Last Day of Round Two

The 2nd Round of the First Tracks competition draws to a close.  I appreciate all the feedback and votes!  Fortunately, my time as a guitar player, singer/songwriter did not hinge on the results of this contest :-)

Voting is still active so feel free to view/critique/say hello/vote

 http://www.gather.com/viewVideo.jsp?id=11821949021862370

Also, one more thing, I know that there was a lot of criticism regarding the high number of votes contestants were getting, especially at the end of Round 1.  Some of it's probably just sore losers.  I don't know if anyone has/can cheat in this competition, but I do know that it is very possible to get the number of votes you see.  It would be great to just have your songs judged by their own merit and not how many votes you can gather, but that's not the kind of competition this is.  I was once in a band that played around my area for a couple of years - we played about 5 nights a week - sometimes more, we were a 5 piece, which comprised of 2 guitars, an awesome bass player, amazing saxaphonist and drummer - 3 of us exchanged lead/backup vocals.  We were very much a Dave Matthews style band - loud, funky, fun, with long jams.  We ended up gathering a large following and were able to demand good pay.  We collected an email list that grew into a few thousand and when I put up our website we were getting thousands of visits (unique visits not hits) a day.  And we knew several other bands in our area that also had the same local success.  Every city has a group of bands with a big local following.  My point to all of this is that, had we at that time, entered a web competition like this there's no doubt that out of the thousands of people subscribed to our email list and visiting our site, a portion of those fans would have been voting which would have quickly compounded on a daily basis. (Yes that was a run-on sentence, sue me)  These people aren't cheating, they're serious hardworking artists who have diligently been marketing themselves and building a fan base.  This is what they want to do so they devote their time to doing it. I'm sure they have been broke, frustrated, and have experienced many downs and ups along the way.

I quit the band for several reasons, but one was to get away from it so I could want to do it again. I wasn't touching my guitar except at the gigs. Playing music became a JOB. So now I play acousticallly solo or with a friend about once a month (more frequently lately). I don't collect email addresses or hand out CD's. I just show up and play and I ENJOY it. Given all that, I am stoked I got as many votes as I did and met some new people along the way.

If anyone is curious the band I was in was called The Wes Cobb Band.  They're down to only 3 now, were all still friends and I sit in with them from time to time so does the Sax player - John Flood, but the band isn't the same.  You can check them on out myspace.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=59511742

What happened is a whole 'nother article, but it points to typical laziness, partying, egos, ignorance, burn out, being in a comfort, zone, being young and inexperienced, etc.  We basically hit a plateau and stayed there spinning our wheels until people started getting off.  We knew we were good enough to step up a notch, but didn't do enough to get there.

 Anyhow, my point is, sometimes if you really want to compete and you really want something you have to really commit to it and you've got to do it right - you can't be half-ass.  Don't expect it to be handed to you or fall in your lap.  And you can't whine when you see other people succeeding... but you can wine when you dine. Anyone tried a bottle of Coppola?

 Peace.

-Jake