Big Rock’s Most Untapped
…or is it Most Tapped?
By J. Davies
The promotion began with a promise of country wide exposure in marked cases of premium Big Rock Brewery products for independent artists in the Canadian music industry. Quite the opportunity for any artist trying to break the mold of an untapped Canadian music scene. The idea was to hold an online contest in which Big Rock patrons register and vote for the bands and songs they liked most. A people’s choice contest, as it were. The judging panel would then be presented with the artists who received the highest votes and narrow the selection down to 16 grand prize winners. The winners would then have their hit singles added to a compilation of the very best of Canadian independent music and distributed in 50,000 cases nation-wide. Here are the top 16 voted bands and songs in order…
• Soul Chaser — Brian Mason (201 votes)
• Bullet From A Gun — Makeshift Innocence (200 votes)
• Blonde — Brittany Robart (87 votes)
• Sweet — Misty Street (68 votes)
• The Waiting Song — Sidney York (66 votes)
• This Ain't A Love Song – Pear (60 votes)
• Bring out the beer — Emo LeBlanc (59 votes)
• Start Over — Ken Stead (52 votes)
• Absence of Time — Chakobsa (51 votes)
• Just Walk Away — Rob Russell (47 votes)
• The Devil Came Up To Alberta — The Polyjesters (44 votes)
• Plaster Walls — Crowded City Skyline (36 votes)
• PiL — The 13th (29 votes)
• The Right To Fight — Archilles (22 votes)
• The Ballad of Kenny Corbett — Trina Nestibo (22 votes)
• Lucky — Stoning Mary (22 votes)
Of these sixteen artists, only one was chosen as a grand prize winner – Pear. It seemed odd to me that the bands with over 200 votes for a single hit were excluded from the final compilation. I decided to research Pear to find out what made them stand out amongst the other fan favorites. I was not overly surprised to find that Pear appears as a top friend on judging panel member Dave Pierce’s MySpace page, who is a revered producer and composer. Perhaps it is a coincidence; the band certainly gained enough votes to be considered for the final cut. However, when scoping out Pear’s MySpace page I was surprised to see the following sentence in their bio… “Together, this group of 5 musicians have performed all over the world: including Europe, Scandinavia, France, Germany, China and throughout North America.” Un-tapped indeed! Ryan McMahon, who garnering a measly 10 votes throughout the contest, was also selected as a finalist and awarded one of the grand prizes. Again, to my surprise (less surprised as I dig deeper) McMahon has enjoyed great success in music including nation-wide tours, honorable mentions in International Songwriting competitions and even an opening night main stage showcase at the Vancouver Island Folk Festival.
It is becoming clearer and clearer what this contest was really about – who you know! In fact, with the exception of Pear, the finalists on Big Rock’s Untapped Volume 2 each averaged a less than dismal 3.5 votes each (two of which were only voted for once). To put that into perspective, the 16 most voted bands averaged well over 50 votes each, a monstrous spread if you ask me. Kelly Clarke, Artistic Director for the Calgary Folk Music Festival and esteemed Untapped judging panel member had admittedly never heard of one of the top voted bands. Had their material been excluded from the list of potentials before the finalist selection process? When asked about this blatant favoritism, Big Rock Communications Manager, Tara Nychkalo replied, “We definitely have considered the involvement of the community in the selection process. But, we have indicated in the rules and regulations all Prizewinners will be selected by a panel of judges.”
Fair enough Tara, but my suggestion would be, for the next series of this contest, to call it the ‘Big Rock Already-Tapped Contest’. That way, bands with little to no street cred and an abundance of talent will not have to waste their time plugging the Big Rock website, its products or promotions to their friends and fan base. Once again the truly untapped talent in this city takes a back seat to the politics in this industry. Perhaps these passed over bands will smarten up and go to a judging panel member who can produce their next album, put them on tour and jump start their music careers before attempting to submit material for volume 3.
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