The auspicious date of Feb. 29, 2008, was more than Ja Rule’s 32nd birthday. As if that weren’t enough reason to celebrate, Leap Day also marked the final 24 hours of the 2008 RPM Challenge. Luckily, it fell on a Friday, enabling musicians to work all night putting finishing touches on their RPM albums.

CDs had been trickling into RPM headquarters in Portsmouth’s Vaughan Mall throughout much of the month. But the floodgates opened on Friday afternoon and spilled over into Saturday morning, March 1, when hand-delivered CDs were accepted until noon. By that time, close to 200 new albums had arrived.

On Monday, March 3, the mailman delivered eight cardboard crates to the office, each brimming with variously sized packages. The exact number of albums contained in the crates was difficult to estimate by press time, but our loyal postal worker Buddy concluded that it was “way too many packages for an old guy to be taking up to the second floor.”

As RPM organizers tally the final numbers, the 2,433 artists who registered for this year’s challenge can finally exhale. After a dizzying 29 days of music creation, they can finally listen to their finished projects—and maybe even get a few winks of sleep. 

At RPM headquarters, however, the work is just beginning. A faithful batch of hardworking organizers now must process each and every album, uploading thousands of tracks and building one of the largest online jukeboxes in the world. It’s slow and tedious work, fueled only by cheap coffee and the distant knowledge that the final RPM celebration will be a tremendous and memorable affair.

RPM listening parties will take place on Friday, March 28, beginning at The Music Hall in Portsmouth and spreading across the city to at least five different venues. As in years past, tracks from RPM albums will play at every venue as participating musicians and curious fans mingle within, sharing their exhausting stories of triumph and defeat.

Following an opening ceremony in The Music Hall’s domed theater, listening parties will pop up in the Hall’s second-floor lobby on Chestnut Street, as well as the Coat of Arms on Fleet Street, The Press Room on Daniel Street, The Red Door on State Street and RiverRun Bookstore on Congress Street. Stay tuned to The Wire and the RPM Web site for potential additions to this list. 

For participants outside the New Hampshire Seacoast, concurrent listening parties will take place at locations around the country and world. So far, sister parties have been organized in Cleveland, Ohio, and St. John’s, Newfoundland. Anyone interested in gathering RPMers in other areas is encouraged to contact headquarters at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it The RPM mainframe is also still accepting video clips and pictures of musicians with their finished CDs, any of which could make it into this year’s RPM documentary. Video will be accepted until Friday, March 7, at 10 Vaughan Mall, Suite 1, Portsmouth, N.H., 03801.

Don’t forget to enter your completed album info by logging into the RPM Web site at www.rpmchallenge.com and clicking on “your details.” Click on “edit > update your profile” and see the tab that says “2008 Album Info.” Entering this information will ensure that all your songs are labeled correctly on the RPM Jukebox.

Congratulations to everyone who successfully completed 10 songs or 35 minutes of original music last month. For those who fell short … there’s always next year.