I want my nickel back, nickel back, nickel back.

While my kids’ record is being mixed, I’m spending the weekend at a conference in L.A. The conference is for Taxi, an independent A&R organization that I’m in. Remember when I sent out those free instrumentals and told you guys to look for them on TV, etc? That was a connection I made with these folks.

It’s been an interesting experience for me, being here. There are about 2500 musicians at the conference: songwriters, producers, singers; pretty much every genre you can imagine is represented. In addition to that, there are lots and lots of “important” industry people here. Well-known songwriters, publishers, record label execs, that kind of thing.

The point of the conference, as far as I can tell, is sort of two-fold. First, we’re here to attend all kinds of seminar classes and informational panels and keynote speakers and such. Those have been pretty good. Classes about what music supervisors are looking for when they are trying to find music for TV shows, movies, commercials, etc. Classes about how to make great sounding recordings without spending lots of money. Classes about how to market your own music cheaply and effectively. Etc, etc.

Second, we're here to network and schmooze and hand out business cards and CD's and such. That part of it is pretty much a nightmare to guy like me, but I'm trying to be teachable and jsut go for it. There's a weird tension in trying to promote yourself while also fully embracing the Gospel. I won't go into all that here. You guys know that I'm always asking silly questions like that and taking all the fun out of stuff.

Anyway...

Right now, I’m in a huge room (The Grand Ballroom!) listening to a panel of big-time record label A&R reps who are critiquing music that is being played for everyone in the room. Basically, conference attendees can put their music in a big box and hope that it will be chosen, at random, to be played. If chosen, their song is played for maybe 45-60 seconds, and then the panel will critique it in front of everyone. If this sounds brutal, it is. I’m sitting here thinking of how thankful I am that I didn’t put anything in that box.

The conference as a whole has been excellent, but this last hour or so hasn’t been too good.

However, here’s something I just couldn’t resist telling you. A few minutes ago, they chose a rock song to play. The song wasn’t bad, but the singer was pretty great, at least within the rock genre. It was that typical gritty rock singer sound, and the singer did a great job with it. But here’s the fun part. One of the panelists is pretty involved in the pop/rock genre and, when asked what he thought of the song, he said this:“It’s not bad, but this kind of song has to pass The Nickelback Test.”

He then proceeded to tell us about this test. I don’t remember what he said, because every time I hear the word Nickelback, and it isn’t followed by phrases like “sucks toilet water” or “is terrible” or "makes me want me to stab my own ears with meat thermometers," my brain shuts down and has to reboot.

After my brain rebooted, I was sort of curious to know more about this Nickelback Test. Could I pass it? Is it a written test? Essay or multiple choice? Would there be a word bank from which to choose answers? How smart and original would a singer/songwriter have to be before they were disqualified? Would there be any sort of physical or medical qualifiers? Maybe you have to have a bad perm-and-dye job to pass? Maybe it would be necessary to bludgeon the listeners in the ears over a 3 and a half minute period in order to pass The Nickelback Test.

I can’t answer any of these questions, because I didn’t hear the explanation of this elusive test.

So I’ve decided to run a quick contest. The winner of this contest will get the notoriety of being honored on this blog, as well a free copy of Words that Rhyme With Orange when it releases here in a few weeks.

Here’s the contest: Come up with a compelling, convincing theory about The Nickelback Test.The theory must answer questions such as these. What is it? What purpose does it serve? How does one pass it? What happens if one fails it? Does The Nickelback Test have an application fee? Maybe a dime or 6 dollars? If one passed The Nickelback Test 5 times, would that make them a Quarterback? If a band consisted of 5 pennywhistle players, could it be automatically absolved from taking the test? Stuff like this. I just need to know.

I'll take submissions for 3-4 days. Enter as often as you like!