Echo Chamber Post Game Episode 115

Just Listen

-What's this snow shit they all keep talking about? It was 40 here in Florida, and it was freezing, so I have problems too.

-BUMPER CAR KICKSTARTER REWARDS:
$1- Fuck you.
$5- No, seriously, fuck you.
$20- We will send you a BMP of a bumper car drawn in MS Paint
$100- We will send you a JPEG of a bumper car from the internet
$500- You get to touch the bumper cars
$1000- You can have your advertisement on a bumper car
$2000- We will feel sad if you die in the lava pit of death.
$5000- We'll name a bumper car after you.
$10000- We'll name a bumper car after you and not write "Is A Faggot" on the end.

-The ice levels aren't ALWAYS the worst levels in games. Sometimes you get to throw babies off a cliff.


-Saxaphone solos in 2011:
"Edge Of Glory" by Lady Gaga
"Last Friday Night" by Katy Perry
"Jamie" by Akira The Don

-Raising our chocolate rations from 30 grams to 20 grams is a reference to 1984. If I can find a way to put that in an elegant way I'd make it a regular saying.

-1099 is absolute bullshit. I don't think I've had any good job where I was paid on a 1099. If it looks like a real job, smells like a real job, and you get paid on 1099, RUN.

-Steak and Blowjob Day is March 14th. Somethinng tells me this was created by the same people who say the HATE HATE HATE VALENTINES DAY CAUSE IT'S SO BULLSHIT WE WONT DO ANYTHING.

-BURGERS AND BLOWJOBS KICKSTARTER:
$1- We take your money then point your ass to a McDonald's you cheap fuck.
$5- We take your money and point your ass to a diner. 
$200- You get A burger. We won't make it, but we;ll get you one, don't worry.
$1500- You can come into my room for an hour and we'll watch one epsiode of Bob's Burger's on Netflix. I will laugh hard and spit chips everywhere. You are to sit quietly and say nothing.
$2500- You can buy a whore and go to McDonalds. Yes you could have done this without paying us first.
$9,000- You get a burger and my ex-girlfriend's phone number 'cause she'll blow everyone (except me...)
$9,001- We'll kill your family then make a burger out of their fatasses
$10,000- Your burger will be made of cow meat.

-"Could God make his dong so massive, even he could not suck it?"
"You can't spell dong without God"

-Anyone catch the Homeless YuGiOh player call back?

-Super Win The Game IndieBox:


-So here's the news on the casting breakdowns. If you read the leaked script, Wham! is an appropriate working title, kinda like how Avengers was "Group Hug" and Captain America was "Freezer Burn" which both sound like Steven Segal movies that come on in 2 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. CopyCat, Ajax, Weasel and Blind Al are all for a lock. I really hope this doesn't turn into Deadpool: The Game: The Movie

-Shovel Knight Medley:

Status Quo Sunday Embraces The Darkness In My Soul

Dark Souls 2 came out, and it got me playing Dark Souls 1 again. It's still hard, but I feel like going through it a couple times, and learning to level up my Warrior better definitely helped out a lot. I'm only mentioning this because I'm working on music again (HINT HINT).

Last Wednesday I streamed some Rocksmith, thinking about doing it this Wednesday as well, maybe I'll change up the games every so often, who knows?

I found out I'm in Reverbnation's Top 10 Rock Artists for my area! I'll be putting more stuff up on there as well, since it just makes multi-posting stuff easier, as well as hopefull getting my music out there.

Speaking of which, a couple of conventions are getting back to me, and I'll be sending out follow ups and registration papers, and all kind of other neat things, so I can get some live shows before... well, hopefully at one of them I'll have something big to announce regarding the album.

Now, this weekend, while I had some fun playing DnD, Magic and watching UFC fights, there were some sad times, and I feel like 2 Green Day songs cover the situation well:
Wayne Knight died in a- Oh, wait, he didn't? I was gonna play "Time Of Your Life" but I guess not.


Also, Fred Phelps is on death's door. So...

June 20th, 2012 Videos Of The Week

LIVE VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Boom (Smash Stuff)" by Akira The Don at XFM

Sampling the song "Connection" by Elastica, here comes "Boom!" EXPLODING OUT OF YOUR SPEAKERS.

GET IT?

No, but seriously, you ever have a jam session and everyone is just so into it and on point that's it's the greatest fucking thing ever? Akira the Don, Why Lout and friends perform "Boom" live on XFM radio, and they're feelin' it, man.

The song, or at least the remix is on ATD's mixtape "Third Hand Wire Riffs". It has a lot of good songs set to 90's alt-rock beats, and I think it's the first ATD thing I ever downloaded.

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Levels" by Avicii

In the same day I was shown "Legs" by ZZ Top, I was shown this video for my master class on "What The Hell Is This: Music Videos 101".

I am now convinced that dance videos are possibly the new forefront of  the art of music video. No words to give context, only pure raw id, since the "hey we're at a club" scenario is played out, so the only thing left to publish is insanity set to infectious dance beats in beat to the mix.

September 14th, 2011 Videos Of The Week

LIVE VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Knights Of Cydonia" by Muse at Wembley Stadium

The band that came into existence the day Guitar Hero 3 came out put on an excellent live show. A lot of lights, a lot of flashing, and a lot of bombast complient one of the most intense songs I've ever heard. I can't listen to a Muse song without having some a little movie playing in my head.

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Babydoll" by Akira The Don

Fresh off The Life Equation, it's "Babydoll"

I don't know what song he sampled in this (Van Morrison, sounds like).
Either way, it gives the song and the video a nostalgic feeling, that takes the listener back to a simpler time that never really existed except in Hollywood.

It's OK, Nobody's Rapturing

The Life Equation is here to save us. If he wants me to put any of this on Rock Band, I'm good to go!

Reading his tour adventures with Weerd Science, MCs Lars and Chris have been a blast so far. Only problem is that I haven't seen any bootlegs of it on YouTube.

The Life Equation by Akira The Don

New Music By Rock Band Friends!

First up is MC Lars and Weerd Science's "How To Be An Indie Rapper"

How to Be an Indie Rapper (featuring Weerd Science) by MC Lars

Lars is a lot of fun, and eloquents as fuck as usual, and good Lord does Weerd Science know how to get my attention. How he'll fare at Warped Tour I don't know, but if there's money in my account, I'm going.

Akira The Don - Jamie by Akira The Don

And closer to the pop side of the spectrum, we have Akira The Don's "Jamie", sampling Sweet Child O' Mine. It sounds like then song you want to shout from your terrace the first time you've woken up before 10 in God knows how long as sniff in the morning dew, then get dressed and go outside on your day off...

Anyways, I'm getting two new songs ready for tomorrow.

YOUTUBE PARTY PARTY HARD!!!

YEAH! I GOTS ME SOME VIDEOS! TGRK maybe delayed, but PARTY ON!



From 0:41 to 0:46? I MADE THAT!!!



Full play video of "This Gigantic Robot Kills"!



Iggy Pop feat. Sum 41. Pretty good song. This exactly what I'd expect a collaboration between the two to sound.



Garrett, your choice to be a homosexual offends Jesus.



ALCOHOLISM! PARTY HARD!!



This was just an excuse to post those first two videos. Sorry.

Night Of The Living Don

Yeah, you've all heard the news.

BUT HAVE YOU SEEN THE ALLOCADES?

"From what I've played so far, it's great!"- Richard From Illinois

"Ace sounds you got going there. Makes me want to go buy Rock Band just to play it"- Kyle

"I normally don't like fast-hand drum songs, but Steven Wells (He Was The Greatest) is one of the most fun drum charts I've ever played"- Arcanon

"wow people have SD tv's still? does xbox even work on that lol..."- bloodredtornado

That last guy can suck it.

Anyways, Audition Mode has been patched into Rock Band 3, meaning I can start testing "This Gigantic Robot Kills".

But wait a minute, what's this?
Akira The Don and MC Lars going on tour in the UK! With MC Chris!
2 out of those 3 I'm doing/did RBN tracks for. Hmm...

Oh, right, I promised a lesson today.
Gather 'round children, let me tell you 'bout a man called...

STEVEN WELLS (HE WAS THE GREATEST)

It was a simple song to author, and the stems came in two parts: Lead and Rhythm, but all that means is which part of the barre chord is being played. The song is based around 4 barre chords:
G, B, C, A, or:

E---3-----7------8-----5-----
B---3-----7------8-----5----
G---4-----8------9-----6----
D---5-----9------10----7----
A---5-----9------10----7----
E---3-----7-------8-----5----

For the lead part, that is, the intro, chorus and outro ("It's Out Teenage Terror Totty". It was never "Tits..." and we were always at war with Eurasia), play either the entire chord, or the bottom half, like so:

Riff A
E---3---7---8---5---
B---3---7---8---5---
G---4---8---9---6---

Then you can just pad the bottom two strings with your index finger, and hold down the 3rd string with your middle finger.

For the verses, simple palm mute the chords, or just the top half.

The strumming pattern is a constant 8th note pattern, in this

G
Steven Wells he
B
Was the greatest
C
Of all time
A
A force replaceless
G
Napalm Death
B
To their Oasis
C
Pissed Down Neck Of
A
Fool Or Racist
G
Steven Wells he
B
Was amazing
C
Caps Lock down and
A
All guns blazing
G
Wield typewriter
B
Like Berreta
C
No one ever did it
A
Better

Dawn Of The Don

WOOOOOOOO!!!

It's not up on the official RBN store yet, but you can still get it from there.

I've been following The Don since the "Hypocrite" video on NewGrounds and now he's all growed up, making awesome mixtapes about Street Fighter and getting props from Kotaku. Also, the Doncasts make great background music.

Right now, he's got a new track out, Big Iron, sampling the song that appears in Fallout: New Vegas. Ch-ch-check it out!

It was exactly one year since I first made contact with Akira The Don regarding putting "Steven Wells" on the Rock Band Network. Now, in my defense, a lot of that was because I didn't have an Xbox. I got it a few months ago, and then I was able to playtest exchange.

There was supposed to be a lesson here, but it can wait till tomorrow. It's 4 PM, Sunday, and I haven't been out all day.

Advent 2010: Rhythm Bastard Christmas Mixtape 2010

DOWNLOAD DIRECT

YES! Here's some Christmas tunes for all the hipsters and headbangers.

I was going to do a cover of Green Day's "Macy's Day Parade" myself, but I was pressed for time. Plus, I wanted to get Akira The Don's song through RBN, so I had to fix up those errors.

"Macy's Day Parade"- Green Day
"Good Mourning/Black Friday"- Megadeth (C WUT I DID THAR?)
"Holiday Road"- The Aquabats!
"Christmas Card From A Hooker..."- Tom Waits
"Don't Shoot Me Santa"- The Killers
"Oi To The World!"- No Doubt
"Mistress For Christmas"- AC/DC
"Punk Rock Christmas"- The Sex Pistols
"Yule Shoot Your Eye Out"- Fall Out Boy
"I Won't Be Home For Christmas"- Blink 182
"Fuckin' Up My Christmas"- MC Chris
"Things I Want"- Sum 41 feat. Jack Black
"All I Want For Christmas (Is To Kick Your Ass)"- Midnight Riders
"Let Me Sleep"- Pearl Jam
"Space Christmas"- Shounen Knife
"I'm Dreaming Of A Green Christmas"- MC Lars feat. Jaret Reddick
"Imagine" by John Lennon

November Follies!

Yeah, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) has taken up a lot of my time, so don't expect many update. I'll work on a song later today if I manage to catch up.

Some quick news:
1. Tried out this website "Sonicbids"where you can find gigs. Got one response, but I needed to buy tickets in advance. Will post about later.
2. FINALLY got "This Gigantic Robot Kills" in working order. Will video soon.
3. "Steven Wells" is ready for PrimeTime, but I'm having trouble uploading it.
4. Got Guitar Hero 5. Yeah, I'm cheap. At least I have a guitar for the 360.

The Theme Of This Post Is Green

1. As if you couldn't tell from Twitter, I plunked down the green to join XNA, and be able to play test songs.

Impressions:
"Bang Camaro" and "Nightlife Commando" by Bang Camaro- They were still version 1, but on my run through, it seemed good. A couple inappropriate chucks were charted, but other than that it seemed OK. Hard, but OK.
Bang Camaro brings up odd feelings inside me. I always worry about lyrics like "Will this make sense?" and "Does it convey what I want it to?" or "How does it fit in?"

"Bang Camaro" only had two words: Bang and Camaro. "Nightlife Commando"? More complex at a whopping 5 words: "He was a nightlife commando!" But as always, the guitar parts are not something us mortal men should attempt; they simply resonate forth from these holy guitars in machinations that can only be conceived with awe.

"493 Ruth" by Bomb The Music Industry- All I remember was screaming... and uh... that's about it. It was a fun song, but the sudden changes from two to three chords get a little disorienting. I think the vocals could have been mixed a lot louder.

2. Me and Akira The Don will be makin' green now that "Steven Wells" is in the system. I have a few thoughts on pricing and charging your client for charting, but I'll get into that another time.

3. Green Day Rock Band's demo is out for the PSN. Impressions? Why, yes!
Harmonies: Me and my brother played through both available songs "Welcome to Paradise" and "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams". It felt really good, like we were more into the song because of it. I played through Beatles Rock Band with some friends, and it looked good, but I wasn't as familiar with the songs we did harmonies on. Mostly it was used as an alternate key in the event that we couldn't hit the "main" track.

Welcome To Paradise: Hard as fuck on guitar. Nothing insurmountable, but when Green Day's involved, don't go in expecting a chordfest. Halfway through the song I got the rhythm down, but then the bridge came in.

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams: Bass = boring. One thing I noticed is that they chart the delay in the opening as separate chords. This also happened in Dead Kennedy's "Police Truck".

4. What else is green? Oh, uh... All the weed I sell to childr- I mean, um... Hmm... You know, it would seem like in a blog, I could edit out all those "buying time" words. And that selling drugs to ch-, um, yeah... But Punk Rock, Don't Care.

A solar powered amp! That's what I was thinking of.

Ace Mixes

Akira The Don's Superhero Music is out!

"Fly Already" and "Video Highway" are my favorites. It's so weird how this came out right after I-Con, where I saw SUPERHEROES!!!

It's a pretty diverse mix as well, with rap, The Kinks, emo (the Smallville theme) and whatever The Polyphonic Spree is.

I still need to touch up "Steven Wells"

The Bastard Was A Man

Just finished the first collection of Mike Hammer detective novels. Good reads, but the last line of the last book, Vengence Is Mine!, is a little WTF. It is paraphrased above.

So anyway, I have SO MUCH STUFF here, and not ONE of them a song update! This is why it's called the Rhythm Bastard Experiment and not the Rock Band Experiment.

1.
Finally able to get my hands on Xbox 360 and try out the song in Audition Mode. There were a lot of MIDI errors the first go around.
Most common mistakes:
-Make sure all your lyrics and notes are ALIGNED. Shift+A does the trick.
-NAME ALL THE TRACKS. Just put a little event before hand.
-It can be easy to lose track of where stuff like Overdrive because it is so far removed from the rest of the notes, I got a shitton of "inappropriate note at XXX" errors.
-EVERYTHING IS .WAV. NO EXCEPTIONS.
-Set the SAMPLE FORMAT to 16-bit. The rate is the standard 44.1K, except for the dry vocals, which are 16K.
-TURN UP SAID .WAVS LOUD. Otherwise, you won't get any lipsync, let alone hear the damn thing.

So, this weekend, as well as making another song and doing my lab report, I'll make those improvements and maybe dick around with the event settings.

2. FUCK YEAH GREEN DAY ROCK BAND JUNE 8TH HOLY SHIT FREE EXPORT WITH PREORDER OMG BRAIN STEW!

3. MARCH 10th OPEN MIC NIGHT.
There were only about 5 people there. Three I knew. Now, let me tell you all the stuff that went wrong: First, my tuning peg was fucked. Normally I'd have gone through all the work tuning it at the beginning and then pray it lasts through the night. NOPE. So, thank God my friend had an extra guitar he was able to lend, but I sat there awkwardly with the only 3 people who've yet to leave.
Did I mention that? Yeah, it was pretty dead. Only one other guy managed to show up, so it was those people, two of my friends from the paper, and the guy who lent me the guitar.
The show went on, and well, here's the breakdown...
RADIO DAYS-***
Is it possible to forget the chords to your own song? Yes! I picked it up later, and the solo went on longer than I expected.

FORCE-A-NATURE-***
The chord changes in the chorus of "Force Of Nature" are pretty close together, so I messed that up, as well as the first part of the solo.

DAYMAN- *****G
No video, but at the clapping part, everyone "Woo!"ed in that split second of silence. I think I might hate my friends.

ARE YOU GONNA BE MY GIRL?- ****
In the video I took, I hated my voice, but I had so much fun doing it. I also played the opening riff in the wrong key AND waited too long for one of the verse breaks.
Still, I had fun.

KNOWLEDGE- ****
Forgot where I was toward the beginning because GENIUS ME COULDN'T FIGURE OUT THE VOLUME KNOB ON THE GUITAR, but other than that, I liked it. I based it more off the Green Day cover of the song, which has a lot more relaxed strumming pattern, like blues.

Vids will come up at some point, but I got another Open Mic on Tuesday. HOPEFULLY NOTHING GOES WRONG THIS TIME!!!!

Despite all that, it was like playing for all my friends. I felt a lot more comfortable, and my camera guy, Steve, is super cool, and we will jam in the future.

Hopefully this will actually work, unlike my previous band.

Whole Lotta Rock Band News

First off, THE RBN STORE IS NOW OPEN!!! I played a couple songs, seems good so far. Right now, I'm amazed at all the JoCo.
"Steven Wells" is coming along in its own special way, I still gotta few kinks to work out:
-Tracks are too quiet
-During the bridge, everything goes out of sync
-No mouth movements
-Vocals need tweaking


In news that should surprise nobody. There's a Rock Band 3 coming this holiday season. That's all we got.

In news that surpized everybody: 4 Lady Gaga tracks for DLC. And the Eric Cartman version of "Poker Face". Goddamnit woman, first you say loved Dookie so much you licked every page, then this? Damn it, world, why you gotta mess with my head like this?

Keeping Up With The Bastards

As it's become heir apparent, I've been putting less time in to learning Rock Band songs, and more time in RBN and my own music.

There's been two reasons for that:
1. I feel like I need to update if there's no song done, which is why I might skip Train Kept A Rollin' and Green Grass and High Tides. Like most of these upper tier songs, the main riff is simple, followed by a 2 minute long solo. As much as an accomplishment those two songs are, I just can't see myself memorizing all of that at a rate where I'd have regular updates. I could do smaller updates, but it feels like a cop-out when I crank one of those out.

2. Playing other people's songs has given me a penchant for playing my own. I know everything I do is bootleg right now (PUNK RAWK DON'T CARE). My guitar playing is slightly better than total amateur, my singing voice sucks, and I can't write a drum part.

I am up to learning the solo to "Flirtin' With Disaster", and that's really the cut off for me as far as solo lengths go.

Now, on to shit that's been occupying me time:
RBN- Working on the vocals for "Steven Wells". "OMG HE TALKS SO FAST! THE VERSES ARE THE HARDEST PARTS!" I say. Then come the choruses: "Oh, you tone-def Bastard. Clearly I'm the greater niusance! Automatic voice charting has given you nothing!" Then I smack Phil around for a few minutes and have some tea.
Hopefully soon I can get the drum tabs from ATD. If not, I need someone with a good ear for drums.

My Music- I have a few songs in the pipeline. A country-style song, "Radio Days" will be ready as soon as my cold clears up. Then there's another song I did called "Gonzo" which I'll aim to have out February 20th for obvious reasons. Then there's another song I made called "Axe Cop" because for some reason I come up with weirder shit sober.

The next big Open Mic Night is February 23rd. There's one tomorrow night, but it's snowy here in NY, and I don't think I feel like wheeling all my shit to the train station.

I'll try to add some new links in the sidebar this week.

Cutting My Teeth

So far, things have been going all right with making the song files in Reaper.

The guitar and bass parts were more or less a cinch, and I just finished them up on Expert. With primarily power-chord driven songs, it's a real bitch to set up all the chords properly. Think of the traditional power chord shape: You use your index and ring finger, right? With the plastic guitars, you can only make three of those kinds of chords. Punk songs operate on four chords. You do the math.

Another problem I ran into is that the bass is synthesized, so instead of getting a consistent run of notes, it wavers between two pitches really fast.

The other thing I have trouble authoring is the vocals. ATD's a rapper mostly, so I'm using "talkies". I haven't gotten too in-depth with the vocals yet, I just ran the "automatic charting" procedure in the dox. That's going to be a bitch.

The thing I hate the most is that I need a 360 to properly audition vocals and any venue effects I might add. AS WELL AS the Gold Membership and the Creators Club account.

Now, as for the original purpose of this blog, let's see...

The song I'm working on right now is "Flirtin' With Disaster". Progress seems to be so slow on these later songs, that I might give up and go with Guitar Hero I already.

With my own JAMZ, I have to record some bass and Fruity Loop up some drums. Unfortunately I'm going to a Super Bowl Party today!

Wait, unfortunately?

Shit I've been working too hard. (looks at recent posts) Or not hard enough... (Contemplates this, has a drink) Or not smart enough...

Networking

I'M MAKING THIS SONG FOR ROCK BAND NETWORK!!!

I just got all the stems today, and I'm sorting out the guitar parts. It's a really easy song to cut my teeth on.

I'll update you on my progress as the project moves ahead.