"Puttin' It Down For South Camp"

South Camp, again?

Doesn't it seems pathetic that after a mere dozen mp3s D.I. Prime is already repeating himself? A quick perusal of the D.I. oeuvre indicates that this song is an a priori pleonasm. Hoping to spare him the humiliation of releasing a roundelay wrought with redundancy, I made the mistake of admonishing him. Minus the expletives, here is his response:

Repeating? Did you even listen to the songs? "South Camp" is a rap song with a sung bridge. "Puttin' It Down For South Camp" is a sung song with a rapped bridge. They are different stylistically and, beyond the basic theme of pledging allegiance to South Camp, they take two different approaches to the subject matter. Besides, when was the last time anyone said "Oh, artist X has two love songs on his CD. It sucks that he's repeating himself?" Never. No one minds an occasional repeated theme or topic. Quit bitching and leave me alone. Who hired you to do my web site anyway? Someone's ass is getting fired...

Temper, temper. Besides, no one complained about getting a second song about South Camp. In fact, as a group, D.I. fans are thrilled that it wasn't another song about obscure relatives, a relative's friend or a friend of a relative's friend. I simply noticed that this is the second song that's contained a jarring, high-tempo, mid-song breakdown.

History

For those of you who aren't familiar with "South Camp" and its back-story here's a brief synopsis. Michigania is a family camp (recently repurposed as a resort) owned and operated by the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan. While at Michigania, D.I. Prime, his friends, his fans and his family reside in South Camp. This is yet another song about that Edenic Elysium on the shore of Lake Walloon.

The first draft of this song was written and recorded in July 2001. It was finished in time to be played at 3rd week's Last Chance Dance but, happily, that never came to pass. The first draft was pretty lame. The music was slapped together hastily, most of the lyrics were written the day it was recorded and the recording session was an all-night affair with Prime's voice deteriorating markedly as the night wore on. By the time he finished, it was a complete mess. Still, there was a germ of mediocrity there.

Learning from the 2001 fiasco, Prime took a more leisurely approach to the process as he prepared the project for 3rd week 2002. He remixed the music well ahead of time, tweaked the salvageable lyrics and rewrote the rest wholesale. He recorded the song over several days while his voice was fresh and did the mixing before his ears were fried and he was burned out on the whole project. You'll probably never hear how much of an improvement there was between the two versions but, take my word, it was profound. This version is almost listenable.

When he arrived at Camp on July 3rd, 2002, Prime was inundated with requests to perform at the Last Chance Dance. Prime accepted the gracious invitations and karaoked half of "South Camp" and all of "Puttin' It Down For South Camp". The songs and performance seemed to go over quite well.

If you're from 3rd week, D.I. Prime would probably appreciate an e-mail from you. Click the link at the bottom of the page to "hit him up."

How Can I Put It Down For South Camp?

Download the "Puttin' It Down For South Camp" mp3 (3.9 MB). [NB: This song contains PG-13 subject matter but no words that can't be found on prime time TV.]

Read the "Puttin' It Down For South Camp" lyrics.

"3rd week dream team we reign supreme."

© Copyright 2000-2007 D.I. Prime, unless otherwise noted. The photo of "the big blue rock with the big block M" was stolen from Mike Kaufman's photo section at http://www.michigania.net.