Plagiarists = Non-Winners (and Crazytown?)

Well, we didn't end up winning the Hennessy Presents: Spin "Hot Pursuit" contest. Bummer. Luckily one of the few other halfway decent acts won, so a congratulations is order for the Atlanta band Rantings of Eva. We had an exciting run while the competition lasted, although, as mentioned earlier, the majority of the band wasn't even aware of the Pursuit's existence until the final round. I guess we'll just have to find another magazine/alcoholic beverage music competition to join. I'm looking to see if Patrón and Highlights have any sort of partnership at this point.

Though losing, one of the more giddiness-inducing moments was knowing that celebrity judges would actually be listening to our music and being forced to consider what they heard. Earlier this week the judges posted comments regarding the various entrants, and here's what the panel said about us, and more specifically, our song "Church":

Butch Walker, producer and former Marvelous 3 lead singer
"its a bold name. you gotta reallllllllllly be original to pull off the name without sounding pretentious. but pretention is so hot right now... pretention....not crazy about the song selections... there's only one to hear!!! i hate to make a fair judgment based on one song, but the song is definitely interesting. the production is adventurous and i appreciate where they are going with it. i just want to hear more to make sure it's not that thing like when Crazytown put out that record and the only good song was the one with the chili peppers sample. ok... bad example of a band.. but whatever. it's a good song. i am talking about the song by Plagiarists... not the come my lady come come my lady one...."

Peter Moren, of Peter Bjorn and John fame
"I love the Television-guitars on their song "Church." There is a weird mix of styles here and an angularity which I really enjoy. The glockenspiel-riff mixed with the guitar is nice; good bass and vocals too. Modern rock without being boring. Also went to their My Space to check out their other songs and they hold up and also add some other flavors. Especially the way they arrange the guitars are impressive. Like the pretty lo-fi sound. They should NOT go and record expensive and become Death Cab For Cutie mark 2."

Amanda Palmer, of Dresden Dolls fame
"this reminds me of cutting class & taking off in a borrowed car with the windows down, speeding through mostly-empty roads in september when the weather is crisper than summer and you're on your way to meet someone for tea at an old bookstore."

and the not so ecstatic...

Doug Brod, Spin magazine Editor-in-Chief
"This is all very well done, but aside from the compelling guitar solo, it doesn’t sound particularly distinctive me. Good luck."

Yes, the editor-in-chief from Spin did make that glaring grammatical error in his comment towards us (found on our profile, he luckily corrected himself for his Comments page posting). I guess either our music completely flustered him or he's been making a lot of Facebook wall posts lately.

Comedian Michael Showalter was a judge as well, but he was probably too busy off making a sandwich somewhere to post his comments. Oh well.

-dw