You're looking back in time: Jamglue ran from 2006 to 2010. This page is a retrospective built from the public record.
The contest banner as it ran on Jamglue, recovered from the static.jamglue.com S3 bucket.
The Jars of Clay “Love Came Down at Christmas” Remix Contest
In October 2007, Jamglue and Nettwerk Music Group opened up a Christmas carol. Jars of Clay had just released Christmas Songs, the first holiday record of their twelve-year career and the first release on their own Nettwerk imprint, Gray Matters. Nine tracks from “Love Came Down at Christmas” went onto Jamglue, including Dan Haseltine’s isolated lead vocal, and the band picked their favorite remix themselves.
This is the only contest in the group where the band’s pick and the popular vote landed on the same mix. 151 entries were created in all. This page is rebuilt from the live contest page as it stood in October 2007 and from the rewritten results page.
About the Contest
The contest page laid out four steps. Quoted as they read on October 17, 2007:
Jamglue is excited to showcase a remix contest featuring “Love Came Down at Christmas” by Nettwerk Records recording artist Jars of Clay. Here’s how you can participate:
Enter the contest by creating your own copy of the official contest mix. The easiest way to do this is to click the “Start Mixing Now!” button and then “SAVE A COPY” in the Mixer to create your own version of the song.
Remix the song by adding new sounds, rearranging the clips, etc. using the Jamglue Mixer. You can even add your own voice using the Jamglue Recorder in the Mixer. Be creative, and don’t forget to publish your mix when you’re done so that people can vote for it!
Promote your mix: embed it in your MySpace and email a link to all of your friends. The First Prize winning mixes are determined by how many people mark them as a Favorite, so break out your address book and encourage your friends to vote for yours!
Win great prizes!
The Materials
“Here’s what you have to work with. Knock yourself out!” The contest page listed the official contest mix plus eight separate tracks:
| Love Came Down at Christmas - Contest Mix | the starting point |
| Lead Guitar and Electric Solo | not recovered |
| Background Vocals | not recovered |
| Charlie and Steve Vocals | not recovered |
| Dan’s Lead Vocals and End Vocals | not recovered |
| Guitar (Steve and Matt) | not recovered |
| Synths | not recovered |
| Bass | not recovered |
| Percussion and Drums | not recovered |
Each track was named “… - Love Came Down at Christmas” on the page; the suffix is trimmed here. The band split its own singers apart, which is why the stem list names Dan, Charlie, Steve and Matt rather than just “vocals” and “guitar.” None of the audio survives: Jamglue put downloads behind a sign-in, so no crawler ever reached the files.
Licensing. The official rules stated that the tracks were licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 2.5 license, with all rights not expressly granted reserved by Nettwerk Music Group, and that entrants must attribute Jars of Clay and Nettwerk without implying endorsement. Entries themselves had to be published under the same CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 license. The contest was sponsored and run by Jamglue Inc. of Seattle and Nettwerk Music Group.
The Prizes
“Jars of Clay will personally pick the Grand Prize winner! Their favorite remixer will win an iPod Nano. You and other Jamglue users will vote for 5 First Prize winners! The First Prize winners and the Grand Prize winner get an autographed copy of Jars of Clay’s latest album Christmas Songs.”
The official rules put numbers on it: one Grand Prize of a 4GB iPod Nano plus an autographed Christmas Songs, approximate retail value $165.97, and five First Prizes of an autographed album each, ARV $15.98. The Grand Prize was the band’s pick; the First Prizes went by “the number of Jamglue users who called the remix ‘A Favorite.’” This is the most expensive top prize of any contest in this group.
The Deadlines
| Oct 1, 2007 | The audio elements go online at 8:00 p.m. PT; the entry period opens. |
| Oct 17, 2007 | The Wayback Machine captures the live contest page: 64 entries created so far. |
| Nov 11, 2007 | Entry deadline, 11:59 p.m. PT. “Publish your contest entry by November 11, 2007.” |
| Nov 25, 2007 | Voting closes. |
| By Feb 2008 | The contest page is rewritten with the results. The April 17, 2008 capture shows 151 entries created in total. |
Winners
“The results are in, and our winners have been chosen!” The contest page was rewritten with the results, and that version was archived. Every name and title below is taken verbatim from the April 17, 2008 capture; each mix links to its own archived page.
Grand Prize
JOC- Love Came Down Remix by chrisjg
“This remix was Jars of Clay’s pick, as well as the popular vote winner! chrisjg will receive an autographed Christmas Songs ablum and a new iPod nano. Congratulations, chrisjg!” The typo is the original page’s.
First Prize
“Our First Prize winners were chosen by popular vote - congratulations to these winners on their great mixes, as well as the incredible energy that went into promoting their mixes to collect votes!”
The rules promised five First Prizes. The results page lists four, with no explanation and no fifth name. It is not clear whether a fifth winner declined, was disqualified, or was simply dropped when the page was written; nothing in the archived record says.
What survives: the names, the titles, an archived mix page for all five winners, and the official contest mix page. No audio survives, for the winning remixes or for the nine source tracks.
About Jars of Clay
“Jars of Clay launched onto the music scene in 1995 with their universal hit ‘Flood.’ In June of this year, the band also blazed a new trail with the creation of their own label imprint, ‘Gray Matters,’ under the Nettwerk Music Group umbrella. Excited about the new venture, Jars of Clay lead singer Dan Haseltine comments, ‘As we pursue the goal of making more music, and being creative in a spectrum of ways, Gray Matters will be able to facilitate any of the ideas we want to bring to life.’”
The artist bio as it ran on the Jamglue contest page, 2007
The page went on: Christmas Songs “is the first holiday release from the band in their 12-year career, and will be the first release on their new label. The band brings new light to memorable Christmas songs such as ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem,’ but also beaks new ground with their own original holiday songs such as ‘In the Bleak Midwinter,’ ‘Winter Skin’ and ‘Evergreen.’” The typo is the original page’s.
Sources
jamglue.com/contests/jarsofclay while the contest was live: the four steps, the deadlines, the materials, the prizes, and the entry count at 64.
The same URL after judging, with the Grand Prize and First Prize winners, the final entry count, the artist bio, and the full official rules. This capture is the source for every name on this page.
static.jamglue.com
The contest banner, still sitting in Jamglue’s original S3 bucket.
Jamglue.com has shut down. Thanks for all your support.
Rebuilt from the Wayback Machine, the original static.jamglue.com S3 bucket, and contemporaneous press · Y Combinator: Jamglue (S06) · the retrospective