by jbone1 » Mon May 18, 2009 11:19 am
speaking of competitions:
i got a call from a friend who is in the teaching field. students at her school just won a state education challenge and need $$ for travel to d.c. for the national competition. one thing my friend put together to help fund that trip was a songwriter's showcase, which she invited Jo and me to attend. registration was by song, and we decided to do 3 songs for a total of $30.
so we loaded and rolled to the city it was taking place at, under an hour's drive away. there were a total of about 8 competitors signed up and some were doing 2 or 3 songs like us. we got to kick the whole thing off. did i mention this was all originals? the judging panel was a seasoned music biz guy who had worked in nashville for some years, an organizer of a songwriters' showcase in yet another city, and a student who was attending that school.
there were of course sound issues, no dedicated sound guy. that worked against several people but was not insurmountable. i finally asked the kid who'd set the p.a. up to ride herd on the board and make sure things got tweaked for each artist.
the material we brought was all good solid blues written by Jo and myself. we were the only blues entries there, and i feel like we were also the most seasoned not to say oldest entrants. we did a song at the start, then in the middle, and at the end. we worked flawlessly together, and the audience responded very well for us.
other competitors did well in some cases and not so well in others. one guy was doing folksy sort of comedy numbers, one of which was actually an old willie nelson song. there were several younger alt rockers there and a couple of them did very well with both the material they did and their presentations. one guy was straight up country, but very powerful, stark delivery, spare and raw lyrics over sparse and elemental guitar chords. he and a couple of others, like us, obviously had stage hours behind him, and a real conviction about what he was doing. and there were the tentative players/singers who just weren't sure what to do. maybe they needed more rehearsal or just more time in front of an audience.
so over about 3 hours we did our respective things and the judges did theirs. meanwhile some cash was raised for a good cause.
at the end, the judges sequestered in a room to themselves to score the whole thing out. after maybe 45 minutes, they handed out their picks for 1st, second, and 3rd place.
did i mention- and this may be a universal truth about songwriters contests?- the guide we were given was much more focused on the actual lyrics than on performance. so even though Jo and i had the biggest audience response, and we saw the one seasoned judge- the guy from nashville- tapping his foot and bobbing his head- we didn't win or place. instead, 3rd went to a half-comedian guy doing old willie nelson ripoffs, second went to the daughter of the organizer, and 1st actually went to a kid who had been writing for only 6 or 7 months. but the 1st place winner actually did very well and i have to respect his spirit and competence on both guitar and lyrics, let alone a decent delivery.
as we were leaving the nashville guy shook my hand and told me how much he enjoyed our music. wish i'd thought to hand him a business card but if he really is interested he can find us.
Jo was just plain livid about the whole thing. and she made some good points. so she is dead set against doing any more competitions, or at least not with that organizer involved. previous competitions we have been in affected her this way also to some extent. so at this point i'm guessing we won't be competing anyplace, any time soon.
myself, i feel like, so what, we didn't win or place. and we did, imho, some of the best music at this thing. but still, we had a great time together- until the end of the thing. we met some decent young musicians from the area, who we may or may not see again. and it was a nice day for a lil road trip too. now i always hope that something like this will get us a gig someplace and at some point. and it may, who knows. but it does seem like the negatives outweigh the positives at least at our house this time. which i am sad about. i try to remain philosophical about stuff like this.