It was a momentous undertaking. Three weeks of competition and a week of finals, webcast live from a The Hi-Fi Club and re-broadcast the next evening on Cox Cable’s community channel, the winner to be decided by online voting. All to promote WMMS’ new local music show, the first genuine interest Cleveland radio, historically known for breaking new artists, has taken since corporations began dominating the airwaves in recent years. It was an event worth watching, and one which serves as an example of just how complicated the business of music can be.

The logistics of corporate legal disclaimers (also known as CYA) were the first stumbling block to seeing this project to fruition. Since the tragic fire in a venue in Rhode Island, everyone from club owners to promoters, artists, labels, media entities and local health, fire and building departments have been operating from a position of abject fear. Like the bomb shelters so popular during the 1950's and 60's, the reaction has been so swift that if possible, all concert goers would be required to sign waivers and don fire retardant clothing with self-contained breathing apparatuses. Fortunately, we haven’t quite taken leave of ALL of our senses, but these delays put a detrimental dent in the amount of pre-competition publicity conducted by the radio station, Cox Communications or the bands themselves.

There was no mention of the competition on WMMS’ website approximately three weeks before the first show was to take place, and the first week’s bands were given not even two weeks to work their promotional magic. While the WMMS Morning Show often spoke of the event and the radio station aired regular spots, no mention was ever made by any of the area’s newspaper music writers throughout the four week contest. In fact, the only advertising found in either the Free Times or Scene Magazine was found in the usual announcement for the club itself. I can’t speculate regarding the origins or reasons for this drought, but considering the attendance grew each week, additional attention could’ve only benefitted the participating bands and the experience as a whole.

Let’s be honest, the challenges of live television are without equal. We experienced false starts, dead air, and prima donna musicians that willfully ignored time cues. One particular band, in their best Beavis and Butthead imitation during the interview, said “COX... heh heh heh” - repeatedly. There was at one occasion where I said “Are we on? We’re on?” and another where I fumbled my usually witty repartee and said “I realize this is live TV, but I’m gonna start over. You can edit it out [before the rebroadcast]”. It’s bound to happen, especially after a couple of Raspberry Stoli’s and tonics.

The Cox Cable rebroadcast had its issues as well. The first week, some of the bands weren’t aired due to profanity, a situation that, apparently, was unforeseen or at least thought to be surmountable with a ‘warning’ at the start of the show. How many prospective votes the two bands ‘lost’ because of this omission is unknown. In addition, any band registered with either ASCAP or BMI couldn’t have their performance distributed. In other words, buying a copy of the program from Cox Communications would result in an incomplete presentation so as to avoid royalty payments. If you weren’t a Cox Cable subscriber or knew someone who was, you were pretty much S.O.L. (Explanation of acronym explained upon request).

Let me delve into geek-speak for a moment on the subject of online polls. When a vote is made, the software program either takes notice of the user’s IP address and/or it will place a cookie on the user’s hard drive. Cookies can be erased, and every time a computer is logged off and back on to the Internet, the IP address changes. It’s easy to see how these two factors played into major voting impropriety during the first week, especially on the part of one band who ‘suddenly’ had a flood of votes during the last fifteen minutes the polls were open. This rather obvious tactic was caught and neutralized, but the admission that duplicate votes were recorded for every band taints the results badly. In an attempt to thwart this devious behavior, the polls were changed so that you had to ‘register’ an e-mail address before you could vote. While this wouldn’t completely eliminate would-be ballot box stuffers, it did require a bit more effort.

I also received complaints about the quality of the post-set interviews, from inane questions to “Now, who are you again?” comments. Considering the MC is a music writer, this lapse was completely avoidable. In addition, the ‘live’ broadcast of WMMS DJ’s from the Finals was actually pre-recorded voice tracks. The opportunity could’ve been utilized to further promote the bands and the organizations and people involved with the event, as well as the local music community as a whole, but was squandered instead. Considering how much of my time and effort went into researching and hosting these shows and Score! Music didn’t rate a single mention on the official website, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

So, it was a learning process for everyone, and predictably, by the night of the Finals we had a system fairly perfected. All the so-called behind the scenes personnel were amazingly tireless and dedicated, not to mention meticulously organized and immensely patient. I suspect this won’t be the last event of its kind, but how long and to what intensity WMMS will give the local community its support will be dependent on the fans and bands themselves. In the end, we have to support them right back.