#the reference image was holding a bass but i did not have the energy.

[genderfluidsilver]

randomly remembered that dinah like. has a band. here.

#the reference image was holding a bass but i did not have the energy. #dinah lance #black canary #fanart #dc #dc fanart #black canary fanart #birds of prey #bop #arrowfam #justice league #birds of prey fanart #green arrow fanart #art #digital art

[quarantinemusiccalendar]

Day 254: Kaizers Orchestra - Ompa Til Du Dør (2001)

There aren’t that many rock bands who incorporate a string bass, a wheezy pump organ, brake drums (yes, from car wheels), oil barrels and crowbars into their standard instrument setting. But the Kaizers Orchestra from Stavanger (western Norway) does just that. And they do it well. Well, they did. They went into an indefinite hiatus at the end of 2013, in the same year when I discovered them. But I managed to see them live in concert twice that year, it was amazing both times and it will remain stuck in my memory as some of the best concerts I have even seen. Once in Prague Roxy which was absolutely packed with about 2000 people and exploding with energy and then 5 months later again in Bergen, but this time in an open air concert with 30.000 people in audience inside the old Bergen fort. It was electric both time, just in a very different way.

For little over a decade Kaizers Orchestra were the biggest band in Norway. But Outside Scandinavia they are almost unknown. Their image and sound of jingly drums and wheezy old organ and their theatrical art of an evil circus band or a carnival freak show makes for a mysterious dark atmosphere and very entertaining concerts. It’s a bit of a Balkan gypsy music meets punk rock and there is something distinctly Tom Waits-esque about them. Janove’s gritty and raspy voice and his singing style, very syncopated and almost on the verge of rapping, yet intentionally quite erratic, enhances his image of an evil circus director even more. Watch that and imagine this is someone who studied to become a teacher. And to top their theatrics even more, there’s Helge Risa, aka Omen Kaizer, aka Mr. 250% who plays the old organ and accordion wearing a gas mask. He’s portraying this weird character who always stoically enters the stage before the rest of the band, in his gas mask (bought in a charity shop in Stavanger for 40 NOK back in the days), wearing a suit and holding a briefcase.

All of their song lyrics are in Norwegian, specifically in jærsk dialekt (valley south of Stavanger), which some may find even more fascinating (e.g. nerds like me), but clearly the absolute majority of people outside of Norway won’t. But I find that sometimes listening to lyrics in a language I don’t understand can be also liberating. 

If you want to enjoy their unique rock / brass / industrial sound, their 1st regular record, Ompa Til Du Dør (2001, Ompa Til You Die) is the one to go for.

The album is a collection of stories about strange characters on the social periphery: sailors, soldiers, Mr. Kaizer and his gang and others like this.

If you ask what “ompa” is, it’s quite hard to translate precisely, but it is an interjection word that describes the cling and musical tone of a brass band of the janissary tradition, possibly close to Balkan folk music. So loosely translated, Ompa Til Du Dør means something along the lines of “make loud music with a kick till you die”.

Kontroll På Kontinentet (Control over the Continent) has a distinct fairground / circus band feel about it. And in live concerts it’s the song when the crowds go wild and sing along like mad. Story-wise it’s song of a mafia boss showing off and listing his conditions of how his successor should look and act like should he himself loose his life.

Resistansen (The Resistance) is a story of a mafia gang and their headquarters. The song features a brilliant group chorus before culminating in the euphoric chant of the album title

The song 170 is a story of a soldier stuck in a war trench, who is called by his general not by his name but rather by his number “170”. The melody reminiscent of an old shanty song, but its banjo line and a very slow, almost tired and clumsy, rhythm gives it more of a wild west - high noon sort of feel. Either way it adds even more character to the record.

My personal favorite of all Kaizers’s songs is the single ballad on this album, Bris (Breeze). It’s sung from the perspective of a character called Kristoffer, a ex-solder who came back from war wounded and crippled and now lingers on the periphery of society. He is pondering his war memories, the sacrifice he had to give to the war and society and while casually talking to the wind at the same time.

Happy Thursday, relax and enjoy.

Album highlights: - Kontroll På Kontinentet (Control over the Continent) - Ompa Til Du Dør (Ompa Til You Die) - 170 - Resistansen (The Resistance) - Bris (Breeze)

Playlist:   https://spoti.fi/3bB5lH7 

Links and references:   - Kaizers Orchestra - Wikipedia  

#kaizers orchestra #ompa #quarantine #lockdown

[destinywillowleaf]

SWN-002 Wing Man

“That's the power of love!”

Wingman was created by Dr. Wily in an attempt to beat Mega Man in a field outside of battle by harnessing the power of love. Wing Man has flight capability and wields a piercing arrow called his "Cupid Crossbow". Being designed to defeat Mega Man through love, Wing Man has a large board dedicated to unravelling his love life. Similar boards exist for Proto Man and Bass, forming the "Tiny Trio". He'd call them the Big Three, but they're short.

Wing Man likes cheesy romcoms and dislikes Proto Man (for being hard to read). His strong point is his dedication to his task, though he can become blinded by the task at hand and not remember the other couples he's trying to get together.

This took longer than I expected to actually write and get out to share.

With this year’s Valentine’s contest over(courtesy of rockmiyabideusexmachina), I can finally talk about this boy! He was so much fun to make and I’m definitely gonna be using him more in the future. I’ve got a lot of thoughts on him, the stages of his design, and a lot of pictures, so it’s gonna be under the cut.

Now that that’s outta the way, let’s get into the process of Wing!

...I thought we were talking about Wing Man, who’s this?

Meet “Playboy Bunny”, this duality of a Maverick and the first draft of a character for this contest. Usually she’s the sweet Playboy Bunny, a majorly human-like Reploid acting as a performer. However, once you’ve provoked her, she throws off the sweet guise and becomes Magnet Hare, the quick and fast-attacking Maverick with attractive properties. 

To be honest, I’m half wondering if I would’ve done better if I had done more with her design and actually gone with her instead. The main reason I didn’t go with her in the end was cause I thought someone else was gonna go with it and then there would’ve been repeats.

I might come back and do more doodles of her someday, refining her design to be less human with bunny accessories and more rabbit/bunny with human-like proportions. 

The very first drawings of Wing Man. The only thing I really had down at this point were the general heart-shapes, his name, and his weapon’s name. The one on the left was the first draft, and the right one was a case of “should he actually have wings or nah?”. The name actually came to me when I was sitting in class and I think that’s part of the reason I got attached. The pun name is probably the biggest holdover from Bunny, though another element did come by later…

This is where the magic happened. The front-facing sketch was the first real attempt and trying to figure out what I wanted from him. I knew that he should have a general heart-shape for his chest armor, and maybe his helmet could follow the same idea with one in the center. It took a bit to look through the other Robot Master helmet designs, but I feel like Wing’s looks like it could fit with everyone else’s. At one point I was considering giving him a heart braid kinda like Tundra’s, but I wound up scrapping it. I think it was because I was sick of braids after doing so many for Nahyuta…

Then some arrows! I couldn’t decide whether to have actual arrows or energy arrows, but I feel like the energy arrows make it look more unique. And the first appearance of the bowtie! I didn’t even know if I was gonna give him one at first but once I made the doodle I knew it was gonna stay. Bunny has a bow, too, but hers was just a regular ribbon one. 

The collapsible crossbow was something I knew I wanted from the start, because Wing’s not a huge fighter. He will fight to achieve his goals, and sometimes it’s more necessary than at other times, but it’s easier to have it folded outta the way. The “string” of the crossbow forms when it is expanded out, and then he can start firing his weapon.

Also, his boot. Simple enough design. Not much to be said. Same goes for the side profile, I was just trying to get a better feel for his design.

I was debating for a while about whether or not to actually give Wing Man wings. On the one hand, it’d help for the joke of him being a wingman and a wing(ed) man, but on the other hand I don’t like drawing wings because I still don’t really understand them all too well.

The bottom center image was a pretty defining part of making Wing, to be honest. It’s probably one of my favorite drawings/doodles of him just because of the causal nature of suggesting a relationship with someone(and it’s up to you to decide who it is) and Rock’s immediate reaction of fear/concern. I don’t screw around with expressions enough anymore…

I don’t have any versions of this page without color on it, but that’s because this was a color testing page. I wanted to test out my physical colors first before spending too much time digitally experimenting, and I had two main ideas: either red-pen red in varying pressures or coral Sharpie highlighter. By the final design, you can tell which one I went with. I wanted to compare them side-by-side, and the half-and-half wasn’t really cutting it for me. I did a second comparison on the other page(which is gonna be further down this post).

I was trying to get a better grasp on the wings, too, since I eventually decided just to go for it and make it more of a pun.I couldn’t decide if I wanted the wings like on top of the jetpacks or off to the sides, but I went with on top of the jets in the end. The off to the side wings were taken from how Tengu Man’s “wings” are positioned. As for the wings themselves… I was honestly mostly taking reference from Pit’s emotion portraits from Kid Icarus Uprising. I had the image with all of his different emotions and it wasn’t like Wily would be going for complete accuracy how big wings would need to be since, y’know, jetpack.

The color scheme of the wings also changed over time, and I think probably for the better. Layering the colors instead of just making a weird gradient overtop looks nicer(even if those colors could probably use some refinement all things considered). I was also deciding on the weapon “type” for the crossbow, since Megaman’s weapon get picture is on this page. Piercer seemed like it would fit the best, going through multiple enemies in a straight shot.

Designing the ability get was actually pretty simple, which I’m glad about. I wanted to go more off of the Megaman 11 style of weapon get, altering the helmet, arm, and color only, and I wanted to stick to that. I also wanted to keep two of Wing’s more defining elements - his bow and wings - on the ability get, so I moved them from Wing’s torso to Rock’s helmet.

Alongside the ability get, an unfinished battle scene. Nothing too special here.

I tried the color testing thing again, and it was here, I believe, that I first settled on the idea of “hey what if he looked like he was wearing a suit or something” and colored it accordingly. The color on the feet honestly sold me on the left one, because the cherry-red was beautiful and it was just red pen under the highlighter. I was happy with the pieces I had and started to put it all together into the final product…

Every Robot Master needs a pose for their artwork, and Wing was gonna be no different. I could’ve gone for something more dramatic, I know, but I was really really happy how the posing turned out for the one on the left. The smaller one on the right was more for fun and was messing around with some line thickness. There’s also less feathers because I was kinda lazy.

The main reason I have him sitting is because I think his boss entrance, were he to be fought in a typical arena, would have him pulling a Meta Knight and coming down from a high ledge to attack. Saying his pre-battle line, sliding/jumping down from on-high, and with a flourish, the battle begins.

Also I just wanted to draw my boy looking cute. Sue me.

The physical version of Wing sitting(on the left) is what I had initially been going for in color scheme, with a lot less coral-ish colors in the mix. Trying to recreate those colors, however, was a problem, so for all intents and purposes this is what I hold as why he's really supposed to look like. But with a complete physical form, what's next?

...hoo boy.

Trying to make the leap from physical to digital was a pain. I realized after I had essentially finalized the physical sketch of Wing posing that the helmet and face kind of made no sense. I spent a while trying to make it right and nothing worked how I wanted it to so I eventually just moved on from that. 

One thing to know is that I basically only work in MS Paint. I don’t have any other digital drawing software on my computer and the tablet available to me doesn’t respond to styluses as far as I can gather. So taking the widely-varying-in-color picture and making it not like that was something I had to remember how to do because otherwise I was gonna suffer the consequences. I knew it had to do with outlines but apparently Paint didn’t want to accept my drawn outlines and would only take ones made in the software. And jpgs were pixel-y, which I forgot since the last time I was extensively using the software.

Once I had my system back, I made the silhouette and digitalized “I’m just sayin” as a practice round of sorts. But with the simple pieces out of the way… the time came for making the whole reference sheet. The pose, the front and side views, the shipping board to serve as a back view, the wings, the Weapon Get, the weapon, and the little character-defining details.

Save states fill most of this folder for a reason. Working with what I had and going over and through everything to make sure I had all the pieces ready, making saves before the background deletion so I would just have outlines, and just hoping that this was all gonna be worth the work.

One of the more… challenging, I guess, parts of the design process for Wing: trying to give him a unique silhouette. Including the wings was, in part, because of this. Most, if not every Robot Master has a unique silhouette that you can look at and say “Oh that’s [name here]” or at least be able to tell them apart. Whether it’s fire, a boomerang, a snake tail, a lightbulb, a weird body shape, or their arms, there’s something to set each one apart. And I wanted Wing to have that same feeling, so if you were to see a blacked-out version of him you could still tell that it was Wing and not someone else.

Without the wings, he’d probably resemble a downgraded Quick Man - which makes sense, considering I was using Quick’s body shape as a base for Wing’s for a more subtle top of a heart. But I didn’t want Wing just to look like Worse Quick Man, so the wings had to stay. The crossbow helps in that regard too, but the wings really set him apart.

This is what I’m talking about. He looks like a generic character without the wings.

Trying to keep Wing in the same vein of design as other Robot Masters was also, I guess, the reason I used the colors I did. Robot Masters typically don’t have too many colors, and didn’t want Wing to be a colorful mess. Maybe I could’ve had another more striking color in his design, but I’m happy with the colors I have. Reds and pinks and white with a skin tone taken from the physical doodles that I tried to have be a brownish-cherry if that makes any sense. Like it was supposed to still be in the red(kinda orange) family of colors but still be distinct enough as a skin tone. I didn’t want to have too many variations on colors, but I do think I could’ve done better on some of the distributions(and holding onto the idea of “stop using so many colors”).

Like I said, I consider the physical drawing to be the true colors of Wing, and the digital can’t quite capture the physical.

...Okay, I think that’s everything I wanted to say. If you actually read through this entire monstrosity of a post, thank you. I do have a full colored version of the "I'm just sayin'" that'll go up eventually because it was fun.

#willowtalks #willowarts #wing man #rockmiyabideusexmachina #Valentine's day 2020 robot master design contest #mobile is a pain #even though i don't like drawing wings i love my boy #i should work on my other projects #like Golden Days #or school stuff #if someone draws him ill cry #i should draw my characters moreeee #finally went back and edited the images to be in the right spots ^^; #mostly because i wanted to draw him again #still don't like drawing wings

[marooncuts]

Just Business (M)

Yoongi x Reader

Idol au, angst, Smut, dom!yoongi

Part 1- P.2- P.3- P4

Words: 2,965

Description: Your new job consists of twist and turns that lead you down a road of chaos and confusion, with your new boss in the middle of it all.

“Come in.” Your stomach turning from the inevitable words. Every step made every eye in the waiting room gaze at you. The sound of your heels on the cold floor in the mist of silence made your anxiety flutter even more. As the assistant opened up the giant black door, a gush of cold air found your face. There he was, sitting faced towards the window wall of his office. Not acknowledging your entrance.

His office was very peculiar. The floor gushed with pristine white carpet. It probably had to be cleaned every week. On both sides of the office were window walls, overseeing the beautiful city. Stood in front of you was his desk, but it was quite a walk from the door. His desk gave off the sense of cleanliness. Every paper organized and neatly piled. The one in his hand he seemed to focus on intensely. His right hand holding the file open while his other pondered on his smooth face.

The more you walked the more nervous you became. “Please, have a seat.” The words seemed low and monotone. His eyes were still stuck on the file in front of him. The cream chairs in front of his desk were comfortable enough for you to relax just a bit. It was unclear if you were supposed to speak first. In fact, nothing about this man was clear. With a swift motion, he closed the file and quickly folded his hands on top of it. He looked at you for a second and revealed a soft, sweet smile. Which signaled you to speak.

“Hello sir, I’m the-“ with a low, intense voice he instantly corrected you. “Yoongi, you can call me Yoongi.”

The smile was replaced with a more serious expression. He was more focused on your words. “OK, Yoongi. I’m Y/N, I've read a lot about your work and company. I’m-“ Yoongi cut you off again. This time he was adamant. “Let me guess. ‘Min Yoongi, Millionaire CEO and Star artist of the 21st century.’ I’ve heard about every line from every article from other candidates. Please, let’s skip the part where you talk about how much you admire me.”

If the informal calling of his name didn’t shock you, this definitely did. “Well, I graduated in-“ By this time you weren’t suprised by his interruption. “I know, top of your class, you’ve made hits with big stars. I read your file Y/N. You don’t have to talk about it. That’s what it’s there for. Tell me about yourself. Tell me what inspires you.”

You were frustrated. Here you were with the biggest, richest man in the country and all he kept doing was interrupting you. “Before I begin, I’d like to at least get a sentence in, sir.” You weren’t sure what made him smirk at this comment. And you didn’t think you’d have the chance to see his smile this close. People would die for this experience. “The floor is yours.”

“Since we’re being so candid, I’ll be a bit more honest. I mention my credentials because that’s what puts me above everyone else. Not my personality, or what inspires me. Maybe that works you. I’m an engineer yes, but I’m also a numbers girl. I can help you with the big ones. I know management well and I’m up for any challenge.” The expressionless man that sat in front of you made you sulk. Maybe you went too far, maybe you should have stuck to your original plan. Sometimes you’re too strong headed for any CEO.

Yoongi grabbed a pen that was laying next to the file. He began jotting something down. Then he slowly capped the pin and pressed a button on the desk phone. “Wade, you can call for the next person.” It was hard for you to decipher the expression on his face. He dismissed you so quickly, already focusing on the next file. The awkward silence in following seconds were filled with confusion. He then raised his eyes and eyebrows towards you. “You can go.”

You blew it.

The crust in your eyes stopped you from opening your eyes fully.

*ding*

Why, you thought. It’s 2 AM. Your comfy white sheets entangled you more when you rolled over to reach your phone.

Unknown: You up for a challenge? Get ready I’m getting you in 45.

You: Who is this?

Unknown: Your new boss.

SHIT. You sat up immediately, wide eyed staring at your phone in shock. Then it hit you. You got the job. With every ounce of energy you jumped up and down on your bed like a child. Mid-jump you realize you had to shower and get dressed before he got here.

Forty minutes went by faster than you anticipated. You were in jeans and a black sweater with a matching beanie. Casual enough for a 2 am workday. It was unusual to get a call from your boss at two am but this was Min Yoongi. There were stories of him making his producers stay up till songs were finished. No breaks, no water until the project was finished. He had a reputation of being cold.

*ding*

Unknown: I’m here. Come outside.

You walked onto the steps of your place. It wasn’t hard to spot the infamous man. Of course he was in an expensive car. Black and shiny, not hard to miss. It was probably the most expensive thing in the neighborhood. You walked to the passenger door and sat in the comfy red leather seat. As soon as your buckle fastened he sped off. “This is a neighborhood you know.” A smirk on his face appeared. You could see the Rolex on his wrist as he turned the wheel. The other hand pointed to the glove box in front of you. “There should be a file in there.”

It’s not unusual for a ceo to have a gun in his glove compartment. “Is this necessary?” He glanced at the gun you pointed to. “Yes. You’d be surprised what people would do to get my position. The file.” You grabbed the file and closed the box. “You know it’s 2018 Yoongi, you don’t need paper files anymore.” A chuckle next to you caught your attention. “Not many people would dare speak to me the way you do. That’s why I hired you.” Is he serious? You landed a six figure job because you made him.. laugh? “I’m going to assume you meant that very loosely.”

“This is important, I won’t know if I want to keep you on until after this. He’s been under my label for a while now. You should know him, he’s pretty big. I’ve got word that he’s not delivering in the studio. Showing up late, his upset because of how we’re marketing him. Part of your role will be having a hand in artist management. Do you understand?” He looked at you for a response. His platinum blonde hair covering his eyes.

“Clearly he’s an asset. If any other artist did this they’d be cut or penalized. You want me to do what? Give him therapy? Make him feel better about your vision.” You tilted your head. Being honest was your true virtue and obviously he respected it.

“Yes. No, no I want to go over his image, listen to his demo in the studio when we get there. I want to hear your opinion. Something isn’t clicking. I need a second opinion and I need him to get it together. So yes, give him therapy.” Your opinion. Was this your job now? Giving confidence to a man that didn’t need any. He was paying you enough for it so for now, you won’t question him. He rolled up to a shady neighborhood. The minute he parked a man opened the door for Yoongi and you.

“Hello sir.” Yoongi proceeded to hand him the keys. Valet? In this neighborhood? Yoongi must pull a lot of strings around here. The graffiti filled door opened before he entered. A group of well built men in all black welcomed you in. “The back sir.” You followed Yoongi down the corridor, who was wearing black jeans with a black blazer and white shirt. His presence seemed to intimidate everyone else in his way. He then led you to a well built, highly expensive studio that resided in the back of the building.

The music was loud, the bass blaring off of the walls near you. Yoongi stood behind everyone. Quiet. Listening into the session without notice of him. The engineer bobbing his head focusing on the multiple buttons on the board in front of him. Yoongi looked at you and signaled you to tap the engineer. He was startled and immediately pressed a button to speak to the artist on the other side of the glass. “Yo, Boss is here.” Boss. They referred to him as boss. Remembering how he immediately corrected you to call him Yoongi.

You sat down on the couch in the corner of the room and observed. The artist went by the name of ‘Code’ he was young and arrogant. He had every right to be. He was one of the biggest artists under Yoongi’s label. “Code, come here.” Yoongi and Code sat down next to you. The engineer and other nameless people stood still and quiet. As if they were watching a movie. Waiting for Yoongi’s words.

Yoongi put his arm around Code, like holding onto a little brother, but more intimidating and scary. Nothing about this moment was brotherly. “Why am I hearing things about you being disrespectful and rebellious. You’re showing up late, complaining about MY vision for you. What did I tell you when you debuted?” His tone was low and monotonous, but very serious and stern. He spoke very slowly. He held Code closely to him, he was close enough to whisper in his ear. Code on the other hand seemed scared, looking down and fiddling with his fingers.

“T-Trust your vision.” He said with a weak voice. “TRUST! THATS RIGHT.” Yoongi patted Code’s back hard. He stood up and faced him. “Now why is it that you have so much confidence when I’m not here?” He crouched down in front of where Code was sitting. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you kid.” Code slowly lifted his face. “I’m sorry Boss. I just-“ Yoongi, disgusting at his response, stood up from the crouch, turned around and began walking out of the room. “Everybody out. I’m giving Code 10 minutes with Y/N and his thoughts before I speak to him again.” Like sheep, everyone left and shut the door. Leaving you with a scared boy who was a man when you first entered the room.

You felt bad and tried to understand him. “Code, you can talk to me. What’s your issue with the marketing plan? I can figure something out.” You turned your body to face him. “I just, I’m one of the biggest artists here and I’m treated like a child. I get no time on the company app, my tour dates aren’t even half of what they should be and the fans want music videos for at least 2 other songs.” He was obviously stressed and he couldn’t possibly talk to Yoongi this way.

“Listen I agree with you. But budget wise you can only do four more cities. I read your file, you spend too much money on traveling. I can try to convince him to give you more time on the app. Promoting your tour and album by going live, encourage your fans. The quarter ends soon. We might be able to use our half of the revenue to make up for those music videos. I promise you I will talk to him. Just don’t express this to him.” The smile on his face made you feel relaxed.

Yoongi entered, calmly and shut the door behind him. You stood up to leave but he signaled you to stay put. “What is it Y/N? Tell me what we’re doing.” Odd. He was very serious before. But now he was asking for your plan? “I understand the issues here. Profit wise we make a lot off of him. It would not only benefit us but also Code if we promoted him more on our app. He’s expressed a need for two more music videos.” Yoongi squinted his eyes and put his arm on the counter where the sound board was.

“His reasoning is that the fans want more of him. And I agree. If we push the music videos we should be able to gain more interest in the tour. He’s already souled out five shows. We could and have the ability to add, at max, four more cities. The budget would be tight but we’d should make up for it during the following quarter.” Yoongi sat down in the chair the engineer was in before, facing the glass of the sound booth. There was silence for a while. Then he spoke. “Ok. Y/N, lets go. We’ll set up the logistics of it tomorrow.” Yoongi walked out the building to the car and you followed. You both sat there silent for a while.

“You didn’t over step me. I was afraid you would.” He sat facing the wheel, staring out the window. Something about him had changed. He was so stern until he sat in here with you. He was softer and quieter, willing to chuckle at your audaciousness. “He was right you know. I knew he was right. I just wanted him to be brave and say it. Like how you speak to me.” He turned to you. His face showed loneliness and disappointment. His lips were pouting. You’d never thought you’d see this man so soft before. “He didn’t tell you because everyone in the room was expecting you to blow up.” You raised your eyebrows at him to the obvious answer to his own statement.

“He’s just so arrogant. He needs a stern figure, but he also needs to learn how to make his own decisions and become a true version of himself. That means standing up to me.” You had to ask him, in this moment the burning question that lingered in you once you noticed. “Boss.” You murmured, catching his attention. “Hmm?” His bottom lip resided in his mouth as he hummed the curious sound.

“Everyone else calls you boss or sir. When I met you, you cut me off just to correct me to call you Yoongi. Why am I exempt?” You were stunned at how deep this went. Everyone knows Min Yoongi is protected by body guards. You didn’t expect a studio in the stetchy neighborhood or the Yoongi you caught a glimpse of in the there.

“You’re going to be with me 24/7. There are things about me and this company that you will learn. They might change your mind about me and the music business. But I need you to trust me and I need to trust you. There’s no benefit of fear with our work relationship. I hired you because you can be honest when I don’t want you to be, when I least expect it. Everyone else kisses my ass. You were made for this job Y/N. I can tell. They way you handled that was more than I was expecting.” You were shocked by this. You were going to become close with the most powerful man in the country.

“Reach into my bag down by your feet. The booklet in the front pocket is yours. You’re going to need it.” The black duffel bag was heavy. Unzipping the front you found a small booklet. It was a travel itinerary. “Are you serious?” You yelled as you flipped through the pages. “Yes. I’m a busy man. With a hectic schedule and I’m going to need you with me. So that means we’re going to be traveling a lot, you’re going to need those papers.” This was unbelievable. Almost every country you could name was on the list. “So we’re traveling the country and the world, no big deal. It’s not like I’m poor or anything.” He chuckled at your response.

“The duffle bag is yours and everything in it.” Once again you reach down to the duffle bag and unzip the main pocket. It was cash. Loads of cash. It had to be at least 500,000. The shock on your face showed. “Don’t get so happy, If you’re going to be traveling with me I need you to look the part. You need to look stylish. Like you actually work for me. I prefer street style. Not this 20 year old hipster style you seem to enjoy. So I’ll set some time for you this week so you can shop accordingly.” This was weird to say the least. Your boss was giving you cash to buy cloths and taking you around the world. Your face definitely showed the immediate stress.

“This isn’t that kind of deal. This is the nice side of the job. The rest will make you want to quit ,I promise you. Enjoy the happiness while it last, because it’s going to end when wade picks you up. Six am sharp.”

“Wade? Your receptionist is picking me up? I have a vehicle.” All of these new things cludered your mind. “It’s protocol. The first of many.”

He shifted the gear and lifted his foot off the brakes. “I hope you stay with us. I like you a lot. Just, one thing. The last girl that I had for your position got to know me too well. You can ask questions, but make sure you word them carefully.”

He looked into your eyes to make sure you understood his next words.

“Don’t get too comfortable.”

(To be continued)

p.s i promise it gets really active in the next part.

#bts #bts suga #bts yoongi #bts scenarios #bts min yoongi #yoongi #min yoongi #suga #yoongi smut #yoongi x you #yoongi x reader #dom yoongi #min yoongi edit #min yoongi scenarios #min yoongi series #yoongi scenarios #agust d #bts bangtan boys #bangtan boys #bangtan scenarios #bangtan edit #min yoongi x you

[sinceileftyoublog]

Jason Sharp Interview: Skies and the Heavens Above

Photo by Emily Gan

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed a much-needed alteration of the relationship between musicians, the music industry, and consumers. Along with the artists and listeners themselves, many independent record labels and streaming platforms have been at the forefront of this change. Longstanding Montreal-based experimental label Constellation Records was one of the first to establish a pandemic policy, in April promising to artists 100% of digital download revenues from their website and Bandcamp, an initiative that has been extended on a monthly basis and will last till at least the end of the year. Now, they’ve foregone their normal winter album release cycle and launched a series called Corona Borealis, which showcases their roster via one-off longform singles and accompanying videos. 16 artists total will end up participating in the weekly series, which has so far included avant-garde jazz artist Markus Floats, post-rock musician Efrim Manuel Menuck, and violinist/sound artist Jessica Moss. The latest, released today, is saxophonist Jason Sharp, who debuts his first-ever acoustic saxophone track “Gates of Heaven”. Sharp, who employs a circular breathing technique in his playing, recorded the 18-minute track at the synagogue of the same name in Madison, Wisconsin last summer, and it’s been paired with a short film by video artist and curator Guillaume Vallée. 

I called Sharp from his home in Montreal last week to talk about the history and composition of the track, collaborating with Vallée on the video, how COVID-19 has affected him, and the importance of establishing new, perhaps permanent economic shifts in the music world. Read our conversation below!

Since I Left You: What’s the history behind this track?

Jason Sharp: [In June 2019], I was just outside of Chicago recording with Roscoe Mitchell, and we had booked two churches to do our session. We only ended up using one of them, and we were supposed to be recording for three days and ended up using only two. On route to the airport, the engineer [Vid Cousins] and I stopped in this little synagogue, Gates of Heaven, in Madison, WI, and recorded this solo piece. It was a really quick in and out setup, with mics at different distances in and around the building. I did this piece in there, and we left. Honestly, I didn’t really think that much of the recording for a while. It was lost in my archives. 

When COVID hit, I had some time to go back through some recordings and came across what I had done nearly a year ago. It spoke to me in a way it didn’t in the moment, and it was nice to rekindle that recording. Editing and mixing during this shutdown period kept the creative juices flowing.

SILY: Was the track entirely improvised?

JS: Yeah, entirely improvised. It’s an 18-minute track, and I improvised a bass layer for 18 minutes and then had the engineer reel it back, and I did a response to that, creating a harmony and melody and improvising in a compositional way. The day before, I was playing in a more traditional improv kind of way. This was more compositionally driven but sourced through improvisation. It was all kind of on the fly. There’s a certain energy when you capture recordings in that way. It’s kind of refreshing to hear after the fact.

SILY: The track seems to have three distinct parts, almost perfectly in thirds. You’ve got the bass layer at first, then the fluttery, more obvious circular breathing-type playing, and in the final bit, you combine the two parts.

JS: The way that we did it, I put a clock in front of me, and it was supposed to be 5 minutes apiece, and it ended up being closer to 6 minutes. I did a take improvising to the clock and already had in mind doing this in three separate sections. The first section was long tones, sustained sounds, bringing up the harmony and the overtones of the notes. The second was more rhythmically driven. As you said, the third was meant to encapsulate some of the other types of approaches used previously. There’s an arpeggiated figure that holds it together and sustained notes reminiscent of the first part. Harmonically, the first two parts are in a minor key, and the final is just three notes, so it ends up being in a major key. It was somewhat predetermined that way but ended up, as you said, being a focal point of the techniques used previously.

SILY: When you’re improvising, to what extent are you paying attention to the space in which you’re playing and taking that into account when making decisions?

JS: That was the nicest thing about recording in that synagogue. It was a beautiful space, a very resonant space providing a lot back. There are some things I was doing to purposefully activate that space. Towards the end, I was doing these blasts and pops to accentuate the resonance of the space itself. Playing some of the higher register of the instrument and vocalizing through it and using the mic sources furthest away from me in the very back of the room created a perception of depth and a far-off cry type of thing to give it some sort of 3D element. When you’re playing in spaces, you’re always playing in the room, but when you’re playing in a rich acoustic environment, you’re not working with a PA. It makes you want to activate the space in a way.

SILY: How did the video come to fruition?

JS: The video is a first-time collaboration with Guillaume Vallée. We have never even met face to face. I was kind of nearing a rough mix and shared that track with him. I was familiar with his work through another peer of mine. I basically gave him carte blanche to do what he wanted with it. I told him the piece was in three separate movements and that the first two were darker shades and the third had a shift in tonality and a different emotional quality to me. That’s basically as much guidance as I gave him knowing what he does--he works with analog film stock and video effects. He said he had a lot of source material that had already been compiled that worked well with the track thematically. There are images of a church that appear towards the end in there that I thought was a quite nice reference to the space itself. For the most part, we were working in parallel: I finished the final mix while he was working independently on the film.

SILY: The video does seem to reflect the song. It fades to black to separate the three parts, and the abstractness of the imagery and color hues follow the dark-to-light trend as well. 

JS: I really enjoyed watching it for the first time. He went through his own creative process with some basic structural direction and took it and ran with it in a really great way. I hope we can work together again.

SILY: How has COVID-19 concretely affected you as an artist?

JS: It was significant as it has been for everybody. Artistically, I was supposed to be in the studio recording another record. That was cancelled. I couldn’t be in the studio at the time. I had a European tour which was also cancelled. I was supposed to perform for a lot of other players and projects. Basically, all performance things were at first being rebooked for the fall--and obviously, here we are--and so they were cancelled or rebooked for the summer of 2021. That’s almost a year and a bit of not really performing on a regular basis in the way I’d be used to. It was definitely alarming. My wife and I also own a yoga studio in the neighborhood we live in, the Mile End of Montreal, and that was severely affected as well. It provided a lot of added stress on life that didn’t leave much room for working on things artistically. I was able to squeak out enough time to go through my archive recordings and came across this recording. It was a really rejuvenating thing working on this track. Retreating into the recording was a bit of a saving grace artistically. 

Things are being reinvented right now. I just did a live stream event for [Suno Per Il Popolo] and have resumed composing and have a recording date for an upcoming album for Constellation. Bands I’m in are picking up the pieces and dusting themselves off and moving forward in their own right with different ways of documenting work and planning for the future.

SILY: How important is it to you from an ethical and financial standpoint to be signed to a label like Constellation, who’s willing to forego their normal album release cycle for a few months to have its signees able to release these one-off singles?

JS: This particular initiative is amazing. Constellation has always been such an incredible supportive force for me and all the artists on the roster. They’re so artistically driven. I don’t have a lot of experience with other labels, but it’s a very ethical and supportive relationship. This series exemplifies that. Putting out albums has become almost a calling card for live dates, in my experience. Now that we’re in a position where there aren’t live dates, it’s okay to postpone these physical releases. It’s wonderful they can put out something as a label that showcases the diversity of the artists on the roster. Long-play, but small packages. In many ways, it gives people the opportunity to showcase another side of themselves. Putting out a single doesn’t come with the same gravitas as an album. It allows you to do something outside of what your main focus might be. This is my first acoustic saxophone recording--I’m generally using a lot of electronics or occupying an electroacoustic space. The record I’m working on is very much in that vein, using a lot of modular synths. It’s freeing to be able to step out of the box.

Financially, Bandcamp has been really supportive through this. Constellation stepping up and helping artists get these types of singles out into the world, with the support of their platform, and giving 100% of the revenue to the artists, it’s obviously super supportive and very much appreciated and can do a lot for both the label and the artists involved.

SILY: To what extent do you see this type of release pattern as something that will continue post-pandemic?

JS: It may, and I hope it does. Record cycles are obviously changed right now, and maybe some of the solutions being put in place will find a new home and stick around. Constellation’s mainly focused on vinyl releases, so all these digital releases have a totally different turnaround time. It’s obviously less expensive, and the singles themselves keep the stoke to the artistic flames instead of a usual album cycle. As people are coming up with these solutions during this time, a lot of them were needed, COVID or not. That’s the silver lining, for sure. It’s been illuminating to see people reach people in different ways and create different relationships between artists, the industry, and the consumer. Something of a hybrid of the solutions of where we’re at right now and how we normally operate could be in store.

SILY: Do you think it’s going to change the way you release music, whether self-releasing or doing digital-only releases?

JS: I’ve never really felt the need to self-release. It’s hard to get music out into the world. I’ve definitely been grateful for Constellation’s support. There’s a certain creative process that you go through when you know there’s gonna be a physical release at the end of it. It requires you to germinate a little bit more. I’ve never felt the need to be prolific or the need to constantly be putting something out.

SILY: What else is next for you?

JS: I’m working on this record that’s gonna come out in some form in 2021. I scored an amazing film by Daïchi Saïto. I did his last film and was able to do some live performances with that film in Europe. We worked together on his next film, which will be coming out in 2021. I have a couple more live streamed things and recording projects with different people, but the upcoming record and the film are the biggest documents that will be coming out soon.

SILY: What have you been up to in general during the pandemic?

JS: It’s been really busy, between keeping our small business afloat, which we’re in the second stage of, and spending a lot of time in my studio and sharpening my tools, so to speak. I’ve been working on electronics and building new modules for things I may use for music making in the future. My family lives on the West Coast of Canada, and during the summer, we went out and lived on a boat in the wilderness for a month in the Northern tip of Vancouver Island. We were really far remote and didn’t see anybody for a whole month. It was very special and rejuvenating. The perfect thing to do in these self-isolating times.

Jason Sharp | "Gates of Heaven" from Constellation Records on Vimeo.

#jason sharp #interviews #constellation records #guillaume vallée #vid cousins #suoni per il popolo #daïchi saïto #covid-19 pandemic #covid-19 #coronavirus #coronavirus pandemic #constellation #bandcamp #corona borealis #markus floats #efrim manuel menuck #jessica moss #gates of heaven #roscoe mitchell

[dstrachan]

DREAM WIFE 'SO WHEN YOU GONNA …. '

Dream Wife = Alice Go, Bella Podpadec and Rakel Mjöll, are back with their second album and as the title suggests, it is a record brimming with adrenaline and playful excitement.  Now I could go on and copy and paste the rest of their press release here but that would be extremely lazy, despite the fact that I fully agree with it. 

I haven't posted many album reviews recently because I felt that I was getting into a rather deep rut: right from the start I made a decision not to write negative reviews – artists and production teams for albums had clearly invested many hours along with copious amounts of blood sweat and tears to produce something that they believed in so what right had I to express my feelings simply because I hadn't liked the result?  My reasons for writing reviews was never about promoting my personal profile – only about seeking to help to highlight great musical talent in the hope of increasing their positive exposure, so I reckoned that if I hadn't been moved to write something positive it would be best to say nothing at all.  After all, I'm one of those who first heard Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' whilst working in the Edinburgh branch of Bruce's Record Shop in Rose Street, and along with other staff, wondered what the hell they were playing at – who on earth was going to want to listen to the ramblings of somebody having a bad trip?  Well we all what happened next back then in 1975!

So, with that principle established I began to realise that my reviews were becoming really quite formulaic and could pretty much be summed up as follows; “I really like this music – because I have listened to such a wide range of great music over the last half century some parts of some of the tracks evoke memories of other, previous musical gems; I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this album and would like to wish the artists all the best for the future and invite you to give them a fair hearing to find out whether or not you agree with my enthusiasm”.  Consequently I came to realise that any further reviews would be quite repetitive and I pretty much took a step back from reviewing, with any reviews essentially being restricted to reporting on gigs that I had enjoyed.  Given the devastating effect of the coronavirus on the live gig scene since March this year, opportunities for attending live gigs have disappeared.  Many excellent live stream performances have been available and I have enjoyed a number of these but haven't got round to trying to review these as yet, perhaps that is because logging on to watch a live stream doesn't come with the same additional experience - driving many miles, parking, perhaps having a meal before the gig, getting into the venue and then driving home doesn't really stack up against remaining at home, sitting by my laptop and clicking a link.  But many thanks to all who have impressed me during these live streams, including Nervous Twitch, Not Now Norman and especially Reely Jiggered whose weekly 'live on the drive' performances outside their house have been exceptionally inspiring given Fiona and Alison McNeil's wonderfully infectious enthusiasm.

So, after that preamble, back to Dream Wife and their second album 'So When You Gonna?'; well I write this on 1st August 2020 shortly after receiving my neon pink vinyl copy of the album, the day that I announced my August 'track of the month' selection as being the opening track 'Sports!'.  I have always been extremely impressed by these three exceptional humans and had intended to begin this post by referring back to my review of their debut album – but it turns out that any such review is entirely in my head as I can find no record of it!  So instead of a brief reference to a TFL P4 bus journey from Lewisham to Brixton, believing that to have already been detailed in my apparently non-existent review of their first album, I will have to explain more fully.

It was Saturday 15th September 2018 and my daughter and I were traveling from Lewisham to Brixton on a route P4 bus when somewhere en-route (possibly the Nunhead area, but my knowledge of London really isn't that good) two striking young women got on and sat beside each other, directly in front of us.  Although they didn't speak to each other I sensed a bit of mutual chemistry and they seemed to be very pre-occupied.  I did actually wonder if they might also be heading to the O2 Academy for the Garbage gig that we were heading for but thought no more of it, especially when they got off a few stops before us.  We then went for a truly enjoyable ramen meal in 'Nanban', Coldharbour Lane.  Later, in the venue I watched with amazement as the support band (until then we had known nothing about them) came on stage – the guitarist and bass player looked very familiar – they were the two who I remembered from the bus!  Bella and Alice were then joined by Rakel and we were subsequently enthralled by a truly exciting, energetic and inspired performance as we wallowed in our first experience of Dream Wife (the Garbage set was excellent and entralling too, but that's really not the focus of this review).  Later, in the wee small hours of the following Sunday morning, as I lay on the sofa bed in my daughter's flat, unable to get to sleep as I recalled the gig, I got on-line and ordered a copy of Dream Wife's album on blood spattered vinyl.  For my review of that amazing album please refer back to my intro regarding the repetitiveness of my reviews!

Dream Wife have always been outspoken about holding up other women and non-binary people in the creative industries, but these aren’t just words or sentiments.  With a gender divide in music production currently estimated at around ninety-five percent male to five percent female, the band are proud to have worked with an all-female recording team for 'So When You Gonna...', including producer and mixer Marta Salogni (Björk, Holly Herndon, FKA Twigs) engineer Grace Banks (David Wrench, Marika Hackman) and mastering engineer Heba Kadry (Princess Nokia, Alex G, Beach House).

“It was a way of us practicing what we preach,” says Alice, “It felt like an honour to be able to deliver this baby with these three amazing midwives.” “Put your money where your mouth is!” adds Rakel, quoting the lyrics of “Sports!”

In the first week following its release, 'So When You Gonna...' was the only one in the UK top 20 chart that was not backed by a major label, in addition they were the only one band with an album entirely produced by a womxn.

As the band posted, “the ONLY band/musician in the top 20 that is not backed by a major label. The ONLY band/musician on that list who’s album was entirely produced by a womxn. Let alone had a whole team of womxn behind it.

Which is messed up... it’s 2020 ppl?”

In addition 'So When You Gonna...' was the album of the day at BBC Radio 6 Music for 7th July, and it was Rough Trade ‘s album of the month.

Around that time the band offered people a chance to win 'Bender', the loving member of their tour family; a customized silver Burns marquee which had played probably 300+ shows with the band and was a big part of the writing and recording of both their albums.  In the end Elina Lin was announced as the winner and she decided to gift the guitar to Girls Rock London – much respect to Elina :-)

So, after all that, what about the actual album that I'm supposed to me reviewing?  Well, it's truly a breath of fresh air.  The selection of eleven tracks is absolutely inspired, and pleasingly varied in content and style whilst simultaneously maintaining a coherent sound and identity.  I refer to my earlier comments about my overall approach to publishing album reviews, but will add that having seen the band's videos does help to add to my enjoyment of this album. Rakel's voice readily evokes images of her cheeky,  infectious smile, especially when during 'Sports!' she asks, “do you even play this sport”?  I was also extremely taken by the reerence to Kylie in 'Hold On Me', some more pretentious bands might have viewed such a reference as a step too far, but given the make up of my show playlists, I have absolutely no problem at all with this and applaud them for their honesty.  In addition the use of archive footage of much young band members for the 'Hasta La Vista' video is really quite inspired.

There are some tremendously high energy of tracks such as my 'track of the month' selection 'Sports!', the title track 'So When You Gonna …' and 'Hasta La Vista', and these are masterfully counterpointed with such intensely emotive ones such as 'Temporary', about miscarriage and 'After The Rain' with it's hauntingly intense vocals about abortion.   This album covers all bases and I genuinely believe that it deserves to be given a fair hearing.

In summary I truly feel that any future reviews should probably be more along the lines of. “if you like most of the music that I play in my radio shows, then please believe me when I say that you really should check out ….......”

One other spur for writing this and is that I have selected the album’s opening track, ‘Sports!’ as my ‘track of the month’ for August and am just about to give it its first play.  Perhaps in future I should aim to focus mainly on covering my 'track of the month selections which I am very pleased to play around half way through the second hour of every one of my shows.

Track listing:

1/ Sports!

2/ Hasta La Vista

3/ Homesick

4/ Validation

5/ Temporary

6/ U Do U

7/ RH RN

8/ Old Flame

9/ So When You Gonna

10/ Hold On Me

11/ After The Rain

[mimiigrace]

I recently interviewed a couple of close friends, people who feature in a lot of my pieces regarding their thoughts and feelings on the scene and why they are drawn to it despite not stereotypically following the culture in their day to day life what with having interests in a range of other areas.

I asked Shayley (featuring in the top two images alongside Ben and the one bellow on the right) the question ‘what draws you to the DnB / rave scene despite not being the obvious candidate, by this I mean not following the general stereotypes?’  

Shayley says, regarding the rave scene: “It’s cheap, it’s fun and there are no rules. Town is expensive, a lot of places require a certain dress code that is quite high maintenance which none of us fit in with as we are all very casual laid back people, we aren’t pretentious or flashy. I don’t always feel safe in town as a lot of fights kick off and there are a lot of egos trying to prove they have money with vip booths which is embarrassing I think...at raves I feel safe, people are there to connect and enjoy the music. I’ve never seen a fight and have always met sound heads. I think all of us have been outdoors people anyway, we love camping and stuff and it just feels free to be outside with loud music, your friends and no dick head bouncers throwing you out. It’s exciting travelling to different areas and meeting new people. You can just let loose and enjoy yourself without the judgement from others because everyone is equally as fucked and no one is a stuck up arsehole. And if you are too fucked, there’s always someone to help and sit with you. Never had a bad time tbh. I also think there was just a big scene for it from our area of friendship groups so we just fell into it.”

I also asked Jake (Featuring in the left hand image, second down) the same question and his response was: “I think it’s mostly a cultural thing in our corner of the north west. Really your options are limited in Preston and the surrounding area, if you don’t want to go some shitty generic house night but you do want to get off your face, Drum n Bass nights are the place to be. It brings in all sorts of different folk and creates a community, with many of the local groups and sound systems going on to national levels. It’s just a matter of place.”

Ben (featuring in the black and white images said: “hey, well for a long time it was drugs an drink but love the people, the creativity that goes on and the mix of people from all walks of life i guess.”

I posed a similar question our Facebook group chat and didn’t get quite so well thought out answers but I did think them relevant none the less. A lot of the thoughts came from Alistair, Lee and Tom and were rather more crude takes on the scene but I did understand their sentiment. From what I can gather the enjoyment they get out of it is largely through the community of the experience and the lack of rules within the events and parties. The music evokes excitement and movement it’s a vessel for more to happen. The events we attend are often frequented by a familiar community who we are able to socialize with and share the experience. The community and friendship is a big part of it, as can be the drugs and intoxication. Being able to experience these things with you’re closest friends is an adventure in it’s self. You know you have each other’s backs and together you are able to feel things that the mainstream world can’t provide. The feeling of closeness and love for those around you often fuels the energy in these events and it can be a really beautiful thing. It’s nice how you may also have a whole other family within this community and as often people only meet at theses events you have a lot to discus and really value you’re time together. Although the scene may have a bad name it generally revolves around really positive qualities.  I found it interesting that someone brought up the question of why drum and bass over techno. Now to me it’s obvious, the repetitiveness of it is not something that I can get elated about on a night out, you can’t bust a proper phat move on the dance floor, it feels very controlled and you can’t move to is the same way as you can to heavier music. As one person has said ‘drum and bass, recipe for a dance if ever I heard one’.  

I also asked a Ollie Morris (pictured at the bottom), a DJ who goes by the name Malware and also an Events Organizer and Soundsystem under the name Mo Rhythm. He holds events often in the Preston area, particularly during summer at Ships and Giggles, a venue in the city. It is often packed out with familiar faces all eager to catch up and have a party together. When I asked why he’s so involved in the scene and why it’s so appealing to other crowds?

He said: “Wellll…The DnB/rave scene is a place of community, even if the music isn’t everyone’s everyday taste it can be appreciated to a level that creates an upbeat euphoria to bring everyone together. For me its different as I live for this shit haha, there’s my love for the music and the love for the party. With a soundsystem playing the music you love and dancing beside people who you've never even spoken to before, it allows you to forget your troubles and it creates a sense of appreciation towards society.”

It’s interesting that despite being completely immersed in the scene Ollie can understand how people are drawn to it despite it not being their day-to-day taste. Often within cultures the term ‘poser’ can come up when people don’t fully embrace a community or pick and chose what they want to be involved in. But within this scene there is no sense of that, gatherings are so eclectic in the range of characters, styles and personalities because the community is so accepting. He also says “it creates a sense of appreciation towards society”.

I can understand this, he is referring to wider society, in a world where it’s often every man for themselves, working monotonous 9-5 jobs, maybe surrounded by people who don’t get on, being force fed filthy politics on the news and often feeling like there’s no hope for what this conservative, capitalist country has become, it’s heart warming and reaffirming to see that there are people out there who share the same values as you and are excited to see you and want to share a moment with you and experience music in such a pure way. 

#studio

[20thcentutygeek]

90s Cartoon theme Songs

I grew up in the 90's. By the time my little eyes and ears could comprehend what they were being subjected to, the era of mad animation had already begun. The 1990's were a colourful time, from the acid induced dance music to the sugar and additive-laden neon sweets and drinks. Luckily the animated shows we were given were no different. Accelerating from the successful franchises of the 80's, most of which made money from the toy and merchandise tie-ins, the animation of the 1990's seemed to blast full speed with style, irreverence and a no holds barred approach to the premise of new shows. But no matter which show you loved the most (or simply just watched because you didn't have anything better to do while you eat refreshers and drank panda pop) the first and most resonating taste of a cartoon is its theme. And the 90's gave us some wonderful themes. *Be warned, if you begin looking up some of these themes on youtube it's very likely you will succumb to the endless black hole of intro's. Just as Scott and I did.* The list of catchy choruses, magical melodies and bouncing bass lines are endless. I have a special affinity for theme songs. There is something potent about the tiny snapshot of music purpose-built to set the tone of a show. Each one is like a 30 second score, encompassing the feel, the energy and often the premise of the show to come. Those of you who have stepped foot in Super Shakes will probably have noticed a handful of themes in the shop playlist (In between copious amounts of Seal). So if I took the time to go over every jingle that puts a smile on my face then this would be an incredibly long blog. [Though honourable mentions go to any theme without lyrics such as Doug, Rugrats, Ren and Stimpy; and to superstar composer Danny Elfman] For the purpose of time and sanity I'll instead present to you 3 observations during my time in the infinite back-to-back session of intro videos. So if you are simply a curious party or are in the process of creating your own authentic sounding 90's theme song, keep these in mind. Rule 01: 90's keep it brief Apart from the quality of the animation and the steady decline of muscular He-Men, a new trend also occurred - swifter intros. Just as every comic is somebody's first, the same applies for cartoons with their self contained stories and repeatability. Because of this many 80's shows began with an intro that was in itself a prologue, as is the case of the hilarious and infectious opening to Ulysses 31. [Check it out here - https://youtu.be/OZ4c1X5ene8 ] But once we past the invisible decade barrier, things start to get more straight to the point. Maybe it was because the old style was beginning to feel tired, maybe it was to simply shave an extra minute and a half off the total run time. There is a good chance that it was because as we merged into the era of lunacy and (Ani)maniacs there was no story structure. "Mama had a chicken! Mama had a cow! Dad was proud, and he didn't care how!" Enough said. Rule 02: Ducks have Soul The musicianship behind theme tunes is often passed by. Since most of the themes are over and done with in 30 seconds, a lot of these gems and respective artists don't get to become as recognised as the 30 seconds (or less) of effort that goes in to most modern pop songs. And although there were many thematic changes to soundtracks as time progressed including Guitar riffs getting more fiery and saxophones (unfortunately) dissipating, one trend I did notice was that shows with ducks had a passionate theme that few competed with. Lets begin with Duckula (Which began in the 80's but waddled into the Nine-zero's). Beginning with a dark and spooky backstory and blackened images, all is blasted away once the vocals burst in. I get the impression if the theme was a minute longer we would have some glass shattering vibrato on our hands. At several points there are moments when it is as if the microphone they used cant actually handle the singing. Kudos to the composers for making the very silly premise of this show get glossed over by the energetic theme. From Duck vampires to Duck crusaders, namely DW - Darkwing Duck. This Noire-styled big-billed master of surprise had a hearty theme too. In order to even attempt to replicate the pipes on this performer you have to fill your lungs first. You can just hear the force in their voice as they repeat the title of the show, to the point where when the second verse comes in the whole song seems muted in comparison. But so do many things after you listen to this theme a few times, its hefty. Then in 1996 as if there weren't enough rich vocals and duck centred animations; along comes The Mighty Ducks. Not the rousing live-action family comedy starring a handful of young actors (Including the future Foggy Nelson from Daredevil sporting virtually the same haircut). This is jacked up, colourful, anthropomorphic ducks playing hockey, and the theme is just as mighty. The entire song seems to be shouted and the eager singer can barely get the first sentence finished without adding some vocal flair. The incredible intensity of this theme leaves no doubt about the final statement "Ducks Rock!". This correlation between bombastic birds and soulful songs doesn't end there. A post millennium show Duck Dodgers has a theme performed by none other than world renowned welshman Tom Jones. And if thats not enough, need I mention one of the the most catchy themes of all - a Tale of a rich Duck who famously dives into his vault of Gold coins? I'm sure you can hear it in your head already. [If not click here to develop a tick that makes you "Woo-Oo" impulsively anytime you hear the title of the show - https://youtu.be/9DXo5haNd9M ] Rule 03: Repeat the title as many times as possible It goes without saying that if you want someone to remember your brand, you need them to remember the name. It's quite possible this marketing tactic was discovered in the late 80's. Pick 5 cartoons that ran in the 90's, and sing the theme. (Feel free to do it in your head if you don't want to look like a Freakazoid at the coffee shop). I'd bet that you said the title of the show at least 3 times. Yes it's intended and yes it almost seems silly once highlighted (Try the theme game again with 5 HBO shows; it's very different. I'm betting on 0), but it also puts a recognisable time stamp on our cartoons, a loveable paradigm of silliness. This may have most memorably begun with a group of adolescent-genetically irregular- Japanese covert martial arts practicing-amphibians. Yes Leo, Donnie, Mikey and Raph's unquestionable chant, which although formed in the late 80's ran deep into the hearts, minds, and dreams of 90's kids everywhere. Brought to life by the mastermind of mindless repetition Chuck Lorre (See Two and a Half Men & Big Bang Theory - J-Man), who may have unintentionally begun a more overt tradition for shows created afterwards. Notably Earthworm Jim, W.I.L.D Cats, Hey Arnold and Rocko's Modern Life all follow the formula that shouting the title is key to a good theme. You can see this method working in the Spider-Man cartoon series (Theme co-written by Media Mogul and Power Rangers creator Haim Saban). The words are repeated to the point that the synthesised vocoder chanting goes askew into saying Spider-anything. It's almost as if the singer was exhausted or Joe Perry(Of Aerosmith)'s face melting guitar was tiring them out. I used to think that at one point he was saying Spider-Glider in reference to hobgoblin showing up on screen, but it works for any word you can cram into those syllables. Spider-pamphlet. Spider-burger. Spider-spleen. You get the point. And as if to prove that the musicians and melody makers behind all of these knew what they were doing - See Exhibit B - Bucky O' Hare. The action packed, detailed crammed opening doesn't forget to add the secret sauce; the name Bucky O' Hare is mentioned various times as are most of the other characters. But as we reach the end there is a very self aware moment where after definitely screaming the name several times one vocalist asks the other "Did you say Bucky?" as if they have a quota to fill. Without a beat his colleague replies "I said Bucky." and they both harmonise for a final "Bucky O'Hare!". This not only adds another few name drops to the counter but is a wonderful little giggle at themselves and the absurdity of their job. To sum up, Memory can be measured by recall, recognition and relearning. With the constant barrage of names and vivid images drilled into our heads several times over before we have even seen the show - our capability to recite, recognise and build on our knowledge may explain why 90's shows and their themes were so (literally) unforgettable. - J-Man

(@TheMindofJMan)

#History #Reviews #music

[thewritinglist]

Albums of the “Year”

It’s very limiting to list my favourite albums released in the last twelve months, because years are an arbitrary concept, invented by humanity, and I also struggle to get away from my comfort zone of a few bands I’ve obsessively listened to and mentally catalogued. So, here is my top ten albums of 2018. They’re not necessarily from 2018, but they defined my year.

10. After Laughter by Paramore

For a long while, Paramore existed in my cultural awareness as one song, and a post on this very site about how Hayley Williams once caused a tour to be cancelled by getting her teenage self grounded.

That’s an unfair assessment.

The one song was Still Into You, passed on as part of a mixtape made by a dear friend to celebrate my first anniversary with my girlfriend. But after hearing Fake Happy on the radio at my former place of work (I didn’t love The Co-Op, but I have to hand it to their DJs and their fine taste), I had to google some lyrics to find it. The twelve songs tell an often deceptively sad story underneath the jangling guitars and synths that throw you and Paramore back together to the eighties. I listen to the music for the lyrics, and Williams really excels in adding sadness in the tone and not as something yelled. 

Best song - Hard Times.

2017 - Fuelled by Ramen - Pop rock

9. Silver Dollar Moment by The Orielles

I discovered the next two bands by a moment of delightful chance, when indie band Little Comets opened their twitter account to female fans on International Women’s Day, and one recommended these two.

Opening track Mango really nicely sets the scene for forty-five minutes of dreamily delivered indie rock, especially in Esmé Dee Hand-Halford’s vocals and bass. It’s the sort of music that makes me want to close my eyes and gently drift my head from side to side, which is why I have a soft rule to listen to it mostly in the comfort of a closed bedroom. Labelling anything indie gives an impression of competent but basic guitar/bass/drums, but The Orielles do much more than that, there’s an injection of funk and weirdness that occasionally brings to mind Talking Heads, if you played them at half speed, and replaced Byrne’s sudden manic energy with languid relaxation.

Best song: Mango

2018 - Heavenly Records - Indie rock

8. Love in the 4th Dimension by The Big Moon

The second chance discovery, The Big Moon are definitely more conventionally indie than their precedents in this list, but I like the simplicity of not adding too much to a song. This album blasts, first track Sucker building quickly and simply to a massive chorus, which is easy to imagine reverberating around Rescue Rooms or Rock City to a highly appreciative crowd. 

But it slows, too. Formidable’s verses have a solemn quality, with imagery of a capsizing boat and vague references to “did she make you swallow all your pride?” changing the atmosphere to something more confrontational, before the chorus rugby tackles the subject, with still soft vocals.

Best song: Silent Movie Susie

2017 - Columbia & Fiction Records - Indie rock

7. Harry Styles by Harry Styles

“Have you listened to Harry Styles’ album?”

The same friend that brought me the Paramore song asked me this on a Texas road trip with my girlfriend, having grown understandably tired of my musical choices. I said no, with an implication of “of course not”, because he was a he One Direction guy, and I hated them and all they stood for.

That is a poor assessment of Harry Styles’ abilities as a songwriter and musician. His self-titled debut, such a classic going solo move, is a mature change-up from the former One Direction star. An aeon away from upbeat teen-pop, now Styles is singing maturely and softly about sex, not explicitly but provocatively in Carolina. The use of “Good Girl, she makes me feel so good” is not at all subtle, and the album often feels like these are ideas and feelings that Styles wanted to get off his chest. These are not One Direction songs, and much as the Harry Potter series mature as the books passed and readers aged, Harry Styles feels like an album aimed at One Direction fans who are growing less interested in the innocent, good boy image they’d cultivated.

The music is clean and engaging, but more complex than those previous recordings. In all, the album manages something tough: It reveals a former teen star’s true maturity without the need to scream it explicitly. It feels confident in its identity, which is an achievement in itself.

Best song: Two Ghosts

2017 - Columbia - Indie pop/soft rock

6. Mean Girls - Original Cast Recording

Mean Girls, the film, holds up. Comedy, as I’ve learned just across my time at university, is the first genre to age badly. Punchlines need a target, and our understanding and acceptance of who and what is allowed as a target is ever shifting. So for Tina Fey to ingeniously target not the cattiness of teenage girls, which is a cheap stereotype that the mainstream media still loves to find and blow up (see: the majority of Taylor Swift coverage), but rather the expectation that they’ll do that, and the mentalities of teenager in general, savvily keeps it fresh.

Mean Girls, the musical, opened in 2017 and moved to Broadway in 2018. Music is written by Jeff Richmond, Fey’s husband and collaborator on both the seminal 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Nell Benajmin provided lyrics whilst Fey wrote the book, and together they brilliantly recreated the quotable magic of the original. Fey’s credit is limited to the book but at times her voice is loud and clear in the lyrics. The dumbest plastic, Karen Smith, sings an ode to Halloween, which begins with her muddling over putting it before world peace as a priority, and builds to her love of costumes: “I’m sexy Eleanor Roosevelt or sexy Rosa Parks” is such a Fey joke, fitting of the film. It’s also delightful to hear some extra input on protagonist Cady’s initial best friend Janis (Barrett Wilbert Weed, the best performance), a wonderful character who has the backstory most ripe for exploration in any future works.

Hey, I managed not to say fetch. 

Wait.

Damn.

Best song: World Burn

2018 - Atlantic - Broadway

5. Be More Chill - Original Cast Recording

Be More Chill is an honest story of teenagers and mental health. Adapted mostly faithfully from a 2004 novel by young adult author Ned Vizzini, the story is of Jeremy Heere, a high school loser whose initial goal is charmingly low-key. He just wants to be a bit less awkward and able to survive high school, but quickly decides to sign up for a school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, following in the steps of his crush Christine Canigula, a theatre lover with, in her words, “A touch of ADD”.

It’s this detail that sets the musical’s story apart from the book. Mental health is a subtextual theme of the book, but Christine and her love of performing as someone else and occasional scatterbrain, makes it explicit. The main thrust comes when a jock named Rich offers Jeremy a Squip, AKA a supercomputer, taken as a pill, that invades your brain and tells you how to act and speak. It helps Jeremy enter the cool kids’ circle, but at the expense of his friendship with the proudly dorky Michael, who is delighted that humanity has stopped evolving because, in his words, “there’s never been a better time in history to be a looooooooooooooooser!”

In the final song, Voices in My Head, Christine and Jeremy finally bond properly over the voices they’ve both heard, and it completes a surprisingly moving story of mental health in a musical that is often bombastically big and ridiculous - the Squip is supposed to have Keanu Reeves’ voice. Joe Iconis’ music and lyrics are witty and engaging, perfectly fitting the clever and original novel, and the sadly departed Vizzini.

Best song: Michael in the Bathroom (George Salazar)

2015 - Ghostlight Records - Broadway

4. Worhead by Little Comets

Little Comets are the most exciting band in current music.

This is a bold claim, but I like to be bold. Little Comets, who hail from Jarrow in Tyne and Wear, write the most incredibly moving, lyrically dense and thoughtful songs you can find today. Every song on Worhead is affecting.

If you listen to their first album, In Search of Elusive Little Comets, the musical and lyrical progression in six years is astounding. The fun early indie rock has complicated and deepened, like a lake dug out from beneath its surface. By 2017, lead singer and writer Rob Coles’ grasp on lyrics had become masterful, and he uses images to  generate feeling so well. The title and opening tack immediately point to a specific image: “Standing in a field of grass, looking for a blade of grass”. Coles is upfront about his political beliefs - a 2014 song titled “The Blur, the Line and the Thickest of Onions” explicitly denies and attacks the language of Blurred Lines, and their music is often loudly feminist. Worhead asks us “My sweetheart, can we lean more, to the left side, to the left side of everything”. À Bientôt angrily speaks to anti-migrant rhetoric from their perspective, even including the temporary sympathy caused by the image of the dead boy washed up on the beach, whilst Hunting is written from the smug, entitled view of Tory ministers, cutting, unafraid of retribution, safe from the consequences.

Density of ideas is a Little Comets staple, and the unapologetic thickness of the accents often need a trip to their website or Genius for understanding, but Coles also writes poetically when he pares his words down for romance. “Common Things” describes globetrotting, but in the context of not wanting it, because of the joys of being home, only needing an atlas under the mattress. Elegant domesticity is the only kind of love song that continually appeals to me. They are a continually astounding and unique band.

Best song: 

2017 - The Smallest Label - Indie rock

3. Illinois by Sufjan Stevens

I hardly ever enjoy music purely for the feeling that the music imparts on me. Before I was listening to music critically, I saw an episode of Charlie Brooker’s excellent series Screenwipe, which discussed and took the piss out of all elements of television. In an advertising special, he mentioned that advertisers love music as it bypasses the logical part of your mind and is processed emotionally. There’s something romantic about that, but at the same time sometimes I wonder if that subconsciously put up mental guards, and I have to understand lyrics to understand the emotions.

Illinois is a rare exception.

Sufjan Stevens relased Illinois in 2005 and it serves as a sort of concept album about the American state. It covers points from its history: “Come on! Feel the Illinoise!” covers the historic World’s Columbian Exposition, and “John Wayne Gacy Jr.” is about the infamous serial killer and affords him almost shocking levels of empathy. Stevens later said that we’re all capable of what Gacy did, which is debatable.

But we’re all capable of the grief woven into Caismir Pulaski Day, which tragically tells the story of losing someone who died on the state holiday celebrating their Polish revolutionary war hero.

An independent singer songwriter with track titles as terribly long as “The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are Off Our Lands!'” seems like someone addicted to acoustic guitar, but Stevens utilises piano, strings and horns, especially effective in the aforementioned ‘Come on’. The album is vivid and alive, and is really a practical tie for second.

2005 - Asthmatic Kitty/Secretly Canadian and Rough Trade - Indie rock/folk

2. Masseduction by St. Vincent

This year, I made a real effort, admittedly only in September, to get into new music. Reading an interview with David Byrne, I was intrigued by his mention of St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark. Anyone who can engage David Byrne is worthy of attention.

Inside the striking image and colouring of the artwork, Masseduction was first introduced to me in the opening scene of Bojack Horseman’s fifth season, replacing the standard use of Back in the 90′s by Grouplove with Los Ageless. The song, Clark’s depiction of Los Angeles, feels bleak and distant, the electronic music giving an disconnected vibe. It’s her relationship to the city, and the album as a whole is a series of looks at relationships. Pills is about a relationship with drugs, the title track and Savior are about sex. Happy Birthday Johnny, both slower and acoustic, feel related, as though they’re both about the same person, Clark coming to terms with the sadness of that loss.

Masseduction is endlessly listenable. It spans various pop genres, with enough variety to reward many listens and picking on many of its songs to focus on individually. Pills really does feel like withdrawal, with pumped up verses, an almost manic chorus, and a suddenly balladish final section, where the tone becomes surprisingly sombre. It works, powerfully so.

Best song: Pills

2017 - Loma Vista Recordings - Electropop/Glam Rock

1. The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society (50th Anniversary Edition)

The Kinks released Village Green Preservation Society on the 22nd of November, 1968, which sounds fine until you learn that The Beatles released The White Album on the same day, spelling inevitable and crushing doom, and the permanent departure of founding bassist Pete Quaife from the band. Quaife, who had grown tired of the industry and the Davies’ brothers warring ways, scrawled ‘daze’ on a tape recording of Days. But he left on perhaps the band’s highest note. 

I don’t know what else can be said about this album. Even if every song isn’t a standalone masterpiece, with the strange fairy tale of Phenomenal Cat and the childlike Mr. Songbird only working in context of stories of the past, but they form a collective that is masterful in painting a rich story. It has the delicacy of a great painting, something that former art student Ray Davies must appreciate. And it is so distinctly Ray Davies in its voice, something only he alone could have written. It was their first album after a still somewhat mysterious five year ban from American touring, then the only real form of promotion, but it dismisses the cultural shift towards psychedelia with an almost passive-aggressive tone. 

The weighty re-release is fitted out with sixty tracks, but they’re largely alternative versions of songs from the original album and the recording sessions, many unreleased, including the finished Time Song, and a lovely demo of Days, that proves that Davies was always a better writer than singer, bless him. Harmonies with his brother Dave always lifted the words, but they stand alone, as short stories, brilliantly formed.

VGPS contributes to their stereotypical image of proud Britishness, but there’s a look to the future and underlying sadness that add depth to the album. The original final track’s closing lyirc?

Don’t show me no more, please.

1968/2018 - Pye Records - Folk Rock

#music #music criticism #best of 2018

[danielorme-blog]

MD5317 Music for Moving Image - Critical Evaluation of Audio-Visual Composition (Loving Me) and Restrict

For the evaluation of both pieces of work, one will be breaking them down into two individual parts for the sake of simplifying the process in which one made them with, and also for the sake of ease. I will start with the Audio-Visual piece ‘Loving Me’ and then move onto the set brief ‘Restrict,’ after which one will conclude the evaluation.

Audio-Visual Composition ‘Loving Me’:

This part of the assessment was particularly enjoyable as one had enlisted help from one’s significant other, which helped to make the footage that much more real and believable for the audience.

The idea for this music video was the result of finally giving in to the question “when are you going to make a song for me?” after nearly two years. One chose to use the perspective of ‘point of view’ partly because of one’s attempt at interpreting the ‘Observe’ concept, but also a stylistic choice of trying to put the audience in the eyes of the person behind the camera. This was actually very difficult to achieve as the only way one could obtain such footage was by using a ‘Gear VR’ headset not intended to be used in such a fashion, in junction with one’s phone camera (Samsung Galaxy S6) meaning that one not only looked quite ridiculous but also to some degree was walking essentially blind whilst doing so.

The footage was taken all in one go whilst taking a stroll at night down an urban path to Pitville park in Cheltenham. The shooting of the footage at night was intended to highlight how sometimes relationships can have their hard times due to external forces at play. The visual emphasis of the journey to the park was also intended to represent a couple's journey together through life. One also made a conscious effort to present to the camera one’s hands from time to time, to further reinforce the perspective of the ‘point of view’ shot. This, therefore, gave the opportunity to show to the camera the holding of hands which helped to promote the narrative further.

After the shooting of the footage, one then went about the creation of the audio to accompany it. It was important to try and capture the emotions of love, while also trying to keep the music upbeat. To do this one used vocal samples that literally use the words ‘I love what you do girl’ as well as using vinyl samples of Fender Rhodes electric piano which gives it a warm feeling of reminiscing on good memories. One also used two synth bass-lines, bass drum, rim shots, hats, rides and sampled bubblewrap sounds as part of one’s stylistic and creative choices towards the making of the music. To do this one used ‘Ableton Live 9 Suite Edition’ as this DAW is very effective for the manipulation of audio samples and a great software for creative workflow. One then exported the audio into ‘Logic Pro X’ where the mixing of the audio was done, then finally mastered using ‘Izotope’s Ozone 8.’

Once one was happy with the audio, one then started the process of stitching the two together using ‘Adobe Premiere Pro’ as the editing tool of choice. Having had some experience using this software, as well as the stylistic choice of the video recording made cutting the footage to the music incredibly easy. The main way one edited the footage to fit the audio was the use of simple cut transitions on the beats of the music, these tended to be on either the hit of the bass drum or the hit of the rim shot. Where the vocal samples mention ‘Love’ one purposefully inserted footage that clearly reflected that and when the chorus section starts for the first time, cutting the footage of dancing to mirror the energy at this point. The second chorus section has the footage sped up extremely fast in reverse to highlight the journey took together and also to rouse the feeling of reminiscing about good times that came before. This sped up effect also has interesting ways of interacting with the music in terms of the tempo and beat.

One did some research into ‘point of view’ recording (aka ‘POV’) and used the video (link to youtube) below as a reference to how it can bring the desired effect to the composition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScRPUZuFhd8

Set Brief ‘Restrict’:

The Restrict Video one fond much harder to work on than the Audio-Visual composition as one was not given the freedom to create the visuals, as well as having to be mindful of the director's intentions of the scenes. In an effort to remain sensitive to the visual production and also to help ones creative flare to proceed, breaking the scene down into sections was important.

The opening till 00:53 one used a pad build-up and high formant choir that sounds dreamy to reflect the sleep state of the character, then 00:59-01:56 celestial pads and choir slightly pitch bent to enhance the emotion one may feel when waking to an unusual place lost and confused. One also used a percussive sound when the character turns her head swiftly because one felt that she was reacting to some sound which one then decided to use further from 01:56-02:49 accompanied by staccato bass strings as a suspenseful build-up with a little xylophone as well.

At 02:49 when the other character appears one used a shrill bowed bouzouki for the shock straight after which a low formant choir starts then soon after some emotional strings which then feature through to the end then accompanied by flute near the very end.

All these instruments one chose for the characteristics they bring when trying to build suspense and also enhancing the sad, confused and also sometimes horrified nature that is shown in the scene as it progresses.

I used the following as research material for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQK01Mm7M_Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q88lLOL2dI

One feels that the way both projects were approached was done so carefully and methodically, this isn’t to say however that they could not be improved upon given more time. However, that being said, there will almost certainly be time limits to uphold, such as this assessment for example, if this were to be done for a company or as a line of work. So time management is vital, as is the ability to get the job done well and professionally.

#MD5317 #music for moving image #Critical Evaluation #Audio-Visual Composition #Set Brief #Loving Me #Restrict

[shinyoliver]

Wear Your Own Face

Personal Branding in the Age of Trolls

Written while listening to Radio Free Conspiracy Theory by Mississippi Bones.

Notes refer to the album.

I’ve been thinking about Bob Dylan recently. I’ve been thinking about image consciousness in particular, and stretching new creative muscles. So I consult my prophets, so I’ve got Bob Dylan on the mind.

When The Beatles went psychedelic in the late ’60s, their fans all went along with it. And the cool thing about it, I think, is that it wasn’t some publicity stunt style “the old stuff is lame — let’s strike into a new market!” Nah: The Beatles just felt like they’d done the whole pop rock scene. They’d dominated that scene. And they wanted to do something else.

They — John and George and them — may or may not have thought to themselves that they ran the risk of alienating their audience by “exploring a new sound.” I mean, other artists who branched out into other sounds suffered commercially from exploring new sound.

Snerk. Spiritual beliefs best expressed in gif form. It WILL be classic.

I mean, in 1966, the year before Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band dropped, The Beach Boys dropped Pet Sounds, their exercise in exploring a new sound. It never got higher than number ten in the charts. Which sounds good, except when you consider that of their previous six albums, when one of them didn’t chart higher than four it was considered a financial disaster by their label. When Pet Sounds didn’t chart higher than ten, I kind of wonder why Capitol didn’t drop their loser asses.

They liked Pet Sounds in England, though.

Which might have something to do with the point, you know? Because The Beatles are British, and there might be a cultural difference there that made it possible for them to kind of just…do stuff.

Hmm. Good balance on “Genetic Flashback.” I love hearing the bass. Oh, and that’s a good bridgy riffy thingy on the guitar. Twingly.

The Beatles had legitimate reason to worry about alienating their audience. And since their audience constituted basically everyone except the proto-punks who liked the Stones, The Beatles risked inciting what could have amounted to a global riot when Sgt. Pepper dropped. I mean, do you remember when it turned out that everyone in the whole world was actually just bred to be a habitat for a sentient flu virus collective? Do you remember the panic? Do you remember that?

I love a good slow song that feels intense, not just slow. Well intended, “WXXT.”

Of course you don’t remember it, because it never happened.

Imagine the panic if it ever did happen. That’s the kind of global-scale event that Sgt. Pepper could have been if it had sucked.

So…you dodged a bullet there, Lennon. Too bad you didn’t miss the second one.

Too soon?

You’d think that somebody like Bob Dylan wouldn’t have listened to any of The Beatles’ albums.

I mean, they kind of represented opposite ends of a musical culture, you know? In the early half of the ’60s, The Beatles dominated the entire musical attention by being palatable and catchy and cornering first the screaming young girls market and, by extension, everyone who wants to appeal to screaming young girls. Which, last time I calculated, counted pretty much everyone.

The Beatles wrote good music in the early half of the ’60s, but it didn’t require an awful lot of thought. It wasn’t challenging.

When The Beatles finished dominating the market, there was a small corner that they left untouched. A corner inhabited by people who didn’t want easy music. They wanted something more slow and thoughtful and less about that crazy night with [insert woman here]. They wanted something more like one dude writing complicated poetry in the back of smokey bars and burbling out the lyrics in a voice that stretches the limits of the definition of speaking, let alone singing.

Bob Dylan had, in short, found his ideal market.

They loved the guy. The real proto-hippy intellectuals, slowly inventing the ideals that inspired the late ’60s and early ’70s, did a lot of their fermenting in small clubs in New York. And some of the intellectual compost for their fermenting was the unpretentious, thought-provoking singer-songwriter, typified in a lot of people’s minds by Bob.

They were happy times for your proto-hippy intellectual, discovering weed and talking about Kuhn and Kripke.

Until, that is, Bob Dylan decided to “explore a new sound.” I mean, if you need a good example of why it’s dangerous to betray the image of yourself that you’ve established for yourself, Bob’s it.

I think of songs like “The Order of the Night Moose” as stompers. I mean, that’s the sentiment, but I’ve never put that term to it before. I will from now on, I think.

I mean, they say that hell hath no woman like a Fury scorned? You heard that one?

Well, if you want an example of how that works, go read into the Electric Dylan controversy. I mean, talk about cattiness.

Hur hur. Send him a Christmas card or something. Hur.

The proto-hippy intellectuals did not like Electric Dylan. (Which is what I’m going to name my Gundam mech when I get one.) After embracing this whiny-voiced folk singer, the proto-hippy intellectual booed him off stage when he tried to launch his career as a punk-metal pioneer.

Which sounds awful, because it is awful. It’s just…weird.

That happened in 1965. Pet Sounds bombed — relatively speaking — in ’66. Sgt. Pepper dropped in ’67. So yeah: The Beatles had plenty of reason to at least consider feeling concerned about trying out a new thing.

Apparently, Bob did listen to Sgt. Pepper.

After hearing it, Bob apparently had a chance to talk to John Lennon once. And, apparently, what Bob had to say about Sgt. Pepper was something like, “Man, John, I’m really impressed that you could totally change your sound without losing your audience. That didn’t happen to me. It sort of sucked.”

I thought that “Ancient Astronauts and Alien Allegories” was going to be the “you can go ahead and just sort of chill through this track” style of track. You know the kind: not bad, but just kind of acting like a bridge for the album. Just a sort of cool track, but not a complicated track…. That solo surprised me.

Image consciousness is a weird thing. I’ve been thinking a lot about Bob and John and Sgt. Pepper and the Electric Dylan Controversy. (Which is a good name for a band…) I’m going through an image crisis.

You don’t need to know about this, but I’ll tell you anyway.

Basically, I’ve always known about myself that I’m pretty much too cool to associate myself with the sell-out name of Hipster.

Which I understand lands me directly in the mustache-encrusted bacon-box labeled ’Hipster.

And I’m cool with that, because I know what I mean.

In the thousand meter view, what that means is that if the lead singer and lyricist of my favorite band asks me to listen to their next album before it’s released, I am philosophically obliged not to recommend it to anybody. Mississippi Bones hasn’t got what you’d call a mass following. Philosophically, that’s how I like my bands, because philosophically I only like bands that, hypothetically, when I go to their gigs I can share a shot and a cigarette with them after the show — metaphorically, anyway, since I don’t do shots and I don’t smoke.

Since they live in Ohio, this remains theoretical, but that’s the thing about philosophy.

It’s a hard position to hold to, if I’m honest, because according to the carefully constructed “too cool to be a hipster” image that I’m stealing from my little brother I can only like obscure bands; at the same time, I’d really like Mississippi Bones to keep making music so I want them to do well. But if they do well they won’t be as obscure as they are now.

So I want them to have a lot of success, but I don’t want anyone to hear about them.

It’s confusing being a not-a-hipster hipster.

It turns out that Mississippi Bones is having a little bit of a conflict of images too.

Or that’s what Mr. Lead Singer Guy, Jared Collins, mumbled to me when he slipped me the album. He says that they’re trying something new, and he’s a little worried how people will receive it. That maybe they run the risk with this one that their audience won’t “get” it, or something.

Honestly, I have no idea what he’s talking about.

I love when a title track of an album’s a bomb track. Sometimes they aren’t. “Radio Free Conspiracy Theory” on Radio Free Conspiracy Theory makes me happy.

There’s two lessons to learn from the rock prophets Bob and The Beatles about public image.

What a collaboration that would have been, am I right? Bob and The Beatles. Ah, what legends will never come to pass.

Anyway.

The two lessons are…

Everyone’s got one. They’re like “opinions.”

There’s part of them that we’ve got control over and another part that we’ve not got.

I’ve always thought that Bob Dylan wrote exquisite, insightful poetry. He talked like the conscience of a generation, and you’ve got to give him credit for that. Or you don’t need to, because maybe you liked Paul Simon better. Doesn’t matter. Point is, Bob wrote insightful poetry.

Which I’ve always empathized with, because I know another thing about Bob: his image was constructed.

I’ve always found that strange. He spent a lot of energy imploring a generation to be more aware, but then he built his public persona as an expression of fiction. He decided to be the exemplar slim, hard-living bohemian…but he had to struggle to keep skinny, and he started making money pretty early in his career, and he also, actually, wanted to have, like, a rock and roll career.

A strange person. He built an image, and then he struggled to fulfill it. When cracks showed, his fans had trouble embracing Bob Dylan the human because they wanted Bob Dylan the act.

I’m not sure exactly how The Beatles thought about it differently, but I always got the impression that even when they did have carefully constructed public images, their carefully constructed public images were reflections of what they believed about themselves rather than what they believed that the world wanted to see in them.

Which has led me, essentially, to realizing that my opinion of my public image shouldn’t worry me, even slightly, because frankly I’ve got no public with an idea of an image of me that I can betray, so I don’t have anything to worry about.

So…go listen to Radio Free Conspiracy Theory. There: I’m betraying my too-cool-to-be-a-hipster image, because it might not be the image I’m projecting anyway. I don’t know.

I say this with complete bias, since they are one of my favorite bands: Mississippi Bones’ upcoming album represents the kind of non-deviant deviation from brand that tickles my beanie, without being any deviation at all, because frankly I’ve always considered their brand something like, “metal for those of us who head bang to recorded books.”

I think you know what I mean by that.

I prefer to hear recommendations that have an obvious bias in them, I think. I feel like I trust them more, because if the thing being reviewed can encourage a bias then it must have some quality to it.

I don’t actually know the exact date that this album drops. Sometime in June. Get in touch with me and I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, go and listen to their earlier albums.

Ooh…time for a bonus track… Practicing my patience…waiting ten seconds…it’s an in joke. Don’t sweat it. Now, will the bonus track live up to the etymological baggage inherent to the term “bonus,” i.e., the fact that the word “bonus” is pretty much just the Latin word for a gift that’s a good one, not a dumb one. So like Nightcrawler’s gift, or Jubilee’s. You know — the useful ones. Not like Cyclops’ one, which is a dumb gift, and not a bonus.

[rockrevoltmagazine]

SHOW REVIEW: KillThrax Tour, feat: Anthrax and Killswitch Engage w/The Devil Wears Prada - Jasta - Fillmore - Silver Spring, MD

Anthrax & Killswitch Engage – The Fillmore – Silver Spring, MD – April 3, 2017

One of the most highly anticipated heavy metal tours of early 2017, The KillThrax Tour, featuring a co-headlining bill of thrash royalty Anthrax and metalcore titans Killswitch Engage, invaded the halls of the Fillmore in Silver Spring, Maryland, this past week.

Any lineup featuring the two aforementioned metal heroes would be more than enough to fill most music halls to capacity with rabid headbangers, however, the KillThrax tour also includes rising metalcore outfit The Devil Wears Prada and Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed fame.

The venue had posted show opener Jasta as taking the stage at 7:00 pm, however, Jasta and The Devil Wears Prada both had their set times moved up an hour at the last minute, as apparently a personal issue forced the Hatebreed front man to start the night’s metal festivities a bit early.

As a result anyone not lucky enough to already be inside the Fillmore when the venue’s doors opened likely missed most if not all of Jasta’s and The Devil Wears Prada’s performances.  As it turns out, sometimes the metal gods can be cruel.

Any feelings of disappointment some fans may have felt being denied the chance to enjoy Jasta and or TDWP were surely washed away quickly as New Jersey thrash metal godfathers Anthrax took to the Fillmore stage with the kind of ferocity and sheer intensity most bands thirty years their junior would be lucky to emulate.

Still touring on what many consider a return to form, 2016’s For All Kings, the evening’s performance was mostly a metal time machine journey through Anthrax’s early catalog. Outside of three tracks off of their latest LP and a single tune from 2011’s Worship Music, the evening’s set list leaned heavily on Anthrax’s third studio record, 1985’s Among the Living.

Most longtime fans of the band were likely expecting this as prior to the KillThrax tour kicking off here in United States Anthrax played the Among the Living record in its entirety across the pond throughout both the months of February and March.

At 56 years of age, Joey Belladona’s voice has not only not degraded, his level of energy and overall performance seem to actually be getting stronger. This same sentiment holds true for the entirety of the band, especially in terms of Frank Bello and Scott Ian’s frantic antics while up on stage.

Ian, Bello, and Belladona were whirling dervishes, constantly darting from stage end to stage end and up, then back down, the elevated stage platforms regularly interacting with another. When not crashing and banging into each other the band members regularly created connections with individuals in the audience via more than a handful of  directed nods, finger points, and the flashing of the metal horns. Belladona at one point even directly interacted with a few of the photographers, twice grabbing cameras to take a few choice images himself.

It’s these connections and the genuine heart felt interactions Anthrax makes with the audience at their live shows that ensures their performances are unique, making these encounters that much more timeless for their fan base. At most concerts if the band performs at a high level, that’s more than enough for almost any fan to be satisfied with.  Anthrax always manages to exceed those expectations by creating personal moments that those in the audience will go on to remember for years to come.

A fair percentage of those in attendance were on the younger end of the spectrum and thus more than likely Killswitch Engage fans. That fact did not prevent Anthrax from forcing nearly everybody inside the Fillmore to engage with them via fiery renditions of classics such as the S.O.D cover, “March of the SOD, while also setting the stage ablaze with fan favorite, “Antisocial” and regular show closer, “Indians.”

Hats off to Belladona, Ian (guitar), Bello (bass), Jon Donais (guitar) and Charlie Benante (drums), as all are superlative as well as seasoned players who never fail to impress and their performance at the Fillmore in Silver Spring, Maryland did absolutely nothing to dispel that long standing tradition.

Originally formed nearly twenty years into Anthrax’s career, Killswitch Engage are on somewhat of a nostalgia trip themselves as the band is also celebrating one of their own record’s anniversary, Alive or Just Breathing.

Released fifteen years ago, the band’s second full-length studio effort put the Massachusetts outfit on the proverbial metal map on the strength of the single, “Last Serenade.” Their set list at the Fillmore, however, did not center around the band’s sophomore album, instead it swung more towards material off of both 2016’s Incarnate and the 2004 Howard Jones fronted classic, The End of the Heartache.

Killswitch Engage have taken a play right out of Anthrax’s playbook in terms of not only fan interaction but their actual live performance. Much like his metal brothers Bello, Belladona, and Ian, Adam Dutkiewicz has a non-stop motor whenever and wherever he performs.

Known for his crazy stage outfits and even more outlandish stage antics, Dutkiewicz could easily come off as corny. Instead KsE’s fans embrace the guitarist’s wild behavior and I’m sure many come to the band’s live shows excited to see what eccentric ensemble Dutkiewicz may show up in.  Just don’t tell Slayer guitarist Kerry King any of this.

King has called out Dutkiewicz more than a few times for what he’s referred to as the guitarist’s “silliness.”  I suppose to each their own, and there’s never such thing as a wrong opinion but in fairness, Dutkiewicz  is just trying to have a blast. His on stage shenanigans are more than likely just his way of expressing his exuberance and his attempt at sharing those emotions with the fans.

Although not quite as silly as Dutkiewicz, bassist Mike D’Antonio is wildly entertaining to watch in concert as he too is beyond animated.  D’Antonio puts on an array of evil metal faces while swaying and contorting his bass in every possibly direction as he maniacally moves about the stage.

The bassist is this kooky amalgamation of Gene Simmons meets Cliff Burton in terms of both play style and stage persona. Upon observation D’Antonio appears to be living out the real life concert millions of metal heads played to themselves in their high school bedrooms each and every time he has the opportunity to play live.

The counter to Dutkiewicz and D’Antonio, lead singer Jesse Leach, is more of a serious presence while up on stage. Leach forgoes the tomfoolery instead choosing to make his connections with the audience via his soaring vocals and stoic performance.

Leach commands immediate attention and only has to utter a few words to send any crowd into an all out frenzy. Seconds before launching into “Strength of Mind,” Leach quipped that the mosh pit had not nearly impressed him up until that point in the show. Not unexpectedly, the audience responded with vigor as lord help those who were not prepared for the break out of flying fists and hammer kicks that instantaneously engulfed two-thirds of the Fillmore’s general admission floor.

Similar to Anthrax, the boys in Killswitch Engage Leach (vocals), D’Antonio (bass), Dutkiewicz (guitar), Josh Stroetzel (guitar), and Justin Foley (drums) have spent their entire career creating long standing bonds with their fan base.  Thus when attending one of their surreal live shows most fans don’t just come away feeling as though they’ve spent a few hours at a concert.  Instead upon existing the venue most fans probably felt as though they had just spent a couple of hours with their best friends, who also just so happen to be in a kick ass metal band.

As the final notes of “In Due Time” echoed throughout the Fillmore many headbangers, weary from hours of well, head banging, were doing something that isn’t necessarily associated with the world of heavy metal, they were smiling.  Head banging, smiling, and beyond unreal live metal performances, that’s what our friends in Anthrax and Killswitch Engage are all about.

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All Writing and Photography:  Robert Forte

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SHOW REVIEW: KillThrax Tour, feat: Anthrax and Killswitch Engage w/The Devil Wears Prada – Jasta – Fillmore – Silver Spring, MD was originally published on RockRevolt Mag

#anthrax #Fillmore Silver Spring #For all kings #Hatebreed #incarnate #Jasta #Killswitch Engage #killthrax tour #killtrhax #KsE #Megaforce Records #Roadrunner Records #the devil wears prada

[mode7rap]

genoboost reviews the Final Fantasy VII commercial

via Game Music 4 All

I hate Final Fantasy VII.

Well, I love Final Fantasy VII, but don't tell Final Fantasy VII I said that. FFVII doesn't deserve my love, but I often find myself thinking about all the good times we had together. We laughed, we cried, we bitched about Cait Sith. Those were the days. But it was such a toxic relationship. I can never go back.

It's going to take a few more therapy sessions before I'm comfortable digging deeper into that. Today, I simply want to discuss a small portion of the very rich meal that is Final Fantasy VII. There are a lot of layers to this RPG onion, and I want to focus solely on the dry, dusty, useless onion skin, slowly rotting beneath the produce section lights. I'll be dissecting Square's game changing game commercial which appeared on US television ahead of the games stateside release. That's not a joke.

How did we all think Final Fantasy VII was so great? Clearly opinions have splintered in the 20 years since the game's release. It's hard to stay unbiased after many years worth of extraneous FFVII games, movies, and more games, and anime shorts. It's now pretty hazy just exactly what convinced me to love this game so much in the first place. Then I saw the original commercial again. My very sudden and brand new hypothesis is that the marketing blitz put on by Sony and Square (now Square-Enix) made sure we thought this game was going to kick every ass. It did. The commercials that aired constantly on cable television also made sure that viewers had no idea what the 'game' part of this game was. 

   So it's time to dissect a thirty second long and twenty year old commercial. This advertisement was the first glimpse of Final Fantasy for much of the US, except for nerds like me that is. That glimpse made Final Fantasy VII look like one bad ass mother fucker of an action movie, er, action game. It's a game.  You can play on the "Play Station." Somehow.

What do you even do in this game? It would appear to be some sort of motorcycle riding, helicopter chasing, explosion causing and/or preventing type action game. Maybe you get to play as an ass kicking, motorcycle riding protagonist that is also a soldier of fortune, as mentioned in the commercial! Mystery solved.

I don't know what's happening here, but it doesn't matter because I'm dead now.

Actually, I think the Soldier of fortune is the only thing this commercial gets right about Final Fantasy VII. But only if I'm being generous and assume when the voice over said "soldier" he meant SOLDIER. 

It's hard to think back to a time where we didn't know about sephiroth, JENOVA, and Cloud, the only three characters that very briefly appear in the commercial. Each with a haircut sillier than the last. None of these highly integral characters are established in any way. It's just some insane fever dream. Was that a monster?  Did it explode? Does CG hair have to look this ridiculous?

Absolutely.

I know I come hard at Final Fantasy VII like the old, jaded gamer I am, but back in '97 I was just as enamored by it as any other kid that got their kicks from playing Chrono Trigger and FFIII, I mean VI, I mean, ah fuck it. Square knew exactly what a young American gamer wanted to see. Explosions, revenge, motorcycles, soldiers of fortune, more revenge, another explosion, and another explosion and revenge, plus it's a video game!

This isn't a commercial for a hundred hour, story driven RPG from Japan (this is, and it gets me pretty damn hyped). This is a commercial for a high budget Hollywood action movie. It has more in common with trailers for Men in Black and The Fifth Element, the latest sci-fi blockbusters circa '97. This was long before Lord of the Rings made everyone very very familiar with the Fantasy genre. Back in 1997, no one in the US cared about grass or trees or magic or elves or none of that shit. Those were good times. Anyway, the folks behind advertising Final Fantasy VII knew what's up. They showed off nothing but the heavily industrial, very metallic side of Final Fantasy VII. Cannons, helicopters, motorcycles. This was some epic futuristic realism here. No magic airships, no swords, no riding on big dumb chickens! 'Wark' your ass on out of here you stupid chocobo, or is it 'kweh' now? Go 'kweh' yourself! 

"Did you unlock the motorcycle?"

"Not Quite."

Give Square some credit where it's due though, twenty years later, every major game release is marketed this way. Only cut scenes, no game play footage, and only the vaguest half paragraph outline of the plot. Makes me nostalgic for the storyline to Bosconian. Make sure your way dope commercial includes anything that would be cool to own or pilot, as long as it's a machine and not an animal, such as a very large, very colorful, very inbred bird. 

There isn't a single company fool enough to include actual gameplay in the commercial for said game. Some commercials these days don't include any images from the game at all. Even Nintendo themselves cut that shit out a few console generations ago. Well, Nintendo still tries to shove a little gameplay footage in at the end of their commercials. Unfortunately, Nintendo's stubborn respect for consumers makes for terrible marketing. Not to mention the incredible difficulty in conveying fun game play to a passive audience. Just make some jokes, or throw some babes at me, and/or a few explosions and I'm in! Buy me Bonestorm or go to hell!

Square-Enix has made a ton of missteps since the release of FFVII, which lead to the name Square-Enix itself, and my endless confusion on whether to call them Square, or Square-Enix when referring to the company when it was called Square, or was it Square LTD, I don't think it was Square EA yet, or was it EA Square in the US and Square EA in Japan… Ah fuck that too.

Actually (fixes glasses) the full name is… 

As I was saying, Square whatever has had some misfires in their long and expensive history, but damn were they on the cutting edge of logically baffling but ridiculously effective commercials.

If I'm generous, I could understand that there could be some difficulty in explaining a 70 hour epic within a 30 second teaser. Ungenerously, since this is a commercial after all. Please be skeptical of anyone selling you anything. Please? This is 30 seconds of random images and blatant lies created solely in an effort to take your money. Square got my money. Don't let them get to you too!

I'm not sure if this is the first RPG to be marketed to popcorn shoveling mongrels and not the elite console gamer class that knew what a JRPG was, or, as we called them at the time. RPGs. We didn't need more specific definitions because all console RPGs came from Japan. American companies made Bass Fishing and Bubsy, and a game starring the fucking president's cat. Who cares! Until FPS games gained some traction, US game developers would do their best to serve up nice bland plates of whatever Japan created first. 

Despite Square's best efforts, and explosions, the most insane thing about this commercial was the ending. 

:Record scratch

Appearing in the final moments of the commercial was the title "Final Fantasy VII." Wait a minute! I know what Final Fantasy is! I know exactly what Final Fantasy is! Hold on, where did four, five, and six go!?

I had already played Final Fantasy VI, although we called it Final Fantasy III back in my day. Whatever this commercial was that my eyeballs were subjected to was certainly unlike any previous Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy is about wizards and spell casting and swords and a bunch of numbers going up, sometimes down. You collect money, which you can use to buy new weapons, and you can find treasure, which is hopefully new weapons. There's just loads of text and menus. Honestly, it's all just text and menus. The point being, that there ain't none of that in this commercial, and we all know damn well there is plenty of that shit in the game. Conversely, I think every exploding building, crashing meteor, or giant energy weapon in the game is shown off in this commercial.

Before I watched this commercial several dozen times in order to form this deep and absolutely necessary analysis, I decided to make a list of a few words and phrases that come to mind when I think about Final Fantasy VII.  Play along at home. Just close your eyes and think of some of your most cherished memories with this very ridiculous game. 

Giant Swords

Armageddon

Bigger swords

Corporate greed

This guy are sick

Leveling Up

Great Music

Unlikable characters

Huge world

Huge monsters

Double crossing

Ancient stuff

Fancy wigs and dresses

Cait Sith… Fuck you Cait Sith! I never wanted you on my team in the first place you traitorous, plot advancing piece of-

Okay, I should stop there, but I think that's a good synopsis of FFVII to be honest. 

Now time to live blog this ephemeral seizure of a commercial.

There's an evil empire.

So evil it's a whole evil planet?

Giant cannon!

Modern day helicopters

Modern day motorcycle, is this Terminator?

The world is in danger! So it might be Terminator!

To Aerith: "Come with me if you want to live." No wait!

More cannons! These cannons shoot lasers!

It can shoot in this single direction though.

Was that a monster?

Quiet down in there!… You!

Everything is so shiny

At least this evil empire has some showmanship.

Great graphics!

...for the time.

There's seven of these!?

Another record scratch

This is a video game!?!?

and it's on the playstation!?

Whaaaaa…

As you can see, a few major elements of Final Fantasy VII seem to be lacking in the commercial. In a game with nine different playable characters, each with plenty of backstory, we see Cloud's dumb hair for a second, and Sephiroth staring down a robot. I remember staring at the print ad of this scene and having not a single clue what I was even looking at. Did you notice any swords in this commercial? Catch someone using a spear or inaccurately enormous shuriken shaped boomerang? There wasn't even magic. No magic in a game called Final FANTASY. No feathers, and not a single blade of grass.

If this commercial is to be believed (and who am I to not believe the very people who are trying to take my money) then this is pretty much James Bond, Blade Runner, and Armageddon, but playable. I wouldn't be shocked if this blonde haired soldier of fortune was voiced by Bruce Willis himself. Yippee ki yay Sephiroth. It's time to save the world from lasers and cannons and meteors and all kinds of other crazy crap.

Somehow…

Oh, I almost forgot, this game commercial doesn't feature any game play. Maybe it was an oversight. It's certainly not necessary to include gameplay footage. Why, Square gave us all the information we need to understand the gameplay, right in this very commercial, if you just look closely enough!

I can easily imagine the control scheme for this wild ride.

X = Motorcycle

Triangle = Revenge

Square = Explosions

Circle = Explosion based Revenge

L1+R1 = Run Away

This lack of gameplay footage is what changed video game commercials forever (except Nintendo). Nintendo was trying their hardest to show off some quality games back in the mid 90's, but that integrity lost them valuable MTV commercial real estate. Square and Sony on the other hand, began to create commercials that were more like existential references to the games in the PlayStation library, rather than provide actual details or information about why you should purchase the product featured. Nintendo clearly wanted to emulate these highly effective commercials, all while still conveying the inherent fun of Nintendo games. This meant that Nintendo became stranded in some horrible middle ground. Wanting edgy commercials with a bunch of crazy crap happening, while still conveying the style and quality of the gameplay. Don't forget to wedge some game footage in there somehow.

As reference, here is a 1996 Nintendo commercial. Coincidentally, I chose the commercial for Super Mario RPG, the final Square produced game for a Nintendo system for nearly a decade.

   Dammit Nintendo, it's like the head of your PR department is my mom. SO LAME. This commercial needs it's own analysis. I'm a life long Nintendo supporter through and through, but I have made no bones about their inability to create engaging commercials. Nintendo has been getting their asses kicked in the marketing department ever since Sega said 'Nintendon't.' Luckily Nintendo's games often speak for themselves in terms of quality game play. Of course, you would have to purchase the game to know that. Oh the irony! Every Nintendo commercial feels like the boxart to Phalanx. Baffling and unintuitive.

In fact, here's another one from 2005!

   Even after many years in this brave new world of logic free commercials, Nintendo still slides in that gameplay footage. Will they never learn?

Conclusion

Hey Square, I love all the convoluted stories, convoluted hair, and pompous cut scenes, but I also like the part where I rummage through menus to equip insane materia combinations, or just simply stealing from as many different enemies as possible. This commercial, and the frenzy for Final Fantasy VII upon launch reinforced those former attributes, sending Square into an anti-gameplay spiral that we've only begun to unravel. In the immediate aftermath of FFVII, Square gave us both the amazing 'cinematic RPG' Parasite Eve, as well as the bankruptcy inducing Final Fantasy The Spirits Within. 

Now they go by Square Enix, a little wiser, and a little less bold. They still waver between quality game play and an overzealous cut scenes, second only to the Metal Gear series (which also made Konami hemorrhage money, hmm). 

Next FFVII anniversary, I'm going to review the Knight of the Round (AKA the longest fucking thing in video games ever) in the same amount of time that the animation of Knight of the Round takes to play out. 

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