The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Happy new year to you all! Here's to another year of Song Fight. I'm still hoping for an IRL Song Fight Live this year, too.

How was your 2023? Do you have any plans or goals or hopes or expectations for 2024? Did you have any for 2023 that you wanted to review and follow up on?

My 2023 goals review:

Lunkhead wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 01, 2023 11:12 am

2023 goals:
- get a tooth
- improve physical and mental health care
- read
- keep making stuff
- travel (we're hopefully going to Scotland in May)

- I had two surgeries to work toward getting a replacement front tooth, one in June and one in December. I now have a new implant in place. If this implant takes hold properly, I can hopefully get the crown (aka fake tooth) put on it later this year.
- I've been doing a couple of new routine things for my mental health. Physical health wise I went to an eye doctor for the first time in decades, mostly because cataracts, glaucoma, and macular degeneration run in my family. I also wound up with my first ever prescription for glasses. The prescription isn't 100% right and the lenses and frames aren't 100% right either, so, more work to do on that front.
- I didn't read much, sadly.
- I did Jamuary again, making live streamed synth jams, and I compiled 10 of those for an album again. I did Inktober again and made 31 more silly comics. Erin and I did Nur Ein again and I pitched in to a few BSS and Yaks songs. I managed to enter one fight as Lunkhead, too.
- Our Scotland plans wound up getting canceled unfortunately but I made a few fun road trips to SF/Berkeley, Portland, and the Oregon coast.

For 2024 I'll probably keep mostly the same goals:
- get a tooth
- improve physical and mental health care (get better sleep, get more exercise, get a primary care physician, and possibly a couple other doctors)
- read more (got four books for Christmas so hopefully at least those)
- keep making stuff
- travel more

I like resolutions, but I have more success if they are ultra simple. So here are mine for 2024:

1. My moratorium on classic rock has been renewed once again for something like the tenth year in a row. It’s a highly successful policy.

2. Go outside at least once a day

3. Be in bed before 1am as often as possible

I don't remember what I had in mind for 2023 so I'm sure it was a huge success.

For 2024 I aim to post more about my songwriting. I intend to write at least a little blurb for every song I write; what it means (if anything), maybe instrumentation, why it was written, goals for the song (if any) etc., Not sure how much of that will be shared with the public but the intentions are to be more active without being bogged down in the shit side of social media. (In other news, I started following a ton of photography and art pages on FB and FB is much better if you ignore almost everything except music and art.)

I've also begun to practice guitar again. I was never very good but two decades ago when I was in a cover band (or two) I could at least play better than now. So today I began to learn the fretboard a bit better. I'm hoping this leads to more interesting voicing and possibly chords (or at least chord shapes) as well as a better working knowledge in theory. (I actually knew some theory at one point but it was all keyboard based so theoretically I could relearn theory and make it more useful on guitar.)

I don't do resolutions, I just have things I'd like to go better next time around.

It looks like my 2023 goals were:

• Work on VRChat stuff: YES, I made my own avatar from scratch
• Work on games: NO
• Work on music: SORTA, I did some game jam music and started a meditation podcast but I didn't do nearly as much as usual
• Get paid for music: SORTA, I got hired as the staff composer for the Trans Academy on VRChat although that's an unpaid volunteer position but it gives me a lot more visibility
• Join a choir: YES, and it's amazing
• Get better at cooking regularly: YES, I've gotten a pretty good cadence with meal prep and found a nice balance between experimenting with new things and making my usual stand-bys
• Start streaming gaming again: NO, fuck that noise tbh
• Do more gardening: SORTA, I've kept my garden going but haven't really improved it in any meaningful way
• Start drawing again, comics especially: NO, and I still miss it
• Work more on IndieWeb stuff: NO, but I worked more on Bandcrash which was a lot more important
• Finally sell or donate excess stuff: YES, I finally got rid of my extra couch, sold all of my unneeded coffee grinders, and made a pretty big dent in my extraneous music gear
• Get my basement and home organized: YEAH PRETTY MUCH, there's still some work to be done but it's actually comfortable to work in my studio now
• Travel more and be less isolated: NOPE

Also as a bonus I finally opened an Etsy shop for selling stuff I've made.

I think my 2024 goals are a bit simpler:

• Successfully get on disability benefits
• Find a reasonable level of sustainable productivity on things that I care about
• Finally finish at least one of my three backburnered albums
• Finish organizing my basement
• Get back into making pottery, and produce a line of items to sell on Etsy

i guess i didn't post anything last year, but this year i am finally releasing another album. this one will be instrumental or old-film-sample tracks featuring (mostly) drums by zecoop from FAWM. Nothing SF related on it though.

Here's the similar thread from a year ago in case anybody wants to read their post from last year:

viewtopic.php?t=12406

I have been thinking about a couple of songfight related things:
1. Bring back instant band
2. Organize a cover fight

ken wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 02, 2024 9:26 am

I have been thinking about a couple of songfight related things:
1. Bring back instant band
2. Organize a cover fight

Those sound like awesome ideas. Let me know if I can help with either of those.

I try and make a list most years - if just to remind me what was on the back burner and finish things or start new stuff I should do.

I'll post my quick project list here to hopefully motivate myself that it's public -

Finish editing my niece's wedding video
Finish tweaking that MC Frontalot Concert for him (Sorry Damian!)

Do more SongFight Listening Parties this year in addition to NurEin and SpinTunes

Just start to schedule people for the podcast I've been toying with
'Promptly Challenged' that I did a panel discussion on the JoCo Land Cruise on zoom a few years ago.

Do more BYD songs and videos with Al. I got 2 videos out last year somehow.
I'm still amazed that somehow, we have over 100 songs in the can over the last 15 years.

Release some of those 100+ songs in physical form.

Master the 'Purely Coincidental' comedy troupe tapes and do a real CD release.

Master the 'Newswatch' comedy news DVD for the players
Master the 'Take it Off' comedy troupe DVD for the players

Remaster The Butties 25th anniversary show for a summer livestream.

Convince Al to release the Pop Machine archives - starting with the 6 years of Christmas songs, and then the other albums from cassette in the 80's and 90's.

There's a lot more, but if I can tick 3 or 4 off the list this year, I'll be pleased.

ken wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 02, 2024 9:26 am

I have been thinking about a couple of songfight related things:
1. Bring back instant band
2. Organize a cover fight

I would be extremely into both of these things. I've missed instant band especially.