Sure, you could call them impressions, but I like to think of these clips of me "singing" as auditory caricatures since I tried to push the sound beyond what the singers actually sing like. Plus, I'm not the world's greatest singer, so these are meant to be funny and entertaining rather than serious and well sung (which isn't to say that I'm not singing to the best of my ability haha). I tried to pick sections of songs that epitomize the sound of the singer while trying to capture a lot of the distinguishing, unique sound qualities you'd hear throughout their music that make that singer's voice stand out from everyone else's.

A lot of these voices I've been doing for a while, ranging from a few months to many years, just for fun in the car, shower or whatever, but I've never really tried to exaggerate them quite so much as now. What I found is that this right here is the most like the singers that I've ever sounded before. I thought that by pushing these impressions beyond what I think the singers sound like that I might start to lose the auditory "likeness," but the opposite was true. A good impression is a lot like a good caricature drawing or painting: it can capture the overall essence of the subject matter a lot more effectively and creatively than a "portrait" or simple imitation ever could. And based on the subject, like with a drawn caricature, some impressions naturally become more exaggerated or seem more exaggerated than others.

There are some noticeable omissions in this video, of course, such as the Misfits, Bad Religion, Minor Threat, the Offspring and many others, but this was more about organizing some of the singers I can sound like in the punk and pop/punk genre into one video rather than being about giving a thorough music history lesson. I didn't try to physically move like the singers but sometimes sang in a way that the impression dictated to me and in a way that helped me "sing" the part. This is almost more like a visual behind-the-scenes look at me finally capturing my best try at an auditory likeness. In that aspect, it might actually sound more like the singers I'm caricaturing if you don't even watch the video, but this will at least give you something to distract your eyes while you listen. Plus, it's kind of visual proof that it's me doing the singing if you're the skeptical type. After recording these clips in a random order I put them in the order in which the songs were released, starting with the earliest, , which explains the differences in lighting and placement. Yep, this took a while (about 14 hours of trial-and-error singing over 2 days).

Oh, and I had to use my computer's not-so-great built-in microphone, which is why I'm sitting awkwardly on my bed a few feet away to avoid too much distortion. I added captions so that if you haven't heard these bands before, you can look the songs up on youtube or iTunes or whatever. Try not to be too intimidated by the nearly 5-minute length of this video, as there are actually a whopping 17 auditory caricatures in it. Wow, 17?! Really? Yep. But if you're patient enough to read this, you should have no trouble watching the video.
Enjoy!

P.S. Yeah, I know that even after all this smart talk the fact of the matter is that I'm just a big dork :)

Happy Birthday Aaron Philby!

He's 28 now, dontcha know

Meet Marcus Sakoda

Chuck Norris

This one's a little bit odd, and I like that.