Weeklybeats is a 52 week long music project in which artists compose and publicly release 1 song a week for the entire year.
Starting January 1st 2024 GMT each participant will have one week to upload one finished composition. Any style of music or selection of instruments are welcomed and encouraged. Sign up or Login to get started or check our FAQ for any help or questions you may have.

IDGAF

By Paisleyfrog on September 8, 2024 7:07 pm

This one evolved from a comment on Vicki Says:

jegasus wrote:

I don't know why, but this is giving me strong "Scotty Doesn't Know" vibes, hahahaha...

This got me thinking about pop punk, which led me to punk in general. Thanks, jegasus...let’s do some hardcore punk!

I had the starting framework of this one in the hopper for a couple weeks - had it just in case Stop Saying You’re Sorry didn’t pan out again. smile Lyrics were built around the first thing that came to mind when I tried doing something along with the chorus (“IDGAF!”). I molded the framework to fit after I wrote out the lyrics. Added some noisy transitions and throttled a solo out of the guitar and called it done.

I don't listen to a ton of punk, but my influences here are probably pretty obvious. I largely modeled the guitar sound after Black Flag and Greg Ginn, with those crazy boosted mids. The vocal approach was almost accidentally Jello Biafra - I just had fun with it, and afterwards was like, "huh, that's sorta Dead Kennedys" LOL.

Woke up Sunday morning and realized what it needed - feedback! A challenge because all the guitar sounds are in-box. So I set up my old Crate amp, hung a mic over it and made squealy noises. Tried recording the whole thing, but just couldn't get the sound I wanted. Maybe for another week.

After doing gothic metal and power pop, approaching punk was like upside down land. Do it dirty! Turn off the noise gate! Do it aggressive! Do it all in one take! Do it in as few tracks as possible! Don't fix mistakes! Play bass with a pick! Make it less than two minutes! God this was fun.

I went and made a live version of this track - almost posted it as the main version - but ended up thinking it was a bit much. Presented here for your enjoyment. Crowd sound is from freesound.org, link here.

› Lyrics


Whooo! Got my head bopping along right away. I nearly fell out of my office chair from vibing to this. Absolutely crushed the hardcore punk - awesome track!

killed it! great harmonic action going on. authentic raw energy and absolute attitude.

The Biafra is strong with this one!  And the cheeky Johnny Rotten rolling of your R was brilliant.  That was great fun to listen to, but I bet only as half as fun as it was to make smile

Love it. Seems like a nice pairing with my song from last week. Haha!

littlebigmosaic wrote:

Whooo! Got my head bopping along right away. I nearly fell out of my office chair from vibing to this. Absolutely crushed the hardcore punk - awesome track!

Thanks! I was bouncing while I was singing it, too. WEEKLY BEATS MOSH PIT!

zone limits wrote:

killed it! great harmonic action going on. authentic raw energy and absolute attitude.

Thanks! It was fun to focus on aggression, rather than to get everything "right". Because for this, getting it right makes it sound wrong smile

lament.config wrote:

The Biafra is strong with this one!  And the cheeky Johnny Rotten rolling of your R was brilliant.  That was great fun to listen to, but I bet only as half as fun as it was to make smile

Thank you! I think my first run at the vocals was a lot more Johnny Rotten, but it really didn't work. Pitched my voice down a little and it was a keeper...but kept the "R" big_smile Absolutely tons of fun to make. To my wife: "OK if I go in the basement and be noisy?" (I also learned that my house is very solidly built LOL)

SteveSkiano wrote:

Love it. Seems like a nice pairing with my song from last week. Haha!

Thanks! Amusingly enough, we've had a few parallel tracks as far as theme, within like a week or so of each other - including our kids, two chord (my doom track was only two chords), and now a big mug of fuck it big_smile (Also, I have gone back to listen to STFU multiple times. I love that track.)

Paisleyfrog is NOT MESSING AROUND ANYMORE

I mean ... it's fantastic punk. It's got everything it needs - attitude, punk guitar, crash garage drums, swearing and the band shouting along....

... but I also get the slightest bit of a B52 vibe on the vocals and I can't stop smiling lol.

(I mean I thought the B52s were pretty punk in spirit...)

This was awesome lol. Thank you for bringing it cranked to 11 and exploding again week after week (no pressure! Ha)

jwh wrote:

Paisleyfrog is NOT MESSING AROUND ANYMORE

This is WEEKLY BEATS, man. What, you think this is, some kind of fuckin’ GAME? 🤣🤣🤣

Thank you! Died laughing at that comment. Also, +1 for getting the man himself into the thread. 😁

neon liminal wrote:

I mean ... it's fantastic punk. It's got everything it needs - attitude, punk guitar, crash garage drums, swearing and the band shouting along....

... but I also get the slightest bit of a B52 vibe on the vocals and I can't stop smiling lol.

(I mean I thought the B52s were pretty punk in spirit...)

This was awesome lol. Thank you for bringing it cranked to 11 and exploding again week after week (no pressure! Ha)

Ok, now I’m REALLY dyin’ here…because I 100% had the thought that these vocals have a touch of Fred Schneider in them (the TIME…is NOW). I love his vocals. More speak-singing!

And seriously, I was also having the thought before this that I should do a song in the style of the B52’s - I was listening to Rock Lobster last week, one of my favorite songs.

Twangy guitar, some organ, goofy lyrics and some awesome female BG vocals?

So shall it be written, so shall it be done. I think I have a plan for 37… 😁😁

(Also, thank you so much! Having so much fun trying this stuff.)

THIS IS GREEEAT!!! I 100% heard Jollo Biafra's voice as soon as it started, hahahaha... "Wait, I feel like I know this..." LOL
Great stuff, man. Also, super happy to have been somehow part of the motivation for your submission (albeit very indirectly).
Also, HELL YEAH, let's make some hardcore punk!!! My skills at such things are trash, but when has that stopped anyone from taking a shot?!?!

OMG you psyched me out! I did NOT peg this as you, but I LOVED it and thought "Wow, a whole legit punk band crashed WB" AND THEN IT WAS YOU. You absolutely nailed the underground 70s/80s garage punk sound, the vocals (astoundingly perfect), excellent energy & guitar work...I can't even. The ending/coughing is a delightful cherry on top.
Thou hast outdone thyself.

Makes me nostalgic for the times in my teens when I listened mainly to punk. I think you nailed the punk-vibe though it could be even rougher (but I also mostly listened to more loud and fast punk). The coughing at the end is like icing on the cake. Great!

fuck yes!

IN YOUR FACE PUNK!!! Awesome!  Raw, unfiltered, retro.  Awesome jam. 

jegasus wrote:

THIS IS GREEEAT!!! I 100% heard Jollo Biafra's voice as soon as it started, hahahaha... "Wait, I feel like I know this..." LOL
Great stuff, man. Also, super happy to have been somehow part of the motivation for your submission (albeit very indirectly).
Also, HELL YEAH, let's make some hardcore punk!!! My skills at such things are trash, but when has that stopped anyone from taking a shot?!?!

Hahaha, thanks! And hell yeah, you should try making some punk. I'm having a ton of fun trying out things I never thought I'd do smile

MRDRCAT wrote:

OMG you psyched me out! I did NOT peg this as you, but I LOVED it and thought "Wow, a whole legit punk band crashed WB" AND THEN IT WAS YOU. You absolutely nailed the underground 70s/80s garage punk sound, the vocals (astoundingly perfect), excellent energy & guitar work...I can't even. The ending/coughing is a delightful cherry on top.
Thou hast outdone thyself.

I am in disguise.

Also, damn....thank you! This was fun to put together. I'm working on letting go more when I do vocals - not overthinking, just doing. Feeling it. Also, the coughing was legit. I may have strained a bit on one of the takes and ended up with a coughing jag LOL Leaned into it smile

Minnamari wrote:

Makes me nostalgic for the times in my teens when I listened mainly to punk. I think you nailed the punk-vibe though it could be even rougher (but I also mostly listened to more loud and fast punk). The coughing at the end is like icing on the cake. Great!

Wow, thank you! For an aficionado of punk to give me a thumbs up is high praise heart

I am totally onboard for louder and faster. Any bands you would recommend? I would love to do some research and try some more punk.

ENC_ wrote:

fuck yes!

\m/ Thank you!

Bunjigram wrote:

IN YOUR FACE PUNK!!! Awesome!  Raw, unfiltered, retro.  Awesome jam.

Thank you so much! I am not an in your face person, so this was a fun thing to try out  smile smile

Fuck yess... some angry fast punk. Hell yes. Lets fucking go!

Hells yeah, this is awesome.

Love the guitar sound and Ginn influence, how'd you get that sound?

Also, you mentioned Ginn and Black Flag, I actually heard Keith Morris in the vocals somewhere, which I didn't see mentioned. I absolutely love Morris, so that's a compliment from me!

Love hearing some guitar music here on weeklybeats, keep it up!

This was ace, please some more punk!

Oh, and the sign off and endin was absolutely *chefs kiss*

myfirstpunksong wrote:

Hells yeah, this is awesome.

Love the guitar sound and Ginn influence, how'd you get that sound?

Also, you mentioned Ginn and Black Flag, I actually heard Keith Morris in the vocals somewhere, which I didn't see mentioned. I absolutely love Morris, so that's a compliment from me!

Love hearing some guitar music here on weeklybeats, keep it up!

This was ace, please some more punk!

Keith Morris?! Holy crap, huge compliment, thank you!

Guitar sound is based on the Punk Rock preset in logic (which is pretty much the same in GarageBand, based on a Marshall model - do a search for Punk Rock in the library). I dropped the bass slightly and added the Squash pedal. Added an overall compressor as well. Have fun!

Totally thinking of doing more punk. I am in no way familiar with actually MAKING punk, so this is a LOT of fun smile

Well, apart from the more "typical" stuff like Sex Pistols etc, I really liked Bad Brains, and particularly some female-led bands like bikini kill and bitch alert, which is actually a Finnish punk band ^^

Minnamari wrote:

Well, apart from the more "typical" stuff like Sex Pistols etc, I really liked Bad Brains, and particularly some female-led bands like bikini kill and bitch alert, which is actually a Finnish punk band ^^

Will absolutely check out Bikini Kill and Bitch Alert. And funny timing...I was listening to Bad Brains last week. I knew them from Rollin's Get in the Van memoir....finally decided to check them out...and was immediately asking myself WHY HAVE I NEVER LISTENED TO BAD BRAINS BEFORE. Fantastic stuff.

Thank you!!!


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