A friend of mine called to tell me that his daughter, singer/songwriter Tiffany Joy, was going to be featured that afternoon on a popular San Francisco radio show, The Pete Wilson Show. But Pete's show isn't music, it's talk.

Before I could ask what talk radio had to do with a singer, he explained that Wilson was doing a show called "The Best Music You've Never Heard," that several hundred people had sent in CDs trying to be part of that, and that Tiffany Joy had been selected as one of the final 30.

As it turned out she was one of the final 20 (out of 500 entries), and they played clips of all of those then asked people to call in and say which one they liked best. A very diminutive, audio-only version of American Idol.

There were three "judges." Pete himself, who admitted to knowing nothing about music but knowing what he liked, was the host and one of those who offered his opinion. He had two guest judges, both men and both part of the music world, and they similarly offered their opinions. Almost all of those were of the "liked it... didn't like it..." variety, but once in a while they waxed a little more eloquent.

After Tiffany Joy's clip, for instance, one of the guest judges said that when the song started he thought he was going to have to leave the room, but then the song shifted in an interesting way and he suddenly liked what he heard. Goes to show you that the first 10 seconds make an impression, but they aren't the whole story.

One of the most interesting comments came after a guest judge inserted a clip from an artist he knew and admired who was not one of the contestants. Turns out this fellow had won a GRAMMY award and still no label has signed him.

The expert judges opined that being unsigned was probably the best deal for that particular artist, because no label would really know how to market him.

I wonder how many of the indie artists who were listening took that comment in and rolled it around carefully in their minds. Too few, I'm guessing, because being signed is still the holy grail. I'll write more about that later.

Anyway, Tiffany Joy, being fairly well known in the area and having a father who was willing to help promote her, ended up getting the third most votes, which was very nice. There were no prizes, except that the song with the most votes got played all the way through. It was a fine song, but everyone acknowledged that the group probably won not because they were the best but because they were the best known of those who were played.

And that is why this business is so hard. You have to be known to get heard, and you have to get heard to be known.