Music Nation is a Music Video Competition for Independent Artists

FROM OUT OF NOWHERE, BAND ROCKS CONTEST By Jordan Kline - Daily World writer Friday, April 27, 2007 10:52 AM PDT A music video made on a whim has catapulted local musician Sheldon James to the quarterfinal round of a nationwide contest to win a recording contract with Epic Records. But James has no expectation of winning the contest. He thinks its geared toward “radio-friendly pop drivel,” and has vowed to use the contest for as much publicity for himself as he can get. The contest is organized by MusicNation, an Internet music promotion company. More than 900 videos were submitted by independent musicians from across the nation. Once a week for 12 weeks, judges picked one winner from the rock, urban and pop categories, while viewers were able to vote for their choice. The 24 winners in each category moved on to face each other in the quarterfinal round. James is the [bassist] for local rock band Black Top Demon, but also writes and records solo material for a handful of other projects. One of those is Killings In Fashion — a darker, electronic alternative for which he recently formed a band. Killings In Fashion won the viewer’s choice selection during the sixth week of the competition with its “Charismatic Suicide” video. It was his second and less pop-friendly entrance to the contest and he entered it with the intention of showing the judges just how little he cared about their criticism that the first song didn’t have much of a pop ‘hook.” “The voting is very similar to ‘American Idol,’” James said. Voters can stream the videos from their computers before voting online or via text messages. James, 25, now lives in Aberdeen, but he graduated from North Beach High School and Grays Harbor College through the running start program in 1999. What made them enter: He is reluctant to be associated with anything resembling “American Idol.” He says a rivalry made him enter the contest initially. “I was just going to post the video to MySpace, but the next morning, another band that I know posted saying they had entered this contest,” he said. James doesn’t speak highly of the other band, so he “figured I’d enter my video and see if I could beat those guys. I didn’t think it would get this far ... I only wanted to beat the other band.” After a slow start, the video for their first submission — “Thief” — shot to sixth place during the fourth week of the competition. James said heavy promotional work — “something I’m actually good at,” he said — accounts for the uptick in votes. Promotion is the thing: “It’s not about how good of a video it is, it’s a popularity contest,” he said. “You have to get people to vote for your video one way or the other, so we were up at Olympia Mall handing out fliers and telling people to text their vote in.” The promotional work, combined with cross-cooperation from a few other bands, did the trick. “Charismatic Suicide,” the second video, won after the judges — record producer Howard Benson and rock stars Benji and Joel Madden of the band Good Charlotte — gave the first video a C-minus the week before. He agreed with them that “Thief” didn’t have a hook, but says that’s the point and the judges didn’t get it. Killings in Fashion, is what James calls his “anti-pop” music. The irony of winning a viewer’s choice category after intentionally submitting a song that’s light years away from popular music isn’t lost on James. “The problem with the music that I make is that you can’t pigeonhole it and you can’t categorize it because it’s not like the pop stuff you hear all the time,” he said. “Charismatic Suicide” takes James’ fear of pop music, and his desire to shock the sensibilities of the judges, to another level. There’s disturbing imagery, chaotic noises, haunting lyrics and a general sense of depression throughout the songs. “I was pretty bi-polar and low, thinking maybe I should end it now. But “Charismatic Suicide” kind of pulled me out of that, it was my ‘choose life’ song and so I shot this really weird video to go along with it.” The video features James and his stage-named bandmates Sadie Explosion, 20, and Brianna Tension, 19, rolling around on a floor and a shirtless James fidgeting and screaming the lyrics “I will not end my life tonight.” He says the video was his attempt at irony. “It was basically my middle finger to the judges, like ‘where’s your pop music now?’ Categorize this and tell me where the hook is. It doesn’t start in the right spots, there’s no hooks, the beats per minute change on a dime,” he said. It’s not as if he doesn’t know a good pop song when he hears it. He says he could have entered another song with a more popular sound, “but instead I forced Good Charlotte and Howard Benson to stare at me while I’m half naked screaming about wanting to kill myself,” he said. He wants to be a bizarre contrast to the other 900 videos on the site, most of which are from ready-made “bands-in-a-box,” he says. Killings In Fashion is anything but ready-made — “we’re the biggest risk,” according to James. The band has no CD, James just recently taught his bandmates how to play some of his songs, and they played their first show in a basement just last month. “The band can almost play ‘Thief’ the whole way through,” he said. Meantime, he says some of the other 24 contestants have made records and toured nationally. One of the competitors is Chris Sligh, a former “American Idol” competitor. His video won with more than 15,000 “stars” — James’ won with 4,769. “He was on TV, he’s in magazines, he’s on the Idol tour, and I’m from Aberdeen. Who am I?,” he asks rhetorically. “I thought the contract was for the independent musician that needs a leg up, not for the independent musician who’s doing just fine.” Because the judges now have 60 percent of the voting power during the quarterfinals that begin on April 30, he sees his chances as bleak at best. “The only reason that we would ever win is if they think we can somehow generate publicity. We’re the only band who basically popped up out of nowhere and won. I’m not giving up, though. That’s ridiculous,” he said. “You have to be a blip on their radar in order for them to care, and I’m trying to blip with this contest.” You can vote for James and watch his videos at killingsinfashion.musicnation.com PHOTO- http://www.thedailyworld.com/content/articles/2007/04/27/local_news/04news.jpg DAILY WORLD / KATHY QUIGG Killings in Fashion, an electronic experimental group from Aberdeen, led by Sheldon James, center, is in a contest to land a record deal with Epic Records. Keyboardist/programmer Brianna Tension is at left, and at right is bassist Sadie Explosion. Jordan Kline, a Daily World writer, can be reached at 532-4000 ext. 111 or jkline@thedailyworld.com the sans musicnation.com is below: Here is the correspondence with musicnation.com pr department: note time stamps. Sheldon James sent to Musicnation.com's PR 4/11/2007 "hey *name changed to protect the innocent*, *name changed to protect the innocent* said she cc'd you my request for some help doing PR? I'd love a press release or at least help in making one, im not sure how regional to take this? national coverage would be wonderful, but thats me being overly optimistic and fame hungry. anyway, figured I'd drop you line to tell you I am ready to help and be helped as much as possible!" Musicnation PR sent to Sheldon James 4/26/2007 "Sheldon! Aberdeen daily world wants to interview you – said they had something set up before but it didn’t work out – can we make it happen now? " Sheldon James sent to Musicnation.com's PR 4/26/2007 "the daily world already interviewed me. like 2 weeks ago. so... ...the only reason i won that week 6 round was because i know [most] everyone in this town and rallied them all to my support. so. perhaps something more substantial. we all know im the underdog of this contest, no shows, no history. spin off that. it has to be interesting to someone other than the local paper. .. ...id love to get a seattle paper interested like, say, the stranger..." Musicnation PR sent to Sheldon James 4/27/2007 "According to the paper, your band didn’t show up for the interview. Do you know where the confusion lies?" Sheldon James sent to Musicnation.com's PR 4/27/2007 "Our band was never invited to an interview, but I was and we got our photo taken last week. Who have you been corresponding with?" The article ran today, 4/27/2007. Its in the journal entry below this one. So, musicnation.com, I would like some more PR. Or perhaps better communication.