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
Since we last spoke, we had Texas Furry Fiesta, Furry Weekend Atlanta and Virtua Ongaku!
Texas Furry Fiesta has been a walk-around con for me, where me and my boyfriend explored the area of Dallas around the con, moreso than what was in the con. Then again, it was our first con by ourselves and we wanted to be gay together, alone. Still, the show went off great, and the TFF crew is always reliable for making me sound good, and I sold a lot of merch, probably my best one yet.
Furry Weekend Atlanta I performed with the Critter Kickback crew at their suite show on Sunday, which, even though it was 15 minutes, was still kind of a relief. I only had to "play the hits", which are pretty much muscle memory to me at this point. CK9C and the Critter Kickback crew did a good job of running things for me and selling merch while I can just focus on my set and having fun at the con. The only downside is that this is clearly a transitional year for FWA where they're figuring a lot of things out, since there were two other concert series from Critter Kickback alone, and four other festivals with their own line ups.
Virtua Ongaku was a Charity Pride show, for the Zebra Youth Foundation, and again, it was another simple set. Obviously with everything going on this year it's now more than ever important to speak out!
FUTURE CONS
Megaplex! Will again not be hosting me. It will also not have the Scratch Game. I will be doing the Bara Panel with Anubis, and "Pencils Down", a game show inspired by the Game Changer episode of the same name.
We're talking about stuff behind the scenes, but it's clear I need to over inflate my numbers next time.
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
One
of the most common questions I get is that people come up to my Magic
The Gathering posters and go "OH, ARE THESE REAL CARDS?" (to an 11x17
poster)
Fuck you, I've giving you real cards. As a preview, here's the first (canonical?) look at Jonesy Spencerson, who's on the proxy of "Propaganda", "Status Quo Radio"!
I'm giving you five *WINK* cards that are Rhythm Bastard themed from the deep lore, and are from all across the color pie! I tried to cover as many bases as possible offering a wide variety. All the art is done by my wonderful boyfriend, Jeff!
This is just a new thing I've been doing as part of my Pomodoro streams, where if you order my digital discography or place an order more than that, you get a free drawing!
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.
HOW DO YOU DO, FELLOW HUMANS? I TOTALLY REMEMBERED TO MAKE AN UPDATE POST ANTHROCON!
I WAS AT ANTHROCON!
This was it, my biggest con yet, and it took a while to get there. It was a hectic day, and I was nervous as fuck, but during my set, all that anxiety melted away. Special thanks to ChaoticK9 for having me on his Furry Musicians Panel, and for Pepper Coyote for allowing me and the other musicians some space at his table.
You can watch the full set here!
Now, some general impressions:
1. I don't know what Owen's talking about, Pittsburgh is a perfectly cromulent city. Then again, there was a smoke warning during the weekend, so uh, that might have set some things back.
A lesson I'm learning from these cons is to just go off grounds more and take public transit because A. it's cheaper and B. I get to see more of these locations that are just beautiful.
2. Speaking of seeing more of the city, Anthrocon has a little street fair and while I didn't see much of it, it was nice having this little bit where we can walk outside, get food truck food, and eat outside at the many restaurants that were like "Fuck it, why not?"
3. They had Pawperty Damage in the game room! I don't know how people took it, but WHO CARES?!? It's there!
4. Fursuiters brought out their A Game:
5. I just got to meet up with a shit ton of people I know from online, and several of them were like, actually excited to meet me! Namely a couple members of the crew from the Visual Novel I'm doing VO work for, Chord Progressions.
(that's me, 3rd from the left)
MEGAPLEX 2023: OH GEEZ I'M GONNA BE SO BUSY YOU GUYS
Ever wondered what makes music tick? Multiple furry musicians from
different backgrounds have come together to share their different
approaches to writing songs, marketing their work, making music videos
and growing their communities as well as how they are turning creating
music from a hobby into a career path. Along with a Q&A session at
the end of the panel, each musician will take turns describing their
work and their journey to how they became a part-time or full-time
musician as well as their plans where they want to take their work in
the near future. With a combined total of nearly 1 billion plays across
the internet between the panelists, each brings a unique perspective to
the topic of being a furry musician online in 2023.
I was on this panel at Anthrocon this year, and it was great answering a lot of people's questions and passing on what we all knew!
Hardcore Nerdcore Punk Rock comes back to Megaplex when Rhythm Bastard cranks it up to 11! You like video games? Comics? Card games? Songs about Thrash Punk playing raccoons? Come on down and open the pit up!
Not a Main Event stage, but hopefully I still have a good set up!
Scratch Game SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16th, 2023
11:00 AM-12:00 PM, TOURNAMENTS
You've heard of Match Game, you've heard of Snatch
Game, now get ready for SCRATCH GAME! Contestants try to match answers
given by "celebrity" panelists to fill-in-the-blank questions!
I get to pretend to be RuPaul, only without the fracking! I hope I get some people to be panelists who actually know what Match Game is!
In this panel Anubis is gonna help you master the art of drawing Bara bodies and how to draw big muscled dudes.
Anubis draws Bara, I am Bara, works out perfectly.
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Rather Be" by Clean Bandit Ft. Jess Glynne
This one's been bouncing around in my head a lot, and I've mentioned before that I'm a sucker for some 90's house music. I rediscovered it after Professor Shyguy covered it during one of his streams and it hit me how much I loved this song.
It's light and uplifting, and it eases you in with violin and soft synths that sound like wind chimes. For those of you looking for the definition of "ear candy", look no further, as "Rather Be" knows when to add a little something to improve the texture: The synth drop in during the repeat of the refrain, the violin becoming more present in the second pre-chorus, and descening piano before the bridge keep this song as an active listen.
The music video, even though the plot is "girl goes crazy from seeing Clean Bandit everywhere" is just so soothing. It's long shots of urban Japanese life and for however hectic it can be, the chaos keeps things simple. It makes me feel nostalgic for back when I lived in New York and trips into the city were a regular occurrence.
One criticism though? Those business guys in the restaurant have NO sense of rhythm.
I dropped it for Bandcamp Fridayand it's probably my favorite things I've written so far!
I'M GOING TO TEXAS FURRY FIESTA!
Yes, my FIRST Texas Furry Fiesta! It's my first time playing, so I'm a little nervous, but I'm bringing a bunch of new songs to my repertoire, and going to make this one HELL of a show!
Bringing a bunch of new songs with me (see aforementioned "Hop On!"), including some new covers, one of which from a VERY Texas band, and since the theme is "Attack Of The Jackaluffles!", I'm throwing in some stuff from a certain Science Fiction Double Feature ;)
I'M ALSO GOING TO BE AT FURRY WEEKEND ATLANTA!
Fastest Furs is making their IRL Debut at FWA, and I'm a host! My sexy voice will be reading your donations Saturday afternoon!
AND I'll be playing a show! Hopefully, with a mic stand!
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Whirring" by The Joy Formidable
Yet another song I got from a video game, "Whirring" comes to us from the Welsh band The Joy Formidable, and every word describes this song to a T.
Whirring - The intro, a dizzy plucked arpeggio feels like I'm coming out of a dreamy haze, and the outro speeds by so quickly that it leaves my with a hardcore adrenaline rush.
The- pass
Joy- The song is about a relationship that you can't quite get together but the thought of it, and the swooning just lifts you up to the goddamn sky.
Formidable - For a song that starts out so delicately, it knows when to HIT, especially toward the end in this version with like, two solid minutes of soloing
"Whirring" plays toward the end of Hi-Fi Rush in the battle before the final boss fight, right after an emotionally powerful scene where Chai, the wannabe rockstar hero, saves his friends and leads the charge to take on the big bad.
The opening notes play as the protagonists walk slowly toward the camera, and throughout the level, every big fight scene is punctuated with the chorus belted out by lead singer Rhiannon Bryan and ends with you fighting a big robot to the intensely chaotic.
Right then and there I knew that I'd be staying up late finishing the game, and it would be a strong contender for GOTY.
No time YET, but it feels good to be back in Miami playing a convention that will likely have a proper stage setup. Winji did right by me last year.
THURSDAY
I was lucky enough to secure a room with artist friend HELLBREAKFAST, his wife and a fellow artist, and then I was in the hotel by Thursday evening. I couldn’t really do much, since they closed the vaccination check line early, but I got to bum around the con for a bit, play some Commander, and saw some really excellent fursuits.
FRIDAY
HOO BOY WHAT A LINE TO GET IN. First, I had to go through the vaccination line (just got my second booster and flu shot a couple weeks before) that took almost an hour, then ANOTHER two hours on the proper registration line.
At the very least I was able to start “Glory Hounds”, the latest VN from the same studio who did “Echo” and “Adastra”. "Glory Hounds" has you playing as Alex de Rooij, a down on his luck dalmatian whose life is saved by the vigilante Dawn Hound, who later takes Alex on as his sidekick. While this year's State Of The Bastard describe Echo as a "Renpy-ass Renpy Game", Glory Hounds is a lot more stark and stylish in its presentation with more animations and crisper lines in the sprites and BG. It's meant to be episodic in nature, focusing on individual "issues" and has NO choices, but I enjoyed going through Issue 1.
Also met up with Teddy Wynton, one of the best musicians in the fandom and some of his friends for some Pho at a nearby restaurant, Mian in the Rivers Casino, which was the best and most reasonably priced food all weekend.
Rick Fox had his “Cut Content” panel, and it was good to catch up with him again, as he is also spreading to other conventions and working hard on his comic project.
There were two themes at this con: Heroes, which lent itself to a fun little metagame where there were trading cards you can pick up at various con locations
and amogus.
I am not going to any convention that doesn’t have a pop up shrine.
SATURDAY
Apparently there were protestors outside the con.
Pug Face girl and Incel Boy are seen here protesting the event, but there
were HUNDREDS of people their age inside having fun and they chose to
hold signs because they're lives are worthless. They are beings of no consequence.
Most of my day was getting in games of Commander, but I also managed to catch a show by I’ve Made Too Much Pasta, a fursuiter band very reminiscent of The Violent Femmes.
The lead singer also goes by Scurrow Squirrel and streams regularly on Twitch! I did want to see more live non-DJ music this weekend, but the best I could manage is an impromptu show Pepper Coyote, infamous filk furry play out by the food trucks.
The weird thing was that I then went inside to the game room, where someone was playing “Even Flow” on Guitar Hero 3 and Eddie Vedder’s voice suddenly went up a full octave and oh shit, it’s pepper.
SUNDAY/WRAP UP
Sunday and Monday were pretty uneventful. I did end up purchasing a bunch of commissions throughout the weekend, and did buy some books from the artist alley, because support writers, dang it.
I got exactly what I wanted out of this convention: got to see a lot of people I followed on the (soon to be unusable) Twitter in person, like a PAX East for my Furry Bullshit.
I also learned two things about artists: 1. A LOT of them are BIPOC, showing how diverse this fandom can be, and how NECESSARY they are to the fandom as a whole, since, as I've said before:
Furries Are Nerds Who Have Siezed The Means Of Production
2. Saying, "Oh, I recognize your stuff now!" is a phrase that apparently induces more fear than it meant to. Especially in the realms of bara.
Anyway, on to something less gay:
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Born To Be Alive" by Patrick Hernandez
Disco!
This was always one of those one-hit wonders of the disco era that always seemed to be on in the background and in the rotation, but never stood out since there wasn't any
Until Kelly Turnbull introduced me to Shoresy, a spinoff of the show Letterkenny, that wrapped up its first season with a massive hockey fight set to this song.
"The hockey brawl in the lockers is a better example of visual storytelling than any overprocessed and underbudgeted CG fight of avengers putting the boots to a bunch of putties, on that note."
And it fucking RIPS. The intro guitar hook reveals its origins as a hard rock song, and it's constant motion from there on out.
Last weekend, I went to Megaplex, Florida's one and only furry convention, and it was a BLAST!
FRIDAY Since I'm still new to my current job, I'm scant on PTO, so I had to work longer days Monday thru Thursday, then leave Friday morning.
Check-in didn't take long when I got there (maybe about 11:30 AM?) but parking at the Caribe Royale is a gamble where the BEST you can hope for is to break even. Every was set up in enough time for me to go audition for Furry Jeopardy. Got the perfect score on the quiz, and made it to the MAIN SHOW!
The biggest project I had to worry about was of course, Megaplex Megafest. I noticed they put me in Main Events, as well as three smaller artists (going solely by Twitter numbers) all afternoon, and Cassidy The Civet, a pop singer who's actually been on Canada's Got Talent (fuck you Howie Mandell) on Saturday.
I've been down this road before, and it would have sucked for each of us to beg for people to show up. So, I thought why not just present us all as a unified front? We're all going on one right after the other, so this is our opportunity to make our own festival!
It didn't take a whole lot to organize everyone and they were down from the word GO. I also suggested Zack Loup of Psychopomp to do the poster art, since I love his work, but never got to commission him yet.
I kind of envisioned it like a Warped Tour parking lot, with people coming and going, with plenty to do, but the logistics weren't possible and mine and Jane's shows were age-gated.
Everyone had a good show, especially considering it was the first live performance for Jane and Atlas. "Run Over Ronnie" continues to go over big, and my covers of "Hungry Like The Wolf" and "Mexican Radio" went so well, I can add them to my repitoire.
At the end of ZandZ's show on Friday, everyone got up for a rendition of "Don't You (Forget About Me)", a nice little cap to everything!
And it felt GOOD to elevate other people! It felt GOOD to be part of something bigger and it felt GOOD to not have to feel like we were in competition!
I did INCREDIBLE on merch this weekend! I'm almost out of Swoletariat T-shirts, and the new CDs, Hardcore Nerdcore Punk Rock did incredible!
It's like everything I've learned over the past 10+ years of doing cons has finally come to fruition!
SUNDAY
Started the morning at the Fitness Furries panel where I began the day with a nice sweat! Cassisy had her concert the day before, and over the weekend everyone's been signing the poster. We donated it to the charity auction where it netted over almost $400 for the C.A.R.E. Foundation!
I got home in PLENTY of time to unwind, and overall, a kick ass weekend!
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Song For A Beer"
Z n' Z use this as the "summary" song, where they also include lyrics from other songs, and they had us come on stage and sing a little bit from ours. It's a fun little acoustic jam that gets stuck in your head SO bad.
This was done over text with DogPatch Press, furry online periodical of record. They've done good interviews and features before, especially when it comes to the fandom within larger societal issues, such as queer pride and "furry panic" in schools.
Patch was very easy to talk to and VERY complimentary with my whole ouvre, so it was really fun to do!
This one was good to update some stuff I had in the previous podcast, 3 years ago. Most of the conversation was focused on making sure everything WORKS when you have a convention setting. It was just nice talking with Kent who knows the scene and knows my career where we can focus on putting myself in front of people and making me look good.
Either way, both interviews had me indulging in my furry side, so with
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Cool Patrol" by Ninja Sex Party
Ninja Sex Party's been hitting different since Game Grumps Dan a much wider audience and a bigger budget, but they manage to make the song SOLID first and foremost. The verse are the setups, the choruses are the punchline and they evolve as the song continues, and the Cool Break is just... so cool.Very reminiscent of 70's pop-funk, which makes sense considering the music video takes place in a roller rink.
RETROMANIA WRESTLING NOW HAS A RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 26TH!
I've been bragging to EVERYONE I know about this game, and they all ask the same question: "When is it coming out?"
February 26th.
I know it seems like a long way off, but I'm getting more and more involved with the process, so at least we know the game part is going to be solid. Retromania is a passion project of one man, and he wants the game to be 100% his, which I get. While the game is coming out later in a year with more competitors (possibly), it also means it's more likely to stand out, with pick-up-and-play arcde gameplay, and music by Mega Ran and myself.
Three months is more time to grant this project more possibilities, and I'm honored to be a part of it!
ANIME IWAI HAPPENED!
Last Saturday, on the 14th, Anime Iwai had an event highlight various streamers in the community, and also showing off a couple planned shows. One of which being our Digital 3000 Brigade show.
A lot of it is highlight footage, and videos from Taste Of Dragons, a gaming podcast featuring some 3KB members.
However, there were a couple original bits, including a couple sketches that were written by me. It was freeing to have a lot of us really delve into a particular niche we're interested in and find the humor in that. Some people even got the Resident Evil Outbreak references we made!
Later that Saturday was a stream of Mario Party 2 I did with some friends, and that worked surprisingly well. I think next "end of month" stream should be something like that with Patrons, with ones at the $5 tier being the top priority.
NEW MUSIC: "FIRST DAY OF SPRING"
This track is familiar to my Patrons, but I released in on Bandcamp, because why not?
Kudos to Marlent from the 3KB for doing the makeup and taking the pictures because she KILLED it! She did the makeup for our "The Whole Being Dead Thing" sketch from our digital 3KB show!
The cover art is an homage to David Bowie's "Heroes" cover, who I was trying to channel while writing this song, along side other new ave acts like The Cure and Joy Division.
Primarily, my inspiration for this was the webcomic Lore Olympus, which is a melodramatic retelling of the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone. It has a very nice art style and a bouncy sense of humor. When I first discovered it, I binged it in a course of 2 nights!
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Touch-Tone Telephone" by Lemon Demon
Neil Cicierega has done SO. GODDAMN. MUCH. Potter Puppet Pals, his Mouth series, Ultimate Showdown, BrodyQuest, THE LIST GOES ON.
This is with his original project, Lemon Demon, and its most recent album, Spirit Phone from 2016.
Goddamn this is one bouncy number. Especially considering the intro and outros are acapella, which I sure as fuck can't do. However, what I like the most about is the unconventional delivery. It gives the intention behind these absolutly weird lines room to breathe, and from these disconnected bit you can see a bigger picture. I actually found out about this via Adler The Eagle, who's been streaming Roller Coaster Tycoon on his Youtube.
Oct. 9th is when I released "Status Quo Radio" in 2015, on the 8th Anniversary of the game that inspired it, Team Fortress 2. October 10th, apparently IS the release date for Team Fortress 2, so WTF.
I had a little listening party the other night, and while my vocals aren't as good as they are now, I was able to appreciate the vast majority of the album, and how precisent some of the things were. My main problem is that today some parts of it come off "Both Sides"-y, because over the process of writing the album I went from "left-libertarian" to "God I WISH Obama was a Socialist".
Somewhere on my Hard Drive is a script for a Status Quo Radio movie/long form music video because over the course of writing it, I got real into Janelle Monae and The Who, so you could see an emotion picture influenced by Quadrophenia at some point in the future.
VIRTUA ONGAKU 4
On September 26th, I played my first Ongaku Overdrive show, Virtua Ongaku 4! It was a great show overall, with the rest of the acts killing it.
Roborob snapped this photo in chat during "Think Geek Is Not Nerdcore", and it goes to show you that I can still run a crowd, even online.
NEW SINGLE! "Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi!"
This past month's Patreon song is inspired by my RPG Pals Club character, Oi! the Punk Drow Monk. Also fitting as we returned to Waterdeep after 6 months.
Last month's song was supposed to be about Sett from League Of Legends, but it wasn't working out. When I was copying notes into my lyric notebook, I found this song more or less done.
Patrons will get the full character backstory, but everyone gets the TL;DR- Drow hears slaves play rock and roll, and he finds it so kick ass he helps them escape the underdark.
NEW SINGLE! "Freddy Fazbear's Pizza (1975)"
After the announcement for Five Nights At Freddys for the Playstation 5, I decided to drop a little something from my upcoming album Hardcore Nerdcore Punk Rock.
This song is a live staple, and I love breaking this out to give myself some downtime after a really intense song.
Fun Fact: Never played a single one of the games. AAHAHAHAHA!!!
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Cult Of Dionysus" by The Orion Experience
The Orion Experience has been buried for a while in the alt-rock boom of the mid 00's, having been on Laguna Beach and Zoey 101 and then sputtering out sometime around 2014.
"The Cult Of Dionysus" does so much right, that I think this band deserves a second look. The bass is the backbone of this song and gives the track a bouncy groove, especially when it came in at juuuuust the right time. I also like the production and the arrangement of the guitars, where they're at the lower end, but you notice them juuuuust enough to get that harmonic envelopment.
Also the song is about drunk polyamorous fucking and getting high.
Hades is an absolute blast to play, especially is you like hack-n-slash games and roguelikes, while getting rid of all the downsides of either genre. EASILY a strong contender for GOTY.
Megaplex was one of the new cons I played last year, and despite some tech complications, I loved it.
This year, like most cons, it's going to be online, so add that extra bit of interaction, I'm opening up my island so everyone can come up and MOSH! (by Mosh I mean Hit Each Other With Nets)
NEW VIDEO: Retromania Launch Roster Themes
This is a little collection of the Entrance Themes I did for Retromania Wrestling, which lead to...
NEW VIDEO: Retromania Dev Volg #16: FEATURING ME!!!
After seeing they made a full video with all the entrances, and people ACTUALLY LIKED THEM? I made a video explaining my process!
Not that I haven't been active, I've just been busy, and the site just works as an aggregate of what I've been up to, and since I've been flying by the seat of my pants for a lot of it, I haven't focused on the site as much. A lot has happened since the Spring Update video, and I will share it all with you...
ULTRACON 2019!
This was the return of Ultracon after a couple years, coming back to the MACC. It had a great turnout, even though the layout wasn't that good, with panels on a top floor where other events went on at the same time, and the dealer's room was on the bottom floor.
Thankfully, I was helping run ULTRAMANIA! on the same floor right before my event.
I made a lot of new fans that show, but like Omni Expo, I hope it can learn to use its space better.
BASTARDMOBILE STREAM!
So a couple weeks ago I ran a 12 hour stream to raise money to help fix my car. To recap:
1. A bunch of friends and fans were eager to help me out in a time where I could use some help
2. I organized a big event with minor technical fuckups.
3. I put on a damn good concert
4. I made Twitch Affiliate.
So there was a broad swath of games, and a broad swath of guests, and here's the recap of the schedule: 12:00 - 1:00 PM - Fallout New Vegas w/ Steven from S15 Costuming 1:00 - 3:00 PM - Torchlight 2 w/ RPG Pals Club 3:00 - 4:00 PM - MTG: Arena w/ WeffJebster 4:00 - 5:00 PM - Dicey Dungeons w/ Hupfen 5:00 - 6:30 PM - Diddy Kong Racing w/ Ben Briggs 6:30 - 7:30 PM - Sunset Overdrive w/ John GM Concert at 8 Halo and Rock Band 4 Open play afterwards
Special thanks to everyone who watched and everyone who came on to play!
I really want to do another one sometime in a couple months just for a "Hey, let's build a warchest and hangout with all these cool people I know"
MIZUCON PLANS!
So far it's just Mizu-Mania on Monday, but we are working hard to bring you an excellent event! It will be on the main stage, and since we've got a couple of these under our belt, we can deliver high impact digital wrestling action with MINIMAL technical fuck ups!
JAM OF THE... WEEK? "Rose Colored Boy" by Paramore
So, new Paramore kinda rules actually? More poppy, and apparently they don't want to play "Misery Business" anymore, but who cares?
Hayley Williams's acting in this REALLY sells the story as she becomes more and more detached and disinterested with each segment of this cheesy 80's news show. "Rose Colored Boy" is also about a rarely expressed sentiment: "No, I'm not happy, and fuck you for thinking I could just get over it"
The Goon, one of my favorite comic series is back! In Comic Form! So now the song is on YouTube and Soundcloud and all o dat!
Youtube:
Soundcloud:
UPCOMING CONS!
As you may have seen on the sidebar, I have a couple new cons on the horizon:
Ultracon Of South Florida! (April 12th-14th, 2019)
This was a con that's been away for a bit, but now it's back! I'm not sure what else is on the schedule yet, but if you're a collector, it's a really good con for that since the dude that runs it is notroious for having a big G.I. Joe Collection. Mizucon! (May 26th-27th, 2019)
Mizucon I've had a lot of good times at in the past, but they went away last year, and are now under new management, some of whom are from Anime Iwai. There's a lot I can't confirm yet, except that I do know they will give me a show, and another panel that we're going to bring back!
Hint: Mega Ran was part of it. Other Convention I've Never Played Before!
For an audience I never played before! PAX EAST HYPE!
What am I looking forward to?
PAX East Rumble! It's a royal rumble at PAX East! It will be an absolute clusterfuck.
DJ Roborob! All his stuff! He, Ben Briggs and other friends are going to be at the Jamspace at 10 PM on Saturday for a big VGM Dance Party!
The Improvised Post Mortem! Pat Baer is always good for an entertaining time, and he brings some improv fun times to PAX East in one of my favorite panels in any con ever. The premise is simple: Given a game title, these people make up a game and how it could have gone better/worse.
JAM OF THE WEEK: "Tempted" by Squeeze
This song is my goddamn white whale in Rock Band 4. I have YET TO FULL COMBO IT!
I'm making a GLORIOUS return to Omni Expo! This is my first con set of 2019, and I'm really excited to be back, since it seems like they leveled up everything since the last time I was there. RPG PALS CLUB!
I'm part of a new DnD 5th Ed. Actual Play Podcast called "RPG Pals Club", and I play Oi!, a punk drow monk.
It's DMed by Luke Herr, aka Koltreg, a long time internet friend of mine, and while we're realllly far ahead of the episodes released right now, I look forward to every play session :)
Anyway, here's the backstory on how both A. Got into punk music and B. Left the underdark
Every night, as he’d check on the slaves in their quarters, Oi noticed something odd developing. It started off innocently enough: a slave would bang out a beat on their walls, but then others started joining in. Eventually one of the slaves fashioned a guitar and bass out of some enchanted webbing and various bits of wood. It was crude, but it was incredible how it all came together. Normally it was Oi’s job to keep these people in line, but he couldn’t help but be enraptured by harmony of it all.
And then they started singing.
They sung about their pain, they sung about their feelings, they sung about those from the surface they had missed after being brought down to the underworld. Each night, a different tune of loss and hopelessness and while most drow would revel in such pain, Oi only asked them this:
“Could you do it faster? And louder?”
For a while, the band of slaves acquiesced to Oi’s requests. The music filled Oi with raucous energy; he could move twice as fast, lift twice as much and when he was on “errand boy” duty, he, uh, ahem, provided much better “service”. While the slaves didn’t mind so long as Oi didn’t cause them any trouble, they still longed for the lives on the surface world.
“You know,” said Pubrin, a half-elf bard from Waterdeep, “I used to be part of a band before I was captured and brought down here. If you let us out, I can reunite with them and you can join us.” The offer, while incredibly tempting to Oi, was bittersweet: the Underdark was all he knew, and he had heard that most surface dwellers despise the drow. “I’m sorry,” he said with a frown, “but this is all I know…”
To which Pubrin replied, “Have it your way”
The next night, there was no music.
This continued on for at least another week. With each night of silence, Oi could feel himself slipping more and more; his mind was always somewhere else, his body not quite working right, as if it were only a puppet. The high priestesses kept scolding him on his shoddy work and he knew if this kept going on, he could be executed or worse, relegated to clean up duty.
Purbin awoke from his usually frenzied slumber with the sound of his cell door being ripped open. Oi was there in the doorway, covered in sweat and his Mohawk in shambles atop his head.
“We’re leaving tonight.”
Shit yeah! I get to do self indulgent writing again!
JAM OF THE WEEK: "The Man" by The Killers
OK, after the overwrought bombast of Battleborn to this, it feels like The Killers are going "WELL FINE!". It manages to be both simpler then what they usually put out, but still has all this largess to it.
The music video is great as it shows Brandon Flowers, lead singer of The Killers, failing over and over again in different hats. The video does reflect the intention of the song, which is "Yeah, all this machismo bullshit has to go away eventually".
Nothing too grand about it, sometimes you just want something to make you boogie.
