July 27th, 2011 Videos Of The Week

Playlist Updated

LIVE VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Sharp Dressed Man" As Made Famous By ZZ Top performed by Rick K. and the All Nighters


In my experience from bands I was in that never made it to their first gig, drummers fall into two catergories:
The Phil Rudd- "I'm just here to play the basic beat. Leave me alone and tell me if we have any groupies leftover for me,"
AND
The Mike Portnoy- "Everything can use a Double Bass Pedal solo, right?"

This man is in a category all his own.

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Beast and the Harlot" by Avenged Sevenfold

Fresh off Rock Band 3, it's "Beast and the Harlot" by Avenged Sevenfold.

The more commonly quoted factoid is that the song was inspired several verse of Chapter 17 in the Book of Revelations, ("Seven headed beast, ten horns raised from his head" "hatred strips her and leaves her naked"), but what I didn't know was the black tar effect, of those who have had their souls taken, was from the 8th circle of hell in Dante's Inferno.

NewGrounds Audio Contest Entry Live Blog

Been putting off for a while, now I'm finally putting a song down, because this month's theme is... ZOMBIES!!!

2:23 PM- Spend all day dicking about. Now sitting down to type up the lyrics, listening to a Mario Party Let's Play

2:48 PM- Lyrics all typed up, now getting ready to record vocals. I so badly want to get outside, as I've cooped up all morning playing Halo: Reach DOING GOOD WORK FOR MY COMMUNITY, but the weather in NY right now is about 100F.

3:20 PM- Friend o' mine Koltreg's got two webcomics: Changeling and Socialfist, and by donating to his Kickstarter, you can get signed copies of both the books! I see a lot of potential in these young webcomics, and I'm gonna donate once I'm sure about what the hell is going on in Student Loan county and the Warped Tour jursidiction.

Also I just opened up REAPER, beats all set up. Holler!

4:00 PM- 2/5ths done with the lyrics. Like Robotman's Lament, it's a story driven song, so I'm trying vocals first. My singning lacks intensity when it's this fast, and there's no guitar to go off of. Hopefully it works out.

4:15 PM- 3/5ths. Parents want to go out to see Captain America. I kinda do too, since it's getting really good buzz, and it looks very self-contained.

7:55 PM- Bad news, I went to see Captain America. Good news, it was worth it, I'm full of 7-11 Chicken Strips and am ready to lay down guitar. Also, I discovered that I could either completely pay off one of my student loans or see Warped Tour...

9:58 PM- Shit, I've wasted a lot of time, haven't I? Right, so I've been through two takes, deleted them, not to my liking. At least I'm getting a lock down on what I do want. The way I figure it, I only have another hour, since I need to post it up and stuff.

11:42 PM- FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! At this point maybe some of the guitar tracks are acceptable. It's done, people are in the house looking to sleep and I only got maybe one good run-through left. FUCK. Prolly not making Warped Tour. FUCK.

July 20th, 2011 Videos Of The Week

In Honor Of Henry Rollins

LIVE VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Rise Above" and "American Waste" by Black Flag


Sound quality's not so good, but the energy is just downright contagious!

First video, Rise Above, is with Rollins, and former singer Dez Cadena playing guitar, who then sings on the second, and earlier song American Waste.

Target Video was a studio that recorded a lot of punk bands live performances, including the Dead Kennedys, Iggy Pop and the Sex Pistols.

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Let There Be Rock" by The Hard-Ons feat. Henry Rollins


Henry Rollins will fuck a guy up if there isn't any rock.



The Hard Ons, one of Austrailia's bigger indie bands recorded a cover of the AC/DC Classic in 1991.
I was expecting him to half shout the song, but he delivers it. Still great, but I do miss a couple of the vocal flourishes that Bon Scott did in the original, like the southern accent on "Hear the finger pickin'", for example.

July 13th, 2011 Videos Of The Week

"Performing" on "TV Shows" is this week's theme!

LIVE VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "No More Heroes" by The Stranglers on Top Of The Pops


No, there's no Travis Touchdown. I know, I'm upset too.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a full version of said performance on Top Of The Pops, but one thing of note, is that at 1:41 in the video, Hugh Cornwell is playing air guitar, but the song keeps on going. Top Of The Pops always has their acts pretend to play over the song, and a couple other artists have goofed around like that during their sets, such as Green Day, in their first performance in '94, Billie Joe Armstrong wrote "Who Am I Fooling Anyway?" on a T-shirt.

I think this song would work really well in Rock Band, especially with the keyboard section, and I don't think anyone has anything to bitch about. Listening to some of the other Stranglers songs, the bass really does lead the way on a fair bit of them.

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Brainpower" by The Freezerpop Freezepop


I was listening to the Mega 64 podcast while working on some new RBN stuff and I thought, "Hey, didn't these guys do a music video for Freezepop?"

It's pretty funny and the budget seems through the roof coming from Mega64.

Interesting they use the original, full synth version, as opposed to the Rock Band version where the lead synth is electric guitar.

And it's not the first time Mega 64 had Freezepop on their channel. For example, in The Freakout Theory video, you can hear a Game Boy rendition of "Science Genius Girl". Also, their Cosplayers series use the inter:sect mix of "Parlez Vous Freezepop?"

"Radio Days Pt. 1" in The Sagittarian 3!!

One of my earliest songs, Radio Days Pt. 1 is in the new zombie adventure game on NewGrounds,
The Sagittarian 3!

I was first contacted about using that song in the game in April. Hyptosis, creator of the game, sent me a message asking for permission. Now, I hadn't touched my NewGrounds account in a while, and that message made me realize how worthwhile a system it can be. At the very least, lightning can strike twice, another artist can use another one of my songs in his movie/game, and that works out for me as well.

Also, quality of reviews aside, there's at least some brand of quantifiable feedback which, when used by someone knowledgeable and eloquent, can be very useful and encouraging.

P.S. I've already seen like 10 requests asking where Sagittarian 3 is.

Here's a live version of the song from my set at The Vault a few months ago.
Radio Days (Live from The Vault) by RhythmBastard

July 6th, 2011 Videos Of The Week

I WANT YOU TO WANT... to watch these videos.

LIVE VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "I Want You To Want Me" by Cheap Trick Live At Budokan


Stephen Colbert psyches himself with this song before every show. I believe that it's all that needs to be said.

OK, it's really fun to dance around to all crazy like.

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK: "Dare To Be Stupid" by Weird Al Yankovic


I was going to put Devo's "Whip It" on here, or one of Devo's other videos, but I figured, "Why not put up EVERY Devo video?". It's like every 80's video cliche in one place: stop motion, animated, art from a child's notebook, and in a drab, white open space.

In fact, Marc Mothersbaug from Devo actually said that it's more or less the quintessential Devo song.