I don't want to bother explaining this project again, just know it's a collaborative team project by musicians who can only communicate virtually. (DETAILS) When teams were announced I went ahead & tried to predict who would win (or who would enter my favorite song). After the listening party I really had know clue as to who was my favorite. But Charlie got the songs up on BandCamp shortly after the party, and I listened to everything again multiple times, and it turns out my prediction was right.
Evie by Atomic Werewolf Space Patrol
I don't think they had a team name at the time, but I remember picking this team to win. I figured going into this the songs might have poor transitions & seem...messy. I didn't think this because of the people involved, but because it's just a strange way to have to write & record a song. I think this song sounded & felt like the parts all fit...more so than the others. Having it be about robot sex, well that didn't hurt things. I had this song pretty much even with the following team, but this team made a video... #BonusPoints (More info about this song.)
Bride Of Frankensong by The Fuzzy Pink Bunny Slippers Of Doom And Despair
I thought the idea was cool, and it sounded very dark & the sound effects were great. The first minute just set a really dark scene & Gweebol sounded menacing. I think what knocked this down a peg was when it went to the perspective of the newly created bride. Gweebol was so menacing that I believed she was a mad scientist, but I didn't believe JoAnn was a monster. That feedback sucks I know...I'm basically saying be a better monster, but I can't say how.
Sleep by Donutworthy
Not the type of lyrics I normally dig, but I did find them poetic & enjoyable. This song dropped because there were a couple parts that felt messy? That's probably not the right word, but as I know next to nothing about music it's all I got. An example of what I mean is from 1:11-1:34 in the song. That change of pace just distracted me right out of the song. I get back into it, but it happens once more before the song ends. Honestly had it not been for that one thing, this song could have been my favorite.
Strange Things by Mighty Marfan's Power Rangers
Didn't like how things just seemed to stop & go. For instance at the 1:01 mark it stops, then it felt like a new song was starting. I know there were drums in that transition, but I'm saying what it felt like to me. I can't point to anything that sounded bad in this (I really liked the vocals), but overall I didn't felt like all the parts came together.
Final Words:
This was a fun project to follow, and I look forward to the next one. Charlie did a good job of organizing everything, and now that those first time U-Stream bugs are done it should be easy sailing for #2. (Please don‘t make it during Spin Tunes #3 though. :p)
Thanks for the review, Spin! Given the weird song writing nature of the contest, I'm impressed how cohesive the songs sound. I also thank The Fuzzy Pink Bunny Edric's team for making the necessary Frankenstein song.
ReplyDelete-Graham
Hi Spin! None of us in the Fluffy Pink Bunny Slippers of Doom (thanks SO much for that name, Edric, sigh) knew where we were going with this, and we didn't discuss what we hoped to hear from the others until after each person was done. Edric took the lead with his piano, crafting music which started telling me a story. Originally I wanted to tell the Frankenstein story from Igors point of view, but his voice never came through to me- instead I kept thinking of the bride of Frankenstein, and what she must have felt like on walking up and seeing who was waiting for her to marry.
ReplyDeleteMark added a lot of the atmosphere of the piece- the chorus of "Ahhhh"s for example. It was Gweebol though who really sewed it all up in the end- I was amazed by her sweet high voice sounding so wonderfully evil and menacing. Instead of the male Dr Frankenstein we got someone who could have been HIS bride, or daughter, continuing his experiments after he was gone, making her own creature.
You see, the monster here was not the frightened woman waking from death to a greater horror...it was the one playing God with such wicked glee. You don't need to sound like a monster to be one!
Couple of things:
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about the changes to tempo, but as you also noticed in "Power Rangers" that was what the seed track did. Personally, I think the others kinda ignored the beat of the seed track.
And Jo... no-one was SUPPOSED to discuss what they *may* have been doing with the track. We were all in the same boat. (I only mention this because this is the second time I've seen you put that out as some kind of *guess what we did* thing... We all did that. (Or should have))
Finally.... I had to laugh at your comments on the first song, Spin. Purely because when Den and I were talking about the tracks prior to putting our tracks down we both thought the same thing about OURS ... it sounded like....Russian Robot Porn! ;' )
Hey Spin, thanks for the post! And thanks for the troubleshooting help with U-Stream. I will make a point to avoid SpinTunes #3. When are you thinking about doing it?
ReplyDeleteTravis - great job on coverage of the event. I know the band had a lot of fun working through this project - mainly because we had no clue where it was going.
ReplyDeleteand Joe - The bands were supposed to discuss what they were doing - otherwise how would we know which instruments to play? We didn't talk about what we were going to do with the track, but we had to break out who would be doing what instrument and writing lyrics. That made it fun.
And that seed track. Challenging is one way to describe it. We had a few others as well.