VG Frequency

Last week, Jayson Napolitano of Music 4 Games interviewed Arnie Roth, the conductor and co-creator of the Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY concert tour. With the premiere concert in Stockholm set to begin any minute now tonight, it’s a great time to highlight Roth’s latest interview.

In it, Roth went over the reasons for creating Distant Worlds, the possibility of other Final Fantasy series composers besides Nobuo Uematsu having their work arranged for the tour, concerns about saturating the marketplace for VGM concerts, fan reaction during the performances, the substantial amount of brand new material developed for the concerts, the official CD and possible DVD releases, and why (if allowed only one choice) concert-goers should choose to attend Distant Worlds.

Solid questions, with some good insight from Roth, particularly in highlight the breadth of new material Distant Worlds will be showcasing. Audun “AkumuHau” Sørlie of Nitro Game Injection is in attendance tonight and is a friend of Roth’s, so hopefully he’ll share some thoughts on tonight’s performance in the coming days.

Appearance Marks National Television Debut of Video Games Live

Hollywood, CA - In yet another ground-breaking effort to show how artistic and cultural video games and their music have become, the world’s leading video game concert series Video Games Live will be making their national television debut at Spike TV’s 2007 “Video Game Awards” on Sunday, December 9 at 9:00 PM ET. Video Games Live will perform a select number of hits from their world touring event as well as brand new never before seen material.

Spike TV’s 2007 “Video Game Awards” pays tribute to the outstanding achievements of games, designers, animation, breakthrough technology, music and performances of the past year in the industry. The awards also provide a glimpse at the future of gaming – including exclusive sneak peeks and world premiere footage of some of the most anticipated games of 2007 and beyond. Taping in Las Vegas on Friday, December 7, the 5th anniversary celebration will gather some of the world’s hottest creators and designers as they honor the year’s greatest achievements gaming.

“It was quite an honor for us to be contacted about performing in the show,” said prolific video game composer and Video Games Live co-creator/host Tommy Tallarico. “Spike TV’s goal of celebrating video games and bringing them to the masses is exactly the reason we created Video Games Live in the first place.” Video game composer and co-creator/conductor Jack Wall added, “We’re really excited about this opportunity which gives us a platform to reach millions of people. We have a few new surprises in store for the audience that we’re really looking forward to performing live.”

The night will feature award presentations and appearances by magician Criss Angel, “TNA” wrestling stars Kurt and Karen Angle, actress Tia Carrere, “Chuck” stars Joshua Gomez and Zachary Levi, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, former NFL star Rocket Ismail, UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and “Ultimate Fighter 1” champ Forrest Griffin, legendary boxing promoter Don King, MTV reality couple Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, NFL quarterback and Heisman trophy winner Matt Leinart, rock star Dave Navarro, “Jackass” Steve-O, comedian Patton Oswalt, comedian and Comedy Central star Brian Posehn, MTV’s Tila Tequila, actor Anton Yelchin and many more will be announced shortly.

Spike TV’s 2007 “Video Game Awards” tapes Friday, December 7 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas and will premiere Sunday, December 9 (9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT). The official sponsors of Spike TV’s 2007 “Video Game Awards” are Burger King®, GameStop™, Mountain Dew, Stride™ Gum, Tag™, U.S. Air Force, and Verizon Wireless.

Spike TV is available in 96.1 million homes and is a division of MTV Networks. MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc.

Jayson Litrio, most known to OC ReMix denizens for his highly accessible Mega Man II arrangement “Dr. Wily’s Wedding” (which has legitimately been played by at least one fan at their own wedding), is set to go around the world next year as part of R&B singer Ashanti’s touring band.

Putting his skills on the keys to great use, Litrio gave details a few days ago on his first appearance alongside Ashanti at New York City’s Times Square, set for later tonight. Via MySpace bulletin:

For those who haven’t heard, I’ve officially joined Ashanti’s touring band as one of the keyboardists. I haven’t worked with her in almost two years as she went off to release her perfume, a book, and star in a bunch of films. Her latest album, ‘The Declaration’, finally drops in early February - which will be followed by a world tour. I’ll give more details later, but her new CD shows a lot of growth, and rehearsals with her and the rest of the crew have been a blast so far. Now I understand why they call her the Princess of hip hop and R&B.

This Thursday, we will be doing a special benefit concert at the Nokia Theater in Times Square. Sean Kingston will also be performing with us that evening. It is fairly expensive for tickets as it is not part of the tour and is more of an intimate show, to help raise $$$ for bone marrow and cancer research… however, for those who can afford the cheaper $101 tickets, I’d love to have you there - and you’d be doing a good deed at the same time. But fear not, there will be many shows to come, and I’m not yet allowed to say who else we will be touring with, but it is going to be big.

More info:

http://www.ashantithisisme.com/ashanti/
http://www.stellasrainbowfoundation.org/

As Litrio noted in the MySpace blog, working with Ashanti has been a positive experience and full of good energy, always great to hear. We’ll keep you informed with any developments with Litrio on Ashanti’s tour if and when we hear of them, and of course congrats to the globetrotting Jayson on a wonderful opportunity.

I was pretty bummed when djpretzel & I realized that we had completely missed out on the T-MODE Anime & Gaming convention this past October in the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia. Not only was the con really close for both of us, but djp had already been planning to go to Anime USA, also in Crystal City as soon as he had heard of it. What were the odds that there would be TWO conventions in Arlington in as many months? So yeah, we missed out on that (we missed Armcannon perform, dammit) Of course, if we had known, we would have definitely attended that as well and spread the OC ReMix gospel.

Having missed T-MODE, we had to be content with Anime USA as our one local con this year. After several months of djp attempting to establish contact with the Anime USA staff, we actually ran into some miscommunication with the staff days before the convention. With only a few days left before the con and still no reply to 3 emails, desperate times called for desperate measures. djp inquired about our panel time confirmation and how to get guest status down the line by mailing the entire staff list and someone on staff assumed he was demanding guest status for this year’s convention on very short notice. All that said, a learning experience with the risks of encountering unresponsive staff as well as signals getting crossed. Luckily, AUSA Chairman Mark Pope took some time to write back, handling himself like a genuine professional and easily clearing up the situation.

On the day of, our panel was filled to about 75% capacity, a good turnout considering the one major drawback of the convention: the Hyatt Regency Crystal City’s layout and jam-packed capacity made it very difficult for attendees to actually make it to the third floor, where many of the panels were taking place. Despite having at least six elevators, the atmosphere couldn’t have been any busier (a good thing, depending on your POV), making the elevators practically inaccessible. And as much as I don’t mind walking up a flight of stairs or taking the much longer route to the third floor, just try to convince large groups of people to do the same and you can see why we ran into a problem. Ease of access (well, the lackthereof) turned out to be pretty critical. Even after the panel, when I helped bring instruments out of the hotel, the wait for an elevator car that wasn’t packed (much less arrive) dragged on for over 15 minutes before we gave up and very slowly and gingerly walked the equipment downstairs.

The panel itself went very well, the AUSA staff was helpful making sure we were set up OK, and we had a solid turnout of very knowledgeable fans. The panelists were made up of us Virginia locals, djpretzel, Palpable and myself. Besides discussing the basics about OCR (how it started, the creativity factor, the selection process and judges, the albums, the meetups, etc.), we all talked about how we got into game music ourselves, and offered some ReMix Name That Tune action in order to giveaway OCR T-shirts and limited edition promo copies of Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream. Brendan “Mr. MAGFest” Becker was also there to plug January’s upcoming MAGFest 6 convention & concert series in neighboring Alexandria, VA (be there).

One of the great things we rolled out, new for our panels and apropos for an anime convention, was a spotlight on fan-made AMVs using OC ReMixes. You can check some out at the OC ReMix YouTube group. Among others, we had some examples of Final Fantasy VII videos underscoring our pending Voices of the Lifestream AMV contest, as well a Chrono Trigger video with game footage synched up to Star Salzman’s “The Incredible Singing Robot,” and the very well-received AMV based on José the Bronx Rican’s “Spittin’ Narcissism.”

The highlight of the event was the live performance from the band Flickerfall, comprised of OCR Judge Vinnie “Palpable” Prabhu and Amy “diotrans” Hsieh, with their take on Nobuo Uematsu’s “Eyes on Me” from Final Fantasy VIII. James “Teknoboy” Winfield captured footage of the performance, now available on YouTube:

All in all, we had a lot of fun at Anime USA mingling with fans and pimping OCR as only we can do. A few within our group commented that AUSA’s Artists Alley was arguably stronger than Otakon’s, which was quite impressive to say the least. Whether it’s Anime USA, T-MODE, or Katsucon, conventions in the DC Metro area are always a great, accessible opportunity to support local events and spread the word on the greatness of video game music.

With Anime USA under our belt, we’re always looking to expand our con appearances. Keep an eye out in 2008, as we already have two exciting dates coming up. Obviously, VGF will be there to let you know the plans once we’re ready to announce the specific dates.

I mentioned a couple of months ago that the crew behind Video Games Live was going to release a compilation album of segments from previous shows called Video Games Live: Greatest Hits – Volume One. The announced release date for the album was October 15.

Well, that time has passed, and we’re still albumless. Tommy Tallarico was at the E for All Expo from October 18-21, and there he announced that, due to copyright issues, the CD was delayed until the Christmas season. Furthermore, the album could be delayed until 2008 if EMI Classics, the publisher, decides that they don’t want the album competing with other albums released around Christmas.

You can console yourself with this tracklist:

1. The Legend of Zelda® - Symphonic Suite
2. Warcraft® Suite
3. Civilization IV Medley
4. Final Fantasy® Piano Medley
5. Advent Rising Suite
6. Tron Montage
7. Sonic™ the Hedgehog – Symphonic Suite
8. Myst® Medley
9. Super Mario Bros.™ - Symphonic Suite
10. Mario™ Piano Medley
11. Halo® Suite
12. Final Fantasy® VII – “One-Winged Angel” Live

Check out the full composer/arranger/performer breakdown at the album’s listing at VGMdb.

Just wanted to drop some brief comments on the Peabody Opera Theater’s performance of The Turn of the Screw (note: content forthcoming), written by Henry James and adapted for opera by Benjamin Britten, including Jill “pixietricks” Goldin and her role as 8-year old Flora.

Though likely a staple of many operas, there were at least two instances of four singers at once coming together in what I felt was an indistinct cacophony of voices. Though performed in English, the opera being subtitled was thus a significant help in terms on following the show. A portion of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra provided excellent music through the duration of the story, greatly enhancing the overall mood, especially meaningful given that the stage setup was not overly elaborate.

Before I mention Jill, I felt the rest of the cast was very strong, but Adam Caughey really stood out to me with great voice control and strength in his role as the complete piece of shit child molester Peter Quint. Jill herself was great in her role and the playful and (as the performance wound down) hateful, Flora, really laying it into the character of The Governess in a big moment that left me realizing that this surprisingly dark story would definitely not have the trite happy ending one comes to expect in most stories of good vs. evil. Paraphrasing hint: “I hate you!”

I promised myself I would check out at least one of Jill’s performances before she graduated Peabody, and I’m glad I was able to follow through. The Lady, Jill’s boyfriend Andrew “zircon” Aversa, and fellow Peabody student Doug “DrumUltimA” Perry were all in attendance.

Afterward, I got to meet Jill’s mother briefly, and The Lady and I stayed the night at Jill’s apartment (thanks to me misjudging when the last train to DC ran). Talking to the judgy couple, I put on my radio host cap and inquired about both pixie and zirc’s histories in obtaining professional work, something that a lot of artists their age aren’t really good enough for or (when good enough) aggressive enough in pursuing while college undergrads. I’m always interested in that kind of stuff.

Leaving this morning for DC, it’s off to AnimeUSA in Arlington, VA for today’s OverClocked ReMix panel. I’ll be back later this week to provide a report on that, part of a very busy weekend with the OCR community.

The ultimate new resource on video game music albums is growing like a weed. On November 3rd, VGMdb creator (and music curator of Slightly Dark) Ken “Secret Squirrel” Moore announced what he dubbed a milestone for the database. It’s hard to disagree:

I’m pleased to announce that, as of this morning, we’ve surpassed the 5000 album milestone. While not every one of those albums is a perfect entry, with fully researched tracklist/artist information, I think we’ve made some great progress towards that goal, and we’re now offering a significant amount of information that was previously not available anywhere.

In addition, earlier this week we exceeded 100,000 total album page views. I’ve been particularly pleased to notice that many of our pages have top billing in the Google search results for their catalog number.

So anyway, I’d like to thank all of you for everything that we’ve been able to achieve here. It’s made me very happy to see a lot of new names on the active members list, many of whom have already made significant contribution; keep up the great work.

I’ve personally added a number of albums onto VGMdb, and fellow VG Frequency writer ‘Ili “CHz” Butterfield is on staff there as well, so I’m definitely glad to see the concept take off and do a great job working with all of the VGM catalog sites out there to not only aggregate the information, but provide an even more comprehensive, interactive, more easily expandable destination to learn more about video game music. Any site with me in the database has to be good!

Earlier this week, Andrew “Merman” Fischer posted a review at Remix64 on the October 27 performance of legendary Commodore scene band Press Play on Tape. PPOT’s concert was part of the GameCity 2007 video games festival and took place in Nottingham, England at the MUSE nightclub across from GameCity’s venue of the Broadway Cinema & Media Centre.

Be sure to check out Merman’s in-depth comments and observations on the show. To entice those on the fence, here’s a look at PPOT’s setlist, provided below this nice shot of the band at the concert sporting their 8-bit ties:

• Commando
• Tiger Mission
• Phantom of the Asteroid
• Ghosts ‘N Goblins
• Arkanoid
• Comic Bakery
• Sacred Armour of Antiriad
• Pac-Man
• Out Run
• Hypaball/Mission AD
• Rambo
• “I’m a Pumpkin Man” (Cauldron II)
• The Human Race
• One Man and His Droid
• Das Gamer (Kraftwerk)
• Bubble Bobble
• PaRappa The Rapper 2: “Beard Burger Song”
• The Ultimate Showdown
• Monkey Island

Encore:

• Monty on the Run

Two industry leaders in the video game industry team up to give lucky fans the chance to win a customized DreamAuthentics Katana Arcade Cabinet

(INDIANAPOLIS, IN — November 1, 2007) - DreamAuthentics, manufacturer of the official video arcade cabinet of the Video Games Live concert series, will give one lucky gamer at each show in North America the chance to win the newest custom-built personal cabinet—the Katana. Video Games Live™ is an immersive concert experience that features music from the biggest video games of all time, performed by the world’s most respected orchestras and choirs. The contest will kick off with the Los Angeles concert on October 19 at the Nokia Theatre.

“We are excited to give a Video Games Live fan the chance to win the most authentic, customized video arcade experience available,” said Rick Barretto, President and CEO of DreamAuthentics. “The winner will get to enjoy the newest addition to our lineup of arcade cabinets, the tabletop-sized Katana, valued at $2,495. It offers the ultimate in home entertainment, with over 200 video games and our customized jukebox feature.”

One Video Games Live attendee will be selected at random to play Space Invaders™ on stage during each show. If he or she can clear the entire first level of Space Invaders in two minutes, the attendee will take home DreamAuthentics’ Katana complete with Video Games Live custom artwork.

The Katana is fully integrated and ready to play with a custom PC-based game engine, a 17 or 19 inch flat screen display, over 200 licensed classic arcade games, and a two-speaker arcade audio system with subwoofer and exclusive jukebox features. The Katana’s custom computer platform can play any PC based video game, from favorite arcade classics to latest PC game titles. Users can also watch DVDs, listen to MP3s, surf the Internet, or hook up their XBOX®, PlayStation® or Wii™.

“The Katana contest with DreamAuthentics is very exciting for us and our audiences,” said Video Games Live™ co-creator and executive producer Tommy Tallarico. “The opportunity to play classic arcade games at home is a dream come true for any video game enthusiast.”

Video Games Live™ is a complete celebration of the video game industry which includes pre- and post-show festival activities such as costume contests, playable game demos, game competitions and meet-and-greets with game designers and composers. Video Games Live™ bridges a gap for entertainment by exposing new generations of music lovers and fans to a symphonic orchestral experience while also providing a completely new and unique experience for families and/or non-gamers. Video Games Live is the power and emotion of a symphony orchestra mixed with the excitement and energy of a rock concert and the technology and interactivity of a video game - all completely synchronized to amazing cutting-edge video screen visuals, state-of-the-art lighting and special on-stage interactive segments with the audience.

For additional information about DreamAuthentics visit www.DreamAuthentics.com or call 800.789.8424. To learn more about Video Games Live, visit www.videogameslive.com or for information about current tour dates around the word visit http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=dates.

About DreamAuthentics
DreamAuthentics is the leading manufacturer of custom built Personal Video Arcade cabinets that play both classic and modern video games. Game cabinets come with a built-in PC and can be fully customized with steel and lighted joysticks, custom graphics and advanced gaming options. DreamAuthentics arcade cabinets are available for purchase online at www.dreamauthentics.com.

About Video Games Live™
Created by two industry leading video game composers Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, Video Games Live™ (produced under their company Mystical Stone Entertainment, LLC) is the frontrunner in the field of live video game music performance. Video Games Live™ is an immersive concert event celebration featuring music from the biggest video games of all time. To purchase tickets visit www.videogameslive.com.

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OC ReMix judge and all-around swell coffee-and-cream stallion Larry “Liontamer” Oji (Editor’s note: When you write about yourself, you can make the description colorful too) interviewed on this past Sunday’s broadcast of Nitro Game Injection, episode #103, now available for download. Let’s drop the 3rd-person pretense so I can overview my appearance. Myself and the NGI duo, KyleJCrb & AkumuHau discussed:

*KyleJCrb: Did the vikings even know of Africa? I don’t think so. [laughs]
*Akumu’s English (!)
*My background in the community
*What I look for in a good VGM arrangement
*The stupidity of artists who react poorly to criticisms
*Criticisms of the VGMix review system
*How Akumu got involved in the VGM fan arrangement scene
*The burden of provide content to readers or listeners
*The origin of Akumu’s NSF Archive
*The Cheetahmen
*Criticisms of Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream
*Akumu hanging with Chris Hülsbeck and Arnie Roth at PLAY!
*The VG Frequency blog
*The worldwide depth of the VGM fan arrangement scene
*Criticisms of Dwelling of Duels
*Artists who refuse to arrange from game soundtrack they’re not nostalgic for
*Our own video game nostalgia; and
*What I want to see from the fan arrangement community in the future including pimpage for The OneUps, Minibosses and zircon

My appearance also features 4 tracks personally chosen for airplay by me, selections from ktriton & Christian Pacaud, Israfel, Tim Follin and S.S.H. Random: At the 136-minute mark, the word we were looking for was “refugee”. Also, you’re put on notice not to listen to the show at work. It’s not work-safe in the slightest. Tune into the recently resurrected show Sunday nights, 6PM EST.

This past Tuesday, MAGFest CEO Brendan Becker confirmed the first-ever appearance of Sacramento VGM cover band The Advantage at the festival, the 6th annual installment taking place this year in Alexandria, VA.

Mr. MAGFest, from the official announcement:

The eighth band has given us the go-ahead to promote far and wide to the world. Everything’s been worked out so we can bring another band to MAGFest that hasn’t played the event before. The Advantage will be hailing all the way from California and joining us to jam and rock out. We’re really excited! Be sure to let them know what you’d like to hear and that you’ll be seeing them at the fest!

Along with other great bands (Select Start) and celebs (The Angry Video Game Nerd) confirmed, The Advantage is sure to make quite a few people happy by travelling across the country to spread the love. They’d still be popular even wearing those potato sacks.

This past Sunday via MySpace, Armcannon shared their thoughts on performing at the Video Games Live Buffalo, NY show on October 14. The beneficiaries of a unique opportunity to play on the same stage as the Buffalo Philharmonic, Armcannon performed an arrangement of Final Fantasy VII’s “Fight On!” at the Kleinhans Music Hall. Let leave it to the band to give the rundown:

As some of you might know, we recently performed with Video Games Live, the traveling orchestral show complete with live action performance, synchronized lights and video, all to video game music. We were given a short slot in the middle of the show to appear as guest musicians.

Video Games Live is hosted and run by Tommy Tallarico who we had the chance to work with, and we don’t have enough nice things to say about the guy. He treated us like pros and was really a treat to work with. In fact the entire crew was very cool including conductor and composer for [the Myst series], Jack Wall. We also met the composer for Halo, Marty O’Donnell. We were pretty awestruck to share the stage with all these guys, including the Buffalo Philharmonic.

ANYWAYS what you’ve REALLY been looking for…. YOUTUBE videos of our performance.

OUR PERFORMANCE AT VIDEO GAMES LIVE

A fun video diary we made that DOESN’T include the performance

A few days before the MySpace blog went up, I messaged Armcannon guitarist Dan “Danimal Cannon” Behrens, who provided some additional comments:

Tommy, Conductor Jack Wall, and the composer from Halo Marty O’Donnell were all amazing to meet. They treated us like pros all the way, and were amazing to work with. We gave them all Armcannon T-shirts and Marty made us all autograph his and told us “don’t forget about me when we’re big and famous” hahahaha. A lot of people online hate Tommy, and while I can see that he’s kind of a weirdo and has that showman persona he has to put on, he was nothing but amazing to us the entire time. I only have nice things to say about the guy.

Congratulations to Dan and crew for such an exciting opportunity and truly a memorable experience. They’ll be sure to impress further when they perform once again at MAGFest this coming January, so close yet so far.

A busy day for Arnie Roth and AWR Music Productions on Monday as news rolled out en masse for the new, upcoming international concert series Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY.

Produced by both Roth and Nobuo Uematsu, the first concert has been announced for Stockholm, Sweden on December 4, 2007, two weeks shy of the 20th anniversary the original Final Fantasy. The tentative Stockholm program currently lists selections from the first eleven games in the series, and will be performed at the Stockholm Concert Hall by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the Allmänna Sången choir.

In conjunction with the debut of the concert series, AWR Music Productions will also be releasing a 75-minute CD at the premiere performance. Created by Roth and the Stockholm performers, the companion album features most of the pieces prepared for the first concert.

A March 1, 2008 performance in Chicago’s Rosemont Theatre with the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra and CPO Festival Choir is the only officially announced date beyond the concert series’ debut, with both dates featuring attendance by series composer Uematsu.

Thanks to Mustin for forwarding the news.

The OneUps‘ recent performance at Penny Arcade Expo continues to pay big dividends as the band was profiled yesterday by Seattle’s Kristin Kalning, games editor of MSNBC.com.

Kalning’s piece, entitled “Making music out of ‘Super Mario Bros.‘”, focused on the band’s struggles to find an audience since its formation, as well as the triumph of performing at this year’s PAX, painting an optimistic picture for the band’s future including upcoming gigs at Ikkicon & AniMix, as well as plans for a 2-disc follow-up album to The OneUps Volume 1. Audio samples from The OneUps Volume 1 were also included.

In terms of the angle of the piece, many of the same sentiments found in other mainstream media coverage of the VGM arrangement community were there including video game music being viewed as unknown, the hobby of VGM arrangement being viewed as strange, and the artists being characterized as struggling. Nothing out of the ordinary, but then again nothing untruthful in the major majority of cases.

However, the one direction the piece didn’t go in that I was grateful for was classifying older video game music as “bleeps and bloops.” Kristin Kalning, you have a new fan.

Announced merely a few hours ago via MySpace, the CEO of MAGFest, Brendan “Mr. MAGFest” Becker, confirmed that Gainesville, Florida-based Select Start will be making their way to the DC-Metro area to perform at the 6th annual MAGFest.

The exciting announcement comes one year after plans to bring the six-person ensemble to MAGFest 5 fell through. Much like the electronic, rapping and big beat stylings of PlanetSkill last year, Select Start’s classical repertoire will be quite a change of pace from the gaggle of (great) rock and metal bands that proliferate the MAGFest stage each year.

MAGFest will be emanating from Alexandria, VA’s luxurious (read: unbelievably tricked out) Hilton Mark Center, January 3-6, 2008. If you are any sort of follower of the video game music fan arrangement community and can feasibly make it down, you have to be there. It’s like attending an all-star game. That means microcelebrities as far as the eye can see! (WOW!) Seriously, it really means that there’s nowhere else that attracts so many VGM fan arrangement enthusiasts in one place. You should have reserved your spot yesterday.

Preregister.

GO!

I was just joking over at the OneUp Studios forums that I’ll kill Dale North and Mustin for not making the debut of the Final Fanboy website more prominent. I knew their MySpace was out, but beyond that I was in the dark. But as Mustin says, “It’s for the girls.”

Alright, so they’re trying to get some action from the feminines. Is video game music the way to do it? If you’re Minibosses…maybe. Even then, it’s probably a tough sell, as most women aren’t impressed with the Konami Code. But these guys are willing to cater to a really slim demographic. (Notice I said female video game music fans, not female gamers. For female VGM fans, try splitting a hair into four pieces.)

In all seriousness though, Final Fanboy performed on day 1 of the Penny Arcade Expo last month and managed to get the crowd going, setting the stage for only more asskicking the following day when the duo performed with the larger entity of The OneUps. They made some ladies swoon and they sold some CDs. But, no, they’re actually not foolish enough to limit their demographic that badly. So while you likely may not be a lady, Final Fanboy would still like the chance to make you swoon via their first CD, Prelude. If you are a lady, all the better. Taking a cue from Michael “Piano Squall” Gluck’s GAME, their 7-track EP features a mixture of game and anime music arrangements.

I freely admit, I fail on the anime side. (”Chobits?!?” - Exactly.) But when it comes to stuff I do know, Prelude features some solid cuts, including a very relaxed take on Katamari Damacy’s “Lonely Rolling Star” entitled “Not So Lonely Nova” with some simple but effective alteration of the source tune’s rhythms to help give it a nice chill flavor. That’s already available to listen to via Final Fanboy’s MySpace (along with the faithful-to-the-spirit-of-the-game Animal Crossing arrangement “Love Me All Night Long” from Dale & Mustin’s More Than Mario EP) in order to give you preview their style. If they sell enough albums, let’s just say watch out for these bros on the cover of the year-end issue of Tiger Beat. They’ve got their fingers crossed.

As mentioned last week on Remix64, legendary Commodore composer Chris Hülsbeck recently released a new original album, Number Nine, available through synSONIQ Records. The official world premire of the album was at the Fifth Symphonic Game Music Concert, part of Games Convention 2007 this past August out of Leipzig, Germany.

There’s some VGM to be found as well, as the bonus track concluding the disc is the “Turrican 3 Suite” as performed at the Fourth Symphonic Game Music Concert, part of Games Convention 2006. Would Hülsbeck steer you wrong? C’mon now.

Sweeet! With 3 Es. Over at Remix64, the place for all Commodore arrangement scene news, Steve “subzero” Dee announced last week that a torrent for this past June’s Back in Time Live 2007 is now freely available. subzero, from Remix64:

I’m pleased to announce that the BITLive 2007 DVD is now available to download and burn as a torrent […]. You’ll find the link to the torrent below - its over 7 gigabytes as it burns as a dual layer dvd. I hope you enjoy it.

As noted by Remix64 head honco Markus “LMan” Klein, the DVD label was made by Jason “Kenz” Mackenzie, using artwork done by Matrix and Theo of Press Play on Tape. Right now I’m pissed I can’t grab this now, as I don’t have the hard drive space. I know, it’s worthy of crying over. Profusely. But with luck, I’ll be able to get a new 200GB laptop and snag this sucker down the line.

Considering that past editions of BIT Live concerts have been (relatively) pricey for this side of the ocean, a full dual-layer-DVD-sized is nothing but good times. Note for y’all on the North American side of the Atlantic, it’s a PAL region DVD, but you can swing that. I know you can.

The London concert features performances from Reyn Ouwehand, Jeroen Tel, 8 Bit Weapon, MJ Hibbett, and several other choice bits. Make sure to get in touch with some fine folks at the Remix64 boards in order to make sure the torrent is sufficiently seeded, and get ready to live life backwards with BIT Live 2007!

In the end of August, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi and Rony Barrak were in Europe for the fifth annual Symphonic Game Music Concert in Leipzig, Germany.

While in Prague, they took the time to improvise an arrangement of an arrangement, Mitsuyoshi on piano and vocals and Barrak on goblet drum. The original piece, written by Mitsuyoshi, is called “Let’s Go Away” from the arcade game Daytona USA. The soundtrack album, DAYTONA USA / B-univ, has a version of that track, arranged by Mitsuyoshi and Koichi Namiki, with, among other additions, extra lyrics. It was this that Mitsuyoshi and Barrak arranged.

This morning, the EMI Classics record label and Video Games Live announced Video Games Live: Greatest Hits – Volume One, a compilation of segments played in live VGL shows:

Video Games Live: Greatest Hits – Volume One includes medleys from some of the biggest games ever released, including Zelda, Mario, Halo, Warcraft, Sonic, Tron, Myst, Civilization IV and Final Fantasy. The anthology CD was compiled by renowned video game composers and Video Games Live co-creators Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall.

The album was performed by the Slovak National Orchestra, Crouch End Chorus, and Martin Leung, the Video Game Pianist, and recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, which in the past has recorded albums from big name bands like Pink Floyd and The Beatles, as well as many film soundtracks like those of Star Wars Episodes I-III and V-VI and the three Lord of the Rings movies. The album will be released on October 15, coinciding with the VGL concerts on October 19 at the E for All Expo in Los Angeles and October 22 at the London Games Festival.

A few days ago, Larry reported that The OneUps would be performing at this year’s Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. Frank Caron, a writer for Opposable Thumbs, Ars Techinca’s “journal devoted to games and toys,” wrote a review on The OneUps’ performance.

For a band that neither Ben nor I had heard of before, The OneUps put on a rock-solid show that ignited the crowd on numerous occasions. They showcased music from a treasure trove of age old games using a full seven piece band and unvieled a two piece keyboard duet called “Final Fanboy.” Plowing through a strong hour-and-a-half long set, The OneUps won the favor of the Main Theater’s near-capacity crowd.

The full review can be read here.

Sean and Coop of Gamervision also attended The OneUps’ concert, and posted a video on YouTube of highlights of their performance:

The songs in the video are:

1. 0:23-0:44: “Sub Castle BGM” from Super Mario World (SNES)
2. 0:44-1:30: “Korobeiniki” from Tetris (Game Boy; originally a folk tune)
3. 1:30-2:10: “Match BGM” and “Get Up!” from Punch-Out!! (NES)
4. 2:10-2:50: “Green Hill Zone” from Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis)
5. 2:50-3:42: “Brinstar - Dense Vegetation Area” from Super Metroid (SNES)
6. 3:42-4:14: “Dark Mountain Forest” from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
7. 4:14-4:31: “BALROG [Spain]” from Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (SNES)
8. 4:38-5:52: “Mii Channel BGM” from the Wii system software

Enjoy the footage of Arkansas’s premier Celine Dion cover band.

Ok, well in a perfect world, they’d have taken over Penny Arcade Expo. With prejudice. But as such, they’re just performing. Today. I’m jealous, but we wish these bros the best, for undoubtedly their biggest performance to date at Seattle’s Washington State Convention & Trade Center.

When they were announced for PAX back in March, what resulted was a humongous influx of traffic to OneUp Studios and new fans for The OneUps. They look to be going stronger than ever headed into the festival where they’ll be performing along with the NESkimos (also on today) and Minibosses (closing things out Saturday).

While attending Video Games Live in Washington, DC this past June, I saw some young reporters from NPR interviewing fans for an upcoming story. Checking around the web, I finally caught onto the story, having been released about a week ago by Benjamin Frisch in both written and broadcast form. They’re two different presentations of the story, so check them both out.

Joystiq’s Justin McElroy (employing the royal “we) had me laughing with his observation of one portion of the broadcast version:

We have to admit to being a little bit perturbed by the tone of the reporter, who appears to be mystified by the idea that anyone would be in the seats. “Why is video game music so compelling to these people?” he wonders aloud, the disdain deliciously audible.

Sure, one could interpret it that way, but I’ll give Ben the benefit of the doubt, as the tone of his question is mean to evoke what a casual listener may be thinking, and may not necessarily be his own point of view. We may never know, but I also don’t lose any sleep over it.

OverClocked ReMix’s djpretzel was interviewed for the article, but in the final cut NPR went for a generalized angle on video game fandom and the increased attraction it’s brought to the orchestra rather than the rise of the profile of video game music. More’s the loss, I say, but I have my preferences. :-D

Tommy Tallarico reasoned that Beethoven would have been a video game composer, which has gained some criticism from various people who’ve encountered the article. While Tommy was wildly speculative in his assertion, when you think about it, it is really that far out there a scenario? Not to merely be biased toward video game music, but when one thinks about the decline of the traditional symphony in terms of attendance and cultural relevance, you realize that orchestration remains healthy in the mediums of film, television, and video games.

As mentioned, the story is still a good read and listen, even if the overall tone of the piece is very much in layman’s terms. Give it a look and see what you think. And the next time Video Games Live or PLAY! or Eminience shows up in your town, make every effort you can to head on out there and partake in the experience.

Chris “8-Bit Artist” Olan is out of steam for now. As he announced this past June, he’s gonna be going on an indeterminate hiatus once the upcoming video game music and art showcase 16-Bit Genocide goes down. That’s Saturday, August 25th in Baltimore, MD. If I wasn’t headed to Too Many Games with Mad-Gear the following day in Reading, PA, I’d be there.

Garish looking promotional poster, but it gets the job done. :-D On top of the great bands there (The Protomen, Entertainment System, Powerglove, Anamanaguchi, This Place is Haunted and Temp Sound Solutions), there are gonna be some artists there also bringing the nostalgia, including Chris.

Now every time Chris posts something on his DeviantArt page, I check it out, but his recently posted piece from Super Mario All-Stars‘ Super Mario Bros. 3 blew me away:

Pretty swanky, eh? And many of those are configurable pieces. Read up on it.

Wait. 3 fireballs at once??? Blasphemy!

I kid, enjoy.

You may have heard of The Black Mages. Formed in 2003 with, among other people, three Square Enix composers (including Nobuo Uematsu), TBM is the closest thing Square Enix has to an official band. Other game companies (especially during the 90’s) have had bands featuring one or more in-house composer, like Konami’s Kukeiha Club and Taito’s Zuntata, but TBM is probably the most prominent modern example.

Live performances of VGM have been not necessarily commonplace in Japan, but certainly more frequent than in the United States and elsewhere. However, in the past few years, there have been an increasing number of video game concerts like PLAY! A Video Game Symphony and Video Games Live. So, I figured it might be kind of cool to look at other, earlier VGM performances, including those by in-house bands and those like VGL. I mentioned the S.S.T. Band in “Composer Spotlight #3: Koichi Namiki,” so that’s as good a place to start as any.

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The S.S.T. Band was one of the first, possibly the first, official developer band, starting way back in 1988. “S.S.T.” stood for “Sega Sound Team,” befitting the fact that, of the six original members, three were Sega composers (Hiroshi Miyauchi, Jouji Iijima, and Koichi Namiki). A fourth member, Kimitaka Matsumae, would later become a Sega composer, as well as would two future band members who were not part of the original lineup, Hisanori Kumamaru and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi.

I was going to make an info file about the S.S.T. Band’s members, discography, etc., but their Wikipedia article is very thorough, probably more thorough than anything I would have written, so I’ll pimp that out instead. The only full arrangement albums are MEGA SELECTION I & II and BACK IN THE S.S.T. BAND!!; all of the others contain both arrangements by the S.S.T. Band and original soundtracks.

An interesting thing to note is that every single S.S.T. Band member had a stage name, most of which were taken from Sega arcade games:

Jouji Iijima: GALAXY (Galaxy Force)
Shingo Komori: BURNER (After Burner)
Hisanori Kumamaru: SPLASH Wave (”Splash Wave” is the name of a track from OutRun)
Kimitaka Matsumae: HARRIER (Space Harrier)
Takenobu Mitsuyoshi: R360 (refers to the R360 arcade cabinet)
Hiroshi Miyauchi: Hiro
Koichi Namiki: Mickey or Pretty K.N.
Masato Saito: TURBO-kun (Turbo OutRun)
Takehiko Tanabe: THUNDER (Thunder Blade)

But the best part of the S.S.T. Band, even moreso than their rockin’ arrangements, is their appearance. Remember when sleeveless vests, ponytails, bandannas, and sunglasses used to be cool on musicians?

“After Burner” (arrangement of the track of the same name from the game of the same name)
video from the S.S.T. Band Live! DVD (1990 concert)
Jouji “GALAXY” Iijima: Guitar (red)
Kimitaka “HARRIER” Matsumae: Keyboards (right)
Hiroshi “Hiro” Miyauchi: Keyboards (left)
Koichi “Mickey” Namiki: Guitar (yellow)
Masato “TURBO-kun” Saito: Bass
Takehiko “THUNDER” Tanabe: Drums

The band’s arrangements always stayed close to the original, usually being covers with the occasional solo thrown in to retain the feel of the originals, all of which were from Sega arcade, Master System, or Genesis games. Since the band’s instruments were guitars, keyboard, and drums, they usually picked upbeat songs that could easily be converted to synthrock, like the title theme from After Burner seen above. However, as the material dictated, they were not above slower, jazzier pieces like their medley of Galaxy Force tracks and ballads like their cover of “Last Wave,” the high scores theme from OutRun.

Other videos from their 1990 concert on YouTube are “Magical Sound Shower” from OutRun and an After Burner medley featuring other tracks from the game other than the title track. One last video, from no concert I can identify, is a cover of “Like the Wind” from Power Drift. Soak up the retro.