SONGFIGHT! LINER NOTES
Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2004 4:24 am
This is a thread where you can share information about songs you've done (or contributed to). It can be tough to keep track of who has done what songs, with whom, and under what name; and, some people find this sort of thing interesting.
I'll go first, here is a list of all the submissions I have been involved with. Please feel free to add your own list. Some people have chosen to include various side fights, some people (myself included) have stuck to official Song Fight! entries. There are no rules, share as little or as much as you like.
01. Direct to Helmet - The Voice Inside Your Head
First entry. Inspired by Helmet. Remains one of my favorite solo entries, though it badly needs re-recorded. Also needs more better lyrics. As I recall, I recorded all the music one evening, then started drinking and writing lyrics to fit. Then kept drinking while I recorded the vocals, and then kept drinking while I did the mixing. Somewhere along the line it seems I accidentally overwrote the vocal track with one that was 100% effect (instead of blending a little bit with a mostly-dry track). Favorite review: Dan Bailey told me if the voice inside his head sounded like that, he'd get a new head.
02. Fire Bomb - The Voice Inside Your Head
A very misguided attempt at a style for which I was quite ill-suited. Based on a true story! Various parts of the composition were inspired by Tricky, Cornershop, and Soul Coughing. I remain forever indebted to King Arthur for vastly improving on my vision and turning this mess into a real song.
03. Brown Boxes - The Voice Inside Your Head
First duck. I was still pretty new, and didn't know multiple entries per week were a heinous breach of etiquette. In its original form (as I envisioned it sounding), this was inspired by the song "Requiem for the Rockets" but due to a communication breakdown I was unable to borrow an electric violin as I had planned (ironically, the violin was originally purchased by me as a gift for the subject of this song). Changing the instrumentation somehow changed the whole structure, and I kind of ended up teaching myself how to play slide guitar on the fly. I was surprised that nearly everybody was very gushy about the slide solo, but considering the quality of the vocals and the crap fake drums, there really wasn't much else to be positive about. The Idiot Kings got stuck with me in a coverfight, and made some pretty nice improvements to this one.
04. Spalding Gray is Missing - The Voice Inside Your Head
Never had heard of Mr. Gray before he had disappeared, but a quick Yahoo! search fixed that. As originally conceived, I had planned to write a song inspired in part by the "spy movie theme" sounding lead from "Lucifer Sam" and in part by the overall tone of The Damned's song "It's a Real Time Thing." Sadly, these lofty intentions were dashed for some reason or other, and all I ended up having time for was tossing a little vocalization over a couple different guitar riffs I had pasted together. The spoken bits were all direct quotes from news stories (in stupid cartoonish voices, courtesy my old Digitech Studio Vocalist, to differentiate the various characters), while the brief sung bits were lyrics I had written mostly based on titles of some of Gray's works. The final result, such as it is, ended up being a little more guitar-heavy than most things I've done (I never claimed to be much of a guitarist). I always thought the singing was tolerable, although the speaking really kills it. I had meant to revisit this one and flesh it out a little more, but when my lyrics turned out to be eerily prophetic, it never really felt right to me.
05. Moscow, Idaho - The Voice Inside Your Head
The concept here is, this song is supposed to have been performed by Silent Bob's cousin Olaf (singer of Fuck Your Yankee Blue Jeans) from the movie Clerks, which is also the source of the samples at the beginning and end of the track. Many people complained that the movie dialogue in the intro was far too long (especially compared to the length of the song itself) but this was intentional, and inspired by bands like Mortician. The music here (obviously the drums are computer generated, but the bass is real) was somewhat inspired by Anthrax.
06. That's Not What I Need - Boy and Guitar (lyrics only)
Literally, here is the method I used to write this set of lyrics. I entered the title as a phrase in Yahoo! search, and visited each link that was returned as a result. The vast majority of these pages were people's blogs. From each page, I quickly browsed and picked an interesting line or two, which I cut and pasted into a document. When I had what seemed like enough lines, I used a random number generator to determine what order I would use for the lines. I think I ended up with a pretty interesting result. My concept for the song was inspired by Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and (to a lesser degree) Stabbing Westward. Life interfered and I was not going to have time to record anything. Rather than waste them, I chose to post the lyrics to the discussion board to see if anyone else wanted to use them. Future Boy did, and although his song was almost a polar opposite to what I had intended, I really liked his interpretation a lot.
07. Lavender Splendor - Vox Di Insecti Delecti (bass and drums only)
First real collaboration. I was contacted the week before by Racine of Yummy Bug fame, and she asked if I wanted to work on a song with them. She wrote the lyrics and sent them to me to start building a song around. I asked whether she had any ideas at all for the music, and I think she sent a MIDI file that represented the chorus melody, or something. I recorded the bass part and added drums with my keyboard (up until now I believe all my drum parts were programmed, but I really wanted that trashy cymbal sound, and my soundcard didn't have it but the keyboard did). Then I threw a couple scratch vocal tracks over top to show where the words belonged, and shipped it all back. Racine replaced the vocals and then threw in some clarinet for good measure, and the dude who was the other half of Yummy Bug (whose name I can't remember) stacked up a whole bunch of guitar parts, and that was that.
08. Zombie Son - The Voice Inside Your Head
09. Dinga da Donga (Dreamy Mo and the Commoners: bass)
10. Fight the Sea (MC Shatner Boy : guitar solo)
11. Twelve Monkeys (Suave : bass, spoken dialogue)
12. Papercuts and Spilling Guts (The Voice Inside Your Head)
13. So Kind Stacey (Silent E : bass, drum programming, mixing; everything else Niveous)
14. Fear is Free (Silent E : bass, electric guitar, chorus lyrics/vocals, drum programming, mixing; everything else Niveous)
15. Fear is Free (Awful Poetry Journal : tuba)
16. Please the Pig (Abecedarian : bass)
17. Please the Pig (Glenn Case : bass)
18. A Day in the Life (The Voice Inside Your Head)
19. The Gutter (The Voice Inside Johnny's Head : vocals; everything else Johnny Cashpoint)
20. From This Day On (The Unknones : bass)
21. I Don't Like Eggplant (Dreamy Mo and the Commoners : bass)
22. I Am Tempted (Silent E : bass, backing vocals; everything else Niveous)
23. Failure and Regret (Diathetic Obfuscation : lyrics, vocals; everything else Obscurity)
24. God Will Give You Blood to Drink (Song Fight Orchestra)
25. Safety in Numbers (Kill Me Sarah Feat. TVIYH : bass; everything else Kill Me Sarah)
26. Half-Hearted Stab (The Voice Inside Your Head)
27. In the Valley (Donkeypunch : drums; everything else Sven Mullet)
28. Back from Juvie (Ford's Theater Disaster : drums)
29. Framed (Beerland Security : drums; everything else Inevitible Guy)
30. I Will Be Acquitted (The Lyricburglar Inside Your Head; lyrics by Jeff Robertson)
31. They Meet (The Voice Inside Your Head)
I'll go first, here is a list of all the submissions I have been involved with. Please feel free to add your own list. Some people have chosen to include various side fights, some people (myself included) have stuck to official Song Fight! entries. There are no rules, share as little or as much as you like.
01. Direct to Helmet - The Voice Inside Your Head
First entry. Inspired by Helmet. Remains one of my favorite solo entries, though it badly needs re-recorded. Also needs more better lyrics. As I recall, I recorded all the music one evening, then started drinking and writing lyrics to fit. Then kept drinking while I recorded the vocals, and then kept drinking while I did the mixing. Somewhere along the line it seems I accidentally overwrote the vocal track with one that was 100% effect (instead of blending a little bit with a mostly-dry track). Favorite review: Dan Bailey told me if the voice inside his head sounded like that, he'd get a new head.
02. Fire Bomb - The Voice Inside Your Head
A very misguided attempt at a style for which I was quite ill-suited. Based on a true story! Various parts of the composition were inspired by Tricky, Cornershop, and Soul Coughing. I remain forever indebted to King Arthur for vastly improving on my vision and turning this mess into a real song.
03. Brown Boxes - The Voice Inside Your Head
First duck. I was still pretty new, and didn't know multiple entries per week were a heinous breach of etiquette. In its original form (as I envisioned it sounding), this was inspired by the song "Requiem for the Rockets" but due to a communication breakdown I was unable to borrow an electric violin as I had planned (ironically, the violin was originally purchased by me as a gift for the subject of this song). Changing the instrumentation somehow changed the whole structure, and I kind of ended up teaching myself how to play slide guitar on the fly. I was surprised that nearly everybody was very gushy about the slide solo, but considering the quality of the vocals and the crap fake drums, there really wasn't much else to be positive about. The Idiot Kings got stuck with me in a coverfight, and made some pretty nice improvements to this one.
04. Spalding Gray is Missing - The Voice Inside Your Head
Never had heard of Mr. Gray before he had disappeared, but a quick Yahoo! search fixed that. As originally conceived, I had planned to write a song inspired in part by the "spy movie theme" sounding lead from "Lucifer Sam" and in part by the overall tone of The Damned's song "It's a Real Time Thing." Sadly, these lofty intentions were dashed for some reason or other, and all I ended up having time for was tossing a little vocalization over a couple different guitar riffs I had pasted together. The spoken bits were all direct quotes from news stories (in stupid cartoonish voices, courtesy my old Digitech Studio Vocalist, to differentiate the various characters), while the brief sung bits were lyrics I had written mostly based on titles of some of Gray's works. The final result, such as it is, ended up being a little more guitar-heavy than most things I've done (I never claimed to be much of a guitarist). I always thought the singing was tolerable, although the speaking really kills it. I had meant to revisit this one and flesh it out a little more, but when my lyrics turned out to be eerily prophetic, it never really felt right to me.
05. Moscow, Idaho - The Voice Inside Your Head
The concept here is, this song is supposed to have been performed by Silent Bob's cousin Olaf (singer of Fuck Your Yankee Blue Jeans) from the movie Clerks, which is also the source of the samples at the beginning and end of the track. Many people complained that the movie dialogue in the intro was far too long (especially compared to the length of the song itself) but this was intentional, and inspired by bands like Mortician. The music here (obviously the drums are computer generated, but the bass is real) was somewhat inspired by Anthrax.
06. That's Not What I Need - Boy and Guitar (lyrics only)
Literally, here is the method I used to write this set of lyrics. I entered the title as a phrase in Yahoo! search, and visited each link that was returned as a result. The vast majority of these pages were people's blogs. From each page, I quickly browsed and picked an interesting line or two, which I cut and pasted into a document. When I had what seemed like enough lines, I used a random number generator to determine what order I would use for the lines. I think I ended up with a pretty interesting result. My concept for the song was inspired by Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and (to a lesser degree) Stabbing Westward. Life interfered and I was not going to have time to record anything. Rather than waste them, I chose to post the lyrics to the discussion board to see if anyone else wanted to use them. Future Boy did, and although his song was almost a polar opposite to what I had intended, I really liked his interpretation a lot.
07. Lavender Splendor - Vox Di Insecti Delecti (bass and drums only)
First real collaboration. I was contacted the week before by Racine of Yummy Bug fame, and she asked if I wanted to work on a song with them. She wrote the lyrics and sent them to me to start building a song around. I asked whether she had any ideas at all for the music, and I think she sent a MIDI file that represented the chorus melody, or something. I recorded the bass part and added drums with my keyboard (up until now I believe all my drum parts were programmed, but I really wanted that trashy cymbal sound, and my soundcard didn't have it but the keyboard did). Then I threw a couple scratch vocal tracks over top to show where the words belonged, and shipped it all back. Racine replaced the vocals and then threw in some clarinet for good measure, and the dude who was the other half of Yummy Bug (whose name I can't remember) stacked up a whole bunch of guitar parts, and that was that.
08. Zombie Son - The Voice Inside Your Head
09. Dinga da Donga (Dreamy Mo and the Commoners: bass)
10. Fight the Sea (MC Shatner Boy : guitar solo)
11. Twelve Monkeys (Suave : bass, spoken dialogue)
12. Papercuts and Spilling Guts (The Voice Inside Your Head)
13. So Kind Stacey (Silent E : bass, drum programming, mixing; everything else Niveous)
14. Fear is Free (Silent E : bass, electric guitar, chorus lyrics/vocals, drum programming, mixing; everything else Niveous)
15. Fear is Free (Awful Poetry Journal : tuba)
16. Please the Pig (Abecedarian : bass)
17. Please the Pig (Glenn Case : bass)
18. A Day in the Life (The Voice Inside Your Head)
19. The Gutter (The Voice Inside Johnny's Head : vocals; everything else Johnny Cashpoint)
20. From This Day On (The Unknones : bass)
21. I Don't Like Eggplant (Dreamy Mo and the Commoners : bass)
22. I Am Tempted (Silent E : bass, backing vocals; everything else Niveous)
23. Failure and Regret (Diathetic Obfuscation : lyrics, vocals; everything else Obscurity)
24. God Will Give You Blood to Drink (Song Fight Orchestra)
25. Safety in Numbers (Kill Me Sarah Feat. TVIYH : bass; everything else Kill Me Sarah)
26. Half-Hearted Stab (The Voice Inside Your Head)
27. In the Valley (Donkeypunch : drums; everything else Sven Mullet)
28. Back from Juvie (Ford's Theater Disaster : drums)
29. Framed (Beerland Security : drums; everything else Inevitible Guy)
30. I Will Be Acquitted (The Lyricburglar Inside Your Head; lyrics by Jeff Robertson)
31. They Meet (The Voice Inside Your Head)