Tag Archives: PAX East

Friday Freakout: Seven Ubiktune albums for $1 = CHIP INSTABUY!!!!!!!

Typically I just write about one new album per Friday. Today, however, I’MA CHEAT & BREAK THE HELL OUTTA THAT RULE.  8) SEVEN DIFFERENT ALBUMS FROM UBIKTUNE COMING RIGHT ATCHA!!!

And all of these INDESCRIBABLY AMAZING  releases from some of *THE*  most influential artists in the chipscene for only ONE DAMN DOLLAR…!!!  That’s over a $30 discount for those of you wondering. :OOOOO

To get ahold of this AMAZING  deal before it expires, click on the following Bundle Dragon link and snatch it up:

http://ubiktune.bundledragon.com/pilot

Feel free to check out the streams of any/all of the albums below (let me give you a head’s up: THEY’RE *ALL* AMAZING). Or if you’ve discovered this article after  the bundle has expired, you can still  obtain all of the albums via the artists’ individual Bandcamp pages. Will cost you a bit more than a dollar, but still VERY MUCH  worth it.

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Friday Freakout: The World Is Square debut album released!!!

I love Final Fantasy/Square-Enix music. It’s grandly fantastic, highly emotive, cinematic music goodness on an epic scale x 1,000,000! Whether it’s the earlier compositions from the NES & SNES games (easily  my favs) or those from the more technically superior consoles of today, the music remains completely magical. And so are the awesome, musically talented, badass nerds  who remix, rearrange, and play this excellently fun music live in various forms, fashions, and instrumental configurations; there’s nothing quite like rocking out, dancing, swaying, and just getting downright weird  to a live set of this sort of awesomeness. Speaking of getting weird, I think it’s time I STFU with this extra long intro & bring you the debut album from one group of said nerdy badasses:

No Phoenix Down
Can Save You Now
by
The World Is Square

This delightfully quirky, wonderfully weird  5 member Square-Enix tribute band brings it  with 13 toe-tapping, giant grin inducing folky earjoys. Their acoustic instrument driven arrangements are strikingly different than any other band within the VGM scene; they craft their lovely covers with nothing more than keys, a Glochenspiel (!!!), several string instruments (acoustic guitar, ukulele, mandolin, & bass) and various forms of percussion. It brings a simpler, more paired down sound to what are typically extraordinarily cinematic, grand soundscapes, yet it works in a way that I never would’ve imagined possible. They’re fast becoming one of my favorite VGM acts in the scene, and hell, I haven’t even seen ’em live yet!!! :O (will be fixing that the first damn chance I get~ <3 ).

According to Lauren from TWIS it’s a damn fun experience within the group as well. “I wish you all could have seen my face when we were adding stuff together like the vocals in ‘vamo’ or the snap tracks. Standing around a mic with some of your best buds trying not to laugh is far more difficult than i thought.” Lauren goes on to say, “I’m really happy with how it (the album) turned out and honestly so flattered and overwhelmed with the amount of support and love we’ve gotten from everyone. I would have been happy recording silly youtube videos in our living room forever but this has just been a total bonus.”

If you’d like to experience some of this funtasticness first hand, be sure to come hang out/party/get weird online with the band and a bunch of other awesome nutbars (myself included most likely ;D ) during The World Is Square Interview & Album Bash at 8bitx.com on Wednesday, Sept 12th at 9pm EST.  There’ll even be chances to snag some free download codes! For the full skinny, be sure to check out the Fb event here (and invite ALL the friends!!!  ;D ):

https://www.facebook.com/events/279825558790405/

In the meantime, go listen to their lovely album, and, of course, BUY THE HELL OUT OF IT OR TONBERRYS WILL CHOP OFF YOUR JUNK WITH THEIR SCARY, SCARY KNIVES & FEED ‘EM TO UMARO!!! <– Although quite honestly, this threat is wholly unnecessary. Once you listen to the album, you’re gonna wanna buy it. <3

Also, ZOMBOCOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNN~~~!!!!!!!!!!1111!1!1

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A personal love letter to the entire MAGFest/VGM/Chiptune community. ♥ ♥ (DOPEY POST ALERT ;3 )

Thursday was my 32nd birthday. I had no big plans; working for most of the day, fishing with a buddy right afterward, dinner with my folks, & winding up the night at Joshua Morse’s Waveform 3 listening party on the always fun-tastic areciboradio.com to share in some good music, laughs, and a few beers with my nerd buddies. Nice, chill evening; I can had a content. =) Honestly, I’d almost forgotten that it was my birthday that week; my girlfriend and family had to remind me! LoL SO BUSY WITH LIFE AND PROJECTS (with the Chiptunes = WIN compilation being at the top of the busy yet awesome list!! ;D ). And then some of my favorite MAGfamily crazies surprise me in the listening party chatroom (and sorta crash it! HahahaSORRIES Areciboradio!!! XD ). Was some serious WIN, and enough to wrap up my birthday with more than enough happy to do the trick. I figured the surprises ended there. I FIGURED DAMN WRONG.

FIRST, THIS HAPPENED. <– CLICKY CLICKY, PLEASE. =D

As I explored the custom VGM designed birthday card, read the messages as they scrolled by, listened to the amazing music, I freaked out. My myriad of ridiculously talented, AMAZING friends, who collaborated to create this for me, watched, laughed, grinned, took joy in my freakouts and continued to make it worse by leading me on to discover more and more wonderful things about it (there’s even a secret code in it!! Hint: look at the score ;). Once they’d strung me along with that amazingness long enough, they dropped the REAL bomb on me:

 

AN ORIGINAL 5 SONG EP MADE ABOUT AND JUST FOR ME

 

I. LOST. MY. MIND. I’m still in shock. The amount of artistry and hilarity and genuine love that went into the crazy project, just… WOW. What the F**K  I did to deserve this I DON’T KNOW. (I mean, I AM awesome, sure, but this is pushing it a touch even for me! hahaha ;D ). I’m not telling y’all any of this to brag about myself, boost my own ego, or anything self serving like that either (I really don’t feel like there’s that much to brag about anyways hahaha). I’m just sharing this as a testament to WHY I love the VGM/Chiptune/MAG/Nerda/etc. scene with every bit of me that is able to love:

The best motherf**cking people in the world are part of it.

The people that staff and volunteer the events, the various assortment of musical guests, artists, and speakers to entertain the happy, often drunken masses, and, of course, the awesome, CRAZY people who attend these events. And all of them, ALL OF THEM having the time of their lives, reveling in the sheer overwhelming goodness of being surrounded and celebrating with the most kindred of spirits. There really are no words to do it justice, and I feel I’m doing a fairly miserable job of trying to convey in words the powerful sense of awesome that you can get from being a part of, belonging to this community. hahaha XD Maybe that’s just it, though: you have to experience it to understand it. =) And if you haven’t yet, NOW  is just as good a time as any to join us. THE MORE, THE MERRIER, BIZNATCHES!! 8D \m|♥|m/

Also (I said I wasn’t going to do this, BUT OH WELL WUTTEHFUKEVAR!!!!): HUGE THANKS AND LOVE AND STUFF TO ALL INVOLVED WITH THE ALBUM: Mike Villalobos (Lobos) & Amanda Lepre (LeRab-it) from Descendants of ErdrickGrant Henry (Stemage) and Dan Taylor (Chunkstyle) from Metroid Metal & Yes MayhemNate Horsfall (Foxxdragon); Chris Ryberg (Rugal); Jameson Sutton (Shadix); Thomas Dougherty (Nickeledge); Chris Davidson (Dj Cutman); Erik Peabody (VikingGuitar);  Brendan Becker (Inverse Phase); Brandon Strader; and last but not least, my amaaaaaaaaaaazing girlfriend, Erin McQuisten (I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, BABY!!! ♥ ♥ ♥). Plus much love to all who signed the digital card!!!

YOU FUCKERS ARE SOME OF THE BEST FRIENDS A CRAZY SONOFABITCH LIKE ME COULD EVER ASK FOR & I LOVE YOU ENDLESSLY FOR IT SO THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111!111!1!11!!!11111!elevensoutthewazoo  ;DDD

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Friday Freakout: OH HAI GAIZ =D

[box type=”bio”] Brandon Hood runs the Chiptunes = WIN \m|♥|m/ facebook group, where Chipmusicians from around the world share their music and particpate in projects in a public forum. [/box]

Brandon L Hood aka. Hoodie, Hoodlum1436, Brandon the Belligerexcellent, self-appointed Champion of Chiptunes, Mr. Metroid beer pong table himself in the (digital) flesh, RITE CHAR! =) Soooo you’re probably thinking, “ZOMGWTFBBQ!!! Hoodie is writing Chip & VGM reviews/blurbs/excited goobledygook on VideoGameDJ.com now??? THAT IS SO AWESUM!!!!!!!!11101010 =DDDD” Well, that or mebbe “WhoTF is this monkeybutt farthole??” ;3 To answer that 2nd more likely question, I am just a funloving, overly excitable, MAGFest/MAGStock/PAX East/Blipfest/Nerdapalooza/etc. crashing, Chiptune dancing, VGM band crowd rocker-outing, awesome Metroid beer pong table party throwing, goofy sonofabiznatch from teh intert000000bs, WUTTEHFERKEVARFTW!! I’m most known from being King Kai of the Chiptunes Facebook group Chiptunes = WIN \m|<3|m/ (WHICH YOU’RE WELCOME TO JOIN IF YOU WAAAAANT ♥). GOOD TIMES, FUN TIMES ALL AROUND! \m|♥|m/ =D

Alright, silly, silly introduction out of the way, ON TO DA POST!!! \m||m/ My first one can be summed up in two simple words:


F**K CANCER.

Alright, so you prolly need more than that. ;3 What we’ve got here izza fan-furkin-tastic Chiptunes compilation put together by Frostbyte/iamclouD & friends. Lotta very  talented Chipartists on this thang, some you may know, some you may not know. ALL AWESOME. Also, did I mention that 100% of all profits from the album sales goes to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation! EXACTLY. Fantastiexcellent Chiptunes + a good cause = MEGACRAPTONS OF WIN. Best $5 (or more if you’re extra awesome! ;D ) you’ll spend in quite awhile. =) So what are you waiting for?? GO SNAG DAT SUCKA!!! =D Annnd share the livin’ crap outta it! Everywhere! Alllllllll over the intertoobs! Kinda like I do. ;3

YOU CAN BE THAT AWESOME IF ONLY YOU’LL TRY. \m|♥|m/