The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Just a couple reviews. I don't have thoughts on all the songs.

Caravan Ray: Great lyrics. Great song. This is the single that gets them to buy the album. Sell-out.

Paco del Stinko: Fantastic. Really like the double time hand claps in the chorus, and the multiple guitar solos are great. Excellent ending.

BIlly and the Psychotics: I wasn't sure about the vocals, but the chorus and the second verse are much stronger than the first verse. Love that little "Go!" before the solo.

Tall Walkers: Interesting voice, but waaaay too quiet.

ShotPounder: This is too long. I started to think it was a Jethro Tull cover.

Slickitude: is me.

Glennny: This is really odd and nice. I like how some things sound a little off. The chord progressions are never quite what I'm expecting.

Holly Furlone: This is really great, really nice voice. I like the first "verse" better than the second, because you seem to adopt some pop stylings in the second part. It would be great if you could get a cleaner recording, because that's a heck of a lot of hiss. Excellent lyrics. The "hard to see the light when my eyes are always on you" line is great, as is the repeat of "always on you." But here's a real nitpicky thing: I think at 1:15 you should sing "I'll see you later but not if YOU see me first" because the way you sing it just doesn't make sense. I know, nitpicky because it's a great song, but you can tell I listened to it enough to let that line get to me. This song could really be developed into something fantastic, and it's already well on the way.

Here's a weird face for no reason other than my son just said: Put a weird face.

Smalltown Mike wrote: Slickitude: is me.

Ahhh - didn't recognise the voice on first listen - but on re-listen - yes it is obvious.

Welcome back!

W.A.I.L. I.A.A.C.

BSS - my first reaction was "no" - and I was hearing Robyn Hitchcock's "Mellow Together" - but that chorus is pure catchy hell - though I hear "I keep my testes double-blind", which I hope / am pretty sure is a mondegreen. Possibly this is lacking a cool electric guitar lead all the way through - when the double (testes) solo(s) come, it/they feel(s) strangely out of place. And as always for me with BSS songs, It feels a third too long. Do you have a witch's nipple or something? Enjoyable without really kicking me (in the testes).

BatP - Lalala! Did your rhythm section lend its testes to BSS? This is like Katrina (Kastrina?) and the Waves flirting with Paul Simon, Graceland era. But that is, in retrospect, a collision I am totally up for, so right now I'm VOTE-ing here. Just for the "go" really - I've always loved vocal intros for solos. Fade out your mp3s earlier, mind.

CR - Jesus, is it Vampire Weekend Appreciation Week round here or something? That said anything that rhymes sophistry with bigotry works for me. Mix wise the vocals need to be more dominant- it's like there's only mid-end and no hi-end here. The synth-trumpets are appealing (mainly because I hate real trumpets). Joyously spiteful.

Cookie Blue - Yeah, that's a nice sound. These words "don't mean anything to me" but I don't mind that, cos it sounds sweet enough. I love its brevity, and it all sounds good, but for me at least, the nonsense of the lyric means I can't engage quite enough to vote.

Glenny - those first 45 seconds are amazing. When it all goes 'DK - lounge version of "Cambodia" I am less engaged. But maybe actually this is great. Although I HAVE heard that pre-chorus elsewhere before. I'll come back to you on that. [edit- oh yeah, it's just a slowed down 'feeling groovy'] This should be winding down at 2.30 - not because it's not good (obviously), just because it would be great to have a song that evolves without repeating. I DO like that "echo of the intro" solo, which obviously undermines everything I've been saying. This is probably amazing. I don't have enough time to listen repeatedly to be sure. Soz. That said, do love the ending.

Holly Furlone - That's some singing! Shortbutsweet. If I'm being brutally honest, I'm not completely sure the song is strong enough to support the bare-bones arrangement.

Infinity Point Buck - I think I like the mad out of tune / not out of tune bad / good singing in the chorus at the start than I do the defensively non-commital rap verses. There are some great lines dotted about. Again, knows when to get out of dodge. I need to think about this one.

J.A.N. - Given that two hours before the deadline, this was never going to happen, and I had to record the vocal on my phone in a cupboard at work (no, seriously), despite the fact I was never meant to be the "nominal vocalist" (I mean - really? What does that even f**king mean?), I am pleased with what we came up with, The mission statement this week was "broken New Order (the band)" - and I think we achieved that, with a hint of Lescops in the bridge. Happy.

John Lampson - Loving that backing track. Shame you wobble off pitch-wise too many times, given how loud in the mix the vocal is - not that I care too much about pitchy singing, but if you're going to put it that far fore-front, you're going to run the risk of it coming back to bite you on the pitchy arse. Pitchily.

New Image - The band is a little flat in the mix, by which I don't mean out of tune, just not punchy enough. - it may just be a vocal / rest mix issue, so sling some exciter at it? While not my personal taste, this appears to me as a good song suffering from sounding more sluggish than it actually is. Clearly you can make things stand out (see the guitar solo) so you might want to consider applying that technique to the other instruments? You have a good singing voice but I'm not sure it can carry this sluggishness. That said, the song is the right length.

PdS - Hell, yeah, that's a great chord progression. That descent around 1.10 thrills me. I like this a lot.

Shitpounder - yes, YES, YESSSSSSSSSSSs!!!!. VOTE.

Slickitude - Did I hear "like a freight train, only in reverse"? I hope not. This is a perfectly fine song that's going nowhere until that final, semi-discordant chord makes me question my presumptions. Not enough to garner a vote, because i hear a throwaway, but best last chord I've heard for years.

Sasha Pedro - Another example of lovelysingingaboutnothing. Possibly this means something profound, but I'm too stupid to get it, and if music is about communcation, we've both failed, right? That said, it's a great listen, very well performed; but a line like " a guilt of a woman ... much older than me"? I'm sorry and embarrassed to say, not getting the personal truth, it means absolutely nothing to me, and as I am a harsh judge, you are only 73% towards my regular vote. Dumb down a little bit and I'll will be a massive fan. What I'm trying badly to say is a song I *wanted* to vote for ...

So that was a weird fight. Lots here I like but little I love. Which is more about me than you all. Votes to B&tP and Shitpounder. Plenty of others who may reach vote status when I've had some time to digest ...

j$ wrote: Tall Walkers

Edit - 'Tall Walkers' question resolved

j$ wrote: I hate real trumpets

So hoping that you would have said you hated horns. It would have made BLT's day.

Yeah, I don't understand why everyone is suddenly using "Sasha Pedro" -- I play under Tall Walkers and I have no idea where the access to my real name came from - I would really appreciate if that would halt immediately.

likewised wrote:Yeah, I don't understand why everyone is suddenly using "Sasha Pedro" -- I play under Tall Walkers and I have no idea where the access to my real name came from - I would really appreciate if that would halt immediately.

Without doing any kind of looking into this, I'm going to guess it is in the meta-data of the MP3 you submitted. If you don't want people to know that info, check your meta-data and make sure it is correct.

Ken's right. The id3 tags don't say anything about Tall Walkers. Contributing Artist, Album and Composer all have the real name.

You can perhaps send in another mp3 with fixed tags and ask Spud or JB nicely to swap the songs. But, at this point, the name is already out there. Trying to erase it off the web may be like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

I edited my post to add Tall Walkers, for what it's worth but ... I was just looking at the name that came up on my ipod. It wasn't exactly sorcery.

likewised wrote:Yeah, I don't understand why everyone is suddenly using "Sasha Pedro" -- I play under Tall Walkers and I have no idea where the access to my real name came from - I would really appreciate if that would halt immediately.

Did you get tired of hearing Peter jokes? Feel lucky your first name is Sasha. One of our members here is named Furry Pedro. As you can imagine, he hears it all the time.

.....I think his parents were hippies.

Smalltown Mike wrote: BIlly and the Psychotics: I wasn't sure about the vocals, but the chorus and the second verse are much stronger than the first verse. Love that little "Go!" before the solo.

Yeah, it gets stronger as it builds for sure. If it was worked on for a set, it would get fleshed out better I'm sure. Thanks, Mike.

j$ wrote:BatP- Lalala! Did your rhythm section lend its testes to BSS? This is like Katrina (Kastrina?) and the Waves flirting with Paul Simon, Graceland era. But that is, in retrospect, a collision I am totally up for, so right now I'm VOTE-ing here. Just for the "go" really - I've always loved vocal intros for solos. Fade out your mp3s earlier, mind.

Thanks, J! Yeah, the ending is completely unnecessary. The ending was in my rough vocal I sent Dee. I had no intentions of leaving it, but she's weird and liked it. But yeah, if used later that will come out unless she puts her foot down, lol. It's all about compromises and all that happy horse shit.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

likewised wrote:Yeah, I don't understand why everyone is suddenly using "Sasha Pedro" -- I play under Tall Walkers and I have no idea where the access to my real name came from - I would really appreciate if that would halt immediately.

Did you get tired of hearing Peter jokes? Feel lucky your first name is Sasha. One of our members here is named Furry Pedro. As you can imagine, he hears it all the time.

'Furry Pedro' has caught my eye! Perhaps collaborations leading to unbearable 'Vote For Pedro' jokes in the future...

Anyway, appreciate the adjustment. I must've grabbed a duplicate file from an iTunes folder instead of the original.

I'd vote for you just on principle alone.

likewised wrote:Yeah, I don't understand why everyone is suddenly using "Sasha Pedro" -- I play under Tall Walkers and I have no idea where the access to my real name came from - I would really appreciate if that would halt immediately.

Did you use GarageBand? I think its default behavior is to name your projects "User's Name's Song" where "User's Name" is the full name you've set up for your account on your Mac.

Lunkhead wrote:Did you use GarageBand? I think it's default behavior is to name your project's "User's Name's Song" where "User's Name" is the full name you've set up for your account on your Mac.

You're entirely right - I fiddled a bit. Of course all that was after I submitted this week's song. Thanks!

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

Smalltown Mike wrote: BIlly and the Psychotics: I wasn't sure about the vocals, but the chorus and the second verse are much stronger than the first verse. Love that little "Go!" before the solo.

Yeah, it gets stronger as it builds for sure. If it was worked on for a set, it would get fleshed out better I'm sure. Thanks, Mike.

j$ wrote:BatP- Lalala! Did your rhythm section lend its testes to BSS? This is like Katrina (Kastrina?) and the Waves flirting with Paul Simon, Graceland era. But that is, in retrospect, a collision I am totally up for, so right now I'm VOTE-ing here. Just for the "go" really - I've always loved vocal intros for solos. Fade out your mp3s earlier, mind.

Thanks, J! Yeah, the ending is completely unnecessary. The ending was in my rough vocal I sent Dee. I had no intentions of leaving it, but she's weird and liked it. But yeah, if used later that will come out unless she puts her foot down, lol. It's all about compromises and all that happy horse shit.

I'm putting my foot down. Besides, I think it's kinda cool and it makes the song quirky plus it made me laugh - so it stays. Too bad! Go!

Just to clarify my happy drunk reviewing (yes, me and the missus [don't worry, he doesn't read the boards, he'd absolutely murder me for that] did had a short but since-resolved fight about fifteen minutes after posting these reviews due to "it's too late to be playing music shitloud"), the "fade out earlier" comment is referring to the long gasp of silence at the end of the mp3, not the song's fade-out itself.

And something I *thought* I'd added to my review but hadn't, and actually won the vote from me, was "right at the vinegar strokes (google it), the way the two voices work together is actually delicious, and, frankly, I would like to hear more of that in the future. It's casual, yes, but tonally it's extremely pleasing. MORE CARPENTERS-ESQUE HARMONIZING, PLEASE."

It still sounds too much like Vampire Weekend, mind

j$

RangerDenni wrote:

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

Smalltown Mike wrote: BIlly and the Psychotics: I wasn't sure about the vocals, but the chorus and the second verse are much stronger than the first verse. Love that little "Go!" before the solo.

Yeah, it gets stronger as it builds for sure. If it was worked on for a set, it would get fleshed out better I'm sure. Thanks, Mike.

j$ wrote:BatP- Lalala! Did your rhythm section lend its testes to BSS? This is like Katrina (Kastrina?) and the Waves flirting with Paul Simon, Graceland era. But that is, in retrospect, a collision I am totally up for, so right now I'm VOTE-ing here. Just for the "go" really - I've always loved vocal intros for solos. Fade out your mp3s earlier, mind.

Thanks, J! Yeah, the ending is completely unnecessary. The ending was in my rough vocal I sent Dee. I had no intentions of leaving it, but she's weird and liked it. But yeah, if used later that will come out unless she puts her foot down, lol. It's all about compromises and all that happy horse shit.

I'm putting my foot down. Besides, I think it's kinda cool and it makes the song quirky plus it made me laugh - so it stays. Too bad! Go!

You're not my real mom!

j$ wrote:Just to clarify my happy drunk reviewing (yes, me and the missus [don't worry, he doesn't read the boards, he'd absolutely murder me for that] did had a short but since-resolved fight about fifteen minutes after posting these reviews due to "it's too late to be playing music shitloud"), the "fade out earlier" comment is referring to the long gasp of silence at the end of the mp3, not the song's fade-out itself.

And something I *thought* I'd added to my review but hadn't, and actually won the vote from me, was "right at the vinegar strokes (google it), the way the two voices work together is actually delicious, and, frankly, I would like to hear more of that in the future. It's casual, yes, but tonally it's extremely pleasing. MORE CARPENTERS-ESQUE HARMONIZING, PLEASE."

It still sounds too much like Vampire Weekend, mind

j$

Ah, got it. I just listened to the file I sent in. It does have a good 5 seconds on the end. Annoying when streaming the whole fight.

lulz @ vingar strokes.

Billy's Little Trip wrote: You're not my real mom!

slapping silences onto ends is just the kind of shit that happens in my kitchen, boy!

I forgot to tell you, Mr. RangerDen started gooberly started calling me Justine Beaver as I complained over my infantile and nasally singing on this track (that is my BATP review, you and Charlie were awesome!). I thought that was funny. If this song sticks I'll rewrite the first verse because I think it blows.

A few hasty reviews, written on a first listen, on crappy earbuds, while eating. Not ideal listening conditions, but I make do.

Infinity Point Buck
The instrumentation is hopelessly bland, and your singing is off-key to the point of atonality. Your rapping is okay, though. Not sure I understood what you were talking about, but the flow is pleasant enough. Mix your voice a little louder, or try some studio effects to get it to stand out from the backbeat.

Berkeley Social Scene
Slick electric piano. I like that the arrangement is sparse enough to let the keyboard shine. I'm not sure if it was worth it to have Ken spend so much time near the top of his vocal range - it sounds like he's straining a bit there. Oh hey, drums! I like the pacing here. The lyrics strike me as a little too prosaic, but that's a matter of personal taste. The lead guitar part over the last chorus is nice. And the stereo solo (or is that two guitarists?) at the end make for a nice coda.

Cookie Blue
One of my musical pet peeves is when you have to change which syllable of a word takes the accent just to make it fit your melody - you do this a few times in this short song, but at least you don't hang around long enough for me to get annoyed at the fidelity.

John Lampson
Cocky, confident intro. Strong vocal performance. Good narrative. Different percussion in the chorus. This is a little rough around the edges, but it's the most polished entry in this fight so far. Ooh, bad rhyme alert! "Love" and "Sent from above" is strained and trite. Consider reworking that line if you revise this song. Good outro.

Caravan Ray
In typical fashion, you waste no time getting to the business of the song. I like the fast pace. I like the way you fit the melody to the title. This is a little didactic, but I have a soft spot for a fun hate-song, so all's forgiven. This is the one to beat so far. Vote.

ShotPounder
This is a personal preference thing, but I hate vocals that are screamed out like that. The guitars are pretty good, I guess. Something feels kind of "off" about them to me, but I'm not a guitar guy, so I won't venue a guess as to what it is. I like the time signature. Over and done real quickalike.

glennny
I like the transition from the intro to the first verse. It's unexpected, but it works. Not all the rhymes here work, but if you don't like one, just wait two seconds for another. I think I'm going to need multiple listens to grok what this is about, especially when the spoken-word parts conflict with the sung lyrics. Great e-bow work, as always. As it builds to a close, it veers close to cacophonous disaster, but always stays on the right side of listenable. Vote.

Billy & the Psychotics
Wait, how's that? "You said you'd steal my heart / Not if I see you first"? I'm having trouble making sense out of that. I like the optimistic vibe of the music and the bouncy melody. Great vocal work (and pretty light on the studio effects!) from Denise. I like the half-time breakdown on the last chorus. I can't decide whether or not I like ending on Chris' voice like that.

J.A.N.
A little too much distortion here, making the piece physically unpleasant to listen to. I guess the drums and synths hit a pretty good groove. I just can't get into it. Sorry.

Paco del Stinko
Sweet axe work. These lyrics are nonsensical, but in a silly way that makes me smile. Are these live drums? I think I heard a mistake in one of the drum fills. I really like the call-and-response and the melodic structure. Really excellent balance of guitars, coming to the forefront when needed to keep things active throughout. Best song of the week so far. Vote.

New Image
Before starting the song, I thought "Wow, that sounds like a post-punk band from the 80s." Then I started the song, and thought "Wow, that really sounds like a post-punk band from the 80s." With better vocals, this would be a strong contender. You're not even technically hitting any sour notes, but you're really straining your voice in a manner that doesn't match the song, and it's not pleasant to listen to, either. I know not everyone has a great set of pipes or whatever, but this is one of the worst cases I've ever heard of an otherwise-passable song being derailed by one bad element.

Tall Walkers
Beautifully sparse. Good vocal performance. There are a couple of parts where you're trying to cram too many lyrics into a melody that would be better served by leaving some space between words. I would also recommend you work a little bit on breath control.

Holly Furlone
I like the live recording. It gives the performance an urgency that might have been missing from a "cleaner" recording. This hits emotionally in a way that bypasses the critical part of my brain. I don't have any negative comments. Vote.

Slickitude
When it comes to rhymes with "first," I've heard worse. I feel like Paco did something very similar to you, but his was much better. I know it's not fair to you that I can't assess your song without comparing it to someone else's, but them's the breaks.

What was with all the short songs? Was there an optional challenge?

Generic wrote: J.A.N.
A little too much distortion here ....

Lightweight. There's not *enough*.

Generic wrote:Billy & the Psychotics
Wait, how's that? "You said you'd steal my heart / Not if I see you first"? I'm having trouble making sense out of that

You're over thinking it, Copernicus.
It's just a simple different approach on a cliche. Think of it as a girl/guy/human sitting in class and day dreaming about the object of their affection. They know that it's kinda mutual and maybe she overheard him talking on the "playground" or something. So she's all … so … you think you said you were coming to get ME???? hmmmmm....not if I see you FIRST, buster-brown!!!

Now move along, fine sir. And thank you for the review.