Hope Fails‘ first place track “Puffball Promenade” tackled Kirby’s Dream Land 2 from the Game Boy. He’s really come a ways from earlier material in his game arrangement career, so it’s really nice to see that growth validated with the win here.
As we anticipate next month’s competition, a Sci-Fi Games theme, be sure to get your DoD fill this month and download these tracks inspired by the pink poofer:
Hope Fails: Kirby’s Dreamland 2 (Gameboy) - Puffball Promenade Musically Inspired, Jabo: Kirby Superstar - Thanks For The Help, Knuckle Joe! foXdiE: Kirby’s Adventure - Roy G Ambivalence
Fourth Place - Scaredsim: Medley - Pink Like a Bubble Gum
Fifth Place (tie) - ionvortex: Kirby Superstar - Save Cabin Getaway
Fifth Place (tie) - thesamareaye: Kirby’s Adventure - Smooth Like Butter
Seventh Place - Corax, Zachariasmith, hodded: Kirby 64 - Baby Blue Toque
Eighth Place - Noise and a Beat: Kirby Superstar - Gourmet Race of a Thousand Flames
Ninth Place (tie) - Millenial Fairs: Kirby - Kirby’s Nightmare
Ninth Place (tie) - Shnabubula: Kirby’s Adventure - OMG U SUXX
Head over to Leo’s GotCast page, sign up, and throw your vote in to potentially secure a video game music fan (and musician) a great television opportunity in joining G4.
Shnabubula was kind enough to let me check out the album on the sly back in January, but now that it’s finally out, I’m glad to post about it. Released via II(read: Pause), Controller 1 finally saw the light last week. That’s some pretty awesome concept art from Francis Coulombe, am I right?
Produced by chiptune scene fanatic Shawn Phase, this original chiptune-style album is inspired by the buttons of the classic NES controller, featuring titles all derived from the various controls. Quoth Somnambula:
Take a journey across the face of an old NES controller. Each button has a story to tell if you’re willing to listen. Some of them have been forsaken by their fellow buttons while others are living the good life. Come listen and find out what goes on inside your controller when you’re not around.
I’d recommend something specific, but you’re really not gonna go wrong checking any of this out. At just over 35 minutes and not costing you a dime, you’ve gotta swing over to II and grab this quickly. Tell your friends about it. This album is wild per Sam’s usual craziness.
The album art’s nothing to write home about, but that’s not selling point. The approach according to Dan is to “honor as many original details (keys, tempi, registers, chord voicings, sound layers) as pianistically reasonable.”
On his website, Brown went on the further state that he “felt that these tracks deserved more faithfulness and respect to the “original sound” versions than is usually heard in Final Fantasy piano arrangements.”
So basically, none of this. For all the cover bands in the scene, there really aren’t that many strict “cover pianists” so-to-speak. It’s inadvertently innovative, no? If you’ve got the dough, and want to hear this classic SNES soundtrack adapted to the ivories, see if you’re in for a Mystic Awakening.
Michael Gluck, more commonly known as Piano Squall (www.pianosquall.com), spoke with Andrew Aversa (zircon) recently about his album GAME and some of the logistics involved in licensing and royalties when it comes to selling game music arrangement albums:
“If you decide to release your own album, remember that royalties are only one of the many expenses involved. You also need to consider retailer margins, production costs, advertising costs, website development, photography, packing, shipping, inventory space, PayPal/merchant fees, and manufacturing costs. And of course, an album can take months to create, so you need to prepare for a substantial time investment.”
Rab Townsend’s latest set of photos is out on DeviantArt, this time with Mel in the casual setting of a dorm room (one with a nice view). My personal favorite of the shoot was “heart mel” featuring the understated, but make-or-break element of Mel’s signature on the window she posed in front of. Très bien. So instead of showing her, let’s take a nice long look at Rab himself, entitled “Sick and tired.” (In other words, you’ve got to click for Mel.)
For more background on Rab’s recent photography, check out earlier news on shoots with katitijani and Zoelene.
With guest appearances by a number of artists, including fellow Just Us member VanElliott “CYPH-LOW” Chambless, N00dle has been pimping the album left and right to anyone who’ll listen. If you’re a rap fan, you won’t be wasting your time.
For some of the tracks, the production lacked some polish that I would have pushed for, but favorites of mind included “Give Me Wings”, the slick beats of “Another Everyday”, and the subtle bass work of “What’s Goin On?”, and the groove-driven “I’m a Ride”. Besides the great music sampled and reworked for the mixtape, every one of those tracks plays to Escape Route’s most significant strength: fashioning personal, heartfelt, intelligent lyrics. If you don’t believe me, listen up:
KFSS Studios, creator of several of the first legally-released VGM fan arrangement albums in America (the ProjectMajesticMix series), announced today that it’s closing its doors.
Since there’s only a short window of opportunity for the message posted by label owners Stephen & Jana Kennedy to be seen, we reprint their closing announcement in full: (more…)
Congratulations to Andy for the spotlight as we at OCR await our first press coverage in a major music production publication, via Tracy and the good folks at Electronic Musician!
Done in the always excellent style of Zero Punctuation’s Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, I was already laughing at the visuals a mere 30 seconds in. Once we got into the meat of things, Floyd then went into his observations on why well-done storytelling in games is so rare compared to the motion picture industry, hitting on some pretty salient points. It’s excellent fodder for debate.
While Dan has seen some great criticisms on what could be improved thanks to the OCR community, the video presentation is nonetheless very solid and entertaining.
OverClocked ReMix judge and director of the Final Fantasy VII tribute album Voices of the Lifestream (http://ff7.ocremix.org) Andrew “zircon” Aversa was recently voted the winner of SquareSound’s (www.squaresound.com) “A Tribute to Nobuo Uematsu” Arrangement Competition. The winning participant out of 53 entries with his Final Fantasy VI medley “Dirt Devil,” Aversa earned a combined score of 96.22%. zircon walked away with the grand prize of a limited edition promotional copy of Voices of the Lifestream, and two VIP tickets to the March 1, 2008 performance of Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy (www.ffdistantworlds.com), including the official concert program and limited edition CD, performed by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. The tickets to the Chicago concert include entrance to the exclusive meet-and-greet with Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu following the performance.
Emerging as runner-up was Kenley Kristofferson, who runs the Into the Score podcast (www.intothescore.com) dedicated to the academic study of video game music, with his own Final Fantasy VI medley, “Hundreds of Voices (Swinging in Unison!).” All of the entries are available for download on SquareSound’s website, and Aversa’s winning piece was recently posted to OverClocked ReMix (www.ocremix.org).
Larry “Liontamer” Oji, OC ReMix’s head submissions evaluator and among the competition’s four judges, noted the prestige of what was at stake: “It was definitely a privilege to judge such an important competition from SquareSound, with a very meaningful first prize on the line. Having the opportunity to meet any composer in person, let alone Nobuo Uematsu, and express one’s fandom and thanks is something a lot of musicians in the community don’t have the good fortune to experience.”
zircon will be attending Distant Worlds with girlfriend and fellow OC ReMix judge Jillian “pixietricks” Goldin. Having created Voices of the Lifestream, Aversa hopes to present his awarded copy of the album to Uematsu in person: “Both Jill and myself are really excited to see Distant Worlds and meet Mr. Uematsu, even if only briefly. We’re huge fans of his music; between the two of us, we’ve remixed over a dozen of his compositions. I personally consider him to be my all-time favorite video game music composer. It will be a dream come true if I can personally hand him a copy of Voices of the Lifestream.”
He’s got some interesting predictions up on the blog regarding the potential trade of Jason Kidd from the New Jersey Nets to the Dallas Mavericks, and I’m sure there’s more observations from Josh on the way.
If you’re a basketball fan (I’m a fairweather fan, i.e. I’ll watch the playoffs when they’re hot) and a game music fan, NBA ROCK is a unique destination to hear an experienced arranger’s insights.
The shoot, conducted this past weekend, includes several figure studies, alongside other portrait and artistic nude snapshots (no perverts, please). Deviants are encouraged to leave critical-level commentary at Rab’s HateBunny gallery.
Firmly entrenched in my journalistic duties, The Lady will be glad to know that I didn’t rubberneck at the images. (I like my head remaining on my shoulders.) So instead of providing any of the photos you thought you were going to see, let’s hook you up with a pic of Rab laying down, looking bohemian:
The comment came on Tuesday night while Koda was hosting “All Night Nippon.” The topic of her manager’s marriage came up, and Koda was asked about when her manager was planning to have children. She made a seemingly light-hearted reply that “when women turn 35, their amniotic fluid goes rotten, so I’d like them to have a child by 35.”
Hahaha! While I’m not personally offended, she clearly put a major foot in her mouth, resulting in:
*Record company Avex Group halting all marketing of her latest album, Kingdom, released on January 30 and already #1 on both the Oricon Weekly chart and Unified World Chart
*Cosmetic company Kosé pulling her image from all marketing of it Visée brand
*Kumi going on a self-imposed hiatus until at least the end of February
Even if you can’t understand Japanese, the language of ’shame’ and ‘paying for it’ is pretty universal.
We’ll see how Kumi eventually emerges from the controversy. If she can continue to sell things in spite of the flippant comment, she’ll be all good. Doesn’t sound like it should be a dealbreaker to me. Besides, she’ll eventually turn 35 herself, so she’s got plenty of time to ponder over the potential rotting of her own womb.
Check out Andy’s thoughts so far on Last.fm, Qtrax, music surcharges on your internet bill, and the Rhapsody/Yahoo! Music merger. He should try freelancing. They’re all interesting articles given the volatile, evolving nature of the music industry in today’s internet-dependent economy, so keep an eye out for more blogs from Aversa as they come in.
Sure, there are a lot of VGM cover bands that encourage fans to rattle off songs to them as ideas for an upcoming album. But for an orchestral concert performance? Ok, I’ve seen Tommy Tallarico take dozens of suggestions for Video Games Live. But how about material from even further back?
Officially attached to the concerts, Rob Hubbard and Jeroen Tel have their own nominations ready that you can pick from. Beyond that, however, you can also send by other suggestions for any C64 game music.
I’ve yet to mail in my picks, but you can be sure Tim Follin will be on my list. Be sure to read through the official MySpace message below for all the details you need to contribute your thoughts to a piece of video game music history. Auf Wiedersehen!
Dear C64 orchestra fan,
We hope you enjoyed the looks of RUN 10 as well as the tunes on the cd. As you will know this is only a small selection of the vast amount of tunes available!
For the coming live shows we want to broaden our repertoire with new tunes and we are looking for your help with picking the nicest. To make life a little easier for us we asked Rob Hubbard and Jeroen Tel to nominate a couple of games.
The C64 game tunes nominated by Jeroen Tel are:
1. Cybernoid 1
2. Poseidon: Planet Eleven (Title tune)
3. Rubicon (Title tune)
The C64 game tunes nominated by Rob Hubbard are:
1. Spellbound
2. Nemesis the warlock
3. Rasputin
4. Kentilla
5. Dragons Lair
6. Auf Wiedersehen Monty
So help us by mailing your most favourite selection and please limit your choice to 3! We also want to know which C64 game tune of other composers we definitely have to play in the future.Feel free to forward this question to your friends and anyone who will have an opinion on this quest for the best C64 game music.
This week’s selection is a lovingly prepared memento of the greatness that was MAGFest VI. Chock full of peppy VG music, quick cuts, and hilarious footage captured by Devon Riley and Josh Kopstein, it’ll bring back all your greatest MAG moments in a torrent of radness that will have you counting the days until MAGFest VII.
So on January 17th, the VGMdb server’s hard drive failed (also the hard drive for Gamingforce, which went back to their “Serious Business” temporary forums as a result).
Bigblah detailed the extent of the carnage on the VGMdb homepage.
I have just released my first “album” (it’s really a single/EP) on Skrow!Media (a friend’s netlabel). It is totally free to download, so if you’re interested, go to http://skrowmedia.com/skrow004.html and you will be able to download it. It’s short at just about ten minutes total length, so it won’t take you much time. Be warned, though - the two pieces are ambient/drone music that rely heavily on piano, so if that’s not your thing… well, it still won’t be your thing. =)
Featuring album art cropped from an acrylic and pastel piece of Stephens, this original ambient offering, Meditations on Autumn, is definitely an engaging listen, also described by Stephens as “two songs written as meditations on the season of transformation.” Considering there’s very little time investment, you should have no regrets taking a moment to check the EP out in full, some smooth stuff from Saffron Slumber. You may have to keep an eye out on Skrow!Media for potential future releases from Kevin.
There is a Where’s Waldo thing going on in it. Where’s Magic Butterfly? It’s in each month.
Cool stuff for any EarthBound fan! While January’s purposefully not difficult, if you think you’re hot shit, see if you can find the Magic Butterfly every subsequent month. Damn, my eyes…
Since Bentley has been kind enough to spread the word via his MySpace, we’ll also show off the video. Though the video’s only visual is a picture of the album art, you can still check out the album-closing “Open Your Heart (Crush 40 vs. Bentley Jones Remix)” in full with the full endorsement of Mr. Jones. Hop to it:
The album has been out for a week now, and the response has been overwhelming. Thank you guys so much for supporting us - we had no idea how far the message from Dr. Light reached. We’ve taken orders from all over the US, as well as a few from outside the country! If your state isn’t painted blue yet, then step up!
We spent a lot of time (and money!) on this album, trying to make it as good and professional a tribute as it could possibly be. Getting back even a fraction of that investment from you guys is awesome… and makes continuing the fight much easier.
We’ve got some things in the works that we’ll be announcing as soon as we have concrete dates - some interviews, a couple gigs, and other fun stuff. It’s going to be a mega year…
Now keep the orders coming in! We promise you won’t regret it.
Of course, you can also check out their debut ReMix at OverClocked ReMix yesterday with their Top Gear arrangement from the Altered Bit album, “Rockabilly ~ Dark Gears ~ Surfing Gear” (lovingly titled by me from the names the band gave each section). They’ve got more material coming OCR’s way, so keep an eye out for these guys as they continue to represent Brazil, the bastion of video game music fandom in South America.
Hope Fails: Kirby’s Dreamland 2 (Gameboy) - Puffball Promenade
foXdiE: Kirby’s Adventure - Roy G Ambivalence
Rap fans who enjoyed 
He’s got some interesting predictions up on the blog regarding the potential trade of 
