The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Hi, my name is Ryan and I'm submitting as Jerkatorium.

I'm a long-time listener/lurker who has been listening and voting on and off since 2001. I submitted some art as geekrock'mo back in the mid-2000s (for "Adonai", "I Don't Believe You", and maybe some others). I attended the 2006 SongFight LA, mostly as a roadie for Edge of LA (BTW Edge is keeping a cancer blog at http://moxieprophets.com/edgar/ ).

I am essentially a dull Guitar Center ad; I was in crappy Kiss/Scorpions/Rush cover bands in high school and college and then did nothing musically for 20 years, and now that I'm old and fat and stable I bought a guitar and am dicking around with GarageBand. I do take the Song Fight submissions seriously though - I'm embarrassed by my shoddy initial submission and hope to improve as I get the hang of everything. I'm comically inept as a vocalist, so I really hope I get better at that with more practice. My goal is to submit to Song Fight at least once per month.

Quick question (sorry if it has already been asked/answered elsewhere, I couldn't find it by skimming through the boards): The rules state that songs written prior to the title announcement are not eligible for competition. Does that mean that if I previously wrote/recorded an instrumental, that I can't add lyrics to fit that week's title and submit it to Song Fight? Does it mean that if I compose a song but don't get it done in time for that week's Song Fight, that I am not allowed to re-work the lyrics for a future Song Fight submission?

The rules are always open for interpretation but I think the general interpretation is that yeah, that would be cheating.

The spirit of Songfight! is to be inspired by the title, write and record a song within the given deadline. All from scratch.

I'm not sure if you've lurked in the forum or not, but you'll find that people are really into collaborations often enough and this may be a solution to your 'vocal' problem.

I'm busy these days but I'm trying hard to be a part of this community to a degree that I used to be. So maybe at some point I'll do some singing for you. You can search my past work on Songfight! as a resume. Although there are a few stinkers in there that do not accurately represent my abilities. And I'm not trying to sell you on Axle Rose or Bruce Dickenson here, man. I'm a Songfighter! after all.

Oh & welcome to Songfight!

Yes, welcome to Song Fight!, please be awesome.

In the very very early days it was sorta-acceptable to do that but that was when this was Collin's art project and not a real, awesome community. So don't look to the early songs where prominent members got away with it as a reason for being allowed to do it.

That said, if you rerecord a new backing track which just happens to have the same chord progression, that's pretty okay, what with there being only so many chord progressions anyway.

Welcome to Songfight! Please be awesome. I think both of your questions Ryan fall into a gray area.

Previously written instrumental: 1) How would we know? 2) I say ask yourself "I am making this song now or just modifying an old song". If you answered modify, don't submit it.

Reworked lyrics: See above, though I'm betting this is pretty common but no one speaks of it.

Thanks for posting about Edge of LA. I didn't know he was going through all that. Maybe SF should do an Edge of LA hxaro just to tell him he's got a forum full of people rooting for him.

Don't ask, don't tell.

j$

Thank you for the tips and clarifications, I'll gear my submissions accordingly.

Hoblit: Thanks for the offer to sing, I hope that I can get my sh*t together far enough in advance to take you up on it sometime. Your cover of 15-16 Puzzle's "Unless I Change My Mind" has been on all of my iPod and iPhone playlists for the past decade. I'll give the rest of your resume another listen too (holy crap that's like 52 songs, not even including the sidefights).

Niveous: I'd be way into a Edge of LA hxaro, even though there's only 7 SF songs to choose from, and all those songs are around 10 years old.

Jerkatorium wrote:Thank you for the tips and clarifications, I'll gear my submissions accordingly.

Hoblit: Thanks for the offer to sing, I hope that I can get my sh*t together far enough in advance to take you up on it sometime. Your cover of 15-16 Puzzle's "Unless I Change My Mind" has been on all of my iPod and iPhone playlists for the past decade. I'll give the rest of your resume another listen too (holy crap that's like 52 songs, not even including the sidefights).

Hey man, that is flattering. I did another cover of his called "Bad Dreams" if you're interested in my treatment of another good 15-16 Puzzle song.

I will not quiz you on it later, I'm not that kind of guy. With that said, based on your tastes in music that you have posted, I can narrow down a couple of my tunes that jibe with what you may be going for.

Accelerator - aggressive, all out.
Cancer - creepy agressive
Save New Orleans - punk
<s>My Darling Ruin - punk</s> (Must have been for some side fight or something)
Sunny Again - Rock
Spring of Teal - Alternative Pop Punk?
Nothing Day - Pop Punk (I had a cold!)
Moonshine - Outlaw Country?

Anyway, like I said, I won't quiz you on it later but that might spare you from some of the complete stinkers in that list.

Hello people of SongFight!

I am a brand new Song Fight contestant, and 'Deep Subreddit' is my first fight. I've admired this site from afar for years, always with the hope that one day I'd participate, and finally I have. Ryan from Jerkatorium and have known each other for years, but finally the stars have aligned where we're both motivated to write songs for Song Fight at the same time. I've had a lot of fun singing and writing parts of Jerkatorium's Deep Subreddit, and man, it really feels good to finish something, on time. Looking forward to hearing, voting, and writing feedback on all the songs.

Welcome Jerkatorium and Chumpy!

To definitively answer Jerkatorium's question from February:

• Putting lyrics to music that you had already written prior to the title being issued is against the rules, yes.
  Putting music to lyrics that you had already written prior to the title being issued is also against the rules.
  Submitting a song that you had written which coincidentally has the same title as the fight is likewise against the rules.
  Submitting somebody else's song that you don't have permission to submit is against the rules as well, just to complete the quadrofecta.

If we find out you broke a rule, we'll remove the song from the fight. There are nuances to this-- if you are artistically creating a new work specifically for this fight, and being interesting about it, you're good to go. And yes the definition of "interesting" is subjective; keep in mind the only democratic thing here is the voting. That helps preserve what integrity there is in the endeavour.

Also, like Niveous said and J$-- how would we know? Don't make us take the song down and we won't.

JB

Thank you jb for the definitive clarifications.

I'd asked because I have a song I've been dinking around with for a few years, and finally recorded the music for it, but don't have lyrics/vocals yet. I posted it as Demo #2 on my terrible 'random hoarder' YouTube page ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdQmbhEGuv4 ) as part of a separate project, and wondered if I could add vocals and use it as a Song Fight submission. Now I know that I can't, that's cool, and I won't do that.

Same sort of situation with the idea of re-working a previous unfinished, unsubmitted Song Fight song for a new Fight. I'd put down a couple tracks for something (maybe Stay In Your Lane?) and ran out of time. If I decide to continue with that song then I'll just do it to do it, instead of re-working it into a Song Fight submission.

I have no intention of breaking any Song Fight rules. Why would anyone? There is nothing to win. The mere concept of cheating at Song Fight seems essentially ridiculous and masturbatory, like cheating at solitaire. There is no actual benefit to winning, and no penalty for bad submissions or for not submitting. Making good music is its own reward (cheesy but true). I am participating in Song Fight to make more music, and to try to improve my songwriting and recording; Song Fight provides inspiration and a deadline, and I don't think I'd actually make any music at all without those two things. The feedback, both good and bad, in the form of vote count and in the form of comments on the boards, is also valuable.

And I'm not sure that winning a Song Fight means all that much (not that there's any danger Jerkatorium winning a Fight anytime soon). Example: two of my favorite SongFights ever were Fresh Dog and Bad Dreams - I've had four songs that I love dearly (two from each of those Fights) on every one of my playlists for the past decade or so, and none of those four songs won their respective Fights. In fact the vast majority of the Song Fight songs that I regularly listen to lost their respective fights.

Okay I'm just babbling/ranting now so I'll stop.

You nailed it brother.

Though winning does have value in a few ways:

• A) If you were trying to appeal to people in a certain way, winning lets you know that there is a good chance you succeeded. Songwriting is communication, after all, and voting is a response.
  B) winning gives you a bit more chance of being heard by people surfing the archive
  C) there ARE statistics kept, and bragging rights are real. So it's kind of like winning in a multi-player video game that way.

And I'm going to just pretend that The John Benjamin Band's entry is one of those Bad Dreams you held onto. DO NOT CLARIFY.

JB

Good points.

jb wrote: C) there ARE statistics kept, and bragging rights are real. So it's kind of like winning in a multi-player video game that way.

And we all know that winning in a multi-player video game is something that really stays with you. I put links to my Call of Duty epic win YouTube vids in every job application. But I'm also one of those terrible people who played Starcraft like it was SimCity so I never got any respect for that.

jb wrote:And I'm going to just pretend that The John Benjamin Band's entry is one of those Bad Dreams you held onto. DO NOT CLARIFY.

JB

That would be so perfect, and yet so wrong.

jb wrote: Putting music to lyrics that you had already written prior to the title being issued is also against the rules.

The Abjure! entry this week seems to have lifted a lot of Frontalot's Yellow Lasters. Am I missing something?

Yellow Lasters sounds like some kind of British hard candy.

You are definitely missing something. Several things. But this part of my rules-post applies:

if you are artistically creating a new work specifically for this fight, and being interesting about it, you're good to go.

It would be interesting to watch* a debate of any piece of that statement and whether Abjure!'s song qualifies.

JB


*not participate in

Ah, interesting. So some might argue it was more of a musical quotation or homage, or just participating in rap's rich history of rhyme biting. I get it, but I sense I don't get it. Heh.

This might not be the best thread for this conversation, and I'm sure I'll end up repeating the sentiment when I get around to typing up some Deep Sub-Reddit reviews, but:

I did a quadruple-take while listening to Abjure's "Deep Sub-Reddit" - it was like, "Oh, this sounds nice," then, "Wait, this sounds familiar, where do I know those lyrics from," to "Hey, this is a total ripoff," followed by "Holy crap this is genius." I listened to it over and over, then listened to Yellow Lasers for the first time in years, then listened to the Abjure song again. Freakin' hilarious and (I believe) well within the spirit of SF's submission rules. Someone should forward this to Mr. Hess, I'd like to think he'd get a real kick out of it.

Jerkatorium wrote:This might not be the best thread for this conversation, and I'm sure I'll end up repeating the sentiment when I get around to typing up some Deep Sub-Reddit reviews, but:

I did a quadruple-take while listening to Abjure's "Deep Sub-Reddit" - it was like, "Oh, this sounds nice," then, "Wait, this sounds familiar, where do I know those lyrics from," to "Hey, this is a total ripoff," followed by "Holy crap this is genius." I listened to it over and over, then listened to Yellow Lasers for the first time in years, then listened to the Abjure song again. Freakin' hilarious and (I believe) well within the spirit of SF's submission rules. Someone should forward this to Mr. Hess, I'd like to think he'd get a real kick out of it.

I was going to say the same thing! I wrote my reviews for all of the fights this week but took too long, so it auto-logged-me-out. I was pissed because I was going to say exactly what you just said! I liked it!

-jd0

Hm, phpBB should not be auto-logging-you-out.

fluffy wrote:Hm, phpBB should not be auto-logging-you-out.

It does. 'Round about 15 or 30 minutes. Oh well. Now that I know, I will make sure I do my post before the time limit.

-jd0

When you log in do you check the "always log in automatically" box? Also do you have any weird privacy filter thing (like incognito mode or whatever)?

actually, you should never write reviews directly in the forum box. use a real editor then cut and paste them.
-bill

Well yeah, that too. phpBB is total beans, yo.