New Songs!

After another go-around in the studio, my band Second Player Score has finished up three more songs, as promised. Go ahead and check them out here.

"Anything At All" is an uptempo track that makes for good listening while jogging or working out. At least, I think so, anyway. This song was meant to be an inspiring tune about doing whatever it takes to do whatever it is you want to do. Like, you know, laundry. Or the dishes. Or world domination.

"Hide" used to feature an outro guitar solo that was much, much longer than it is now. Don't worry, the song itself is still only three-and-a-half minutes. Originally titled "The Great Escape" (the name of a Boys Like Girls song and a Pink song and a 1963 movie starring Steve McQueen) and then "Lose Yourself" (an Eminem song), it's a song about escaping from, well, stuff. I dunno, check it out and decide for yourself.

"Desensitized" has some aggro-sounding vocals, a partial result of us receiving some pretty slow service at dinner before we came back to do the vocal tracks. The lyrics are sort of PG, and performed live, they're sort of PG-13. Good times.

Speaking of live, we'll be playing our first show in almost a year on Saturday, July 12 at Shanahan's in downtown Vancouver with our friends Rocket 3 and Stab In The Dark. So, come on down and check it out! We'll be playing everything off of our upcoming album as well as a few more, and every song in our live set now has our patented three-part vocal harmony treatment. It'll be a lot of fun, so hope to see you there.

A Post About Television

I don't watch a lot of TV nowadays. Generally, I'll have it on as a sort of wallpaper or background distraction while I'm doing other things: working out, eating lunch, doing household chores, practicing guitar. I don't have Netflix or TiVo or anything like that.

That said, there are a number of shows that I'll pay more attention to than others. Here are a few of them, in no particular order:

Doctor Who - a brilliantly written show that I often derive inspiration from. Can't wait for the next season to start.

Legend of Korra - one of the few shows that I will clear space on my schedule for. Like Doctor Who, I also am looking forward to the next season, which will start...when, exactly?

Ancient Aliens - I often use this show to fact-check my backstories for The Spectraland Saga.

Mariners Baseball/Seahawks Football/Trail Blazers Basketball - the phrase "and now that you've said that" (see page 242 of Book One) came from watching these teams play. I've adopted a more positive attitude in reason seasons, though, which seems to be having an effect.

Teen Titans Go! - I know this show has its fair share of haters, but c'mon - "The cereal won't go in the bowl"? Hilarious.

Futurama - whenever I'm channel surfing and I see this one coming up, I always have to remind myself of one of my personal rules: "Never not watch Futurama."

Honorable mention: Louie, South Park, Clone Wars (the latter two of which I used to watch religiously), How I Met Your Mother (the finale was ok), Star Trek TNG, Bizarre Foods, Gumball, Adventure Time...hmm, maybe I do watch more TV than I thought.

My Musical History, Episode 10: The Summer Of The Angry Young Man

After the relative success of the Fixed EP, we jumped right back into writing and rehearsing material for our next recording. Going with a more collaborative process this time around, we ended up with fifteen new songs that were quite a bit more eclectic than the previous batch; there were elements of pop, jazz, metal, and even "Hawaiian Music" (see Episode 9 for a brief explanation of what that is) - sometimes within the same song.

At the same time, I had this bright idea to take what we had learned from the release of Fixed and apply that to starting our own record label. This venture, dubbed "Crash The Luau Records," was going to focus on rock bands from Hawaii, with the idea that such things were so much of a cool anomaly that they deserved your listening attention and, therefore, a fairly significant slice of your disposable income.

So, we signed a couple of our friends' bands - a pop/punk outfit called Tweaked and a funk/rock group known as Seven Degrees North - and proceeded to plan a more-or-less simultaneous summer release of their albums along with the new Tone Deaf Teens offering. Since a vaguely common theme for all three albums seemed to be adolescent male discontent, our brilliant marketing department* came up with the slogan "The Summer of the Angry Young Man," which sounded like a good idea at the time.**

All three releases were fairly well received, with Tweaked's "Breaking The Curse" and TDT's "1%" getting good reviews in the local paper and earning nominations for Rock Album of the Year in the annual Hoku Awards, which is sort of like Hawaii's local version of the Grammys. Want to know who ended up winning? You can find out here.

So, on the surface, it seemed like things were going pretty well. We were playing a ton of shows, mostly at the Wave (how I miss that place), and we made another video, this time for a track off of 1% called "Prime Time Kumquat." Yes, that really is the song title. The other bands were playing out a lot as well and getting a good response.

But as the old joke goes, "How do you make a small fortune in the music business? Start with a large fortune (insert rim shot here)." The reality of the situation was that running a record label was, and is, a tough thing to do. After a while, we found ourselves heavily in debt and more-or-less forced to play a bunch of cover gigs to help make up for it. The strain of that situation eventually took its toll, and although I didn't know it at the time, a really big change was on the horizon.

Next: A Really Big Change

* Me and a couple of friends
** Turns out, not so much

Liveblogging With Felicity: Teen Titans Go!

Today, Felicity and I will be liveblogging an episode of Teen Titans Go! Fasten your seat belts, ladies and gentlemen...

B: I love this show
F: Ur like a little kid
B: What's wrong with that
F: Just sayin
B: Ok it's starting
F: hooray
B: This episode is "Dude, Relax"
F: Right
B: I'm just letting the readers know
F: The who?
B: Raven's expressions kill me
F: Robin is so neurotic
B: "All good, bro." Awesome and hilarious
F: You need to do the relax
B: What are you trying to say
F: nuthin
B: Clipping the bonsai with her powers, so funny
F:
B: "No." love it
F: She is pretty cool
B: See, I knew you liked her
F: Whatever
B: "Is there a specific way I should hum - in a minor key?" ha
F: Ur like Robin
B: No I'm not
F: Whatever
B: I need a couch like that
F: Yes you do
B: I don't think any monkeys stole my diaper
F: Ok that's just disturbing
B: Aw man it's over already
F: You know there's another one coming up
B: Yesss
F: Settle down there
B: This State Farm commercial - isn't it more freaky that the baby is talking than the mime
F: I think that's the point
B: Alright the show's back
F: hooray
B: Oh cool "Laundry Day." This one is so good
F: I need more soda
B: This show has so many quick and subtle moments of awesomeness, that's what makes it great
F:
B: Batman cowl made of leaves, Raven's pink bunny slippers
F:
B: You're missing all the moments!
F:
B: Glorg blorger
F: Back. What did I miss
B: A bunch of awesome moments
F: This soda tastes flat
B: "I'll take over the world another time." ha
F: Wasn't the original Gizmo an old dude
B: Yeah. So you do know about this stuff!
F: I was just guessing

Join us next time as we liveblog something else!

Bullet Point Updates

On the music front:

- Second Player Score just finished laying down tracks for the final three songs of our debut album, which is tentatively scheduled to be released this fall. We'll be playing songs from that album (and busting out our cool new band t-shirts) at a show on July 12th over at Shanahan's in downtown Vancouver with our friends Stab In The Dark and Rocket 3.

If you can't wait that long to hear me warble things into a mic, I'll be doing a solo gig at The Red & Black Cafe on June 9th, opening for LAM! LAM! from North Carolina.

On the writing front:

- Book Two is happily churning its way through the rewriting grinder. After taking a short break and then reading the first draft back to myself, I felt that the emotional focus wasn't sharp enough and the plot was too convoluted. So while there were a lot of cool things going on, especially for fans of the first book, the overall story was rather dull and confusing at the same time - kind of like this movie (which, for the record, I don't really hate as much as other people do.)

But don't worry, while chunks of the first draft will be retained and/or re-purposed, I am confident that - due to my own self-critical nature as well as the (merciless) input of my editor, beta readers, and fellow authors - the eventual finished product will be much, much better. In fact, meesa guarantee it.

On the video game front:

- I basically stopped playing MHU3, as I've been completely absorbed with my re-play of Xenoblade, which I'm finding to be even more enjoyable the second time around.

A lot of the story makes more sense now that I know how it all ends. When my daughter and I watch the cut scenes now, we say stuff to each other like "Oh, so that's what that was about!" and "No! Don't believe him!" which is always good geeky fun. Plus, I finally finished the side quests that get me into King Agni's Tomb, so awww yeahhh

My Musical History, Episode 9: Fixed

Going with the "if it's expensive, it must be good" axiom, we tracked down what was, at the time, one of the premier recording studios in Hawaii, where a lot of the local luminaries had created their albums. This was during a time when songs were recorded through 24-channel mixing boards to 2" tape - whaaat? - so there were no quality home recording/Pro Tools-type options that are available to bands today.

Remember these?

The miscalculation we made, however, was that most of the local luminaries were what people call "Hawaiian Music" bands - bands whose material consists largely of mellow, folky-type music played on acoustic stringed instruments (including, of course, the ukulele) and not-loud drums. As pop-leaning as our sound was, we were still a rock band, with Marshall amps and a drummer who was at his best when he played at high volumes.

As a result, the five songs that we recorded came out fine, considering our lack of studio experience, but there was something lacking...namely, the energy and punch that we usually brought to our live performances. It was nobody's fault, really - just one of those learning experiences that you have to go through to get to the next level.

So anyway, having invested a decent chunk of change into the sessions, we did our best to salvage the situation. We took the recordings to a different studio to get it mastered, and they did their best to squeeze every last ounce of oomph they could out of the tracks. We printed up a bunch of stickers that said "digitally mastered to be played LOUD" and hand-applied them to each of the 1,000 CDs that we ordered. We named the EP "Fixed" to indicate that we had "fixed" whatever perceived problems there were with the original recordings.*

Despite all of our hand-wringing, Fixed ended up getting a pretty good reception. "Shampoo" was played on radio stations not only in Hawaii, but nationally and internationally as well (we actually received a performance royalty check for airplay in the U.K. - a small one, but cashable nonetheless.) The song was even included on one of those piped-in music services that you hear in restaurants and mall stores, and because of that, it attracted the attention of a music video producer who heard it while having lunch at a hotel in Los Angeles, where he was attending film school. Being originally from Hawaii, he approached us about doing a video for the song, and you can see the result here.

We were interviewed in music magazines, won a few local awards, and played a ton of shows, including a brief tour of the San Francisco area (which is another story in itself). We were even one of the first bands from Hawaii to have our own website - whaaat? - in addition to being included on other pioneering music-related sites like this one.

So it seems like things were happening, right? World domination, just around the corner? Well, remember the title of Episode 5 of this serial: "It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll."

Next: The Summer of the Angry Young Man

* Or did we name it that because we felt our sound had been neutered? Um, I forget. Never mind

Chosen One-On-Ones

Before you start reading this blog post, go ahead and crank up the song "Chosen One" by my band, Second Player Score. You can find it (and even download it for free!) at this link. I'll wait.

Got it? Good.

Okay, now on with today's post. The idea of a Chosen One - a person who is predestined to save the world or perform some other similarly heroic deed - is a rather common trope in fantasy and science fiction, from books to movies to video games.

The thing is, though, since it's so common, what you end up with is a whole bunch of Chosen Ones running around, beating up the bad guys and saving the world. Isn't a Chosen "One," by definition, supposed to be singular?

So, there's only one way to settle this: with a Chosen One-On-One Battle. Let's begin!

Anakin Skywalker vs. Harry Potter

There are a bunch of opinions about this particular battle all over the Internet, but I'll give you mine: even though Harry has a lot more options at his disposal (a whole range of spells versus The Force + a lightsaber), I think Anakin takes this one. This is how I see it going:

- Harry casts Expelliarmus, ridding Anakin of his saber
- Anakin retaliates by using the Force to rid Harry of his wand
- Without a wand, Harry can't cast any spells
- While Harry is scrambling for his wand, Anakin uses the Force to retrieve his lightsaber and/or choke Harry or whatever

There you go. Or, maybe it would go something like this.

Zael from The Last Story vs. Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles

This is a tough one. Zael has the Mark of the Outsider, while Shulk can see the future. Zael is stronger and more battle-trained, but Shulk's Monado sword beats any weapon that Zael can scare up. I dunno...I'll just flip a coin and go with Zael. I think Nintendo should cave in to popular demand and put both characters in the next Super Smash Bros. game so then we can find out for real.

Neo vs. Po

At first, I was surprised that other people besides me actually thought about this one. But to quote Albus Dumbledore, "actually, if I think about it, it doesn't seem curious at all." Both Neo and Po are martial arts experts, and they each have some special moves at their disposal - Neo can fly, while Po has the Wuxi Finger Hold and, of course, a belly that is impervious to most attacks. Assuming that Po lives in a version of the Matrix, though, I'd have to give the edge to the man formerly known as Thomas Anderson. Also, if Neo got into trouble, he'd just have to run up a long flight of stairs...

So there you have it: Anakin, Zael, and Neo. And then if the three of them were to get into it, I'd say Anakin - in a landslide. Darth Vader rules!

What do you think?