TOP BEST MIXES (average score + points)

1. Ship of Fools (89.89)
2. Neon Bugzapper (74.89)
3. This American Life (59.06)
4. Do You Remember? (44.83)
5. Don't Stop The Music (42.2)
6. Good Guys & James Agee (41.8)

BEST ART
Ship of Fools

BEST THEME
FIRST PLACE
Ship of Fools (15 pts)
HONORABLE MENTION
7pts - Rock n Roll Souffle
6pts - Folk et Noir
5pts - Mind the Gap / Q&A / Sign of the Times

BEST INDIVIDUAL SONG(S)

3 VOTES
Daylight/Matt & Kim [Do You Remember?]
E.S.T. / White Lies [Broken]
Psychic City (Voodoo City)/YACHT [Do You Remember?]

2 VOTES
All the Night Without Love / Elvis Perkins [Folk et Noir]
Baby It's Cold Outside / Built For The Sea [Do You Remember?]
Boogie in your Butt / Eddie Murphy [Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea]
Bulletproof / La Roux [Neon Bugzapper]
Cosmic Dancer/ T. Rex [Dancing Decades]
Daniel/Bat for Lashes [Don't Stop the Music]
Foxy Girls in Oakland/Rodger Collins [This American Life]
Modern Leper / Frightened Rabbit [Good Guys and James Agee]
Single Ladies (in Mayberry) / Party Ben [Neon Bugzapper]
You Don't Know Me (Featuring Regina Spektor) Ben Folds [Broken]

Favorites Song/Decade (trad.)

3 VOTES
Wagon Wheel/Old Crow Medicine Show [Do You Remember?]
This Land is Your Land/Woody Guthrie [This American Life]

2 VOTES
The House of the Rising Sun / Joe & Eddie [Folk et Noir]
Moonshiner/Uncle Tupelo [Good Guys]
The Water is Wide/Cowboy Junkies [It's a Sign of the Times]

Best Song/Decade (50s)

2 VOTES
Pink Shoelaces / Dodie Stevens [Neon Bugzapper]

Best Song/Decade (60s)

2 VOTES
Chain of Fools/Aretha Franklin [Broken]
Monochrome/Sundays [Sign of the Times]
Bittersweet Samba / Herb Alpert [This American Life]

Best Song/Decade (70s)
2 VOTES
Theme from Don / Dan the Automator [Don't Stop the Music]
Goodbye to Love/Carpenters [Don't Stop the Music]
Poncho And Lefty / Steve Earle [Good Guys and James Aree]

Best Song/Decade (80s)

3 VOTES
Break My Stride/Matthew Wilder [Devil & Deep Blue Sea]
2 VOTES
Love Plus One/Haircut 100 [This American Life]

Best Song/Decade (90s)

3 VOTES
Common People/Pulp [Neon Bugzapper and Mind the Gap]
2 VOTES
World in my eyes/Depeche Mode [This American Life]
Natural One/Folk Implosion [Press Rewind]

Best Song/Decade (00s)

4 VOTES
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots/Flaming Lips [Dancing Decades]
2 VOTES
Kids/MGMT [Broken]

Best Cover Song or Song w/ Sample

TIE: 3 VOTES EACH
Baby It's Cold Outside / Built for the Sea [Do You Remember?]
Single Ladies (In Mayberry)/Party Ben [Neon Bugzapper]
2 VOTES
Rave On/M. Ward [Press Rewind]

Best Segue/Two+ Song Combo

2 VOTES
Tonight/All the Night Without Love [Folk et Noir]

Song You Wish You Put on Your Mix

1952 Vincent Black Lightning/Richard Thompson [Good Guys & James Agee]
Boogie in Your Butt / Eddie Murphy / [Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea]
Break My Stride/Matthew Wilder [Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea]
Common People/ Pulp [Mind the Gap]
Don't stop the music / George Jones [Don't stop the music]
Everybody Knows /Leonard Cohen [Folk Et Noir ]
Exhuming McCarthy/REM [It's a Sign of the Times]
If I Knew You Were Coming/ I'd Have Baked a Cake [Don't Stop the Music]
Jump into the fire / Nilsson [Neon Bugzapper]
Love Letter to Japan/The Bird & The Bee [Do you Remember?]
Love Vigilantes/Iron & Wine [Do you Remember?]
My Favorite Mutiny / The Coup [Carnival of Songs]
New York Groove / Ace Frehley [This American Life]
Pink Shoelaces/ Dodie Stevens [Neon Bugzapper]
Pure/Lightning Seeds [Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea]
Strangers / Golden Smog [ Dissecting the Decades]
The Wanting Comes in Waves/The Decemberists, [Don't Stop the Music]
West End Giels/Pet Shop Boys [Mind the Gap]
Your Ghost/Greg Laswell [Neon Bug Zapper]

A little extension over the weekend for voting. Pls vote by MONDAY End of Day. Or I will hound you. And annoy you with emails.

Vote here: http://www.weeklytrash.com/mix/ballotVII.htm

BTW, a little correction. There were 4 additional mixers who submitted tracks to CDDB, not just one. So thanks Mixers!

Well it's been quite an interesting couple of months. I've been really busy and probably should've been sending reminders to listen to your mixes and all that. Um. Oops? Or is it ok because that's kind of naggy? Hmmmm.

I've been listening to my Mixes and I hope you all have as well. After all that is the point. It's funny because whenever I send out the ballot, I get a mass of emails saying people need more time to listen. Fair enough. Being that this email is coming at 2 Months + when people got their mixes, I hope everyone is close to being ready to vote.

While you've been listening I've done a few things...

1) Mix Track Listings are UP
If you notice any errors on your listing - typo etc - let me know and I will fix. http://www.weeklytrash.com/mix

2) Submitting to CDDB
We only had ONE mixer submit their tracks to CDDB that hadn't already. That's pretty sad, especially since points are awarded. Bad Mixers, BAD! Ballot is now up so if you haven't already submitted, you won't be awarded points though no one is stopping you from submitting your tracks at any time in the future. For posterity or something.

Last but not least...

3) BALLOT
The ballot is DONE and ready to vote on. I'm doing it a little differently this year and I hope it helps me in tabulating the votes, and make it a tighter race. We'll see. I've made an online "poll" for the voting, so you'll do this instead of emailing me. Remember, no voting for your own Mix, EXCEPT for the first part that is the ranking 1-10 section. (I'm undecided on whether or not I should in this section only count people's scores towards themselves, so I have included a question on what you think I should do.)

http://www.weeklytrash.com/mix/ballotVII.htm

Please go to the URL and vote when you're ready. Votes due by Friday January 22nd.

SECTIONS OF THE BALLOT:
A) Mix Ranking - rank each mix 1 to 10 (including your own), 1 = don't like, 10 = like
B) Best Theme or Idea - 1st & 2nd place
C) Best Art & Packaging - 1st & 2nd Place
D) Best Song/Decade Matchups - One vote for each Decade match
- trad
- 50s
- 60s
- 70s
- 80s
- 90s
- 00s
E) Best Individual Songs - 4 selections
F) Other Best Songs
- Song You Wish You Put on Your Mix
- Best Segue/Two song Combo
- Best Cover Song or Song w/ Sample

(If I notice any funny business, or this becomes a giant mess, I'll do a revote via email but hopefully that doesn't need to happen.) Also, I've QA-ed this thing but if you have any problems with it let me know.

1) All the discs to be mailed were mailed out today. (And that PO lady really needs some customer service skills.) So those discs are out and you should get them based on Priority Mail USPS times from San Francisco.

2) Only half of you have submitted your tracks to CDDB. That's not a passing grade people! So I'm sweetening the deal, if you Submit your tracks to the CDDB you could get 3 AUTOMATIC POINTS when ballot counting time comes around. For those mixers who have, congrats - you're 3 points up already! For those that haven't done it yet, there's still time. The sooner the better though. I will check THIS SATURDAY MORNING to see who's done it, and those people will all get 3 points. If you submit between Saturday morning and ballot time you'll get a reduced 1 point. The goal is to do it! It takes almost no time and it's worth it.

3) I've heard that there have a been a few dud or blank discs in the mix of mixes. If you get one of these, let me know which mix it is and we can figure out a way to get you the tunes, either via a new disc mailed to youor a download.

NEW DEADLINE:Friday October 16.

Mix Title: A Mix title is required. No "Untitled" will be allowed.

No Names: Don't include your first or last name in the Mix title, on the disc or on the packaging. This is a blind contest, and I'll know your disc is yours when you give it to me.

Format: CD Must be in Audio format, no CDs in data format or mp3.

Track information: Needs to be included with the discs.

* Title - required
* Artist - required
* Decade from which you're referencing - required
* Album - optional
* Liner notes - optional

Packaging: Each mix must have its own packaging with its own tracklist. You can package your mix however you want (case, sleeve, origami) but they should be packaged, with no loose discs.

NEW DEADLINE: SUNDAY October 11, 2009. That's an additional two more weeks to work on your mixes (the orig deadline was Sept. 27)

Also, I know sourcing the older song files vexing for some of you, so I want to reiterate the different ways you can connect a song to a decade. In my call for participants email I said about/related to/inspired/covering/referencing/ strikingly influenced by the decade. I'm here to elaborate on that.

From (the Decade)
A song written & performed in that decade.

Cover (from that Decade)
A song from a decade, performed in another decade (or not). Covers can fit into either decade, the one from the original OR the one from the cover performance. Unless any of you are historic Smithsonian recording geeks, I anticipate that most of the Trad songs will be in this category.

Style Inspired by/strikingly influenced by (the Decade)
This one is the vague one and it's sort of hard to explain it without using examples, so I hope I don't blow anyone's songs, but this is a good mainstream example: The Stray Cats. They're an 80s band but their sound is pure 50s Rockabilly. So if you had a Stray Cats song on your mix, you could use it for either the 80s or the 50s because the style of the song is 50s but it was made in the 80s.

Sampled from (the Decade)
If a modern day song samples a song from another Decade, that modern song is up for two potential decades. Dee-lite's "Groove is in the Heart" (1990) sampled the Herbie Hancock song "Bring Down the Birds" from the movie soundtrack Blow Up (1966). "Groove" could be used for 90s or 60s. "Bring Down.." could be used for 60s. [If you really want to, I'm ok with forward referencing - using "Bring Down" to reference the 90s - but too much and it makes my brain hurt so the song better be obvious to everyone otherwise you look like a chump. So I'd caution against it, but forward reference is not "outlawed" for (lack of a better word) !]

About/Referencing (the Decade)
A song that lyrically is about or references something that occurred in that decade. Because Mr. Joel references every single decade included in the contest, AND it's annoying, this is why "We Didn't Start the Fire" isn't allowed. It's so tempting to pick (even ironically) that I worried about the result of anyone picking that song.

I hope you're all well and had a wonderful Labor Day holiday, AND worked on your mixes. I've had a few requests for a later due date, and this theme is really hard for some of you (ok, me as well), so I'm giving more time.

Also, I know sourcing the older song files vexing for some of you, so I want to reiterate the different ways you can connect a song to a decade. In my call for participants email I said about/related to/inspired/covering/referencing/ strikingly influenced by the decade. I'm here to elaborate on that.

From (the Decade)
A song written & performed in that decade.

Cover (from that Decade)
A song from a decade, performed in another decade (or not). Covers can fit into either decade, the one from the original OR the one from the cover performance. Unless any of you are historic Smithsonian recording geeks, I anticipate that most of the Trad songs will be in this category.

Style Inspired by/strikingly influenced by (the Decade)
This one is the vague one and it's sort of hard to explain it without using examples, so I hope I don't blow anyone's songs, but this is a good mainstream example: The Stray Cats. They're an 80s band but their sound is pure 50s Rockabilly. So if you had a Stray Cats song on your mix, you could use it for either the 80s or the 50s because the style of the song is 50s but it was made in the 80s.

Sampled from (the Decade)
If a modern day song samples a song from another Decade, that modern song is up for two potential decades. Dee-lite's "Groove is in the Heart" (1990) sampled the Herbie Hancock song "Bring Down the Birds" from the movie soundtrack Blow Up (1966). "Groove" could be used for 90s or 60s. "Bring Down.." could be used for 60s. [If you really want to, I'm ok with forward referencing - using "Bring Down" to reference the 90s - but too much and it makes my brain hurt so the song better be obvious to everyone otherwise you look like a chump. So I'd caution against it, but forward reference is not "outlawed" for (lack of a better word) !]

About/Referencing (the Decade)
A song that lyrically is about or references something that occurred in that decade. Because Mr. Joel references every single decade included in the contest, AND it's annoying, this is why "We Didn't Start the Fire" isn't allowed. It's so tempting to pick (even ironically) that I worried about the result of anyone picking that song.

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

Hi Mixers,

The theme has been set for a couple months (Full disclosure, I've leaked it to a few of you) and for idiotic reasons I've been putting off sending out this Call for Participants. I admit, I procrastinate. If it's not one thing it's another: work layoffs, cat barf, 401ks, laundry, family stuff, or a discovery of an email account at work that hasn't been checked in a year and a half and has 35000+ messages. You know, the usual. But I can't put this off any longer, because seriously, it's the highlight of my year! I love organizing this. I love making my mix. I love when they start arriving in the mail, like little boxes of joy. I love listening to them. All of it. And it's you guys, my dear dear Mixers, you all make it such a worthwhile endeavor. Whether it's hearing of new bands, or listening to a song with fresh ears, I love this contest and it's because of you. So, WTF, Chuck, let's get on with this thang!

Mixes will require you to have songs "of" each decade starting w/ the 1950 through today, the 2000s. Now this "of" doesn't have to be literally from the decade in question though you're welcome to interpret it as such. If you don't want to be as literal, songs can be about/related to/inspired/covering/referencing/strikingly influenced by the decade. Don't feel boxed in but do have support for your musical choices.

Specifically: Each mix will have to include TWO songs "OF" each decade starting with the 1950s to today, the 00s. I know you all can count by tens, but just in case No Child Left Behind, well? did, that means:

Please let me know by Friday August 14 , 2009 if you're interested, so that I can finalize the participant list. THANKS!

Participants in the contest each create one mix (Audio CD, not mp3). Each participant is then also responsible for burning multiple copies of that CD, one copy for each of the other participants. Those CDs are then delivered to the organizer (me or my helpers TBA). Once we've received all the copies of all the discs, one copy of each mix is redistributed to all the participants. Participants then listen to all the CDs and then rank those CDs (excluding their own) and vote on various categories (Best Song, Best Disc Art etc.). A winner is decided based on the votes. The winner gets serious bragging rights and possibly some kind of "prize".

PARTICIPANTS

Again, I'm looking to cap at around 20 mixers this year. Anymore than that and it seems the Bell Curve of Flakiness kicks in, so it's frustrating for everyone. No one wants that, so I'm saying 20 mixers.

VOTING

Voting will be similar to previous contests. There will voting for Best Mix, Best Art & Packaging, Best Individual Song(s), and best Song to Decade Match Ups etc. There could be more categories (I'm open to suggestions).

FORMATTING

Specifics on formatting guidelines and what you need to include with the disc will come later, after the mixer list is final, but the same rules apply as in the previous mix contests. In formatting this year's mixes there will again be the need to include which DECADES you chose match a song, so keep that in mind.