The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Does the reference matter? Nope. I was just being a Bjork fan.

Regarding The Proclaimers.....I am not sure what kind of girl you were wooing, but for me, It just makes me think of "So I married an Axe Murderer".

Is that because it's of the same ilk as "There She Goes" by the La's?

again, 1989-1990 (when most popular music really sucked, and production values were at an all time most tasteless) the Proclaimers were pretty damn cool.

DJ RANGER DEN'S RealTime-(crazyassed) LunchHour Reviews ….
I'm completing and releasing my reviews retrogressively, although I've written many of my thoughts down. I've had a hell of a month and a half. Excuses, excuses … wah-wah. I'm going to outside to middle order, like a fan closing…
Also, I've read none of the previous reviews yet. I'm just getting this down before I change my mind!!!!! I thought it was important because I've done NONE before! [deep breath]

I'm also very terrified, because I don't like to make suggestions, give my opinion, criticize, etc.

Berkeley Social Scene: This has not been my absolute-absolutist of yours so far. That's IS NOT a diss, because everything I've heard from y'all has been stellar. It just doesn't strike me as a hit song. It was very interesting, and spoken-wordy. You guys are so tight and so well arranged as usual though, no matter what you do. I like the bell-like tones in the back ground and the guitar work. I do not know your material enough to tell where the collab ends and where you begin. I think that you guys would/are(?) make/(currently?) amazing studio musicians.

WhoFly: Don't laugh: I wished I could hear your vocals more. {I'm running. I'm hiding. Under the Bush of Hypocrisy}. Maybe it was a tambre thing. Maybe it was the arrangement. But I really like the chords that you chose. The synth sounds you chose confused me, as did your rhythms - but maybe … in a good way. I think it fit your voice. I like the quick, beepy stuff during the soft, high vocal "can't you see." That was really wicked and my favorite part of the tune. I think I like you

Billy's Little Trip: Right away the trumpet solo made me very happy. Your melody is very different … but I think I'm liking it a lot. Your rhymes are fun and you take risks that I wouldn't think to take. You're riding your motorcycle really close to the edge of the cliff- but you're not falling off. Sometimes I feel like you're going to and I put my hand over my mouth, but you NEVER do! How are you doing that! It's so weird. I've been becoming a fan since day 1 of you though.

Therman: once again, I'm going to run for the Vocal Criticisms Hypocrisy Bush. I'm only saying it though because by the time you hit the "ugly as you say" vocal I realize that you've got some sexy-vocal thing going. [End of song UPDATE: "BOYohBOY do YOU!!!!"] I don't know you enough to know if that's you or your guest. I'm at a real disadvantage. I spend too much time listening to loud guitars to enjoy this type of sound much, but I hear good song and like the playing and structure and drumming well done work (I envy, I don't have the studio chops!) …. [p.s. the "'97 baby" line at the end was SOOOOOO Rock Star! YUMMMMM!]

BoopBoop, with apologies: I'm trying to listen to this with a clear mind. I'm really trying. But the Song Fu people have made me run screaming in fear from Muppets and Related Show-Tune oriented BS…..
Oh! Awesome at 1:09 Plus… you've done the right thing with the idea. I'm starting it over and trying again.
Once I realized the song was funny-hillarical-funny, and turned down the shrillness in my phones, I dug it immensely.
I like the jazz voicing of that chord towards the end. I think if I had been able and allowed to &*$# up the Muppetry some over at TMA/FU, I may have been able to deal with them without running screaming from the room.
[I hope I didn't take liberties in your review. I apologize. I think you're very creative I also want to count the delicate legs of the caterpillar]

Sid Denison and the Harpooners: Awwww! love the accents. The hand drumming was perfect. My insane-ass husband liked my goofyass song. He is from Sydney though. I will play him this song so he can hear some quality and production. Your bass is tasty. It was a little techno for me and could have blues-ed up a bit with the bass line you laid, or had a series of ripping electric guitar fills. I haven't decided how I feel about the "na-na-na's," or all the nothing-s [update: I like the "nothings" because of the effect on them. I also like the way you sing "tell … the … children"]
{the kid at the end makes me miss my nephews}

Chris Cogott: NICE GUITAR! And I love the vocal harmonies. Please give me something to complain about… Please? Perhaps you could have paused a little bit before going back into the fast part. That's the ONLY thing. Maybe a different piano sound? (that's something I'll always say though, but not in the slow bit). This song reminded me in the slow bit of everything I liked about a cover of 'Que Sera' by Pink Martini (it's not the same, but I love creepiness). This solidifies my funniness over you, this round does …

The Real Sign: The answering vocal person was a GREAT effect. The combination of those two tambres on the vocals was REALLY smart because y'all are SCARY. I almost wanted more instruments or more … stuff … in the front or more fatness in the bass or something. But I'm listening on earphones and I'm contradicting my other reviews now of course. I don't know if this did it for me or not, but it was creepy and y'all are a good stage production. You certainly set a scene. Why does this remind me a little bit of Manowar? (that's a good thing, btw) ...

DJ Ranger Den: [SELF REVIEW] Not bad for a last minute pull out-yer-butt. Learn to filter out white noise. Knowing your sitch from all week long, I'm surprised that you couldn't fix Alyssa's (who is a GREAT singer) vocal in 15 minutes. If by some miracle you get through to the next round (doubtful with all this stellar stuff), you're going to have to sit down and have a really stern conversation with yourself about priorities! [p.s. your piano sounds nice. It's still too drippy though. You're not quite to the Booze/Fazioli hybrid sound you're attempting to invent]

Naked Philosophy: Your acoustic sounds good. The tempo and noise alienated me a bit. I concentrated on your vocal and the togetherness. You're very tight. Once again. I'm alienated by the guitars and loud stuff. Ooo! Pretty string part! This is a PB&Jam of Sandwich of a song. I can hear this in a movie soundtrack of a Wes Anderson (perhaps during the part where someone is chasing someone else up or down the stairs with a fish or a plastic floppy monkey). Plus, this is another vocal that I think sounds really awesome. I can TELL that you're a SINGER! Yay!

Jon Eric: Dammit! You made me dance in a cafe! And people looked at me! Your lyrics are cute and I like your harmonies. I don't know why, but this is my favorite song of the round (thusly far). I want to cover it. I want get a partner and dance to it. I want to sing harmonies to it! Once again, I want to invent another piano for it. Y'all are ALL gonna get SOOOOO sick of me. *sigh* Also, only one more things. Maybe some low toms. Tasteful, 1950's Peggy Sue toms? A tuba for your bass (stop me now) … I dunno, I'm a cheeseball …

Minty Handy: I love your voice. I like the piano (JUMP BACK!!!). I couldn't find your reference. (listens again). There it is!
I think I got lost in this. How beautiful. My ….
I really don't have anything to say. I'm glad I had Jon's before this. I would have cried more.

Milo Dunderville: The mix on this is AMAZING. It supports your vocal wonderfully. I'm not tired because it's the last song. It would have been good after the Minty Handy song on a CD. I'm glad I ended on it. I almost wanted more horn improv. You almost could have been more egregious with the horns. Like on the chords, I mean. The Where the swell, starting earlier and longer fade outs. This is a matter of pickiness and personal taste. And it's really only because you put me in kind of a Blues Review frame of mind. I loved the sax solo. nice, nice.


I am having a REALLY good time, and doing Nur Ein has been one of the GOOD things right now for me. I love it here in this forum and you are all REALLY talented. I'm learning a LOT LOT!

Denise (DJRD)

MintyHandy wrote:Ranger Den, your piano destroys mine without even trying.

That's pretty frickkin amazing coming from you this round. I was DEVESTATINGLY impressed with your tune today and embarassed myself at a cafe by getting all emo-to over it

MintyHandy wrote:Too late for anyone to do anything about it, but check out this article I just read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Oak ... ,_Texas%29

Specifically, that after an attempted poisoning of the tree in the 80s, and desperate attempts by the community to save the tree (including blank-check funding from Ross Perot) that prevented its death but caused it to lose 2/3 of its canopy, acorns grew on the tree for the first time again...in 1997.

I didn't even think of that! And I live here!

Caravan Ray wrote:DJ Ranger Den[/b] (f/ Alyssa Day) - Sounds like you had some technical issues which is a shame. As it is, it seems a little meandering with no hook to grab hold of. With 2 clear vocals it may have been something very good

I SO did have trouble! It's nuts too, because Alyssa is a good singer. I took a chance using her track.

I'm not a great engineer (yet), and I do contests and stuff to learn. Does anyone know how to strip white noise from a track using eq or other effects or whatever without completely compromising everything in which we have come to believe ... lets say you HAVE to use the track, have to do it quick, and can't re-record.

Just hypothetically .....

ps. sorry re: four posts in a row after nuttin' at all! Tacky-tacky!!!

I like the jazz voicing of that chord towards the end.

Full disclosure: That guitar part was pieced together from about 20 separate punch-ins. I have a harmony rocket, so I could get the tone I wanted, and I can figure out phrasings that fake legit, but I am not a jazz/blues guitarist, or really a performing guitarist at all. Studio only.

RangerDenni wrote: Jon Eric: ... Once again, I want to invent another piano for it. Y'all are ALL gonna get SOOOOO sick of me. *sigh*

Hey, you know, we live in the same city...

......or really a performing guitarist at all. Studio only.

That's just enough to make me post the "Cable Beach" performance....I'll get on that.

Ben, you're a fine performing guitarist!

Generic wrote:

RangerDenni wrote: Jon Eric: ... Once again, I want to invent another piano for it. Y'all are ALL gonna get SOOOOO sick of me. *sigh*

Hey, you know, we live in the same city...

Oh wow!!!! We do!!! That's really great! Hey I live down south. I'm actually typing this in a cafe on South Congress...

Niveous wrote:

glennny wrote:A song doesn't have to be a hit for it to take you back to an era. For instance the Proclaimers song "500 miles" will always take me back to drunken high school parties in 1990, when we bought the album and played the hell out of it. It didn't become a hit until 1993 when it landed the Benny and Joon soundtrack.

True.

What on Earth made you buy the Proclaimers in 1990?

What on Earth made you admit you bought the Proclaimers?

I bought The Proclaimers first album, This Is The Story in 1987 - probably just weeks after it came out. I saw a short clip of Throw the R Away on a music show and thought it was hilarious and rushed out to buy the album


The bought the next album, Sunshine On Leith as soon as it was released in 1988. Did you seriously not hear The Proclaimers in the USA before 1993?!?!? They were huge here after that 2nd album in '88. (IMHO though - the 2nd album jumped the shark, the first one was by far the best.)

RangerDenni wrote: Billy's Little Trip: You're riding your motorcycle really close to the edge of the cliff- but you're not falling off. Sometimes I feel like you're going to and I put my hand over my mouth, but you NEVER do! How are you doing that! It's so weird. I've been becoming a fan since day 1 of you though.

Thanks, Denise.
Well I have been riding motorcycles a long time and I can say I've only gone off a cliff once. The only thing I hurt was my wiener, but they were able to sew it back on. Only issue I have is when the barometric pressure drops, it points to the right.

erin. wrote: Since my lyrics are totally autobiographical, there was a not too much thinking about which "Homogenic" song to use.
I chose "All is full of love" to represent the album, becuase it is well known. If I had included "I'm a fountain of blood, in the shape of a girl" ( from "Bachelorette", which is actually my favorite song on Homogenic, released in North America on September 23rd, 1997 ), it would have been harder for some folks who are not familiar with the album to make a connection.

I bought that album at the Tower Records in Berkeley, CA on the day it came out. My room mate, (the one in the song) worked there... she saved me a copy!).
I have been a fan of Bjork in all of her incarnations, and that album is certainly an influential part of my early 20's. I listened to it everyday on my train ride (BART) to work. Those were the days of the "discman"...no shuffling around.. just one album to bond with at a time. It's what stood out most for me when I looked back at 1997.

True story.

OK - I guess I can buy that (but you'll still have to convince Frankie). If the title had have been '87, I probably would have sung about the Proclaimers and you all would have thought I was hallucinating. OK, I probably was hallucinating in 1987, but that's beside the point.

Good song, as I wrote earlier, my pick for best of the round

signboy wrote:

C Ray wrote:I don't really understand what is going on here.

I usually try not to bash reviews, but you really don't get it? You didn't hear about the Heaven's Gate cult that all killed themselves, and were all over the news in 1997?

I had to Google that - and no, I don't actually recall that at all.

Mind you, in 1997 I was living on a remote Pacific atoll (Tarawa, in Kiribati), where we had no TV or overseas newspapers and certainly no internet or such. Only a one hour news bulletin per day (on the days when the electricity was working) from Radio Australia . Mad Seppos topping themselves probably didn't rate very high on RA's priorities. There actually are a lot of popular culture type things from the period 1995-1997 that I missed completely - that I only discovered years later. Like this one.

oh, right. I forget that your disconnectedness makes you kinda the southern version of me

"500 Miles" by the proclaimers is one on a very short list of songs that I actually can't stand. Literally it causes some sort of nervous response in me that just makes me anxious and want to run away.

This will have no bearing on my review of Berkeley Social Scene.

Nur Ein!!!

Ross wrote:"500 Miles" by the proclaimers is one on a very short list of songs that I actually can't stand. Literally it causes some sort of nervous response in me that just makes me anxious and want to run away.

Yeah, but their early stuff was great

signboy wrote:oh, right. I forget that your disconnectedness makes you kinda the southern version of me

Sid Denison's band photo actually comes from my Kiribati days:

I think that most bands fear a lack of success, but I doubt most fear releasing a huge pile of terrific work, only to have something relatively annoying/stupid be their "hit" (The Proclaimers as discussed above, Ben Folds Five's "Brick", and so on) and most people forever dismissing you with the assumption that's the kind of song you always write.

...and embarassed myself at a cafe by getting all emo-to over it

The tally so far: I am aware of five women who have heard the song so far, and all five of them have teared up. Which makes six people total (the sixth being me.) Probably because I'm picturing my daughter in her princess dress growing up and moving out, but still looking like she's four, and still in the princess dress.

EDIT: another woman just listened to it, and didn't cry. I mentioned that she was the first. She said "well, I know how to hide it."

you can add me and my wife.

MintyHandy wrote:I think that most bands fear a lack of success, but I doubt most fear releasing a huge pile of terrific work, only to have something relatively annoying/stupid be their "hit" (The Proclaimers as discussed above, Ben Folds Five's "Brick", and so on) and most people forever dismissing you with the assumption that's the kind of song you always write.

Wha-wha-what? Did you just list Ben Folds Five's "Brick" under "annoying/stupid"? Please explain.

RangerDenni wrote:Does anyone know how to strip white noise from a track using eq or other effects or whatever without completely compromising everything in which we have come to believe ... lets say you HAVE to use the track, have to do it quick, and can't re-record.

That's a tough challenge. EQ doesn't help much in my experience... after all, white noise means it's evenly distributed over the entire frequency spectrum. There are tools to reduce noise in a track by analysing sections that contain only the noise and basically subtracting that thing from the entire track, but the result usually sounds fairly horrible.
Perhaps there are better solutions, but they probably don't come cheap.