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ch-scene - Re: Stuff to do, Week of September 23, 2004

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Subject: RTP-area local music and culture

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  • From: paok <bluefreaky AT earthlink.net>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: Stuff to do, Week of September 23, 2004
  • Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 11:31:22 -0400 (GMT-04:00)

Who were these special nominators anyway? Certainly, those who write about
local music in the Indy seem to understand/have a grasp of the local scene.
However, the ballot seems almost an embarrassment/admission of ignorance to
me. I mean, no one can dispute my love and appreciation for jett rink, but
there's lots of other very, very excellent bands that were completely omitted
from the awards.

And I'm finding it very ironic that on the very night of the indy awards,
there is that show at the 506 of bands that are, to me, the very core of the
scene. Maybe we can give out some mock awards and let cy rawls be the mc...

pk


-----Original Message-----
From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sep 24, 2004 11:00 AM
To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: Stuff to do, Week of September 23, 2004

bendy(a)lostpla[dot]net wrote:

> Fashion Design pointed out the other night, as they encouraged their
> audience to vote for their good fortune as a nominated band, a certain
> amount of ballot box stuffing is part of any vote like this. I suppose
> the Indy was trying to avoid that at the nomination level. But five or
> six nominees per catagory would have been more interesting.

See, I'm thinking that if you're gonna run an Inherently Flawed Free
Weekly Music Awards (tm) -- and believe me, it's not a new concept, and
anytime a free weekly runs one, there is the inevitable article in the
paper about how they struggled with ballot box stuffing -- you have to
assume there's going to be stuffing & just resolve to deal with it. I
don't think that limiting the nominations is necessarily the right
answer, particularly if that also results in a skewed and too-limited
list of nominees.

Especially since nobody would care, particularly, if the nomination
phase weren't exactly mathematical, as long as it were more open than
closed. Kirk talks in the article about how the final voting is going to
be weighted, with the original nominators' votes getting more weight, so
the whole thing is more or less rigged anyway. Why should a handful of
insiders get to stuff the ballot box but the rest of us don't?

If you're not going to count everybody equally anyway, why not open up
the nominations & let people stuff away, with the clearly-stated caveat
that the nominees won't be decided mathematically & thus stuffing won't
help. At least the nominating panel might get exposed to some local
bands whom they otherwise might apparently be oblivious of.

& having 5 or 6 nominees per category vs 3 or 4 wouldn't substantially
affect the stuff-factor of the final vote, I wouldn't think, especially
if you went out of your way to *not* nominate any band who had obviously
stuffed during the nomination process, and stated your intention to do
so upfront.

Anyway. I guess I don't understand what they think they gained from
having a closed nomination process, other than not having to deal with
the minor inconvenience of finding out whether nominated bands they
haven't heard of are (a) real bands and (b) worth a shit.

> This really shows that their nomination scheme broke down, though. Seems
> like nominating board didn't put much thought into their entries. One
> gets the sense that even if some horrible tragedy wiped the members of
> 'Chunk from the face of the earth, they'd have still been nominated.

It's hard to discuss this without coming off like a jealous younger
sibling, although I'm helped somewhat by (a) being old as dirt and (b)
not ever having been in a band. Plus I think I'm fairly on-record as
being a huge Superchunk fan. But I think that even they would agree that
they've been awarded/rewarded enough already, particularly by the Indy
(during my tenure, at least, we certainly did ;-)) and that it's kinda
silly to nominate them during a period when they're more-or-less
dormant, particularly if there are only four slots available.

But then I suppose the correct answer is to quit yapping about this
whole thing & just say this: there is a reason why there haven't been
many attempts to do stuff like this around here. It's wonderful to give
exposure to local music, but the best way to do that is to give
consistent exposure to local music, by writing about it (if your tool is
a newspaper) or by helping it get played on the radio, or by discussing
it online, or by going to shows more frequently.

I suppose there are some towns/regions where a Contest is the kind of
excitement the locals crave, and is thus the best way to get exposure to
the local music scene. I really don't think that's true of this region.
For one thing, there are too many really good bands, and to single out a
few of them as being somehow better than the rest seems even more
arbitrary here than it would in other places. It just smells funny.

For another thing, one of the many factors that has allowed this music
scene to flourish for so long has been a remarkable level of cooperation
& non-competition. I've lived here for so long that I've kinda forgotten
what it's like out in the rest of the world, but I vaguely remember
things like public sniping, and tearing down each others' flyers, and
telling their fans to leave after they play, and just general nastiness.

And while it may occasionally bubble up here, by-and-large the bands
around here are astoundingly willing to praise one another in person and
in print; to play shows with each other (and get offstage in a timely
fashion if they're opening, and hype the other bands on the bill); and
to generally support each other.

The Indy's coverage of local music has increased appreciably (in
quantity, at least) over the past year or so, and I for one am quite
thankful for that. At this point I guess I'd just rather that they'd
gone the route of sponsoring showcases and devoting the space in the
paper to more local coverage, rather than filling it up with big flawed
ballots that don't really represent the depth & breadth of the scene,
nor its cooperative nature.

Ross
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