Semis 2 – Welcome to the Monkey House
Welcome to this week’s Judge’s Blog entry for Ultimate Music Challenge 4. If you have never been here before, please read the Introduction as it has all the pertinent information about judging, scoring, decibel meter readings blog etiquette and so forth.
SPECIAL NOTE - Thanks to Anne Craig for taking over the photography details for Paul Parks. For anyone who would like to see more of her work, or buy 8×10 photos of the bands, you can visit her Facebook page and contact her there if needed.
And now, the winner of Ultimate Music Challenge 4, semis Heat 2, are…
Dazed and Confused and Super Magnetic!
Congratulation you UMC memory makers you!
Welcome to the Monkey House is a book of short stories by one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. One of the stories, “All the Kings Men,” reminds me of these semifinals rounds.
The story centers on a U.S. Army Colonel, Bryan Kelly, whose plane has been shot down in an Asiatic jungle. With him are his two sons, his wife, the pilots and ten enlisted men. The sixteen prisoners are held captive in a small jungle villa which is controlled by a murderously insane, Chinese militant named Pi Ying. In effort to mentally torture the Colonel and his people, Pi Ying forces Kelly to play a game of chess on a giant board that sits in the courtyard of the villa. If Kelley wins, the captives go free. If he loses, they will all be executed.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of playing with life-sized chess pieces, Colonel Kelly must use his fellow captives as pieces, while Kelly himself plays the King, dictating the moves from his place on the board. Any “pieces” that are captured are removed from the board, taken behind the compound and shot in the back of the head. If the Colonel, or any of the captives, refuse to cooperate, they will all be tortured then shot.
At first, Kelly tries to play safe chess, meaning he avoids sacrificing or trading any pieces, with the hopes of saving every life. This approach puts him at a huge tactical disadvantage though and eventually he faces the reality that if he is going to save anyone, he’s going to have to sacrifice some lives. It all comes to crescendo when the Colonel, on the verge of defeat, sees a backdoor checkmate in two moves. The only problem?: He needs to sacrifice his son as bait for the trap.
This is exactly how I feel about these semifinals. I feel like I have to sacrifice three of five extraordinary bands – all of whom are top shelf performers and musicians, all of whom busted their asses to put on badass shows for us, many of whom have become my friends over the course of this event and with whom I have established real and lasting bonds which I then rewarded by taking them out back and shooting them in the back of the head.
Saying goodbye to Dead Man’s Party, Deeper Purple and Old School was not easy. Everyone was so good and it was very tough to score, thanks in part to the Monkey House factor, but also because the few mistakes that were made were so different, it was difficult to measure them against each other.
Still, measure we must. Here are the scores…
Audience Applause
It was a 5 way tie on the audience applause category, so all the bands received 10 points.
Total Scores – Definitive
(Includes judges’ scores, crowd categories and penalties)
Dazed and Confused 274
Super Magnetic – 272
Old School – 257.5
Deeper Purple – 255
Dead Man’s Party – 229
Judges’ Picks – Collective
(These are the total scores given by the judges minus any crowd related categories – to determine whom the judges collectively preferred*)
Dazed and Confused – 217
Super Magnetic –215.5
Old School – 200.5
Deeper Purple – 200.5
Dead Man’s Party – 176
[Bloglord's Note: although it was a 5-way tie in audience applause, we still gave scores for “Audience Participation” which is a number the judge applies for how much he or she thought the crowd was responding – dancing, clapping, chair-dancing etc. I subtracted those numbers from these scores because it doesn't really identify which bands the judges preferred, only who the judges think the audience preferred]
Judges’ Picks – Individual
(These are the total scores given by each judge minus any crowd related categories – to determine whom the judges individually preferred)
David Patrone
- Dazed and Confused – 72
- Super Magnetic –71.5
- Old School – 64
- Deeper Purple – 61.5
- Dead Man’s Party – 54.5
Alicia Champion
- Dazed and Confused – 72
- Super Magnetic –71.5
- Deeper Purple – 69
- Old School – 67
- Dead Man’s Party – 58
Edwin Decker
- Dazed and Confused – 73
- Super Magnetic –72.5
- Deeper Purple – 70.5
- Old School – 70.5
- Dead Man’s Party – 58
Walking around the room afterward, asking people who they think should’ve won, it seemed to be a general consensus that Dazed and Confused deserved the win but were split on Deeper Purple and Super Magnetic for second place, with Old School a sliver behind them.
I agree with that consensus. In my mind, Dazed and Confused was a no-brainer. After that, it was very difficult to decide between Super Magnetic and Deeper Purple. Unlike Sergeant Patrone’s score, who gave Super Magnetic a full 10 points more than Deeper Purple, I thought it was MUCH closer, having given Deeper Purple and Old School a mere two points less. I actually thought I gave Deeper Purple the higher score. Last night was one of those times when I don’t compare score sheets to pick a definitive favorite, rather, just graded category by category. In my head I thought I gave higher scores to Deeper Purple and was a bit surprised to see today that I gave it to Super Magnetic. Not disappointed mind you, I don’t have a problem with Super Magnetic advancing. Turns out it was the Stage Presence and Charisma categories that hurt DP on my sheet. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that Deeper Purple didn’t have stage presence or charisma – they had a ton of it – just not quite as much as the two winning bands.
Now the people I talked to who strongly felt that Deeper Purple should have won over Super Magnetic did make some excellent points. Mostly, the complaint was song selection. Specifically, “Super Freak” and “Proud Mary”, which I agree were terrible choices. Especially “Super Freak”, which is soooo tired and right up there with “Smoke on the Water,” Freebird” and “Mustang Sally” as a song that had its soul ripped out and replaced with a metal prosthetic soul recovered from the dismantled motherboard of a corporate accountant’s computer.
As my good friend DeeBee – a UMC regular and leader of the wildly horrible Ramone’s tribute band “Hey Ho, Let’s Go” – said:
“All their talent is wasted on that song?!”
As for “Proud Mary”, well that’s just, as Patrone rightly pointed out, a terrible song. At least that version is – the Tina Turner version – which is hurried and careless and typical of Tina Turner’s approach to music in general. That said, Rebecca and friends absolutely nailed it, especially the intro, which is the best part of the Tina version because it’s so smoky sexy cool, and exactly how Rebecca played it. Of course, never was Rebecca more smoky, sexy cool as when she came to the front of the stage for Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody” and sprawled out to let the crowd devour her with our eyes. I swear, in that instant, everybody in that room had courted, married and raised a family and with her in the flash forward of their minds.
After she gave us an eyeful, she slowly, coolly lowered herself off the stage, and slowly, coolly serpentined her way through the dance floor, touching people, flirting; then over to the cocktail tables, slowly, coolly, she kept coming in our direction; then finally to the judges’ table; Dave Patrone first, touching, feeling, seducing him like the wicked siren she is; then Alicia, smoky sexy touches on her back and neck, and finally me, rubbing her powerful body down my side as she cooed, “Ain’t nobody, love me bet-ter / Ain’t nobody, makes me feel this way.”
It was smoky sexy, all right, but more than that, it was hypnotizing, like a cobra slowly rising to the sound of a snake charmers pipe.
Old School was superb, probably the tightest, cleanest band of the night. The only reason I had them in 4th place is because they didn’t quite bring me to the same emotional height as the other three did. Again, I’m not saying they were playing at sea level. Old School brought me to the summit of giant mountains – such as during Tainted Love and the, um, Van Halen medley, which was smokin’ in spite of the fact that it was a medley (and yeah, Patrone was right; I didn’t recognize it as a medley at first).
Anyway, the point is that Old School, was great, just not quite as many memorable moments as some of the others. In fact, I would have to say that two of my top five most all time memorable UMC moments happened last night: those being Dazed and Confused’s super risky cover of “Since I’ve Been Loving You” and Deeper Purple’s “Space Trucking” which was deeper and purpler than any live Deep Purple version I’ve ever heard.
Incidentally, my number one memorable UMC moment is the infamous guillotine beheading of a David Patrone look-alike during the Monsters of Rock Finals set with Bruce Bartley, the singer for Alice and the Cooper Gang, as the executioner
As for Dead Man’s party, no disrespect to you guys; I think you have a spectacular band and your preliminary set was a marvel. Alas, that’s how it goes. Sometimes you play great sets that blow everyone away, and other times you wish somebody would take you out back and shoot you in the head.
Some notes about the finals, the doors open at 6:30 pm, the show starts at 7 pm. Sets are 30 minutes each. Also, please note, it will be standing room only. No seating will be available. Sorry about the inconvenience, but it’s the only way we can legally fit you all in there.
Oh, and we have a lineup order.
1. Radio Karma
2. Damage Inc.,
3. Dazed and Confused
4. Super Magnetic
May I offer a word of advice to each band?
- Super Magnetic – no more James Brown please.
- Dazed and Confused – don’t even think about “Stairway to Heaven”
- Damaged Inc. – Play “Enter Sandman” again and you die! In fact, don’t play any Metallica songs.
- Radio Karma – Lady Gaga medley = zero dollars.
So there you have it – next stop … THE FINALS, which is aptly named since we will finally find out which of the above bands is going to take home 25 thousand dollars, which will take 10k, which will take five thousand, and which unlucky group will be taken out back and shot. I always feel bad for the band that walks away with nothing, but, oh well, welcome to the monkey house.
[Author's note, Hey Ho Let's Go does not suck in the least.]
Judge #3
Ed Decker
There are 149 Comments to "Semis 2 – Welcome to the Monkey House"
Ok, that was an awesome night.
Super Magnetic stole the show from the first note. The whole band has so much energy and both of your voices are so powerful.
Reegio, you and the guys had the perfect set last night. I love you guys. We will wear pants next time we come to see you, so they will let us into the bar, haha, no shorts. And I thought Colleen was bad with the no tank tops thing.
Damage, you guys are absolutely awesome. I’ve been a Metallica freak since Seek and Destroy came out on a compilation album in 83. You guys really have the look and feel of Metallica, but last night just didn’t have that punch. It kinda fell flat for some reason.
Dazed and Confused, don’t take this the wrong way, you guys are unbelievable. Like I told Ed last night, your performance last week gave me the chills a couple of times. I listened to Led Zeppelin all week on my zune. I think last night you were trying to recreate the original vibe from The Song Remains The Same, but without 100,000 people in front of you I don’t know if that’s possible.
I’ll see you all around, and definitely at UMC5. Ramshackle will have another year under our belt and twice as many fans, hahahahaha, then you’ll have a reason to take the damn seats out.
And I’m still not gonna worry about my grammar ;P I’d rather learn a new guitar riff than how to properly us riff in a sentence!!!!! I guess that’s kinda always been my problem.
BTW – Ramshackle is playing in the DreamCatcher the 4th of July from 8pm till Midnight. Come watch the fireworks across the street and rock with us the rest of the night.
For those who haven’t been to a Ramshackle show before. For the competition we only played modern alternative rock. We normally play all kinds of music from the 60’s to now. Including————-A bunch of those songs on that “Overplayed List” a few weeks ago. Here is the thing with that “Overplayed List”!!!
There is a reason why they are “Overplayed”.
Because people want to hear them! WHAT, you say? Who would dare request one of those songs, you ask? Average, everyday people who come to your show. Could a rock cover band play a gig without playing Sweet Home Alabama? Probably. But, it will definitely be requested, and THAT is how you make people fans of your band. Play their requests and play them how they like to hear them. Make them danceable. This is probably why Ramshackle has a couple of fans. One or two
Haha, Hey Sergio, Ramshackle’s repertoire is the reason that girl from the “night in the life of a cover band” girl is the way she is. Do you have that link? Daran needs to see that. Hilarious.
I don’t know Tom, maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying, but I really don’t know of any other way to discern the meaning of your comment that, “if Damage Inc or Dazed and Confused put on a perfect performance, they’d still not take first place” other than that we already pre ordained Super Magnetic to win it all. If you can tell me how i’m wrong about that, another way in which I should have received that message, I will certainly apologize for insulting you.
If there was a four way tie in scores and a band had to be chosen outright as the winner, my prediction would not be Damage Inc . If all bands had a stellar performance, but all three other bands inserted a cheesy medley, I still would not predict victory. If Damage Inc had a great set and the others had a slightly less than great set, then I’d predict a win. If you take offense that that I’m sorry, but It’s just an opinion about the kind of music I think the judges overall like best and nothing to do with an actual band or members in it. It’s no knock on Super Magnetic, I thought they were quite good and deserved a shot. If they were the best band of the night I’m glad they won.
That’s so funny Tom, because everybody else seems to think we like hard rock best. The truth of the matter is this: cla**ic rock and roll was my first love. I started with the Monkees at age 8ish, progressed to The Beatles, then on to more progressive stoner rock in high school like Pink Floyd, Rush, Zeppelin, King Crimson, etc. It wasn’t until my senior year when I started getting into other types of music: some new wave, p***, country, folk, Motown, ska, reggae, jazz, goth, noise-core, jug-core, a capella, big band, cla**ical, rockabilly and all the combinations therein. When hip hop and rap emerged, I fell in love with that; When electronica emerged, I fell in love with that too; ditto ambient music.
I won’t say I love all these things equally, but I will say – and this is why your comments sting a bit – that my fellow judges and I work very hard at removing our biases from the equation. And, judging from our judging record, i believe we have done that to the best degree possible. Patrone is a huge Deeper Purple fan. So am I. Yet, they lost. I can’t stand INXS, yet I put the INXS band at the top of my list. I love Tom Petty – love him even more then you do — yet Pettybreakers did not place. Alicia’s side project band plays heavy, original rock, yet she chose a sappy soft rock and soul band and a Motown band over her hard rock preference.
I love, love love Led Zeppelin (one of my first and everlasting loves actually,) yet Dazed did not advance into the prelims last year and scored LAST in the finals this year. I don’t like Metallica yet I had them at the top of my scoring all the way through and put them AHEAD of the Zep band in the finals.
I just think there is a long list of judging decisions that defies our personal preferences and your list is very short and includes decisions made at shows you did not attend, such as the finals.
as always, you are entitled to your opinion, and I applaud you for expressing it, and I still dig the crap out of you and Evette. Hope there are no hard feelings.
Oh, and by the way, in case anybody was wondering, my favorite band of all time is…
The Kinks. Not so much their early, roots metal days, rather, I prefer their middle, rock opera era, like Schoolboys in Disgrace, Misfits, Sleepwalker, Lola Vs. The Powerman and the MoneyGoRound, etc. so, if any of you Kink tribute bands are out there reading this – get thee to the UMC and quick!
Ed, you’ve become my friend so don’t go thinking I can’t get past what’s been said here. As I said before, people fear the blog.. there’s a fear of being politically incorrect and offending another band, offending a judge or being thrown under the bus. I’ve hit the trifecta here, therefore this will be my last time on the blog. For the same reasons I hope you realize some may not come clean with their opinions when you speak to them face to face either.
I’m glad I was able to clear up with you the difference between having a bias and declaring a conspiracy theory. Not everybody seems to grasp that concept. If there is truly no bias involved, then I’m just hearing things that the judges are not or visa versa. There were some events which I felt were controversial or I just didn’t agree with and for which there was no explanation (and I don’t always mean from you personally, but the judging panel) so I attributed them to being bias. Those things will just have to remain a mystery. Sometimes there seems to be a pattern to these mysterious happenings which I deemed predictable. I simply can’t go in to more detail on particular events without offending more people or being misunderstood, so I’m throwing in the towel on the blog. You know how to get in touch if you’d like to.
I don’t know if you hit the trifecta Tom, but dude, this is exactly why people should not fear the blog. Because we can get in disagreements and still be friends.
I don’t know why you feel the need to disa**ociate yourself from the community in here, but I’m grateful for this chance for people to express themselves. There have been so many instances where people have misunderstood the competition, the judges (and vice versa) that would not have been cleared up were this blog not to exist. For instance, I would never have known that Dazed didn’t play four shows over the weekend were it not for the blog. And Katherine would have gone through her life thinking I was punishing Dazed for some egocentric overreaction had she never come in here to post. There’s nothing to fear in here unless you come in with the intention of being a complete A-hole (or should I say “Al-hole”) and I’m not sure why you don’t feel it’s safe to be more specific about the judging issues you had. That’s what the blog is for and it would be a shame if we didn’t use it to its full p**ential. What are some of the issues you speak of Tom? Perhaps they will be easily explained, and then BAM-BANG!
No more mystery.
Congratulations to this years winner, I had a feeling it would go that way, I’ll tell you why. The first four UMC’s, look at the order of the winners by year, tribute, show band, tribute, show band. Next year get those tribute bands in there folks! I was not able to attend as we had a death in the family, Saturday, a sad part of life, but part of the deal. I just wanted say I thought it was a great year, the winner deserves their accolades and the sour grapes, hurt feelings and accusations abound as usual. Welcome to the UMC monkey house baby. There will be people who are not happy with the judging, scoring, and other details every year, altho it’s hard for me to disagree witb all those aspects when we won last year!! The UMC looks like it is well on it’s way to being a big, established annual event and that is good, more and better bands will enter. Some folks just can’t get their Ya-Ya’s out and do well enough to take it all, it’s really f u c k i n g hard to go all the way in that contest, let me tell you! A special thanks to all the Viejas folks who work so hard to put this on and do it right, the crew, the bartenders (yay), and the rest of the behind the scenes people, Judges, keep on Judgin’, until you reach the higher ground. adieu
Finals blog is up and running all. Enjoy!
Congratulations to all who competed. It was a very interesting and emotional year and once again the cream rose to the top.
Ed, I understand why you’d appreciate this one coming to a close.