The Song Fight Bulletin Board

For a limited time, the entire On The Cheap "Our Very First EP" Album is being made available for free download only to other members of the SongFight! community. Me and my buddy Jeremy would love to hear some feedback on what you guys think.

<a href="http://www.brusscom.com/misc/otc/track_1.mp3" target="_blank">Track 1 - For Your Love</a>
<a href="http://www.brusscom.com/misc/otc/track_2.mp3" target="_blank">Track 2 - Confused</a>
<a href="http://www.brusscom.com/misc/otc/track_3.mp3" target="_blank">Track 3 - Daydreams & Heartache</a>
<a href="http://www.brusscom.com/misc/otc/track_4.mp3" target="_blank">Track 4 - Forget</a>
<a href="http://www.brusscom.com/misc/otc/track_5.mp3" target="_blank">Track 5 - Damaged</a>
<a href="http://www.brusscom.com/misc/otc/track_6.mp3" target="_blank">Track 6 - One 2 Last</a>
<a href="http://www.brusscom.com/misc/otc/track_7.mp3" target="_blank">Track 7 - From Here</a>

Wow, this sounds like you must have a very professional studio.

My feedback is

a) There is a 'listen to my new song' thread.

b) it's very nice you have all this time to put up links to your songs and songs you listen to. It's very nice of you to start threads with 'hilarious' fake studio pictures in it. It's very nice of you to take the time to tell us all you are in collaboration with Puce for next week's fight. The last time you did reviews for a fight? A cursory glance through your posts suggests March 7th. You are fast in danger of becoming the New The Sober Irishman in my books, and the old one hasn't even gone yet.

Yes, I am in a bad mood. Yes, you probably have just done reviews for all three fights and I haven't noticed. But a community is not all take take take, you know.

Tell you what, I'll take the time to listen to this and give you honest feedback when you take the time to review a fight this week. Doesn't have to be the one I'm in (in fact I'd prefer it wasn't!) Deal?

j$

For live studio recordings this stuff sounds pretty awesome. More appealing than any punk I've heard on the radio recently. What J$ is trying to say is "Thanks for the free music!"

EDIT: March 7th, j$? Try June 1st.

I sort of took it as "here's a bunch of indie music produced as an album and offered as a gift to my music friends". Talk about contributing to the community.

But ok, there is a thread for this stuff.

a) If there can be a "I've Got Crank! Want Some?" or a "RiffWorks RiffRumble" thread, there can be a "Free Album Download" thread.

b) As far as that pic goes, I already pulled it off the web, crushed it and fixed it so leave me alone about it, please.

As far as reviewing goes, I have no excuse - you are right. I have been stingy with the reviews, so I'm off to go write some right now. I'm not meaning to "take, take, take" from the community.

Yeah, yeah, my bad. Again.

Although I would say:

to Puce - really? Under a pseudonym? Anyway, it doesn't really matter, putting the date was kind of misleading.

To Roymond, giving free songs to other people in a community that gives free songs to other people every week? Does that make this either a sidefight or a highlight?

Yeah, yeah, I know. *grumble grumble* Reviews of this to follow.

A "Highlight", hopefully. Oh and I never expected anybody to write "reveiws" for this stuff, if thats what you are doing J$. A simple "this is neat" or "i hate this" is what I meant by feedback...

j$ wrote:To Roymond, giving free songs to other people in a community that gives free songs to other people every week? Does that make this either a sidefight or a highlight?

This is not a sidefight, true enough. But as far as anyone producing volumes of music outside of songfight...this is to be encouraged. That they would then come back to share, or - gasp - for feedback...this is to be expected. That's what community is for. Songfight is not the end game. It is a means to an end perhaps.

As promised. IMO. Written as I listen.

The following is all written under the proviso that I think musically these songs are good, like I think that most of the stuff you do is musically well-crafted. So if it seems like I'm not saying a whole bunch of nice stuff, then bear that in mind ....

Overall, production is sweet, although the lyrics are clearly not a priority to you the way they are mixed. No phrases stick out on first listen. That's fine - it's a style.

Also it's all very Blink/sum 41/ Green Day. Not my personal bag at all, this american idea of punk, but it's a very good facsimile, if that's what you were going for.

Now the major problem, for me, as an ep is that is very tonally the same. Each song has the same pace and dynamic as the last, it seems. I am sure repeated listens would unlock the variations better, but on an impact front it becomes a little bit overpowering and underwhelming at the same time because of that. Each song is good but as an overall thing, it lacks a sense of direction (or at least it has already arrived at its destination 30 seconds into the first song.)

track 4 has a nice stumbling rhythym to the introduction, which makes it stand out from the first coupla bars. Like the guitars on track 5 and the bass, the way that bass drops in and out, on 'One to Last'. In fact that's probably my favourite.

Actually a lot of the most interesting things seem to happen in the first few bars, then the mix / vocal delivery / guitar tone mix you've got and like makes them all blend into one. Track 7 makes a nice change but the 'look even punks are sensitive' thing is in its own way predicatable (although I do like the little piano riff going on down there in the mix)

So overall, this is like a collection of good songs that atcually suffer by being collected together, rather than an EP.

You didnt have to do that J$, but thank you very much for doing it! That's way more then I expected.

roymond wrote: That they would then come back to share, or - gasp - for feedback...this is to be expected. That's what community is for. Songfight is not the end game. It is a means to an end perhaps.

Yes, agreed, but (and I am no longer talking about SWS here, just generally) it requires, imo, a terrible arrogance to throw stuff at an audience of like-minded people, without offering something back that doesn't entirely revolve around yourself. If everybody came here and talked, never listened, pretty quickly there would be no community to contribute to, because people would get bored and drift away.

You have to be realistic to ensure the idealistic continues, in other words. I'm not saying I'm right, I'm explaining why I responded to this thread like I did.

And SWS, thanks, but seeing as I leapt down your throat, the least I can do is offer a considered response by way of apology. Well, as considered as anything i ever write

j$ wrote:Also it's all very Blink/sum 41/ Green Day. Not my personal bag at all, this american idea of punk, but it's a very good facsimile, if that's what you were going for.

I don't get this point about pretecting genre. Why are people assumed to be "going for" something? If you think they sound like someone, fine, but why the "american idea of punk"? American version, perhaps. Americanized, OK. Influenced...maybe. It's the way they sound. I'm just curious, really. Don't mean to be weird about it or anything.

And I almost totally agree with these reviews, otherwise.

I meant 'idea' because I believe that the way punk has evolved over the last 30 years in the States is very different from the way it has evolved in the UK (and by extension how it is evolved in other places in the world as well) - although, of course, there has been cross-fertalisation across the Atlantic, I think there's a whole set of variables in the way the US punk scene has developed that aren't applicable to the UK scene and vice versa.

I say 'idea' then because I think it's different enough to warrant being classified as a concurrent idea, rather than just a variation. Also I don't say 'Americanized' or 'Version' because there's plenty of good evidence to imply that the punk scene started in the States, or if not, then certainly that the UK punk scene and the US punk scene started from slightly different roots .. thus they're two seperate ideas of the realisation of frustration, rather than two interpretations of the same concept.

When I hear Green Day, I can hear the 'punk' ethos in the songs, but there is something else which is alien to my own experience of punk and therefore, while maybe not alienating me, means I am less responsive to it than say, The Rakes...

j$

j$ wrote: Also I don't say 'Americanized' ...j$

No, I think it should be "Americanised"...

Caravan Ray wrote:

j$ wrote: Also I don't say 'Americanized' ...j$

No, I think it should be "Americanised"...

Does it matter? What's an S or Z between friends?

I've downloaded this SWS ep and it had better be good...
My only comment at the moment is regarding the cover. Unless you're called 'our very first ep' I would remove it. It comes across as rather naff. I'm presently assuming the name is 'on the cheap' not SWS.

Later

1. naff
British slang, describes something that is stupid, lame or unpalatable.

Hm, the more you know!

Yes it comes from Polari, i believe, an acronym for straight men. 'Not available for fucking'.

j$

Yep, you certainly do learn stuff here. Not, I hasten to add, that I was commenting on anyone's availability...

I've taken a listen, and it's not bad. Good production, though the genre is not my bag. I'll probably listen some more tomorrow and get back with some more meaningless comments.

I haven't listened yet, but of couse I will. I do wish you would have had a stream all option. Given that, I'll let you know what I think. Count on that, as if you didn't know.

So I finally got around to this. It's pretty much absolutely terrible. I had to stop listening in the middle of the third song. It's not the genre that makes it terrible, though it's certainly not my favorite genre, but the singing really isn't very good and some of the guitar playing is not as tight as it needs to be. This pales in comparison to anything the SWStat has submitted to SF.

Does it make any difference that it was a live album? 3 guys and zero production?