SONGWRITING CHALLENGE: DOOM (Fall ’12)

THE CHALLENGE IS OVER! Check out the results and reviews here.

NOTE: Later comers welcome- there are still some themes that can be assigned!

Alright gentlemen! The time is upon us once again to march forth and test our metal (har har) in the 2012 Fall Songwriting Challenge!

The challenge this time out is randomly themed DOOM. This is a fairly flexible genre and can touch on anything from drone to trad and sludge to death, so don’t feel limited and be creative! In order to provide a bit of challenge and push people outside their comfort zone you will each be assigned a random theme for your song/lyrics. You can interpret your theme however you like, but the song must in some way be related to your random assignment.

RULES

- The challenge will begin on September 21th and end on November 2nd. NOTE: An extension has been issued! The new deadline is NOVEMBER 9th.
- There is no deadline for signing up. All participants will receive a random theme regardless of the time of signing up.
- Please, do NOT submit lossless files. Use either an audio converter or a DAW (such as REAPER) to render your track in a good quality compressed lossy format, preferably MP3.
- Disclosure of assignments will be made by PM.
- It is recommended that you include a small readme with your submission, discussing your views and interpretations of the theme, lyrics, and any particular techniques and gear you may have used for composing, recording and producing.
- Collabs are allowed and encouraged.
- The use of pure Guitar Pro style MIDI is strongly discouraged.

THEMES

To start, I’ve taken the unused themes from the last random lyric challenge and added a few more:

Violence, Gore & Anatomy
Traveling & Places [real & sci-fi]
Lycanthropy
Lovecraft Mythos
Tolkien Legendarium
Occultism
Civilizations & Cultures [your choice]
Dreams & Reality
Revenge
Eschatology
Historical Events [your choice]
Nature
Mythologies [your choice]
Social Isolation
Suicide
Drugs
Corruption & Greed
Religion [your choice, pro & anti]
Macabre & Horror
Pride
Mental Illness/Insanity
The Distant Future
Death
War & Genocide
Post-Apocalypse
Technology
Nihilism


Please feel free to suggest any additional themes! I’ll add them to the mix unless they are completely asinine or would be unreasonably difficult to write a metal song about.

PARTICIPANTS

Zodijackyl
Corpsefister
kingnuuuur
Apteronotus
Grave_Wyrm
SLK
Something_Inside
Awblaster
GeoCO3
gioval09
Nightwisher1990
PhilosophicalFrog
Necroticism174
Syntek
analog_winter
garthmargengi
Xanzotire
Gelseth_Andrano
Ilwhyan
diamond_famicom
nex666
rye00
dystopia4
Sibraa5
Flesh_Bag

COLLABORATIONS

Metantoine (can provide lyrics and conceptual work, possibly vocals)
Apteronotus (looking for a vocalist)
Corpsefister (can provide atmospherics, sounds effects and associated sampler based shenanigans)
Something_Inside (open to various. would prefer to provide guitar and work with a drummer and/or vocalist)
Necroticism174 (can provide vocals and lyrics)
GeoCO3 (can provide clean vocals, bass, guitar)
Violent_Possessor (can provide guitar, bass)
kingnuuuur (looking for clean and harsh vocals)

Collaborations are always encouraged. If you need someone to fill out your song with a particular instrument, or are willing to provide instruments, vocals, production, ect, for someone else, post it up! I’ll keep track of any standing offers here.

That’s it for now. Let’s do this!

I'm in for this one!

Nice!!! I could help someone with lyrics or maybe vocals even if I suck at them. I could help organizing the challenge if you need me, Corpse.

I can't promise anything, but hell if Tony's doing vocals then anything's possible. Sign me up, good sir!

I am in, and will actually be able to complete a song this time. Also since I am not much of a doom vocalist I would like to collaborate with someone on that front. Metantoine, I could pm you some stuff I have done in the past for you to see if you would be interested in collaborating with me, if not no worries. Given the longer time frame I might try for an album's worth of material for the challenge, like SLK did with Uzumaki previously.

Sure, I need a good mic though, sadly I'm broke, but I could always help with the lyrics and concepts at least.

I was considering doing a song with Halberd but we're in the process of finishing our release and we'll concentrate on this, it sounds very good so far, I think you guys gonna like it.

Sure, I'll let you know if I need a hand with anything!

For now if you (or anyone!) have ideas for more themes, fire away.

Quoth the Wyrm: "I accept." And with that he bent eye to study the runes upon the gauntlet.

Well obviously you know I want in.

I'm totally in. I dont check here often enough though, so can I say now im open to collaboration and all that shit, my email's ryyszla@gmail.com

edit: for collaboration I can record guitar & drums and I guess vocals but I'd preferably collaborate with drummers & vocalists, guitarists i'd need to talk to.

I'm in. Chances are I'll actually get something done, seeing as I can actually write/play doom riffs.

I'm in:)

Shit yeah, I'm in! I'll do my own song, but I'm totally open to collaborations, too, if anyone needs vocals, guitar, or bass.

Also, thanks for organizing this, Corpse.

I am in, but as for lyrics, English is not my first language, so some themes might be hard to write about, unless I wanna combine languages, but otherwise, I am in.

It'll be the worst production ever (unless I get my new mic soon), but I'm in for Doom.

I can collaborate vocals and lyrics. Anybody that's interested, hit me up.

Excellent! You've all been added. Necro, were you just looking to work with someone on vocals or did you want to have your own theme as well?

I've made notes on who is able or looking to collaborate for easy reference, looks like there a few that might work out. Collaborations have produced some interesting submissions in the past so hopefully we'll see more of that!

I like it either way. It all depends on the person who wants to work with me mate.

PhilosophicalFrog and I shall be creating a monster together.

This sounds fun. I'd like to but unfortunately I'm starting a new job. Can barely practice with my band as it is. If anything I can collaborate on bass and/or guitar as long as people don't mind shitty 4-track recordings.

If I find myself hopeless to come up with lyrics, I'll just send music to someone who wanna contribute with lyrics/vocals so that he can record vocals in whatever style he thinks that fits.

I can also do lyrics...I'm an ok writer.

Sure, I'll do it.

If I knew i would be in town more than 8 days in the next 2 months i would collaborate by throwing up some drums for something. :/

If you're up for doing something, I'd like to do some dirty death/doom with d-beats, I'll keep it simple as I write and give you some room to work if you have the time. Sound good? Dirty death/doom seems like you'd love it.

This is essentially what I was going to be doing, raw nasty doom full of death-y chugging. Hit me up if you're open to collaborating with someone with a lil' less prestige behind them haha.

Also, out of curiosity, when can we start recording? is it no submissions til 21st no recording until then?

On the 21st you'll receive a random theme from the list of themes. Then you should be able to begin writing and recording.

Oh right, ok then.

You know I'm down, just like I said in the Pm. just as soon as you get it thrown together decently for a rough edit for me to go by and i'm good.

I want to do this, but I'm probably too lazy to actually get it done. My friend and I are planning to write some doom together soon so I might collab with him but I'd have to check first before actually committing to doing this challenge.

Mine will be hell incarnate. Just a heads up. Thinking of releasing it under the Dagoth (Noisy/Drone crossed with Doom/Death) banner...hmmm... or maybe a new band name. Me and Necro are going to do acid and have an orgy and create surrealism that will be crushing, yo.

Lo-fi crushing.

Depending on what my theme is will dictate more of what I might do. and further upon that I might try to do a full length as well or duel full lengths... it all just depends on my subject matter I get.

10 days of work for SLK, 10 full lengths.

hahaha I'm down for it! usually during my vacation in winter basically I take off all of Dec... I do pretty much nothing else but write, record, and play video games.

I said I'd participate in the last one of these and ended up flaking out due to creative drought. But today I actually managed to write a complete power metal song, so I'll throw my lot in while I'm still feeling the vibe. In terms of collaboration, any of the clean vocalists feel up to attempting some epic doom type stuff? Don't worry, I'm not going to expect you to pull of a Rob Lowe/Messiah tier performance

Argh, the timeline catches me on the months where I'm getting ready for all the tests in the conservatory, but I'll see if I can come up with something in the spare time (provided I get the inspiration as well).

Alright, count me in for this, I'll be collaborating with a friend from my school if that's okay.

GeoC03 can do some great cleans, try hitting him up.



For sure, no problem at all.

I could probably pull something simple together, seeing as my whole bedroom is my band's jamspace. Fuckit, put me in. i can provide guitar, bass, and some clean (or possibly raspy) vocals.

I'd be willing to participate, but I can't guarantee that there will ever be a finished submission.