CARLTON FLETCHER: In the end, music polls about fun

Woh, oh, listen to the music.

— The Doobie Brothers

I know, I know. Even the grandest parades get rained on.

This idea of conducting a poll to determine who the favorite local musicians are was a whim, one of those things that you say out loud kind of half-kiddingly and it takes on a life of its own. Our editor, Jim Hendricks, happened to mention an NPR poll to determine the “best” drummer — at least I think that’s what he said; I usually tune out when something is preceded by “I heard on NPR …” — and I said something like, “We ought to do something like that with local musicians.”

The thing about Brad McEwen and me: When we start talking music, it generally turns into one of those “Mall Rats”-like Kevin Smith-concocted conversations, equal parts sublime and ridiculous. It went something like: “We could do that, it wouldn’t take a lot to get polls listed online …” “Let’s see, we could see who was the favorite singer, guitar player, drummer, bass player …” “Hey, don’t forget the keyboards and the venues and the producers and the bands and the solo artists …”

And, just like that, we had ourselves a contest. (And let me stress right here that this was a contest, not a competition. I had to laugh at the online arguments some made about this being a “popularity contest and nothing more.” Duh!) Trust me, during Brad’s and my conversation, we talked about maybe sponsoring some kind of showcase for the winners and doing a video shoot and awarding prizes and doing all sorts of really cool things.

But we went with the polls too quickly to line up sponsors and we knew (a) that our employer was not going to front a whole lot of money to pay for our crazy ideas and (b) we both understand all too well the concept of limited income, so we couldn’t put our own money where our mouths were.

But — and here’s the thing in a nutshell — we decided to do this because we love music and musicians, and we wanted our local and area artists to know that we are behind them, that we do support what they do, that we were willing to put a little effort into something that would get them some deserved recognition.

Of course, even purity of purpose is open to challenge, and this being a community that doesn’t particularly believe in purity of anything, our motives were immediately challenged.

“The Herald is just doing this to get ‘hits’ on their website …” “The voting process is flawed …” “Some of the best local musicians should have been included …” “Artists and their fans are cheating the voting system …” “The people doing this poll don’t know anything about music in general, local musicians specifically …”

Blah blah blah.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve never minded criticism. It’s how we learn. And it’s why, when a reader questioned my involvement in and knowledge of the local music scene, I left an important and emotional family gathering on three separate occasions a couple of weeks ago to take pictures of and hear the artists performing at the Metal Fest gathering. I left impressed with the artists I saw, but even more so thrilled that someone like James Gillham and his compadres could pull off such a top-notch event.

We heard from people who accused certain artists and their fans of cheating the voting system, and we heard from upset artists who didn’t like the fact that they’d been accused of cheating. We heard from obviously very intelligent readers who explained exactly how dishonest voters could game our system. (I especially loved the voice mail from someone who, condescendingly, qualified his technical comments with the disclaimer, “I don’t know if you can understand these terms.” OK, I’ve made a point of noting my technical inadequacy, but I’m not a total moron. Just wanted to get that out there.)

I’ll admit to a touch of anger — mixed with disappointment — that some “fans” of certain artists chose to make personal attacks.

“A lot of people went to great lengths in supporting me, but a lot of others went to great lengths to tear me down,” Solo Artist favorite Abi Permenter told me. “I know I shouldn’t care what people think about me, but it hurt to have my character questioned by people who don’t know me.

“I had several people — one grandfather-looking gentleman in particular stands out — accuse me of cheating just because they hadn’t heard of me. Trust me, I don’t have the technical know-how to do what they accused me of, and they obviously don’t know me as a person because I would never do anything like that. I was really touched by all the votes I received, it was humbling and honoring. But it also hurt to be falsely accused.”

Look, we were ecstatic about the interest in our favorites poll. My god, there were more than 57,000 votes cast in the 10 days of the finals poll, and 18 finalists received 1,000 votes or more. Guitarist favorite Brandon Rix got 6,341 votes, Permenter got 6,093 and Anne Cline — who finished second in the Solo Artist category — got 5,987. Blane Johnson, also a second-place finisher, got 5,463 votes, while favorite Band winner Cut N Run and favorite Venue winner and runner-up Harvest Moon and the Oglethorpe Lounge, respectively, got more than 2,000 votes.

If I’m a local musician, whether I won or even made the finals poll, I’d be feeling good right now about my musical future. If nothing else, our fun little experiment showed that there is a ton of interest in local music. As one commenter noted, though, it’s on the artists to get those voters away from their computer keyboards and out to the venues where they’ll be playing.

As for the cheating thing. Maybe there are some unscrupulous people who figured a way to cast more votes than was intended. The thing about it is, since no one lost a recording contract because of their dishonesty and no one lost an opportunity to play a high-profile gig and no one lost any money — unless they had a side bet, and that’s their thing — I find it sad that anyone would go to the trouble.

If you’re so insecure that you would cheat a fun contest just to claim favorite status over a fellow musician, you probably have some issues that you need someone to take a look at. Perhaps all those Little League “participation” trophies went to your head.

As for me, I now have several local artists I’m looking forward to meeting, talking to and hearing play. And I now know there is indeed a great deal of interest in local music. I consider that a big win-win.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected].