Hey, check out the new, slightly better remixfight.com. or .org. or .net. i think they all hit the same place now. the site got hacked a few days ago by a very disruptive worm virus that seems to be going around preying off old php bulletin boards. the file got into the site server and destroyed all of the old html based files, most of which had no backup. but remixfight is back with a vengeance!

New music is the theme du jour! The Secret Hxaro Santa has struck again, this time in the form of a seriously huge Puzzlefest for fellow songfighter 1516 Puzzle. The love is evident, as is the depth and quality of his music. I covered a version of his song "Hotel", and got a bit of help from Jim of Seattle on the piano. I also played guitar on Jim's tribute "Cemetery", which I really love. All of the songs can be listened to here, which i highly recommend checking out. Tons of great songs!

I've also done a couple new remixes. I remixed Brad Sucks song to barf to "Sick as a Dog". And I also remixed another track by Random called "All This Time". MC Jack in the Box has been restless. I'm also working on a couple other remixes right now, one by Deron and one by Donkey T. And, i'm actually going to remix a song by Chuck D, the legendary founder of Public Enemy. I'm pretty excited to work on that one.

So I did this songfight tune this past week called "Zero to Phantom". It was a jokey sort of song, recorded in 64k mono (about as low a bitrate as you could expect to listen to without wanting to turn it off). The lyrics were awful, pretty much made up in about 5 minutes. the drum mix was ok, lots of loops sampled out of reason, the keyboards were intentionally cheesy in a casio sort of way, and I pitch shifted both of my vocal tracks so that I wouldn't be recognized. And I kept it thankfully short at 1:30. Well, I am ashamed to say it won. I have no idea how it won but it did. I have a feeling somebody intentionally caused it to win, although I have no idea why someone would want to do that. Anyways, it's a hollow victory and the Iron Clef feels embarressed by all the fuss and attention. He also feels he has somehow brought dishonor to the principles of a fair vote, which caused him to recently commit harikari using the sharp end of a broken wok ladle. Sadly, there will be no more appearances of the Iron Clef. He was just a minute thirty blip on the horizon, a shining star, a comet trailing MSG, and we hardly knew him. RIP Iron Clef.

In other music news, Jack is back in a song he's proud to be part of, the latest from the Bloody Hams. "Piece of my Heat" is featured in this week's Songfight!. The Bloody Hams are a bunch of very cool guys from California, Minnesota, and British Columbia that I hooked up with a few months ago who trekked to Seattle and played a show together. I think the song turned out really well. Ken and I worked up the arrangement last friday when he came to Santa Cruz for a visit the day after thanksgiving. We spent most of the evening recording tracks after Ken worked up the lyrics. Originally we thought of just doing it as a Ken & Jack song, but then Ken suggested a bloody hams tune and it was off to the races. I may post our original version here after i remix it a bit.

Also, over on Remixfight!, MC Jack in the Box returns, putting a new spin on the UnDesirable's "Happy Machine Ankle". I think mine turned out ok, but I highly recommend a listen to Future Boy's remix, which I think is really outstanding.

Finally, I have a couple covers that I'm wrapping up which I'll be posting soon. One is an Emmylou Harris song. The other is a cover of a tune by another songfighter which i'm not at liberty to reveal yet. Bon Appetite!