Jerkatorium featuring Micah Sommersmith wins the "Baked Out Of My Gourd" Song Fight

Jerkatorium featuring Micah Sommersmith won the "Baked Out Of My Gourd" Song Fight, tying for first place with Berkeley Social Scene.  It was a pleasant surprise how the song came together, and a pleasant surprise to win.

Jerkatorium did not submit a song to the current "Safe Harbor" Song Fight, and it's likely that we won't submit anything to the upcoming "House Red" Fight either.  I will be sure to post an announcement here when we have another song.

In the meantime, here's another pic from the Italy trip (it's an odd section of an ancient fresco from Pompeii or Naples):

Jerkatorium's collaboration with Micah Sommersmith: "Baked Out Of My Gourd"

Quick update:  Jerkatorium worked with Micah Sommersmith (another SongFighter) for our entry in the most recent Song Fight for "Baked Out Of My Gourd", and that song is currently posted at SongFight.org:

http://www.songfight.org/index.php

It probably won't be posted there for much longer, but you can listen (and vote if you like it) for the next couple of days anyway.  Afterwards it will probably be archived at this link:  http://www.songfight.org/songpage.php?key=baked_out_of_my_gourd

There were a couple of technical snafus with the collaboration.  Originally there was supposed to be a third collaborating band, but the files didn't work so that part had to be scrapped at the last minute.  We were using different and incompatible music software, so Chumpy had to give each iteration of the song some extra attention.  I left for a vacation in Italy after just a few days into the project, so the chorus vocal harmonies just didn't get done.

Still, I consider it a success.  I composed the chord progression and did all of the instrument work except the accordion.  Chumpy and Micah each wrote and sang their own verses.  Micah wrote the chorus words/melody.  Micah's accordion work is fantastic and Chumpy's vocal delivery is wonderfully Pogues-ish - I think those two aspects are the best parts of the song.  Upon my return from Italy I added some background vocal harmonies for the chorus and solo sections, but that was long after the deadline date for song submission so those harmonies didn't make it into the Song Fight version.  Maybe at some point that version will be posted somewhere else and if so, I'll put the link in this blog.

In the interest of gratuitous visual stimulation, here are some pics I took on my trip to Italy:

Jerkatorium's "Praying Mantis" posted at SongFight.org

Jerkatorium's entry for the "Praying Mantis" Song Fight is posted at SongFight.org, check it out there (and vote if you like it).

The title for the next fight is "Baked Out Of My Gourd" and we are currently working with two other Song Fighters to collaborate on a song.  Stay tuned to the SongFight.org website for that entry, I suspect that those songs might be posted on April 20th for some reason or another...

Jerkatorium at the Original Flava Cover Fight

I'd mentioned in earlier posts how we were covering someone else's song in a 'secret Santa'-type thing, and those songs were finally posted.  You can hear our cover of Heuristics Inc's "Control Yourself" at:

http://songfight.net/cf2016/

Except for the lyrics, our cover of the song does not resemble the original Heuristics Inc version (at http://www.songfight.org/music/control_yourself/heuristicsinc_cy.mp3) mostly because the melody of the original tends towards the monotone (as does much of Heuristics Inc's back catalog).  We put a very Jerkatoriummy spin on our cover version, and I think it turned out better than we'd expected.

Jerkatorium did not submit an entry for the "Incandescent" Song Fight after all, but sister group Margret Benson & the Cheese Trio did submit an entry.  You can hear their song (and vote for it, if you like it) at SongFight.org.

Jerkatorium is on schedule to submit an entry for the "Praying Mantis" fight.  With any luck the Praying Mantis fight entries will be posted at SongFight.org this weekend - I will put another notice in this blog when the songs are posted.

I promised more visuals for this blog, so...

The image above is a cover art entry that was automatically generated by the "SongFight Coverbot" created by our own breadbox.  Like I'd mentioned in an earlier post, I don't know enough about computer programming to adequately bore you with the details, but the Coverbot automatically generates Song Fight cover art submissions to the site's exact specifications as soon as a new Song Fight title is announced.  Lately it has been doing an amazing job, and the image above is just one of many excellent examples.

Jerkatorium wins the "Adele in the Car" Song Fight, new "Whiskey Drinker" song posted at SongFight.org

Jerkatorium won the "Adele in the Car" Song Fight by a pretty comfortable margin.  I can't help but agree that we were the best song out of the relatively small number of submissions for this fight (only 7 entries; usually there are a dozen or more).

Our newest Song Fight entry "Whiskey Drinker" is currently posted at SongFight.org, you can hear it there (and vote, if you like the song).

If things go as planned,we will have another two songs out in a week or so: one for the next Song Fight (title "Incandescent") and another for a Song Fight coverfight that I will describe later.  I will keep you posted.

Sorry about the lack of art and photos, I promise something visual to accompany the next post.

Jerkatorium's "Adele in the Car" posted at SongFight.org

Jerkatorium's entry for the "Adele in the Car" Song Fight is posted at SongFight.org.  You can listen to it and/or download it at http://www.songfight.org/index.php.  If you enjoy the song please vote for it.

Only seven bands submitted songs for the "Adele in the Car" Song Fight, which is fewer than usual.  Apparently it was a tough title for some to get their heads around.  It was pretty obvious for the Jerks though; Chumpy records some of his vocal takes in his car, so keeping that in mind made writing the song a lot easier.

Jerkatorium tied for third place (out of 16 entries) in the recent "Seems Like A Little Too Much" fight, which sounds about right.  I like the song a lot, but it's not our very best work - maybe top ten but certainly not top three.

We are currently working on two new songs:  one for the upcoming "Whiskey Drinker" Song Fight, and one for the Original Flava Cover Fight.  For Original Flava, we were assigned a different Song Fighter and we have to cover one song from their list of Song Fight entries.  I will put updates and links in this blog when those songs are posted.  One interesting thing about the Original Flava fight is that there is another band out there working on a cover version of one of our songs, and I'm very eager to hear a different take on our music.

Jerkatorium's "Seems Like A Little Too Much" posted at SongFight.org, & "Suffragette City" cover

Jerkatorium has submitted a song for the "Seems Like A Little Too Much" Song Fight, please check it out and vote at SongFight.org (http://www.songfight.org).  My cover art was also chosen:

It's an original drawing.  I don't have any good graphic design software (just MS Photo and MS Paint), so coloring is a pretty clunky process for me - I draw it on paper, then scan the black and white image into the computer.  Coloring in the empty spaces with the 'paint can' doesn't work because that only fills in the whitest sections, and much of what looks white actually scans as off-white (especially the pixels that are adjacent to the black lines), so I usually end up doing it manually.  This time I took a different approach and adjusted the tint of the scan for each individual color and then superimposed each section back over the original image.  I'm sure the illustrators out there who know what they're doing are cringing (or laughing) at the thought of it.

We also did a cover of David Bowie's "Suffragette City" for the 'Turn And Face The Strange' Song Fight Bowie tribute.  You can hear that at the following link:

http://www.muppetlabs.com/~mikeh/turnandfacethestrange/jerkatorium_sc.mp3

It's a pretty faithful cover.  I'd wanted to 'Jerkatoriumize' it more, but it's hard to implement changes on any song that is so iconic.  When you grow up with a song like that, every little deviation seems like a mistake.  So it ended up closer to the original than we'd hoped.  It was fun though.