Friday, November 13th, 2009

[Billy's Little Trip]

Ahhhhhhh! It's Friday the 13th! RUN!

But guess what else today is? .......go ahead, guess. Yep, today is my 3 year anniversary with the mighty SONG FIGHT! Ahhh, the memories, I still remember my rocky start here as if it were only 1095 days ago. *looks up to the left*

I found SONG FIGHT when I was searching google for some Kim Deal videos and B sides when I came across these songs about Kim Deal. I was thinking, hmmm, what the eff is this shizzle? So I take a listen to one in particular and it made me chuckle. I've mentioned this SF member before, but I can't remember right now. I remember he was a college student and worked at the college radio station. I'll think of it later. Dr Worm maybe? I'm getting the image of a sweater when I think of his name, but that could mean anything. I think I'm thinking of Dr Worm because I'm picturing a sweater. You know, like a silk worm....even though sweaters aren't made of silk....you know what, just never mind and don't even try to understand my logic. If you could spend one minute in my head, you'd probably throw up.

Anyway, I checked out SF and then decided to do a song. I haven't recorded in quite a long time, so I dusted off my prehistoric equipment and did a song. Then I couldn't figure out how to get it to my computer, lol. Damn, I've learned a lot in the past 3 years from this place and the members. So the only way I could do it was to mix my 8 track down to a cassette tape, then to the computer. Damn, it was horrible! So much his it sounded like I recorded it in a wind storm.

So I figured it out and enter a fight. I'm sure I was a little late, because that's how I roll. Then I'm thinking a name like SONG FIGHT, I'm going to fight like a mutha f**ker and WIN! So I tell all the Interwebz people I know to vote for me, which a lot did, but some of the assholes voted against me, lol. Those bastards! But I won and I was all happy that I kicked ass at this place called SONG FIGHT! I'm thinking, hell yeah, Fight club, fight to win!

Then my victory is quickly shattered when I'm told of this thing called "friend flooding". Sounded like a made up word invented by losers, lol. Then fLUFFY goes out sleuthing and exposes me for the "friend flooder" that I was. Everyone made me feel like a jerk after I realized what the community was all about. I asked Spud to pull my song off and pick the second place winner, which was Glenn Case. Spud said no, it is what it is, deal with it. So I had to look at that cheated win for over a week everyday. I told myself I'm just not coming back here anymore so I don't have to look at my name on the front page, but everyday I got on the computer, it called to me. And it just happened to be one of those times that the fight masters took an extra long time to post the next fight winner. I wanted to enter again and clear my name, but I had to live with my cheated win for a long time.

Ok, there's my story and I'm sticking to it. Some may have noticed that I started all of the daily role call threads this week. It was leading up to today to show my appreciation for SONG FIGHT!

Question of the Day: How did you find the mighty SONG FIGHT!? Which member do you remember first or the member that lead you here? What was your first fight entry title? How many votes did your song get out of how many? What was your impression of the reviews?

Question of the Day 2: I've posted a video everyday this week in my original post. Why did I pick the music vids that I did?

Fridays video of the day.
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[AGray]

We're up at my dad's lake house this weekend, but I'm having to isolate myself in a spare bedroom and do a day's work over the VPN. THEN I'll start the recording process on my entry. Something is wrong with me.

Friend flooding, eh? And the Fightmasters have been known to sleuth it out when it occurs? Hrmmmmmmm.

QotD1: Seriously, dude, that's literally FIVE questions. I found about SongFight through MC Frontalot's movie, so that probably makes me something of a tourist. Besides Frontalot, the member who made the biggest initial impression on me was Paco del Stinko, his musical persona actually seems a lot like a less inhibited version of me. I don't have a first entry yet, but I'm hoping it's going to be "She Already Knows". Dammit, it WILL be "She Already Knows", even if I get no farther than submitting 2 minutes of vocal and rhythm track! The humiliation will motivate me to do better in the future. No idea how many votes it will get, and I'm deliberately not setting an expectation - getting something done and submitted is the point for me. As for the reviews, I find them very educational, both in terms of the suggestions people make and in seeing, not only how widely opinions can diverge on a song, but how there isn't necessarily any correlation between how similar people's musical styles are and how similarly they'll react to a given song.

QotD2: Hm. Well. They started out being British and each having some punk DNA, but both of those trends petered out as the week went on. But, you know, it seems like there's something more obvious that I might be missing, through overthinking or what have you... :-3

[signboy]

hahahaha, that's an awesome story.
qotd 1: I think I found it by googling stuff about online collabs. Maybe Bill sent me here from Tapegerm. I can't remember.
qotd 2: for the same reason you pick particular smilies?

[Billy's Little Trip]

I just found the member that lead me here.

I went and looked at the Kim Deal fight and the member that lead me to SONG FIGHT is "Mr Lost Man". Imagine that, a lost man lead me to the light. Sounds like a good premise for a song. *gears turning*
I have no idea why I was imagining a sweater when I was trying to remember his name, or Dr Worm for that matter, heh.
Here is said fight. Small, but quite good actually. http://www.songfight.org/songpage.php?key=kim_deal

[EmbersOfAutumn]

Well, here's a website i haven't been on in awhile. Gotta get my priorities straight...

QotD: http://www.qwantz.com, Dinosaur Comics was the theme of a songfight back in 2006-2007. "We were not meant to be". Came on over from there and fell in love with the idea. Sad part is that in 2 1/2 - 3 years, I've only submitted 15 songs or so...

(Just looked at my 'joined' date... 2007. In fact, June of 2007 now that memory recollects...)

[Bjam]

I've been on SF for more than 5 years. That is a QUARTER of my life. What the hell, Songfight.

[Caravan Ray]

How did you find the mighty SONG FIGHT!?
Random Googling looking for songwriting competitions while I was sitting at home by myself while my wife was off having a baby.
Which member do you remember first or the member that lead you here?
I recall noticing the names "Jack Shite" and "Johnny Cashpoint" and thinking they were (mildly) amusing. And I recall liking entries by Dos Scientos the in the first fight I listened to
What was your first fight entry title?
Thanks For Coming
How many votes did your song get out of how many?
1 vote out of 149. A zero may have turned me away then and there. That one person who voted for me that fight is probably most responsible for the fact I am still here 5 years later
What was your impression of the reviews?
Richard Wreckdom was very mean to me. That is also probably a reason that I am still here 5 years later. I agreed with him and knew there was work to be done. Other's weren't so mean. That probably helped too.

[rone rivendale]

I'm stealing your formatting, Ray.

How did you find the mighty SONG FIGHT!?
Funny that I just said this in another thread not knowing this QotD was here. I learned about SF thru Attack of the Show when they did their Prayer for Pancakes mini-fight in 2005.

Which member do you remember first or the member that lead you here?
I remember Melvin started around the same time I did and he was impressive from day one. Also I remember hating Dan-O from Five-O alot.

What was your first fight entry title?
I did a song for Welcome To___ but didn't submit in time. So offically my 1st fight was Brimming With Tears.

How many votes did your song get out of how many?
I got 4 votes. I'm not looking up how many votes the fight had. It was alot. SF was at least twice as popular then as it is now.

What was your impression of the reviews?
People reviewed alot more often back then. And they were alot more detailed as well. So although I got some harsh reviews, I was able to learn and improve alot back then. Those were the good ol' days.

[inevitableguy]

How did you find the mighty SONG FIGHT!? Which member do you remember first or the member that lead you here? I learned of SF through some guy - his name's fluffy...I think some of you might know him. He told me about SF several times, but I never bothered checking it out until he invited me out to see him (and everyone else) play during the 2008 SF West Coast Tour. I dug the sense of community I was getting, so I finally checked it out after that. It took me 6 freakin' months after that to actually enter a fight, though.


What was your first fight entry title? How many votes did your song get out of how many? "A Scary Thing" was my first fight...wow, that was 13 months ago. I got 6 votes out of 136. Not bad considering the awful buzzing sound that plagued my track. Sort of like BLT's story, I recorded my song, but then had no way to get it to the computer. It was the first song that I had recorded in over 2 years at that point, and my CD burner had died in the meantime. So...I ran a line out from my studio to my computer's mic jack. Nasty hum, but I wasn't going to spend all week working on a song and not entering it.

What was your impression of the reviews? The very first review I received was from Melvin...and he absolutely crushed me. At the end of the review, he said "Sorry to be a dick." I almost walked away from SF.

Question of the Day 2: How has no one gotten this yet? A brief review of the titles should give it away...

[Billy's Little Trip]

I learned of SF through some guy - his name's fluffy...I think some of you might know him

Isn't he that guy always doing those wrestling videos? ......*runs!*

[The Weakest Suit]

How did you find the mighty SONG FIGHT!?
I heard about it from a friend around 2004. I wasn't recording music at the time and didn't think much about it. Somehow, I came across it again after FAWM 2007. I was just starting to write again and was looking for something to keep me going. The first fight I listened to was "King Me".
What was your first fight entry title?
Clause 5, Sub-Paragraph D)
How many votes did your song get out of how many?
4 out of 96
What was your impression of the reviews?
Here are some highlights...
Geoff WreckdoM...I lose interest.
MC Eric B...I did not really follow what the song was saying.
NatchDan...I was hoping for the drums to kick in bigtime at some point, but such is.
SteveHandPuppet...Nothing spectacular.
Caravan Ray...MARGINAL PASS
glennny...Terrible production.
Project-D...The rest of it's ok though.
ken...Okay.
martyr...repetitive.
MintyHandy...hookless song overall.
rdurand...really distracting.
Rabid Garfunkel...sounds like cat being squeezed.
It was the cat comment. I never wrote another song again. A friend took over the name "The Weakest Suit" and has submitted all the other songs under that name.

[inevitableguy]

I learned of SF through some guy - his name's fluffy...I think some of you might know him

Isn't he that guy always doing those wrestling videos? ......*runs!*

No...that's Fluffy. With an F, not f. Geez, aren't you even paying attention to yourself?

[irwin]

I discovered songfight via a link from fark to bradsucks, sometime in the fall of 2003. I had previously written 75% of many many songs, and finished very few. Songfight seemed like a great motivation to get over that hump.

Of course in practice it is not that easy, and many partial songfight entries followed.

The first actually complete songfight song was for the Dog Without Warning title. Predictably, that was finished late and never saw the light of day until SF: Live 2009.

My first actual entry was for the Mad City fight, in spring of 2005, as the Nutwalls. We managed third place behind Boltoph and Ross Durand. That's a runner up slot I'll take any day.

[Billy's Little Trip]

It was the cat comment. I never wrote another song again. A friend took over the name "The Weakest Suit" and has submitted all the other songs under that name.

Wait....wut? Are you the friend or the original guy?

.....or both?

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Rabid Garfunkel...sounds like cat being squeezed.
It was the cat comment. I never wrote another song again. A friend took over the name "The Weakest Suit" and has submitted all the other songs under that name.

Gosh, I'm sorry to hear that. And that's coming from a guy who's actually squeezed a cat for a fight (the Nerds song, I think). Even though the electric guitar was buried way low in the mix, the discordant bends distracted way too much from the nicely Costello-ish vocals (& production on the vocals) for me to enjoy the whole gestalt of the song. Also, I wasn't in a Costello mood at the time.

If that makes any sense.

[JonPorobil]

How did you find the mighty SONG FIGHT!? Which member do you remember first or the member that lead you here?

Penny Arcade posted that some rapper named MC Frontalot had recorded a theme song for them. I listened to the song, browsed the website, and saw that some of the songs were listed separately from what was then his only "album." They were called "Song Fights," which confused me, until I clicked on the link and saw the "Death Plunge" songs.


What was your first fight entry title? How many votes did your song get out of how many?

I wrote a song for "Look Good in Black," but didn't submit it. My first entry was "So Aggravating." The votes were lost that fight, but I know it didn't look good for me.

What was your impression of the reviews?

I was largely puzzled when people said that they "disliked the genre." I didn't realize that guy'n'guitar was a "genre," nor that people would have a particular reason to be sick of it around here. Blue Lang gave me an award for "Best Beatles Cover." Other people sort of half-complained about the guitar being out of tune, though they acknowledged that it was appropriate to the subject matter of the song.

[HeuristicsInc]

How did you find the mighty SONG FIGHT!?

Blind Mime Ensemble, who I am in Tapegerm with, posted about it over there. I checked it out first during that nothing-happening phase before FMs took over. Then I came back at "Unless I Change My Mind" and never left.

Which member do you remember first or the member that lead you here?

Oh I got that already.

What was your first fight entry title?

"What We Need More of Is Science".

How many votes did your song get out of how many?

Umm, 3 out of 551 - that was MC Hawking's unfortunate win (I didn't like it much) over JB's awesome favorite song, but I had no chance.

What was your impression of the reviews?

Didn't tell me too much... my second fight had vocals (first time ever, really... no wait second, time doing vocals) and I got more entertaining reviews from that one:

Sven Mullet
HELPELPELPELPELP!!! Thethethethe delaylaylaylay isisisis stuckuckuckuck!!!

Evermind
Nice and ambient. Oh god how I wish I was high and listening to this. You know what I would be thinking?
No, they would be thoughts you couldn't think. That's how trippy this is. Well done, but more creepy than it was enjoyable.

Sven == Mark heh.
-bill

[Lord of Oats]

My friend John (vegetarianrage) showed me album-a-day. I liked Glenn Case's AADs. Somehow, I found out about this place via his stuff. I don't really remember the details. Shortly thereafter, I made an AAD and entered an SF. Yay.

The first fight for me was Thank God for Memphis. I won. I haven't won since. That was seriously the first moderately well-constructed vocal song I have ever written. I was so thrilled to find out I could do it, you guys probably have no idea. I've been semi-unstoppable since. Of course, I've been stopped a few times. But it took me a while to stop. Generally, if you look at my most productive periods, I've been severely depressed for most of them. Lately, you'll see me writing some cautiously optimistic material I can't manage to get into a fight. Or still trying to redefine songwriting in one way or another, typically much to the chagrin of people who call themselves songwriters. I suppose because I've been able to do it so many times over, what I want people to do is re-think their idea of what is "good" or "valuable" or has "artistic merit". Because nearly any time you have an idea of what that is, you're wrong. The artist is never wrong, they say. That essentially makes the critic always wrong.

I hope to see you guys again soon with some more of my avant-garde lo-fi anti-art electro-pop-prog-punk whatever the fuck. And hopefully, I'll finish an album or two before the end of the year and let you guys have that. Happy songfighting, everyone. I love almost all of you.