You're looking back in time: Jamglue ran from 2006 to 2010. This page is a retrospective built from the public record.
Quick Links:About the Contest | The Materials | The Prizes | The Deadlines | Winners | The Submarines | NPR | Sources
The contest banner as it ran on Jamglue, December 2006, recovered from the still-live static.jamglue.com bucket.
The Submarines “Peace & Hate” Remix Contest
This was the first one. In December 2006, at Jamglue's public launch, Nettwerk Music Group handed over the multitrack session for “Peace & Hate” by The Submarines: ten separate tracks plus the finished song, under a Creative Commons license, in a browser mixer. The contest ran from December 15, 2006 to January 6, 2007, was decided entirely by user votes, and set the shape every later Jamglue contest followed: enter, remix, promote, win.
It also turned out to be the contest the press latched onto. Five months later NPR's Morning Edition ran a segment on online music collaboration and used “Peace & Hate” to illustrate it.
“Congratulations to our winners, and thanks to everyone who participated in the contest, Nettwerk, and the Submarines for making our first contest a great one.”
Divya Bhat, “Submarines Contest Winners!”, the Jamglue Blog, January 18, 2007
About the Contest
Four steps. Quoted as they read on December 17, 2006, two days into the contest:
“Jamglue is excited to showcase a remix contest featuring ‘Peace & Hate’ by Nettwerk Records recording artist The Submarines.”
Enter the contest by creating a mix containing at least one of The Submarines' tracks. The easiest way to do this is to click “Start Remixing Now!” below 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. Be creative!
Promote your mix by embedding it in your blog/MySpace and emailing a link to all of your friends. The 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 cool prizes! “The contest ends on January 6th, but the sooner you enter the more likely you are to win. So why wait?”
“We've partnered with Nettwerk Records to bring you an exclusive remix contest for Jamglue users! Starting today through January 6th, log on to Jamglue to create your own remix of The Submarines track ‘Peace & Hate.’ The acclaimed LA-based band is giving the power to the fans to create their own remix of the group's new single.”
“New Jamglue Features and Remix Contest!”, the Jamglue Blog, December 16, 2006
The Materials
“Here's what you have to work with. Knock yourself out!” The finished song plus ten separate tracks, including both singers' vocals on their own:
| Peace & Hate (the full mix) | not archived |
| Bass | not archived |
| Acoustic Guitar | not archived |
| Blake's Vocal | not archived |
| Claps | not archived |
| Drums | not archived |
| Electric Guitars | not archived |
| Glockenspiel | not archived |
| John's Vocal | not archived |
| Organ | not archived |
| Pings | not archived |
The names survive; none of the audio does. The 2008 crawl of cache.jamglue.com that saved stems from later contests came far too late for these.
Licensing. The rules stated that the tracks were licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 2.5 license, with all other rights reserved by Nettwerk, and that entrants must attribute The Submarines as well as Nettwerk Music Group, for example “Remix using elements from The Submarines/Nettwerk Music Group,” without implying endorsement. The rules are headed “Jamglue and Nettwerk Music Group, The Submarines / ‘Peace and Hate’ Remix Contest Official Rules” and list the sponsors as Jamglue Inc. of 214 Summit Ave. E, Seattle, and Nettwerk Music Group of 1545 Wilcox Ave, Hollywood.
The Prizes
As the page put it: “The grand prize winner will receive an autographed Submarines Declare A New State! CD, an autographed Aesthetic Apparatus Submarines poster, and a Blue Snowball microphone. The five runners-up will receive the autographed album and the autographed poster.”
The official rules put numbers on it: one Grand Prize of the signed album, the signed poster, and one Blue Snowball microphone, ARV $135.97; and five First Prizes of the signed album and poster, ARV $35.98 each. The microphone was a pointed choice of prize for a site whose whole argument was that its users were musicians.
Judging was pure popularity, and unlike every later contest there was no artist pick at all: “The six (6) winning remixes will be determined by the number of Jamglue users who called the remix ‘A Favorite.’ The Grand Prize will be awarded to the creator of the mix which is called ‘A Favorite’ by the most users, and the First Prizes will be awarded to the creators of the five (5) remixes with the next highest ‘Favorite’ counts.”
The Deadlines
| Dec 15, 2006 | The audio elements go online at 1:00 a.m. PT; the entry period opens. |
| Dec 16, 2006 | The blog announces the contest alongside the new Jamglue features. |
| Dec 17, 2006 | The Wayback Machine captures the live page, with the first three entries on it. |
| Dec 31, 2006 | “Call for Votes” on the blog: two weeks in, one week to go. |
| Jan 6, 2007 | Entry deadline, 9:00 p.m. PT. |
| Jan 18, 2007 | The winners are announced on the blog. |
| May 15, 2007 | NPR's Morning Edition airs its online-collaboration segment. |
Rule 2 of the official rules gives the closing date as “9:00 p.m. PT on January 6, 2006,” a year early. Every other source, including the same rules' entry period and the contest page itself, says January 6, 2007.
Winners
“We're proud to announce the winners of the first ever Jamglue remix contest! These winners were chosen by popular vote, and we think that you made some great choices! If you're a winner, we'll contact you by email and private message to figure out where to send your prize.” Six names, one grand prize and five first prizes, exactly as the rules promised. Every name and title below appears on both the February 22, 2007 capture of the contest page and the blog announcement; each mix links to its own archived page.
Grand Prize
Peace and Hate redux by ryser2k
The most-favorited remix of Jamglue's first contest, and therefore the first thing the site ever gave a prize for: a signed Declare A New State!, a signed Aesthetic Apparatus poster, and a Blue Snowball microphone.
First Prize
| Joannecox's mix | Joannecox |
| Love(Hate) | Creativename1960 |
| Piece of Eight | fluffy |
| CoeXisTe's mix | CoeXisTe |
| Peace & Hate (yoshimeat edit) | yoshimeat |
The blog post ended by posting the original next to the remixes: “And of course, here's the original, so you can compare and appreciate all the creative genius demonstrated by our participants,” linking Peace & Hate by thesubmarines, mix 6743, the seed every entry was copied from. It also closed with a promise: “For all of you with a competitive streak, or who may just be looking for some remixing inspiration, stay tuned for our next competition (coming soon).”
What survives: the contest page in both states, the blog announcement, the full materials list, and an archived mix page for all six winners plus the original. No audio does, not the winning remixes, not the ten stems, and not the “Peace & Hate” contest mix itself. This is the oldest contest on the site and the one where the least sound made it out.
The NPR Segment
On May 15, 2007, NPR's Morning Edition ran a piece on online music collaboration and played a snippet of “Peace & Hate.” Jamglue was delighted, and then immediately posted a correction, because the segment had left the impression that the song itself had been assembled by strangers on the internet.
“This morning, NPR's Morning Edition did a segment on online music collaboration! They included a snippet from Peace and Hate by the Submarines, who were part of Jamglue's very first Remix Contest back in December! We were very excited that Morning Edition was able to tell America about Jamglue, and we are huge fans of the show. However, we would like to clarify a few points:”
“Peace and Hate was recorded by The Submarines, who are professional musicians represented by the Nettwerk Music Group. Before they got involved with Jamglue, The Submarines were already an up-and-coming band who had released their album ‘Declare a New State!’, and were playing shows together. Peace and Hate was not created from tracks uploaded by Blake and John separately, but in fact, Nettwerk released the tracks to Jamglue under Creative Commons licenses so that fans could see how the song was assembled and create their own renditions.”
“This is particularly cool, because The Submarines have a background of two people who came together as musical collaborators, and now they are continuing their collaborative conversation with our entire user base by opening up their song, showing us how they made it, and inviting users to continue the creative process.”
Divya Bhat, “NPR Morning Edition: The Submarines, Jamglue, and Online Music Collaboration!!”, the Jamglue Blog, May 15, 2007
The same post credits Eliot Van Buskirk of Wired News with putting Jamglue in front of Morning Edition.
About the Artist
The bio Nettwerk supplied, as it ran on the page: “For The Submarines' Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti, it was love at first take, but the second take is even better. With their debut album Declare A New State!, the longtime collaborators have forged a beautiful and sonically inventive record. From the haunted, sing-song buzz of ‘Peace & Hate’ to the swoony pocket symphonies of ‘Modern Inventions’ to the delicately ornamented ‘The Good Night,’ Declare A New State! is both gorgeously bittersweet pop music and a tribute to the unexpected wonder of a second chance.” The page linked out to thesubmarines.com, the band's MySpace page, and the Nettwerk artist page, and embedded the video for “Peace & Hate.”
Sources
jamglue.com/contests/thesubmarines two days into the contest: the description, the prizes, the ten stems, the first entries, and the full official rules.
The same URL after judging, headed “Contest Winners,” with all six winners and the note that “the contest is now over, but don't let that stop you from making a great remix!”
“Submarines Contest Winners!” by Divya Bhat: the announcement, the mix links, and the original.
“New Jamglue Features and Remix Contest!” (December 16) and “Call for Votes” (December 31).
The Morning Edition post and the correction that follows it.
static.jamglue.com
The banner at the top of this page, 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