Codfresh
Codfresh is an album I created in 12 total hours only using sounds culled from $7 of thrift store records and cds. This was intended to be an entry in to the first Crate Digger Death-match, but 10 hours into my production my computer’s power supply went out, so the album was finished early the next day (and thus ineligible to meet the CDD guidelines).
Codfresh- a Crate Digger Death-match album by Drown Radio
I bought two cds and three 12″ singles for $1.50 each as well as a Casio SA-8 for a whopping $4. While shopping, I bumped into TradeMark G. (another competitor and co-organizer for the CDD) as he was ravaging Community Thrift’s record crates. He had a huge pile of 45s (which were only $.50 each!) and told me I had just missed Bomarr. TradeMark snapped the photo I used for my album’s artwork, and I snapped some shots of him before he took off.
I started my project at around 1:30 pm (01/05/08). I fired up my record player and started ripping songs onto my desktop as simultaneously converted the cds onto my laptop. I had picked the records purely on the basis that they supposedly had acapellas on them, but the acapellas on the first record I bought only contained one phrase, “Defcon”, repeated over and over for +2 minutes. The instrumental coughed up some juicy drums (such as a distorted kick drum and snare). The other two records provided the acapellas that I used for “groo fight” and “froo froo luck”. No amount cleaning could remove the scratches from the “groo fight” sample, and you can hear that throughout the song.
The cds provided the most useful sample sources, so much so that I decided to stop halfway through both albums because I felt like it was just too easy. I won’t mention the albums by name to avoid any copyright issues, but the 7 tracks I used probably comprised %80 percent of my albums final sounds. Astute listeners should easily be able to detect the albums right away.
I bought the Casio with the intention of playing my own melodies and drums (it had a drum kit) as well as for circuit bending, but when I opened the battery compartment and saw the eroded batteries I knew it would be fried. Since I spent a third of my CDD budget on it though, I wasted an hour trying to get it to work (cleaning the connections, trying different ac adaptors, and eventually just ripping the god damned thing open and looking for a loss wire or something). No luck.
The songs derive their names from the way I name my chopped samples. Instead of listing sample as “kick drum with hat”, I name it in a way that emulates the sounds of the sample “boomchacha”. So the songs are name in ways that somehow remind of the sounds in the song. “sum people”, “rss bird feeder”, and “froo froo luck” were the 3 tracks I finished in the 10 hours before my computer crashed, then I finished the rest in 2 hours after I replaced my power cord. Of all the songs, I probably would have chosen “mcp” as my single (and it was also the song created to meet the “bent of backwards” rule).
Am I happy with the experience? Totally. The power problem couldn’t have happened at a worse time, but hey, the experience was fun. Mainly I’m just happy to see the CDD happen. It all started as an idea I had to do a 12 hour music battle with my friend Tanner. The original concept was that we would each spend a day in a Borders coffee shop producing, and we could only spend $12 on music. Since $12 doesn’t buy you much at Borders, we decided to change the format up a bit. The CDD really started to come together when Z. and TradeMark G. (who actually came up with the name “Crate Digger Death-Match”) joined up to help plan and organize.
Am I happy with the album? Not exactly. If it all came together within that 12 hour period I could look back and say, it’s not perfect, but I made it in time. I have an album that isn’t perfect AND didn’t get done in the time alloted. There are some gems on the album, and better yet, I’ve created some new kits that you may hear pop up again in the future.
What’s in the future for the CDD? I’ll talk about that with the rest of the crew, but I’m sure this won’t be the last Crate Digger Death-match. One of the best parts of the event for me personally has been seeing the responses posted from the other producers. Despite varying levels of difficulty and success, ALL of the other producers are really stoked on their event. My stated goal for the contest was for each producer that took part to feel like they learned something. I know when I first started doing 24 hour comics a few years ago, I learned about how much I could actually achieve in a limited time frame, and I felt that a similar challenged could be adapted to a musical playing field. I imagine that future Crate Digger Death-matches will probably introduce new rules and twists. I don’t think the 12/12/12 thing has to happen every-time, perhaps each round could have a different time period, or different place you have to buy your musical medium from.
What would I like to see from the CDD? Compilations. An official site. An organizing body to maintain it. Regularly scheduled matches (4 a year?). Prizes and schwag! More printed press (so we could try better to explain what we are doing and why). Remixes of CDD entries by other artists (that’d be a fun CDD round, wouldn’t it? Remix the remixers). Maybe someday we’ll allow artists to sing or rap over their works for a round.
