the return of sonofgearfight (sogf #5)

[mo]

Hey guys, I have intended to come back to doing sonofgearfights for a while, but I'm just now getting around to it. I will be doing a series of I think about 4 or 5 of these this time, as I've got some stuff I'm not using anymore, and I said to myself, I could try and sell this stuff or I could do what Blue would do. So I'm doing that instead. This time, the prize is a pair of super micro effects, the Olinthus Cicada is a new drive pedal from Songfight legend State Shirt's new company--not sponsored or anything, great little drive pedal, sounds really just like a tubescreamer. The Matthews Effect Keychain Fuzz is a great little idea, I think I got it a few years back in a giveaway from Matthews Effects, pretty much a Fuzz Face type of circuit I think.

Anyway, I picked this title as the LA wildfires are under control finally, for the moment. Hope you guys will find the title open enough to make a song about whatever's on your mind.

With that, LFG:

Submit an original song using the following prompts:
Title: "Burn Baby Burn"
Challenge: don't suck
Non-mandatory Inspiration Prompt: Be incendiary
Due Date: 11:59 pm PT, February 2, 2025
Donor: mo
Prizes:

One (1) Olinthus Cicada Overdrive pedal, ultramicro Tubescreamer, mint condition with all case candy, including the necessary cables (they're underneath the pedal in the box)
One (1) Matthews Effects Keychain Fuzz


Submissions should be sent to sonofgearfight@gmail.com
mp3s, please, regular Songfight conventions for submission.

Please name your file as such: bandname_bbb.mp3

Reviews and winner announcement will happen about a week from the due date, possibly sooner if not there are not many entries.

Reminder that the Inspiration Prompt is here to promote creativity and different approaches, and is not mandatory or a criteria for eligibility or ranking.

Contestants worldwide are eligible, if there are problems, issues with fulfillment will be handled to the best of everyone’s ability offline. Subsequent fights may have changes depending on prizing and donor.

The Fightmasters have graciously agreed to host this fight, so it will appear on its own page in the Songfight ecosystem.

Further announcements, corrections, and whatnot for this fight will be made in this thread

IMG_8784.jpg (5.04 MiB) Viewed 9527 times

IMG_8785.jpg (1.68 MiB) Viewed 9527 times

IMG_8786.jpg (2.17 MiB) Viewed 9527 times

[Lunkhead]

Awesome! I'll get something up on the songfight.org homepage about this shortly.

[BoffoYux]

If you’d like I can schedule a listening party.

Depends on if this is a hard entry date or not but I should be back in town by then to host.

[mo]

Sure, I mean if there's enough entries we can listening party, why not. If it's like any amount of hassle though, it's not super necessary, so whatever works for you

[ujnhunter]

Hopefully I can burn some mofos (not mo) for this one...

[mo]

Oh go ahead and burn me too

[ujnhunter]

Oh go ahead and burn me too

Well, if I do... you know I'll be using a "Black Ash" fuzz.

[mo]

that's what I'm talking about!

[crumpart]

Was panicking! Thought the due date was the first, and I'm out all day tomorrow. But the due date is the 2nd! YAY!

[mo]

Yup, the due date is 11:59 pm Feb 2, so the latest possible moment of Sunday night, and that's also Pacific Time, because I'm in Los Angeles, so hopefully that's even more relaxed time-wise for where you are

[roymond]

So, a cover of Baby’s On Fire won’t do?

[mo]

I mean you can do whatever you want, whether I like it or not is another question haha

[ujnhunter]

That is my favorite Eno tune... I didn't finish my (our) track...

[mo]

Ok if you want to submit it soonish, we can put it in on the playlist but not for this round of gear, if that's something you'd like to do

[BoffoYux]

I'm back from vacation - are the songs in yet?

I could do a LP tonight (Monday) or wait until next week to give people advance warning.

Thanks

Tommy G.

[mo]

yes, there's actually just one entry as it turns out, so not a lot of thinking about who won the gear hahaha

[mo]

Congrats to Hot Pink Halo, the winner of sonofgearfight #5!
I will be sending you the mini-pedals shortly!

[mo]

And now, some longwinded reviews haha

HPH: Fortunately or maybe not so much, since yours is the only entry I’m giving you a long dump of thoughts about your song. It’s probably mostly going to come off critical, but hopefully it will also come across that I’m just trying to download some specific, actionable items on how I think you could make your song the best version of itself. Take what you use, if some of this doesn’t speak to you, throw it away, it’s all good.

Notes:

tl;dr I like the song but feel like there's a number of specific elements of the execution that could be improved to make the song better.

I quite like the lyrics overall although I’m not totally sure how the “burn baby burn” fits in with the rest of the lyrics. I mean, certainly in a general sense the idea of inspiration and the act of creation, is related to fire and Prometheus and all that, but I feel like the lyric would benefit from something a little more explicitly connecting the burn baby burn lines to the verses.

The overall mix tonality is a little muted, I feel like it’s missing a little too much high end detail, maybe take a look at the 5khz - 7khz area?

I really like the section with all the BVs starting around 2:15, that’s a great idea. I generally tend to like interweaving backing vocal things, and there’s some good weaving lines in here.

When the song starts, it’s got a nice sort of build-up going on, and I kind of wish it did more of the 1999 intro thing such that just before the vocals come in, there’s a sound that helps explode the song from intro to a main part with the groovy drum part. Now obvs in 1999 that’s still the main riff and not the vocals, but you get what I mean. It wouldn’t have hurt either to follow the 1999 structure and explode into a memorable theme first to establish a melodic idea before the first verse anyway.

As it is, when the verse starts it’s a little underwhelming. I’m a big believer in first lines, both in terms of the lyrics, the actual words, as well as the melody. I think when those first lines are hooky and memorable, you’ve kind of won maybe not half the battle, but a very significant part of it. It’s the first line that really draws you into the world of the song lyric. In this case I’m not convinced by the sum of the parts. Like I think in isolation the vocal melody is good, the first line is fine, but as a whole it’s not grabbing me.

I also think the organ/keyboard is a little low in the mix, and the instrumentation generally is too quiet. You lose some of the power of the song when the balance between vocals and instruments errs too much on the side of the vocal. TBF, you end up with a similar problem when the vocal is too low, but in this case at a moderate volume level I feel like I’m not getting enough instruments to drive the groove.

The transitional thing I talked about earlier is a pervasive issue for me throughout this song, where each new section doesn’t quite get anticipated and land with authority. It’s mostly noticeable when you get to the chorus, I think it would benefit the song to really feel that transition. Maybe more thought into the percussion elements, like it doesn’t need to be all cymbal crashes or whatever like in a big rock song, but some kind of fills building into a stop, or whatever, I’m more talking about general concepts than specific sounds.

And then the way the song ends is with a bit of a whimper there, I kind of felt like the song was over when the vocals ended, and then it either needed to go someplace else with a new progression or riff or something, or just have an ending.

I’ve been holding off on commenting on the vocals because I feel like you must be aware of the pitch issues already, so maybe no need to belabor the point, but also there’s a bunch of phrasing issues. After a couple of listens I would say the majority of the things I hear are one of two things to consider. The first is when and where to breathe. There’s a number of times where in doing the vocal phrase in one take, you’ve done the breath a little late, and therefore the next vocal line starts in an awkward place, off the beat just a little. This also leads you ro start rushing a bit to catch up. I’m not so concerned about how audible the breaths are, obvs it’s useful to always practice good mic technique, but these are things you can mix out if you really want to. (Like 0:28, 0:58)

The second kind of phrasing issue is just making sure the phrase is rhythmically interesting. This is a technique that also helps some with pitchiness, not so much because it helps the pitch itself, but because when the rhythmic phrasing is more interesting, and executed well, you can get away with being a little out of tune; the listener will generally be more forgiving. You’ll hear Bowie doing stuff like this a lot, especially in his later oeuvre when he’s honestly kind of bored of singing just regular on the beat all the time—but he always knows where the beat is, and is masterfully playing around with it. Extending syllables, shortening them, curving around them, to great effect.

[crumpart]

And now, some longwinded reviews haha

HPH:
I quite like the lyrics overall although I’m not totally sure how the “burn baby burn” fits in with the rest of the lyrics. I mean, certainly in a general sense the idea of inspiration and the act of creation, is related to fire and Prometheus and all that, but I feel like the lyric would benefit from something a little more explicitly connecting the burn baby burn lines to the verses.

Thanks so much for many notes that I will read properly tomorrow. Just wanted to address this one first. The other songwriting challenge I was doing this for had a theme to choose an artwork and write a song inspired by it, and as this is actually a go to method for me, I jumped right on it. I like to go to an art gallery website, type in the prompt and see what comes up. This time it was an artwork by an Australian artist named Ian Burn. https://searchthecollection.nga.gov.au/object/33720

For Xerox Book #1 (1968) he took a blank sheet and photocopied it, then photocopied that photocopy and so on 100 times, then bound each consecutive photocopy together, starting with the blank sheet and ending with one that was almost fully black. While I was researching, I found this audio artwork from 1969 that runs with a similar idea, so referenced this in the song as well. The verses also include lots of references to mirrors and reflections, because Ian Burn also made a lot of mirror-based artworks.

I’m kind of in love with Xerox Book. I even bought two entire Ian Burn art books while I was writing it.

[mo]

that's a super cool idea, and a great allusion--I would never have figured that one out on my own!