear them? How stupid is that? Um, people, the decibel meter cannot distinguish between boos and cheers. It measures sound, all sound. My advice to you if you hate a certain band, is not to make any sounds when they turn the meter on.

But I digress. The point is, in a competition this close, the audience response was très important. Indeed, it’s exactly what bumped Alice from the lower tier, to the upper.

Incidenally, second place in the audience response category was 6one9, followed by a tie for 3rd place with Help! and MOR.

Here’s how those rankings apply to the scorecard.

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, 3^rd place gets 5.0, 4^th gets 2.5, and 5^th (when applicable) gets 0. But those points are awarded on each judge’s sheet. For example, say you’re Alice and you scored 10, well that’s 10 on each judge’s score sheet. So if Help only got a 5.0, that’s a 5.0 difference on every judge’s sheet, for a total of 15 points – which is just HUGE in a battle this close.

So really, you can all bitch out the judges about the results, but in the end, it was largely the crowd that picked this one.

Moving on. Let’s address some specific comments/complaints from some of the musicians who played last night, starting with Dave Reynolds from Help! who wrote,

“I am at a loss to explaining the judging or the judges comments. With regard to our song selection, I could swear I remember it being said somewhere that bands were not going to be judged on the songs they chose, or what they should have done, but rather on how well they performed the songs they played. We were trying to implement some of the elements that last years winner, Cash’d Out, suggested: vary the tempo and feel of your songs (hence Norwegian Wood). Also playing I am the Walrus demonstrates an impressive degree of musicianship when you are doing it without sequencers and fake vocals, etc., and I thought we did it pretty well. Apparently Jaime and Ed did not agree and that is something we will have to accept.”

Ok, Dave, first, please keep in mind, we’re getting into the minutia now. Right? I mean, I think you guys are great. And let it be known, that going into last night’s show, I was sure Help! would win, so please do not confuse my criticizing the minutia with me not loving your set, and your band, overall.

Deal?

Ok, you are wrong to suggest that I did not like your version of “Walrus.” I did enjoy it a great deal. I just think it was a poor choice to start with. It’s a bit epic, in style, and a tad long – especially given the multiple breakdowns – for that position in the set.

These things must be set up you know? As Jaime said, “Certain tunes have certain jobs,” and the job of Walrus, as I see it, is not to be an opener. It’s a song you play in the meat of the set. But it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal had you not followed it with “Norwegian Wood.” That, by far, was your biggest mistake.

I love “Norwegian Wood.” It is a very special song, beyond special actually, but it is simply not a song I would’ve chosen to play in this situation (i.e. packed bar, band contest, 20 minutes set). And, if I had decided to play that song, it certainly would not have been the second song. It’s just too slow and sloggy for that position and really, it just killed your momentum.

So when you were done, I thought, “Ok, whatever, it was a brave gamble that didn’t pay off, no big deal, they’ll just come out big on the next song.” But then you followed it with, “While my Guitar Gently Weeps,” another fabulous Beatle’s song, but not the song with which you should’ve emerged from “Norwegian Wood.” You should’ve come out of Norwegian Wood with guns blazing, like the machine-gunning masterpiece that is, “Revolution.”

And yes, I appreciate that you wanted to mix it up, like Cash’d Out said, but you already had a droney, melancholic downer song with “While my Guitar Gently Weeps,” which, of the two, is the better one to play. So why not put something completely different in the “NorWood” slot, such as, “Martha”, or “When I’m 64” Those would’ve been total style and tempo changes, but still perky and upbeat.

If I were making that set list, using the same songs, it would look like this

1. “Twist and Shout”

2. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

3. “I am the Walrus”

4. “Norwegian Wood” (if I must but would rather use “Martha”)

5. “Revolution”

Lastly, your set was not as clean as a lot of people on the blog have been saying. There were plenty of dings and dents, though I totally agree with Danielle who said, “There was some pitchiness, and it was little loose, but it didn’t take me out of the element at all – there were so many parts that were right and working.”

My feelings exactly, Dani. In conclusion, I thought you were great, and only a sliver less great than the first round.

Next we shall address Greg’s (6one9) comment, which had this to say about the loudness issue:

“We line-checked with the stage manager and the sound man specifically asking if we were too loud. They said no, in fact, they asked Casey to turn his guitar up. When I heard the mix through the PA, I heard a huge boost in levels. Bottom line is that it sounded PERFECT on stage, period. … The judge’s comments for 6one9 and Alice Cooper were almost completely about the mix. Every judge said the sound level really hurt us. Where in the judging categories is the mix?!? It’s not, I looked. …”

Greg, I dig you, think you’re a stand up guy, and it was very cool of you guys to lend MOR your gear. You’re total gents, and in my opinion, 6one9 should be going to the next round. As you saw by my scores above, I had you down as second place, only a half point behind MOR; a score, by the way, for which I took a considerable amount of heat. Because when I told people (employees, regulars, etc) that I loved you guys and gave high scores, many of them looked at me as if I had salamanders crawling out of my nostrils. You know, it’s that whole, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t deal.” I mean, I’m getting beat up for picking you guys and, at the exact same time, getting beat up for not picking you guys.

How the hell did that happen?

Now about the sound and the grading. Please understand that the things we say on the microphone may not necessarily be the things on which you are graded. And nowhere on my sheet did I grade you down for the mix. But the bottom line is this, the mix, the volume, and all that jazz is the sum total of the decisions and actions of the sound engineers and the band. There is no one person or factor that determines this. So, while your loudness was not all your fault, you must take some responsibility for it, especially for your bass amp, which was waaaay louder than the rest of the band, and something over which you have control. I mean, hey, just because your amp goes to 11, doesn’t mean you should put it there.

Doesn’t matter though. I did not dock you for that. Didn’t much dock you for anything. I thought you were great. I don’t think the other two judges liked you as much as I did. And a lot of people I talked to that night said the vocals were bad, especially on the Alice in Chains and the Def Leppard tunes. That was not my opinion, and I only mention it so that you understand that it wasn’t the stage volume that lost it for you.

Now, let’s address some of the comments buzzing from the hornet’s nest, like what Dickie said about Alice,

“It was a total train wreck. …but he had a snake around his neck, so there you go.”

Dickie, you know I love you brutha but really, the snake? You think the snake swayed our grading? Do you have that little faith in us? Wait, don’t answer that question.

“Ed, is Alice your secret lover or something? My suggestion – stay faithful to your beautiful wife and let a band with real talent win the competition.”
(Patti)

Patti, I do love Alice, it’s no secret. When we make love it’s just me, him and the python. But my love for Alice had nothing to do with his victory. I did not select Alice to win. Did you? Did you clap for them? If so, I would say that you are more complicit in their victory than I am. But you know I love you, and thanks for noticing my wife’s beauty – I tricked her into marrying me.

“Why didn’t the judges comment that Alice was out of tune the whole time, or that their finish was a train wreck.”
(Paraphrased and amalgamized question posted by several commenters)

They weren’t out of tune the whole set, they had periodic tuning issues, just like all the other bands who had different issues at different times. As for why it wasn’t mentioned, good question. I can’t speak for the other judges but for me, when I’m watching the band, I jot down notes for the blog and talking points for the judges’ commentary. But sometimes, more often then not, I get to yammering about stuff and forget what I’ve already said, or what I wanted to say, and then it becomes a bloody free-for-all, after which I have no idea what happened. That happens to me often, in real life too. Suffice to say, while I did not mention it on the microphone, it absolutely did factor in on the score sheet.

“The judging last night was beyond questionable, it was atrocious. Viejas should be embarrassed.”
(DR, lennon singer from Help)

Wow, how quickly they turn on you. During the week that Help won, we were the bestest judges ever in the whole wide world. But now that they’ve lost, we’re atrocious, and an embarrassment to Viejas.

DR, it was not the judges that cost you the victory; it was the crowd. The judges did, and still do, love you, despite your contempt for us. We all lamented that you weren’t moving forward. We wanted you to advance, because we dig you. But, whatever, I’m atrocious because not enough people yelled loud enough for you – yeah, that makes sense.

“To say that I am extremely disappointed in their judgments is an understatement. I am also absolutely bewildered and to be perfectly honest … quite disgusted. I had been so excited lately about this competition as a whole and was delighted with how refreshing & fun this was for San Diego’s music scene, but now, all I’m left with is a sour taste in my mouth. I’m a pretty stable minded person, got both feet planted firmly on the ground, don’t get caught up in conspiracy theories, and notions that these things are “rigged” (I hate even typing that) … but man, after last night … I can’t help but wonder.”
JONA

Damn JONA, ok, ok, you busted us. Turns out, the Viejas owners are all really big Alice Cooper fans. Have you seen the Alice Cooper slot machine? Instead of cherries and apples, it has coffins and zombies. When you get three corpses in a row, you win the jackpot! Yeah that Alice Cooper band, definitely a Viejas favorite!

Rigged? Give me a break, rigged. To what end? If there was any rigging to be done wouldn’t it be rigged in favor of 6one9, who repeatedly brings the largest crowd – and, I might add, a younger crowd who likes to booze and has more disposable income, unlike old-fart Alice Cooper fans, whose idea of a shot and a chaser is a Geritol with Cranberry juice back.

“When the winners were announced, the look of shock on people’s faces was undeniable (and quite sad to be honest with you). The fact that the judges “got it wrong” is unquestionable.”
(More JONA)

Um, JONA, let me guess, when you were looking around at the faces, you were sitting amid all the other 619 fans right? Those were 619 fan’s faces that looked shocked. Well blow me down, the 619 fans are mad because their band should’ve won. Whoda thunk it. Something like that has never happened before.

You know what I heard when Alice was announced? I heard a huge cheer. Sure, there were a lot of jeers too, which is exactly what happens every week. Whenever a winner is announced, half the room cheers, and the other half jeers, and there will never be a consensus ever about who should’ve won.

So what does that tell us – it tells us we all have different opinions, that nobody is right or wrong – a fact that brings me great comfort. It enables me to just make my scores as I see fit, knowing the other two judges, and the crowd, are there to dilute my influence, and exert theirs – so that it all works out in the end.

General Decker
Judge #3
www.edwindecker.com

P.S. I do have one quick announcement to make: This Thursday, July 24, 12:30pm. I will be on SignonSanDiego radio to talk about the Ultimate Music Challenge. The show is called,”Into the Night,” with host David Coddon, writer and editor of the Union-Tribune’s Night and Day section. If you want to listen, go to http://signonradio.com/ and select “listen live.” If you want to call in (please call in) and ask a question on the air, the number in the studio is 866-818-6384.

And tonight’s winner is…

Detroit Underground. Congratulations you Motown making mofos!

Ok, so, the recurring problem in this week’s competition was tone. You probably often hear judges, musicians, audiophiles and most other self-professed, know-it-all types talk about tone when we/they talk about music. But you seldom hear it defined, so, for many, it is this intangible, ethereal concept that is often misunderstood.

So let’s talk about tone.

Where music is concerned, there are basically two definitions.

The first is that tone is a technical musical notation that, according to the Virginia Tech Music Dictionary, is “An interval of music consisting of two semi-tones that make a whole step.”

Or as I like to define it, “Bla bla bla.”

The second definition, and the one relevant to us, is, “The particular sound of an instrument or voice combined with the performer’s particular technique.”

With regard to musicianship or vocals, there are an infinite number of variables that form a player’s tone. From the brand and model of his instrument, to the gauge of his pick, to the circumference of his vocal chords, to the infinite possible ways the musician plays his instrument, to what he had for breakfast that morning – all contribute to a tone unique to only that player.

Your tone is your musical fingerprint, and there is no unanimity as to what is good and what is bad tone. It’s all, pretty much, a matter of taste.

And for my taste, RockSlyde, the evening’s first band, was in serious need of a tone makeover. At first it sounded like they were going to rock when they rolled out the opening snyth intro on Styx’s “Blue Collar Man.”

When the singer jumped in and sang, “Give me a job give me security…” it seemed like some top shelf rock and roll was going to happen. But it didn’t take long for the cracks in the vocal foundation to start showing. When they covered Journey’s “Anyway You Want It,” those vocal cracks became glaring. Ditto on REO Speedwagon’s, “Keep on Loving You,” and Boston’s, “Long Time.”

It’s not that he was a bad singer. He did manage to hit some difficult falsettos (missed a few too) but there was something about his tone that didn’t work for me. Admittedly, the other judges liked it, but for me it was nasally, tinny and stark.

Also, there were issues with the harmonies, mostly because they weren’t, um… harmonious. I’d say that’s a problem, especially because the songs they were covering were such harmony-heavy tunes (Boston, REO, Journey?!) It was not until INXS’ “New Sensation,” when it sounded pro, and that’s because the song was well in their range.

On the positive side, they were having fun and smiling and laughing and moving about, and that counts for a lot. I envision these guys thriving in local bar, where the bar-babes are cute, the booze is flowing, and nobody gives a damn about tone.

Haute Flash was instantly loveable. They are an all female band, most of them over 40, which makes their name utterly hilarious and appropriate. They came out in gaudy sparkly skirts, black fishnets, pink feathers in the bass player’s hair and sparkly scarves hanging from their mike stands. They were clearly there to have a good time.

The first two songs, “Lady Marmalade” and “Boogie Oogie” (sung by drummer and keyboardist respectively) were just ok. About half way through “Boogie Oogie,” Danielle leaned over and commented that they weren’t black enough to sing those songs. She wasn’t referring to skin color per se, rather, she meant tone. In this case, that powerful, loose, rhythmic, large-esophagused vocal tone most often attributed to certain sassy African-American hot mama vocalists.

I said to Danielle, “I dare you to say that on the microphone. I just dare you to say they weren’t ‘black enough’ for those songs.”

I was certain she wouldn’t do it, but to my shock and awe, when the set was over, and it was Danielle’s turn to speak, she commented that the first two songs were, “lacking blackness,” then added that it sounded, “… you know, kind of white, and stiff – no disrespect to us color challenged people.”

I totally agreed. Because, as soon as they moved beyond the funk/soul sister stuff, and into the country and classic rock, they began to shine like the crazy diamonds they are. The drummer sang Gretchen Wilson’s “All Jacked Up.” Then bass player, Sharon, known to most of us as Shaaron (with two A’s) for her prolific comments on this blog and tendency to foment conspiracy theories, came out and sang the vocally treacherous “White Rabbit” which was wonderful and frightening, just like Grace Slick intended. Next she banged out Janice Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart,” with a rich, raspy voice that was the polar opposite of the stark, tinny tone of the first singer.

After their set, Danielle leaned over and said, “You know what else I love about this band? Their name! Menopause is generally treated by society as a curse. For these women to call themselves Haute Flash takes serious ovaries.”

Agreed.

Next up was Rockandy and tone was just the beginning of their problems. They started off with B52s’ “Love Shack” and, while the Ric Ocasek-looking bass player did a great job on the Fred Schneider parts, the two girls who sang the beehive harmonies were too vocally sloppy to carry the song.

After that, the guitarist sang Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309/Jenny.” He was by far a better singer than the girls, though there was nothing interesting or gallant about his tone either, and he had projection problems, and some pitch problems. His guitar work was clean and tight but, again, more tone problems with that too. After “Jenny,” one of the beehive sisters sang The Donnas’, “Take it Off,”, which was weak, but at least not horrible. It didn’t get horrible until “Barracuda,” which, like so many songs that were attempted last night, was so far out of her range that it was ludicrous to even attempt. Really? Heart?? You could barely get through The Donnas’ tune, and now you’re trying to sing Ann Wilson? Wow. Not very smart, but, as Danielle might say, “That took ovaries whitey!”

Next was Rokken – a Dokken cover band. This was a difficult band for me to grade. Largely because I can’t stand Don Dokken. I hate his songs, I hate his lyrics, I hate his look, I hate his persona, I hate his name, I hate his band, I hate his band’s name, I hate his website, I hate his MySpace page, I hate his friends on his MySpace page, I hate his wife, I hate his dog, I hate his mother, I hate his car, I hate his house. But of all the things I cannot stand about Don Dokken it’s that high pitch, hyper-sustained, excessive tremolo-ing, overblown, overrated, erratic screechfest of a voice that never fails to send me running for the tool shed to find a screwdriver that I can drive into my eyeballs.

My conundrum was, the more that this singer sounded like Don Dokken, the more I would hate him. And he did, pretty much sound like Dokken, and I pretty much hated it, but, I vowed not to hold it against him, because that’s the job of a Dokken tribute band isn’t it? To sound like Dokken?

The whole performance actually got me to rethink the position I took so many weeks ago, that it didn’t matter if the judges didn’t like the band the tribute band happened to be tributing; it only mattered if they tributed them well.

But last night I got to thinking, what if there was a Screeching Weasels Being Beaten with a Stick tribute band? and what if they sounded exactly like a pack of weasels who were screeching because they were getting beaten by a stick? Should I give them a good score?

Hmm, we’ll have to explore that later I think

For now, it didn’t matter because I did not hold the Dokken voice against him – until he brought the Dokken voice over to the Queensryche song.

Being that I hate Queensryche almost as much as I hate Dokken, for him to get all “Dokkensryche” on us was, for me, a double dose of Hell’s hemlock pouring into my ear canals.

Even worse was when he brought the Dokken voice to my beloved Van Halen, and that was the last straw. I felt officially justified to hold the Dokken voice against him.

Another problem was that the singer was a little whiny onstage. He complained that only the local bands got love in this contest (I assume they’re an out-of-town band), and that, “It’s a homer’s game,” and also commented that, “If you’re not from San Diego you don’t get no love,” thereby creating yet another conspiracy theory to add to the list, The San Diego County Band Preference Conspiracy Theory (SDCBPCT).

Will it never end?

He was also quite cocky up there, which didn’t please Danielle and Alicia, but I didn’t mind so much. I figure the cock rock strut is appropriate in a Dokken Tribute band. However, you can’t have it both ways. You cannot be a whiny crybaby AND at the same time strut around stage like you’re the last cocksman left on the planet.

Bottom line is this: it has nothing to do with a homer conspiracy. It has to do with you. If you bring it; if you rock the house — they will have no choice but to love you. Whether you’re from San Diego, California or Hog Jaw, Arkansas – it’s all in your hands. Everything else is horseshit.

Last up was Detroit Underground, and I knew, right from the start, they had it won. They played Earth Wind and Fire’s “Sing a Song,” and it was all smiles and kisses at the judges’ table.

If there was any doubt after the first song that they were going to win, they followed that with “More Today than Yesterday,” and nailed it so perfectly that all they had to do from that point was to not play any Screeching Weasels Getting Beaten by a Stick covers and victory would be guaranteed.

They even managed to take my second most hate song of all time, “Kiss,” and turn it into a blast of awesomeness directly in the face. They just nailed it on all levels: Vocals, music, charisma, style, audience interaction, costumes, and yes, also, tone. From the vocalists, to the strings, to the wind – the whole damn thing was a tone-riffic orgy and a big part of the reason they won.

The girls agreed with me, and the three of us slathered them with praise and blessings, and it was really quite disgusting; so bad actually, that I had to take a shower when I got home because I felt dirty afterward. I’ll try not to do that again.

Edwin Decker
Judge #3
www.edwindecker.com

Before we get started, there are four things that need to be mentioned. The first is that last night’s contest only had four entrants because The Clay Colton Band lost its guitar player in a fatal traffic accident. Craig Yerkes was the much-loved guitarist for the Clay Colton band, as well as for an all original local rock band called The Grams. I didn’t know Craig, but have many friends who were very close to him. They all said the same thing, that Craig was a great person and a phenomenal guitar player. We at UMC extend our condolences to his family and friends. Rest in Peace brother.

Secondly, there is some breaking UMC news. The winner of Week 6’s competition, the 80z All Stars, has dropped out. This means that the next runner up, Gin Pistons, will advance instead; so congratulations you oversized rockers! See you in the next round.

Third, filling in for Danielle LoPresti on Sunday was renowned musician and songwriter, Lisa Winston. Thanks Lisa!.

Last, I’d like to officially announce the arrival of a brand new type of conspiracy theorist. I haven’t decided what to call them yet, but it’s in regard to the band Detroit Underground.

After the show last night, a fellow named Bill approached me and asked what was up with Detroit Underground playing again this year. His point was, since they took second place last year, and won 8k, they should be ineligible for this year’s contest.

I told him that these decisions aren’t up to me, but, that I see no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed. If you can go to the World Series two years in a row – why not our little Music Challenge?

Anyway, that’s my take. What do you think?

Also, we need a name for this particular group of conspiracy theorists. I was thinking of naming them “Detroit Underground Conspiracy Theorists” (DUCT) in honor of the band which inspired it. But maybe it should be something more general, in case it comes up again, such as “Returning Finalist Conspiracy Theorists” (RFCT), or “Double Dipping Conspiracy Theorists (DDCT), or “We Hate You Because You’re Good Conspiracy Theorists” (WHYBYGCT).

And now – the moment you probably weren’t waiting for all that much since you were there last Sunday night and know damn well who won – the winner of Ultimate Music Challenge Week 7 is…

Old School. Congratulations you guitar-humping rockers!

Rising Star started the night with a smack down when, onto the stage, stepped a brother in a glittery silver sequined shirt, tight black stretch pants, and a dark black jerry curl wig and said, “I’m Rick James bitch!” Then, like a frozen rope off a slugger’s bat, they launched into, “Give it to Me, Baby,” with the Rick James character strutting around the stage like the real deal.

He had some pitch problems, but they were totally forgivable when he hit those classic Rick James’ vocal yelps and eructations. He was just too fun to care about a pitchy squeak or squawk here and there.

After “Give it to Me, Baby,” the horn players ran off stage leaving the remainder of the band to play “Super Freak,” which then segued into MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This,” (which heavily samples “Super Freak”). At this point the horn players (sans horns), dressed in baggy Hammer pants, returned to the stage and danced the Hammer dance while one of them sang lead vocals.

It was bitchin’

Then a young woman walked on stage and sang “Family Affair.” Her vocals were tentative at first, but she warmed up rather nicely and finished powerfully and cleanly.

Following that, a guy in a Michael Jackson wig did MJ’s “Don’t Stop (till you get enough)” which was funny to watch but disturbing to hear. This might have been the low point in the set, despite the intentional hilarity. No matter though because after that, they stepped it up vocally and musically, hitting all the harmonies, lighting up the room with their charisma and knocking an inside-the-park homerun.

What I liked best about this band, besides thecostumes and character portrayals was how different singers come on stage at different times to sing different songs. It was just an exciting way to conduct a performance and the audience seemed to thoroughly appreciate the zeal they exhibited on the stage. During my comments I told them, “You were more fun than you were good, but you were pretty darn good too.”

Next was a three-piece band called, um… The Red Muffs. These guys were very good. Like Rising Star, they had a rough start vocally as they weren’t quite projecting their voices. But then they got into it, started belting out the songs, and killed the second part of their set. They were exceptionally talented musically and, with only three pieces and no computers — man they filled out the sound. Kudos to the drummer who was awesome. His pops and stomps and fills and spills were idyllic. Sometimes I found myself listening to only him to figure what the hell he was doing to make it sound so good.

At one point, a cymbal kept falling off its stand. When Casey (Stage Manager of the Gods) ran on stage and put it back, the cymbal fell off again. I told my wife, “He’s hitting that kit so hard, the cymbals are trying to escape!”

The, um… Red Muff’s set list was rocktacular. They started with “Midnight Rider,” by the Allman Brothers, then Sublime’s “Date Rape,” “Don’t Fear the Reaper” (Blue Oyster Cult), “Take it Easy” (Eagles), “Folsom Prison Blues” (Johnny Cash), and a little bit of “Highway to Hell” (AC/DC) before their time ran out.

The stab at AC/DC might’ve been a mistake. The thing was like a train wreck, a really awful one, during rush hour, when the train was full of people, and none of them died; they were all just critically injured and howling in agony waiting for the emergency crews to arrive. Still, I didn’t hold that against them much. I think they were trying to be quirky and funny. Rather, it was their early vocal issues that cost them.

I bet when they play in front of their crowd, at some local dive club, they just crush it. But with 20 minutes to belt it out, you just don’t have time to warm into it. I know it’s extremely difficult to do, but you have to hit the stage running if you want to move to the next round. In summary, I’d say they hit a double and stretched it to a triple.

Props out boys.

During the judges’ comments I asked, “What possessed you to play “Date Rape”?

Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. It’s a great song and they played it well, but it was a ballsy selection. After all, this is the DreamCatcher Lounge we’re talking about and not the Whiskey. It’s not the most politically correct tune either. Sure, its lyrics are anti date rape, but much of the song is from the perspective of the date rapist so the casual listener might think the, um, Red Muffs were singing about the joys of Roofie spiking.

Then there were parts of the song where the music breaks down and the offensive (to some) lyrics were just left standing out there alone, and stark.

“Come on babe it’s your lucky day.
Shut your mouth, were gonna do it my way
Come on baby don’t be afraid,

[Music comes to abrupt stop]

If it wasn’t for date rape then I’d never get laid.”

Later in the song, when the rapist is busted and goes to jail, they break it down again.

“But that’s the way it had to beThey locked him up and threw away the key
Well, I can’t take pity on men of his kind,

[Music stops]

“Even though he now takes it in the behind.”

It was that last line that made me think, “Ewww, I think he’s gonna lose this crowd. Indeed, there weren’t very many friendly, smiling faces at that point – except mine of course, but then, I hang out in dive bars.

Next up was The Sharpe Shooters. They were terrible. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be mean. They seemed like such nice guys, and took some harsh criticism fairly well. I felt bad saying what I had to say but they were just bad. Dare I say, the worst so far?

Their songs just dragged on and on, their tempo was sluggish, and they exhibited almost zero energy. I can’t say what the level of excitement was in their heads, but from the judges’ perspective, it seemed like they were totally bored and disinterested.

Also, they used a sequencer, which is permissable, but they applied it poorly. For one thing, you really shouldn’t put the laptop and sequencer unit at front and center stage where everyone can watch as you point and click your way through the set. It took the singer way too much time to launch each song. A piece of advice for upcoming bands: If you’re using sequencers, program each song to fire right after the other. And put the damn thing in the back somewhere. Rock songs are supposed to start with the drummer clacking his sticks together, not a computer nerd clicking his mouse.

To continue the baseball metaphor, I’d say they struck out looking.

For the judges’ comments, Jaime Valle said, (paraphrased)

“Sequencers are like musical dildos. They have their uses, but not like the real thing. You relied on it too much.”

So, at this point it was starting to look like Rising Star had it in the bag. Then onto the stage stepped Old School. These guys knew how to hit the stage running. From the first few notes of “Summer of ‘69,” it was as if they had already been up there for an hour and were on peak. Next they did Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Aeroplane,” Tim McGraw’s “Live Like you are Dying,” Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love,” and Van Halen’s “Panama.”

With the exception of “Tainted Love,” I didn’t much care for the song selection. But they rocked them out regardless, which might give you an idea about their skills. When a band can take songs that you don’t like, and make you think, “Hey, that song rocks!”; that’s the mark of a great band.

Here’s another mark of a great band. They were so good, I forgot to take pictures. Sorry guys. Because I feel bad about that, I’ve posted a photo of one of the mud wrestler contenders at the last Modern Drunkard Magazine Convention in Las Vegas. (Note the, um, mudflaps). You can thank me later.

My only complaint about Old School was regarding the Scott Stapp-ian posing by the front man.

During the comments phase, I told the singer/guitarist, “I don’t really go for that sexy singer, hip-writhing, guitar-humpfest thing you had going, but then I’m a guy and immune to that sort of thing, so I won’t mark it against you. Also, I’m really not much of a fan of the songs you sang but I won’t hold that against you either, because you rocked that set and that’s what matters.”

In short, they hit it out of the park.

Incidentally, on their MySpace page it says, “We play rock, classic rock and Dutch pop.”

Kudos to Old School for not playing any Dutch Pop. If I hear one more love song about Helga the Warrior Princess, I’ll go nuts.

Kudos also for resisting the temptation to spell your band name, “Old Skool.” Good God! Isn’t it annoying when bands misspell their names for no other reason than because they think it’s cool?*

Bands like Motley Crue, (what the hell is a crue?), Geto Boys, Linkin Park (did they think the actual park was going to sue?), Staind, Limp Bizkit, Korn (wouldn’t it have been more punk rock if they had spelled it “Corn”?), and the worst band name spelling of all time…

Boyz II Men.

For crying out loud, why not just call yourselves “Wee Cant Spel and Play Krap Musik” and call it a day.

So thanks Old School; thanks for sparing me this particular pet headache. And Good luck in the next round. I tell you right now, from the looks of things, the semis are gonna be “knock down, drag out, stomp on your face” delicious. I can’t wait.

Edwyn Dekker
Judge #3
www.edwyndekker.com

*The Sharpe Shooters are exempted from this criticism because their founder’s name is Daryl Sharpe

There are some things I need to mention before we get started. The first being that the Cash’d Out Interview is now posted.

Secondly, the band, WilLoveALot, didn’t show up last nigth so the whole schedule got thrown for a loop, thus reducing the number of acts from five to four, for which we apologize.

Thirdly, we had a guest judge fill in for Jaime this week. Alan Phillips is a Grammy nominated musician and producer with 13 San Diego Music Awards under his belt. He has performed and/or recorded for such legends as Bob Hope Tito Puente, Donna Summer, Kenny Loggins, Patti LaBelle, Kenny Rogers, Al Jarreau and Sheila E.

He’s, also, from what I could tell last night, a super cool, kick-back guy. Thanks Alan!

Lastly, I would like to mention that my mother attended the Ultimate Music Challenge this week. My mother, whose name is Suela but whom we call, “The Mother,” is in town visiting from New York. The Mother has been helping proof read these posts since the beginning so I brought her to the show last night to sit at the judges’ table and get a gander at what all the fuss has been about.

Mom grew up listening to those old Italian crooners like Dean Martin and Louis Prima and the closest she’s ever come to liking rock music is when Frank Sinatra did a duet with Jimmy Buffet. I actually had an idea that I would hand her my microphone after the judges made their comments and have her say things like, “Don’t you boys know any Tony Bennet songs,” or something silly to that effect, but she declined.

And now, the winner of Week 5 of the Ultimate Music Challenge is…

80z All Stars.

Congratulations you kooks!

First on the bill was the Tenacious Double D’s. What on Earth can I say about them? They certainly weren’t very musically inclined, and they couldn’t sing much, and most of the lyrics – which are the essence of Tenacious D – were indiscernable, but they sure were fun to watch. Well, I had fun anyway. The other judges hated them. The waitresses hated them. The bartenders hated them. With the exception of their fans, pretty much everybody with whom I spoke had been terrorized by the DD’s – which I kind of thought was what they were going for. I guess I just figured if you allowed yourself to be terrorized by the Tenaciousists, then the Tenaciousists win.

I enjoyed the “We’re-having-fun-and-don’t-care-what-you-think-so get-bent” irreverence they were exhibiting, and got a kick out of the demon that came lumbering on stage with his horrible demon mask and disgusting plastic breasts built into his demon suit so maybe you shouldn’t trust my opinion about this band, but I didn’t hate them in the least.

About the Double D’s, The Mother had this to say:

“The beat was pretty good but the girls were out of tune and seemed to just yell. The demon with the breasts served no purpose.”

Next up was 3^rd Program. The first thing that must be said about these guys is, “Wottup with the name homies?” After “WilLoveALot,” it’s probably the worst band name in the history of cover music.

I mean, what is a 3^rd program? Is it some sort of drug rehab thing? What happened to the first and second programs? Did they fail those? What kind of music do they play? Is it all rehab songs? Are they going to sing “Cocaine” and “Heroin,” and “Sister Morphine”?

They started with “Love the One You’re With” by Steven Stills, which was a fairly solid opener but when it was over, instead of taking that momentum into the next song, they took a few moments to introduce the members of the band, saying, you know, “On the guitar is So-and-so,” then waited for the obligatory applause, “and on the bass is Such-and-such,” more clapping, “and on the drums is What’s-his-face, who is my best friend in the world and was there for me through thick and thin and…”

FIVE MINUTES LATER

“… and then after Suzy left me for the the pool boy, What’s-his-face came over every day and helped me through the most difficult time in my life and…”

FIVE MORE MINUTES LATER

“… and that’s when Such-and-such said, ‘Hey, we should form a band, and…,”

Ok, of course, I’m exaggerating, but come on – in a battle of the bands contest, for 20,000 dollars, when you have 20 minutes to show what you can do – to murder your momentum like that and waste precious seconds introducing each band member, is silly.

In fact, I think the move directly hurt them because it was pretty much a blasé set (“Without Love,” by the Doobie Brothers, “Tightrope,” by Stevie Ray Vaughn) until their last song, Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” when they really got going. Had they utilized that time to play, and execute, another short, high-energy song, they might’ve taken that momentum to the next level and put them in spitting distance of a victory.

I thought Alan said it best when he remarked, “You were like a plane that never got off the ground.”

About 3^rd Program The Mother said this: “I like them, though I don’t know the songs they covered. I thought the harmonies were on pitch and the guy in the white shirt was bopping around rather nicely.”

After that was Gin Piston. Now that’s a band name. It suited their look and style. Gin Piston showed great promise with Badfinger’s “No Matter What,” which is a great, great song to start with, but as they moved through their set, the tiny cracks in their foundation began to show. Mostly it was vocal issues, which goes back to what I’ve said in previous blogs. That singing in cover bands is a cutthroat affair. If all these “original music only” snobs could just come down and see how hard it is to be in a cover band, to sing like other people, to hit the same notes the same way, the same solos with the same tweaks and bends and tones – and how they get crucified when they don’t get it exactly right – they would maybe understand.

I think the singer’s main problem, aside from not having much power behind his vocals, is that he was singing the wrong song-types for his tone and style. I think he would’ve done a lot better with rockabilly, or ska, or even a SoCal punk style maybe. The blues tune, which I did not recognize, worked really well for him, as did Aerosmith’s Big 10-Inch Record, which is more of jump-jive tune, but the Plimsouls’ song (“A Million Miles Away”) just didn’t gel with his tone, nor did Bryan Adams’ “Summer of ’69.

The Mother really liked them though.

“They had personality,” she said. “If I had my serenity, I would have gotten up and danced.”

Finally came the 80z All Stars. It was clear, from the moment they started playing, they were using a sequencer.

For those who don’t know, a music sequencer is a special kind of computer designed to create and utilize pre-recorded and/or computer-generated music.

Basically, it’s canned music parts that a live band will use, to varying degrees, to give more depth to their live performances.

You didn’t have to be Detective Munch to figure out the All Stars were using one. For thing, there was no keyboardist on stage, yet you could hear the “Mr. Roboto” keyboards clear as day. Also, there were several times throughout the performance that the singer pulled the mike away from his mouth and his lips stopped moving but the vocals kept going.

I generally find this performance technique distasteful. Admittedly, it doesn’t bother me as much with cover bands, which is more about entertainment than it is art, and I don’t mean that in a persnickety manner. Still, once you pinpoint a sequencer on stage, then you don’t know what to believe. Every vocal, every guitar solo, every thump of the bass and kick of the drum is suspect because it could be pre-recorded which, for me, interferes with the enjoyment of the music. I start concentrating more on what is or isn’t canned and less on the music and the groove.

However, it is clearly stated in the rules that pre-recorded music is permitted, and that seems to be the trend these days, especially with these decade-specific cover bands like Disco Pimps, Metal Shop etc. Also, from what I understand from talking to bands who use these things, it’s not so easy playing with them. Sequencers don’t give and take like live musicians. They can’t adjust to mistakes, or switch gears on a dime. Live players can and do cover their errors using various techniques, but a sequencer does what it does and doesn’t give a monkey’s dingleberry about who’s screwing up on stage.

Still, I have no doubt that this will start a Sequencer Conspiracy Theory (SCT) among the diehards. Whatever. Howl if you must, but the judges simply cannot hold it against them.

On Sunday night, June 29, 2008 – The 80z All Stars rocked the house, within the purview of the rules, better than any of the bands on that night and therefore, they won.

And what they won on was energy, gaiety and choreography. The songs themselves were super fun (who doesn’t love “Whip It” and “Mr. Roboto”? Come on, admit it!) From the moment they mounted the stage, they instantly converted what was an otherwise blasé evening into a ripping good time, and ended it with a bang.

During the judges’ comments I said,

“Well that was a helluva good time. Great energy, great fun, great songs, great drums and great guitar solos. Your invisible keyboard player was awesome too.”

This is what The Mother told me after the set:

“They represented the 80’s, but I would’ve still picked Gin Piston because I don’t like the 80’s.”

Don’t like the 80′s? Well you can blame it on Reagan mom, just blame it on Reagan.

Edwin Decker
Judge #3
www.edwindecker.com

(Special thanks to The Mother for all her editorial help)

]]> http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/week-6-june-29/feed/ 72 edwin decker http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/the-cashd-out-interview/ http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/the-cashd-out-interview/#comments Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:12:41 +0000 edwin decker http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/?p=71 ]]>

As many of you already know, the winner of last year’s Ultimate Music Challenge (UMC) debut was Cash’d Out. It was quite a ride to get to the finals and picking a winner which, to this day, remains controversial. So much so that after the finals, I posted a blog about it on the CityBeat page, which immediately incurred the wrath of several people.

This was the first time I had written about UMC and the hard and fast reaction was what gave me the idea to run a blog for the entire contest. Suffice to say, we’re all pleased by its success and by how many of you are getting involved. Regardless of your opinion, we appreciate your zeal. I encourage you all to keep it up, even Paulie – who called me an Old Ass, which is just brilliant.

Anyway, we thought it would be a good idea to interview Cash’d Out and ask them what they did with the prize money, how they enjoyed playing UMC and other general questions about the band. What follows is a lightly abridged transcript of my conversation with bass fiddle player Sean Glithero.

Edwin Decker: “Tell me a little bit about the history of the band.”

Sean Glithero: “Our first gig was in January of 2005. A good buzz started going around for the band right away and we started playing larger venues by summer. When the Walk the Line movie came out that fall, we started getting a lot more requests from out of town venues. We got the attention of Bill Miller, who was one of Johnny Cash’s best friends and runs the official Johnny Cash website. Bill is also considered an expert on Cash history and has an incredible collection of memorabilia. He linked us to Cash’s website and hooked us up with some amazing gigs playing for Cash’s family, friends and former musicians. This helped us get some credibility as more than just an impersonation act.

“At Johnny’s official birthday celebration at the Fender Museum, Bill introduced us by saying, ‘Some people are impressionists. This band leaves an impression!’ That blew us away and was a huge honor. Doug [Benson - lead vocals/guitar] had to pull back the tears to start singing because it was very emotional to be honored by someone that was so respected by his hero.”

E.D.: “How did you enjoy playing the Ultimate Music Challenge?”

S.G.: “It was an amazing experience because we really felt like the underdogs in the finals. Besides Lady Dotty, the bands had horn sections, back up singers, tons of effects, stage shows, etc. and we’re just four guys emulating a hillbilly sound from 50 years ago. We knew we’d have to play the best we ever had to win, and we did. To this day, I don’t think we’ve nailed a performance like that night. One of our strategies was to mix up song tempos and styles. Also, we wanted to show a range of keys and add a few songs with our female singer, Ginger Reis, doing the parts of June [Carter-Cash].

“Finally, we wanted to do something that we had never seen before. We call it the Super Swoop. It’s where Kevin [Manuel - lead guitar] climbs on my bass to play the end solo in “Folsom Prison.” I keep playing the bass while he’s up there. Now, this is a common trick in rockabilly bands, so wanted to add something new. During the solo, I swing around and take the guitar off of Kevin’s shoulders and start playing the solo to the song. Kevin keeps playing the bass while standing on it and I finish the song on guitar.

“I couldn’t sleep the night before thinking of everything that could go wrong, like knocking Kevin off the bass and into the audience for example. We pulled it off though and the crowd went nuts. We still do the Super Swoop on special occasions.

“Though there were some bitter fans of the other bands when we won, all the musicians were super cool to us and very respectful. When they announced we won, it was probably the greatest moment in our musical careers to this point.”

E.D.: “What did you do with the prize money?”

SG: “We still have a lot of the money in our corporate bank account. We have used a little for travel. Originally, we were going to use the money to invest in studio time and produce our CD. However, we said, ‘Fuck it, let’s do it ourselves!’ So, we bought a bunch of recording equipment and converted Kevin’s house into a studio. We should be releasing the CD later this summer.”

E.D.: “There has been some debate on the Ultimate Music Challenge blog this year about the difference between a tribute band and a variety cover band. Some people say that it’s easier to play in tribute bands than variety cover bands and therefore have an advantage. Care to comment?”

S.G.: “Well, I’ve played in both and a tribute has some advantages. But, I think playing in a variety cover band is easier. . . and more satisfying. In a [variety] cover band, you can play a lot of your favorite artists and you have the world to choose from. Even if you cover a specific period or genre, you can cover any song in that style, for example, reggae bands that do metal songs.

“With a tribute though, you have to find a way to make two-plus hours of [one person’s] music interesting and fun. Luckily, Johnny Cash has a humongous catalog and people have a wide variety of requests, from his rockabilly to gospel to country hits.”

E.D.: “What’s your opinion about battle of the bands contests in general and how does UMC rate?”

S.G.: “I liked how this contest was judged by musicians that were looking at stage show and musicality. Obviously, crowd participation was important, but a lot of other factors were taken into consideration. Most battle of the bands aren’t as technical as Ultimate Music Challenge.”

E.D.: “Any advice for bands that are playing in this year’s competition?”

S.G.: “Don’t blow your wad on the first night. Vary tempos, keys, song styles, etc. Put something in the final performance that the judges have never seen or heard before. Promote the hell out of it and get your fan base believing that you can win it.”

Edwin Decker
Judge #3
www.edwindecker.com

]]> http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/the-cashd-out-interview/feed/ 9 edwin decker http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/week-5-june-22/ http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/week-5-june-22/#comments Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:33:35 +0000 edwin decker http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/?p=58 ]]> [Author's Note: [Author’s note: If this is your first time visiting the UMC blog, you might want to check out the INTRODUCTION first.]

Before getting into the contest, I’d like to mention two things:

The first is to tell you about an article I’m writing for the blog. It’s an interview with last year’s Ultimate Music Challenge champions, Cash’d Out, in which they will answer questions like, “How did you spend the 20 thousand dollars in prize money?” and, “What advice do you have for this year’s contenders?” That post should go up sometime this week so stay tuned.

The second thing is that I’d like to write a few words in honor of my hero, George Carlin, who died of heart failure yesterday. I can’t believe that bastard up and croaked on me when he had so much more comedy to give.

Carlin was such a huge influence on my life and my writing, maybe even the primary influence. From when I was a young boy, and would steal my parent’s record albums, I adored listening to his filthy language and rampant counterculture references. I even memorized all his routines, still know some of them today.

You could even say that I “covered” George Carlin, which was kind of fun and maybe the reason I am so open to and appreciative of cover bands because I used to walk around all day reciting filthy George Carlin routines to the delight of my pals, who also had never heard anyone like him, not at 14 anyway.

Now, I don’t normally mourn celebrities. Certainly not publicly, but what I’m feeling today goes beyond mourning, so I just wanted to take this moment to say, “Goodbye you funny old prick – I will miss you.”

INSERT MOMENT OF SILENCE HERE.

And now, the winner of Week 5 of the Ultimate Music Challenge is…

Anger is a Gift.

Congratulations you wild men!

The night started off with Surreal Time and it was an explosion – of averageness.

They were a mostly contemporary country cover band that, I’m sorry to say, didn’t give us all that much about which to rave. The dynamics, as Jaime likes to say, were “mushy” and their energy was flat. I told them they sounded like they were marching through a bog. Their only saving grace was the singer, who was sexy and vibrant and not a bad vocalist, until she tried to sing R.E.S.P.E.C.T., which really exposed her vocal limitations.

She did say, during the judge’s comments, that the band had forced her to sing that song. I hope, for all their sakes, they don’t make her sing it again.

I also didn’t quite understand their choice of band name because there’s really nothing surreal about country music, but whatever, they had bigger problems than that.

Next came this weeks’ winner, a Rage Against the Machine tribute band called Anger is a Gift.

From the opening chords, the room belonged to them. Even people who aren’t Rage fans were saying how good they were. My waitress, the lovely Elia, who prefers country music and likes long walks on moonlit beaches, told me that they kicked the country band’s butt – and she doesn’t even like hard rock nor had she ever heard of Rage Against the Machine. That should give you an idea of how good they were.

Some bands simply defy genre. When you’re great, you’re great, and I bet even some of the hardcore polka fans in the room were throwing their fists in the air screaming, “Bullet in your head, bullet in your head, they put a bullet in your motherfucking head!”

When Anger started playing, I tried to get a photo of the singer but the little bugger wouldn’t stop running around and jumping and shitm so all I kept getting were fuzzy shots like this,

and this,

and this globule of nothingness

I wanted to scream, “Would you stand still already?!” but this guy was on a mission. Man did he know how to make the most of a rock stage – just like his benefactor, Zack DeLarocha.

During the judges’ comments, I mentioned that I had seen Rage at Coachella a couple of years ago, from on stage, about 15 feet away from guitarist Tom Morello, and I have to tell you, there were times that Anger out-sang and out-played Rage.

Of course, RATM did it first. They composed it, created it, sculpted it, and you can never take that away from them, but what these kids did – the performance aspect of the show – well I just don’t know how much better it could’ve been.

They closed the set with the nuclear detonation that is “Freedom,” which is the song where Anger get’s their name.

“What does the billboard say?
Come and play, come and play
Forget about the movement
Your anger is a gift.”

For that last line the singer growled and howled and screamed out while pounding foot-fists on the stage as the band slammed the song home.

“Freedom, yeah,”

Freedom, yeah right!”

The room erupted in applause, and when it was over, everybody lit a cigarette.

Next was a Credence Clearwater Revival tribute band called Travelin’ Band, which was ok – the singer sounded just like John Fogerty, and played his guitar parts quite well, and the rest of the band wasn’t so bad either, but it felt like they were just parroting CCR. They weren’t feeling the songs. Not like Anger was feeling theirs. Plus, they were playing small ball; the sound, the posture, the performance was diminutive. And not because they were a Trio. Anyone who’s ever seen the Police, Rush, Hendrix, Cream, The Jam, Violent Femmes, Kingston Trio, Dixie Chicks, Wolfmother, ELP, the Minutemen, Muddy Waters, Primus, Grand Funk Railroad – or our own local rock trio heroes – Superunloader, knows that making large music doesn’t require large bands; it requires large emotional output, which the Travellin’ Band, while technically proficient, was sorely lacking.

I think Jaime said it best:

“This band is the perfect example of musicians who have learned how to play their instruments; they just haven’t learned how to play with other people yet.”

So true Jaime. There was no real push and pull happening here, no bouncing off each other’s riffs, feeling each other’s vibe, feeding on each other’s energy then farting it back out again with explosive musical outbursts.

Ditto Jukebox, who, now that I think about it, should’ve been the ones who called themselves Surreal Time, what with their slightly bizarre and eclectic song selections (some that worked and some that didn’t) and vocalist mismatches.

They started with the barely adequate Killers’ song, “Somebody Told Me,” sung by the male vocalist. Then they handed over the vocals to the female keyboardist who did “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse, and whose pitch, at first, was awful.

Pitch wasn’t her only problem, but tone and style as well, which just seemed out of place for the band because her style was, as Danielle correctly pointed out, more of a stage and theater thing than that of a rock band.

After that they played a cover of “Walk This Way,” which was a total sonic failure. It really didn’t start getting good, for me, until “Little Toy Gun,” by Honeyhoney, which is a playful, and highly theatrical song that suited her tone much better. They closed with “Heartbreaker” and rocked that song quite well. Alas it was too little too late.

After Jukebox came more vocal problems with Lifelike.

Allow me to digress for a moment so that I may address these vocal issues and to make a point to some of my more snobby, audiophile friends who like to poo-poo cover bands. When it comes to vocals, being in a cover band is markedly more difficult than being in an original band because in an original band the singer just has to sing the song the way he or she sings his or her own songs. Then, when they play live, they merely have to cover themselves.

But a cover band vocalist has to sound like somebody else. And everybody in the room is waiting for that singer to hit those notes exactly like the original singer hit those notes and when they don’t, well it can get ugly real fast.

So, while I may sound harsh when commenting about these vocalists, keep in mind that I understand the difficult task before them. Believe me, as a person who has sent his fair share of karaoke patrons screaming for the door, I know how hard it is.

Lifelike was, musically, almost perfect. But their vocal deficiencies became obvious from the first song, “Don’t You Forget about Me.” The singer and guitarist kept switching lead vocals and neither of them sang very well. Their harmonies were also suspect, though I believe this was not a problem with pitch, but more about the chemistry of their voices, which didn’t seem to gel.

It wasn’t until “Dancing with Myself” (sung by the guitarist) when the vocals started coming together. They kicked it back to the bass player with “You Shook me all Night Long” – a brave choice to go with AC/DC, which at first sounded excellent, but he got winded about 3/4 way through, and returned to the same, unimpressive vocals.

During the judges’ comments, I told them they needed another singer, a pro-singer, someone who could bring those two disparate voices together, sonically, and who could hit all, or at least most, of the notes.”

They were visibly upset by that remark.

Who can blame them?

R.I.P. George Carlin. We salute you

Edwin Decker
Judge #3
www.edwindecker.com

]]> http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/week-5-june-22/feed/ 89 edwin decker http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/week-4-june-15/ http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/week-4-june-15/#comments Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:03:13 +0000 edwin decker http://musicchallenge2.wordpress.com/?p=47 ]]> [Author's Note: [Author’s note: If this is your first time visiting the UMC blog, you might want to check out the INTRODUCTION first.]

And the winner is…

Monsters of Rock!

Congratulations you hard rocking rockers you.

“““““““““““““““““““““““““““

It was a pretty good showing for Week 4 of the Ultimate Music Challenge, considering that it was Father’s Day, and the opening of the Del Mar Fair, and The U.S. Open. It took a little bit to warm up, but when it did, it warmed up quite warmly.

The first band to play was a Cult tribute band called Sun King.

Set List:

• Wild Flower
• Lil Devil
• Fire Woman
• Love Removal Machine
• Sanctuary

The very first thing that the judges noticed was the guitar player’s wig. Good god was this thing atrocious! It was impossible, in the early part of their set, to focus on the music because of the monstrosity on his head. But then, when the shock wore off, you could tell that under that wig was an awesome guitarist. The singer was great too. All of them pretty much mastered the technical aspect of Cult tribution¹; however, with regard to their level of energy, they were about a spark plug short of firing on all pistons.

In their defense, the crowd was still pretty small and stiff at that point, making it very difficult for a band to create energy when they’re not getting any energy back, which is pretty much what Iwe told them during the judges’ comments, after which I added, “Oh, and Mr. Guitar Player, don’t you feel bad for the muskrat you had to scalp to get his fur?”

The guitarist chuckled, then pointed at the wig as if to say, “I know, I know, but the guys made me wear it.”

Next up, The Corvelles.

Set List:

• Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (reprise)
• Come See About Me
• You Keep Me Hanging On
• Stop in the Name of Love
• Where Did Our Love Go/Baby Love medley
• Why do Fools Fall in Love

(Wig Status = dark black beehive vis-a-vis Diana Ross)

<a

This was a fairly large ensemble, with bass, drums, guitar, sax, keys, and three hot mamas with glittery dresses and humongous, um, white boas.

From the moment the mamas started singing “Ain’t No Mountain,” chills ran down my spine. It was only a short reprise but instantly, we knew, these chicks were gonna bring it.

And it got brought.

All I kept thinking was . . . And on the 7^th day, God created The Corvelles

Their lead vocals, their harmonies, their gowns, their choreography – it was all so damn close to perfect my pimples were goosifying on the spot.

And the musicians were no slouches either.

The Corvelles were firing on all pistons all right. But not like the high RPM rev of a race car, rather, the gorgeous purr of a brand new Aston Martin V12 idling in your garage. You know, that sound when you open the hood and can hear the motor humming, nary a blip or a burp to be heard, and the engine is clean and sparkling, and the radiator fan blows a gentle breeze in your face. That’s The Corvelles – a T-Rex song incarnate.

During the judges comments I expressed my deep infatuation with the Diana Ross character and added, “Now that’s the way to wear a wig!”

The Xceptions came next.

Set List:

• Footloose – Kenny Loggins
• Dancing Queen – ABBA
• Barracuda – Heart
• All I Ever Wanted – Santana
• Bad Case of Loving You – Robert Palmer

(Wig Status = No Wigs)

I had such high hopes for these guys when they started. As much as I hate the song “Footloose,” and spent most of the 80’s hoping Jim Messina would stab Kenny Loggins in his sleep, the lead singer/lead guitarist really gave that tune a new life, and the two female background singers hit the harmonies in such a way that brought a zeal to the song far beyond anything that other asshole did with the song (suck on that Kenny Loggins).

My high hopes fizzled quickly after “Footloose” though because that was the last we heard from the male singer handing off the lead vocals, instead, to the two, inadequate chick singers².

The tall blonde sang “Dancing Queen” and it was an instant disaster. So was Barracuda by the shorter brunette. It was a ludicrous attempt for her to even try to channel Ann Wilson on this, or any other Heart tune.

To be fair, I was talking to a couple of the guys in the Xceptions afterward and they said the girls couldn’t hear themselves in the monitors, which is probably true, and unfortunate because the music was so freaking good, especially the aforementioned singer/guitarist, who was stunningly talented. They were so good I don’t think the crowd much noticed the weak vocal showing. In fact, they got the second largest cheer of the night so what do I know.

Then came Monsters of Rock

Set List:

• Highway Star – Deep Purple
• Flight of Icarus – Iron Maiden
• Night Train – Guns and Roses
• Take Hold of the Flame – Queensrÿche

(Wig status = No Wigs)

It took about six or seven notes of “Highway Star” before I realized that The Corvelles were in serious danger of being toppled.

Highway Star is an incredibly difficult song to play and sing. But these guys slammed it; I mean smacked that song out of the galaxy. I can’t say enough about the guitars, drums, bass, and especially vocals, which were from another realm.

Then, for their second song, when most bands wisely choose to play it safe, to play Iron Maiden – in a casino lounge – that took balls of iron. And it worked! The Maiden was a hit! It couldn’t have been any better if Eddie the ‘Ead himself walked out onto that stage, 12 feet tall and lumbering behind the drum kit with the souls of the damned dripping from his bloody maw.

And talk about your nearly impossible vocalists to cover, just try covering Ian Gillan, Bruce Dickinson, Axel Rose and Geoff Tate – in one set! Just try it!

I have one suggestion for Monsters of Rock; just a minor name change. Hey guys, why not use the heavy metal umlaut in your name? Try something like, Mönsters of Rock, or Monsters of Röck, or even Monsters öf Rock, whatever man, just make sure you get those eyeballs of Satan looking over your band name and you will forever rock in giant, golden arenas.

Last but not least came an Ozzy Osbourne Tribute band called Mister Crowley.

Set List:

• Diary of a Madman
• Over the Mountain
• I Don’t Know
• Crazy Train

(Wig Status – I suspect the Ted Nugent doo on the guitarist was real).

I felt bad for Mr. Crowley to have to follow a powerhouse like Monsters because they were quite good. The singer, as I said in the judges’ comments, was better at covering Ozzy than even Ozzy can cover Ozzy at this point. And he had that special sense of brain-deadedness that Ozzy seems to always carry around with him.

The music was great, and hard, and the guitar player, who looked like Ted Nugent but played like Randy Rhoads, was smoking. However, in the end, it was clear to all three of us that the choice was between The Cörvëllës and the Mönstërs öf Röck.

And the choice couldn’t be more difficult, couldn’t be more applesy and orangesish.

If The Corvelles are the sound of the soothing hum of a finely tuned Aston Martin idling, then Monsters of Rock are the roar of and Eagle 772 Spreadmore dragster engine with titanium valves and Manton pushrods speeding 200 miles per hour down the stretch without a chute.

If The Corvelles are a sac of warm sweet estrogen dripping over our heads necks and shoulders, then Monsters of Rock are double barrel shotguns splattering hard raw testosterone throughout the room.

If God created the Corvelle’s on the 7^th day, then on the 8th, Satan gave God a phone call and said, “Yo homey, that’ some good shit right there. But, have you heard this?!”, and then dropped some Monsters of Rock on Göd’s headphones.

The rest is history.

Edwin Decker
Judge #3
www.edwindecker.com

1. Tribution – (prounced Trih-bew-shun) A new word I just coined which means, the act of one band paying tribute to another, such as in a Cult tribute band.

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