July 25, 2007

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:21 am

Wednesday. The stickers should be in today. I've sold a few shirts already (I'll post the art soon). The CDs are finally in production, and it looks like they'll still arrive in time for the show.

It's been good to be home for the last couple nights. Tomorrow it all starts again, with trips to Dixville and Hampton.

Question Of The Day: This is one that comes up from time to time anyway, but since there's not a lot of noise of this type being made at the moment: What band/genre/idea would you like to see featured in a sidefight?

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:41 am

QotD: I would like to see us do a Melvin sidefight (or a Secret Santa sort of thing), and encourage our, umm, less accomplished songfighters to participate. Many of those folks are struggling with songwriting, recording and performing, and I've seen in the past that just having someone work on a well-written song lets them step up their game in terms of performing and recording, too. (yeah, I finally had a chance to listen to some of that Melvin stuff I downloaded, and I understand the appeal now...)

Today is a particularly un-scheduled day; I'll be over at my mom's later in the afternoon helping prepare dinner for the Mrs., the Mom and me, and then we'll either hang out there and watch "So You Think You Can Dance" or we'll come home and watch it. Also on the calendar for the evening, we've been fixing up three old computers to donate to the community center, and they are pretty much at the point where we just need to collect all the parts, set them up, run some basic tests (lan/phone still working, sound works, etc.) and deliver them. And then the computer stuff all gets packed away over in my mom's garage so the Mrs. can get on with planning for the new semester at school. And I need to get all the "So Weird" tracks mp3'd and on the web so Lewis can start mixing.

But other than that, it's another day with nothing at crisis level, which makes it a good day to take care of some other stuff before it hits crisis level...

Charles

EmbersOfAutumn · Post by **EmbersOfAutumn** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:05 am

In the midst of a BUSY couple of days at work, but still ecstatic because of almost having my SongFight song done for this week.

QotD: I think a 60's-70's Beach Rock style (Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, etc.) would make an awesome project.

jack · Post by **jack** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:36 am

elvis fight (costello vs. presley). late for work. bye.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:52 am

Today has been a day of getting shit together. After a hard night last night (our hamster passed away causing much sadness in the home), I woke up today nowhere near refreshed. But life works in odd ways and i find myself with extra focus and getting a lot of work done.

QotD:
--I would love for there to be more hxaros. They are a great part of the community.
--Maybe some sort of experimental music fight would be fun. (I guess the new Gearfight touches upon that some).
--I would like to do a World Series of Pop Culture styled game with all Songfight questions. (not really appropiate for the question but I wanted to throw that out there)
--A g^2 (guy/girl and guitar) sidefight.
--Maybe somekind of "SF fights for (insert charity here)" album would be cool.

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:23 am

Wednesday, on hold with Verizon because they keep shuffling one of our tickets to the bottom of the queue. (Finally got them to call her for me)

qotd: I'd like to see more consistent fights with a higher level of quality. I know I'm guilty of putting bad music out there, especially when I started. However, there were always many more great entries that masked me. (that also made me sound even worse) I understand, there are new comers and low-fi limitations for some. Its just that listening to some fights becomes 'chore' like. It's hard to get someone who has been jaded in the past by listening to a songfight to listen again any time after that. WORK HARDER on GOOD MUSIC...that needs to be the GENRE.

Feel free to flame me and bring up some of my worst songfight entries. I know, I'm no better.

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:50 am

Nah, it's a good point. And I'm certainly guilty.

Do you think sidefights are likelier to help or hinder this cause? King Arthur's Melvin sidefight suggestion seems to have some merit. But maybe it'd be best to simply focus on the one SongFight and have everyone's efforts grouped together. I imagine there's something to be gotten from that too, for the participants anyway.

But, for the sake of argument, can you think of a sidefight that would best provide opportunity for a general raising of the bar?

Rabid Garfunkel · Post by **Rabid Garfunkel** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:55 am

QOTD: More judged sidefights... not necessarily of the scope of Errr... Nein, but with the judge's panel. More genre specific sidefights (as loath as I am to use the phrase "bap rattle", for example, that's one). Hell, let's combine the two: Judged Genre Specific Sidefights. Where stronger, respected for their skills & talents, members in that particular genre of this community are judging the frelling thing and such.

MFing Instrumentals, damnit.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:20 am

Ah, the joy of the rap battle. Back in the days of Dirtcheapmusic, I used to have the best rap battles online with the other members of Suave Noise Youth. I wish I could go back in time and find those. Pure comic gold.

Rabid Garfunkel · Post by **Rabid Garfunkel** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:28 am

Afterthought to previous: Judges participate, too. Either in the sidefight proper, or recording a song afterwards that clarify some of the points they made in the reviews.

It could be the JEEZ-THIS-IS-A-LOT-OF-WORK Sidefight.

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:49 am

jimtyrrell wrote:Nah, it's a good point. And I'm certainly guilty.

Do you think sidefights are likelier to help or hinder this cause?

But, for the sake of argument, can you think of a sidefight that would best provide opportunity for a general raising of the bar?

Back in the day the question was whether more than one entry in a songfight would hinder the quality of the fight. How could anyone concentrate on two fights and not one of the entries suffer. It was countered by the 'one entry' per fight suggestion by the fightmasters. My opinion: if a person is sidefighting while songfighting...I do believer there is a strong possibility of one hindering the other. Obviously, as before...someone pointed out that if MC Frontalot did two songs instead of one, it would be perfectly welcome.

*Generally (Hoblit looks around cautiously) GENERALLY I think that the songfight entries suffer due to lack of focus and energy for a variety of reasons, one possibly being side fights.

I think sidefights that could help the situation: Keep the 'noise experiments' type entries to the sidefight format. I'm not saying we should limit them that way... just saying, if they could get that stuff out of their systems there, those same artists may focus on something GENERALLY more listenable.

ToneButter · Post by **ToneButter** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:57 am

As a newbie and one of the, umm, less accomplished songfighters I kind of like the idea of having a sidefight or other way to "raise the bar". What about a regular "newbie" fight or something like that?

I know my stuff isn't all that great, but I'm surprised how much I've learned by entering a couple songs and seeing what kind of feedback I get. Then I can go figure out how to make the guitar sound better, or the drums not so fake, or whatever for the next time.

Billy's Little Trip · Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:34 am

Rabid Garfunkel wrote:QOTD: More judged sidefights... not necessarily of the scope of Errr... Nein, but with the judge's panel

This is the first thing that came to mind. I'd also like more time, like say two weeks per song, lol. That AAW thing screwed up my happiness.

Paco Del Stinko · Post by **Paco Del Stinko** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:36 am

QOTD - How about a comedy routine sidefight or best commercial. I like/dislike the everyone cover the same song idea, but still find it interesting. That's been done, right?

Some sort of pre-screening, or qualifying round similar to the Nur Ein zero round, might help. But that involves extra time and coordination. Maybe a 'club' you earn your way into? Once you're in, you're allowed to fight. Not fair? Give it all you've got in the weekly fights to hone your skills and battle in the next club qualifier. I'm not sure if I actually like this idea or not, but it's...something. But who likes those bastards and their special clubs anyway, huh?

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:22 pm

Paco Del Stinko wrote:
Some sort of pre-screening, or qualifying round similar to the Nur Ein zero round, might help. But that involves extra time and coordination. Maybe a 'club' you earn your way into? Once you're in, you're allowed to fight. Not fair? Give it all you've got in the weekly fights to hone your skills and battle in the next club qualifier. I'm not sure if I actually like this idea or not, but it's...something. But who likes those bastards and their special clubs anyway, huh?

All of these ideas have been tossed around. Panel anyone?

The problem that arises is 'fairness' in contrast to 'taste'. (after my initial backing of the panel idea I realized how un-songfight! spirited it was) I wouldn't want songfight! with any qualifier because, as stated above, it's how you learn to get better. I just WISH there was a way to get better without diluting the good strong songfight concentrated strength title fight. I just happen to think sidefights would be a good way to help that a little.

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:59 pm

Maybe we could talks FMs into having an area where we could upload .m3u lists of our 25 favorite songfight songs or something... the idea being that if somebody new comes to the site, and they wanted to hear "the good stuff," they could go over to "Songfighters' Favorites" and there would be stuff like "King Arthur's Favorites: Classic Rock and the Emo" or "Sven's Favorites: Your Ears Will Bleed." I don't know if a .m3u file that's not on songfight.org or .net can play songfight songs (I think the link gets deflected to the fight page), but a podcast file can

I've also thought about the idea of maybe having a "minor league" and a "major league," - everybody writes to the same title, but, say, those who have won a fight in the past have a little star by their name that suggests "this might be the good stuff." Or it might just be somebody with a lot of friends. Unfortunately, it all still comes down to "how do we separate the good stuff from the other stuff?"

Charles (KA)

Albatross · Post by **Albatross** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 3:06 pm

king_arthur wrote:I don't know if a .m3u file that's not on songfight.org or .net can play songfight songs

Yes, it can.

fodroy · Post by **fodroy** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:08 pm

Niveous wrote:Ah, the joy of the rap battle. Back in the days of Dirtcheapmusic, I used to have the best rap battles online with the other members of Suave Noise Youth. I wish I could go back in time and find those. Pure comic gold.

Weren't they on the old oursongs board?

Billy's Little Trip · Post by **Billy's Little Trip** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:29 pm

king_arthur wrote:Maybe we could talks FMs into having an area where we could upload .m3u lists of our 25 favorite songfight songs or something... the idea being that if somebody new comes to the site, and they wanted to hear "the good stuff," they could go over to "Songfighters' Favorites" and there would be stuff like "King Arthur's Favorites: Classic Rock and the Emo" or "Sven's Favorites: Your Ears Will Bleed." I don't know if a .m3u file that's not on songfight.org or .net can play songfight songs (I think the link gets deflected to the fight page), but a podcast file can

I've also thought about the idea of maybe having a "minor league" and a "major league," - everybody writes to the same title, but, say, those who have won a fight in the past have a little star by their name that suggests "this might be the good stuff." Or it might just be somebody with a lot of friends. Unfortunately, it all still comes down to "how do we separate the good stuff from the other stuff?"

Charles (KA)

That sounds cool. It would be even better if it looked like the front page and not a thread style. Like, a bunch of cover art squares on a page for each "main" genre. Then if you click on say, "Alternative" it opens to a page that's divided into different alt styles. We could even have a swing genre for our pal Steve Durand. We could even have one album cover called "The Torture Chamber" for the absolute worst and most horribly recorded pieces on SF. I'd be the first to volunteer my "Brownie Points" song I did for Nur Ein.
But wouldn't that be cool to have a killer looking page with nothing but Album covers on it, and when clicked, they open to the best of the best from SF? ....well, with the exception of the Torture Chamber section.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:11 pm

Today I got the official offer/new-hire packet from [company in San Francisco], signed it, scanned and emailed it back (in lieu of a fax machine - HR was fine with this, which is good because an emailed scan looks way better than what a fax machine does to stuff anyway), and also got a mover to give me an estimate on how much to pack and ship my crap. The estimate was rather a lot. Hopefully the other mover who is coming tomorrow will make a lower one. (A lot of the cost is just on the full-service packing so maybe I'll just do part of the packing myself. Also I think the packing estimate was a bit of an overestimate since I don't think he factored in that I have the original shipping containers for a lot of stuff and was going to pack that up myself anyway.)

I also got a drug test for the first time since high school, since [company in San Francisco] requires one for all new-hires. I also returned the crappy Linksys router I bought from Best Buy a few weeks ago. (Linksys WRTs used to be so good! Why the hell did they decide to switch from ucLinux to vxWorks? And why did they go out of their way to prevent people from loading ucLinux onto it anymore? Having hackable routers only GENERATED MORE SALES, morons.)

Also signed the paperwork for putting my condo on the market.

Sigh.

QotD: Good noise/glitch/etc. is vastly underrepresented here. "Cur" got some good entries but we need more like that. Or maybe a fight where the challenge is to only use samples of things which aren't instruments (like what State Shirt often does for his rhythm loops).

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:04 pm

Dan- the old oursongs stuff is gone.

Another fight idea: 80's movie music. Songfighter covers of "Who's Johnny", "The Circle", "Man in Motion" and "Hunger City" would be Awesome.

Billy's Little Trip · Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:25 pm

I don't recognize any of those movies.