Marvelous Diversion : Music

Kate Nash

2009-02-25T14:35:00.000-08:00

I discover most of my music from listening to MPR's The Current or from Pandora. Both fabulous...um... things. Services? I dunno. Fabulous in any case. I heard Kate Nash for the first time this morning while streaming The Current.

I love the beatbox beats and the piano in this song is a nice touch. I mostly get into songs because of an interesting rhythm to the lyrics. On a not-so-side not, I also love her accent. Love it.

Some of her music kind of reminds me of Regina Spektor, who I also love. Kate's song Merry Happy especially sounds like it could be sung by Spektor. After watching the video above, head on over to Kate Nash's myspace page and give her a listen! I'm sure you'll enjoy.

Andrew Bird

2009-02-09T12:22:00.000-08:00

I spent most of July 2005 listening to Andrew Bird's The Mysterious Production of Eggs. My sister sent it to me while Kate and I were out of the country. It's a great album, but it's definitely taken a back seat to others over the past few years. With the release of this new CD entitled Noble Beast, my interest in this Chicao-based violinist has been renewed. Thank God for that!

In listening to some new songs on Andrew's MySpace page, I came across this video showcasing some awesome, Casio-enhanced fiddling. He's even playing at our very own Guthrie Proscenium stage! Yayness!

Check out his MySpace page for more awesome videos and a taste of the new album.

Mates of State

2009-01-21T12:37:00.000-08:00

When I have to take the car to truck stuff around the school district, I'm usually listening to either college radio or Minnesota Public Radio's alternative station, 89.3 The Current. The Current is generally a pretty mixed bag, but I heard this song on the way to work today and really enjoyed it. Hurrah for unexpected gemstones! The song above is called My Only Offer and it's off their 2008 CD entitled Re-Arrange Us.

Now it's time to listen to more music and see what else the Mates of State have to offer! Yay!

Caroline Smith and the Good Night Sleeps

2009-01-14T09:41:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the previous post, Kate bought us tickets to go see Jeremy Messersmith for my birthday. The concert started much later than expected, but it was well worth the wait. The concert was scheduled to begin at 9:00, the first opening act didn't start until 10:00, the second didn't start until 11:00 and Jeremy started well after midnight.

The opening act was Caroline Smith and the Good Night Sleeps. Wow! Give them a listen over at their MySpace page. I like all of the music I've heard form them, but Clench My Teeth and Birch Trees and Broken Barns are both particularly fabulous tracks.

Listen and enjoy!

Jeremy Messersmith

2009-01-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

So, it's ma' birthday this weekend and Kate got us tickets to see a wonderful local musician to celebrate! Jeremy Messersmith is fabulous. He and his band members use Casio recording loops to create their unique sound. "Miracles" is from Jeremy's second CD, The Silver City. While the video above is not terribly engaging, the music is fantastic! Check out Jeremy's myspace for more info on him and his wonderful band.

Jeremy Messersmith's MySpace

Allison Weiss

2008-12-15T10:55:00.000-08:00

I first heard of Allison Weiss through the Lunch Bag Art blog. One of the lunch bags that Papa Lunchie chalked up had a cute little parachuting singer on it. Clicking the link below the picture, I was taken to a myspace page and fabulous music started playing. I especially like the track "I'm Ready". Listen to Allison's music and support her by buying her CD! And then support me by writing her copious emails to get her to come play in Minneapolis. This cold Minneapolis winter needs a bit of the rockin' melancholy sunshine that Allison weaves.

Check her out!

Au Revoir Simone

2008-12-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

Let me lay it out plainly for you all. When I first saw Au Revoir Simone's video for Sad Song (above), I got hit with a musician crush for all three of these women. Based out of New York, the all-keyboard trio toured Europe this summer. This brought me some hope that they may go on tour in the states soon. It doesn't look like they play much outside of New York City and warm locales, though. I can only hope that something will draw them northward to play in the Cities sometime.

Sad Song has an awesome beat and I love the cadence of the lyrics. Also, whoever directed the video deserves a trophy (and perhaps a pizza too). Beautifully choreographed! Listen above and then click on over to their website for more musical goodness.

Mario Kart Love Song

2008-12-06T14:27:00.000-08:00

Such a cute song! Nerd love is the best. Hooray for Mario Kart!

You Have to Burn the Rope

2008-04-20T20:42:00.001-07:00

While this still technically a game, YHTBTR exists mainly for the song that plays when you beat the game. Play the video above for the ending credits of the game.

If you'd like to see if you have the skills to become the hero we're all looking for and burn that rope, head over to Mazapán.com! Be forewarned that this song will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Still Alive

2007-10-19T14:02:00.000-07:00

This was a triumph.
I’m making a note here,
HUGE SUCCESS.
It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction…

…with this song. Portal is possibly the best first-person experience on the market right now. Innovative game play combined with a heavy dose of black humor, the game ends with the robot mastermind behind the vexing puzzles and deadly traps singing a song to you. Shortly after giving killing you a go, the Aperture Science supercomputer sings this fantastic little song to you as the closing credits roll. Anyway, this song was a great learning experience for me. It taught me that…

…There’s no use crying over every mistake.
I’ll just keep on posting
‘Till I run out of cake.
And the Blogging gets done
And I write a neat one
For the people who are
Still alive.

I Lived on the Kwoon

2007-10-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

Doing some random browsing I came across a YouTube video for Kwoon’s song “I Lived on the Moon”.

Wow.

I’m a sucker for really well done 3D animation as well as animation that appears to combine multiple media. Coupled with music that sounds like Radiohead at their dreamiest, “I Lived on the Moon” is a beautiful walk through a dream scape. As far as I can tell, the song is about a father cautioning his son against letting other people take away his ability to dream and experience the dream world. The music is sublime, the symbolism is great, the choreography is fantastic, and the plant guy reminds me of a character in one of my childhood dreams. I don’t know much about Kwoon, but I do know an awesome song when I hear one.

Low Skies

2007-10-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

Long a friend of mine, Brandon Invergo recently released an album entitled Low Skies. For the past few weeks, it’s been my play list of choice while slogging through the Help Desk emails at the District Off-world Technology Mining Complex (DOTMC). Brandon really did a fantastic job with this album. Never adding even a single beat that needn't be there, he creates a wonderful sonic flow both within and between each song on this album. Anyone interested in classic electronic (the kind popularized by Orbital and their ilk) should give this a good listening.

Out of My Brain, Foul Beast!

2007-08-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

I can't recall if I ever beat Mega Man 2. I got Mega Man 1, 2, and 3 all at the same time when I was about 10 years old, so they all kind of blend together for me. However, I do remember that Air Man's level was a pain in the proverbial petute.

So what does this all have to do with anything? Well, in my last post, I claimed that my favorite song of TomBobBlender's was Robo's theme song. For the past three days, my head has been telling me otherwise.

Reverberating through my skull since Sunday night has been TomBobBlender's rendition of the song from the first part of Dr. Wily's level in Mega Man 2. Tuesday night, I decided enough was enough. As I do when a song is stuck in my head, I played the music in question time and time again until it gets swept away. Except this time it didn't work like that. Because of YouTube's "Related Videos" links, I was sucked into the never-ending spiral that defines my YouTubing experience. Curse you, YouTube!

I listened to rendition after rendition of Dr. Wily pt. 1. Then I found a couple of good renditions of Bloody Tears from Castlevania, a wicked fast rendition of some music from Kirby, and a friggin awesome video of Tetris's C theme for two classical guitars. Beautiful stuff.

It was about the time I was perusing the many variations on Bloody Tears that my wife asked if I could find the music from Castlevania Adventure for Gameboy. I must have gone through everything labeled "Castlevania" on YouTube. This is a transcript of our conversation Tuesday night:

Rockin' Castlevania music plays.
"Is this one it?" I ask.
"No. It goes like this," says Katie.
Katie makes a lot of noise.
"Oh, OK."
I click around for a while.
Rockin' Castlevania music plays.
"Is this one it?" I ask.
"No. It goes like this," says Katie.
Katie makes a lot of noise.
"Oh, OK."
I click around for a while.
Rockin' Castlevania music plays.
"Is this one it?" I ask.
"No. It goes like this," says Katie.
Katie makes a lot of noise.
"Oh, OK."
I click around for a while.
......I think you get the point.

Anyway, one of the times I was clicking around, I ended up doing a Google search for the song she wanted. In doing so, I discovered a site for the ages -- a site to post about.

Check out www.vgmusic.com. It's an archive of midi files for nearly every piece of video game music imaginable. There's even remixes of the popular ones. Enjoy!

Mario Paint is alive and well!

2007-07-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

Before Nintendo's release of Mario Paint back in 1992, I never knew how much fun digital animation could be. I had done quite a few claymations and flip books, but never had I animated anything digitally. Even to the neglect of games that I claim as my favorites (Zelda, Super Metroid, Mario World, etc.), most of my early SNES days were spent slapping flies, making animations, and writing music.

While I've not touched the SNES mouse in nearly 10 years, it looks like a music teacher from New York City has been hard at work. I recently stumbled across a forum saying that TomBobBlender was featured in issue 218 of Nintendo Power for his unique little corner of YouTube. Tom has redone some classic video game music using Mario Paint's music creator. Above is my favorite (Robo's Theme from Chrono Trigger), but follow the link below to check out the rest. The Theme from Dr. Wily's stage from Mega Man and the Tetris Atacks forest stage theme are both pretty awesome renditions also. Heck! Tom just does a great job on all of his creations. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside to see that Mario Paint is still alive and well, 15 years after its initial release.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=TomBobBlender