The Stage Ate My Girlfriend! (Attack of the Show Reviews)

Discuss upcoming, current, and previous song fights.
j$
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Post by j$ »

Spud wrote:I didn't really take Johnny's comment as a criticism. More of an observation, really.
Exactly. I liked the song and said the lyric was great. What more can I do? :) And if you ever wanted sleevenotes on the genius of # i'm your man.

(Although for the record I didn't say 'show' only appeared once, I said it was 'one on the list')

The thought of being beaten up by Spud will now haunt my every waking thought today ...

j$
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Post by herojima »

My first reviews. Bear with me. Sorry for the many comparisons…..

The East Bay Acolytes – Love the tracks. I find myself listening to more and more electronic music the older I get. Weird eh? Vox reminds me of Dan the Automator. Keeper.

Anthony "A-Log" Logatto – I love comedy in music. Work on your Don Van Vliet voice and you are going places.

HD – Pretty voice. I’m new here, are there many women on this thing? I enjoy these lyrics and the song closes well. Keeper.

Fluffy – Made me sad, is that what you were looking for? A little monotonous. Can I compare you to mike Gordon?

Johnny Cashpoint – Love the name. I was hooked immediately, way to grab me by the balls. A little March-y at the beginning but the change to the chorus (esp. with the drums) is nice. Keeper.

Flying Brick – Concise song. Did you have more to add at the end? Seems that way.

Menbah! – Almost had a jingle feel to it. I’ll call it Thrash-comedy. I do like the dissonant G. solo. Thanks for all the tips by the way.

Klaus Atomik – My favorite punk-ish song of the week. Mostly live tracks?

Corn on the Cob – Happy song. I wish the jam was left in at the end! It was just starting to rip! Already kept this one….

Octothorpe – Funny stuff. TMBG!! I think the song in the middle could be developed into a great one. The game show thing is clever. This is the best comedy-song of the week. Keeper

Abjure! – Drums are a little busy at the beginning of the song. Great harmonies! You took it to the coke and Bj’s!! Love it. My vote would have gone to this one if I wasn’t involved in another song. Keeper
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fluffy
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Post by fluffy »

herojima wrote:My vote would have gone to this one if I wasn’t involved in another song. Keeper
Man, most people ask if it's bad form to vote for themselves first, rather than assume it's a given that it's What You Do...
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Post by herojima »

i'm not most people. sorry pal.
i only played drums on the song, i didnt write it, and i think it is the best one there. i should have said "abjure!, my second place vote goes to you, as i happen to like the song i was involved in better"
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Post by Future Boy »

People are selfish.
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Post by Delicious Nick »

herojima wrote:
The East Bay Acolytes – Love the tracks. I find myself listening to more and more electronic music the older I get. Weird eh? Vox reminds me of Dan the Automator. Keeper.
Hell yeah. Dan the Automater is my hero! Deltron 3030???? yeah. thanks man.
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Post by Delicious Nick »

j$ wrote:
Delicious Nick wrote:it sounded clash-y?
I don't think the Clash ever used a cheesy marimba patch, but apart from that, that's no bad comparision, and certainly you're not the first person here to draw it! I love the Clash and other Brit-Punk bands so thanks:)

j$
it's not the marimba, it the panache! and it's good that you get consistent comparisons. means it's true.

on the other hand, I hope no one ever compares our stuff to limp bizzkzkit again. *cries*
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Heather. Redmon.
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Post by Heather. Redmon. »

herojima wrote: I’m new here, are there many women on this thing?
Well, there's the Hell Yeahs, Bjam, Henrietta, Doscientos, and quite a few more that I know I'm missing (please site some more examples everybody!). Listen and enjoy! The archive is full of great music.
jack wrote:heather is the hardest working mom on songfight (in addition to being arguably the rockinist chick....).
Listen to our music!
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Post by HeuristicsInc »

Rachael Layne and some sideprojects.
The Befores

...there aren't a lot, but there are some... invite some more!
I'm trying to get my wife to sing with the HInc experience, maybe this weekend!
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Phil. Redmon.
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Post by Phil. Redmon. »

YUMMY BUG!
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fluffy
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Post by fluffy »

Loyalty Day
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Post by starfinger »

Madi
j$
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Post by j$ »

Sarah Beanz.
herojima
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Post by herojima »

okokokok
so there are some chicks on here.
lets get back to reviews people!!
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Post by boltoph »

are there any chix with dix? Dixie Chicks?

HD
Great chord changes, suggesting higher level of musical education, but often hard for mainstream public to relate to. Sexy voice. I think this is a beautiful, well thought out piece of music, well constructed use of interesting chords. I really like some of the deception in the chord changes, and how the chords seem to work in cycles.

J$
I like the guitar tones and even though the straight 1/4 note lyric would normally turn me off, I like it in this case. I like the drop to half time. I have to admit I couldn't really understand the lyrics, but I tend to be more moved by the melody anyway. I like the ending. I will listen more and read the lyrics. You always write intricate, interesting lyrics.

...more to come...
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Post by Bjam »

Hurrah for SongFight Chicks!
Songfighter since back in the day.
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Post by Future Boy »

boltoph wrote:are there any chix with dix? Dixie Chicks?

HD
Great chord changes, suggesting higher level of musical education, but often hard for mainstream public to relate to. Sexy voice. I think this is a beautiful, well thought out piece of music, well constructed use of interesting chords. I really like some of the deception in the chord changes, and how the chords seem to work in cycles.
The circle of fifths is yer friend.
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j$
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Post by j$ »

boltoph wrote:J$
I will listen more and read the lyrics. You always write intricate, interesting lyrics....
Thanks. I'm really pleased with the lyric this time round, pleased with the take on the title. I wrote it to work on two levels, but since listening to it I have discovered a third, almost meta-meaning :)

Or maybe it's just about knobs :)
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Post by fluffy »

I really love this fight. It feels like the second coming of The Way Things Used To Be -- lots of creativity and experimentation and just an overall gestalt of *squeeeee*. A lot of just doing whatever seemed fun at the time, and although that doesn't always lead to the most listenable fight it does at least make things interesting.

Abjure! - This song is pretty good. Like all Abjure! songs it's got this nice energy to it, though by the same token it's also over-clipped which makes it kind of hard to listen to. I think it would have been more worthwhile as a JBB song, or at least produced as if it were one. The drums are particularly messy. Turn down the drums (and use better patterns), turn up that synth line, and add some sweet reverb to the vocals and you'd have a totally sweet song.

Anthony - The beginning of this reminds me of this one funny series of mp3s I found somewhere called "Invader Zim does (show)" where someone sounding like the voice of Invader Zim condenses the plot of some disposable kiddie cartoon, like Pokemon or Dragonball Z. When the music starts it's kind of like a bad imitation of Level Nivelo. I don't think I'd listen to it recreationally but I do appreciate its existence.

Corn On The Cob - Wow, that's a really sweet-sounding intro. It kinda sounds too perfect, like it's all just loops. Fortunately the variations in the guitar playing come just soon enough. Totally great vocals. The song structure feels a bit formulaic (now it's time to do a little buildup, but not too far... okay now we mellow out a little in THREE, TWO, *beep*) but this is good background music at least. Not a fan of the ultra-resonant vocal weirdness which happens at 2:00ish, though it does lead into the much-needed distortion guitar buildup.

The East Bay Acolytes - The musical elements of this song are composed very well. The actual instruments aren't so good, though, like with the long droning chords... they could have been done with some sort of edgy analog synth instead of what sounds like a GMIDI trumpet patch and it'd have been infinitely better. The rhythms and rhymes are pretty good, though, and that makes this track pretty groovable.

fluffy - At pretty much the last minute I came up with this idea pretty much randomly. I improvised the entire song as I went along (which is why there's a few places where I just let the guitar go for a couple bars, because I was thinking up more lyrics). The basic idea was just about our TV culture getting out of hand, between reality TV and game shows and bland sit-coms where everyone wants to be a big star because they think they have something to offer to the world, and we all let it keep on going because of the mixture of voyeurism and feeling that we, too, could be something special as well. But anyway, I recorded it all in one take without any lyrics existing beforehand, and then spent a little bit of time adding reverb to a couple of the choruses, so I think my total composition/production time was about 15 minutes. So I'm actually surprised at how positive the reactions to it have been so far. :)

Flying Brick - Okay, this keeps making me feel like it's a mashup of every generic punk rock song with Rilo Kiley. The lyrics are pretty much unlistenable, and I definitely get a strong "I know how to paint loops!" vibe from it. But you can at least paint loops in a fairly non-threatening and well-arranged way. Unless this isn't loop-painting and that was an actual live recording in which case you guys REALLY need to stop sitting on sticks lengthwise and loosen the hell up. ;)

HD - I love how you guys stuck to a nice sparse arrangement this time around. The electric piano matches up very well with the voice, though the vocals do feel a bit forced and sterile. Bring some emotion into it!

J$ - The only thing preventing me from enjoying this song is just the way that you always sing things in a way which makes me think of Chomp from the Super Mario games, like you're trying to efficiently eat a foot-thick carrot from end to end in perfect time to the rhythm of the world passing by. Also every vowel always sounds like the 'e' in 'yeah' and that just kinda irritates me. Sing the words, not the notes!

Klaus - This is like a punk-rock madlib. Insert words as appropriate to fit the title to a template. It'd be a good theme song for a TV show called 'Attack Of The Show' though. I wonder if such a thing exists!

MENBAH! - Hm, I started out thinking I'd really like this one but then the vocals started, and now I'm reconsidering my position about really liking this fight. But I do like this fight, because even though no song so far has stood out as extremely good or anything, I do appreciate every song's existence. We're doing something cool, people all having a voice and a say in their own musical experience, and that's just so cool! But uh, your song is kinda... meh.

Octothorpe - We had better not win a third time in a row with this one. Though it was a lot of fun to do! The first segment's music is me and Spud improvising (I was just noodling around on his piano and he was like "OMG keep doing that!" and set up the mic and got his clarinet out - an Octothorpe first!) and the third bit is me and Spud noodling around on bass and guitar (Spud on bass). I wasn't there for the second part being recorded. But the way we recorded this one was pretty neat but I'll let Spud get into that if he wants to (as it is I've probably said too much and I'm fully expecting Spud to go back and edit my post so as not to give away IMPORTANT PROPRIETARY OCTOTHORPE KNOWLEDGE or whatever). But I hope he releases the raw tracks because we basically produced a bunch of different combinations of each verse and backup which eventually got distilled into the final three. And yeah, on the version which got used for the last verse I was totally imitating They Might Be Giants, though I wasn't actually trying to, it just came out that way.

I dunno who to vote for, so I probably just won't, again. YAY INDECISION!
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Phil. Redmon.
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Post by Phil. Redmon. »

Fluf-

I fear you may have missed the overall meanin' of the tune.
Please refer to th' lyrics
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fluffy
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Post by fluffy »

It reads like a punk rock madlib, too.
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Post by j$ »

fluffy wrote:J$ - ... the way that you always sing things in a way which makes me think of Chomp from the Super Mario games ... Also every vowel always sounds like the 'e' in 'yeah'
I don't really understand this (you wouldn't catch me dead playing Super Mario), but hey, that's the way I talk, too. Remind me not to speak at SFL:2006 :)

j$
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