The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Hello people! Spud resurrected the thread like this that I made last year so that made me want to start a new one. (Spud posted a Christmas cover fight from long ago, go check it out!) Reading last year's thread is funny. Oh, how young and innocent we all were back then, blissfully unaware of the shitshow of a year ahead of us! Anyway, it's the holidays (or past the holidays for some folks) and the end of the year again. I wanted to say again that I'm very grateful for this community. Here's to more music and fun next year with y'all. Cheers!

Oh yeah, so, we moved to Oregon, and now we live in the same town as my sister and parents. So our holiday plans are to have Christmas morning at home just us and our cat JJ, then have my folks over for lunch, then take them by my sister's for a short outside moment with her family, assuming it's not snowing or raining or extremely cold. (Her son just drove home from college so her house is off limits for elderly my parents for a couple weeks.) No New Year's Eve plans yet.

I have the next two weeks off from work, and I'm grateful to have a good job that pays well and provides a crapton of amazing benefits and with some wonderful people there. I'm also grateful to finally be getting some of my chronic neurological issues under control, and also I recently started playing DDR again (which some of you might recall me being absolutely infatuated with back in the day) and that's been really good for me too, both physically and mentally. I've also started putting some of my own songs into Stepmania, which is yet another music-related hobby that's turned out to be very satisfying.

For the last several years I've resisted saying things like "well this year sucked, the next one will definitely be better" (especially since each subsequent year was, in fact, not better), but I have a hard time seeing how 2021 won't be at least somewhat improved over 2020. It feels like we've at least turned a corner, and the last year in particular has been a huge wake-up call for a lot of people about just how much harder we need to work to make the world a better place. And I'm grateful that so many people are finally listening.

I'm also grateful to have my two lovely cats, and it's amazing that Werner in particular isn't just trucking along but has recently gotten way more active and playful. Not bad for a 19-year-old senile kitty. (Maybe he's just forgotten how old he is?)

fluffy wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 19, 2020 6:41 pm

I have the next two weeks off from work, and I'm grateful to have a good job that pays well and provides a crapton of amazing benefits and with some wonderful people there.

That's really great to hear in particular!

I have the next two weeks off, also, and that's feeling like a huge relief.

Ugh I wrote a long post but it was too depressing to share so I'll just say that I'm extremely jealous of anyone who has hope for 2021 and my sincere wishes that you're all having a better time than I am. Merry Christmas.

My few sheds of cheer from 2020:
* Zoom etc have actually resulted in talking to my family more even if I've barely been able to see them in person
* My Grandma's hundredth birthday fell in the summer when COVID numbers had dropped a little so we were EXTREMELY cautiously able to celebrate (and there were no disastrous consequences, thankfully)
* I answered a Twitter call to add gang vox to a song by one of my favourite artists of recent times (Illuminati Hotties) and as a result I can hear my own voice on an album that has popped up on quite a few best-of-the-year lists which is pretty cool!
* Legendary drone musician Christian Fennesz followed me on Twitter for some reason
* The football (soccer) team I support are having an unusually good season, including briefly leading the league a couple of times for the first time since the 80s

Here's hoping 2021 proves to have SOME good stuff in it. And not just fucking Brexit, the ongoing rise of fascism and more COVID mismanagement and disasters from a pathetically incompetent government.

Those good things all sound very good! Sorry to hear about the rest being less very good. Congrats to your grandma on her 100th, though, that's amazing. I've had a similar experience with Zoom where my siblings and I have been doing a video chat pretty much every weekend. That's been really nice.

Merry Gravy Day, everyone!

Well, I got promoted this year, am about to have another kid, heard some groovy tunes, learned how to make wine, learned a lot about how to write songs, grew an epic tomato patch, wrote some neat computer programs, played a lot of Minecraft with my first grader, and nobody I was close to died so that's good. And as of today I'm officially sterile, so no more subsequent babies after this one!

Honestly if I turn off the news and pretend like the outside world doesn't exist, this year was rad. If I have a minor complaint it's that my gym routine got all screwed up, and if I have a major complaint it's that I *didn't* get to see my grandma (who just turned 98). Hopefully I'll get to party with her on her 100th.

And fluffy I love DDR! I miss playing it so much. Best aerobic exercise ever!

Honestly the dominant feature of 2020 for me has been entering songfight over and over and over. You all rule!

Wellp, my storage unit just flooded, so.

Fortunately, nothing important was ruined, although a bunch of instrument cases got some amount of water damage that I'll want to investigate in a few days, and also some of my boxes of CDs and DVDs are probably slightly less-valuable should I ever decide to sell them (so, like, worth $2 instead of $3). Fortunately I was able to rearrange stuff so that now I have a bit of clearance from the floor so as long as the flooding doesn't get any worse things will be able to dry out and be more or less fine. Also this was an opportunity to finally get rid of some stuff I'd been meaning to get rid of anyway. Did I really need a big pile of scrap cardboard sheets? Not really!

Yes. It has been quite a set of 365. Sorry. 366.

We started with the most horrendous bushfires ever experienced, across the whole east coast. Then later in the year, a trade war with China saw them refuse to buy our coal. Which is actually a good thing. Our morons in government can't see that. But they are morons.

Then there was a pandemic. My cycling tour of Tuscany was cancelled. Instead - I flew to the Great Barrier Reef twice to go scuba diving. Came out even on that one I think - great substitute. Thankfully the pandemic is now virtually over - been nothing in Queensland for months, just a few dozen new cases in Sydney last week. Looking forward to travelling to Tasmania and New Zealand in the New Year.

I have enjoyed a wonderful new foreign sitcom though. It involved this wacky shouty orange man who ruled an (I assume) fictional country and spotted conspiracy theories at will. And the funny bit was almost half of his country voted for him. A tad absurdist - but still very funny.

crumpart wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:16 am

Merry Gravy Day, everyone!

Gravy will be ready on Friday morning (with a dollop of tomato sauce for sweetness), followed by White Wine in the Sun

Caravan Ray wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:37 am

Gravy will be ready on Friday morning (with a dollop of tomato sauce for sweetness), followed by White Wine in the Sun

I literally have not been able to get through singing along with White Wine in the Sun without turning into a huge giant crybaby one single time in the past four years. I always loved it before, but *who knew, weird huh* it's resonance when you've emigrated to the other side of the world is somewhat enhanced.

Caravan Ray wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:35 am

I have enjoyed a wonderful new foreign sitcom though. It involved this wacky shouty orange man who ruled an (I assume) fictional country and spotted conspiracy theories at will. And the funny bit was almost half of his country voted for him. A tad absurdist - but still very funny.

Sadly, that was a reality show.

Hey hey Songfighters, Joey, Shannon, and Mike of "The Gross Tones" making our first post saying "Hello and Happy Fricken Holidays!" Many of you have inspired us made us laugh and made us cringe! For me personally Finishing a song in time for the contest is sometimes HARD! I seem to always have a Glitch, a Problem, something that is not right that I have to live with anyway due to deadline. Many cringe worthy moments in my own music here but I keep telling myself to do Better next time!
I think you are ALL Winners! Just recording anything and getting into the studio is a positive.

There will Never be enough of Your music in the world. Keep creating, keep doing, because Inspiration is what Life is all about.

For those of you who have reviewed our music and liked it, thank you. And those who have been critical, thank you also. What a fun way to spend time-making up stuff to share!


Cheers and Good Luck in 2021!

The Gross Tones

FYI I moved the above post into this thread, rather than have it be a lone post in a new thread in the sub-forum for prefight and review threads.

Happy holidays to all, whatever you do or don't recognize. Stay safe. Cheers!

Well with the posting of Another Mystery Solved, Brown Word and the Big Whine has officially done an entire year of Song Fight. It has been an incredible journey and I thank all you good people for listening to my tunes and/or giving feedback and especially to JB for having me on Song Fight Diary and for Phlebia for asking me to collaborate on The Smoke Is Rolling In. I especially thank the overlords of Song Fight for making this thing go, on the front page, the boards, and under the hood. This year's virtual Song Fight live was just amazing. As for me, I have really learned a lot and having an ongoing project with externally imposed deadlines has done wonders for helping me maintain during this crazy year. I will continue to crank out songs and hopefully continue to grow and improve. With sheer numbers there's always a chance a few gems could emerge. I am counting on better luck with that next year for certain. Happy New Year friends!

Wow, congrats! Entering every fight for a whole year is no small feat. I'm glad the format resonates with you, hope you have a productive 2021 too!

Well. It's been a heckuva year. There's been some ups and some downs, for sure. I'm not as regular as many of you, but I am super glad to have you all here and on teh Slacks - it means so much to know that there's a community of Good People 'out there' that I can relate to.

To the Lunkheads, the Fluffys, the JBs, and the Spuds, and to each and every one who contributes and makes this place what it is - thank you, and I hope you have a truly wonderful New Year.

WreckdoMelle wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 29, 2020 12:18 pm

Well with the posting of Another Mystery Solved, Brown Word and the Big Whine has officially done an entire year of Song Fight. It has been an incredible journey and I thank all you good people for listening to my tunes and/or giving feedback and especially to JB for having me on Song Fight Diary and for Phlebia for asking me to collaborate on The Smoke Is Rolling In. I especially thank the overlords of Song Fight for making this thing go, on the front page, the boards, and under the hood. This year's virtual Song Fight live was just amazing. As for me, I have really learned a lot and having an ongoing project with externally imposed deadlines has done wonders for helping me maintain during this crazy year. I will continue to crank out songs and hopefully continue to grow and improve. With sheer numbers there's always a chance a few gems could emerge. I am counting on better luck with that next year for certain. Happy New Year friends!

No problem! Let's all stay not dead this new years! I didn't *quite* meet the every fight this year challenge cause I skipped one in August but came kind of close.

This is the best site on the internet, cheers to another year of several really good songs, several clunkers, and even more that fall somewhere between!