Song Fight!
Encyclopedia
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format. All entries are compiled at the end of the week and links to the files are displayed on the front page for public voting, which lasts until the end of the next week. All visitors to the site are able to listen to the MP3s and are permitted one vote each. At the end of this voting period, results are posted and the next cycle (or "fight") begins, meaning at any given time one fight is in the works (in that a deadline and title are available) while the previous fight is in its voting stage. While the original Song Fight! system involved only one fight per week, as many as four are now sometimes conducted. Winning (especially repeatedly) earns you no more or less than "bragging rights, satisfaction, [and] the jealous glances of strangers sitting next to you on the subway." Nonetheless, the site has inspired well over a thousand artists to enter since the competition's inception.
All songs submitted to Song Fight! are free for download, and are catalogued and hosted indefinitely.
History
The original "Fightmaster," Collin "Narbotic" Cunningham, had a site on the DumbrellaDumbrella
Dumbrella is an alliance of webcomic artists who promote one another's sites, travel to conventions, and sell merchandise together. It is also the name of the website of that alliance, which serves as a shared weblog and an active forum community with over 10,000 registered users .The current...
network where, similar to explodingdog
Explodingdog
explodingdog is the name of an internet web site run by Sam Brown, pseudonym of Adam Culbert. Viewers of the site e-mail Brown short phrases for inspiration and he picks certain ones to illustrate...
, he accepted submissions of song titles and would record a song based on that title.
Song Fight! began when Cunningham declared its first fight title, "Golfpunk Drives a Cadillac" on June 19, 2000. Song Fight! was not open to the public for the first several fights, and was at this time populated mainly by Cunningham's friends and internet acquaintances. The first public fight was the seventh, "Zero to Phantom" (January 4, 2001). This was also the fight that first featured now "internet-famous" artist KOMPRESSOR, often considered Song Fight!'s first musical personality to become widely notable outside the community. While host Cunningham/Narbotic was a regularly featured artist during this time, none of his entries received the most votes in a fight.
During these years, the Song Fight! community made its home on the Dumbrella
Dumbrella
Dumbrella is an alliance of webcomic artists who promote one another's sites, travel to conventions, and sell merchandise together. It is also the name of the website of that alliance, which serves as a shared weblog and an active forum community with over 10,000 registered users .The current...
message boards, also home to the forums of prominent webcomics Achewood
Achewood
Achewood is a webcomic created by Chris Onstad in 2001. It portrays the lives of a group of anthropomorphic stuffed toys, robots, and pets. Many of the characters live together in the home of their owner, Chris, at the fictional address of 62 Achewood Court. Another address used in the strip is 11...
, Wigu, Diesel Sweeties
Diesel Sweeties
Diesel Sweeties is a webcomic and former newspaper comic strip written by Richard Stevens III . The comic began in 2000, originally hosted at robotstories.com...
and Explodingdog
Explodingdog
explodingdog is the name of an internet web site run by Sam Brown, pseudonym of Adam Culbert. Viewers of the site e-mail Brown short phrases for inspiration and he picks certain ones to illustrate...
, among others. In July 2001 the first official performance of Song Fight! artists was collected for the first "Song Fight Live!" at Hot Lunch in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. A highlight of the evening included an impromptu songwriting contest, in which contestants created songs on the fly to the title of the venue's name.
On May 10, 2002, a new title was announced: "Postcard". The deadline came, and passed. Months went by without an update. As the fighters became restless, "side-fights" began to spring up on private sites, the most prominent of them held by participant "Spud" of prolific Song Fight! ensemble Octothorpe. Known as "Mean While!", this side-contest eventually became more regular and (as a result) more attractive than waiting for an update from the original. Narbotic updated one full month after the announcement of "Postcard" with optimistically-titled "The Return", the entries from which were never actually posted.
Mean While!'s administrator, in conjunction with participant "JB" of the one-man John Benjamin Band, moved the contest to SongFight.org, asking Cunningham to create a redirect to that location from SongFight.com, the original address, a request that was eventually granted. JB, having previously purchased the rights to the .net and .org addresses to protect them from squatters (and to begin a Song Fight! webring at the .net location), agreed to host the site while Spud became responsible for the code and aspects of the site's upkeep and administration. The two now officially host and help to administer Song Fight! in cooperation, though the source of the titles is repeatedly said to be an unknown individual called only "Deep Throat", a tongue-in-cheek reference to the famous informant
Deep Throat
Deep Throat is the pseudonym given to the secret informant who provided information to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post in 1972 about the involvement of United States President Richard Nixon's administration in what came to be known as the Watergate scandal...
from the Watergate scandal. Songs from Mean While! (beginning June 28, 2002) have now been incorporated into the Song Fight! archives, along with all entries from Narbotic's period of administration.
Songfight! Live
"Song Fight Live" events happen annually in the United States. "Song Fight Presents" (official and semi-official) shows have been performed on both coasts of the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
- July 7, 2001 - Songfight! Live West Coast in San Francisco, CA.
- June 28, 2002 - Songfight! Plain and Tall in LancasterLancaster, PennsylvaniaLancaster is a city in the south-central part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is the county seat of Lancaster County and one of the older inland cities in the United States, . With a population of 59,322, it ranks eighth in population among Pennsylvania's cities...
, PA. - July 26, 2003 - Songfight! Wet and Wild in Seattle, WA.
- June 18–19, 2004 - Songfight! Hot and Bothered in AustinAustin, TexasAustin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
, TX. - August 12–13, 2005 - Songfight! Sox and Rock in BostonBostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, MA. - August 18–19, 2006 - Songfight! High and Dry in Santa CruzSanta Cruz, CaliforniaSanta Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...
, CA. - August 16–18, 2007 - Songfight! Rebels and Trebles in Atlanta, GA.
- August 15–18, 2008 - Songfight! Hot and Sweaty in TampaTâmpaTâmpa may refer to several villages in Romania:* Tâmpa, a village in Băcia Commune, Hunedoara County* Tâmpa, a village in Miercurea Nirajului, Mureş County* Tâmpa, a mountain in Braşov city...
, FL. - July 17–18, 2009 - Songfight! Rock and Rocker in SpokaneSpokaneSpokane is a city in the U.S. state of Washington.Spokane may also refer to:*Spokane *Spokane River*Spokane, Missouri*Spokane Valley, Washington*Spokane County, Washington*Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War*Spokane * USS Spokane...
, WA. - July 17–18, 2010 - Songfight! Love and Haight in San Francisco, CA.
- June 11–12, 2011 - Songfight! Yanks and Banks in New YorkNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, NY.
Current status
As of 2008, Song Fight! has conducted more than five hundred fights and is host to more than five thousand entries."Cover art" is also accepted for each fight, though it is not a separate "art fight" in that a voting process occurs. Usually, as there are frequently as many as four fights in one week, the submission of fight art is considered more of a service than a competition. Fight art is a reference to the earliest days of Song Fight!, when Explodingdog
Explodingdog
explodingdog is the name of an internet web site run by Sam Brown, pseudonym of Adam Culbert. Viewers of the site e-mail Brown short phrases for inspiration and he picks certain ones to illustrate...
artist Sam Brown produced much of the artwork for each week's fight. There is also an archive of all submitted artwork.
While Song Fight! remains the center of the community, peripheral sites have sprung up within the Song Fight! "network", perhaps most notably somesongs, a site that connects users to amateur recording artists' original works while maintaining a rating and comment system for the benefit of both parties, administered by Jeff Fal of Add, another prolific Song Fight! contributor. Additionally, there have been a number of so-called "side fights," where members of the community record songs on a theme or rerecord each others' music.
Notable participants
The following artists originated on, or have participated in Song Fight!.- Brad SucksBrad SucksBrad Turcotte , not to be confused with Brad Turcotte performing under the name Brad Sucks, is a musician from Ottawa, Ontario. Turcotte released his albums under a copyleft license...
http://www.songfight.org/artistpage.php?key=brad_sucks - KOMPRESSORhttp://www.songfight.org/artistpage.php?key=kompressor
- MC FrontalotMC FrontalotDamian Hess , better known by stage name MC Frontalot, is a Brooklyn-based hip hop musician and self-proclaimed "world's 579th greatest rapper". He is best known in nerdcore hip hop and video game culture, for naming the nerdcore subgenre, and performing at Penny Arcades annual Penny Arcade Expo...
http://www.songfight.org/artistpage.php?key=mc_frontalot (has also entered as Urine Luck and Rapper Name Redacted, and was the lead singer of Duboce Triangle and Milwaukee Youth Center Choir) - MC HawkingMC HawkingKen Lawrence is a nerdcore hip hop artist who purports to be theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking rapping under the name MC Hawking.MC Hawking gained some popularity on the Internet in the early 2000s...
http://www.songfight.org/artistpage.php?key=mc_hawking - The Spinto BandThe Spinto BandThe Spinto Band is an indie rock band from Wilmington, Delaware. They are currently signed to Park the Van Records.-Biography:The Spinto Band was originally formed as recording project by high school students in Wilmington, Delaware in the late 1990s...
(as Carol Cleveland Sings) - Josh WoodwardJosh WoodwardJosh Woodward is a singer-songwriter based in Findlay, Ohio. He is known for releasing his music freely on the Internet in addition to selling hard copies of his albums, as well as releasing his music on iTunes.-History:...
http://www.songfight.org/artistpage.php?key=josh_woodward - Duncan PflasterDuncan PflasterDuncan Pflaster is an American Off-Off-Broadway playwright, composer and actor. His first play Wilder and Wilder , was produced in 1995 at Florida Playwrights' Theatre in Hollywood, FL...
(as Level Nivelo)