Nur Ein III Round Zero "Kick Start"

[jack]

so i haven't been following this too closely. did anyone get cut from round zero? just curious.

also, who are the judges again? (don't need to know their numbers, just who's judgin...)

[Niveous]

1. No cuts

2. Me, Rabid, Adam!, Merisan and sp00n

[MintyHandy]

I managed to cut myself (from the running, that is) twice. See http://songfight.net/forums/viewtopic.p ... 72#p115172.

[ujnhunter]

2. Me, Rabid, Adam!, Merisan and sp00n

in that order?

[Caravan Ray]

1. No cuts

2. Me, Rabid, Adam!, Merisan and sp00n

Is Merisan 2 judges or one judge?

[Lunkhead]

One.

[Caravan Ray]

Oh yeah - I can't count

[Adam!]

Reviews!

{Oh, I'm not sure what the policy is on staying anonymous with scores and reviews, but I ain't gonna do it. As far as I can tell, you have to give super-ambigious, non-negative reviews, otherwise people can figure out which judge you are. Nothing worse than getting a vaguely positive review, only to figure out that the judge actually put you on the bottom. Not that that happened to me . Anyway, this way you guys can keep me accountable, and I don't have to mince words.}

Hmm... at the beginning someone expressed concern that the musicians who the judges are familiar with will have an unfair advantage. I think for me the opposite is true: if I know your stuff then I have expectations, and if you fall below those expectations I'll know you weren't giving it your all and I'll take that into consideration when ranking the songs.

Andrew Reist - DUDE! I haven't listened to any of your stuff since last Nur Ein, and man, this blew my socks off. A dozen guitar and vocal hooks. Great drums, and a good mix (you still need a bass).

ADD - Once I got over the echo-y, wail-y vocals, I realized that this song is fucking fantastic. Love the gnarly guitar tone and the wide synth stabs. I actually find the verse's melody catchier than the chorus's.

15-16 Puzzle - Best lyrics in the fight, and also the most creative use of the title. Also, probably the worst abuse of the challenge: seems like you just swapped in names that fit your missing alphabet letters (that said, I didn't read the lyrics. Perhaps there was some subtlety I missed). Great melody. Too bad it sounds like you were on musical-autopilot for the verses: the chords and rhythm sound like every 15-16 Puzzle song ever.

Pac-man - Fantastic production, and hot guitar playing. Man, what amp am I hearing? I started to roll my eyes when I first heard "Chuck Norris", but you stayed away from any of the memetic stupidity I was anticipating. Vocals are totally hilarious (in a good way), especially the backing singers during the second verse and the kung-fu sound effects. Nice.

The Long-Band-Name Self-Assurance - Oh, I am a sucker for banjos and Sugar-Ray beats. Great indie-pop instrumentation, vocals are weirdly robotic (sort of giving me a Tokyo Police Club vibe) but they grow on me. This is the first of, like, 5 songs to mention Wesley Snipes. Very enjoyable.

MintyHandy - Short and simple but so sweet. This is crazy catchy, and the lyrics and vocals are wonderful. You're one of only about three people who actually "name dropped" actors, as opposed to just saying their names. The other bands should thank their lucky stars you don't know how to send emails.

G&R: Chinese Democracy - A song called Kick Start with no audible kick in it... how unronic. Verse sounds like Crazy Train. All the name drops are hilarious. That bridge synth sounds fucking terrible. Great melody throughout. A solid Glenn and Rachael song.

FBF - Ooooh, the wet synth-kick and piano ambiance grab my attention instantly: this ain't your daddy's Frankie Big Face. Great verse melody; too good, in fact, as the chorus melody is a bit of a let down in comparison. The FM synths in the chorus are ice-cold and very digital, but that works well with the lyrics. I like the weird drones. The global warming lyric strikes me as goofy. This song is cool (no pun intended).

They call him King Art! - Why is this song so distorted? The clipping renders it nearly unlistenable. That aside, the guitar playing sounds great, and I found myself humming this song a lot this week. Turn down the volume and this would probably be my favorite King Arthur song.

Starfinger - Hmmm... a whole buffet of sounds in this multi-part mini-epic. I had a hard time ranking this, because the song has several distinct sections and I liked some of them more than others. The piano section and the ending bass rock-out are my favorite parts. As a whole it seems a little too unfocused and meandering, but never boring. Awesome percussion. Burgeoning fruity loopers take note: THIS is how you make music with computers.

Weird Jim - Mostly good, funny lyrics. I think "staple some wings to this pig" reads well on paper, but sounds kind of stupid when you actually hear it. Music sounds too generic, but I like the strummed acoustic harmonics. Nice flow. I get the feeling your monitors sound VERY different than mine: this whole song has this weird scooped-out tone to it.

Ross - Ouch, painfully bright harmonica. You're going with that standard progression and melody? Really? OK. Funny lyrics, which I can appreciate thanks to The Daily Show. This is the best literal use of the title in the whole fight.

BLT - Why does the opening make me think Pixies? I don't know why, but I approve. More uplifting lyrics. Verses are ok, but the bar-room sing-along chorus is the best part. I hate your distorted guitar tone. Very cool drums.

Ken - Sweet chords. Vocals and lyrics are shakier than I expect from you. The synth-string-choir that comes in reminds me of World At Large by Modest Mouse, which is always a good association to make. I don't like the rhymes in the last verse. This song is long. That chorus hook is sublime.

Tex - A song about a bunch of people I've never heard of. I'm sure it would be funny to someone. I like the bouncy feel, the little "la la la la"s and sound effects, and the chorus alliteration. Vocals sound out-of tune in the bridge. Chorus lyric has a weird rhythm, like it has one-too-many syllables. All-in-all, not bad.

Hoblit - That snare sound is ludicrous, almost like a typewriter. Pretty rockin', especially in the chorus, but the verse isn't hooking me. The gamble when writing songs from an intentionally irritatingly POV is that sometimes the song itself becomes irritating. That burp really makes me dislike this song. Too much clipping. You score points for being one of the few people who tried to actually do a proper name drop.

# - Feels a little simple. This French-Strongbad accent is silly, even for Octothorpe. I love the list-compiling section: I absolutely break out laughing every time I listen to it, plus it's great to hear Bud in an # song. Vocal timing is weird in the last half of the song. This is the best use of the challenge in the fight.

BK - Pretty but boring. Nice playing and singing. The verse sounds like the chorus. This is the longest song in the fight, but also the one with the least going on [EDIT: that was written before Round 0.5]. Melody falls just short of memorable. Sorry, I'm harsh on G&G.

JB - Is that Absynth I hear? This is disappointing. The forest of arrhythmic echoes are distracting. I don't care if it's ironic, that first chorus goes on for about 30 seconds too long. The vocal effect at 1:30 sounds waaay too Hamster-dance, although I like the whistling that follows. The best thing about the song are the Abjure-esque lyrics and the catchy verse melody. Those arpeggiated synths that play for the duration of the song get old fast. Hey, this is what practice rounds are for, eh?

Adam Adamant - When the intro started I thought maybe it was experimental, but then I realized the keyboards just have really loose timing. Sounds like the Casio version of an Arctic Monkey's song. Don't try to rhyme "Start", "part" and "heart" with a word that starts with 'f'... it's just a bad plan. I think you could have put a little more effort into the vocal delivery. There are some nice lyrical and melodic moments here.

EOA - gah, clipping. And terrible timing. Very homogeneous melody and instrumentation: without the repeated lyrics I would have no idea which part was supposed to be the chorus. But, the short musical phrase that you keep repeating is a catchy one. I'd like to hear this with a full band. Also, why are you so hushed? Give it some lungs.

Cock - I have no idea what key those synths are supposed to be in, but I take solace in the fact that you apparently don't know either. The atonal chorus and meandering melody don't do anything for me. The section from 1:39 - 2:04 is sweet, the best part of the song by far. I like the bass tone. Those drums came straight from the uncanny valley. What is this song about.

Lord of Oats - That high synth is murdering my ears. 1 minute in and nothing's happened yet. This song doesn't have anything to do with the title, and as far as I can tell doesn't name drop an actor [EDIT: OK, you're lucky I checked wikipedia. Didn't know Booth was an actor; in fact, being Canadian I barely knew who he was at all. "Make him drink the justice sauce, feed it to him with great speed"? No. I like the drum programming and the "Abraham... Abraham..." hook.

Sausage Boy - Cool sounds (is that a ring mod on the guitar?), but boring and monotonous. I know you don't live in your parent's basement, so why are you singing like you do? The Wesley Snipes stanza is just terrible.

MC Eric B - I've only heard one other MC Eric B song before, but it sounded exactly like this one: meekly-sneered vocals, a two note verse melody and a one-chord chorus. What's with the semi-tone detune on the chorus vocals? I happen to know that you had plenty of time left to polish this song. I like the pre-chorus melody, and the lyrics are decent in an uplifting sort of way.

Sven - Fuck you.

[Spud]

OK, I admit it, as many times as JB has typed "in the voice of Strongbad", I have never heard him before, so I went and dug up "Everybody to the Limit", and I kind of see what you mean. But really, I was going for a Beastie Boys vocal styling, which is admittedly just as silly. French? Now THAT would be TOTALLY unintentional. Except for the "Too French" line. And yeah, that last section just didn't line up. I think I bumped something at the last minute and didn't notice.

[Paco Del Stinko]

Man, what amp am I hearing?

Hopefully because you liked it! It's got 6v6's, only volume with pull boost, and three tone controls. Thanks for the reviews of all the songs:well written, helpful and insightful. Now I have to go look up 'memetic'.

[adamadamant]

Adam Adamant - When the intro started I thought maybe it was experimental, but then I realized the keyboards just have really loose timing. Sounds like the Casio version of an Arctic Monkey's song. Don't try to rhyme "Start", "part" and "heart" with a word that starts with 'f'... it's just a bad plan. I think you could have put a little more effort into the vocal delivery. There are some nice lyrical and melodic moments here.

Ok so I feel like I have to pipe up here, you've mis-heard the lyric. Check the lyrics thread if you like but the only 'f' word is 'fast' which, whilst not a very good rhyme, is not 'a bad plan'.

On a possibly related note, I do get a bit tired of comments (not from Adam!) regarding my accent. Yes I am from the South of England, get over it. I don't want to sing in a pseudo American drawl just so it will sound familiar for everyone. My singing is awful and say so but if you can't hear what I'm saying because you're not used to my accent then don't criticise me for that. On the plus side, it's nice that sp00n is on the panel this year, at least there's one judge who won't have to run to the lyrics thread every time I open my mouth.

[Adam!]

Don't try to rhyme "Start", "part" and "heart" with a word that starts with 'f'... it's just a bad plan.

Ok so I feel like I have to pipe up here, you've mis-heard the lyric. Check the lyrics thread if you like but the only 'f' word is 'fast' which, whilst not a very good rhyme, is not 'a bad plan'.

That's actually what I was referring to, but maybe I was too subtle: when the listener (in this case, me) hears perfect 'start'/'part'/'heart' rhymes throughout the verse, and then they hear the first 'f' of "fast" (which, really, isn't even a slant rhyme), they'll automatically--and quite unfortunately--think you're actually about to rhyme 'fart'. Clearly the rhyme fakeout is unintentional, but it makes me go "wait, what's he about to say?" every time I hear it. That's the 'bad plan' (or, 'unfortunate rhyme choice', if you prefer) I was referring to.

[Caravan Ray]

fart

Pull my finger!

[erik]

15-16 Puzzle - Best lyrics in the fight, and also the most creative use of the title. Also, probably the worst abuse of the challenge: seems like you just swapped in names that fit your missing alphabet letters (that said, I didn't read the lyrics. Perhaps there was some subtlety I missed). Great melody. Too bad it sounds like you were on musical-autopilot for the verses: the chords and rhythm sound like every 15-16 Puzzle song ever.

Yeah, the actors that I mention are not integral to the song, but I think that could be said of at least 2/3 of the songs I can remember off the top of my head. I can only think of like one or two where if you remove references to the actors, then the whole thing falls apart. I didn't just write an alphabet song and then cram some random actors names in there, though: I wrote an alphabet song of things that people really hate and then tried to pick actors for the song that (while not immediately obvious as targets of hatred) would still make people think "Yeah, people hate that guy" when they hear the name. Like for this song, Lindsay Lohan is just low-hanging fruit. [anyone who makes a joke here is a bad citizen] I wanted names that were kind of unexpected.

I don't want to stomp my feet and be an overly-defensive baby, just provide some insight into my song. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts!

[king_arthur]

Adam! - thanks for the note on the mix. Yeah, I realized afterwards that there's a lot of uncalled-for distortion in the mix, and also that, compared to most of the songs, not much bottom end. I've already got my song written for Sleepwalking, and will be laying down tracks today, so I'll have a few days to work on the mix.

Thanks to all the judges for putting in a lot of work on this - especially for doing scoring and comments on the Round 0 songs even though there weren't any eliminations from the original 22 songs.

Charles (KA)

[Ross]

Reviews!
Ross - Ouch, painfully bright harmonica. You're going with that standard progression and melody? Really? OK. Funny lyrics, which I can appreciate thanks to The Daily Show. This is the best literal use of the title in the whole fight.

Thanks for the review - just thought I'd say - "Yeah, going with the standard progression and melody." That was a choice I made to try to have this sound like some old protest song from the depression or union era, a la Woody or Pete.

That's all.

Having Fun.

Nur Ein!

[jb]

Yeah, definitely what practice songs are for. I was glad to see that one judge liked the song regardless of the terrible, terrible production.

I'd like to navel-gaze for a bit. This is not meant to excuse, because you don't get credit for excuses in songwriting unless you're Jonathan Richman, but rather to explain a little about how this song was created. Ok maybe it's an excuse, because honestly I find the entry to be pretty embarrassing from a production standpoint. Anyway...

I made the whole song in FL Studio (formerly Fruityloops), which is up to version 8 and the last version I had really really used was version 5. And that was as a ReWire client in Cubase. My goal this time was to record it all in FL Studio, since the application now supports audio recording fairly well.

I had also recently decided to stop using my Delta 66, because it has no MIDI ports. The MIDI-to-USB converter I have been using is, I'm almost CERTAIN, the cause of my computer crashing. The computer problem and use of the converter are always at the same time. On top of that, I also decided to stop using my passive Tannoy PBM 6.5 monitors because I'm tired of having a rack box with an amp. So I got a pair of Mackie BR5 nearfields, and a Samsom sub bass. I have probably more wires now, but fewer boxes, and the new M-Audio Firewire 410 has MIDI in and out right on the box. The new monitors aren't as transparent as the old ones, alas, but they're OK.

I spent so much time getting all my gear set up (not just setting it up but actually going out and buying it last week) and just figuring out the basics of recording audio in FL Studio that I had only a couple of hours to figure out what the song was. Ironically, the "Hamster Dance" voice was an accident-- somehow the entire verse vocals got triggered at some point while recording a backing track. If you listen closely, you'll also hear the "someone came online" sound of Pidgin, my IM client.

The misconceived synth noodling was tossed in at the last moment to try and dress up the endless seconds of poorly-aligned arpeggiation. Needless to say I failed to even touch the levels of that, much less notice that the noodling is as boring as the arpeggiation.

The endless seconds of poorly-aligned arpeggiation are definitely not thick enough to stand up to that massive beginning synth line, which I definitely adore. I did not notice at the time, and by the time I did notice I was already late-- next time I will turn off the velocity detection for that "track".

All of that aside, I'm pretty happy with the actual song and the lyrics and what not. I like the fact that I can take the lyrics straight on as a sort of anthem for Stomp Fetishists, but it can also be taken as a metaphor for relationships in general, particularly the stalwart multi-week Songfighter's relationship with, well, all of you people. Or, you can read it as a timeline of one competitor's Nur Ein experience.

I do agree with Frank that they are more like Abjure! lyrics than JBB, but if I put Abjure! on the song then that would be my band name for Nur Ein and all the songs would have to be Abjure! songs and nobody wants that.

I'll do better next time, but it'll still be an FL Studio production, so who knows. It might suck harder than this one. But I'm determined to learn that application through and through-- especially since I paid for the damn thing. The XXL version no less.

I have found a fun way to play my "Kick Start" on acoustic guitar. Come visit, I'll play it for you.

[adamadamant]

Sorry Adam!, I think I was getting a bit hepped up. I don't think I even read your post properly. Thanks for the review too.

[Billy's Little Trip]

BLT - Why does the opening make me think Pixies? I don't know why, but I approve. More uplifting lyrics. Verses are ok, but the bar-room sing-along chorus is the best part. I hate your distorted guitar tone. Very cool drums.

Wow, great constructive reviews. I found my self reading all of them because I've been listening to all the songs from round zero. Very helpful, thanks dude!

Anyway, yeah, I don't know how my punky songs end up with the Pixie'esque sound. It never starts out that way, but it happens in the layers and the mix. Maybe the roomy sound on the snare, could be the 4 chord rhythm, but I think it's the half time distorted lead guitar that really moves it in that direction. As far as the guitar tone, yeah, a bit sterile and lacking crunch. I've been playing around with some new toys. I always end up just going back to an sm57 on my 4X12 cab. Thanks for the helpful comments, Adam!.

[Lunkhead]

Just a few comments:

I really liked the ADD song, except the whole last section felt like filler to me. I also really enjoyed the Glenn and Rachael song. The 15-16 Puzzle song is a great example of how to make a guy and guitar song that works really well (good lyrics, hooky melody, dynamics, etc.). I enjoyed Reist's song, too, though I wish the vocals were a little more distinct in the mix. I found Jim Tyrrell's rap pretty amusing. I also liked the WSA quite a bit. Probably 1/3rd of the rest of the songs I thought were good, then another 1/3rd were just ok, then there were a few that I didn't really care for. I'm pretty surprised that Sven didn't place last. One of the judges gave him a much higher ranking than he deserved, if you ask me. But that just makes this a very typical round of judging in Nur Ein. Once again there are five judges with varied tastes whose rankings will likely be difficult to predict, which should make the whole thing very interesting. I'm looking forward to getting on with the real contest now.

[MintyHandy]

Home with a sick son, so I'm taking advantage of the "free" time to enjoy all your round zero/point five entries -- and I just wanted to shout out G&R, that's a fantastic song. On two listens so far I have yet to hear the words "Kick Start", but I'm 100% certain they're in there somewhere. Also, Worldly Self-assurance, once you get through the extended intro this is a wonderful song, just delightful.

[Lunkhead]

G&R: Chinese Democracy - ... That bridge synth sounds fucking terrible.

It sounded like penny whistles or recorders, or some similar cheap/toy type instruments, possibly with deliberate tuning issues to enhance cuteness...?