Tag Archives: video game remix

MAGFest hits the road, baby!!! 8)

The only legitimate gripes that I’ve ever heard about MAGFest are that it’s only once a year & stuck in one location. And those qripes have been quite founded, as they’ve been true up to this point.

…UNTIL NOW.

Just in case your mind is currently TOO ASPLODY to comprehend what’s happening here, LEMME BREAK IT DOWN FOR YA!! ;D

Starting February 3rd – this coming Sunday night!!! – MAGFest will OFFICIALLY be presenting its first in a series of concerts at the Red7 in Austin, Texas!! For a mere $10 in advance/$12 on the day of, you can snag a ticket to catch this inaugural MAG-tour kickoff, which includes some badass video games, awesome bands, and all in all MAGFESTY GOOD TIMES!! 
Lineup includes the debut of the all(most) new Descendants of ErdrickLords of ThunderUrizenMegaran, & Dr. Awkward!! If you’re ANYWHERE near this indefinable collection of AMAZEBALLS (and hell, even if you’re not!!), I think you know what you need to do…

GET DAT ASS TO MAGFEST!!!!!

Much \m||m/ as always,
Hoodie

P.S. Want a little additional motivation to go to this MAG-show and/or any others that may come near you? MAGFest will be judging the response of these shows to scout out potential locations for a full fledged additional MAGFest at some point in the relatively near future.
So yeah. There’s that too. ;)

Redundant linkymajiggers:
Game Over Austin Facebook event
Red7
Tickets
Descendants of Erdrick
Lords of Thunder
Urizen
Megaran
Dr. Awkward

Friday Freakout: Prepare thyselves for… LORDS OF THUNDER!!! \m||m/

The wonderfulness of chipWINter has been happily released to the intertoobs, & thus all is good & swell in ChipWINmas Land once again. SHINY.  ^_^ 

 

And now with that outta my way…

 

LORDS OF THUNDER TIME, BABY!!! 8) \m||m/

 

 

THAT’S RIGHT.  A brand spankin’ new SUPER METUL, SUPER BADASS  VGM band is coming to 2nd stage at MAGFest 11 to MELT *ALL* OF THE GORRAM FACES!!!

We’ll be covering the VERY METUL  tracks from the Sega CD version of Lords of Thunder, along with some other fresh  (AND DID I MENTION METUL?!?)  video game music!!

 

BEHOLD!!! THE LORDLY LINEUP:

~Mike “Paladin” Villalobos of Descendants of Erdrick – METULASS GUITAR

~Daniel “The Beast” Tidwell – METULASS GUITAR

~Mateo “Lord Smithy” Marshall of Those Who Fight – METULASS KEYS

~John “Falconer” Pike of Descendants of Erdrick – METULASS DRUMS

~Brandon “Sir Hoodie” Hood of Chiptunes = WIN – METULASS BASS

 

~~~FELLOW METULWARRIORS~~~

PREPARE THYSELF FOR THE MUSICAL GLORY TO COME, AS THERE SHALL BE MUCH OF IT  & MUCH REJOICING!!!

AND MUCH, MUCH MEAD.

\M||M/

 

Rendundant Lords of Thunder linkage:
LoT Fb page
LoT Twitter
LoT Youtube

Friday Freakout DOUBLE FEATURE: Those Who Fight & Knight of the Round albums UNLEASHED!!!

-takes last swig of beer, downs a shot of Maker’s Mark- Yeaaaah, it’s gonna be one of those kinda reviews, people!! Just back the F*CK out now  if you’re not ready for the excessively fierce, yet completely warranted  hype-a-palooza that’s coming ‘atcha this time around!! And this freakout, not just ONE  completely awesome album write-up, but TWO COMPLETELY AWESOME ALBUM WRITE-UPS!!!
…or rather one write-up about two albums. WUTTEHFUKEVAR!!! HERE GOES NOTHING~

The Fall of Bahamut by Those Who Fight
&
Gaia’s Bane by Knight of the Round

 

 

Yeah, this is absolutely a Friday Final Fantasy  Freakout if ever there was one!! On one hand you’ve got the release of the long-awaited 4 track EP from the Final Fantasy inspired rock opera powergroup Those Who Fight, with members from mainstay VGM bands Armcannon, Descendants of Erdrick, & Year 200x. And then on the other is Knight of the Round, a wickedly brutal 4 piece FF metal band from bumf*ck Indiana blasting out of the gate with a full length debut album of epic proportions!!!

“Wutevar, Barndo! Ive herd finul fantasee bans befer. Dis has been dun.”

STFU & GTFO, DOLAN, BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT!!!

In all seriousness, both  of these bands display an insane  level of musicianship and extraordinary creativity with their arrangements that clearly sets them apart, even within the overly talented VGM scene! It is NOTHING LIKE  any Final Fantasy OST re-imagining you’ve been exposed to before, and yet they both stand out in completely different ways! Those Who Fight have crafted an entirely new narrative to wrap their multi-vocalist lead  re-imagining of FF tracks around, whereas Knights of the Round have bathed theirs so deeply in so much violently heavy molten metal that Nobuo Uematsu himself would have to listen twice to recognize!! In fact, aside from said FF inspirations there’s only one way in particular that these two bands are truly reminiscent of each other:

THEY BOTH KICK MEGAF*CKSHITTONS OF ASS!!!  (okay, so the seriousness didn’t last… I CAN’T HELP IT!! I’M LISTENING TO THEIR MUSIC AS I WRITE!!!!!!111123456789KABOOMITY~).

And oh yeah, wanna chance to catch some of this Square action live?? THEN COME TO MAGFEST 11 IN JANUARY!!!!  KotR will be DESTROYING  2nd stage,  provided their  folky, acoustic cohorts, The World Is Square, haven’t already WEIRDED IT UP BEYOND REPAIR (yup, they’re playing MAG too!!). No announcement about TWF yet (but there are  more bands to announce after all…), but wow, if they show up there too??
IT’LL BE THE SQUAREST MAGFEST *EVAR*!!! BANGOVERS FOR ONE & ALL!!!

AHHH enough stupid wordy words already!! Quit reading this bullshit AND GO LISTEN, BUY, AND SHARE THE HELL OUTTA THESE ALBUMS ALREADY!!! Otherwise Bahamut is totally gonna fall ON YOUR ASS & Gaia will unleash it’s bane ON YOUR MOTHER!!! 8)

\m||m/

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

\m|♥|m/