Q. What type of music is eligible?
A. Any music with a holiday theme is eligible. Funny Christmas songs, Holiday instrumentals, Channuka songs, Ramadan songs, etc. The idea is that the song should put some FUN back into the holidays.

Q. Who can enter?
A. Anyone who can post an mp3 file on one or more of the sponsors' website can enter. The material should be posted only if there is permission from the owner/author to post it for the purpose of the Internet Battle of the Bands contest.

Q. Does the song have to be brand new?
A. No, pre-recorded songs that fit the description would be fine.

Q. What is the "prize" for the artists?
A. The top selected artists will be provided with free recording time on one to several of the music collaboration sites, will have their selections played on internet radio, and will be recognized by special awards such as "most played IBOB-2003 entry", "funniest IBOB-2003 entry", "most musical IBOB-2003 entry", "best lyrics IBOB-2003 entry", "best guitar IBOB-2003 entry", with selections according to the industry expert judges panel.

Q. What is the "prize" for the sites?
A. Site prizes will be based on number of entries, number of 'hits' of the songs played, and a "voting selection" by the other sites (each site will select top 5 tunes from the other sites, but not themselves)

Q. Who are the Internet Battle of the Band judges?
A. Most of the judges are highly placed industry professionals, who would prefer to remain anonymous, but one has consented to be contacted by email.
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail36.html

Q. What will happen to the music at the end of the contest?
A. Internet radio stations will be given the opportunity to play any entry; each site must remove all entries by Jan. 15, 2004.

Q. When will the results of the contest be announced?
A. Contest Results will be announced Tuesday, December 30, 2003.

Q: Who is sponsoring the Internet Battle of the Bands?
A. There are several budding Internet Collaboration Sites, many of them have not yet been discovered by this contest, but will be included when they are discovered. Amoung the sites that are (potential or agreed) sponsors are:

http://jolforum.zapto.org/
http://letsjamonline.com/
http://music.lulu.com/
http://www.artistcollaboration.com/
http://www.cyberjammin.com/phpBB2/portal.php
http://www.dmusic.com/
http://www.garageband.com/
http://www.loopwise.com/
http://www.recording-audio.com/
http://www.rocketears-online.net/

The main criteria to be a sponsor is that the musicians the site sponsors must have a place to drop off the MP3s for this contest that they have created.

An internet Radio station has agreed to dedicate a show from the selections entered in this contest. The radio station is:
Socrates Radio Network

I would like to be kept in the loop on this...I think it's a great idea!

If this appears twice...I appologize. The first time the page didn't load.

24HourJukeBox.Com will participate

The unfortunate irony from the thread can only be viewed with a certain detached humor, similar to a parent's view of their children when they take a crayon to the walls and furniture, Especially at this time of year, this little micro-cosm of squiggly lines on a tube is highly symbolic of the issues facing internet music collaboration specifically, and human nature/the human condition in general.

Everyone has obtained a viewpoint, based on the facts/information known to them and their life experiences. In the following sentences and paragraphs, 1) an outline of the background and timeline of the key facts (from the viewpoint of the author) will be provided, 2) a short synoposis of the key players in this drama and their roles will be provided as part of the timeline 3) a suggestion for a path out of the current state will be provided, as it currently is not providing satifaction for the participants (and probably any observers) in this discussion 4) A greater level of explanation (ie. proof, etc.) regarding the benefits and nature of the contest of Christmas/Holiday Songs will be provided last, as, an informed readed who reads to this point will be able to take away greater insight than was obtained prior to reading the outline that preceded the fourth section.

Although every effort will be made to make this information concise as possible, thru the use of bibligraphical links, it is expected that a full explanation and discussion may take several postings, due to length. Since it is not clear to me how to provide formatting beyond plain text, the sections of this story will be described by numbering them with Roman Numerals (ie. I = 1, II = 2, III = 3, IV = 4). The sections that are quotations will start with and end with a " on a new line. One linespace will be provided between quoted sections. Time segments will be labelled by >>TIMELINE MON (day/date), (YYYY)>TIMELINE JULY-SEPT 2003

"
Monday, the 4th of August 2003
bop: hang on
sheck: Hi there !
sheck: greetings !
maz: We'll be back in a min.
maz: bop is helping me get thru some initial stuff. we're on a different window so we don't fill this up with my ignorance
sheck: if you talkin to me....please ignore me heheh,,,
bop: hi sheck
sheck: just commenting -- dam nice system
bop: hey sheck were u a support guy on Rocket?
bop: or do u know if cubasis is compatible with a lter version of Q?
sheck: hi bop...no way...i wasn't affiliated with the rocket business
sheck: not sure on that cubasis question
bop: ok I couldn't remember
bop: u play gtr tho right?
sheck: ya
bop: yep.......I remember....a pretty goodone at that!
sheck: hehe......just doin the thing
sheck: you guys try setting up another ftp server somewher else?
bop: we have on here.......
bop: one here
sheck: reading about it and it sounds logical
bop: but yeah I have used the program to use my server
bop: sheck...pc or mac?
sheck: pc --- i;'m just a workin stiff
sheck: macs are for the high rollers
sheck:
"
There were friendly discussions, and the owner of the site (Doozy) was just starting to discuss "passing the hat" to pay for server rental and bandwidth as shown in the following threads:
http://www.rocketears-online.net/cgi-bin/teemz/teemz.cgi?board=_master&action=opentopic&topic=46&forum=General_Stuff
http://www.rocketears-online.net/cgi-bin/teemz/teemz.cgi?board=_master&action=opentopic&topic=51&forum=General_Stuff

>>TIMELINE OCTOBER, 2003

During this period, from just before Keith's death, until a month or so afterward, an unknown person named "Jennae" dropped an mp3 mix in the jukebox that said it was from ChillBuzzin' or Icisnizz. There was a raging debate about this as is documented in the following threads:

http://www.rocketears-online.net/cgi-bin/teemz/teemz.cgi?board=_master&action=opentopic&topic=5&forum=The_Sunday_Morning_Post

eventually, Jennae showed back up, announced who she was, and everything got a little more on track:
http://www.rocketears-online.net/cgi-bin/teemz/teemz.cgi?board=_master&action=opentopic&topic=5&forum=Music

After subsequent discussions and apologies for her less than desireable user experience with Jennae, she had mentioned the thriving music community on DMusic.com, and I created an account, uploaded some of my band's songs, and started to interact with some of the musicians on this site. (Oct 25).
http://mazarick.dmusic.net/

>>TIMELINE NOV 5-10, 2003

http://www.rocketears-online.net/cgi-bin/teemz/teemz.cgi?board=_master&action=opentopic&topic=103&forum=General_Stuff

>>TIMELINE NOV 11-20, 2003

The Internet Battle of the Bands thread was on:
http://www.rocketears-online.net/cgi-bin/teemz/teemz.cgi?board=_master&action=opentopic&topic=102&forum=General_Stuff

The DMusic version of the same thread was posted here as well (this thread) on Nov 11, 2003

In addition, I had requested that this same information be provided as "News", so, it is actually posted twice on DMusic (the result of this request was created on Nov 15)
http://news.dmusic.com/article/9014

I had also been trying to discover who was the person at DMusic.com that would speak to and answer the site's participation in the contest, and believed I had the answer when I received this DMusic note from Larry LeFlaw:
"
Re: Question on your impressio (delete)
From: leflaw
Date: 2003-11-18 21:16:40

I think collaboration is a key growth area, and I am personally interested in it. Go for it!!!
----------
mazarick said the following:

Hi!
I realize you are spending most of your energy planning the Dec 2 debate and event; so I'll make it quick.

I had sent a shout earlier about a proposed Christmas/Holiday Cross Site collab event:
http://www.dmusic.com/forum/Announcements/6071

I wanted to get your initial impression if it a) is a good thing b) is a bad thing c) mixed bag, and you have some concerns d) don't know, havent had time to check it out... e) depends on artist acceptance

As a new member of DMusic, and realizing that the "market penetration" for Internet Collaboration is much less than .001%, thought it may serve as a means of getting more people in the Music Collab mix, by showing a positive spirit/energy.

The reason I'm sending this note is that I don't want to promote something here that is not perceived as a positive contribution to your overall efforts, and there's not much time before Christmas...

Would like a "short take" if you feel its "a good thing" or not so I can know whether to promote the idea on this site.

Best wishes,

Mike Mazarick
"

There was also some correspondence with Larry Leflaw and the site admin for DMusic.com as shown below:
(I believe this is the root of a lot of misunderstanding, in that the reasons and implications were not discussed past this point; upon review of the detail, it is not clear that this ever got to the site admin Fu-dog).
"
Re: DMusic Note: Re: Easiest w
To: leflaw
Date: 2003-11-19 22:09:47

CC: leflaw

Thanks, Fu,
I appreciate the point; however, since I'm trying to organize this across sites, I will probably be too busy getting the cross-site "competition" of goofy Christmas songs and general holiday music together (ie. I will run out of bandwidth available to be "The Sponsor" at DMusic). As an fyi and ferinstance, I have registered an internet site called http://www.internetbattleofthebands.com for the purpose of serving as the "site neutral location" for this contest (I'm "borrowing" my son's business server). Even a casual look will tell you I've got a lot of work to do... I'll continue to search for a champion on Dmusic. When I find one, I'll keep you abreast.

I would invite other "low overhead" type ideas you may have. Some ideas could include things like a "web ring" of the five Sponsor sites, a logo placed in an appropriate location that takes you to "the contest statistics" and download section where you could play songs from various sites, see upcoming inet radio plays from various sites, etc.

What the solution should look like to Dmusic is that it should be "powered" by the existing community and "invite" new people to participate.

As I'm sure you are aware, this is not a "real" battle of the bands for the goofyest christmas song, but a means of having a little fun and promoting music collaboration in general. I think that anyone who has looked at all the sites will find what DMusic has to offer as amoung the best or The Best. But in the end, it is more about community of purpose than a particular site (there's lots of room for everybody and not much money for anybody at this stage).

Regards,

Mike Mazarick

PS - Henry Hutton, henry@lulu.com , is giving away lulu hats to "his" winners. He's into the spirit of this contest and is a good person to converse with concerning how to turn this into a "win win" for everybody and to have a little fun doing it

----------
fu-dog said the following:

CC: leflaw, mazarick

Problem with ibob/ibob is that any random user could remove the competition.

Are you up to the task of managing everyone's tracks? Do you have a decent connection to the internet? You could take each track and upload them into a created ibob account that you manage, or into your own account.

A better option, one you'd still have to manage a bit, would be to get all interested performers signed up as dmusic members. They upload their tracks and drop you a note with those they'd wish to enter. Perhaps they even make their own playlist. Then you can snag that playlist, or make one from the tracks they noted you about, and you can have all of the ibob tracks organised under your playlists. Does this make sense? That'd probably be the least amount of work for everyone involved under our current system.

----------
"


There was (and remains to this day) a problem with creating a method of playing selections from multiple sites; some Collaboration sites do not have a method of playing mp3s, some sites do not have a method of playing mp3s without a login, etc and all sites have a problem with playing other site's music. This makes it difficult to conduct a "multi site" battle of the bands; so I registered a hostname called internetbattleofthebands.com with the intention of resolving this issue on this site so that 3rd parties (ie. radio stations, unaffliated musicians, people who love christmas music, etc.) could play the selections without bias. The initial thought was to put a link on the page to the music collaboration site's page where the music was. I had initially borrowed directory off of one of my son's webservers, but there was a conflict with admin rights (his business servers couldn't be isolated from the internetbattleofthebands.com, and I would need some coding help to get this off the ground).

The whois entry for internetbattleofthebands.com is given below.
Registrant:
Mike Mazarick
2100 Chrisdale Ct
Raleigh, NC 27607
US
Registrar: DOTSTER
Domain Name: INTERNETBATTLEOFTHEBANDS.COM
Created on: 14-NOV-03
Expires on: 14-NOV-05
Last Updated on: 06-DEC-03
Administrative, Technical Contact:
Mazarick, Mike mazarick@bellsouth.net
2100 Chrisdale Ct
Raleigh, NC 27607
US
919 787 2935
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.RELAXEDHOST.COM
NS2.RELAXEDHOST.COM

Note that in the interest of time to complete (my son was already 200% booked), DS Sultan had agreed to provide the code updates and to host the contest off of his existing server, and absorb the bandwidth costs. The date of this transfer is indicated in the "Last Updated" field.

There were additional emails from/to other sites, but in the interest of brevity, these will be omitted.

I did receive an acknowledgement from DS Sultan, and this was my reply on Nov 17:
"
From: Mike Mazarick [mailto:mazarick@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 9:15 PM
To: DS Sultan
Subject: FW: Christmas/Holiday Internet Battle of the Bands

Hi,

Thanks for letting me know that you received my previous email.

As a "fun" project, there is a "Christmas/Holiday Internet Battle of the Bands" being sponsored on Music Collaboration sites. There has been interest expressed from a several of the musicians at Collaboration Central. Now, it is obvious that a "Battle of the Bands" and goofy Christmas songs are sort of "incongruous", but, the underlying purpose outside of the "fun-factor" is to let musicians (who do not currently participate) know about the possibility of Internet Music Collaboration.

A cross-site Christmas-Holiday Music Collaboration/"Internet Battle of the Bands" would not be the same if Collaboration Central wasn't part of it!

So far, the following sites have provided a positive response:

lulu.com
rocketears-online.net
jolforums.zapto.com
loopwise.com
dmusic.com

loopwise.com has expressed interest, but I haven't "closed the loop" with Taylor (site admin) yet.

I would be ecstatic if Collab Central was to be included in the list above.

Please note, that the music can be pre-existing (it doesn't have to be composed for this contest), so the artists can "canvas their friends" for music that fits the description below.

Key things that I would need from you (as a Music Collaboration site sponsor)
> A place that is accessible for the "contest" entries, so that it is clear what can be considered for inet radio play, "prizes", site statistics, etc.
> Notification of the musicians using Collab Central that there is a contest, and where to put the songs
> A "vote" as a site sponsor of the other site's best songs (you will be asked to pick your favorite top 5 from other sites)
> Possibly, a "link" from your front page stating that Collab Central is a Christmas/Holiday Internet Battle of the Bands sponsor (the logo design for this link is in process currently)

The main thing that is needed but unquantifiable is: Your creative energy and input/opinion is needed to make this a "fun" experience for you and your site's participants.

What is next? Where is help needed?

1) Would like some help identifying additional Internet Radio Stations that would like to play the selections
2) Currently, in order to provide a "neutral ground" for this contest, a domain name has been registered: Internetbattleofthebands.com
The purpose of this name is to provide a "cross site" view of how many/which songs have been entered at each site, how many downloads/plays there have been, which "internet radio station" is planning to play which selection and when, etc. Would like to have your opinion on what should be here beyond this basic stuff would be useful here.
3) (Wink: It would be fine to go to the other Music Collab sites and tell them that Collab Central is going to win, and there is no need for them to post, etc.)

There are a couple of places where I can provide links that may be of use to you:

http://www.rocketears-online.net/ (check out the message board link on the front page and the jukebox entries from the front page)
http://www.dmusic.com/forum/Announcements/6071
http://jolforum.zapto.org/ (have to login to see status currently)

Henry Hutton at Lulu.com is going to be providing support and assistance on this project also. He can be reached at henry@lulu.com (he used to run nowrecording.com). I just met with him for a couple of hours this evening (we both happen to be in Raleigh, NC - how convenient) and he will be providing additional support beyond what is listed here (site specific prizes, compilation cd's created for "contest winners", lulu.com radio streaming plays of entries, etc.).

Please review the Q & A below. I guess what I need to know most is if Collaboration Central is "In" or "Out" of this because there's not much time before Dec 25.

Regards,

Mike Mazarick
"

(Part I to be continued in subsequent postings)