The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I'm another from the class of '03, my first being "So Aggravating". It gets hazy after that...

The friendships that have come out of this place are priceless.
The music that has come out of this place is insane!
You all rock and I'm very grateful.
Thank you Songfight!

Spud wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:10 pm

We lived for the reviews. We took them seriously. We had a list on our whiteboard, with every single reviewer and what their beef was with us, and we vowed to get a good review (or at least a passable) one, from each and every one of them. One of Frankie's first reviews of us was "buy a three-prong adapter". We did. His reviews got better. MC Frontalot told us to "eat a cheese wheel and choke on it" after hearing our entry to the "A Thousand Swords" fight. Our very next entry was about choking on a cheese wheel, and we won him over, sort of. The point is that these ultra-negative reviews were USEFUL. We never took them personally, because they were correct, but we took them to heart. Eventually, everyone on the white board had a red line through their name, meaning that we had gotten at a minimum a non-negative review from them. I wish I had a picture of that white board, but you know who you are.

Priceless! Truth is, we had no idea who we were dealing with. You guys were artists. We didn't understand.

Holy crap!

The memories. Somesongs. Achewood. Homestar Runner. Dumbrella. IRC. This place was incredibly important to me at one time. I guess it still is, even if I haven't participated in ages. I always want to. My back catalog here as Sven is kind of embarrassing. But THAT'S OKAY, it is the same way for pretty much everyone here. I'm way better at everything than I used to be. I used to be a total jerk with the reviews sometimes. I'm sorry, I was trying to be funny I guess. Some of y'all did deserve it though!

I miss this place. I never really stopped doing music.

If anyone even remembers who I am, you wanna collab on something?

Märk wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:27 pm

Holy crap!

The memories. Somesongs. Achewood. Homestar Runner. Dumbrella. IRC. This place was incredibly important to me at one time. I guess it still is, even if I haven't participated in ages. I always want to. My back catalog here as Sven is kind of embarrassing. But THAT'S OKAY, it is the same way for pretty much everyone here. I'm way better at everything than I used to be. I used to be a total jerk with the reviews sometimes. I'm sorry, I was trying to be funny I guess. Some of y'all did deserve it though!

I miss this place. I never really stopped doing music.

If anyone even remembers who I am, you wanna collab on something?

Anytime Sven

I'd be up for that, mark (and CR)

j$

Thank goodness for Songfight. I first found out about it in 2009 and made my first appearance with WreckdoM that year. At that time I was courting King Colon of WreckdoM and he gave me a CD with a bunch of WreckdoM songs. I was already impressed with the guy, who appeared mild-mannered and endearingly nerdy, for his involvement in a crazy intstrumental shreddy, noisey, heavy band around Austin called Rubber Robot where everyone wore masks (I love the Residents, so masked band = big plus in my book). So I thought, well I like this guy, let's check it out and gave it a listen. You know this wasn't the first time a friend or acquaintance or a fella I was chasing around said "hey I have a band, listen to our CD" and most of the time it would get played once out of politeness and would turn out, well, not great. I threw the CD on and laid down on the couch and by the 2nd or 3rd song I was sitting up really paying attention. Silver Tongue blew my mind. Holy shit, I loved this music. Then I got to join the band, not as a Yoko, but as, like, an accessory Ringo that didn't play drums and got to play bass or guitar or synths or sing or whatever was called for and turn knobs too. Colin showed me around FL Studio and I started doing my own stuff as Brown Word and the Big Whine, which name comes from a certain kitty cat band that did or didn't form within the household (he will hit the bongos, she will strum the uke, I will improvise as best I can). I jumped on the boards and wasn't terribly surprised by either WdM or BW's reception (positive and negative); our goals were never commercial viability, nor always even a stated desire to be as out there as possible, this was the stuff that flowed naturally out of us - and here pretty much everything we'd want to do is permitted. WreckdoM has had a stellar lineup over the years and in particular 2012 was one of my favorites, as well as the Nur Eins VII and VIII and I can never forget Songfight Live 2013 in Austin when WreckdoM adapted our favorite studio creations for the live stage and got to meet real live songfighters in person - what a blast! I was pleased to have participated lightly in this year's Nur Ein for the first time as BWatBW and the creation of music has really been keeping me afloat during the pandemic. I thank everyone for bringing their songs and listening to all of us, the reviewing and the banter, the advice, the passion. This thing is awesome - here's to 20 more years.

Paco Del Stinko wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 07, 2020 10:23 am

Great stuff, Spud. Any chance of an Octothorpe 20th anniversary nugget? Blue plate special?

I never say never, Paco. Gotta put the Basso Del Stinko to use again at some point!

Märk wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:27 pm

Holy crap!
If anyone even remembers who I am, you wanna collab on something?

Glad to see you back here! I guess I really should record some vocals to a couple of those tracks we still have lying on the stacks, eh?

Märk wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:27 pm

Holy crap!

The memories. Somesongs. Achewood. Homestar Runner. Dumbrella. IRC. This place was incredibly important to me at one time. I guess it still is, even if I haven't participated in ages. I always want to. My back catalog here as Sven is kind of embarrassing. But THAT'S OKAY, it is the same way for pretty much everyone here. I'm way better at everything than I used to be. I used to be a total jerk with the reviews sometimes. I'm sorry, I was trying to be funny I guess. Some of y'all did deserve it though!

I miss this place. I never really stopped doing music.

If anyone even remembers who I am, you wanna collab on something?

I'd be down!

Seeing King Arthur's name in the "10 years ago" side panel makes me wonder how he's doing. I recall him being an older guy.

He's on Facebook. Looks to be doing OK, posting stuff semi-regularly. I can send you his info if you want to friend him. (Sent now, just in case.)

Yeah I’ve had a few PM exchanges with him on the forum recently. He’s around and generally answers pretty quickly. I’m sure he’d appreciate someone saying hi.

Märk wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:27 pm

Holy crap!

The memories. Somesongs. Achewood. Homestar Runner. Dumbrella. IRC. This place was incredibly important to me at one time. I guess it still is, even if I haven't participated in ages. I always want to. My back catalog here as Sven is kind of embarrassing. But THAT'S OKAY, it is the same way for pretty much everyone here. I'm way better at everything than I used to be. I used to be a total jerk with the reviews sometimes. I'm sorry, I was trying to be funny I guess. Some of y'all did deserve it though!

I miss this place. I never really stopped doing music.

If anyone even remembers who I am, you wanna collab on something?

DUDE!... v v v

I'm also always around for some collabs.

And Mark, should we Guiterrorize them once again?

Happy belated anniversary, Song Fight!

Many many years ago I read a sci-fi novel called “Steel Beach” by John Varley. If I remember right, at one point the protagonist is stranded on a desert island for a year, and during that time he builds himself a large comfortable house and all its furnishings. After that year alone he is visited by someone who is actually a computer program (or something like that), who informs our protagonist that he hasn’t actually been on an island for a year. Instead, all of those memories were implanted into his mind “Total Recall”-style. The protagonist is incredulous for a while, reminiscing about his long hours of woodwork, building the house, planing the stair bannister, the smell of wood shavings… but then he gradually realizes how very unlikely it all was, how ridiculous the notion of building this extensive chateau, alone, in just a year, without help or tools or resources. He comes to realize that obviously all of those memories had to be fake.

I have similar feelings looking back at Jerkatorium’s Song Fight portfolio (including the SideFights and CoverFights and etc). Jerkatorium/Matchy Matchy has been at it since late 2014, but it still seems weird and unlikely that we have generated over 50 original songs, plus another 10 cover songs, and dozens of podcasts. Remembering the specific details just makes it seem even less likely: I remember manually clicking patterns of blips one by one into the piano roll because I was unhappy with an arpeggiator sequence. I remember recording and editing twelve sets of backing vocals and then deleting most of them because they weren’t good enough. I remember staying up long nights trying to get the solo right. I remember spending hours auditioning synth sounds and Logic virtual amp presets to get the right tone. It all seems so very very unlikely, and so very unlike me. It would make more sense for someone to show up and inform me that this had all been artificially generated and implanted into my imagination.

Jerkatorium wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Song Fight, and if it did somehow exist then the output would only be a much worse-sounding, tiny fraction of our current song list. Song Fight’s simple recipe of ‘Title + Deadline + Feedback’ led us to write songs, and to gradually improve our songwriting and production. Peripherally it has also resulted in me doing more visual art, including drawings, paintings and music videos.

As far as Song Fight memories go, I continue to strongly associate Song Fight with Edgar from the band Edge of LA. Edgar and I were very close. Back in 2004 I’d told Edgar about Song Fight, and he jumped into the fray immediately. He was a legit songwriter and a professional performing musician, so he didn’t share my inhibitions about generating music. He did very well in Song Fight; he submitted five songs in four months and got second place in almost every fight. Then he slowed down a bit and only ever submitted a few more songs through 2006. He’d soured on Song Fight at the end, explaining to me that he didn’t like how Song Fight gave him an excuse to write sub-par songs, songs he could shrug off by saying ‘I only had a week to write it’. I argued against that notion by bringing up the facts that 1) his Song Fight songs were very good, 2) he continued to play his Song Fight songs in his live sets with his band Moxie Prophets, and 3) his songwriting output had dwindled to almost nothing after he stopped competing in Song Fights. Anyway I still think about that, and I still wish he’d continued to compete in more Song Fights.

Edgar passed away August 15, 2015, which was the second day of Song Fight Live PDX, the day Jerkatorium was scheduled to play our first live set ever. A friend called to notify me a couple hours before the show. I didn’t break the news at SFL because I didn’t want to bum people out at the time. I didn’t want to cancel our set because Chumpy and I and our spouses had traveled to Portland for this performance, airfare and hotels and everything, and some local friends of ours were coming to the show. We performed, but performing that night was distressing and surreal for me. I love Song Fight Live, but I can’t help but associate it with Edgar’s death and there’s always a bit of a bittersweet knot in my stomach when I think of it.

I don’t want to make it sound like I dread any part of Song Fight, because that isn’t the case. Song Fight has done a lot for me, and it did a lot for Edgar regardless of whether or not he was fully able to appreciate it. Songwriting and music video production is my primary hobby now, and that is Song Fight’s fault. I don’t know what I’d be doing with my free time if it weren’t for Song Fight (playing video games? Sudoku? Facebook?) but it certainly wouldn’t be productive or creative. I am a songwriter in a rock band and that is all thanks to Song Fight.

Jerkatorium wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:35 pm

I am a songwriter in a rock band and that is all thanks to Song Fight.

That's awesome.

ujnhunter wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 13, 2020 8:26 pm

Glad to see you back here! I guess I really should record some vocals to a couple of those tracks we still have lying on the stacks, eh?

Hey Tim, LTNS! As some of you may have noticed, I don't facebook any more (since like 2017) so I'm kinda hard to get ahold of I guess... I'm on reddit, but mainly just to go insane with rage at police violence videos

Funny thing, I started working on an album maybe 5 years ago, got a bunch of bed tracks done, then quite recently gave myself the required kick in the ass to set up a studio and get back to it. (plus, I moved into a place which has a good room to set up a studio in) Then realized I can't sing in the key I recorded some of them in. So, in the process of re-recording them in different keys, I also happened to make everything sound way better (I've been practicing playing the songs, just not full-out singing them) or maybe just fresh to my ears? I dunno. Anyway, I'm still up for doing a punk covers album with you, any friggin day dude!

Caravan Ray wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:09 am

Anytime Sven

OK. Right now. I'll send my tracks over.
HA! Kidding. I don't even know what the title is.

j$ wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 09, 2020 3:23 am

I'd be up for that, mark (and CR)

j$

Supergroup? Just needs...

Lunkhead wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:18 pm

I'd be down!

And...

mo wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 21, 2020 12:13 pm

I'm also always around for some collabs.

And Mark, should we Guiterrorize them once again?

I gotta say up front though guys, all I know how to do is pluck strings and make barely-passable vocalizations

Where is mah supergroup?

j$

j$ wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 08, 2020 10:09 am

Where is mah supergroup?

j$

Not sure, but here's a couple new songs from one of the members

j$ wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 08, 2020 10:09 am

Where is mah supergroup?
j$

WHY do you NEED to KNOW?

20 years Wow! I was reading a blog post the other day that was lamenting that the "old" internet of independent sites and communities no longer existed. Song Fight is proof it still exists. It's just overshadowed by the corporate internet.

I discovered Song Fight back in 2001 and submitted a number of (admittedly terrible) songs, with many more unfinished. My favorite was a cover fight I took part in. I covered Fluffy, and Duboce Triangle did my song (much better than I did it!).

There are still Song Fight songs from way back that pop into my head regularly (Octothorpe - Been to China is a frequent ear worm).

Thanks guys for keeping the old school internet alive!

factorT wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 09, 2020 4:31 pm

20 years Wow! I was reading a blog post the other day that was lamenting that the "old" internet of independent sites and communities no longer existed. Song Fight is proof it still exists. It's just overshadowed by the corporate internet.

I discovered Song Fight back in 2001 and submitted a number of (admittedly terrible) songs, with many more unfinished. My favorite was a cover fight I took part in. I covered Fluffy, and Duboce Triangle did my song (much better than I did it!).

There are still Song Fight songs from way back that pop into my head regularly (Octothorpe - Been to China is a frequent ear worm).

Thanks guys for keeping the old school internet alive!

Oh hey it's Factor T! I remember your cover of Alright Alright. It was pretty alright.

There's a bunch of folks still trying to keep the old school Internet alive. Check out indieweb.org (another community I'm fairly active in); we're trying to take the best ideas of social networking but make it work in an old-Internet way, while also learning from corporate social networking's mistakes. It's very niche, but quite rewarding all the same.