10th Annual Gift of Music

[Billy's Little Trip]

Whoa! BLT!!!

THat is pretty awesome. Who knew you could do "twee"!!! Great bass playing. And good vocals.
And that is also Den there I assume? Great Job!!



But please clarify...WTF?!?!


I went back and looked at what songs I chose....
"Last night"?!?! ". No, that's probably not it. Slash and burn"?!?!? No. "Bottle"?!?!

Lol. Damn, I was hoping you wouldn't remember that, lol. I'm going to just let it die with me.
And you're welcome. And sorry I didn't write something nice to you on the site. I thought we did that later for some reason. So.....
Happy GOM! I really enjoyed doing this song. I LOVE most Aussie bands, but never heard of the Lucksmiths. I really liked that the singer was doing stand up percussion on the live version I watched on the tubes and that sealed it for me. Plus that quick strum the guitar player does. It took me about 10 tries to get his strum pattern down. Then came the hard part. No matter how I sang it I couldn't give it any energy unless I sang it different. The Aussie dialect would stumble me up. So after different vocal keys I finally said f**k it and just sang it the way I would if I was sitting in my backyard singing while playing my acoustic guitar. And Dee backed me with some great harmonies.

...by the way, I did it in an awful Aussie accent also, to give you a laugh. But it came out sounding like Oliver Twist covering T-Shirt Weather, lol. It's horrid. "t-shirt wevuh"

[RangerDenni]

Den, I wanna cuddle thrash the hell out of you right now. This is pretty epic. Doing Ninja High School is a pretty herculean task on its own. There's like three different versions of this song out there and it's got crazy lyrics and screaming and multiple voices and chants that people (including me) at wrestling shows. You took it and make it crazier, reminding me of 80's New Wave artpop (like "This is Ponderous" by 2nu). Plus you added some Lemongrab. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Lemongrab is my favorite
This was fun and I learned a lot. I'm glad you liked this and got what I was trying to do lobbing my brain-space into the song idea

[Mike Lamb]

And sorry I didn't write something nice to you on the site. I thought we did that later for some reason.

Anyone who wants to add a Quote, PM me or email mikelamb@sheepsound.com and I'll update the site.

-ML

[j$]

Hey hey, good stuff, that which I have heard so far.

I don't know if it's just me, but my cover for Bill cuts out at 1 min 20 secs? If that's the same for everyone listening, apologies - you can hear it in all its "glory" here - http://www.johnnycashpoint.com/songs/jcab_alone.mp3

[Caravan Ray]

...by the way, I did it in an awful Aussie accent also, to give you a laugh. But it came out sounding like Oliver Twist covering T-Shirt Weather, lol. It's horrid. "t-shirt wevuh"

I didn't actually notice. I just listened once this morning - but thought you sounded quite a lot like the bloke from the Lucksmiths. Which could explain it - he has a bit of a "fake" accent. Not really "fake" - but I think it is a thing that comes with trying to sing in a natural voice with an Australian accent - I notice it in my own singing a lot. When speaking - many Austalians tend to speak in a monotonic drawl with very little lip movement (that is apparantly an evolutionary thing we developed to stop the flies getting in). But that doesn't work with singing - so when trying to sing in a natural accent, but still ennunciate words so they can be understood - the result can come out a bit Oliver Twist. My "witch hunt" song this week is probably a good example. I am trying to sing words that would sound more natural (to me) in a mumbled monotone.

[Billy's Little Trip]

I didn't actually notice. I just listened once this morning - but thought you sounded quite a lot like the bloke from the Lucksmiths. Which could explain it - he has a bit of a "fake" accent. Not really "fake" - but I think it is a thing that comes with trying to sing in a natural voice with an Australian accent - I notice it in my own singing a lot. When speaking - many Austalians tend to speak in a monotonic drawl with very little lip movement (that is apparantly an evolutionary thing we developed to stop the flies getting in). But that doesn't work with singing - so when trying to sing in a natural accent, but still ennunciate words so they can be understood - the result can come out a bit Oliver Twist. My "witch hunt" song this week is probably a good example. I am trying to sing words that would sound more natural (to me) in a mumbled monotone.

No, sorry for the misunderstanding. The version I sent in that you heard is just my normal voice. I did several version because I was trying to find my voice. You never heard my Oliver Twist take. Dee has, lol. Actually it's more like if Paul Hogan and Mick Jagger had an ugly baby that grew up and joined Song Fight.

[Caravan Ray]

Actually it's more like if Paul Hogan and Mick Jagger had an ugly baby that grew up and joined Song Fight.

How do you know that hasn't happened anyway?

[Albatross]

BBABM - Really like what you've done with this! If there was any song I chose that seemed a good fit for the stripped-down folky treatment, it was that one. I've always thought "Love Like Blood" could have been a prototypical folk tune if it hadn't gotten the 80s alt-rock treatment, and you proved me right. Thank you!

BTW, I've always thought Bad Boys at Bat Mitzvahs was a great band name.

Anyway, very solid entries all around. Well done all! I will specifically mention a few standouts:

Holy crap, Paco, I mean HOLY CRAP!!?!!?! W in T actual F????? This is mind blowing. This ranks right up there with all my other Paco faves: Exclamation Point, Sister Cocaine, Terror in Tiny Town, the ones involving "babies", and of course that terrific Jim Carroll cover you did to destiff me a while back. This is immediately an all-time top tier GoM favorite.

Ranger Den: if you could only see the shit-eating grin on this unemployed, shiftless bum's face every time I hear this. This is infectious as all get out and also freaking hilarious. (I'm gonna go tell Rabid about this, I think he'd eat it up.)

Glennny: Using the podling was a brilliant choice, for this song especially. Score one for you.

As far as my own entry goes, after about 50,000 listenings I've decided I really hate those excessive snare drum hits. And the timing of the drums is kinda lousy in general. I may work to fix that.

OK, time for my annual GoM Stiffee Report:

STIFFERS
NONE WHATSOEVER

STIFFEES
FUCKING ZERO

STIFFEREES
WHAT, ARE YOU KIDDING???

[anti-m]

Anyway, very solid entries all around. Well done all! I will specifically mention a few standouts:

Glenny and Den were standouts for me too! I directed one of my buddies to check out the Glenny piece in particular. We had just been discussing the Primitives a few weeks earlier and it was a great follow up to that convo. Nice work, everyone!

[Caravan Ray]

Apologies Glennny for the guitar buzz on mine. Not sure where that came from. I thought it was on my crappy headphoes - but it isn't

[glennny]

Caravan Ray! Thank you thank you thank you! Wow that is a cool take on that song! I really love your vocal performance on it especially. I was shocked you drew me again (I haven't stopped listening to your Village Green gift from years ago, its in regular rotation!). I was shocked you chose that track too, I thought it was a long shot anyone would go for that.
Very well done! Kinda sounds T Rexy to me. Awesome!

[Caravan Ray]

Oh yeah! I had forgotten 'Village Green' was your request. Where was my Kinks option this year?!!? That was much more in my comfort zone.

BUt I really liked the Joni song - had never heard it before - and thought it would be fun to sing, and it sounded reasonbly simple to play...but then I tried to google for chords for it and WTF!?!!? What is this weird tuning crap! And even with the weird tuning I still had no idea what was going on.

So - in the end I thought if I just layed about 10 guitar riffs over the top of one another and shouted a lot - no one would notice I was way out of my depth.

[Mike Lamb]

Hey hey, good stuff, that which I have heard so far.

I don't know if it's just me, but my cover for Bill cuts out at 1 min 20 secs? If that's the same for everyone listening, apologies - you can hear it in all its "glory" here - http://www.johnnycashpoint.com/songs/jcab_alone.mp3

I replaced the copy on the server with the one you linked to here.

-ML

[Billy's Little Trip]

That's Shanghai Mo over there on lead wank duty.

Very cool! You guys really work great together. I'm still enjoying it.

[Niveous]

Would you call Mo's guitar work DREAMY?

[BBABM]

BBABM - Really like what you've done with this! If there was any song I chose that seemed a good fit for the stripped-down folky treatment, it was that one. I've always thought "Love Like Blood" could have been a prototypical folk tune if it hadn't gotten the 80s alt-rock treatment, and you proved me right. Thank you!

BTW, I've always thought Bad Boys at Bat Mitzvahs was a great band name.

Why thank you! It was fun. Porcupine tree was too hard. I was going to go slower, but this felt right. The vocals could use some work.... It's a really cool song, and I wish I could sing all slurred and mumbly like that guy.

Heuristics, inc.: that was awesome! You captured all the important pieces, and made them your own. This was the song I was hoping for, and you sir do not disappoint.

GoM rules!

[Paco Del Stinko]

I'm making my way through the most excellent GoM now, but want to thank Glennny and kin for the most delightful Primitives cover they did for me. It's a sugary song, so it should be sweet, and it is! Great job, very sunny and fun, I totally love it.

Den: I'm glad you dig the tune, I tought you might be bummed 'cause it was me and we work together often. All the tunes you offered up to choose from were great, but that one I'd never heard before and it sounded like a progression I might have written. Plus it was nice and dark, with some black humor as well. Fun to do, it stuck in my head for days afterwards!

Albatross: High praise, kind sir! I'm thrilled that you remember those other songs as well, Tiny Town goes back to the eleven title fight of '06! Glad you dug the GoM and others, man, it means a lot to me.

Thanks to Mike, Niv, and M for getting it all together and everybody else for getting'em in on tme! Great work everybody.

[inevitableguy]

Way to bring the rock, Albatross! Thank you for the excellent gift!

Hopefully, I'll have some time to properly listen to the rest in the near future.

[Albatross]

Glad you approve, um, Evit? Guy? "Inny"? What's the proper shorthand term for your forum name?

I have modified my entry somewhat, you can get the new version here. I edited the hell out of the snare drum track and adjusted the levels of some of the others. I'm liking it considerably more now. I will ask Mike to update the main page.

[Caravan Ray]

Glad you approve, um, Evit? Guy? "Inny"? What's the proper shorthand term for your forum name?

iGuy

[mo]

Thanks to Em for letting me basically make a lot of noise over her pretty fingerpicking and singing. And I'm glad you liked it, Billy!

I do find it a little funny that you would recognize hearing that style before, I don't think I've been contributing enough to SF or other things recently that anyone would pick up on my playing. Also I thought Em was going to pick the solo I did that was more sort of like the "Boxes" lead guitar concept, which is a lot of chromatic, angular stuff. Em and I may not have played together in 15 years or so, but back then we played like every day, so it's funny how things work out like that.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Would you call Mo's guitar work DREAMY?

Damn! I missed a frickin' opportunity to say DREAMY.