Hey, it’s the Crate Digger Death-match
What could you make with $12 and half a day?
Inspired by the 24 Hour Comics Day, the same challenge that spawned off the 48 Hour Film Fest and many others, we’ve started the Crate Digger Death-match to find out.
The Crate Digger Death-match will put the skills of twelve musicians/producers/remixers/circuit benders to the test, to see who can create the keenest album in 12 hours or less only using audio culled from $12 worth of thrift store goods.
Read the complete rules and details here.
The challenge takes place next Saturday, January 5th 2008, with all submissions due by 8am the following day. Upon completion, 4 celebrity judges will rank the albums. Each artist will also pick a “single” off of their album that will be posted throughout the next week for fans to vote on online. On the following Saturday, the results of the judges scores and online voting will be totaled the first King of the CDD will be crowned.
Our judges for the first CDD are:
# Bart Hopkin, famed author and experimental musician, will judge each album based on originality.
# Baddd Spellah, influential nerdcore hip-hop producer, will judge each album based on production value.
# Tim, of long-running UK bastard pop podcast Radio Clash, will judge each album based on overall listenability.
# Z., nerd music and culture blogger, will judge each album based on cohesiveness and structure.
There are still spaces for a few competitors, so if you are interested in signing up, contact me either through the comments or in an email to cratediggerdeathmatch at gmail.com
Thanks to TradeMark G and Z. for co-organizing this event with me, and to Jay Hathaway for his help with the press release.
December 31st, 2007 at 2:21 am
[...] Crate Digger Death-match is a musical challenge based on the 24 Hour Comic challenge. The basic challenge will pit 12 [...]
December 31st, 2007 at 7:41 am
[...] we 24 Hour Comicsers have inspired another challenge… this one requiring 12 hours and $12 worth of thrift store items to make an album full of [...]
December 31st, 2007 at 9:52 am
[...] Crate Digger Death-Match ‘08 challenges 12 musicians to create an entire album in 12 hours using only $12 worth of music and [...]
January 2nd, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Heh … I do wonder, musically and aesthetically and in any ranking of the overall cultural pantheon with, how the best of these will stack up against Chin’s Calypso/Mento recordings done in Kingston in the 50’s? I mean, hey, a home-made bamboo sax and a home-made bamboo flute, some sticks and some calabash and jancrow ‘maracas’? you had the roots of ska/reggae history right there!
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I sent an email about entering the competition.
I just have one question: What about plugins?
Can competitors use any cheap/free plugins they want?
Only cheap/free EFFECTS plugins (no synth plugins)?
Or will plugins be limited to stuff like compression and EQ?
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:39 pm
[...] Hey, it’s the Crate Digger Death-match! [...]
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Evan, thanks for the blog link and interest. As for plugins, we are allowing any editing software or equipment as long as you are only using your thrift store sounds as your base. I know that there are plenty of plugins and effects that allow you to mangle sounds into something practically brand new, but we don’t mind what you use to edit as long as it’s coming from thrift store finds.
I’m sorry we didn’t have enough room to let you in, but the 12 people limit is to protect our judges who didn’t want to be overwhelmed if we got too many submissions. 12 is an arbitrary number, but I thought since everything else was done in “12″ increments, it was a good number to use. Otherwise we would have gone with 10 or less entries. Btw, I enjoyed looking at your blog (http://www.thisisnotalabel.com/) and your handy samples library.
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Please let me know if there will be a second contest next year.. Or maybe a mailing list.. I missed out this year by like 2 hours for the email submission.. a bummer for me. I would really like to enter next year. Danke
January 5th, 2008 at 1:38 am
[...] Crate Digger Death-match, a 12 hour music challenge I’m co-organizing, starts today. We’ve had some good online [...]
January 5th, 2008 at 1:41 am
[...] Crate Digger Death-match starts today. We’ve had some good online press over the end of the week and filled up all 12 [...]
January 6th, 2008 at 2:33 am
Hurry up and post the results