Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reviews)

Discuss upcoming, current, and previous song fights.
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Ross
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by Ross »

Congratulations, JB.
"I don't like this song, but at least it's good." - veGetar Ianra Ge
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by roymond »

First off, I couldn't think of a better way to pull this off, so thanks for the opportunity to take part. Clearly SF is as much of the deal as anything in John's life. This makes a great sound track to start things off (ok, to continue things...)

These are more reflections than reviews...you all win!

15-16 Puzzle - master of the passing chord brings passing clever lines to charm any girl...for another guy. You also achieve a remarkable presence in your recordings, it's like you're in the room with me. Very sweet. I'd have married someone based on this recommendation.

add - I love your dreads, they fit you well, and the booming bass. I wish the little pulsating guitars were more up front, as the 2 and 4 is way strong, and they are very playful. I'd crash this wedding party any night.

Bradsucks - For a moment I thought Kompressor was joining the party. I like the subtle messages and light production treatments! This makes the deed clear.

Frankie Big Face - Love the windy path you've paved through this story line. I almost did the Cupid/stupid thing but fortunately left it to someone with better sense. HAHA...I heard "please cease and desist" and thought there was a greek god I missed. This makes me think about the motivation behind marriage and partnership...not sure where this is going, but it's motivational.

Glenn Case - Lots of arrows flying in these songs. I'm still confused about Cupid's methods, but the visuals are great. You've got a whole quiver full of projectiles in play and that's just your clever words. I like the tub bass thumping here. I think the rationalization works...love and pain are so close after all.

John Benjamin Band - Talk about beating around the bush...just come out and say it, man! This is like having the Verizon team stand behind you as the greek chorus, for added emphasis. Love the rich vocals and...the message :)

Ken's Super Duper Band 'n Stuff - Did you shy away from had/ladd? I think that fits JB as your profile most certainly does. Dorie gets the straight dope here and there's little to consider.

Merisan and Friends - I love squeeze box and shaker, makes it real. "In case you went snooping around" is great! Oh, what an embarrassing moment that would be.

Milwaukee Youth Center Choir - Like how the funk turns solid and the propose word play. This is great breakfast prep music, hope it rocked the house yesterday morning :)

The Mojos - Nice to hear your sweet singing voice again. And all great busters have sweet vocals in their better half. This is nice and also a little creepy, like you're spying on their moment. But who wouldn't want to?

Octothorpe - "Cute with a side of ranch" ... wow, now that's appetizing, but not someone I'd take to meet the folks.

Raised By Wolves - Yeah, "stories and songs" are perfect, with CSNY for extra points. I'm sure I'm missing more, but the strings distract me. Hypnosis as proposal method is key here. Love the love march at the end.

roymond - I tried to live through the OK Cupid experience, which gets pretty intense so I kept things PG. I almost pulled the date scene but left it in for inside-joke value. I think I'll do a remix without it to see how that would chart.
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by roymond »

frankie big face wrote:Roymond - I like the bass playing in this. Did you actually play a bass or is it some kind of software thingy? You're so prog rock, Roy. I'm a little confused by the ending, but I'm easily confused these days, I think.
Yeah, I played the bass, with a pick since my fingers got tired after one cycle. Am I prog for dropping beats in the bridge? Or the solo? Or what...I was trying to be pop. Confused by the date scene? I almost cut it but figured something that suggested he almost gave up on the OK Cupid site fit. My wife and I had a huge near miss that would have changed our lives, so I dug that.
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by frankie big face »

roymond wrote:Yeah, I played the bass, with a pick since my fingers got tired after one cycle. Am I prog for dropping beats in the bridge? Or the solo? Or what...I was trying to be pop. Confused by the date scene? I almost cut it but figured something that suggested he almost gave up on the OK Cupid site fit. My wife and I had a huge near miss that would have changed our lives, so I dug that.
See--you're so prog, you're prog even when you're trying to be pop!

Yeah, the date scene confused me, but I only listened once. Maybe it would have been less confusing if you had a woman as part of the conversation. I started to think it was two guys.
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by fluffy »

OK Cupid totally allows guys to date guys. They're awesome that way.

I voted before roymond's song was available, but that one turned out to be my favorite. Imagine there's a ghost vote, roymond.
Last edited by fluffy on Sun Mar 15, 2009 10:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by Billy's Little Trip »

fluffy wrote:OK Cupid totally allows guys to date guys. They're awesome that way.
Well, that's fine if you are looking for someone to go to a football game with. But I'd be on that site looking for teh seckz.

edit: oh...my...gawd! I just got what you meant! :?
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by frankie big face »

fluffy wrote:OK Cupid totally allows guys to date guys. They're awesome that way.
That's fine--I don't have a problem with that, of course. But these were intended to be songs about John and Dorie, so I'm pretty sure that rules out a gay relationship song. And I don't think that's what Roy intended anyway.
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by roymond »

frankie big face wrote:
fluffy wrote:OK Cupid totally allows guys to date guys. They're awesome that way.
That's fine--I don't have a problem with that, of course. But these were intended to be songs about John and Dorie, so I'm pretty sure that rules out a gay relationship song. And I don't think that's what Roy intended anyway.
The song has only one side of the date conversation, thus leaving that open to boast the universal-appeal-pop-song value ;)
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by Nigel (spOOn) Clements »

err... like WOW!!!! (just worked this out....)

Congratulations JB that's truely awesome, you romantic ol' thing. :D
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by Steve Durand »

Congratulations JB!!!
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by Todd McHatton »

Congratulations!
I'm still not sure who you are but it sounds like you're at least partly responsible for this amazing site and community - so Thank You for that as well!
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by Spud »

In a nutshell, JB pays for the whole thing. He does more, of course, but that's the biggie.

SPUD
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by Elvis »

Hey, that Octo song is pretty good. Don't I know you guys from somewhere? Good vocals from the Dog Man. Would have been better with a live drummer, but you can't have everything.
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by Spud »

You volunteering? :)
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by Elvis »

No. Too busy.
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by Lunkhead »

I voted for everybody as it felt like it was in keeping with the spirit of the event. Plus this fight has songs by most of my all time favorite Song Fight! folks in it so of course I loved the music. I also really enjoyed how everyone's song is so them, too. I'll just make a few comments:

Brad Sucks - This song is rocking my world. I do hear some borderline KOMPRESSOR in the vocals but that doesn't bother me at all. This also makes me think of "Go Go Godzilla", too, for some reason.

The Mojos - It's awesome to hear new Mojo and especially to hear Heidi singing, too. Heidi, you sound great! This song is so cute!

MYCC - I know your "day job" probably keeps you guys really busy but I would love to hear you moonlight some more as MYCC for Song Fight! I've always enjoyed your stuff.

Great job all around everybody.
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by reve »

I would also like to throw sizable helping of congratulations, smiles, and thumbs-ups to the Benjamin family.

And of course to the other the artists who contributed tracks. This was a great event!
-- reve mosquito.
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by frankie big face »

Yeah, this was fun. It was like a gift for all of us. Thanks John!

To update my reviews, the Merisan song has really grown on me. :)
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by jimtyrrell »

Congratulations JB!

Also: what an amazing place this Song Fight is.
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by melvin »

Congrats JB! I wish you two a lifetime of happiness.

Amazing tunes, everyone! Wow!
hi!
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by j$ »

Indeed, congratulations.

I'm assuming she said 'yes'? :)
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Re: Will you review my song? (The Proposal Reveiws)

Post by jb »

Thanks everybody. Here is your story.

A few weeks ago, I called up a bunch of songfighters and asked if they'd do me the large favor of writing a song for me. A song about me and my now-fiancee Dorie. I am humbled by the fact that they all immediately said yes, and they all came through in SUCH brilliant fashion.

The day before I intended to propose, I was up basically all night getting everything ready. It was a bit difficult because Dorie was in the house. So I snuck a picture of the ring, I surreptitiously IM'ed with Spud about fight arrangements, I uploaded songs as they came in to the fight folder.

On the day of, Spud, incredible Spud, woke up at like 6:00 a.m. Pacific time and put up the fight. Not only did Octothorpe contribute a really cool, quirky, interesting song, but Spud himself basically saved the day by just being a rock for me. Thanks Spud.

How it went down was, Dorie woke up pretty early. We laid around for a while (she wondered at one point why my heart was beating so fast. I just kind of said "eh, I dunno"-- she chalked it up to "sometimes your heart races after you yawn"-- *phew*) and after a bit she went downstairs to get some cereal and talk to a friend who was not-so-coincidentally visiting for the weekend. I took the opportunity to check if the fight was up and it was. Then I waited for her to come back up. And waited. And waited. Where the hell was she?!

So I went down and said, a little peevishly, "Hey, come upstairs for a minute." She was wondering what was wrong, why I was mad. Heh. I wasn't mad, I was just nervous as hell.

Me: You should check out Song Fight this week.
Dorie: (wondering wtf) Uh, well I looked at it last night, but I guess I can look again...

She sat down, opened up the laptop (I had put it on the bed for her), and I went around the other side to get the ring box. At first, she didn't notice anything weird about the page. She was looking on the right side in the Song News. Eventually, she noticed, gasped a couple of times, and started crying. In a good way.

When she looked back over, I had the ring box open waiting for her to look over at me.

Dorie: *sob* *gasp* I don't know who- do I have to listen to them all now?
Me: How about you just listen to mine?
Dorie: Oh! Yes!

She clicked Play and started to listen. We looked at each other with sickeningly gooey gushy love eyes. When the song reached the bridge, I sang along with the last line, which is "Will You Marry Me?" to which she responded by gasping for air, fanning herself with her hand, and nodding vigorously.

But! It wasn't over yet! After a bit, she went downstairs to squeal and jump up and down with her friend (and two others who were also staying here not-so-coincidentally). Then she started calling everyone else she knew. Many of them, for some reason, weren't answering their phones. Hmmm. That was frustrating for her, I know, but little did she know...

Eventually, after some maneuvering and me calling people behind her back to confirm that the plan hadn't changed, we got in our car. Her friends ever-so-reasonably "decided to drive separately" to brunch because "we have to get some batteries at CVS" and "oh no it's no bother" and "of course we know how to get there." They weren't concerned about getting to the cafe because they knew that they had not fifteen minutes but two hours before brunch was actually going to happen.

Dorie and I got in the car and headed to the Radial Cafe, where brunch was to be... and I drove right on by. At this point she began to have suspicions that maybe something other than a nice quiet brunch for five was on the agenda. So no, I didn't take her to the brunch place... I took her to the airport. Where, much to her surprise, we picked up her parents. When they appeared at the top of the escalator I heard this sharp inhalation and an "EEP" and she was gone-- running to jump into her father's arms in clear violation of airport security policy which states that waiting patrons should stay behind the rope!

She had had a few suspicions to this point, because she couldn't get her parents on the phone. But when she asked, with narrowed eyes, "Are my parents in town?" I could honestly reply "no" seeing as they were a couple miles in the air at that moment.

We drove back to our house with her parents, where we had to kill a little time. She was determined not to ask any more questions, though I could almost hear the gears spinning in her head wondering what else was going to happen. After a while we packed into the car and drove back to the Radial Cafe, and as we pulled in she saw a familiar car and gasped "NO WAY!" I was getting stuff out of the trunk when I heard another, louder, "NO WAY!!" as she looked up and standing in the window, talking to one of the friends who was not-so-coincidentally staying at our house, was her Aunt Becki who had previously that morning expressed hopes to "see you soon, sugar". Dorie thought her Aunt was still in Nashville. HEE!

Inside the cafe were a couple dozen of her closest friends and family, including my sister and her baby, friends from Atlanta, friends from when she worked in Chattanooga, friends from her high school, and friends from college. She was blown away. We had a wonderful brunch, a wonderful afternoon, a wonderful evening, and a wonderful entire next day. At one point Dorie told me it was the best weekend of her life, ever, although the weekend she graduated high school was pretty awesome too.

We've already decided that at our wedding the music played before the ceremony starts is going to be these songs, on loop. All of them. And they'll be sprinkled through the reception for that matter.

It was a great day, and a memory we'll have for the rest of our lives, and without this community and the friends I've made here I would not have been able to make it nearly so special. Hell, without Song Fight I dunno where I'd be at all in the first place. A lot more miserable, I think.

Thanks so much everybody,

JB
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