This Ain't Your Father's Holy Relic (Georgia's Hand reviews)

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Gimme five! Up high! Down low!

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Too slow!

[Spud]

Give yourselves a big hand...

[MintyHandy]

The songs aren't up yet. To kill time, I shall now wonder aloud if anyone else had trouble singing "Georgia's Hand" without it sounding like "George's hand".

[fodroy]

You should say Georgia the way that they say it in Georgia. Jo-juh. I'm pretty sure I didn't do that in my song.

[Wages]

You should say Georgia the way that they say it in Georgia. Jo-juh. I'm pretty sure I didn't do that in my song.

I'm from Mississippi, so listen to the way(s) I said it. Sure it's an interpretation, but it's close (like Irish dialect is like Welsh! j/k)

[GlennCase]

Henrietta couldn't submit because of technical issues.

If anybody's curious, she's got her girl & guitar (one take live) demo of Georgia's Hand up on her myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/henriettaandthehostage

ROCK!

Glenn Case

[Billy's Little Trip]

The songs aren't up yet. To kill time, I shall now wonder aloud if anyone else had trouble singing "Georgia's Hand" without it sounding like "George's hand".

Nope, because I didn't say Georgia's Hand anywhere in my song. I got inspired by something completely different than everyone on this one. When I started searching the internet for Georgia's Hand to find some inspiration, I found two true uses for the title. One is a section of railroads in Georgia called Georgia's Hand, and the other is spiritual healing. Apparently Georgia is famous for the conception of those evangelists that bang your head and say, YAHYA! your cured. When a person possesses these healing powers, they are said to have Georgia's Hand. I read some really crazy stuff for a couple days because it was so interesting of how these different beliefs came to the South and developed into what they are today. Some say that these practices came from beings not of this Earth. Some are really spooky with the use of poisonous snakes, sacrifice and zombification. It tripped me out enough to start writing my own take on the subject. I hope everyone enjoys my story about Georgia's Hand.

[furrypedro]

This fight looks bad ass!
I've only listened to a couple but it sounds seriously good so far. This should be exciting.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Damn, I just listened to a few and they sound great! I really like wagaco. I'm burning them all right now so I can listen to them while I'm on the road.

[MintyHandy]

Thanks to the podcast functionality and a late lunch break, looks like I'm first out of the box. I'm a bit rusty, but here goes:

Ziplief:
There's something comforting about the way this opened, and I liked the vocals. With tighter timing and keeping the lead guitar more in key (was great until 0:18, then goes wonky periodically), this would go into my music collection.

Wagaco:
This is a solid base; with more complex drums to drive it forward and a more melodic vocal line, you'd have something here. Very 70s rock, and I mean that in a good way.

Those Meddling Kids:
I was wanting the words to start about 30 seconds earlier than they did. Missing a hook and a strong melody, but I like the mood you set; very atmospheric and goth.

Thank Glennny For The Frisbee:
The hook isn't quite grabbing me, and one of the guitars is borderline annoying, but in my head I hear a three-part harmony on the chorus that would transform it into a solid song.

Ryan Rickenback:
My wife would love this, and I liked it on the first listen, loved it on the second. Your "oooOOO" choice was a good, strong one. Believe it or not, I almost wish this was just a little bit slower, to heighten the drama. No, I take it back, it's perfect. Addition of the drum at 1:23 is a nice touch, and when the harmonies come in, I really, really like it. Lyrically really, really strong. At this moment, the leader -- so don't try anything stupid. Heh. That's a great lyric. Great work.

Robots Do The Work:
I liked it more before the guitars kicked in; could have jumped right to 0:35 and been better off. That's a nitpick, though, as is my not quite getting the "Georgia, where is your hand going" lyric; it feels tacked on. Overall, I like it, and the timing is rock-solid, which I appreciate. Is this really your first submission? If so, a lot of us are in trouble. The only reason you don't beat Ryan in my mind is that it's comparatively too much slick, not enough substance. Great work, though.

Native:
If you're going to sing this gently, it really needs to sound like you're whispering in my ear; this just sounds like you're shy, and obscures the lyrics. Listen to Ryan's piece, and do yours the same way -- strengthen the melody behind intimate vocals, find a hooky little guitar rhythm -- and I'd be into this.

Minty Handy (me):
I'm just happy I got it done, a couple of hours' work total from picking up a pen to submission. Never write and record when you're tired and cranky. Call it a baseline, and see how I improve next week. Oh, and someone remind me to put a 4th string back on my ukulele.

Mico Saudad:
I can't quite find the song in here, but I really like your piano noodling, just the sort of thing I like.

Melvin:
I was disappointed you repeated the guitar lick twice at the beginning, because I really liked it the first time and thought the second round would go even higher. The vocal is missing energy (same as mine) but the ELO-style harmonies make me really happy. If you took the guitar solo to an extreme, and made those harmonies pervasive, you'd really have something. Oh, and the lyrics in the bridge are much better than the rest, and the rest aren't bad. Oh, there's that ELOesque harmony again; man, I wish that was all over the thing!

MC Paul Denyer:
They Might Be Giants meets Ween. It's like someone turned Frontalot into itty-bitty Frontalot. Dunno if this was a serious Nerdcore attempt or not, but it made me smile. Couldn't make out a single lyric, however.

Jacobe Lynn
A nice, simple, sweet song, and right up until 0:44 I was holding my breath waiting to hear that you'd opened the package and found Georgia's disembodied hand inside. Whew. The lyric "You've gotta give 'em what they know" and associated melody hints at a much, much better song than this (and this one isn't bad); I don't know if that's the scotch talking, though. Oh, how I wish this week's SongFight! title was "You Gotta Give 'Em What They Know."

Glenn Case:
I really like your voice, very distinctive and pitch-perfect. Great songcraft, great production values -- okay, I want to come over to your house the next time you record. If you're not a gigging band already, you should be. Well done in every way. Does it dethrone Ryan? I'm thinking, I'm thinking...yes. No. Wait. Damn. I'll figure this out, but I'll have to listen back-to-back before I do. Seriously, if you're in LA, call me the next time you record so that I can learn something from you. Oh, it's Glenn Case! Here's my not-very-surprised face. Well done.

Flypaper Orchestra:
You lost me at the random noodling guitar; I know you were going for a mood, but it didn't resonate with me, sorry. Just not my thing, so don't let it get you down. I really like your band name, though. Much better than this Minty Handy garbage.

The Endless Attention Seeker:
It's the Violent Femmes, in a good way. This is good, definitely in the top half of this group, and it sounds like you guys are having fun. With drums and a little more reckless abandon, this might have been in the top five for me. Same thing if you'd gone more bluegrass with it. Solid song, though.

Eight Legged Oedipus:
Remember when Brad Sucks and MC Frontalot collaborated last week? This sounds like what you'd get if you actually merged the best parts of each into one somewhat larger person. "Gorgeous Georgia's Hand" through "I'm a fortunate man" is just, well, terrific, really. Well-crafted lyrics most of the way through. It's getting a bit old near the end, though; it needs to go somewhere else. Nevertheless, top five all the way. Oh, it's Eight Legged Oedipus -- don't compare my submission this week to yours, or you'll withdraw your offer to collaborate. Heh.

Cynthia Size:
Dido meets Ten Thousand Maniacs, with a dose of drug trip. Or not; in retrospect that's not very accurate at all. This is not my cup of tea, stylistically, but you have a fascinating voice and anyone who likes this style probably liked your song. Oh, that shift at 1:17 actually gave me a shiver. Cool. Great name, by the way.

Cranial Biffida:
Ah, nu-metal meets Rob Zombie. Not a complaint, just an observation. This is well crafted, albeit not my kind of thing, which is odd, since I love Rob Zombie. It's got everything it needs except (a) a hook of some kind, and (b) an obvious connection with the title. I'm sure it's in there somewhere, though. Actually, I could probably smack just about any title on this and it would work. My kids are probably going to love this kind of music when they get older, and won't they be surprised when I pull out my old CDs... once again, a great name attached to a song that's not my thing. Was that hiss at the end supposed to evoke a smoke machine? 'Cuz it did.

Billy's Little Trip:
Basic, happy, a bit stilted, reminds me of when I try to record when I'm not in the mood. Not bad, but not inspired. It's a nice song, though. Ah, that's better (at 1:19); you probably should have just started the song there. You should get some backing vocals in there, it would really flesh this out; as it sits, a bit too thin. Top half, certainly.

First place is a very, very close fight between Ryan and Glenn. I'm giving it to Ryan, because...no, I'm giving it to Glenn...dammit! You bastards. Can't one of you have sucked a bit? Ryan, if you'd stayed low on "soul" in the first line, you would have lost. It's that close.

Hell with it. I'm going to vote for Glenn from work, and for Ryan from home. Seriously. My own home-brewed version of approval voting.

Anyway, they're both going into my collection, as is Robots Do The Work and Eight Legged Oedipus (joining his Snow Fort entry.) Some others will join them, but it's too many to list -- I've never been happier to be in the bottom of the ranking, seriously.

Note to self: buy a book on audio production, and take a whole week to write a good song.

[Reist]

Loving the Melvin song once again. The guitar work is graet ... your music is incredible. I aspire to make stuff like that.

[Lunkhead]

There are many good solid rock songs in this, and a few good cute twee little songs. My random thoughts are:

Mico, is that you Sean? If so, good to hear you back in action, and nice tune.

Glenn, great song, vocals are awesome. My only minor nitpick is that your acoustic guitar sounds kinda so-so... was it recorded direct or something? Great mixing though, Puce.

Native, you should get a windscreen/pop filter/sock/panty hose stretched over a coat hanger/etc. for those close up, breathy vox. Nice song.

I also liked Melvin, BLT, Robots etc., Ryan Rickenbach, 8LO (not to be confused with ELO, the Electric Light Orchestra, of course), Minty Handy, TMK, dang, pretty much everybody. Good fight, folks.

[the_prisoner]

Ziplief:
There's something comforting about the way this opened, and I liked the vocals. With tighter timing and keeping the lead guitar more in key (was great until 0:18, then goes wonky periodically), this would go into my music collection.

A new configuration this week - this is Glenny on lead guitar and the prisoner (me) on drums, minus martyr, adding in Leif Welch on bass and studio! Glenny and I will be commenting more later, but we hope you like our song this week, as it was really fun to play.

Sam
Zipline/Zipleif drummer

[mico saudad]

Billy's Little Trip I like the guitar sound, and throughout the sound is pretty nice. As with last week I can’t understand the lyrics. That’s fine if you’re trying to use lyrics as an aesthetic image, but if they’re important in and of themselves it’d be useful to try to find a way to bring them out without losing the vocal feel you’re going for.

Cranial Biffida The theatricality of the introduction and first minute are nice. You vary the music from time to time through the song, but it still has a pretty uniform feel throughout that I think you could overcome with some more work. You have a lot of tools going for you (some nice drums at places, compelling voices), maybe drop the rest of the music out besides those and then bring the rest in to get some contrast. I don’t feel this way now but I worry that I may end up feeling like I’m listening to the same song every week…

Cynthia Size and @eclectic spOOns The combination of music and vocals makes me feel something that I haven’t felt since listening to Sonofsupercar. I could only ever describe it as sideways. Strange that. An interesting little tune. Is the voice real+heavily autotuned or is it computerized somehow?

Eight Legged Oedipus Not a poopy demo. I like the lyrics ‘gorgeous slender soft and tender’ (and apparently you do too ). This is a good song. Great performances on the instruments. The wanking goes on a bit too long at the end for my taste.

The Endless Attention Seeker The bass is way too overpowering. Jump on the magic bus. Vocals are interesting in a violent femmes sort of way. I very much like the end of the song.

Flypaper Orchestra Are those sounds the ones you are trying to get or is there something you’re trying to reach but can’t quite get there?

Glenn Case The story is great and I think you got about 7 tenths of the way of expressing it in a really sublime way through the song. I wasn’t particularly dropped by some of the lyrics (for example the first two opening lines don’t quite nail me) Or if you want that phrased as a compliment, you got ten tenths of the way towards making a top song this week.

Jacobe Lynn While much of the singing is not very good, there are parts where I get a sense you could develop into a good singer: “All the way down to my ene…”, “you gotta give em what they know”. Likewise many of the harmonies are poor, but some are nice. Listen through again and figure out which harmonies you like and which you don’t and try to figure out why in each case. Was it the performance, was it the melody/harmony pair, etc.

MC Paul Denyer There’s way too much way up high and it’s all way over digitized. I wasn’t a huge fan of the music and aside from something about Rowan Atkinson and a banjo I couldn’t really get the lyrics because of the really irritating chipmunk voice.

Melvin That is one heavy guitar with the similar 311 effect as last week but different style thank god. Much more the style of yours I like this week. This was enjoyable.

Mico Saudad Saudade is a great word recently claimed to be one of the hardest words to translate (portuguese). It basically is an expression of almost unbearable longing for some thing that is lost but may (however unlikely) return at some point in the future – in this case triggered by the memory of watching my former roomate as she played piano…

Incidentally I could use some advice. I'm using Cubase 2.0 and this is the loudest it will mix down an mp3. If I make the tracks louder I can get more volume, but then they clip. Is there any sort of freeware I can use to boost the gain on an mp3 once it's created? Any advice would be appreciated..

Minty Handy This is pretty subtle and cute. A nice little song. In a magic world where we all have session musicians this could’ve done with some very soft brush drumming.

Native. There’s a pretty voice in there hiding out. I enjoy the sentiment and the emotion behind this. I’d sugget a little more creativity/variation with the guitar part.

Robots Do The Work Overall well done. Nothing really sticks to me about this.

Ryan Rickenback This is probably my favorite voice this week. And I like the dreaminess of the song itself and the flow is nice. There are a very few well polished repeating elements here that work. My guess is that many people will wish for a little more meat. Very nice to listen to.

Those Meddling Kids Pretty creative little intro, although it doesn’t quite work. I don’t like the cymbal hit is a little tinny. Not a huge fan of the song but I think I like your overall aesthetic.

Thank Glennny For The Frisbee The voice is pitchy in bits. This is pretty fun though. Some of the guitar work is very nice.

Wagaco The guitar in this is nice. I’m not much of a fan of the style, although this is pretty well done.

Ziplief I love the guitar sound in the intro. About 7 seconds in it switches to something that doesn’t pull as well for me. This is really nicely performed and produced (maybe the tambourine isn’t my favorite choice for this). I do like the “rainbow”, I don’t like the “airflow”. Overall pretty good.

Some really well done stuff this week. Spud’s right, we should give ourselves a hand.

(It is me Sam, thanks, it’s good to be back)

[glennny]

Great Job everyone! I keep listening to the whole fight over and over since I got home 6 hours ago. I at least like every track and love a majority of them!

I should mention the kickin drums on the Frisbee track are courtesy of Ken. Frisbee sent me the gng track before he went to Mexico, he hasn't heard anything I've done to his song yet, last time I sent him progress reports and got feedback. I'm responsible for the electric guitars and bass, and the mix, for better or worse.

I'll get to the elaborate reviews probably on the weekend, excellent entries everyone!

Glen

[hillbilly]

Eight Legs----Great lyrics and story.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Incidentally I could use some advice. I'm using Cubase 2.0 and this is the loudest it will mix down an mp3. If I make the tracks louder I can get more volume, but then they clip. Is there any sort of freeware I can use to boost the gain on an mp3 once it's created? Any advice would be appreciated..

Welcome back, yo. Did Cubase 2.0 come with a waveform editing utility called Spark (or SparkLE) on the install disc(s)? That program's got a nifty boostifying-without-suckifying plugin called "TC|MaxIt Master". It's no substitute for learning all the fiddly-bits of mastering and h... wait, yes, it is Works well for stuff recorded and mixed on my lo-fi macintosh.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Billy's Little Trip:
Basic, happy, a bit stilted, reminds me of when I try to record when I'm not in the mood. Not bad, but not inspired. It's a nice song, though. Ah, that's better (at 1:19); you probably should have just started the song there. You should get some backing vocals in there, it would really flesh this out; as it sits, a bit too thin. Top half, certainly.

Yeah, the back up vocal should have been in this song. I did them a few different ways and I didn't like what I heard and I got frustrated. I really should have taken up one of the collaboration offers I had and sent it off to a fresh pair of ears. I'm not sure what you mean by stilted, but at least it's basic and happy.....just like me. Thanks for the comments Minty.

Billy's Little Trip I like the guitar sound, and throughout the sound is pretty nice. As with last week I can’t understand the lyrics. That’s fine if you’re trying to use lyrics as an aesthetic image, but if they’re important in and of themselves it’d be useful to try to find a way to bring them out without losing the vocal feel you’re going for.

Thanks micro. I don't know what it is. For some reason whenever I try to sing, no one can understand me, which I couldn't of cared less for years. But now that it's coming up by my peers here, it's starting to bother me. When I really try hard to make my words clear, I sound like a douche reading a damn script with no feeling. I need to find that balance of projecting my emotions and words clearly. I'm spending more time on the lyrics and tone for next weeks "The Shelton with Sunspots" entry. I may even just do an accoustic song if I don't freak out at the last minute and plug everything in and crank it to 11. I appreciate the comments micro.

[fodroy]

Flypaper Orchestra Are those sounds the ones you are trying to get or is there something you’re trying to reach but can’t quite get there?

I like for my art to reflect life.

I was drunk when I wrote it and recorded it. I hope you felt a little sloppy drunk when you listened.

[Nigel (spOOn) Clements]

Cynthia Size and @eclectic spOOns The combination of music and vocals makes me feel something that I haven’t felt since listening to Sonofsupercar. I could only ever describe it as sideways. Strange that. An interesting little tune. Is the voice real+heavily autotuned or is it computerized somehow?

Cynthia is my robot girlfriend, she's not real, but she's not unreal either, basically I tended to ruin my silly songs with my awful voice, so I spent some time using robot voices, vocoders and synthesized voices, and a conglomeration of each, Cynthia is by far the best of the bunch... so far!
Also it's nice to try and write from a feminine perspective albiet wih a long way to go.

Thanks for the comments and in harmony with everybody else, "What a good fight!".

Reviews soon.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Damn Spoon, I didn't know that. That is really bad ass.
......does she have a sister?