VG Frequency

The final day of MAGFest would seemingly be when things died down, but right after day 3’s concerts, the peoples were awake, and they were still busy. Immediately after the conclusion of the Smash Bros. set, Paragon conducted the annual tradition of announcing the results for this month’s Dwelling of Duels. SnappleMan did a great job in winning last year, but musicalman took it home this year with the gold trophy. Props to everyone who participated, good or bad. There were so many participants this go, it was impossible to keep track of them all, but I made sure to congratulate guys like Danimal Cannon, Hope Fails, and norg for being part of the reason the competition was both strong and interesting this year. Afterwards, Mustin did the honors of snapping the yearly photos of the Shizzies gathering for MAG this year.

Afterward, it was time to hang with some OC ReMix peeps as we watched the Hellgate: London trailer bustatunez scored before moving on to other flavors of the internet. You put a bunch of people in a room who’ve seen it all, and of course 2girls1cup and 2girls1finger are just two of the many new staples of grossout internet memes of the past year.

SnappleMan later joined the room and kept it real (as always) talking about the dramas of MAGFest, including police situations, helping run the audio for the concerts, dealing with the drummer of The Advantage, Spencer Seim, nearly walking out of their performance (twice), mig50 getting thrown out of the hotel for not paying, housethegrate also getting the boot, the audio crew watching hardcore porn on via laptop and mortifying Select Start’s Elaine Li when she discovered it, and his overall thoughts on all the performances. If you haven’t already befriended this man, you need to. Just talking with Andy for a hour, he makes MAG worth the entire trip.

D-Lux and I rolled over to the VGMix room to chat with tumult, Matt Pollard, Shawn Phase and Shnabubula about the chaos of the festival, as some of us were complaining about possibly losing the hotel for next year due to this year’s craziness. Just like SnappleMan, shooting the shit with Matt and tumult is great when you wanna talk with no bullshit. Shawn actually made a good point about how he didn’t get wasted at MAG so he could enjoy as much of the event as possible, but Matt had been drunk from the moment he got there!

As night turned into day, myself, D-Lux, Joe Cam, Wire and Maximo Lorenzo stopped by the MAGFest staff room (a sea of tired bodies) and made our way to the staff’s private jacuzzi. Isn’t Joe Cam getting married? Well, that didn’t stop him from climbing in the jacuzzi with Wire. They all had their clothes on. Let me never see Cam in white boxers ever again! Maximo drew pictures of Wire and myself for her as little mementos for the trip. It was definitely an honor being sketched by Max, who’s done some cool stuff with Tokyopop and constantly strives to up his game.

After I left the staff room, I walked around the hotel for a few minutes until I ran into virt, SnappleMan and OverCoat chilling in the lobby, with Shnabubula coming over later to shoot the shit. It was definitely great just getting to hang out with those guys further. With so many personalities around, and friends from across the world to hang with, it’s impossible to see everyone you want to, even in 4 days. You’ve really gotta be content with what time you do get.

Ironically enough, I tried staying awake all night in order to attend ThaSauce’s rescheduled panel. So of course, when I got there…I fell asleep. Across four chairs.

Attending Kroze’s machinima panel was quite the educational experience, including the debut of the trailer for Eden: The Zhang Chronicles, featuring bustatunez handling the score. Once that wrapped up, we amassed more signatures for the deadly OCR guitar in the lobby, where most of the people said their goodbyes and got their last time in socializing. Injury and Mustin snapped a photo in the lobby, always a great contrast with a short lady and a tall man!

Afterward, lots of the OCR crew headed over to Popeyes for the best friend chicken in the world. OA and AeroZ both got to sample Popeyes wares for the first time to some very satisfied results. (Love that chicken.) Most of the crew then said their goodbyes and headed off for parts unknown while those who remained headed back to the hotel for closing ceremonies. It was good being able to listen to Brendan (Mr. MAGFest) thanking everyone on staff who made the event such a huge success, as usual.

Shuttling back home from the hotel (I live close), I got to meet cacomistle for the first time. He’s done some nice chiptune material for Mega Twerp, and also participates in Dwelling of Duels, but I never had the pleasure of getting to chat with Brian until right at the end of MAG on the way home. What did I tell you about not having enough time to get to hang with everyone? Nonetheless, definitely a pleasant surprise.

Once I got back home to my sick lady, I bought her a big cheeseburger from Johnny Rockets and exhaled. You probably wouldn’t want MAGFest to be a week or your entire life (who could process it all?), but for any gamer and especially video game music fan, the 4 days of MAGFest are worth their weight in gold. It’s the right way to start off any year. Down the line, we’ll supplement the blog with pieces of MAGFest 6 nostalgia, but for now all I can say is you have to make it out to this yearly event no matter who you are. You’ll always be glad you went.

After missing Day 2, I was definitely ready to get back on the horse for MAGFest. OC ReMix had its panel that day, so of course I represented my homebase. Along with djpretzel and myself, fellow judges zircon, pixietricks, Big Giant Circles and CHz were on board the panel presentation that day for an impressive show of staff power.

Rather than going through our traditional presentation for the uninitiated, we were in front of a crowd where the major majority of people were already familiar with OverClocked ReMix. This year, we highlighted all the important developments at OCR for 2007, including Voices of the Lifestream, attending Video Games Live, the debut of the Content Policy, revising the Submission Standards and Instructions and developing translations of our most important information for several languages. OCR’s latest album project, Radical Dreamers: Thieves of Fate, released during MAGFest itself, was given a preview to the audience by director Brad “the prophet of mephisto” Burr, to an excellent reception.

Highlighting upcoming developments for 2008, we’ve got some great stuff on the way. Our first live full orchestra arrangement from Wild ARMs is on the way, we’ve got our first mother-son ReMix collaboration as well from Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. djp showed off his plans for swanky new composer pages that’ll show off a lot more information about the men and women who inspire the contributors to OCR, using Tim Follin to give the people a look at how composers are laid out with more information than ever; look for that to go live in the next few days. We also pimped some AMVs including clips of some of the Voices of the Lifestream AMV contest (soon to be judged so that we can get those swanky prizes out there) as well as the Spittin’ Narcissism fanvid by Psycosis91. Plenty of good stuff to promote, not even taking into account our bread and butter of posting creative, free ReMixes.

After a huge dinner with the OCR meetup group, it was time for the second and final night of concerts. Let’s go short and sweet: The moshing this year was definitely toned down a great deal compared to last year. Not that anyone was cracking down on it, there just wasn’t nearly as much this year as last. Let’s not also forget props to NO CARRIER and noteNdo for the NES-created visuals that adorned both nights of performances. You’ve got to see it to believe it, they were a nostalgic acid trip.

Powerglove was excellent. They always have an unbelievable amount of energy to their performances, including some badass costumes. I personally hate the Power Rangers theme, but when they played it for some brief non-VGM material, they definitely got the crowd going. I would have loved to have seen Chris Marchiel’s Guitar Hero synth in play, but was perfectly glad “settling” for some awesome material from Metal Kombat for the Mortal Man, including Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s “So Sexy Robotnik“!

I was legitimately worried that Select Start, in their first MAGFest performance, wouldn’t be as much of a draw with the crowd, who are used to rock and metal VG cover bands acts, but the masses turned out in a big way. We probably could have used some chairs during their set, since there was no reason to stand up for the whole thing. They put on a really classy performance. Frontman Austin Harley started off a little shaky with the opening solo on one track, but regrouped with a joke and was off to the races. The best part of the set had to be when the crowd exploded with whooping and applause to the end of the first track, which visibly took the entire sextet by surprise.

When I talked to violinist Elaine Li after the set along with Big Giant Circles, she confirmed that the group had never received that kind of reaction ever before in their history of live performances, and that it was great to be in an atmosphere where everyone already knows and respects game music, making it so much easier to get immersed in the performance. Indeed, hearing Metroid “Kraid’s Hideout”, Chrono Trigger “Theme of Frog’s” and Final Fantasy III “Eternal Wind” live was a big highlight. Along with Mustin and ktriton joining in for one song, the crew did a great job with their first MAGFest appearance, so hopefully they walked away already thinking about how to return next year.

This Place is Haunted played their final show with guitarist Michael Motorcycle, who’s leaving the band to begin medical school. Who would have pegged him for it? (We at VGF wish him the best of luck, to be sure.) The band’s set was a lot more of a balance between VGM and other retro material (The theme to Sanford and Son??? Let’s throw it on there!); I’ll admit I’m partial to VGM and would have appreciated more…exclusivity on that level. I mentioned to Shael Riley, who’s a big fan of the band, that This Place just has some impeccable chops. Both Michael Motorcycle and Epileptic Peat were playing some really involved runs and solos with just pro precision; it was quite a sight to behold being so close to the stage. Here’s hoping these bros regroup somehow so that they can keep putting out quality material, especially because they spotlight tons of otherwise obscure VGM to arrange.

Last but not least, the final band of the night was The Smash Bros. Running strong from their performance at the 2007 Final Fantasy XI Fan Festival, MAGFest’s house band took on a new flavor with ktriton replacing Shawn Phase on drums and doing an amazing job; there was definitely a great amout of synergy between him and the rest of the band. Before the set started, we were all instructed to listen to the noise playing over the speakers. A few of us thought it was rain SFX until a wonderful smell wafted across the concert hall. In between tracks, Pappy and Joe Cam were cooking bacon outside the hotel and feeding it to the crowd! Enhancing the experience was a microphone brought over to the pig meat so that the entire crowd could hear it sizzling. I was able to snag a full-sized strip of bacon in the first wave of free pork before the bros had to start cutting it up to offer it to everyone. Definitely a hilarious bonus, the crowd chanted “Bacon! Bacon!” with ferocity with every break. The eclectic VGM set of the Bros. (Ailsean, ktriton, Midee, norg, Prozax, Roy McClanahan & virt) included U.N. Squadron, Phoenix Wright, EarthBound and Contra 4 in easily the most diverse set of the festival. They need to record their shows via the mixing boards at MAG and sell, sell, sell.

Anyone who doubts whether or not they should attend MAGFest would become a believer if only to experience the greatness of even one night of the concerts, and that’s only one night out of four days. I’ll be back tomorrow to wrap up the rundown of my time at MAG.

Ok, so while Day 1 of MAGFest 6 was awesome, I completely missed Day 2.

LOOK, HEAR ME OUT!

Ha! But yeah, the short of it was that my lady, THE Lady, the esteemed Paige came down with a virus and felt like…let’s say “poop” and be generous. I took her over to the urgent care clinic to get checked out, but waited until late in the evening. I tend to play things by ear, so I didn’t bother checking when the concerts would be. “6PM,” you say? Well, shit. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have left for the clinic at 5:50PM, now would I? Regardless, she felt bad enough where I stayed home afterwards and took care of her, so I missed out on all of day 2! If you’ve ever been in a position where you’ve regretted everything while regretting nothing, you know how I felt. (That’s love! Try it sometime!)

If you have MAGFest thoughts to share so far, please comment or send them in; we’d love to hear from you on this always amazing yearly event. But to give you a taste of what took place on Friday, let’s hook you up with something I missed myself as Thursday turned into Friday after the opening ceremonies: Shnabubula performing in MAG’s Jamspace room.

A new addition to the event, Jamspace is the only place where artists can plug in and do their thing nearly any time of day. Whether it’s turntabling or performing live, if you’ve got the goods, you’re ready to play. Some instruments were already provided to Jamspace for use during the festival, and Sam quickly showed off the potential of the idea, brought to you by ThaSauce.

Maybe you’ve already seen some of his previous performance videos. But they’re nothing like the Final Fantasy VI arrangement “Terra’s Got Her Groove Back.” Enjoy!

Gonna keep it (relatively) short and sweet with some personal comments on day 1 of MAGFest 6:

I managed to make it to the gorgeous Hilton Mark Center in Alexandria, VA with a few minutes to spare for the Opening Ceremonies, and was up on stage along with most of the other guests in order to pimp the many panel set for the convention, including OC ReMix involving myself. djpretzel wasn’t able to swing by due to still having to go into work the following day, but he should be at MAG through the rest of the weekend. When the opening ceremonies were over and everyone dispersed, I hung back and chatted with various community peeps; one highlight was having Nario of VGMix/DoD infamy believe I was djpretzel, which had me literally ROFLing with Mustin nearby.

Always glad to see tons of people who I’ve previously met, though nothing beats meeting new people as well, including CHz, ktriton, AeroZ, Shnabubula, Dhsu, Danimal Cannon, Species8472, jvincion, Suzumebachi, and several others who’ve made their impact in the scene. Danimal thanked me for the kind words I’ve said about Armcannon in the past, which encouraged him to take a chance and submit material to OC ReMix despite some members of The Shizz having a negative opinion of the site. Dan mentioned how some tensions between live musicians and desktop musicians have led to friction, and how it’s been good for both of us to see that lessening in favor of raising the profile of the entire scene.

Daniel “Kareshi” Brown was giving out promotional copies of Nintendo on Piano, including a bonus disc with additional material, including sheet music. Definitely a great score for any doujin fan. It was also good to see Dan add Battletoads to his repertoire this year! Look for a review of Nintendo on Piano down the line here, as I check out the goods.

I had a good time handing out our promotional DVD copies of Voices of the Lifestream to the many, many contributors who are attending MAGFest this year and had my personal copy of the album signed by Big Giant Circles, zircon, pixietricks, bustatunez, Geoffrey Taucer, Shnabubula, Mustin, Dhsu, SnappleMan, norg and Suzumebachi. I also had virt sign my copy of Nintendo Power #218, featuring the Contra 4 developers, WayForward Technologies, revealing Jake’s scoring of the soundtrack to the newly-released Nintendo DS hit.

Dwelling of Duels capped off my night, as I hung around with the most die-hard of die-hards for the over 6-hour listening party voting on entries of this month DoD Free Month. The 11+ minute Secret of Mana arrangement “Let Me Tell You a Secret” had everyone laughing hard after a long night of listening. Hopefully my personal favorite, Splatterhouse “TERRORMASK”, has an impressive showing; I gave it all the support I could with my only 6 point vote of the night, the most points that can be given to any track as part of a voter’s 50 point spread.

Day 2’s only gonna be bigger and better as more people arrive in Northern Virginia for the convention and we enter our first night of concerts. Along with the aforementioned Arm Cannon, there are gonna be some other great live performances over this weekend, including the supergroup of The Smash Bros. as well as Temp Sound Solutions, The Advantage, Select Start, PlanetSkill and This Place is Haunted. Really looking forward to providing more thoughts in the coming days.

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.

Twas a good day in Reading this past Saturday spreading the OCR gospel at TooManyGames. Along with helping Carlson Stevens of Mad-Gear with his merchandise, djpretzel and I spent the day introducing many people to the concept of OverClocked ReMix as well as selling our own t-shirts and hoodies and catching up on our game nostalgia.

Founded and orgazined by Chuck Whitby (pictured at left), TooManyGames is retrogamer heaven. Sure, there were current games there as well, with Chuck himself rocking the hell out of Guitar Hero II with five buttons, along with tournaments for the hard-hitting Super Smash Bros. Melee and the not-as-hard-hitting but always fun Wii Sports: Bowling. But the soup of the day was old-school, with tons of classic gaming systems, games and peripherals.

Until TooManyGames, I had no conception of a Dreamcast fishing pole peripheral. But indeed, there it was. Neo-Geo MVS arcade game catridges bigger than VCR cassettes? You got it! Super Famicom and Mega-CD games? The imports flow like wine! Ataris, Commodore 64s, Intellivisions? You already know the answer! With no exaggeration, TooManyGames truly lives up to its name.

On the work side as it were, Carlson brought along a PA system that we were able to use to play OC ReMixes throughout the entire day, providing a great ambiance for the event. And with 93 hours of music to choose from, we had fun picking tracks to keep things moving as well as fielding a lot of game requests for attendees! Part of the fun was djpretzel hearing some of the older mixes and commenting on how kickass they were. With so many OC ReMixes out there today, sometimes we all need the reminder. Of note, po! & Joshua Morse’s Breath of Fire III collab “Watermelon Flava” and DHS’s Human Race mix “Bando alle Seghe.”

One great thing about selling merchandise for OCR is knowing that the goods aren’t poorly-made junk. One lucky new owner of a large hoodie was impressed by how soft the material was and how durable and comfortable the hoodie felt while wearing it. I’ve actually yet to snag mine, but I’ve already PayPal’ed the OCR account with my purchase, so I’m all set for next winter.

We definitely enjoyed the event and, besides being vendors, all three of us with Mad-Gear & OCR walked away from TooManyGames with some spirit-lifting swag for ourselves. Carlson scored a very rare NEC PC-FX for $100, while djpretzel saw a Sega Master System in good condition (with the original box, no less) and plunked down $45. Carlson hooked him up with a copy of Double Dragon for the Master System on the house, while djp also scored several additional titles including Hang-On/Safari Hunt, Great Basketball, Great Golf and Pro Wrestling.

Myself, I always regretted not buying a Sega Dreamcast back when the system was discontinued and they were priced at $50. So when I saw one on sale for $25, with two controllers even, my money was as good as gone. I can now get back to playing Capcom vs. SNK 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike! If you’re looking for a fight in DC…

I definitely hope we at OCR can trek back up for next year. If you’re in the hunt for a good retrogaming experience, TooManyGames is a great spot for y’all in the Northeast US. Check them out, along with their list of vendors (especially Mad-Gear, the ONLY vendor inspired by Final Fight), and give them your support.

July 22: It’s 2:26 AM, i.e. it’s pretty late. The current music of choice is a great new mix that has yet to be posted to OCR by DrumUltimA and his mom, who I’ve been given to go-ahead to now refer to as MomUltimA. It’s from Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, so if you’re a fan of the series, you’ll definitely have to check it out. If you’re not a fan of the series, you’ll nonetheless have to check it out. It’s that well-done. Right now, I’m sitting in the darkness of djpretzel’s living room. His dual screens are dark. zircon’s laptop on my left is off and pixietricks’s Apple laptop on my right is running a very trippy screensaver. Over in OCR-land, we’ve had a quite an eventful weekend.

At Otakon 2006 last year, I had to wait in line to get into the Baltimore Convention Center, and I spent a lot of time worrying about the potential attendance in the back of my head. Being OCR’s first year at Otakon in 2006, I wondered whether the audience of a predominantly anime-themed convention would be there for a panel on video game music. That year, I only managed to get my convention pass and make it into our panel’s room with 2 minutes to spare. As I ran as fast as I could to join the OCR staff on stage, it was only having made it 3/4ths of the way into the room that I noticed the room was packed. For a 750-seat capacity room, I’m pretty sure we had about that almost number of people. For any scattered empty seats, we had people standing or sitting on the side.

This year, I was able to preregister and get in immediately, so I spent much of the hour before our panel handing out glossy OCR fliers and plugging the pending festivities. “Video Game Music, 10 o’clock, Panel 4!” was heard by many people over and over again as they neared the escalator that would take them up to potential VGM bliss. As I went up at 9:50 (10 minutes before showtime) to refill on fliers, the room couldn’t have been more than 15% full, and I was worried that we had a complete bomb on our hands. I mean, what could have rationalized not having a full house this year compared to last year?

So I grabbed more fliers and made sure I continued pimping the panel. It was only at 9:55 when I went back up that I realized how much traffic was actually going into our room. That’s not to say the credit goes to me, but I was certainly relieved to know that we hadn’t lost our touch.

The panel itself was absolutely great. I’m not sure why the lights were low, but the atmosphere was also brighter last year. But it was the fans who came by to see us that really made everything click. The crowd was more independently enthusiastic last year, perhaps because it was our first time there, but once we got more interactive with the panel (including a Name That Tune contest), things really lit up and we connected with our audience more. Plus I’m a big fan of keeping things fun and loose in terms of presentation. A lot of panels are too dry, and I felt we initially came off that way, so cracking jokes made the time fly by and kept the presentation light.

After the formal presentation was over, we sold a lot of t-shirts and hoodies, as well as original CDs by SGX and zircon. The clothing was all non-profit and able to help pay for bandwidth costs and printing the gear in the first place. One thing we’ll definitely do next year with the presentation is upgrade things to more of a video format. We definitely don’t wanna have people staring at PowerPoint slides all day when we can do more to trick it out and give it a more entertaining feel. Feedback from OCR regulars as well as panel attendees encouraged us to make our presence felt at other fan conventions, so we’re now looking into expanding our con schedule, and hope to have some news in the next couple of months.

July 23: Briefly, besides the actual panel presentation, I had the great pleasure of meeting lots of OC ReMixers for the very first time, including old schoolers Dale North, Injury, MIDIman, and Xaleph as well as Final Fantasy Tactics/Breath of Fire V/Final Fantasy XII composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, Eminence concertmaster Hiroaki Yura and Electronic Arts’ Michael “Piano Squall” Gluck, who provided us on staff with copies of his MS benefit album GAME: Game & Anime Music Emotions. We had a great time getting OCR contributors to sign the brand new OCR guitar, part of pixietricks‘ costume as OCR-tan, our official mascot. After all was said and done, zircon and pixietricks killed time at the apartment of myself and The Lady, where Paige and I cooked a huge Italian dinner for 4 and shot the shit with them before I saw them off at Union Station that evening as they headed back to Baltimore.

As per last year, Otakon was huge success in getting the word out on OCR. As I mentioned, this year (along with the great reception last year), has motivated us even more to pursue other convention appearances and performances in the future. When we get idea of when that will be, we’ll certainly let y’all know over at the OC ReMix main page and forums. Thanks to everyone who turned out at Otakon to learn more about video game music and show their support for OCR. We look forward to seeing you next year!

Having attended both nights of concerts (June 29th & 30th) from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, I finally wanted to get my thoughts down. My girlfriend, The Lady, has her own take on the concerts, available at Century Fille. She has a great outsider perspective on things, and always speaks her mind.

As the OC ReMix group stopped by after rehearsal was over on Friday, one thing I really liked about Tommy Tallarico was that he wears what he wants whenever he wants. His outfits are crazy (love his Spider-Man shirt; wish they had it in black), but I relish the freedom he has to do as he pleases.

Tommy and his brother Mike Tallarico (VGL’s merchandise manager) dipped their hands everywhere trying to coordinate things leading up the show. As noted by my colleague Jimmy “Big Giant Circles” Hinson, Mike in particular was very attentive and integral to getting djpretzel and the OCR representatives set up for prize giveaways on both days, as well as stocking OCR t-shirts for sale alongside VGL merchandise.

Every time we needed help, Mike was more than willing to assist, and we were thankful for his help the whole way. “Merchandise Manager” doesn’t begin to describe the amount of things Mike assists with or is responsible for. In lieu of djpretzel’s unavailability for Saturday’s show, Mike provided Jimmy & I (and our respective ladies) with the backstage hook up, which we greatly appreciated. Luckily, one of Jimmy & I’s last memories of VGL was taking a picture with Mike and saying our goodbyes as he and the rest of the tour got ready to leave DC and head to Detroit for the July 6th leg of the tour.

I was very impressed with The Lady, as she worked effortlessly to get djpretzel involved in media coverage of the Friday night show, working the room and obtaining interviews with the National Symphony Orchestra’s in-house media team as well as National Public Radio and Wired Magazine. She also spoke afterwards at length with Cindy Wall (Jack Wall’s wife) regarding both Video Games Live and OverClocked ReMix and also provided each of the celebrities at the Friday meet-and-greet with Andrew “zircon” Aversa’s latest CD Antigravity. She’s very well suited to be OC ReMix’s press liaison, and I liked watching her in action.

The shows themselves were a great experience. It was rewarding hearing OC ReMixes playing in the Concert Hall as people entered in to take their seats. DjSammyG of our meetup group managed to snag top honors in Friday night’s costume contest as a red L-block from Tetris. (Check him out in the Washingtonian’s blog, hoping to be outdone by Mega Man.) Sammy won, thanks to the crowd’s nostalgia of Tetris over all other games. The OCR delegation made sure to whoop it up.

The music itself was excellent. My lady thought the more traditional-sounding orchestral arrangements (e.g. God of War, Medal of Honor, World of Warcraft) felt too similar, and that you only got a substantial change of pace from the arrangements based on non-orchestral soundtracks (Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog). I’m a fan regardless of genre, and I felt like the pieces arranged from orchestral originals were significantly different. For more modern game scores, the soundtracks are more to create moods rather than hooks, thus seeming less defined by any one particular aspect. It gets into the debate of the values of older vs. newer game music, but that’s neither here nor there.

During the Metal Gear Solid portion, one could tell that Tommy was the guy under the box on stage due to his telltale shoes. What I didn’t learn until I hung out backstage the following day was that Mike was actually the soldier who ended up being alerted to “Snake’s” presence, with real armor (but a plastic gun). Definitely a cool tidbit just illustrating how into the nitty-gritty these guys are in terms of putting on the show.

djpretzel got a little of the VGL shine reflected on him not just via the interviews and autographs he gave, but also being able to head up on stage and give away the swag from Friday’s Space Invaders intermission (courtesy of DreamAuthentics and the very affable Rick Baretto [President & CEO]), including a DVD full of OC ReMixes. Having gone on stage Saturday night, I can confirm the excitement one feels. It’s just good to be involved in something that helps legitimize the quality and professionalism of video game music, which is a mutual goal of OCR and VGL.

Martin Leung, the Video Game Pianist, also tore it up with a 10-song medley from the Final Fantasy series. There was a cool video crossfade effect that was done on Friday but not Saturday (one camera on keys, one on Martin), so I was glad to be in the audience when it was possible. The guy reminds me of Shnabubula’s material, not in terms of writing, but in terms of sheer speed. The speed Martin maintains on the keys was impressive, straight up.

Martin seemingly almost had to have his set trimmed down in order to maintain the show’s rigid schedule (a Kennedy Center issue, not VGL’s), but it was cool seeing Tommy check in with Martin every few minutes just keeping him aware of what would end up happening. Luckily, Martin’s planned Final Fantasy set went off without a hitch, though we didn’t get to see him perform blindfolded.

Laurie Robinson of Advent Rising was on board for soprano for AR’s portion of the show, with some amazing vocals. Being a regular part of the tour, Laurie really seemed in her element backstage on Saturday in terms of simply enjoying the show and chatting with the other performers, frequently joining we backstage onlookers at the right wing of the stage to check out her colleagues in action. The power in her voice was only made better being a mere 10 feet or so away just offstage.

At any point, I would have loved to have gotten anonymous comments from members of the National Symphony Orchestra on their feelings regarding the concert. The Lady mentioned that one member loved the God of War set in particular, while another member seemed pretty dismissive of the whole affair. I’d think it would be a great thing to play two back-to-back sold out shows with very enthusiastic crowds, but crowds aren’t everything.

The meet-and-greet Friday night was fun, and I enjoyed getting acquainted with the pros there, who were all very friendly. Along with other pros, I also met Laurie’s husband, fellow composer Emmanuel Fratianni, Brothers in Arms‘ Stephen Harwood, Jr., as well as Civilization IV’s Christopher Tin. The post-show was pretty long though, and I could tell by Jack Wall’s demeanor that he was hoping to get elsewhere. As the conductor, he’s got as busy a time as anybody as compared to some of the pros who were merely part of the crowd and after-events. Jack was nice enough to snap some quick pics with Jimmy and I on Saturday before getting the hell out of dodge, hopefully for some relaxation.

After mentioning Mazedude’s recent God of War ReMix “Minatour Nightmares” (arranging material by Cris Velasco), Gerard Marino gave me his business card and mentioned that if anyone wants to arrange pieces from God of War, he’d hook them up with sheet music, MIDIs, SFX samples, anything they needed to help get the job done. Indeed, Big Giant Circles was yet another person who was astounded by God of War’s set in particular, so he confided that he may take Gerard up on the offer.

It was a real pleasure meeting up with the OverClocked ReMix group for our Washington, DC meetup. After traveling to other meetups in the Mid-Atlantic area, it was nice to have one right in my backyard that didn’t involve any meaningful travel on my part. Meetups are always fun, and I met a lot of new faces, especially arrangers I’d never met in person yet. I finally got to meet face-to-face with former judges panel colleague Shariq “DarkeSword” Ansari, as well as successfully have Vinnie “Palpable” Prabhu, Wilbert “bustatunez” Roget II, and Brandon “Harmony” Bush all snap up loose tickets on very short notice. I missed having pixietricks and zircon there, especially zircon (who had unexpectedly suffered from appendicitis on Friday and had to convalesce). If I had to “trade them away”, I was glad to at least substitute in a lot of really talented musicians who I’d never officially met before.

We all had a great time attending the festivities. One of the most encouraging things I’d heard from Tommy backstage was that ticket demand for the back-to-back shows was so strong, both in pre-sales and walk-ups on the day of the event, that DC could have run a third show. Very promising news in terms of future shows for a concert series that, in its infancy, almost ceased to be soon after it started. Looking healthy and gaining momentum, whenever Video Games Live swings by again (Tommy hopes for next year), I’ll certainly be there.