FAWM

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:12 pm

I suppose so.

Plat · Post by **Plat** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:23 pm

Just a reminder that February is almost here again, which means it's time for more empty commitments!

Unlike last year, I'll actually be able to use my music gear, so I intend to finish the goal. Really.

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:07 pm

There's also the RPM Challenge. Gonna be a busy month.

And aside: I gotta plug the FAWM compilation CD, for the obvious reason (8)), but also because it's probably not obvious to most people just how much work Burr puts into FAWM. If you've ever participated, and gotten some good songs out of the experience, consider sending a few dollars to the cause.

Plat · Post by **Plat** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:12 pm

Awesome Des, didn't realize you submitted for the CD.

I haven't heard of RPM before either, but it sounds like 2-birds, one stone, and for once, people happy to see dead birds.

Paco Del Stinko · Post by **Paco Del Stinko** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 10:51 am

Can anyone FAWM, RPM, and Songfight in 28 days? That's 14 songs, plus 10 songs (or 35 minutes of material), plus 2-3 SF titles? Just about a song a day for a short month. A sizeable challenge, mustering energetic performances of stripped down songs might be the ticket to any success. I am not afraid to stink on a large scale - why not go big?

Anyone else want to give it a go? Most completed 'wins'. If you can do an album a day, certainly two albums in a month is attainable. Easy math, right?

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 11:20 am

You're on. Let's throw an AAD in there for good measure!

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 12:19 pm

I may have to do a FAWM. Not sure if I can pull off the AAD, RPM and a songfight all at once as well, but who really cares. A FAWM will be fun.

glennny · Post by **glennny** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 12:50 pm

What are the tie-breakers? I can see Jolly Roger, AAD, Zipline, and Paco all finishing 100% of those songs. Probably King Arthur too if he's doing it.

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 1:17 pm

glennny wrote:What are the tie-breakers?

Combined SF votes? Earliest completed? Total album sales?

Denyer · Post by **Denyer** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 5:43 pm

deshead wrote:
glennny wrote:What are the tie-breakers?
Combined SF votes? Earliest completed? Total album sales?

Who can grow the biggest beard that month?

Paco Del Stinko · Post by **Paco Del Stinko** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 7:11 pm

An album a day too? Why not! And also the beard thingy. I'll take before and after pics to display the de-volution. I don't know about tie breakers, but I'll be glad to hand out a prize to the winner(s). I can already feel my circuits sizzling!

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 8:11 am

Denyer wrote:biggest beard

No fair!

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 8:19 am

That post goes well with your avatar.
-bill

j$ · Post by j$ » Thu Jan 25, 2007 8:26 am

jolly roger wrote:
Denyer wrote:biggest beard
No fair!

Why? Are you a woman?

Plat · Post by **Plat** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 8:06 pm

I am stupidish.

What are the key differences between the FAWM challenge and the RPM Challenge, besides organizer-name onomatopoeia?

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 9:30 pm

As I understand it, RPM is about finishing a complete album (i.e. all tracks recorded,) where FAWM is just about writing an album's worth of songs.

bz£ · Post by **bz£** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 1:32 am

I am gonna co-write an album with Monty Panesar in February

Paco Del Stinko · Post by **Paco Del Stinko** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 6:10 am

RPM asks for 10 songs or 35 minutes of music, FAWM asks for 14 songs. I believe those are the boiled down requirements. I've signed up for both as 'Nubsy".

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 12:36 pm

I've been clearing my schedule recently with February in mind, and I've been trying to sort out what the deal is with FAWM Vs. RPM. From the RPM FAQ:

RPM FAQ wrote:Ten songs or 35 minutes of recorded material, on a CD, postmarked or hand-delivered by noon on March 1 to:
10 Vaughan Mall, Suite 1
Portsmouth, NH 03801

Why on earth, in this day and age, is it a requirement to send a CD in?

RPM FAQ wrote:All material must be previously unreleased, and we encourage you to write the material during February too.

Wait, wut? You can record OLD songs that you wrote earlier? What the shit kind of challenge is that? If only someone could enlighten me...

Burr Settles wrote:My understanding is that RPM was started by Jon Nolan, a friend of fellow fawmer Andrew Grimm. He heard Grimm's 2005 FAWM CD Mountain Halo, which he both wrote and recorded entirely that February (and then went on a US East-coast tour with Ellen Cherry in March to promote it).

Nolan and some friends first wanted to get a lot of New Hampshire bands to do FAWM, but they decided writing 14 new songs was an unrealistic goal for most, while recording 10 old songs wasn't... so they created the RPM Challenge as a local FAWM knock-off (quite openly) instead. Apparently they've gone international now.

Here's an article from Pitchfork from last March. One more reason to dislike Pitchfork: they slammed FAWM for having a low success rate last year. To put things in context, though... writing 14 new songs is a lot harder than recording 10. And that first RPM was from a single tight-knit music scene. The first FAWM had 100% success rate.

I approached the RPM folks last year about joining forces to do something collaborative like "do FAWM this month to write 14 songs and then do RPM this month to polish at least 10 of them," but I never heard back. But I think it's cool that some people are doing both!!

Ahh, thanks Burr. Well, I don't think I'm going to burn 14 skirmishes and send them to New Hampshire just so they can be compared against everyone else's 10 best pre-written songs that they spent the month polishing.

Burr Settles wrote:SongFight! - Weekly challenges. They give you the titles, you write the songs. I know a lot of fawmers in the past learned about it through SongFight and have double-dipped FAWM/SF songs before.

If anything just won me over to FAWM, this is it.

Paco Del Stinko · Post by **Paco Del Stinko** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 7:32 pm

So it's record an album vs write and record an album. I never stopped to consider that you wouldn't necessarily be doing it all from the bottom up or that it was anything worked out beforehand. I'll hand deliver them some fresh un-polished turds, with artwork to boot. I would guess that FAWM is more all over the map as far as musical styles go than RPM is also.

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 8:16 pm

Starting to dislike the RPM idea. FAWM for me. Probably not much else.

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Sun Jan 28, 2007 8:16 am

Paco Del Stinko wrote:So it's record an album vs write and record an album.

Though FAWM is about the writing, not the recording. (Read the previous page of this thread.) Most of the participants record rough demos of their songs, and come back later to clean them up. And Burr is pretty clear that the recording isn't even necessary.

So maybe FAWM motivates you to write the songs, where RPM motivates you to record them.

JR wrote:FAWM for me. Probably not much else.

Some people find that once they start writing for FAWM, the creative floodgates open. You might surprise yourself.