APPLESEPPUKKAKKE (Applesauce Baptism Reviews)

[Stubby Phillips]

"albatross" = "oral stabs", or maybe "alto brass"? I dunno. "Blast Rosa" with a "slab roast"? I gotta stop -- I'm hyperventilating...

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Reviews. Be happy or not.

Beefy
Nice beat. Good humor. And who can't love a tentacle rape mention?

The BeWells
Nice sound, nice lyrics. Though the electric guitar's bell tone obscures the vox somehow.

Damien Verrett
Insane. Utter madness. Good fun.

The Dark Side of Archaelogy
How could 3:05 seem so long? This is the soundtrack to a monday commute, stop and go traffic (which is where I first heard it, strangely enough).

@eclectic spOOns
More insanity! Vox intonation slips in and out of sync with the goosestepping carnival march, which gets distracting.

Hangover Black
Backing music's pretty sparse for this Princey vocal style. Thin, or something.

Kill Me Sarah
The tamborine might be more natural (?) sounding if it lived on the 2s & 4s for the most part. Like a church revival hand clapping. Mirroring the guitar's rhythm with it in the break feels kinda awkward too. Good fun song, thanks.

Marn
Lyrics say nothing to me. Which leaves the music to carry the tune.

Melvin
People want the same, only different. You do that well.

Middlemarch
Fuck yeah! Front porch jug-band party! Harp's a little hot in the mix, but this song makes me very happy. VOTE.

Phillipso
Had high hopes from the weird flavor of your name. Okay song, though the cymbals are really in your face. Psycho baby sounds are cool, though. Dig the gobble gobbling, heh.

Purdylips
Tres cool. The "I must give in"s remind me of one of those songs from the movie "Lost Boys", of which I'm curious if it's a conscious nod or a coincidence. Very close second place, for me, for the lyrics and the music.

Rabid Garfunkel
I hate drum machines, and yet they're so good sometimes. Samba patterns rock.

Ross Durand
Sweet song. Wish it didn't come after mine, though you really couldn't go anywhere else with the lyrics, the counterpoint of the who's feeding whom had to be done or the song'd be cheapened. Excellent fuckin' lyrics. Just a buzzkill (for me), coming after boogying down to my own song.

The Special Relatives
This would be fun to put music down to. Female vox in there, or falsetto?

Stubby and the Dr.
Yo! More excellent fuckin' lyrics! Doc, are you recording the Les direct? Cutting the mids might reduce the thickness, demuddifying the mix. Stubby, it's a Fender Precision Bass Special run through an SWR LA 12 combo, with the amp sending direct into the mixing board. And a thick-ass pick that I found on a barroom floor one night.

Those Meddling Kids
This took a while to get into. But strangely satisfying once I did. Thanks!

Wages
That's one weird guitar sound. Time for me to rent "Gokiburi (Twilight of the Cockroaches)" again, heh. "Garbage chasm" is a surprisingly nice bit of imagery.

[Albatross]

For "Stubby Phillips and Doctor Water":

Anna Nicole says "Hips, bust by pill."

Before that, she marries the old billionaire, with whom she "stripped-down, brutally cohabits." Then his relatives are quick to give her a "clattery, slobbish, rapid put-down." Then she sells her story to a bunch of "writable, bold, putrid sycophants" before going to court in an attempt to "chirpily put-down bold rat beasts." Before long we are privy to the "bandit's trashy, crippled blow out", and she is left to merely "twaddle happy stubborn clitoris."

OK, I'll stop now.

Oh, Stubby, I'm partial to "a star slob."

[Stubby Phillips]

Stubby, it's a Fender Precision Bass Special run through an SWR LA 12 combo, with the amp sending direct into the mixing board. And a thick-ass pick that I found on a barroom floor one night.

That's the 'active' one with the Jazz neck and P and J PUs, right? It sounds awesome. I've been thinking about gettin' one. I got a Gretch 'Committee' bass now, but I want the smaller radius like on the Jazz.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Yeah, though it's the Mexican model. Baby steps, heh. Albatross (and a couple other bands) used it at Spudfest.

Good fun stuff.

[Stubby Phillips]

And for Stubby and the Dr...
...Eight Legged Oedipus says of your entry "By the turd's band"

That's funny, in a way. Mainly 'cause I've got small children, and you're way ahead of them. They can't type yet.

[Middlemarch]

encode at a higher bitrate, I could hear the MP3 artifacts

EightLeggedOedipus: "You've got some really bad compression sounds on this. Try a different MP3 algorithm."

Yeah, I've noticed the awful difference b/t my wav and mp3. What do your suggestions mean, though? Please excuse my ignorance.

[king_arthur]

It looks like you're encoding at 96kb - for whatever encoder you're using, try bumping that up to 128kb or higher... files will be bigger, but sound will be better. If your encoder supports VBR (variable bitrate), try using that, too. It will use higher bitrates for sections with lots of highs, lower bitrates when it can. File size penalty isn't as severe...

A lot of us use a free encoder called "lame," but I'm not sure anymore where one gets it from... Fluffy, do you have a current source for the lame encoder?

KA

[EightLeggedOedipus]

I use DBPowerAmp as a front-end:
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

Then there's a free Lame.exe adapter for it:
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-mp3-lame.htm

And you'll need the most recent LAME executable:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lame

Of course, this is all Win32 I'm talking about here.

[Steve Durand]

I use Razorlame
You can download it here
http://www.dors.de/razorlame/razorlame.zip

As ELO said you will also need the LAME executable.

Steve

[Ross]

A few comments

I started writing reviews of the whole fight, but they seemed to negative. So…

Two songs that stuck out to me as being strongest.

Bewells – very nice guitar and angle on the song. I’m not sure how much I buy that “baptismâ€

[Middlemarch]

Thanks guys. I use Goldwave and just realized the whole bitrate option. Doh! It doesn't seem to have the VBR option, so I'll give Lame a try.

[j$]

Whoever was talking about us Yanks not being able to distinguish accents – I don’t think it’s about that.

Sadly, I think that's exactly what it is. At one time or another I have compared with just about every english-based vocalist on Songfight, and never any American or Canadian one, to my knowledge. The very fact that someone would pull out that review tactic only when the accent sounds 'different' suggests how deep-seated it is.

EDIT: Oh while I'm at it - people have also mistaken Andy Balham for Australian, and on more than one occasion, called Denyer British. I have also on more than occasion got 'hope that accent's fake'. People make mistakes, for sure, but the laziness of the assumption when it comes to difference is what bugs me, is all.

j$

[Kill Me Sarah]

Kill Me Sarah
The tamborine might be more natural (?) sounding if it lived on the 2s & 4s for the most part. Like a church revival hand clapping. Mirroring the guitar's rhythm with it in the break feels kinda awkward too. Good fun song, thanks.

No, thank you. - The tambourine suggestion is helpful. I'd never played one really before that song but I'd found a $10 at my local music store and it sounded fun. It was much harder to keep on time than I thought it would be, which made me feel a bit pathetic. At any rate, playing it on the 2's and 4's probably would have been easier and stayed on time more.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

For the *really* fast phrases (in the future, anyway) (assuming you're right handed) bang it on your right thigh with your left hand being a "roof" above it, so's it's ricocheting between your thigh and your left hand. (Or learn to play the spoons, either street corner busker with the Goodwill silver; or the gaelic stick things--which are easier, IMNSHO--and apply that to your hands' knowledge of percussion). And then later on get fancy and add the lateral wrist twist to it, once you've got a steady beat down. Extra 16th note accents for the taking, heh.

Of course, the roof thing really only works for lines of straight 8ths or 16ths

Of all the percussion instruments, the only thing harder than a tamborine is fuckin' maracas for keeping a beat, in my opinion. They just wiggle out of time like nobody's business. Brutal.

--edit--

Please to forgive the spelling errors... came home to find my cat dead and now I'm more than a little drunk and talking without the usual filters. Old age, yeah, but still it bites. RequiCat In Pasciam, Little Man.

[Stubby Phillips]

Hey, Rabid --

Sorry to hear about your loss, man. Death sucks.

[Ross]

Whoever was talking about us Yanks not being able to distinguish accents – I don’t think it’s about that.

Sadly, I think that's exactly what it is. At one time or another I have compared with just about every english-based vocalist on Songfight, and never any American or Canadian one, to my knowledge. The very fact that someone would pull out that review tactic only when the accent sounds 'different' suggests how deep-seated it is.

EDIT: Oh while I'm at it - people have also mistaken Andy Balham for Australian, and on more than one occasion, called Denyer British. I have also on more than occasion got 'hope that accent's fake'. People make mistakes, for sure, but the laziness of the assumption when it comes to difference is what bugs me, is all.

j$

I'm not denying that we can't distinguish accents, which is more difficult when people sing, just saying that I think there were other things in that vocal performance besides what appeared to be a similar accent that had a resemblance to some of your vocals. In fact, I think my reaction was based more on those things than the accent, but I can't speak for Melvin.

[Middlemarch]

Beefy
Interesting tune. I like the humor, though you seem to apologize an awful lot for your views. Go ahead, step on toes! Would be better if the lyrics stayed focused on the subject, not the speaker.

The BeWells
Nice gtr sound. Lyrics & melody are a bit corny, but I really like your voice and the lead gtr works well -- very ethereal. A pleasant song.

Damien Verrett
The dark, the dark, the dark....I dig your sound. I like the voice, the crazy-fast guitar, though that shaker is loud! I also like what you do with the background vocals. The vocal effects are too numerous, though. They take attention from an otherwise cool tune.

The Dark Side of Archaelogy
Oooohhh....dark. Reminds me of horror movie music, even the change-up at 2 min, which sounds really cool. It gets much more interesting after that.

@eclectic spOOns
b-52s! Sounds like one of Fred's 'ideas', something he'd bring to the next band practice. Layered with quirky-hip female vocals, this could be much cooler. I don't know, I'm really trying to like the song, but it's getting on my nerves. Feels much longer than 3 minutes. Clever try, though.

Hangover Black
Good try at the soul sound. Not enough of it here! Sounds thin all around -- vox, etc. Maybe some more keyboards to fill it out?

Kill Me Sarah
A fellow hootenanny! I like this. The timing of the tamb. is a bit off, and the harp is a bit hot, but those are the two things that I have the hardest time recording. Fucking acoustic instruments! The second vocal is too loud, but I like the overall effort.

Marn
Nothing against the sounds, but this doesn't go anywhere. A song is like a story and should go somewhere, ending at a different point from where it began. This is static.

Melvin
Really liking the lo-fi percussion. Also, the vocal and organ melodies mirrored. This is a perfect example of a short song sounding much 'bigger' than it should sound, which is a great accomplishment.

Middlemarch (me, myself, and I)
I had a lot of fun recording this. (I think it's cool that a lot of folks think this was a whole group). I actually used my 3-year old daughter's toy tambourine (the metal discs kept falling out!). I sing it to my infant son and he laughs -- not sure if it's with me or at me, though.

Phillipso
I like the melody and jangly gtr sounds and smooth lead gtr. The vox are the weakest link -- that they're light isn't a problem, but they are wavering. OMG, that baby cry just freaked me out -- I thought it was my kid somehow entering the digital stream.

Purdylips
The only thing I don't like here is that rap. It's out of place, too loud, too goofy. Otherwise, I really like the music. Don't ruin a cool tune by adding rap!

Rabid Garfunkel
Nice bass sound. Yeah, the drum machine is metronomish and thin. I kept wanting/expecting heavy kick-snare to come in. The melody and bass mirroring gets irritating after a while. I like the wild animal sounds and whistles. I could see organs filling this out nicely. What drum machine do you use? Have you ever played around with other options? (My sympathies on your cat' s passing. Lost a dog a few years back. Sucks.)

Ross Durand
I appreciate the sentimental lyrics, though they kind of make me cringe in this format. What I mean is that they seem a bit goofy, but the song's music doesn't, so the two don't mesh well. Nice gtr playing. I like the backing vox on the 'time flies' -- maybe more of this in the verses as the song builds?

The Special Relatives
Whoever was in the room, it sounds like they had a good time. Wait...or is this one of those pitch/vocal harmonizer thingabobs? Oh, the lyrics are getting a bit weird. Can't hug a child with a turkey sandwich? I beg to differ.

Stubby and the Dr.
Love that gtr sound (nice lead/slide!). Really like the vocals, the sparse sounds, the sad, longing lyrics (Momma sold the farm...). The vocals get a bit hot and pitchy at times, but the overall experience is a good one.

Those Meddling Kids
I'm a sucker for chipmunk voices (especially chipmunks who say "motherfucking"). My wife rolled her eyes, but I really like this. I like the wavering lead vocal, and that cute, little voice shouting,
"Apples! Religion!" is just so...cute. Clever, funny, tight, well-thought out, and chipmunks. What more could we want?

Wages
Okay, I promise I won't, won't, won't say anything about Nickelback this time. Both the gtr work and vocals are awkward. Feels like it needs something. Sorry, dude. Kind of at a loss for words here.

Contenders: Kids, Melvin, Stubby...Great fight.

[HeuristicsInc]

Rabid, sorry to hear about your cat. That sucks. I've been there too.

The vocal similarity thing was not really the accent - I too heard something, in the tone, the phrasing. More like how j$ used to sound than the way he does now, though, I thought.
-bill

[Treachjuris]

Thanks to all for taking the time to review. This was a long fight.
Wages: I love your voice, but the song you submitted this week did not do it justice. I'd love to hear what else you can do...musically...to compliment your bad-ass pipes.

No submission this week, kiddies, cramming for finals.
Although, I DID compose a nice 7 minute love rock ballad.
hee.
I will review this week, however, only 'cause I love you ALL!
P.S. - to all inquiries, it was a female vocalist throughout, and yeah, the rounding up bass vox was in your mind. I only have a 3 octave range, so solly.

[HeuristicsInc]

Didn't have time to do reviews, but I did have time to listen and pick my favorite tracks. I voted for Purdy Lips because it is the most awesome.

favorites: purdy lips, stubby, ross, gwill, rabid, phillipso
-bill

[Eric Y.]

i listened to all of these songs, and came to the conclusion that 'applesauce baptism' is a dumb title, and any song that incorporates that phrase is, by extension, a dumb song. there were some very well-done songs here, and some not so much, but in general i found it very hard to actually like most of them. so-- no real reviews this time, but here are a couple things that i wanted to mention.

the starfinger and cashpoint song, i was pretty impressed with, and i really wish it had been done for a different fight because i'd have really been into that.

the one about taking care of babies, and then taking care of elderly people (sorry, i don't remember who it was at this moment), i thought sounded really nice and was rather well-done, and using the applesauce comparison (feeding it to your child or to your parent) was an interesting way of looking at it, although the baptism part seemed like overreaching to connect with the title.

probably the song i enjoyed listening to the most was the dark side of archaeology one, although i wasn't really wild about the lyrics. i mean it was a cool song, in a 'baptism by blood' kind of way, but the applesauce just turns it into a novelty.

MY VOTE GOES TO rabid garfunkel, because yours was an adorable song told from a cute point of view, and (as i recall) doesn't actually contain the word 'baptism' except by implication. just a good story that a lot of us can surely relate to, without any cheese or novelty or shoehorning in an awkward phrase, and also without taking itself too seriously. thanks.