A Town Called Malice (Mad City Reviews)

[Dan-O from Five-O]

I don't really think anyone's under any obligation to be constructive,

I don't think anyone's obligated to anthing, either, but I guess I figure that what's posted on a discussion board is up for discussion.

It is, I was wrong. I meant to say I won't debate it. You folks feel free.

[Nut #2]

Boltoph

Man, I loved the production on this. The guitar line merging with the bass in the intro is spot on. The vocals were amazing. I absolutely loved the vocal harmonies on "got one bottle." I copied this onto my ipod and have been listening to it, and the only things I can suggest are to to get some live drums, and to EQ the drums/drum machine and guitar a bit to move them out of the midrange, as they muddy your excellent vocals. This song has a sweet feeling of solid prog-rock, reminds me a lot of Enchant, or Fate's Warning with better vocals.


Whitehat

I really like the guitar progression, but to me the chorus bit sounds too "busy," too many syllables or something. I totally dig the harmonica, and the way the vocals and the harmonica meld. When you lay into the stereo separation for the backup track, I want to hear more, but it ends too soon. I'm really liking this.

Stolar Skye

Driving beat. I like the bass track a lot. The vocals in the first bit work really well. I'm totally into the chorus guitar, rocks hard. This has huge potential, but everything just repeats. My personal feeling is that needs to be about 2 minutes shorter, and needs a bridge. I like the solo, it really melds well with the bass lick.

Steve Durand

I loved the horn section. The little fill bits put me in the Mos Eisley Cantina. This is a cool cop show theme from a galaxy far far away. I kind of wish it had some lyrics, but I think I see where you were going, and I'm cool with it.

SFO

I'm really interested in this. The vocals are great, really fit well with the guitar, but it makes me feel like you're about to break into a huge 80's rock ballad, but it doesn't happen. Seems kind of unfinished, but I like it anyhow.

Ryan Hardigan

Neat track. I don't really see the link to the title. A few other people mentioned this, and I have to agree. I feel like i'm on level 17 of Metroid or whatever. It has no particular connection to the theme, but I think it's a great track for a video game.

Ross Durand

I figured this as a random Beach Boys cover, until the other Nuts educated me on the Mad Magazine theme. Once I got that vibe, I dug it, but quite honestly I'm not really into the late 70s Surf City thing. The lyrics are really clever though. It's only personal dislike for 70s-80s beach music that draws me away from this.

Phunt

Are you having breakfast? There's just no connection to the title here that I can figure.. The synth line is like a mistake track. I am sorry, but I just can't get into this, although I must confess that I like the spoon beat.

Johnny Cashpoint

I am feeling the ghost of Murray Head, or maybe The Clash. I wanted to like this, but I just couldn't get there. I guess it's just not my type of music. The production was good, although there was some feedback early on. I like the heartbeat bass in the intro. Personally, I think the vocals would be better if they weren't so distorted and riddled with high frequency feedback. I really like your bass sound though, how do you get that huge bass into the mix?

Hooker

Others have commented on this. Guitar needs to be more up in the mix.
I think you've got a great thing going here, just need to bring the
guitar up in the mix to meld better with the vocals.

David 'Over

Great piano bit, and nice vocals. It doesn't really grab me, but it's
technically solid. I have no doubt that you will play a song that grabs me
at some point, and I look forward to it.

Nutwalls

Me. Yes, I am out of my range, and this is real new to all of us. Hopefully every new song will be an improvement!

- Nut #2 - Chris

[Leaf]

So, no reviews , but I listened to all three fights, and I got some fav's that stood out.

Boltoph, Johnny, stolarsky.

good tunes.

[Ross]

First off - I think what happened here is that one of my students (I'm a teacher) googled me, found this, and got some fellow students to vote. So I respectfully defer to the Nutwalls and Stolar Skye. It disapointed me, 'cause now I can't tell how many votes I actually earned (unless they really did all like my song best I have tried to discourage them from doing this type of vote stacking in the future.


Second off-
I don't really think songs should have to explain themselves, which is why I waited till the voting period was over. My song was definitely filled with somewhat obsure (or obscured) references and aimed at a niche market. But for those interested, Here are the references I was attempting to make to MAD magazine.

"Mr. Newman...Alfred" - Alfred E. Newman, the Magazine mascot (of course)

"Not the one who wrote those scores" - There is a famous Hollywood composer named Alfred Newman, Uncle to Randy Newman and also related to Thomas Newman ("American Beauty").

"Friend named Sergio" - Aragones, long time Mad cartoonist

"seems pretty marginal" - who drew all those tiny cartoons in the margins

"always looks mad at me" - he also does "A Mad look at..." (last week was paintball).

"living in a satire" - Mad is of course famous for their TV and movie satires

"In Blecch we trust" - I just associate this word with the magazine for some reason

"Just say no to Cracked" - Cracked was an imitator/competitor of MAD when I was a kid (might still be I guess).

"Stupid question...snappy answer" - Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions used to be a MAD staple

"Looked me in the eye..didn't seem on the level" - Alfred E. Newman's eyes are not both on the same horizontal line

"Fold-in" is that classic inside back cover

"Spelled with number signs and punctuation" - all the cuss words always looked like *&!$ - often they were in the titles of satires

"Two spies...Black and white" - Spy v. Spy

"Usual gang of idiots" - the last line of the writing credits on the table of contents page

"He's not worried" - Alfred E. Newman's slogan, "What me Worry?"

And I tried to have the music and vocals match the wacky theme.

So there you go - thanks for reading, if you did.