aka "I'm Done With The PS2 Platformer Trinity"
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Status Quo Sunday Has A Lot To Catch Up On
shiiiiiit...
From now on, I'll try and update this more often with bigger events to point to like song releases, con announcements and the like
CON UPDATES
PREVIOUS CONS
FUTURE CONS
NEW SONG: "Black And White Lawyer Show"
It's Perry Mason. Which odd enough considering it's Pride Month, the actor who played Perry Mason in the original two runs, Raymond Burr, was gay!
This was a very personal song that took a while to ferment, but I'm glad I finished it! It's another one of those songs where I'm talking to myself, and having a conversation in my head, since it's about how you can't wait for other people to change if you yourself are on the precipice of your own life events.
SECRET LAIR: RHYTHM BASTARD
BANDCAMP FRIDAY SKETCHES
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Let Me Entertain You" by Robbie Williams
This week's Jam is an artist I've been looking more into, in a song full of bombast, reminiscent of The Who's biggest crowdpleasers. While it can come off as an attempt to be a generational anthem that sounds cynical over 25 years later, Robbie Williams's attitude cuts through and belts out the vocals with so much bravado that you almost forget he rhymes "mon cher" with "mon cher"
"hey RB is this because you saw Better Man, that biopic of British pop star Robbie Williams where he's a monkey?"
NO. i saw the first half of Better Man on a plane, and then haven't finished it since.
The rest of his discography runs the whole gamut in style, but he always delivers it with a smooth, cocky croon undercut with a huge wink at the audience. "Millennium" was the first track I heard from him in snippets on Now's US premiere and samples "Diamonds Are Forever", "Kids" was a collab with Kylie Minogue that was on Band Hero and has them playing off each other beautifully, until Robbie raps for the last minute over some funky guitar, and "Rock DJ", the centerpiece of Better Man leans into Williams's rap affection and the comes out on the other side unscathed and even more seductive than a traditional delivery would allow.
Anyway, I'm off to LEGITIMATELY OBTAIN the latter half of Better Man.
Saturday, January 11, 2025
STATE OF THE BASTARD 2025
TOO BUSY LIVIN' TO BE BLOGGIN'
I played shows, and collabed with friends...
I got into making art...
I've streamed a lot on Twitch...
And most importantly... I fell in love!
If you've followed me elsewhere, you're more than familiar with him... ;) Jeff and I have been talking for a couple years, and when I met him at Megaplex 2023, I spent the entire weekend with him because we got a long so well. Things kept up, and in Megaplex 2024, we finally gave into to that tension we've long held on to, and it's such a relief to have someone that makes me happy, even on bad days. Someone who I can talk to anything about. Someone I can melt into and be insufferable with.
Turns out all that shit I said last year about "good things can just happen you", and "telling the little voice to shut up when shit's going good" actually made sense!
This is the point where I talk about what I made so let's get on with it:
MOST RECENT SONG: "Death Of A Bastard"
FAVORITE SONG I MADE THIS YEAR: "Grey Muzzle"
OTHER COOL SHIT I DID
Chord Progressions
OK, there's ONE MORE track I did this year that I co-wrote for Chord Progressions. The song is called "Fuck Around and Find Out", and the song was BowserPuma learning my songwriting process and how to make shit in Reaper. I taught him some of the basics of what I do, and then I gave the riffs he was thinking of some structure and added words to them. A high point was us playing it together at MFF last year!
Road Kill
OK, there's ONE MORE OTHER song I released this year, but in my defense I finished it last year... You should be hearing updates on Chapter 2 very soon!
I Made A Visual Novel!
Raccoon City Thrashers Shirt!
Drawn by MY BOYFRIEND and designed by Enbiety!
Fox In The Fedora Season 3
TREND I LIKED THE LEAST: Capitulating In Advance
TREND I LIKED THE MOST: GamerGate 2 Being More Pathetic And Reaffirming My Stance On Art
WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS SOONER? Literally Anything About Art
I improved a FUCK TON on the art front, especially with Jeff and Andy teaching me a lot. Seriously, looking through a sketchbook Jeff gifted me and Enbiety before FWA and seeing how much better all my studies and sketches have gotten is ASTOUNDING. Especially when Andy gifted me the Wacom Intuos tablet, and I could do computer art with an actual drawing implement, not just a mouse and patience.The earliest piece I did at the beginning of the year:
DIDN'T LISTEN TO MUCH MUSIC SADLY, BUT POP MUSIC GAVE US CHAPPELL ROAN THIS YEAR SO LET'S HONOR HER HERE
New Years Resolution #1: Listen To More New Music
Also liked "Not Like Us". Yaaaay
OLD GAMES OF 2024 RUNNERS UP
#1 OLD GAME OF 2024: Killer 7 (PC)
The entire premise of the game is an East-West conflict (thought the Eastern power is Japan, not China), the perpetrators of either side (Kun Lan and Harlan Smith) are not really affected by the events of the game, since no matter what your decision was in the game's epilogue, (spare a politician to allow Japan to start WWIII or execute him and have Japan nuked AGAIN) both characters are like "Welp, here we go again!". The events of the game were kicked off by a terrorist plot that got in the way of World Peace, which reflects a cynicism that "War won't end, because people 'bigger' than us keeps wanting it to happen."
NEW GAMES OF 2024 RUNNERS UP
#1 NEW GAME OF 2024: Balatro (PC)
However, I still yearn to reintroduce this game in to my life because it's so well designed. Like with Deus Ex, any time anyone mentions it, I still need to replay it and I get a liiiiiittle more back into it each time.
ANNUAL REMINDER I SHARE A BIRTHDAY WITH MC BAT COMMANDER
-The AI video for "Whatever! Forever!"
-The weird tangents from the live show I saw in Ft. Lauderdale (even though for the most part the band was incredible)
-Him and his brother Parker Jacobs split ways with their brother Tyler, who helped with a lot of creative decisions for the band, and then Tyler got divorced, became homeless for a time, and then got disowned when he came out as bisexual a few years after they were out of his life.
Allegedly MCBC has been trying to repair things, and he isn't as much of a whackjob as Parker, but this just puts everything in a bad light and leaves me feeling a little sour over someone I've seen as a guiding light for so many years.
It goes to say
That we're still in play
And that's a damn good reason to sta
Sunday, June 30, 2024
Status Quo Sunday Wants To Meet Jessica Harper
*dusts this off* All right, let's get back to it... but first!
RACCOON CITY THRASHERS SHIRTS ARE NOW OFFICIALLY FOR SALE!
People were psyched to get them at FWA, and now since FWA is over, my stock is for sale on Bandcamp! Scronce did a really good job on the design, and the printers are the same people who did my Swoletariat shirts, so they're built to last!
Speaking of FWA...
TFF and FWA were A-OK!
Made the rounds to Dallas and Atlanta this year, and while the specifics fade away, there's still PLENTY of highlights!
For Texas Furry Fiesta, I got to meet up with Luis Huerta, aka GamutFeathers, who has whimsical watercolor style, and if you follow the Pomodoro streams, did the "Fangs Of Fury" design practice that became a staple of me making up songs on the fly.
He came to my show, AND gave me a signed Lorcana card! I still need to play my first game, but I'll be sure to slot this in!
Furry Weekend Atlanta could be best summed up with this picture:
From left to right, Enbiety, me and Scronce, and FWA was the first time we were all in the same room together. UB and Scronce are not only incredible supportive of my music, but also me as a person. I love them both very much, and could not ask for better friends. Even on our worst days, we always encourage each other to keep going.
It was also UB's first furry convention! We met back when I was regularly playing anime cons, and was floored by the sheer difference in enthusiasm, especially when it came to my shows.
Scronce is also wearing the shirt he designed! It started off as kind of a joke in our discord, but then he drew a flxing Thrash and we took it off from there. YES HE GOT PAID FOR IT. HE DOES GOOD ART, BRENT.
Before I go into the next section, I want to give a shout out to the AV teams for TFF and FWA, because they were on point the whole time. I still feel weird asking for stuff, because it's just little old me, but both cons did their best to match my freak as the kids like to say.
Discord Movie Nights: A Jessica Harper Double Feature
In an attempt to cross more movies off my "To Do" list, I've made a list of movies I haven't watched yet to go through. In an attempt to put more stuff on this site, I'll be talking about them a little bit, because let's face it, I do ignore this place A LOT.
Phantom Of The Paradise
Phantom of the Paradise is a rock opera from 1974 directed by Brian De Palma. A songwriter, Winslow Leach, has his version of Faust stolen from him by a greedy record exec, Swan, played by Paul Williams.
I first found out about this movie through, of all things, a short made by Matthew Gafford set in his totally original universe, A Fox In Space.
The blue bird, who's totally not Falco Lombardi from the Star Fox series, is dressed as Winslow Leach, once he adopts a disguise and starts interfering with the opening of The Paradise, Swan's latest venue. Didn't know anything about it, it just looked fucking cool.
Phantom fucking GOES after a couple brief songs that introduces a fictional nostalgia band, and Winslow's song. After that, he gets ripped off, goes to jail, gets his teeth ripped out, escapes, gets deformed and starts killing people. 70's movies have a reputation for feeling slow, but Phantom avoids the pitfall by filling long shots with a unique sense of dread, like "OooohhhhhHHHHH"
Jessica Harper plays Phoenix, a singer auditioning for Swan's new production, and GOD DAMN WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY TELL ME ABOUT HER BEFORE? She's pretty and has this voice that draws you in, Very reminiscent of Karen Carpenter.
Overall, it's a very simple premise that's been done before: the music industry is like a deal with the devil, the humble creative vs. the greedy producer, blah blah, we've seen it before. BUT, it's presented in such an exciting and gonzo matter, with performances that for how over the top the material is, are very reserved, Phantom of the Paradise draws you in to see what's around the corner.
Right after the movie finished, I looked up how old Paul Williams was when he made this because he looked super old, and he was 34. I'm 36. People aged differently back then.
Shock Treatment
If I had a nickel for every movie I've seen where Jessica Harper plays a woman who performs well as a one off thing and then gets wrapped up in super stardom where she ends up constantly performing under the influence of drugs, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but weird it's happened twice.
Shock Treatment is the 1981 sequel/follow-up to the seminal Rocky Horror Picture Show, dircrected Jim Sharman, and co-written by him and Richard O' Brien, the latter being responsible for the ICONIC music from RHPS. It follow Brad and Janet, now married, in the audience at a television studio. They aooear on the game show "Marriage Maze", and Brad is committed to an institution in the name of Mental Health.
The setting makes it feel very uncomfortable to watch, because it ALL takes place INSIDE the aforementioned television studio. There's no outdoor establishing shots, or off-site locations, and even "outdoor" scenes, where Janet's dad mows the lawn is done on this over-lit, AstroTurf garage. During the song "Lullaby" where everyone goes to sleep, there's a shot of the television audience asleep in their seats. It feels more like the movie takes place in a prison than in a studio.
It's not as memorable as Rocky Horror, but it ends up being more relevant, since it revolves around the themes of Americana propaganda, and ignoring your exploitation and real human problems in the search of fame.
That being said, there still are some good songs, I'm partial to the opening number, "Thank God I'm A Man", and "Breaking Out". AND, like Phantom, I became aware of this movie in a very stupid way.
Marc With A C made a cover album for it:
I'm like Slumdog Millionaire when it comes to movies. I ALSO HAVEN'T SEEN SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Hot To Go" by Chappell Roan
It's the end of Pride Month, I'm Bisexual, you do the math.
Thursday, April 11, 2024
NEW MERCH! Pre-Order For Raccoon City Thrashers Shirt
New shirt debuting at Furry Weekend Atlanta featuring everyone's favorite himbo raccoon!
THIS IS A PREORDER!!! THE SHIRT WILL START SHIPPING AFTER FURRY WEEKEND ATLANTA UNLESS YOU HAVE IT ARRANGED TO BE PICKED UP!!!
If you ARE having it picked up, let me know in the comments!
Show your support for the Roughest, Toughest, and Buffest team out
there, the Raccoon City Thrashers! Relive the glory of when they
curbstomped the Rocket City Trash Pandas. They didn't play, they
straight up kicked their ass before the game actually started.
5.3 oz., 100% preshrunk cotton. Art by Scronce, Design by Enbiety
Includes unlimited streaming of
Hardcore Nerdcore Punk Rock
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.