The Song Fight Bulletin Board

fluffy wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 25, 2021 5:54 am

Caravan Ray wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 25, 2021 3:31 am

An irrelevant question I should have asked Blue years ago but I never did - someone might know… is Blue his real name? Blue is a very common nickname in Aus for people with red hair. I know lots of “Blues”. And it is now quite a common name for young kids - if their dads were “blues”. I don’t recall Blue being ginger. Was it his name - or a nickname?

Please don’t post his actual name if it isn’t Blue. He is Blue here. I am just curious if it was a nickname.

i believe it was his actual given-by-his-parents name. I think he once said his parents were hippies.

I recall having this conversation in irc - 95% sure that's his real name.

Sober wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 26, 2021 2:39 am

fluffy wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 25, 2021 5:54 am

Caravan Ray wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 25, 2021 3:31 am

An irrelevant question I should have asked Blue years ago but I never did - someone might know… is Blue his real name? Blue is a very common nickname in Aus for people with red hair. I know lots of “Blues”. And it is now quite a common name for young kids - if their dads were “blues”. I don’t recall Blue being ginger. Was it his name - or a nickname?

Please don’t post his actual name if it isn’t Blue. He is Blue here. I am just curious if it was a nickname.

i believe it was his actual given-by-his-parents name. I think he once said his parents were hippies.

I recall having this conversation in irc - 95% sure that's his real name.

Good enough for me. It’s a cool name.

I had a conversation with Blue where I asked if it was his given name, he said yep. I asked if his parents were hippies, he said yep.

Wow... Dennis emailed me this evening to give me the news, and I an absolutely shocked! I was the last bass player for sonofsupercar, and though we only played together for ~6 months I can confirm everything that has been said about Blue in these posts. Blue was an incredible musician, badass drummer, amazing mixer (despite recording at crazy volumes in a tiny practice space!), and an incredibly kind human being. I have dreamed of playing with Blue and Dennis again, and am completely heartbroken that it will never happen

Also, I do know two things... Blue is not the name on his birth certificate, but his real name is Blue.

Finally, here is a video of the opening two songs from the final sonofsupercar performance. I don't make a habit of wearing airport grade ear protection when playing live, but with Blue there was no other option

https://youtu.be/kJK2nBGNJH4

I miss you, Blue.

-Bill

mr.dna wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 27, 2021 10:06 pm

Wow... Dennis emailed me this evening to give me the news, and I an absolutely shocked! I was the last bass player for sonofsupercar, and though we only played together for ~6 months I can confirm everything that has been said about Blue in these posts. Blue was an incredible musician, badass drummer, amazing mixer (despite recording at crazy volumes in a tiny practice space!), and an incredibly kind human being. I have dreamed of playing with Blue and Dennis again, and am completely heartbroken that it will never happen

Also, I do know two things... Blue is not the name on his birth certificate, but his real name is Blue.

Finally, here is a video of the opening two songs from the final sonofsupercar performance. I don't make a habit of wearing airport grade ear protection when playing live, but with Blue there was no other option

https://youtu.be/kJK2nBGNJH4

I miss you, Blue.

-Bill

Thanks for sharing that video! It pretty much captures the essence of Blue on drums. I'm pretty sure that song "The One" was a Song Fight! side fight (maybe organized by the Redmons if memory serves me correctly) that you had to write a song that was exactly one minute long. I only remember this because I did one too. http://songfight.org/boardfight.php?key=board_one

I'm fairly certain that *all* of the songs I played with sonofsupercar were SongFight songs of some variety. I had never heard of SongFight before playing with Dennis and Blue, and until today didn't realize what an influence Blue had on the community... not that I'm at all surprised to find out. I've only submitted and reviewed once or twice, but I'm hoping to take part more actively now that I have a decent space to make music in my new house.

Thanks for your post and the video Bill. Sorry we have to reconnect over such bad news.

Yes “The One” was that 1 minute side fight. Always was a Blue favorite standard opener with Martians.

“Ten minutes late with my whispers like a carpet, thrown over the lake, formed from crashing glaciers.
Twins, one of heart and one of wet dreams, with plans to merge them later.”

GlennCase wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 21, 2021 1:40 pm

I got confirmation from Amber Lang that it was okay to share this:

"He was being tested for stomach or pancreatic cancer - he passed quietly in his sleep on Saturday . No one knew he was sick like this ."

I was so bummed out by this, even though I never knew him personally. Like several people have already said, he always gave the kind of critique that made you want to do better the next time out. Incredibly encouraging. That kind of attitude is pretty rare among "musical competitors." I'd just become so used to a kind of cutthroat approach from fellow musicians that almost made you want to give up. Blue [again, I'm only going by his reviews] seemed to be the absolute opposite of that. I suppose it's cold comfort, but I'm at least glad he went in his sleep, albeit WAY too young.

A million years ago, I asked this forum for advice on how to rock. Blue came through:

blue wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 07, 2008 2:57 pm

imitate things that rock. avoid 9ths. utilize the flatted fifth. distort the bass. try your best to ruin equipment - especially ken's.

mostess, you should try doing a simple, stupid oi punk tune.

rocking tunes are mostly visceral. too much thinking loses the point.

or cover the abominominious catalog.

I didn't know him but I liked him and I will miss him and we should all be so lucky to have helped and impressed ourselves on people we don't know.

When I found Songfight, and subsequently started writing and submitting, I had no idea what songwriting actually was. I bounced around between instruments and programs, with levels of expertise varying from little to none, and haphazardly glued ill-fitting fragments of music together. I was lost in a world completely new to me, and acquitted myself about as ably as the fabled monkeys on typewriters.

This community, full of musicians infinitely more aware than I was, persisted in guiding me, correcting mistakes and suggesting alternatives. I tried to follow their advice, continued to experiment, and actually started to try to understand what my favorite musicians were doing. I ended up steering towards making rock music akin to The Pillows and Matthew Good. When I submitted my entry to the Violet Wants It Her Way fight, I received the most overt and energetic praise I’d yet received, from a passionate, no-nonsense community member.

That was Blue.

To the best of my recollection, Blue had already established himself as perhaps the community’s strongest example of a critic who was harsh but fair. He was always straight and to the point. If you sucked, he would make sure you knew it. He was not careful with his words. That said, his criticism was clearly never intended to put anyone down for the sake of it, but rather to give proper respect to music.

Again, this is purely my interpretation of someone I distantly knew, viewed through foggy memory, but Blue gave the impression of a taskmaster who demanded effort and respect from those who ventured into this corner of the world of music, like an old wrestler snarling at anyone ignorant enough not to wipe their feet before entering the sacred ring. To those who were playing around for fun, I can imagine he might have been perceived as rude and domineering, but to a young aspiring songwriter, his commitment to the craft shone through. He was someone whose respect was worth earning.

Blue’s passion was relentless, as demonstrated by his propensity to collaborate with everyone from the Earth to the moon. It was also contagious. Much of his output featured him on drums, which was personally meaningful; I came to Songfight, and songwriting in general, as a trained percussionist, and at times felt like I couldn’t relate to the experiences of the established veterans, as few of them consistently used real drums. Blue, again, served as a beacon. He was what I could achieve if I pushed myself harder.

As an influence, he was far more than just words and indirect action. Blue’s “gearfights,” where his own personal musical equipment served as reward, furthered my and several others’ musical endeavors. He even specifically organized an unusual gearfight for me, where each entry into the fight would earn me another $10 to be put towards buying new drum heads. (To this day, I still feel guilty that my own entry into the fight was initially misunderstood as an attempt to get extra money. I felt obliged to participate!) This level of generosity clearly illustrated that his strong language and forceful attitude represented true dedication towards music. We were never close. He had no reason to favor me. He simply saw something in me, musician to musician, and took action to improve me.

Songfight was already great from the start, and I will never understate the musical output nor the valuable advice of the site’s original legends, but Blue elevated the community immeasurably. His willingness, or perhaps natural inclination, to be as violent in his criticism as he was effusive in his praise defined him as, to me, the embodiment of Songfight.

I recognize that much of this post has been about me, for which I apologize, but I hoped to offer a view of Blue’s influence, of what he meant to those on the other side of his blunt reviews – at least, to those receptive to what he meant behind the occasional vitriol. Many wonderful musicians guided me through their words on my monitor, but Blue reached through the screen, slapped me in the face, pointed down one of the paths in front of me, and told me “that’s the one, fucking go there.” I’ll never be able to thank him enough.

Thanks to mo for reaching out to tell me of Blue’s tragic passing, and my respect to everyone showing their appreciation through his tribute fight. I am sadly not in a position to enter, but I’m thrilled to see that his spirit will persevere.

My deepest condolences to his loved ones. He was a great musician and a greater person.

- DW

First post in over 12 years and it is a doozy of a good one. Welcome back, Dr. Worm. I hope that you can start entering again at some point.

Mostess wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 07, 2021 9:31 am

A million years ago, I asked this forum for advice on how to rock. Blue came through:

blue wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 07, 2008 2:57 pm

imitate things that rock. avoid 9ths. utilize the flatted fifth. distort the bass. try your best to ruin equipment - especially ken's.

mostess, you should try doing a simple, stupid oi punk tune.

rocking tunes are mostly visceral. too much thinking loses the point.

or cover the abominominious catalog.

I didn't know him but I liked him and I will miss him and we should all be so lucky to have helped and impressed ourselves on people we don't know.

Lol. That’s awesome.

I didn't know Blue very well, to be sure. When I got started in Songfight back in '03 I learned to respect (and fear, at least a little bit) his "persona" on the Dumbrella message board. Derrick and I had some "spirited" back-and-forth with Blue on the board.

I never been much of a musician-- always been in a bit of a musical rut ("C minor, a couple of pad synths, some 808 samples, 132 BPM, self-deprecating lyrics, drown the vocals in effects, and go..."). One of the criticisms Blue made of the "The Landfills" songs was that a lot of them are (unsurprisingly) exactly the same song. I remember being pretty happy when we entered a song that got a word of praise from Blue on the board, even if that praise amounted to congratulating us for leaving our comfort zone... >smile<.

My memory is fuzzy as to exactly when I met Blue in person. I think it was one of the SF shows back in '03 or '04. When I actually got to sit down w/ Blue at that show and talk face to face he gave me pointers for getting out of my creative rut and a bit of a pep talk. I was feeling down about the music I was writing. He raised my spirits. I could really feel his enthusiasm for making music and got a bit of "contact high" from it. More than anything else, the feeling that I got from talking to him was that he was a really kind and genuine person.

Blue played in the band that backed me up at one of those SF shows. I didn't archive my PMs from the old message board (dammit). I do have the email notifications from receiving private messages. I don't remember exactly what I'd written to Blue, but the gist was second thoughts about doing 4 songs with the live band. Blue, responding to those second thoughts, said "no, do all 4!". My second thoughts vanished. Blue Lang said I should do 4 songs! Hell yeah!

Songfight happened to me in my early 20s-- arguably a formative time in anyone's life. I still think about that time regularly. The time made a real impression on me. Blue was one of the individual people who made an impression.

My thoughts are with Blue's family and friends. He was a good one, and he will be missed.

I'm hoping to have a Blue Lang tribute ready in time for his birthday on September 12th.

If you have pictures of Blue that you would like for me to include? Please send them.

If you have video of Blue that you would like for me to include - Please send that.

Also hoping to set up some Zoom meetings where I can record interviews with people on camera talking about Blue.

The questions are listed below. Send me a message if you would like to be included in the interviews OR you can just film yourself answering these questions, and get your video to me when it is ready. That works too.

Any footage I use will probably need to be received by Friday 9/10 to give me time for editing.

Questions:

1. How would you describe Blue Lang the musician in one word?

2. What was your first impression of Blue, and did your impression of him change over time?

3. What's the best bit of advice you got from Blue about music-making, or life in general?

4. What do you think Blue brought to the Songfight community by being there?

5. How would you describe Blue Lang the song reviewer in one word?

6. What are some memorable Blue Lang reviews that you remember receiving?

7. Blue was famous for his love of quality food, what would you cook for Blue?

8. Did you ever share a stage with Blue? Did you record a song with him? Hear him play live? Please elaborate if you answered yes to any of these.

9. Blue was known for being generous. What's the most generous thing he did for you?

10. What is your favorite memory of Blue?

The complete Blue Lang tribute video will not be ready in time for Blue's birthday, but I have prepared a preview, as well as a nice surprise.

Set aside an hour or so and please join the live chat as this airs on Sunday September 12th, 2021 at 4pm (PST)/7pm (EST)

https://youtu.be/NHOkSFjxiYU

I just saw this, and ouch. Miss you man. Blue and I fought all the time, but he was the guy I wanted to impress. Getting Blue to say something like "This was actually not terrible" was like winning an Olympic medal. Peace and love to ya. Sonofsupercar effin' rocks. \m/

A year late hearing the sad news. I didn't know Blue like a lot of you guys, but I did have some great helpful tips from him when I was trying to get my gear right for recording. The comments here show he was a great person and left his mark on this community.
RIP Blue

Two things come to mind.
At one point Blue had posted some drum loops for random people to use. These loops became the basis for my song for "Fight the Sea" (I think this was on Dumbrella so the posts are gone). One fond memory I have is playing that song at Song Fight Wayne where Niveous started clapping to the music and I was too flustered to continue - but the groove came from Blue.

The other was when I posted some old song of mine from before I did words and he had some kind words for it, even though it was kinda sketchy. I think that conversation is lost to the ethers. But I remember him well as many here in this thread have.
-bill

Happy 50th, Blue.

It has been over a year and this still hurts Blue was just too much awesome for one lifetime.