Song Fight! - History

History

The original "Fightmaster," Collin "Narbotic" Cunningham, had a site on the Dumbrella network where, similar to explodingdog, 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 message boards, also home to the forums of prominent webcomics Achewood, Wigu, Diesel Sweeties and Explodingdog, 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. 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 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.