I bought two lottery tix but (It Wasn't My Good Fortune reviews)

[Pigfarmer Jr]

I didn't even win a free ticket.

[Pigfarmer Jr]

Please place your lyric in the appropriate thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12209

[Lunkhead]

Songs posted!

[HeuristicsInc]

this title doesn't really roll off the tongue, so we can't rate anyone on that.

Berkeley Social Scene:
not so great rhyming fortune with misfortune... that seems lazy. i really like the guitar sounds here though. it does sound like you jumped too quickly into this relationship.

Duncan Martin:
i like the idea that you had some success, but it wasn't your luck, rather than not really having fortune at all. i enjoyed the solo section. this is a good mix.

Fall Conspiracy:
caravan ray and fluffy! nice to see you two still around. i dig that guitar between the verses. haha on the lazy slob line. i dig this. it's pretty catchy.

The New Curmudgeons:
great bandname. this one is off kilter (which isn't necessarily bad). i like the title interpretation. good guitars. i like the mix of instruments.

Silver Lining:
this is me with some other people. i like it.

Third Cat:
really like that guitar that comes in at :32 and especially at :41. not sure what these lyrics are getting at. in general an interesting track.

Tim Hinkle:
interesting record-scratch effect. that is cool. i do like the oddity of the "my mind" parts.

[mo]

BSS - Can you make your vocal less Ken-like? I would really appreciate that. There’s just so much Kenness to the whole thing, it’s like Barbie Social Scene all up in here. All smooth chested, blow dried blonde sculpted hairstyling. Also the groove is less tight than usual, and could use a little more detail in building up and releasing tensions. I blame Ken of course.

Duncan Martin - To me this song needs an intro rather than just jumping into it. I would spend a little more time on the drum sound, it’s pretty anemic. You know who should’ve taken care of that for you? Ken. He just has a lot to answer for this fight. You need to punch your payoff lines a little harder, either arrangement wise or vocal performance or something, they just feel like they die off and lose impact. Let yourself explore some more vocal melodies or something, something to push it to a next level. Just either more or less Ken, pick a lane.

Fall Conspiracy - I’m not into this mix, where the melody guitars are so muted and the vocals are so hot. The lyric is so Caravan Ray, a seemingly cynical take that’s actually quite sweet and romantic really, even through the some of the cruder expressions. I’d be curious to find out if a more balanced mix would make me feel differently about the relative sameness of the groove, but without some breaks or builds for pacing I find myself blaming Ken.

Silver Lining - The reverbs are pretty reverby. This song has good builds through the layering. Some of the pitchiness in the lead vocal bother me, otherwise it’s strong. Some of those payoff lines don’t quite pay off as much as they should, I’m not sure why. Probably Ken. The prosody of the last chorus lines feels forced to me, for example, and “I realize I no longer care.” But also there’s so much pain and regret being expressed, and YMMV but I would’ve preferred a stronger cathartic moment, either in the bridge or perhaps an outro section. Clearly so much hurt could only be caused by Ken, who I blame.

Third Cat - vocal phrasing is a little uncertain, and the vocals are a bit muddy, could be the reverb mix or needing a little touch of high pass here and there. I like the concept of trying to get outer space with the mix, but some of the elements, like that cymbal, could be a little more comfortably balanced in the mix to my taste. I could’ve used more of the concept, like more effects screwing with the vocals, more warping elements, and for this I blame Ken. But hey the psychedelic Beatles and Sid Barrett would probably give you the thumbs up. Not Ken though.

Tim Hinkle - tune the guitar. This song feels unfinished to me conceptually, like great so you had to step out of your mind, and then what? I would put in a bridge to ask a question or expand the world somewhere, even if the conclusion to that is just still being stuck in a sort of psychological Sisyphean tragedy. These things are usually Ken’s fault, but still we all have to pitch in to find solutions.

The New Curmudgeons - So much Ken. How can you chodes even live with yourselves foisting so much Ken onto our sonic world, don’t you know we only have one, and once it’s polluted and dying we’ll have to rely on f**ks like Elon Musk and his alter ego Starfinger to save us from the hellish dystopia that will be all we have left? Going into space, what a pipe dream. Save the world we have. Turn to your neighbor and lend a f**king helping hand why don’t you, and don’t just look to Ken. He’s just going to give you Waterworld, because you can’t spell Kevin Costner without K E N. It’s just science. And Ken blame.

[Duncan]

Mo, please post the Ken plugin in the appropriate thread so we may download and tweak it. Assuming Ken is open-source

[Caravan Ray]

Fall Conspiracy - I’m not into this mix, where the melody guitars are so muted and the vocals are so hot.

Yes - that is my fault. I got the time zones wrong and ran out of time...

...so I sent it to Ken to mix. I said, Ken - this JP Nickolas character in my instant band has given me guitar parts that are by far the best bit of the song. We need to turn his arse down and make me louder. Ken does great work

The only payment Ken required was that I had to sing the "hung like Mr Ed" lyric he wrote. Bastard.





I do promise to come back with considered reviews - it is a small field after all

[Caravan Ray]

In order of preference:

Duncan Martin:
Heh..this is awesome. Nailed it.

Berkeley Social Scene:
I agree with Bill. Not so great rhyming fortune with misfortune.
I agree with Mo. So much Ken stink - not that that is a bad thing.
I actually quite like it.

I think the lyrics need a sharper delivery - the cookie-cutter 3 chord approach isn't right.

Third Cat:
I don't dislike this.
For some reason it reminds me of French musicians from the 1970s like Maxime Forrestier
but it isn't in French.
But I like Maxime Forrestier. And I could like this.

Tim Hinkle:
I like your voice
Your song is entirely acceptable - but not exceptional
I like the wobbly bits at the end - that could be a good approach to do a polished version of this song - I think it could work.

Silver Lining:
OK. Well this Is awkward. Bill, Erin, Sam, Leah - I know you are all lovely people personally - but why did you think that a 1980s teen flick soundtrack reject would be a good thing to enter? Bill - did they force you to do this...blink once for yes..

The New Curmudgeons:
You got me at ride on "ride on my phallic spaceship". Then lost me when I realised that wasn't a metaphor - but you were actually singing about a phallic spaceship.
After that it was all just a bit shit

[mo]

well the spaceship I went for the ride on was vulvic, but you know, different strokes for different folks

[jpnickolas]

...so I sent it to Ken to mix. I said, Ken - this JP Nickolas character in my instant band has given me guitar parts that are by far the best bit of the song. We need to turn his arse down and make me louder. Ken does great work

Awww, but you should have heard the guitars before I sent them to Ken to re-record. Shredding everywhere, and way more djent. We would have had a guaranteed win...

Reviews:
Fall Conspiracy:
Ugh, I totally messed up the outro on this one. Didn't listen to the guitars solo'd before sending them to Caravan Ray. It'll haunt me forever, but I'm really happy with the rest of the song. Caravan Ray was a hero filling in a lot of the gaps here when the timezones were working against us, and the lyrics make me chuckle.

Silver Lining:
This one makes me mad. It's too good. The vocals are excellent I really enjoy the tasteful embellishments everywhere, the backing synths and guitar, always filling in the gaps but never really taking the spotlight away from the vocals. A real standout this week.

Tim Hinkle:
The guitar being out of tune hurt me at first, but adds an interesting bittersweet character once the vocals kick in. I'm not sure it would fit if you cleaned up the intro but left the dissonance everywhere else, but maybe if the riff was just a bit different in the intro before the rest of the song sets in.

The New Curmudgeons:
Excellent take on the title. I was chuckling the through the whole song. Oh man, excellent solo. Feels very Randy Rhodes. Maybe shadowed by the clearly better vocal solo right after, but I'll allow it. I'm enjoying all the synth parts as well. They're a nice contrast to the whimsical voice.

Berkeley Social Scene:
I like the lead-in to the solo a lot. A very nice drop in energy for a more somber ending to the song. Lyrics are very cohesive and I like how they paint the story with a series of specific.

Duncan Martin:
Comparing your lyrics to The New Curmudgeons feels like the difference between Millionaires and Billionaires. Having "nepotism" in the chorus feels a bit on the nose, but that's more a nitpick. I enjoyed the lyrics overall. The beginning felt a bit dense with vocals, and I think an intro could have helped bit - I didn't feel it elsewhere in the song. Solo was good, and I'm always a sucker for some good organ parts.

Third Cat:
Mmmm, fun pickup. It throws me off balance a bit, especially with all of the swells and reverse notes throughout the song. Key changes keep me from getting too comfortable anywhere in the song, and I think that's overall a good thing.

[theleahkitten]

I saw some grievances about the title over on slack but it seems everyone who entered the fight really figured it out. Probably that was Ken’s doing.

Silver Lining was an instant band with Sam, Erin, and Bill, who were all so rad about my weird vision of a two vocal match-up that was loosely inspired by the Angel Olson and Sharon Van Etten collab, “Like I Used To.” It’s a song about my brother, so I was singing to him. I had just come off an upper respiratory (not COVID) where I was completely without a voice for 4-5 days and talking through broken glass for a few days after that, so this is one I dream of re-recording someday so I can sing with all the rage and sads that this song is owed.

I’ve been trying to write reviews but I’m on the road and my phone keeps being an asshole, so I’ll try from the airport.

[Lunkhead]

BSS and Silver Lining tie!

[ken]

Since Silver Lining was made up of 50% BSS members, it is kind of like we won 1.5 of this fight. Congrats all for making really strong songs this round. Well done.

[Pigfarmer Jr]

Congratz to the both of you.

[mo]

I hope this blaming Ken thing really takes off; I consider it my only positive contribution to anything in decades

[HeuristicsInc]

Wow, just got back from a short weekend campout to find that I was in a band that won a fight!
That's a first for me despite being in I don't know how many fights.... thanks for the votes
Even if Caravan Ray didn't like it haha

[HeuristicsInc]

That's a first for me despite being in I don't know how many fights....

After looking at the archive I think this was my 53rd fight.