Happy Birthday Bobby!

Abraham "Bobby Shad" Shadrinky
February 12, 1920 – March 13, 1985

In honour of what would have been the 90th birthday of Bob Shad, the shad shack would like to celebrate by announcing a contest for our readers!

Since every album (well, almost every album) in the MRL series is now available for your listening pleasure, we could think of no better way to spotlight the eclectic nature of the imprint's short run than by holding a mixtape contest! We'll choose 3 winners, each of whom will get a 1-month RS subscription (other goodies might be announced in the future) and receive a place of honour in the blog sidebar for bragging rights.

The 3 winners will be chosen by readers in a poll that will be available on the blog once the deadline for submissions is passed. The deadline to get your mixes in is 11:59 PM on March 13, 2010, so that gives you almost a month to put something together. You can start submitting mixes as early as you like.

You can make your mix available to the public however you wish to do so but if hosting files is a problem for you, just send an email (find via profile to the right) and we'll work out a way to provide folks adequate access to your bizness. Otherwise, you can simply drop a comment on this post with a link to your mix for starters.

After the submission deadline voters will have 2 weeks to choose their favourites in 3 categories:


Best Overall Mix
Best Themed Mix or Artistic Statement
Best/Most Eclectic Mix


What those categories actually mean will be up to the readers and determined by voting alone. Voting rules will be published when the poll is accessible.



There are very few rules:

1) All audio material must be taken from the MRL series of albums listed at the shad shack.

2) Anonymous submissions will be accepted but will not appear in the poll. You don't need to use your real name, you just need to use a name and the name will be attached to your mix for voting purposes.

3) Anyone can submit as many mixes as they like but to be fair and to spread the love, you can only win one category. If readers vote you to the top of two or more, category priority will be as listed above from top-to-bottom. For example, winning Best Overall Mix will disqualify you for the other categories and if you happen to be voted to the top of Best Themed Mix or Artistic Statement too, the next runner-up will get the prize for that category (and so on).

4) In the mixtape spirit, submissions can't be longer than 90 minutes run time. Keep in mind that limiting your mix length to 80 min so it can be burned to a CD may be something that people will vote up. There is no minimum run time requirement.

5) Cover art is not necessary but people may be more inclined to vote up submissions where it is included, especially in the "Artistic Statement" category.

6) I reserve the right to submit my own mix(es) too! However, in the spirit of good sportsmanship, I will not be eligible to win any prizes. If I should happen to win a category by some fluke, I won't accept the prize and it will default to the next runner-up. In other words, a vote for me does not reduce the number of prizes available to be won. That would just be a dick move.

7) There is no cash value equivalent for the prizes so don't ask. If somebody wants to help sponsor the contest and donate swag for prizes that would be sweet.



Winners will be announced within a few days after voting closes but results will be public on an ongoing basis so y'all will probably know who won already.

Thanks to everyone for pitching in and for helping to fill up the shack over the last year-and-a-half. Good luck and look forward to hearing those mixes!!