Squeeze-bot. Photo by Andrew Raitz

By Mat Herron

Michael Raspatello did a lot of apologizing last week.

The organizer of the Chicago Blues & Bluegrass Festival got more than a few e-mails excoriating him for not choosing Squeeze-bot, who won the festival’s “Last Banjo Standing” contest to play the benefit show, headlined by David Grisman, The Avett Brothers, Ha Ha Tonka and many others.

The contest had what Squeeze-bot thought were simple rules: Go online to the festival site, vote for them, and if they win, they play at noon on Nov. 22 at The Congress Theatre. When voting ended on Oct. 17, Squeeze-bot had clinched the race handily, earning an estimated 3,000 votes.

Then the bad news: Raspatello informed Squeezebot that the slot would be awarded to the third-place finisher, Donnie Biggins, a Chicagoan who was so unknown that until this month, Raspatello said, he didn’t even have a MySpace page.

Only when the voting had ended, he said, did Raspatello understand the scope of attention heaped on the event, and did he realize that the organizers probably didn’t do as good a job as they thought in explaining the rules.

“We just all felt like shit,” he said. “It’s been pretty depressing. I’m the guy behind all of this. I take full responsibility for what happened. We didn’t do anything deceitful.”

Voting was only one component of the contest. Buried in the fine print was the stipulation that organizers then meet with the headlining bands to see if the winnign acts were appropriate — a tactic used to prevent, say, a death metal band from winning the contest on a bill that’s intended to be a bluegrass, folk and alt-country show.

In selecting Biggins, Raspatello said organizers were looking for a feel-good story. The fact that he was from Chicago also factored into the decision, and the noon slot wasn’t ideal for a band of Squeezebot’s caliber.

“We’re literally an independent charity event in Chicago, and so in the end, the spot — at noon when nobody’s gonna be there — was kind of designed to give a break to a complete unknown Midwest artist,” he said. “That was always the intention. It was kind of for a little unknown guy.”

Mick Sullivan, Squeeze-bot’s banjo player, said the band has, like the other top vote-getters, accepted a slot on next year’s festival, one that is considerably later — and better — than noon. He said the band understands the position that festival organizers were in, and in no way did they encourage people to complain with such vitriol, knowing their fans would do nothing less.
Eventually, Squeezebot even posted a MySpace bulletin asking its fans to stop sending complaints to Raspatello and the rest of the team.

The only regret the band has, said Sullivan, who sent e-mail blasts for several days in a row encouraging people to vote, is that they weren’t notified sooner that their votes weren’t going to be the only deciding factor. That said, Sullivan’s excited about the outpouring of support from fans and Squeeze-bot looks forward to playing the fest next fall.

“It was absolutely amazing to see how much support was thrown at us.”