Kamotch’s Custom Songs Discussion
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So now that I’ve got some releases under my belt, I figured it was time to put out a discussion topic. As some of you may know, I have a WIP topic with an insanely long list of songs I wish to eventually bring to the database. If you want to see what I have in store, you can visit that topic here, but I’m gonna have to ask that you not talk about any future releases here in this topic. Someone might want to be surprised, so no spoilers! Here, I want discussion to be exclusively about songs I’ve already released. I’ll be posting here now whenever I release a new song instead of the old topic.
Current Month’s Releases:
Pavement – Summer Babe (Winter Version)
Pavement – No Life Singed Her
Pavement – Loretta’s Scars
Pavement – Texas Never Whispers
Pavement – Frontwards
Pavement – Shoot the Singer (1 Sick Verse)
Pavement – Elevate Me Later
Pavement – Grave Architecture
Pavement – Stereo
October 2020 Releases:
Misfits – Some Kinda Hate
My Chemical Romance – Cemetery Drive
Sebadoh – Scars, Four Eyes
December 2019 Releases:
Antarctigo Vespucci – I’m Giving Up on U2
Modern Baseball – Re-Do
PUP – Sleep in the Heat
August 2019 Releases:
Mitski – Your Best American Girl
Fall Out Boy – Chicago is So Two Years Ago
Sleater-Kinney – One More Hour
July 2019 Releases:
Jeff Rosenstock – Twinkle
Jeff Rosenstock – The Trash The Trash The Trash
Jeff Rosenstock – Bonus Oceans
Jeff Rosenstock – Teenager
Jeff Rosenstock – Get Old Forever
Jeff Rosenstock – I’m Serious, I’m Sorry
Jeff Rosenstock – The Lows
Jeff Rosenstock – Pash Rash
Jeff Rosenstock – Festival Song
Jeff Rosenstock – Wave Goodnight to Me
Jeff Rosenstock – I Did Something Weird Last Night
Jeff Rosenstock – Melba
Rusted Root – Send Me On My Way
The Offspring – Have You Ever
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Under the Hedge
April 2019 Releases:
Japandroids – The House That Heaven Built
January 2019 Releases:
The Smith Street Band – Forrest
Old 97’s – Timebomb
December 2018 Releases:
The Original Broadway Cast of Rent – Another Day
October 2018 Releases:
Arcade Fire – Wake Up
Arcade Fire – No Cars Go
September 2018 Releases:
Mitski – Francis Forever
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – American Girl
Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
They Might Be Giants – Don’t Let’s Start
Violent Femmes – Never Tell
My Chemical Romance – Thank You for the Venom
The Strokes – Razorblade
June 2018 Releases:
Bloc Party – Like Eating Glass
May 2018 Releases:
Modest Mouse – Doin’ the Cockroach
The Smiths – There is a Light That Never Goes Out
The Thermals – Now We Can See
February 2018 Releases:
Dinosaur Jr. – Little Fury things
January 2018 Releases:
The Cribs – Moving Pictures
December 2017 Releases:
Violent Femmes – Add It Up
Dead Kennedys – Kill The Poor
Ramones – My Brain is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)
New Order – Ceremony
October 2017 Releases:
Bomb the Music Industry! – Everybody That Loves You
Superchunk – Hyper Enough
Jeff Rosenstock – You, In Weird Cities
September 2017 Releases:
Jeff Rosenstock – Polar Bear or Africa
Modest Mouse – Ocean Breathes Salty
Modest Mouse – Polar Opposites
Bomb the Music Industry! – Stuff That I Like
Yuck – Get Away
Andrew Jackson Jihad – Brave as a Noun
New Release:
Andrew Jackson Jihad is no longer the name of this band. They officially go by AJJ now. However, I once read that Sean Bonnette, the singer/guitarist, considers everything released before their 2013 album “Christmas Island” to be Andrew Jackson Jihad releases, and anything after to be AJJ releases. So I’ve decided to release this track under their original name. All future releases by the band will abide by those rules as well. The title of the album is also up for debate. While most people refer to this album as “People Who Can[…]”, the initial physical CD release with the iconic rabbit image featured the “People That Can[…]” title. So I’ve decided to keep the original title, grammatical errors and all.
As for song info, this is probably their most well-known song. They used to perform it live at every single show, but I think they’ve since grown tired of it and don’t play it as much. But it’s a good introduction to the band, so if you like what you hear, check out the rest of the album.
I was actually really struggling to finish two other songs this week before ultimately deciding to finish and release this. It was the perfect song to break me out of my funk: it’s short, catchy, fairly simple, and I had already had a guitar chart ready. Fun fact: this may have been the first full guitar chart I had ever completed back when Harmonix first released the RBN tools. And now it’s been recycled into a full band custom available to everyone! Enjoy!
EDIT: Also I’ve updated both the Modest Mouse songs to match the album art of previous releases.
EDIT2: Just updated Brave As a Noun to fix a drums issue, also bumped it from tier 2 to 3 on drums.
New Release:
Bomb the Music Industry! was such a great band. They gave away all their music for free and only performed all-ages shows. They really just wanted to put themselves out there. They broke up in 2012 after a bandmate moved to Australia, but their last album, “Vacation”, was an amazing send-off. Jeff Rosenstock, frontman of BtMI!, has since gone on to have a fantastic solo career, with his 2015 album “We Cool?” in the running for my favorite album of all time. But “Vacation” is definitely a contender as well. This song is my favorite song from the album, and like a good portion of the songs I release, I at some point or another considered it my favorite song in general. Fans of the band will no doubt want to download it, but I hope others do as well. It’s a fast-paced pop punk jam, so if that sounds appealing, check it out!
When I authored this one, I couldn’t help but notice how fun it looked to play on all instruments, with the drums requiring particular skill. Hope it turned out true.
New Release:
I’m always surprised Superchunk isn’t more popular. Founding members Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance also founded the Merge record label. Several artists have released albums under Merge, including Arcade Fire, Neutral Milk Hotel, Dinosaur Jr, The Mountain Goats, Spoon, and Titus Andronicus. Drummer Jon Wurster also drums for the Mountain Goats. Not only that, he is also known for his work with Tom Scharpling on internet radio show “The Best Show”. It even landed him a guest spot on Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe, of which Scharpling voices Steven’s father Greg.
Superchunk has put out ten studio albums, each of which have at least a few great songs. This song, Hyper Enough, is the opening track to their 1995 album “Here’s Where the Strings Come In”. The single and video were a moderate success for the band back in ’95, and they’ve retained a kind of cult following, but I don’t feel they’ve ever gotten the recognition they deserve. This song is a rocker for sure, so if you like what you hear, just know that there are plenty of other great songs from the band, many of which will be coming to the database at some time. So look out for those in the future!
For the guitar solo, lead and rhythm switch off in prominence, so I just charted whichever guitar seemed to be the focus at any given moment. I appreciate when folks chart rhythm to keys if they’re both consistent, but honestly sometimes it’s best to switch between the two on one chart to make it more fun to play.
New Release:
So finally here it is. I’ve put way more time into this song than any other song I’ve released. Not only did I have to author everything by ear (with only basic chord knowledge for the guitar chart), but I had two major setbacks: First my drum MIDI got completely erased and I had to start it over from scratch. Then, due to some problems that was causing the audio track to be out-of-sync with the MIDI, I had to completely redo the tempo map. But I persevered to get it done even when I wanted to give up. Why? Well because I think this is the best song that I’ve released so far.
Jeff Rosenstock is my favorite artist. We Cool? is my favorite album by him. And this song is widely regarded by fans to be the best song on the album. He even ends every live show with it now. It’s a powerhouse of indie pop-punk. Super fun to play on drums, but the other instruments are no slouch either. It’s good times all around! I urge anyone who’s a fan of the genre to pick this one up.
P.S. Big thanks to user TomGuy for helping me out with the sync problem. I honestly don’t think I could have released it without you!
New Release:
A 3-pack of (arguably) punk songs as part of C3thon!
Dead Kennedys – Kill the PoorWhen I first skimmed through the database earlier this year, I was honestly surprised that this song hadn’t been released yet. It’s definitely my favorite Dead Kennedys track, and the only single from their debut album that hasn’t been released as DLC. This song is the most challenging of the bunch overall, and really fun on all instruments!Ramones – My Brain is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)Another song I was surprised to see wasn’t in the database. Though when I dug a bit to see how it compared in popularity to their other singles, it didn’t seem to be that big of a hit. I had figured, however, with how many customs released by the band, surely this one would have one of them. Honestly I found out about the song from the movie School of Rock and just assumed it was one of their bigger hits. Hell, it’s my favorite of theirs. Anyway, not too difficult on any instrument. Drums are a little challenging due to the quick tempo, but the key part is so boring I considered not even charting it haha.New Order – CeremonyIn a surprise twist, this song is… not my favorite song by this band (gasp)! Bizarre Love Triangle having been released already as official DLC kind of stopped me with that (though I’ll have to look into the possibility of doing the 12″ single version of that song, which is the best version). This song is, however, my second favorite song of theirs, so close enough. Also, in a secondary twist, this song is not really punk. Written by Ian Curtis while the band was still Joy Division, this song is often classified as Post-Punk. So yeah, (arguably) punk. Drums require a certain amount of stamina, but other than that, not too difficult a song. Fun though!—So as I mentioned in the C3thon thread, I kind of had a rough month of November. Various horrible things kept happening to people close to me that required my attention. And then I was on vacation for the first two weeks of December. I originally intended for this pack to be a 5-pack to make up for the lack of songs released in November, but I couldn’t finish in time. Expect the other two songs fairly soon (one much sooner than the other). And also expect a slower release schedule in general. Trying to do so much at a time can burn a person out, unfortunately. But enough negativity! Think positively! Donate to the Make-A-Wish foundation via our C3thon project page here:Let’s do some good!
New Release:
This song was originally included in my initial 5-pack for C3thon, but due to me procrastinating and not taking into account Murphy’s Law, I wasn’t able to finish the song in time. Of the two songs that didn’t make it into the pack, this was further along by far. The other song doesn’t even have a finished guitar or bass chart yet. But don’t worry, I plan to have that out before the end of January at least.
As for the song itself, this seemed to be a hot track among charters. A couple people had already showed interest in charting it before I joined the forum, but I received permission to go ahead with my version. Then, during C3thon, another forum member had apparently started charting it and was planning to release the song as part of the Christmas bag. I talked it over with him and told him I already had claim to the song, and he politely backed off. Like I said — hot track.
Drums are interesting because there’s no bass pedal. But the real star of the track is the bass: 2 solos and plenty of interesting fills scattered throughout the song. Guitar and vocals are no slouches either, but that bass is something special. Enjoy!
God I hope not. They did just release Blister in the Sun a few weeks (months?) ago, so hopefully they didn’t license this along with it. Either way, I don’t have RB4 (or a next-gen console for that matter) so it was worth it to have it in my own library. But if by some coincidence your premonition is correct, GET IT FAST, FOLKS.
New Release:
The boys from Wakefield. The Cribs are much more popular in the UK than over here in states, but luckily they were “Similar to” other artists I listened to or else I’d never have found them. The Cribs are a peculiar bunch. All three main members are brothers, with twins Ryan and Gary switching off lead vocal duties. At one point in time, they had Johnny Marr in the band, though surprisingly that was when they released their shakiest material.
This particular track comes from the era right before that, when they had first signed with major label Warner in the US. The lead single from the album, “Men’s Needs” (also available in the database by author Ruck Bogers 22) remains their biggest hit, but I definitely prefer this track as well as most of the other tracks on the album haha.
The drums are the most challenging instrument here, with fairly consistent double bass kicks throughout (don’t be fooled, it’s not hardcore metal or anything). The guitar and bass do enough to keep it interesting and the vocals, while pretty simple, are still really fun to sing along to.
All instruments charted by me. Expect more Cribs tracks from me down the line! Not just major label era, but career spanning.
Thank you for charting my favorite Cribs song. This was a great surprise to wake up to this morning.
Late reply, but you’re welcome! At one point that song was definitely my favorite of theirs, but now I just can’t decide.
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New Release:
Dinosaur Jr. was the first band I discovered through Rock Band that I truly fell in love with. I had never heard Feel the Pain before it was announced to be in the RB2 soundtrack, but after deciding I quite liked the song, I dived a little deeper into the band’s discography. Music websites would often list their 1987 album “You’re Living All Over Me” as their best, so I decided to check it out. I was blown away.
This song is the opening track to that album. Legend has it that bassist Lou Barlow’s throat bled after screaming the opening lines to the song: “What is it? Who is it? Where is it?”
Dinosaur Jr. lets their love of distortion shine during the song’s intro. Guitarist J Mascis is kind of a guitar god in the indie scene, but this song is one of his tamer efforts. That’s not to say the sound isn’t just as heavy as those songs that include some of his blistering solos. Drums are decently difficult, involving some disco beats and some crossovers. Nothing an experienced drummer’s gonna find too much trouble, but difficult enough to keep it interesting. If there’s one instrument that’s lacking in this particular song, it’s the bass unfortunately. Lou Barlow’s a great bassist but his style doesn’t really translate well to Rock Band.
For those familiar with the song, you probably are wondering what lyrical interpretation I used for the chorus. For those who don’t know, there was once a long debate about whether the line was “A rabbit falls away from me, [etc.]” vs. “I grab, it falls away from me, [etc.]”. J used to say that either interpretation was fine because he basically didn’t care (indifference is kind of his thing), but after being pressured for so long, he eventually said that the “rabbit” version was correct. So what interpretation did I use? The other one of course. Look, I clearly heard the “g” while meticulously authoring the vocal part, so I’m pretty sure J just said that to appease the masses who think the song is called “Little Furry Things” haha.
Anyway, all instruments charted by me. Expect more Dinosaur Jr. from me in the future. I kind of lucked out with my first song from them not having a guitar solo.
So I don’t know if anyone’s been paying attention, but I haven’t released anything for a while. My last release was almost exactly 3 months ago. This doesn’t mean I’ve grown apart from the community or anything. In fact, I’m just as invested as ever! I still chart songs in my free time nearly every day. I’ve got a handful of songs just on the cusp of being finished. But why haven’t I just finished them already? I’m going to be honest with you, I HATE timing out vocals. It’s become the bane of my existence. Occasionally I’ll be like “Fuck it, I’ll just do it.” But I get a couple phrases in and remember just how boring and time-consuming the whole process is. I had to resort to another option to get these songs out. Since I can’t compromise the vocals and release a song with only partial instruments, I decided it was time to collaborate. I turned to one of the few members of the community who actually enjoys charting vocals – atruejedi! He offered to help me out with Now We Can See, but unfortunately he’s pretty busy with other things to do more than that for now. So! If you are a vocals charter who generally likes my releases so far, feel free to get in touch with me via PM and maybe I can start getting songs out at a decent rate again!
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New Release:
So The Thermals broke up a couple weeks ago. It really hit me hard because they had been one of my favorite bands since early high school. I wanted to get a Thermals track out as soon as possible as a tribute to them and what they meant to me.
Back in 2007, my brother showed me a performance they did on Last Call with Carson Daly of their song “A Pillar of Salt” (stay tuned for that one eventually). It was eye-opening. I had never heard music like they were playing. It was raw and energetic. The singer was just kind of shouting the lyrics instead of singing them, but it sounded just right. This was my gateway into punk music. My brother and I bought the CD shortly after – “The Body, The Blood, The Machine”. We loved it. This was a new experience for me; I had never listened to albums as a unit before. Up until then, they had been collections of single tracks that you could skip around to the good songs. But not on this record, even the couple songs I wasn’t too fond of as standalone tracks felt essential.
Fast forward to early 2009, I had long since dived into the rest of their discography by the time they debuted this track. I honestly think it was the first time I had listened to a new song by a band I was a fan of. Up until then, it seemed like any “new” song I heard I was just discovering years after its release. So I was excited to hear their new single. “Now We Can See” was probably the poppiest thing they had ever released, but it still had that same punk energy I recalled from their previous album. Talk about an ear worm. When they released the rest of the album a couple months later, I was a little bummed that nothing came close to the title track nor the rest of their discography. But I still dug it well enough. The title track remains one of my favorites of theirs.
They’ve since released 3 other albums, mostly hit-or-miss but The Thermals have always had a special place in my heart due to how much they helped shape my music tastes. So here’s to The Thermals! Expect more tracks from them by me down the line! Mostly early-era stuff but a few later gems are on the table as well.
Guitar, bass, drums, and preliminary vocals done by me. Vocals overhaul — including timing out notes, phrase marking and overdrive — done by *** atruejedi *** A true jedi indeed!
New Release:
Finally this long-awaited (for those who’ve known it’s coming) song gets released! Originally I had planned to release this as part of C3thon last year, but when I had to cut down my 5-pack to a 3-pack due to personal reasons, this was one of the two to get the axe. I was able to release Add it Up not too long afterwards, and intended for this one to follow soon after that. That didn’t happen of course due to my increasing disdain for polishing vocals. But with the help of super cool user *** GreenPanda12 ***, I was able to get this one released before the year 2020. Not only did he fix up the vocal chart, but he also completely revamped and finished up the very bare-bones keys chart I had started. I originally was going to put a key-less V1.0, but thanks to Panda, we get the full-band treatment!
So Morrissey is kind of a dick. Lets get that out of the way. One of the reasons this one was cut from my original 5-pack was due to then-recent statements he had made casually defending Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein during the height of the #MeToo movement last year. But for as long as he’s been in the public eye, he’s been no stranger to controversy. I don’t have time to open all of those cans of worms, so I’ll just pivot away from the frontman himself to say that The Smiths as a band were great! They are highly influential in the indie rock scene especially, and considering this is one of their most popular songs, I’m honored to be the one to bring it to you guys!
Guitar has some difficult chord changes that’ll keep you on your toes. Drums are pretty simple. Bass was actually surprisingly varied and seems like a fun alternative to the chord-heavy guitar chart. And if you’re a fan of the song, I’m sure singing along will be just great!
Anyway guitar, bass, drums, and rough vocals done by me. Polished vocals and keys done by GreenPanda12! Thanks again for the help, Panda!
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