This brings our 'win statistic' back up to 33.33% (35.7% if you count the "Baked Out Of My Gourd" win), so we're still pulling in one win out of three, which is a pretty strong showing:
Also: We did not submit a song for the current "Pitchfork Nation" Song Fight, but my cover art was chosen for it:
Check it out, and if you like the song please vote for it. Chumpy and I had a rare opportunity to work together in person on this one, if only for a few hours. I am extremely happy with the song, but I can't help but think that the song could have been even better if we'd had more time together to work on it some more.
I don't have any topical photos for this post, so here's a huge metal fish I saw last weekend:
Holy moly it has been a month already and somehow I forgot to mention the song we completed in mid-September: Crustacean Stretch Receptor. It is not a Song Fight entry. Instead it was born of an inspiration Chumpy had, which is sort of peripherally related to a previous "Side Fight" (but never meant for submission to a Song Fight or Side Fight). Chumpy wrote most of the song last year, and we would tinker with it a little here and there every few months between Song Fights. Last month we decided to put the final touches on it and send it out into the world for your enjoyment. I'm wild about it. You can hear it here:
Jerkatorium won the "Super Creepy" Song Fight with 19 votes (5 more votes than our nearest competitor). I am very happy with this win because it was a strong fight, and I enjoyed most of our competitors' song submissions. If you haven't already heard them you can check out all of the creeptastic entries at: http://www.songfight.org/songpage.php?key=super_creepy
Our "Super Creepy" is yet another love song about CHUDs, and I feel confident in saying that it is one of the very best love songs about CHUDs that I have ever heard.
It has been over a month since the last Jerkatorium blog update. Very sorry about that delay, we've been busy making music. Yes, four new songs, one music video, and a super cool poster.
We did okay in the "Good Luck Charm" Song Fight (mentioned in the previous post), getting third place out of 13 bands. I'm a big fan of that song, and I'm a little surprised we didn't win that fight. You can hear our "Good Luck Charm" here:
Shortly afterwards, Chumpy submitted the Jerkatorium song "Trash Panda" to the July 2016 Commuter Challenge as a part of the "art, writing, and music" challenge. That can be heard here:
For the record, Jerkatorium did not play live at the "Student Union Hall" on Friday, July 13. Unless there's something Chumpy isn't telling me...
Then we submitted a song for the "Turn Off Your TV" Song Fight. Reviews were not kind on the Song Fight Bulletin Board: my choice of guitar tone was bad (I insisted we use that guitar tone despite Chumpy's better judgment and his relentless calls for me change it), and there were some problems with the mix that I still don't understand. The song didn't do so poorly in the competition though, tying for fourth place out of ten bands. You can hear the song here:
Then on August 31, 2016 at midnight the Commuter Challenge came to an end after ten years of poetry, prose, jokes, cartoons, drawings, paintings, photography, calligraphy, games, puzzles, music, recipes, and several other creative exploits that defy easy categorization. The final Commuter Challenge was to re-visit and re-do any Challenge (or Challenges) from the past. I decided to go back and do submissions the 5 Commuter Challenges between 2007 and 2010 that I'd completely flaked out on.
One of the Challenges that I'd never submitted anything for was the October 2008 Commuter Challenge to submit one to three minutes of spooky music, so last month I recorded the Jerkatorium song "Bedsheet Ghosts". I didn't do it alone: Chumpy provided vital help with the mixing and mastering. The song can be heard here:
Lastly, for the final Commuter Challenge I also needed to do the July 2007 Commuter Challenge to generate an original accompaniment to a something in the public domain. I had recently discovered the joys of the archive.org website, and I was planning on doing some sort of Bad Lip Reading-type project, but then I found a section of the movie "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (now in the public domain) that had these two guys silently listening to a reel-to-reel tape player for 99 seconds. So I wrote a 98-second song about a reel-to-reel tape player and popped it into the clip using iMovie. You can see the video here:
Sure it's pretty random, and the song is a little manic, and the video is uneventful, but I like it. Chumpy's lead vocal work is great, especially considering how the pace just doesn't let up. Anyway, enjoy.
An excellent Song Fighter from way back who songfought under the band name Raised By Wolves had some pretty bad medical issues recently, so a bunch of Song Fighters came together for a Hxaro (a tribute, or love fest) of Raised By Wolves cover songs. Jerkatorium did a cover version of "It's Invisible" for the Hxaro. You can hear the original at:
I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It's noticeably different from the original, but still essentially faithful to it. Raised By Wolves has a lot of great, great music, and I highly recommend checking out his back catalog at:
