They're just dying to get in (Funeral Director Reviews)

[tonetripper]

Sorry all about no reviews..... ran out of time... heading down south for a while and won't be back for two weeks. I promise I'll post up reviews when I get back for this fight.

[nyjm]

Review Responses!

no-uh-mac-glock-land- CEltic land of a million faces or horses and so many layers of melody, i think the guitar got a little destorted in the move . do you tour? i picked up a heavy casket and you're right SO heavy!

your reviews frequently make scratch my head, but i think i'm slowly deciphering their kinetic surrealism. anyway, no, the distorted guitar is definitely supposed to be like that; fun with pre-sets on Kristal. i didn't think i layered that many melodies on this song, though the guitar solo and the vox melody certainly don't have anything to do with each other.

Damn, that's nice guitar. Damn, that's a nice voice. (There's a guy that sounds just like you at my open mic. Strange.) Aw man, I'm a sucker for this music type. This is very pretty, and the distort-y-non-natural-guitar noise works.

wow. thanks. i think you are in the vast majority that LIKE my voice, but hey, i'll take the praise where i can get it. i tried very hard to stay in tune and enunciate with this song, but i don't know how comfortable i ever got with the vox melody.

Noah McLaughlin

i don't know if it was intentional, but i didn't get all the way through your review, b/c after the "i couldn't really understand what you were saying," it just cuts off.

anyway, you seem to be with the majority of others who aren't a fan of my voice. i'm working on it. but did you really find it that hard to understand the lyrics? i thought they were pretty clear - except, perhaps, on the chorus.

The vocal is carrying everything and everything is heavy. I would have enjoyed this if it had been sung by Lyle Lovett.

yeah, very heavy, though this isn't where i planned to go with the tune. but, i guess with a name like "funeral director" a dirge-like song is appropriate, no?

i tried to sing like lyle lovett for this week's songfight and trust me, it's not good. i'll just stick with trying to sing faster melodies.

i'm moving my head back and forth... reeds flowing in the breeze.... a bit of sunset sunshine full on my face... they put the poison needle in and i'm slowly fading away... WHOAAAAAAAAAAA who is that man singing!??? i don't dislike the voice, but i wanted maybe a voice like landstander in this... just mellower... and this voice sort of counterpoints the guitar, but i sort of wanted to stay in the nice mellow mood... i resent the voice, even tho i would like it in another setting

yeah, i'm a sucker for female vox, too. sometimes i think i write melodies for women and then try to sing them myself. my few collabs have turned out quite well, i think.

i do have a problem, often, of the solo and the vox being two different creations. unlike most solos, i don't riff on the vox melody, so i can see how the solo set you up for something not my voice/lyric tone.

maybe a nice e-bow, wawa-ed, slow solo instead...

This is, like most of your stuff worthy of many, many playbacks...

um... thanks. it's nice to know that other people willingly listen to my stuff more than once. however, something more constructive would be appreciated in the future.

The thundering distorted guitar was way restrained. Way restrained for the sound it was making. Some dynamic interplay between the two axes, especially in the angrier bits where the disto plays the part of tolling church bells or mournful steps of the pallbearers, would've been pretty neat. Took a while for me to get into your voice. It's not you, it's my own quirks about that particular sound & tone. But get into it I did.

the guitar's restrained b/c it's just my one and only guitar being effected to hell in the mixer. any louder and it would just be noise, unfortunately, and clipping like mad.

i really like the church bell idea. it didn't occur to me that way when i was writing the part (i just wanted some rhythmic counterpoint to the chorus), but i really like the idea. how would suggest more interplay between the clean and distort guitar parts?

wow, and another (semi-)fan of my vox. i must be improving. i used to drive people away.

the acoustic stuff is pretty nice and pretty ruined by that oversaturated guitar.

oh. too bad. i like the distort guitar. i thought it did a good tonal job of undermining the sweetness of the acoustic guitar. i wanted the song to be more gritty, have a nasty underbelly (hey, it's about mass murder with a grin on your face...)

I liked the acoustic parts could have done without the dist guitar. The vocal is nicely sung but the tone is not in keeping with the rest of the song. That?s it! It feels tonally unbalanced though the fading echo on the vocal is nice. The vocal tone and the dist guitar at 2:20ish is annoying the crap out of me.

another non-fan of the distorted guitar. is it just the tone of the solo that you don't think meshes with the distortion or the overall feel? however, i think you hit it on the head with the tone of the vox and the music not meshing. this might have been better just spoken, or with a more rapid-fire delivery than my fake wailing. dunno what to do about the chorus.

Nice guitar - but the slow tempo isn't keeping my attention. Vocal echos don't work well. You seem to be trying too hard with the vox

yeah, that's me. trying to hard. vox are the hardest part for me. i can write lyrics for days, mind you, but signing isn't my forte. the song is supposed to be slow, but a faster vocal delivery seems to be the key to improving it.

favorites:
[...]
noah - great electric there. you do tortured singing well.

woo-hoo! thank you. as i've said, it's not electic, but damn doesn't it sound like it. tortured (and torturing) singing is what tiggers do best!

thank you, everyone, for taking the time to do reviews. i know i greatly appreciate it and have learned tons from reviews. to some up this week:

split decisions:
- vox. mostly a tonal problem that could be addressed with: a. a different singer, or b. a faster rate of delivery)

- distorted guitars. again tonal issues, i think. possible fixes: a. leave it (i rather like it), b. give the solo more of a slow angry vibe to fit with the rest of the song, and c. take it down a notch for the chorus, but crank it up elsewhere.

good:
- acoustic guitar work

no comment (which means msotly good, since it didn't bother anyone):
- lyrics
- arrangement

[Rabid Garfunkel]

i really like the church bell idea. it didn't occur to me that way when i was writing the part (i just wanted some rhythmic counterpoint to the chorus), but i really like the idea. how would suggest more interplay between the clean and distort guitar parts?

Erm, this'll be kinda tricky to do in ascii, but... actually I've got no idea how to do it in ascii, and it's too early for me to be thinking about anything other than coffee, so... in the angry bits, pot down the figerpicked guitar and pot up the fauxlectric. And vice versa. Lather rinse repeat. Interplay at its simplest.

The fauxlectric doesn't have to go to eleven, but it does need to go somewhere, y'know?

[stueym]

"Macabre" (what were you expecting with a title of Funeral Director!!!)
"The Clash's London's Calling"
"Karaoke"
"Bond Movie opening credits"
"Kate Bush"
"Heart or 1970's rock"
"Please tell me that was a live [drum] set you were rocking"

No matter what the votes are I think we achieved our own personal objective of totally getting away from the folk-pop G&G label

Thanks everyone for the encouraging comments and for those of you who enjoyed, you are welcome....those of you who didn't....Oh well...C'est La Songfight!

Which brings me to the question our Fra-nadian colleagues might help out with....is Songfight! Masculine or feminine?Le ou La?

[nyjm]

Which brings me to the question our Fra-nadian colleagues might help out with....is Songfight! Masculine or feminine?Le ou La?

well, being the french representative here at songfight, most foreign words are by default masculine in french, especially from english.

donc... le Songfight!, c'est vraiment trop cool, tu piges?

[stueym]

Which brings me to the question our Fra-nadian colleagues might help out with....is Songfight! Masculine or feminine?Le ou La?

well, being the french representative here at songfight, most foreign words are by default masculine in french, especially from english.

donc... le Songfight!, c'est vraiment trop cool, tu piges?

Vive Le Songfight!

[nyjm]

Vive Le Songfight!

*resists urge to correct spelling b/c articles are only capitalized at the beginning of a sentence; remembers the importance of positive reinforcement*

C'est ça! Très bien! ;-)

</off topic>

[sberryreal]

Draft - hey, I was really surprised you didn't win. I thought your song was awesome. A lot of really great things about it...voice, drums, lyrics, rhythm guitar. Really good stuff. Your vocals in particular were superb.

I wasn't dazzled by the lead guitar break, but it was good and had an appropriate tone for the song. That's my only knock, but a minor one.

I'm looking forward to more of your tunes.

[PiGPEN]

FUCK.......YEAH!