And when will you do reviews??? (When Did You Know reviews)

[JonPorobil]

Jon Eric & Friends
Lacking in the low-end (bass, not kick), but hearing (I'm guessing) Paco on the bg vox makes me smile. Interesting (read: good, in my book) vocal rhythms. Kinda seems all chorus and bridge.

Sadly, Paco's only contribution to this song was selling me the bass that I played in it. The vocals, lead and backing both, are all me.

I have a tendency to mix the bass overly loud, so I overcompensated this week. Ah well.

Thank you for the review!

[JonPorobil]

I bear you no malice either.
I thought this banter we had was fun and entertaining.
I didn't think my responses were defensive.
I do enjoy your reviews, especially when you explain yourself. Even though i usually think you're wrong.
I think our point counterpoint is interesting.
I never intend to hurt your feelings, but I do enjoy arguing with you.

Perhaps I'm reading a level of meanness that is not intended. Carry on, then!

The horns are actually real.

D'oh! I realized this on the third listen or so (after the reviews were posted). I meant to go back and correct myself, but you beat me to it. Nuts! They're still too loud, and the hard-panning is distracting.

[Steve Durand]

I
Steve Durand This piano lick sounds familiar; did you intentionally gank it from somewhere?

I didn't intentionally copy anything but it really does sound familiar doesn't it?

I wracked my brain but I couldn't think of what it might be so I went ahead with it.

Steve

[Rabid Garfunkel]

The intro piano sounds like the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he's a conductor/pianist/something... Max, you've got the encyclopedic knowledge of the Brothers Warner. The main piano line's going to drive me crazy, I want to say a Charlie Chaplin/Buster Keaton re-release, or maybe the Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid soundtrack, but hell, it'll pro'ly be six months before it comes to me

@Jon Eric: Really? So he's still in the wind, then . Good work putting your beefy voice on the main vox, and your squeakys in the back (I'm not trying to be an asshole as much as it may sound like it, those choices suited the music, song, and subject matter).

[Frostytheshowman]

First off I wanna apologize to the fightmaster for messing up my submission on the first go-around. I really have no idea what happened.

Then I have to ask what "getting the vocals to occupy the same sonic area code as the instrument tracks" means. I have NO knowledge of production, so we basically just record the vocals over the beat, add some doubling and reverb and call it a day. It sounds amateurish to me too, but the dials and numbers and jargon in logic or reason or whatever i happen to be using are absolute greek to me. Anyway, reviews.

PiGPEN This cracked me the fuck up. "WHEN DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE A BEAR." bahahaha. The accent is distracting for me. I don't know if that's your real accent or not, and I'm kind of used to it by the end of the song but it still keeps me from understanding some of your lyrics, which I think are well-written. The beat is simple, varied, matches the vocals well.

Charlie O I am not feeling this. Vocals are clipping, and your voice doesn't match all the "motherfuckers" and "niggers" you are throwing out. I laughed my ass off at "my rhymes are ... the hardest around" just because of the way you delivered it. If you are trying to be ironic with it, A+. Work on diction, and don't end songs with "I'm out."

Josh Millard The only part of this I am not digging is the kind of staticy cymbal sound washing over the piano in the intro and outro. I'm actually not crazy about that entire riff, but you make up for it when the vocals come in. Sounds like you're really getting into it, and I'm nodding along. "Shadows on a wall in a cave in an allegory" is a good line.

The Social Commentaries My favorite part of this song is the chorus, no contest. Well, the singing part of the chorus. A lot of the rap is kind of uncreative. I understand if you're not trying to rhyme, but it feels like a copout to me. The loops are catchy. The talking outro is kind of ridiculous, but "vaginas all over the place" cracked me up.

The Berkeley Social Scene I get kind of an easy-listening meets Crosby Stills and Nash feel with this song. Arrangement feels a little busy at times. The lead vocal is a little lackluster. I love the instrumentals, though. Trying to think of something more constructive to say, but I'm really just enjoying listening to this song.

The HATE Noise Thank you for not as much HATE noise as last week. This song needs more bass. It seems very concentrated in the upper register. If It had some more bass in it, this would be a song I could see myself hauling ass downhill on a bike to, eating shit over a garbage can and getting back up and doing it again. The vocal harmonies, lyrics, arrangement are all genre-perfect. Happens to be a genre I am into too, so way to go. The weakest part of the song for me is when the "when did you know"s come in. It repeats a little too much for me. I feel like if that part had been cut up and distributed throughout the song it would bother me less.

Jon Eric and Friends Maybe it's just me, but the vocals sound like they are repeatedly falling just short of the right note. I like the lyrics a lot. Rhyme scheme is catchy and unique. The instrumentals are all super professional, but I feel like I've heard a lot of arrangements similar to this before. That changes in the brief switch to a swung beat, which I really liked. I actually wish that had gone on longer.

Masterhyde Easily the best rap in this fight. Your diction is perfect, and your lyrics stick to an identifiable rhythmic structure which gives the song character. The beat seems a little bare, but I'm not complaining too hard because I like being able to hear all the lyrics perfectly. You are cultivating a kind of old school vibe with this. I approve.

Ross Durand Okay, so I listened to this song once, then went downstairs to make lunch. I found myself singing your chorus. I went back upstairs and listened again in my headphones. I found myself bobbing my head almost immediately. Plus on the second listenthrough i got your lyrics and the story they're telling, which is really touching without being sappy or overdone. I have nothing negative to say about this. This is going in the permanent collection.

Bad Boys at Bar Mitzvas This would have been better with singing over it instead of rap. The riff at the beginning gets my hopes up, but then I get let down by some pretty unoriginal lyrics. Plus, the riff basically never changes. I'm not sure what this song is about, really. It would be pleasant to listen to if I wasn't really paying attention, but rhymes like "hater/masturbater" and "oh wow/don't stop now" are a little silly. Props on stealing "super-sperm" from rapper's delight though.

Hoglen and Wages You've got a great vocalist. Kind of reminds me of the lead singer from Lit at times. Don't know how I feel about the ... is that a ukelele? "Smokes/jokes" is kind of a lame rhyme in context, cheapening a line I thought was gonna be really cool. That's one of those times I think it's possible to get away with just not rhyming and saying what you really mean.

Steve Durand What the hell is going on. I thought I was in for some seriously emotional piano, and I was actually not very excited about it. Then it got all bouncy and upbeat and I was pleased, although it sounded a little canned at first. By the time the horns come in, I'm sold. The vocals are a little loud, and you're straining on a lot of the notes. Still an overall enjoyable experience.

King Arthur This is well done, I especially like the little lick on the synth. It's all sounds a little artificial for my tastes, but I think that's more of a matter of personal preference. I don't really get what the song's about, probably because I don't know what you're saying in the chorus. So basically all my problems with this song are my own problems and overall you have succeeded in what you set out to do.

Xnaught Sounds like you recorded each line individually, which just bothers me as a matter of craft. In my opinion you shouldn't drop any rhymes in the studio you can't do live. Songs about songfight annoy me. This struck me as poor taste when MC Frontalot did the exact same thing like 3 years ago, and it's not going to impress me now. Your vox sound like they're clipping. Your diction is pretty good, but could use some work.

DJ Ranger Den I end up kind of liking this by the end, but the piano intro loses me a couple times before the lyrics grab me. I like the progression of absurdity in the lyrics. You tell a good story here. I could definitely see this being part of a musical a la joss whedon. You kind of throw away the last line, though. I think you could have milked it a lot more.

Ziplore Feels like I am coming into the middle of something here. The song lacks a certain energy and I don't quite understand why it's not there. Everyone is playing the fuck out of their instruments, but it just isn't popping for some reason. You know who you remind me of, though? Gutbucket. And I really like gutbucket, so that must mean I really like you too. It's just got to get louder, crazier, or SOMETHING.

And that's that.

My votes go to...

Masterhyde
Berkeley Social Scene
and Ross Durand

[Albatross]

The intro piano sounds like the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he's a conductor/pianist/something... Max, you've got the encyclopedic knowledge of the Brothers Warner.

Try Liszt's 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody.

[Spintown]

Jon Eric & Friends - You do 'catchy' like New Result does 'uninspired'. Like the idea, and the off balance feel I get when listening. I will say I thought it was a little weak between the 2nd & 3rd chorus, but not bad. I don't think I should have listened to this first...the bar is now set high people... (voted)

DJ Ranger Den - Shave about 35 seconds off that opening. Towards the end I start getting lost by some of the lyrics, and didn't get them. But this is a solid entry & not a bad way to throw your hat into the Song Fight arena for the first time.

Berkeley Social Scene - Loved the music, and the lyrics. The vocals weren't bad, but I think they should have been a bit louder. They seem to get lost in the mix at times.

Feat - I don't usually go for these type of random lyrics, but it does work in this case. Enjoyed the simple beat, which seemed sorta dream like, and your delivery was pretty good.

Ross Durand - I like the idea of someone thinking they are about to break someones heart, only to have it happen to them. Overall the song didn't have me singing along or bobbin' my head, but it kept me interested the entire time. First song I've heard reach the bar that Jon set. (voted)

Masterhyde - You might be one of my favorite rappers I've heard in Song Fight. Flow & delivery are top notch, but this time I thought some of the lyrics were a bit weak.

[JonPorobil]

@Good work putting your beefy voice on the main vox, and your squeakys in the back (I'm not trying to be an asshole as much as it may sound like it, those choices suited the music, song, and subject matter).

Your intention and tone would both have been perfectly clear even without the parenthetical. I agonized over the lead vocal a little bit, because I wasn't sure if the "beefy" voice was too much of an affect for the lead vocal. In the end I stuck with it more out of laziness than artistic integrity; I didn't feel like recording a new one - some of those notes were hard to hit and sustain.

Thanks for the kind words, good sir!

Jon Eric & Friends - You do 'catchy' like New Result does 'uninspired'. Like the idea, and the off balance feel I get when listening. I will say I thought it was a little weak between the 2nd & 3rd chorus, but not bad. I don't think I should have listened to this first...the bar is now set high people..

You flatter me so!

I think I gave my copy of Gigantic (The documentary about They Might Be Giants) to Goodwill, so I can't check this myself, but the film had a great section where someone was asking John Linell about the anatomy of a catchy melody. Basically, how does it work? How does he keep writing them? What makes a melody catchy? Linell said he didn't know, he just writes what feels right. God, if I could bottle that lightning, I'd be a rich man by now. All I know it that it strikes me on occasion, and I probably shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

I'm glad you liked it!

[Ross]

Sadly, Paco's only contribution to this song was selling me the bass that I played in it.

Hey Paco sold me the 12-string I play on my song, too!

Sometime live we have to have a "Paco sold me this" Collab band.

[joshmillard]

Reviewing in reverse order this week. I make my own fun! So:

Ziplore: the cues in this are a bit wierd -- the in medias res fade in, the vox that wander in and then back out again pretty abruptly -- but I really like a lot of the groove through. Sax is great, the shuttlecocking lead between that and the guitar worked well for me too.

Xsubzero: I heartily approve of fronting about music theory, but I feel like you have to either commit to informing the listener that they are giving you their vote *or* acknowledging that your shit may still needswork. That kind of cognitive dissonance is a dang ol' tarpit, and I hate pits full of tar.

Steve Durand: I giggled at the transition out of the intro wank into the bouncy main vamp. It might be cliche, but these vox in this style are a perfect candidate for a bit of aggressive EQ high- and low-pass filtering to thin out and crappy-up the signal a bit like an ooold recording.

The Social Commentaries: "Let's have a muthahfuckin' baybee" made me laugh loud. Whole thing is solid, the breakdown exchange on the tail end kind of flirts with turning out to be a bad idea but it held it together.

Ross Durand: totally solid construction, liked the arrangement. Couple of little wobbles at one point with the guitar rushing the beat a little, the shakers feeling a little off from the drums, etc, but nothing really distracting.

PiGPEN: LCD Soundstation meets Sasha Baron Cohen meets The Other Day I Met a Bear. I'm pretty sure this isn't a complaint.

MC Charlie 0: I have an exceptionally hard time taking shit-talking rap seriously when the guy on the mic is all rhotic on my ass. Style kvetch, maybe too genre-normative of me but there you go. But more generally it doesn't do much for me unless it's really really clever anyway; someone just asserting e.g. "man i'm fuckin' great and you are implicitly or explicitly held to be less great by comparison" without kind of proving it with some sublime fuckin' turns of phrase in the process is just signaling AVOID AVOID AVOID, like a pee-smelling dude wandering down the aisle of the bus.

Masterhyde: solid across the board. Nice work.

King Arthur: verse melody grabs me from the first line. Something very Roy Orbison about this one, slight breaks in your voice really works well in context. I kept wanting the off-scale flute licks to develop into or tie into something else in the arrangement, though -- it's just exotic enough to get me thinking it's going somewhere, but then it just remains the only thing in the song that pokes at that. Not a big problem, just sort of a violation of some internal Chekov's Gun metric I guess.

Jon Eric & Friends: really like the metric goofyfooting in the phrasing of the verse, though the vox harmony tag on the little turn on each of those feels wonky somehow. The "Miss Overrated" bit of the chorus is great as well. Some of the (I'm guessing male falsetto) octave unison harmony stuff felt not great, sort of sillyfied the proceedings in a way that I'm not sure was intentional.

Hoglen & Wages: get a pop filter between you and the mic; some of those plosives were really distractingly loud. Otherwise, this is nicely put together but feels a bit loose in spots and, uh, sort of falls apart at the end there, but I'm guessing you know that.

The HATE Noise: this just an aces balls-out rocker.

Feat: had trouble getting into the lyrics, but for whatever reason the chillout arrangement really clicked for me. Liked the chopped-sample hook as well.

DJ Ranger Den: points for straightfaced twee absurdist balladry, though for all that the intro was kind of gratuitously unengaging and the whole thing didn't really click for me.

Berkeley Social Scene: solid groovy piece of work; only complaint is that I thought the lyrics in the "wasted ... tasted ... new TV" bit on the tail end felt kinda jokey-maudlin and hackneyed in a way that really didn't work for me. I can't tell if that's me just not liking the lyrics or me not getting the joke, but there you go.

Bad Boys At Bat Mitzvahs: hell of a lot better than last time. Keep it up.

[BBABM]

well, here i go again with another biased, and poorly written review, rife with "likes" and "or somethings".
p.s. these are in the order that they show up for me on the site:

The HATE Noise: i actually liked this song a lot. i thought the panning back and forth at the beginning was a little unnecessary and made a bad first impression. i like the words, and the voices. the drums could maybe be heard a little better, and the guitar was lost at points behind its own distortion. but all in all i liked it.

The Social Commentaries: funny? yes, and if that was the point then you did it. if not, than you should work on it. plus, as a proud father of zero children, the thought of actually getting someone pregnant gives me the heebie-jeebies... i prefer to practice

DJ Ranger Den: this song sounds like it was written for the stage version of "beauty and the beast"... cue teapots, and candlesticks.

Berkeley Social Scene: at 40 seconds the voices get real quiet, and muffled, and then come back for the next verse. catchy tune, but the difference in the voice catches my ear and takes away from the song. also the muffled guitar strums toward the start aren't really needed, or could be turned down.

Steve Durand: it sounds like the "curb your enthusiasm" theme song... or maybe not that show... but there is some sitcom that your song is the dude walking down the street music... i like the horn part a lot

Hoglen & Wages: the only things i don't like is that the mandolin it too loud, some of the changes could be a lot tighter, and a few of those high notes you just barely hit, and not for long enough. but it was a really cool song.

X sub-zero: i like the beat. the words are pretty egotistical, but well spoken. i was kinda lost trying to follow them... but unlike the person earlier, i think that you should try to sound less like frontalot, because on first listen i thought it sounded like him rapping badly.

Ziplore: i liked all the changes, and the part where the sax and slow lead played together, really trippy sounding, but it devolved into noodling, which i hate. the drummer was awesome, cheers to you my friend. couldnt really hear a bass if there was one. should have been an instrumental song, cause that voice sounds like me strangling my shih tsu.

Ross Durand: good tune, not personally my favorite, but the most professional sounding this week. there were a few strums (yeah, and i had to nit pick a little to find those) out of place, and not quite on time... but other than that, nice job.

Jon Eric & Friends: nice! Yelling!!! (i think) your voice sounds much better when it's being pushed. there is a weird contrast between the guitar and the keys that i can't decide if i like it or not, it's interesting. but definitely a catchy pop tune. had it been me i probably would have put a profanity that starts with an s on the end of the chorus rather than "much."

Masterhyde: Way better than last week. reminds me of super old school hip hop. some cool breaks in there might be nice to make the keyboard sound less like nintendo music. but i like this one, and very happy to hear some diversity in your lyrical cadence.

MC Charlie-O: the average white rapper strikes again. the beat is actually kinda cool, in a wu-tang skit background music kinda way. the lyrics and "rap" in this song may be worse than mine, maybe not, but but at least i dont take myself seriously. anyways, i like the steel drum, and the little guitar lick in the beat.

Bad Boys At Bat Mitzvahs: rap was weak, and pointless (i'm not a rapper, and after of what i thought was a week of pretty weak rap songs, i tried my hand at it... sorry) the sharp hi-hat hits are WAY TOO LOUD (i couldnt get them any quieter, and it sounded weird with out them) the chord progression is boringly repetitive, and could use a good intro/hook/chorus/refrain/ anything different. (im lazy) and where is the damn horn section/bass/talent? (all sadly missing)

King Arthur: if Jimmy Buffet ever did bollywood he would have to pay you royalties. did and done bro. i like this one better than last weeks as well. to be honest the clarinet(?) got a little old by the end, not so much the fact that it was there, but the riff it was playing didn't quite go with the rest of the feel. loved the song, but would have been better with a different little riff there.

PiGPEN: OMFG this is quite possibly the funniest song ive ever heard. I LOVE IT. i have personally forced like 25 people to listen to it (all on my comp, so no votes unless they went home and did it) with tears running down my face. the beat is awesome, the fake french(?) accent is great, especially for the line "turned around and locked eyes with a black bear/ she saw the salmon in my mouth and attacked me" the haughty intonation of the accent is so good. i cant say enough good things about this song. i literally pee'd myself.

Josh Millard: hmm... i like it... it confuses me... i want it to be longer

Feat: beat is lacking something, and the effect ridden vocal samples in the background are annoying. you have obvious talent in rapping, now if you can catch up lyrically. much like my song, the words didn't really take the listener anywhere... there was a lot of stuff in there, but none of it really went together all that well. maybe we should both try to tell a story rather than come up with clever phrases to throw into our rhymes.

Im pretty sure that is everyone... again, i am totally biased, if it doesn't sound like pantera i hate it... just kidding, everyone was awesome this week, and it honors me to be among you.

[BBABM]

Bad Boys At Bat Mitzvahs: hell of a lot better than last time. Keep it up.

thank you, and i intend to!!!

[TheCapitalistYouth]

So, the Social Commentaries track was done by me, Greg. I'm going to post reviews, then possibly reply to some comments later. My reviews are as the songs were presented to me:


FEAT
Nice laid back backing track. Vocal delivery isn't exactly my thing. I like the chorus. I know the concept kind of requires it, but the second verse seems like it's dragging getting to the point.

JOSH MILLARD
I'm sure other people will talk about this, but the guitars sound really muted. I think you execute this style really well. Short and to the point. I'd like to hear the lyric theme expanded a little more.

PIGPEN
Pretty good. Good flow. French (Quebec?) accent is funny. Seems to fit but also reminds me of how Eminem made that album where he had this weird patois the whole time for no reason. Samples are good. As usual I am an opponent of a lot of chorus used on electric guitar. The lyrics are enjoyable. I think the fact that you're using an accent is a helpful cue that the song isn't meant to be serious before you've dropped enough hints.

Xo
The music execution is ok here. I think I would like it if the song was faster. The samples are nice but it doesn't really make me want to move. The lyrical theme seems pretty lame. I don't want to here songs about writing songs, and I definitely don't want to hear songs about writing songs which the listener will be compelled to vote for in a song-writing competition.

BERKELEY SOCIAL SCENE
As a general rule saxophone distracts me from a song. I think I like the music in general, but the sax is really a minus for me. I like the rhodes. The lyrics are a little too heart on the sleeve for my tastes. "You've proved your point please unpack and snuggle with me" I mean, if that's what you want to say, then that's that. It just makes me cringe.

KING ARTHUR
This is a pleasant love song. (adjusting for differences in genre taste) Looking at the lyrics I see some reference to travel/geography like "signs in the skies" and "signs on the road" but it's not really clear what the narrative is. If this is based on personal experience I can see how it would be meaningful to you, but for the average listener, what is it they're supposed to care about? In my opinion for someone to relate to a song it needs to have a story, implied or explicit, and to provide details which are concrete but not so specific that they're alienating. If you could convey more about the singer and the person they're singing to, I think this song would have a lot more bite.

MC CHARLIE 0
Backing track is decent. I don't like your flow. Certain phrases are crammed together like you haven't done it before, or didn't spend time on it. In general I think tough talk in hiphop is a waste. What have you told me besides how tough you are? And even if you are, why should I care?

ROSS DURAND
I really like the vibe on this one. I think the tone of this song matches your vocal timbre well. The lyrics do a good job of telling a story. Bridge gets a little rough, but still good.

BAD BOYS AT BAT MITZVAHS
I like the vibe starting off. High hat a little loud. Reminds me a little of G Love and special sauce. I can't hear all the lyrics, but even though it's too a lesser degree than MC Charlie 0, it sounds like there's some chest thumping in there, which doesn't usually contribute the song's purpose.

MASTERHYDE
I like the narrative on this one, I can imagine the scene in my head. Can you post lyrics in the lyrics thread? Stylistically it's still pretty far from my ideal, but if it's what you're going for that's fine. Do you have access to samples or more live instruments? I think that could add some grit to the song, as is it sounds like midi or one of those tracks that a tabletop keyboard plays. I think the musical structure is fine, it just would benefit from something more "real" sounding.

THE HATE NOISE
This is different. I like it. Can you post lyrics in lyrics thread? Also can you tell me about your recording method? It sounds like it was recorded on a cassette boombox. Is that intentional? The execution on this is really good. Vocal style is right, instrumentation is right.

ZIPLORE
As I mentioned for Berkeley Social Scene, I have an aversion to saxophone. While it may be a perfectly valid artistic choice, it distracts me personally as soon as it kicks in. When the vocals kick in it's fairly pitchy. The later part of the songs seems overly long.

STEVE DURAND
Vocals seem a little loud on this? Maybe my imagination. For what it is this song is good. It seems to lack heart a little bit. It definitely executes the song title, but I find it hard to relate to the narrator. The relationship feels like it doesn't exist outside a punchline, so how can the listener relate? Sure, it works as a one time joke, but I don't have a need to listen to it again. As always I like the horns.

HOGLEN & WAGES
I like a little change up with the mandolin. It sounds like everything could be tightened up a little bit as far as timing. I appreciate the more eclectic instrumentation but they don't sound like they're all playing in the same room. Vocals sounded heartfelt but I didn't really pick up much lyrics wise.

SOCIAL COMMENTARIES
The backing track is pretty sparse, and the levels are off. The bass and kick should be louder. Lyrically it would be nice if there was more to flesh out the concept, the talking at the end is fun but isn't really relevant to the thesis of the song. Horns sound like they were sampled from someone's high school ska band with a ridiculous latin name.

DJ RANGER DEN
Intro takes a minute to get to the point. Maybe better in an album context than a song competition. "Human language of strange love" - The strange part isn't necessary, it's implied. The first verse has some concrete detail, whereas the later verse (bridge?) needs more specifics. Give an example of rules the narrator breaks. Give an example of the love interest's ways that the narrator doesn't understand. If you provide some framework the listener can fill the rest. The piano works. Vocal style and delivery is appropriate although a little wavery at times.

JON ERIC & FRIENDS
I like the verses, they seem to paint a picture very well. It's a little confusing on the chorus because you can't understand the main lines without hearing the backup singers response. Ie. "You spend your nights deflated of all the boys you dated you were miss overrated." Lyrically the song seems a little mean spirited. Not that that's wrong, just an observation.

[TheCapitalistYouth]

The Social Commentaries - Nice drumming. The horns feel a little rough, but whatever. Interesting "harmonies" on the rap. "Let's have a motherfucking baby" is one of the scarier Songfight lines I've heard in a while. This is another one of those songs that feels like it's obscene just for the sake of obsenity. It's probably going to get under my skin. I can't tell whether or not you're sincere about wanting to have a child, or whether you're just taking the euphemism for sex waaay to far, and that's really killing the song for me.

The Social Commentaries
I think I like thi... (@17sec) damnit, yawn, skip (and yet I continue listening). In Living Color is off the air. Look forwards, man, not back. Oh fuck, no, not the talking breakdown too. Jeez, if you're going to fake sex, at least throw in some slapping meat sounds.

The Social Commentaries My favorite part of this song is the chorus, no contest. Well, the singing part of the chorus. A lot of the rap is kind of uncreative. I understand if you're not trying to rhyme, but it feels like a copout to me. The loops are catchy. The talking outro is kind of ridiculous, but "vaginas all over the place" cracked me up.

The Social Commentaries: funny? yes, and if that was the point then you did it. if not, than you should work on it. plus, as a proud father of zero children, the thought of actually getting someone pregnant gives me the heebie-jeebies... i prefer to practice

So, like I said, I did the Social Commentaries track. (You can listen to a couple other poorly recorded Social Commentaries songs on myspace.) I had hoped the name would give some hints about what to expect. Some comments:

The theme is roughly: When did you know you wanted a baby? When you wanted to have sex. Or: When did you know you wanted a baby? When you were born. You are evolutionarily designed to reproduce, and whether or not you intend to, you're still taking steps all the time that bring you in that direction.

The song is an ironic take on the "let's grind in the club" theme. Hence the crudity. I didn't think anyone would take "Let's have a motherfucking baby" seriously, but I guess I was wrong. Lyrics are in the lyrics thread.

Finally, Frosty commented on the rhymes being uncreative or not rhyming. The verse is an a / b / b / a / a / c / c/ a rhyme scheme using mostly near rhymes. In my opinion this sticks in the brain better and is less obvious.

[PiGPEN]

Distorted organ?

The music in mine was 99% samples so that "distorted organ" is actually a reversed sample of the intro to "A Problem of Perspective" by Kid Cruiser. There's also a sample of his "Empty Wednesday" in there. And while i'm at it... the "Kuma" sample is from the anime, Mitsudomoe (if you know what it's about... it fits with the Kid Cruiser samples) and the guitar samples are taken from the band, Base Ball Bear. So... yeah.

WTF? Is that a new accent for you? Rasta Eastern European hangin' in Ibiza? Sonically interesting, but... oh duh, bear, duh (re:accent)! Hairy commie man-on-man sex... got it (chuckles).

Disregarding your drunken attempt at a gay joke... i'm one of the few people this fight you didn't give precise playing/mixing/mastering advice to... and i know i've gotten those types of reviews from you before. Am i possibly one of those people now? The people that don't require your technical advice? I'm going to pretend i am.

I don't know if that's your real accent or not, and I'm kind of used to it by the end of the song but it still keeps me from understanding some of your lyrics, which I think are well-written.

Not my real accent. The lyrics were already on the mp3 if you were willing to play it in a lyrics supporting media player but they're also up on the lyrics board now.

LCD Soundstation meets Sasha Baron Cohen meets The Other Day I Met a Bear. I'm pretty sure this isn't a complaint.

The only one of those i know is The Baron....whom i enjoy...so sure, i'll take it.

the fake french(?) accent is great

Pretty good. Good flow. French (Quebec?) accent is funny.

It's supposed to be Ruskie but WHATEVER.

[The HATE Noise]

TheCapitalistYouth said:
This is different. I like it. Can you post lyrics in lyrics thread? Also can you tell me about your recording method? It sounds like it was recorded on a cassette boombox. Is that intentional? The execution on this is really good. Vocal style is right, instrumentation is right.

Yes.

It was recorded on a cassette 4-track (played drums first so I didn't fuck up the rhythm, then dubbed over two guitar tracks, then had bass going through an 'auxiliary' input in the 4-track WHILE the mixdown was happening), mixed to an alternate cassette deck, then put back into the 4-track for vocal overdubs. This totally wrecked the quality of the recording, and added the weird phasing-effect at the beginning. I liked it/didn't care, so it stayed and I didn't bother doing another mixdown. "Mastering" was done on a computer. The mixdown deck was actually a stereo receiver from 1980-something, so you weren't far off with the boombox guess.

Lyrics:

Give me your hands, this is my plan,
(Stop the world with my remote control)
Go into stores, take all the product,
Never work a day again.
I'll give you my brain and all of my time, *I was supposed to say 'mind' so it rhymed, but I said 'brain' instead and didn't change it. Oh well.
(Stop and check the bags for what we stole)
Walking down alleys, dark but it's morning,
Never work a day again.

(Chorus)
Lizard skin and crawling but you found me and put me in your pocket.

...In your pocket with the change and keys...

Give me your eyes, I don't know why,
(Stop the world with my remote control)
Wasting our time, we sit outside,
But it's fine with me, you know.
Under the trees, looks like a temple,
(Wonder what we'll ever do from here)
Walking around, lost in the sound,
But it's fine with me, you know.

(Chorus)

When did you know that you were stuck with me?
Probably when I knew that I was meant for you...



Thanks for listening. Take care.

[joshmillard]

LCD Soundstation meets Sasha Baron Cohen meets The Other Day I Met a Bear. I'm pretty sure this isn't a complaint.

The only one of those i know is The Baron....whom i enjoy...so sure, i'll take it.

LCD Soundstationsystem (oops) is a, man, I don't know WHAT the hell he/they is/are, electronic blusterdisco punk? Something. Anyway, vox has a distinctive foggy-nosed matter-of-fact assertiveness that this reminds me a lot of. I'm Losing My Edge is a pretty decent example.

The Other Day I Met A Bear (Angelfire ftw!) is a dumb old call-and-response campfire song I grew up hearing different versions of, but the main narrative thrust is that the narrator meets, confronts, and (depending on who's leading it) pacifies, defeats, escapes, or gets et by a bear.

[joshmillard]

Thanks to everybody for the feedback so far; here's some notes on what was going on with this recording re: your comments.

Josh Millard - I find it interesting how sometimes, fighters with alphabetically proximate names wind up constantly following each other. Your songs and mine seem to form interesting compliments. I'm slightly bothered by the fact that this song can't seem to decide whether it's in a major key or a minor key. Oh well; your lyrics are great. I was expecting a second verse; got a fadeout instead. I wish it were a touch longer, but that's way better than wishing it were shorter. you get a vote! (You're three for three with me so far!)

Too short is definitely better than too long, always. But it should have been longer, I just ran out of time to give it the proper treatment I'd have preferred to. As for mode, I don't think a song always has to pick minor or major -- this one changes feels kind of aggressively for sure, but there's a lot of fun movement to be had in explicitly rejecting harmonic expectations a little if your goal isn't specifically to make the listener comfy. I've written so many straightforward four chord songs over the years that I try and at least weird it up a little when I can these days.

And yeah, we do seem to be in kind of similar places in terms of writing/arrangement sentiment. Curious!

Mixing Reason tracks with live instruments is a bitch, ain't it? I like where your head's at, man. Let's start a band.

Heh. No Reason on this (I played with it some a few years ago but these days do basically everything as live takes of physical instruments, or maybe an iphone/ipad toy if I need a cute synth); that stuff in the intro and outro is actually just loops of a stretched-out slice of the descending line near the end of the song. I recorded the intro drums and bass and guitar against a scratch piano track that I recorded ahead of time to fill the right space and time, did the rest of the song, and then went back and used PaulStretch on a sans-vox bounce of the "shadows on a wall of a cave in an allegory" bit, and jimmied that into the front and back of the song.

The only part of this I am not digging is the kind of staticy cymbal sound washing over the piano in the intro and outro.

Yeah, I'm not in love with it either. See above: the biggest problem with using PaulStretch to create the ethereal stuff at the front end is that it has a really, really characteristic effect on the sound that it processes. If you missed the whole ridiculous Justin Bieber Slowed Down thing a couple weeks ago, I dorked out about it on my music blog and rounded up some of the basic story. Short version is that stuff put through PaulStretch gets effectively "smeared" to keep it from ending up super choppy the way naive time-stretching algorithms tend to go, and so transients disappear and turn into slow crashing waves of sound.

So this is kind of a proof of concept and unfortunately I didn't have time to refine it at all -- just bounce, stretch times four, insert. I'd have loved to play with it more carefully and will probably do so for some future recording, but I liked the idea of using a seriously distorted portion of the song as its own intro and outro enough to just run with this as it came out. Total sucker for self-reference.

Sounds like you're really getting into it, and I'm nodding along.

I've been trying to get really energetic recordings. Working fast is probably helping there because it doesn't let me slow down and overthink. One of my goals long term is to find a way to keep some of the headlong spazz-out energy of these NO TIME, NO TIME! recordings when coming back to give the actual mechanics of a song the time and treatment they deserve to get past "this is sloppy but fun!" to "this is fucking TIGHT and fun!"

Oddly enough, one of the things I realized I disliked about this one once it was too late to fix it is that the tempo is pretty damned sluggish. I cranked it back ten bpm from my initial instinct, and that was a mistake; I might even have wanted to crank it UP a little from there, something like 155 or 160. As is it works okay but it feels sort of deliberate where it should feel insistent-bordering-on-frenetic.

hmm... i like it... it confuses me... i want it to be longer

Yeah, the proper treatment for this would have had at least a second verse, and the slow-down thing at the end of the chorus (if we want to call the "shadows..." line the chorus) would be a coda on the end, not a standard part of it. I'll keep chewing on this one, I think it's worth trying to develop into the sort of epic thing it wanted to be in the first place.

I'm sure other people will talk about this, but the guitars sound really muted.

Some of that is just me not taking enough time to mix I think (and maybe overcorrecting a bit from last round's HEY ALL I CAN HEAR IS THE GUITAR disaster) but, yeah, in general I'm still struggling with how to capture really solid electric guitar tones. I play an L6-S through a 2x12 Fender Deville in a big unfinished basement, and tend to one-mic the amp from between 6 and 12 inches off one of the cones with an unremarkable dynamic mic, and sometimes it works well and sometimes not so well and I haven't really gotten my head around how to nail a specific tone. I've got a PodXT I use occasionally to try and shape the signal going in but I tend to like to keep things really simple so it's mostly a matter of me tweaking settings on the amp itself.

[Stubby Phillips]

Steve Durand: "You're -- stuck in the past / Not that there's anything wrong with that." You also seem to be stuck in a genre that requires a spiffy little horn solo in every song. I guess horns were the guitars of 60+ years ago. I'm not slamming you -- alot of people here are stuck in a groove... a runout groove. But I kid. This sounds very authentic, as usual. You nail the 1920s. You're a historian. Keep up the good work.

Ziplore: I LOVE the intro. The first vocal part seems out of place. Then things slowly fall apart. I like the horn. I like the guitar at times. I'd give my left arm to jam with a sax player like that. But I wouldn't neccesarily submit it to SF. More vox, less jam, shorten and change up the middle, and save the speed guitar for another song.

Hoglen & Wages: This has the bones of a good song, and it's not a bad 'concept' track. I get the feeling you don't take this as seriously as some people here, but you sound at least as good as many who do. Then I notice it's Wages -- you're just having fun, aren't you? It sounds like Johnny Walker singing at the end. No, it's all good -- just a little ragged around the edges.

Berkeley Social Scene: Interesting mood change at the start. Good 70s groove. Awesome sax. Nice guitar sound in the solo. Is that a L.P.? Everything sounds good, and I'm not bored before it ends. Points for that. Just bring the house lights up a bit -- I don't trust this steak.

Xo: Timing. Flow. It needs help. A harder stress on the downbeat and take out some syllables. The strings are a nice addition. Seriously -- put some PUNCH in the vox here and there; it'll help.

The Social Commentaries: Hilarious. I thought it might get lame when the breakdown started, but it's cool. Love the bu vox. WTF -- is this horn week?

Masterhyde: Comes off as a novelty song. The lyric is good, it flows great, but for some reason I can't take it seriously. Sounds like a TV commercial. "When did you know? When did you know? Come on down -- we got windows to show."

King Arthur: Early 60s. The Kingsmen? Competently done. The flute part adds a 'minor' flavor and interest, but I'm not tapping my feet. Grandpa likes it, though. He's dancing! For fuck's sake, grandpa, sit down at eat your fuckin' Cheerios! Jesus...

DJ Ranger Den: Interesting story -- but TMI / too explicit, IMHO. Shakey performance is just below par for SF. No, not 'performance' -- I think 'execution' is a better word. You figure it out.

Feat: The Roland TR drums get a little old. The flow is there, but I don't seem to care. Bah.

MC Charlie O: Same as above. But a little more desperate.

BBaBM: Percussion accents are distracting. Very much not so bad for rappish music -- again you twist it to your advantage. I don't really listen to 'urban' music... is this style (rapping to R&B) an 'established' genre, or what? I kinda like it. Vote.

PIGPEN: I thought it was Romanian at first, then I was dissapointed that it wasn't. The music is cool, but the story is too much. The accent is kinda cool, though. Just too much yak yak yak.

Ross Duand: I'm impressed that you always have a song, and you arrange and play them with care. Some are better than others. (Duh)

The HATE Noise: Gotta say that you always have something interesting. That means alot to me. -sniff- Capable weirdness is always welcome, and you deliver. Can I admire it without really liking it that much? Let it be so.

Jon Eric & friends: The vox is engaging, the music is good, the breaks are cool. The B sec kinda falls apart. BU vox is nice touch. Tempo really helps this. Not bad...

Josh Millard: Intriguing intro. Interesting song -- not too long or ambitious, but good arrangement and performance. Unconventional. Like it. Vote.

[MC Charlie_0]

LOL alright everyone, please just let me clear this up. The song I entered was in no way a serious song. I tried to make it really obvious, talking extremely white and all. It took me about 10 minutes to write the lyrics

[BBABM]

BBaBM: Percussion accents are distracting. Very much not so bad for rappish music -- again you twist it to your advantage. I don't really listen to 'urban' music... is this style (rapping to R&B) an 'established' genre, or what? I kinda like it. Vote.

awesome, i'm glad you liked it... i don't think it's an established style, i was kinda going for an operation ivy meets mighty mighty bosstones ska type thing. Op Ivy (tim armstrongs band before rancid) did a lot of "rappish" lyrics, and the chant during the chorus is definately right out of the bosstones songbook. thanks for the vote!

[saunter]

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