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So CHz thought it would be clever to get up all in my grill/step on my turf by talking about S.S.H.'s original work, while still including enough info about him in his writeup that a second entry would be practically pointless.
But I'm not going to let him stop me. No sir, not today. I'll post about S.S. flippin' H. whenever I durn well please. And now with that out of the way, onto actual content...
Here we see the S.S.H. in his natural habitat of ROCK'N. The S.S.H.'s sound is very distinct, with complex sequenced electric guitar and synth "wank" a common identifier in the species. Anyone who's heard the S.S.H. could most likely spot it from an arbitrary number of miles away. Here we see one of the most famous specimens:
"The Decisive Battle" Final Fantasy VI (Super Famicom)
Okay, so silly nature show parodies aside, suffice it to say S.S.H.'s style is fairly distinguishable. However, it's also...shall we say...consistent, perhaps to a fault. To give an analogy, you could call S.S.H. the DragonForce of doujin. That is to say, it's definitely awesome for rocking out to when you're in the mood, but after a while it starts to wear on you, and you begin to notice the structure and instrumentation of his songs becoming predictable and formulaic, despite the impressive variety in source material from classic favorites such as Castlevania and Final Fantasy to slightly more obscure titles like Shin Megami Tensei and Super Robot Wars.
Of course, there are exceptions, such as these poignant arrangements:
S.S.H. has (at least to my knowledge) released only one solo video game album, entitled "Underworld Shade Saitama," which is by now undoubtedly available only on Japanese auction sites. No need to despair however, as most of his work is still available on his site.
As to his current whereabouts, unfortunately I must admit I'm completely in the dark on that subject. But hopefully he'll resurface again someday and give all us doujin fans another big dose of ROCK'N.
You may have heard of The Black Mages. Formed in 2003 with, among other people, three Square Enix composers (including Nobuo Uematsu), TBM is the closest thing Square Enix has to an official band. Other game companies (especially during the 90's) have had bands featuring one or more in-house composer, like Konami's Kukeiha Club and Taito's Zuntata, but TBM is probably the most prominent modern example.
Live performances of VGM have been not necessarily commonplace in Japan, but certainly more frequent than in the United States and elsewhere. However, in the past few years, there have been an increasing number of video game concerts like PLAY! A Video Game Symphony and Video Games Live. So, I figured it might be kind of cool to look at other, earlier VGM performances, including those by in-house bands and those like VGL. I mentioned the S.S.T. Band in "Composer Spotlight #3: Koichi Namiki," so that's as good a place to start as any.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The S.S.T. Band was one of the first, possibly the first, official developer band, starting way back in 1988. "S.S.T." stood for "Sega Sound Team," befitting the fact that, of the six original members, three were Sega composers (Hiroshi Miyauchi, Jouji Iijima, and Koichi Namiki). A fourth member, Kimitaka Matsumae, would later become a Sega composer, as well as would two future band members who were not part of the original lineup, Hisanori Kumamaru and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi.
I was going to make an info file about the S.S.T. Band's members, discography, etc., but their Wikipedia article is very thorough, probably more thorough than anything I would have written, so I'll pimp that out instead. The only full arrangement albums are MEGA SELECTION I & II and BACK IN THE S.S.T. BAND!!; all of the others contain both arrangements by the S.S.T. Band and original soundtracks.
An interesting thing to note is that every single S.S.T. Band member had a stage name, most of which were taken from Sega arcade games:
Jouji Iijima: GALAXY (Galaxy Force) Shingo Komori: BURNER (After Burner) Hisanori Kumamaru: SPLASH Wave ("Splash Wave" is the name of a track from OutRun) Kimitaka Matsumae: HARRIER (Space Harrier) Takenobu Mitsuyoshi: R360 (refers to the R360 arcade cabinet) Hiroshi Miyauchi: Hiro Koichi Namiki: Mickey or Pretty K.N. Masato Saito: TURBO-kun (Turbo OutRun) Takehiko Tanabe: THUNDER (Thunder Blade)
But the best part of the S.S.T. Band, even moreso than their rockin' arrangements, is their appearance. Remember when sleeveless vests, ponytails, bandanas, and sunglasses used to be cool on musicians?
"After Burner" (arrangement of the track of the same name from the game of the same name) video from the S.S.T. Band Live! DVD (1990 concert) Jouji "GALAXY" Iijima: Guitar (red) Kimitaka "HARRIER" Matsumae: Keyboards (right) Hiroshi "Hiro" Miyauchi: Keyboards (left) Koichi "Mickey" Namiki: Guitar (yellow) Masato "TURBO-kun" Saito: Bass Takehiko "THUNDER" Tanabe: Drums
The band's arrangements always strayed close to the original, usually being covers with the occasional solo thrown in to retain the feel of the originals, all of which were from Sega arcade, Master System, or Genesis games. Since the band's instruments were guitars, keyboard, and drums, they usually picked upbeat songs that could easily be converted to synthrock, like the title theme from After Burner seen above. However, as the material dictated, they were not above slower, jazzier pieces like their medley of Galaxy Force tracks and ballads like their cover of "Last Wave," the high scores theme from OutRun.
I'm ironically not much of a gamer, so anything having to do with actual game releases I'm bound to be slow on. DarkeSword recently made mention that Cave Story creator Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya released a new, even simpler free homebrew shmup called Guxt. (Have Japanese characters installed on your comp, please.) WithCave Story under his belt, Pixel's already got the buzz needed to give any new project of his a good deal of attention in the gaming community, and February's release of his most recent game has already gotpeopletalking.
I make mention of Guxt, because Pixel is not only a programmer, but a composer as well. With his one man Studio Pixel team, Amaya does it all, including the actual game music. For Guxt, that includes a standalone player program that features all 8 tracks from the soundtrack. It's classic-style VG muzak, just the way you like it: small size, tons of hooks, and very appropriate for the game setting. The Boss theme in particular is excellent.
Makes me wonder who in the community's gonna have the first well-made rearrangement from the game under their belt...
I loves me some netlabels. As a big proponent of free music (not ideologically, don't worry), some of the most creative music you'll find doesn't cost you more than the time it takes to download.
Obviously, I spend a lot of time involved in the video game music rearrangement community, but netlabels feature great collectives of talent doing original music as well.
Like any hobbyist initiative, productivity can sometimes be intermittent. My favorite netlabel Hellven, run by Xavier "mv" Dang, has stopped and started on several occasions. This makes it difficult to find a really steady source of content to satisfy your fix.
One of the other latest netlabels with strong ties toward the game music arrangement community that I've been made aware of has been Jonas "Platonist" Loman's effort, Reunion, which announced last month that its site had gone out of beta stage into a final release. They have a lot of good artists I'm aware of from OC ReMix including FFmusic Dj, GaMeBoX, Saiko, SGX, Siamey, The Joker, and even guest releases by Binster and OverCoat. They've hit a pretty good stride, just announcing their 45th single release (courtesy of GaMeBoX), so give 'em a look and bask in the free.
"Omnishred" will take it's rightful place on the group's upcoming CD release Metal Kombat for the Mortal Man, alongside tributes to Mega Man II, Mortal Kombat, The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy IV, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Tetris, Duck Hunt, Killer Instinct, Guilty Gear and Castlevania.
Not that you have to, but if you want to wait to pick up the album with the chance to get it signed by the band in person, you could always lay low until MAGFest 6...
I've known Jordan "bLiNd" Aguirre and Randy "Leifo" Oxley for many years.. Leifo first hit OverClocked ReMix in 2002 with a Mario Paint ReMix entitled "BLind is Dah BomB", a tribute to the style of bLiNd. bLiNd's music was an inspiration to Leifo, and, once the two became friends and musical collaborators, Leifo vowed to move from New Jersey to Las Vegas with the intent on making his name alongside bLiNd as an electronic musician.
Given Leifo's own astronomical growth as an artist in the past 5 years and bLiNd's staunch dedication to his craft, it's not a surprise to me that these two have finally been able to gain some traction in the electronic music scene, under their collaborative name "Vega Projekt".
Aaron "Global-Trance" Wu announced today at OC ReMix that renowned DJ Ferry Corsten has included Vega Projekt's single "The First Day" on the playlist of his radio show "Corsten's Countdown", syndicated on Digitally Imported (di.fm) and XM Satellite Radio. If you register at the Ferry Cortsen forums, you'll be able to vote at the Cortsen's Countdown page for "The First Day" to make the monthly top 10 countdown. It's a quick signup and will help Vega Projekt earn more recognition with an accomplished DJ and producer.
Wu also let it be known that the track may also be may also be incorporated into an upcoming DJ set of his and is also under strong consideration for pickup by Corsten's record label, Flashover Recordings. Hopefully, this is a watershed event for Vega Projekt towards expanding their audience and gaining notice within industry circles. They've certainly given it their all thus far.
But yes, the developers of the upcoming Half-Life 2 mod Black Mesa were on episode 5 of Cockbite Radio (there's that name again) this past Wednesday to discuss all things Black Mesa and how they're remaking the first Half-Life from the ground up. OC ReMixerKevin "Lorenzo" Sisk, one of the voice actors of the game, intros the podcast. (Check for him also at the 11-minute and 53-minute marks as well.)
Kevin adds: "That screenshot [below], other than the surface tension dam, is a prime example of how the team is trying to bring the original game up to date with today's graphic standards, while preserving the game's spirit." Definitely give it that look.
Also of note for this podcast, 30 seconds in has a hilarious rant from Casey about 12-year-old boys on XBOX Live. Creepy, immature boys on the internet? Never.
But I love Armcannon. Saw them play at MAGFest 5 this past January and djpretzel in particular was really impressed. Right now they're trying to shoot up 4 other bands in WUTV FOX-29's local contest to send a band from West New York to Las Vegas for the auditions of American Idol's upcoming band-themed show.
Check out the contest. You've only got until Sunday, July 29th, with the winner announced on Monday. Center of the page towards the bottom. It takes literally 3 seconds to vote.
A vote for Armcannon is a vote for video game music. Help a brother out.
3:38 PM Larry: hahaha; one of the perks of working with you; I get to hear stuff like
"dude
gerudo hip hop
I got it in my head"
The crazy thing is that djpretzel can be counted on to make the idea work. However, he can't be counted on to actually finish the track. Too many ideas, too little time. For many arrangers, therein lies the game.
I'm going to be gone on a trip for the next couple of days, and so I'm not going to be able to get the post that I wanted to finish done. So what is this special filler edition of VGF about?
Well why don't you just read the post title, you lazy good-for-nothing. Pretty much everyone, their mother, family pets, and great-aunt Tilly who's never used a computer before has a Facebook account; it's like MySpace except apparently less objectionable for some reason.
I found out earlier today that there is a group dedicated to composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, with whom I have been locked in a violent struggle since before this universe was created. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that there would be Facebook groups like this, but until now I never bothered to search for them.
Unfortunately, Facebook's current group classification system doesn't make it easy to find these groups, which are listed under, among other categories, "Entertainment & Arts - Fine Arts," "Just for Fun - Fan Clubs," "Music - Songwriting," and "Music - Instruments." So, I did a little legwork in searching for some interesting groups. If you know of any others that look good or start your own, please let me know!
It's a whole OCRemix arrangement project dedicated entirely to Sonic 3's Ice Cap theme. It's easily the most overmixed song in the gaming community, but that doesn't stop anyone from putting their spin on it. This is 18 tracks of the same song, remixed by different artists. Honestly, ever since the Duck Hunt remix project, I didn't think this kind of thing would fly anymore.
I guess why I didn't see it is because, it's not on the site projects forum of the web site. It's merely the artists getting together on their own to put out this album. Is it any good? Not really. It kind of listens like a few guys just dicking around on their keyboards. Some more organized than others, but I refuse to believe it's anywhere near a "best effort". One even mixed Chrono Trigger's Trial theme in the beginning and leads into some kind of weird crossover that should not be. It's not to say that the songs aren't worth checking out, it's just some of them are just plain bleh. Of course, what can you expect from the community's most single mixed song. There's only so much you can do with it.
In any case, check out the above link and have a listen.
Only the review's from June 28th. ... Did I forget to mention this? How did he know about the Duck Hunt project, but somehow not pick up on this? :-D
Too bad he didn't get into any specifics on the tracks. He probably thought mine was the best though, so I can understand him not wanting to tarnish the other songs in comparison. You know how it is.
I had the pleasure of finally meeting Wilbert "bustatunez" Roget, II at the Video Games LiveOCR meetup in Washington, DC. But we actually used to both reside in New Haven, CT, my hometown, and where Wil attended Yale University for his music degree (man, how my life would have been different had I gone there). We tried meeting up during Will's last few months there before he graduated but couldn't work out our schedules, so it was excellent finally getting to shake his hand and shooting the shit with him. At the VGL DC meetup, Will was only at liberty to say that he has just scored the trailer for an upcoming game and that the trailer was set to debut at E3. Besides being excited for the opportunity, he wouldn't tell us anything more, not even what genre the game even was. So just to let Flagship Studios know, he held VERY tightly to his NDA!
Now, I'm not about to praise the trailer merely to pay lip service to Flagship and suck up on behalf of anyone. Anyone familiar enough with the business of games knows that there are (unfortunately) a lot of games with great soundtracks that end up having awful "everything else". But this trailer looked REALLY polished. It may be for a game, but Hellgate: London has what looks like a straight up movie trailer.
There's no guarantee Will will be involved with the actual game soundtrack itself, but hitting paydirt with the release of this trailer is a potentially great sign of things to come for a young, talented composer like bustatunez. Be sure to give the trailer a look and send some congradulations Will's way for one of his first professional gigs, as I hope it's the start of a fruitful career in video game music.
Larry “Liontamer” Oji has been a judge at OverClocked ReMix since July 2004, having evaluated over 2,500 submissions and becoming head submissions evaluator in June 2006. Reporting to site founder David “djpretzel” Lloyd, Larry is responsible for primary submissions evaluations, informational database maintenance and other otherwise sundry & unsexy tasks at OCR.
Oji also hosted the VG Frequency radio program for 4 years out of Atlanta, Georgia’s Emory University, focused on rearranged video game music and original compositions from the ReMixing community. Larry’s dream job is to host a nationally syndicated radio program on video game music, which he considers the greatest and broadest genre of music in the world. Among his favorite video game composers include Tim Follin and Yasuhisa “Yack” Watanabe.
Larry is currently recruiting artists for the Tim Follin tribute album Dirge for the Follin, as well as contributors for the VG Frequency blog and podcast. His own musical attempts, though very irregular, have been considered godly. Larry currently resides in Atlanta, GA with The Lady, Paige.
