Saturday, December 4, 2010

The current state of "The Fringemunks" project

Truly a global audience!

It's hard to believe that, as of this writing, The Fringemunks project is now 45 songs old (not including the odds-and-sods tracks of Bloody Rare). I thought I'd share a few thoughts about where things are with this project.

What started off as a fun 2-song joke has turned into the flagship project of my website, and I never expected it to go this far, this long, and this deep; and never did I expect that it would help me obtain an audience (however big or small) from around the globe. Each time someone overseas listens to a song, someone's dream (mine) is coming true!

That's not even including the possibility that the "David Wu" character in Episode 2.18 may have been more than just a coincidence; and I haven't even mentioned the plug by Alyssa Milano earlier this year. Meeting the cast in Feb. 2009 in New York was an amazing experience. These are great stories to tell my future grandchildren.

I'm not by any stretch of the means an "expert" in TV series, nor do I share the same type of enthusiasm or passion as some other amazing Fringe-ies, and that makes the accomplishments of The Fringemunks project all the more remarkable!

But, as you can imagine, it is a huge epic project and - not an easy one. If it were easy, more people would be doing it, I'm sure!

The toughest part now is actually the lyrics - that's the phase that takes me the longest - scrutinizing every phrase, every word, every line, every verse, every chorus - to make sure it flows and that it is accurate. The music is a little easier. Season 3 storylines involve so many moving parts, to the point where it is hard to recap an episode from only one person's POV per song.

On top of that, each song now is now under a bit more of a microscope than, say, the Season 1 songs - in those early songs, there was hardly any pressure. Now each song is reviewable and ... may I say ... sometimes The Fringemunks can be a tough act to follow, even for The Fringemunks themselves!

I find that I have less and less time to work on the songs nowadays, so in the very spare amount of time I do have, I try to make it count - and means sometimes doing tracks in one take and leaving things raw (which is actually not a bad thing to do). But it also means that it can be tough to keep up with an already-busy schedule. I'm 45 songs in, but there are currently already 51 episodes out, so I'm 6 behind.

I have stated my complaints about FOX for Fringe's timeslot, yes. I have stated that the move to Fridays could very well mean the end of the show by Season 3's finale, yes. There is a chance I might need to cut off The Fringemunks' episodic songs after a certain amount of time, yes. But I need to make it clear in case it isn't already clear: I don't personally want the show to end, nor do I want it to end merely for the sake of relieving me from parody-making duties. If I really want to quit, I'll quit, regardless of whether or not the show continues.

If there's a bit of a constant shift back and forth between wanting to continue and not wanting to, then that is also the mark of any longterm project. Whereas a project can last 3+ years, life changes month-to-month and week-to-week, and I'm essentially not the same person (or in the same state of being) as I was when Fringe started.

But while things change, there is a constant - the released music. The project evolves, and the music approach changes song-to-song, but once a song is released, it remains as is. And I have found that they actually age well in time, like red wine. I thank the supporters/fans of the project for this, as they are the ones who really make the project worthwhile! They even show more passion for my productions than I do at many times! Some know my own lyrics better than I do!

So, moving forward... let's continue to have some fun. And thanks for listening.

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