MSNBC has an article on console-based electronica making a comeback. These days, consoles like the X-Box and PlayStation 2 have full music capabilities, but I still remember playing my first 8-bit NES back in the 80s and its music seemed fine at the time. And even today I find it amazing what the composers of the day were able to do with such limited hardware.

This 8-bit music — or “chiptunes” as the sound is also known — may be the one video game related subculture you’ve never heard about. Built around the “bleeps” and “bloops” of video gaming’s Paleozoic era, the music has gained a following over the years among assorted hackers, gamers and musicians. It’s particularly large in Europe, where Micromusic.net sponsored music festivals have attracted upwards of 5,000 attendees. And in the United States, “the scene” also appears to be growing thanks to a number of factors including the diversity of its music, the hacker sensibility underlining the scene and nostalgia for old fashioned video gaming. […]

The Register also has an article on old hardware put to use where they mention the Dallas band TreeWave:

We were also informed about Dallas band TreeWave, which performs on two Commodore 64s, an Atari 2600, and an old Compaq luggable. The brains behind Treewave have also programmed Epson assembly language to use a dot-matrix printer as an instrument. […]

Using Commodore 64s is cool in itself, but a musical printer rates highly on the scale of geek cred. I may have to check out one of their shows sometime :). And as it turns out, they’re actually playing tonight at the Curtain Club with The Polyphonic Spree — I might otherwise be tempted to go, but I’ll be going to the DFWBlogs Cocktail Event this evening at the XPO Lounge.

From their newsletter, I’ve learned that Century Media is having a 20% off Halloween sale through midnight on Sunday (11/2/2003). For those not aware, Century Media is one of the foremost metal-specializing music labels. And, before you recoil from a “music label”, rest assured that they’re not members of the RIAA :).

Back in college, I used to muse about whether I preferred Century Media or Nuclear Blast as a record label (both were prominent metal labels of the time). But, Century Media bought Nuclear Blast a couple years back, so CM is now my one-stop metal emporium.

So, after checking reviews at Metal-Rules, I’ll probably stop by Century Media’s online store and pick up a few discs between today and tomorrow. And, with most of their discs already priced around $10-$12, the 20% off makes their prices even better.

A word of caution: last time I ordered from Century Media — which was admittedly back in February 2002 — their online store didn’t quite have their act together. At the time, I placed an order for about ten discs and it took about five to six weeks to get them all shipped to me.

And, it would have been one thing if they sent out an automated e-mail explaining that some of the titles were backordered, but they didn’t even bother with that. Still, it’s been about about eighteen months since then and I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe they’ve improved their methods.

I went to the Soler guitar recital on Saturday at the SMU Meadows Museum. It was a free concert and it was just held in one of the longer exhibition halls — the staff set up some chairs and the surrounding art gave a pleasant ambience to the recital.

I arrived at the museum around 2:30pm in order to ensure that I could get a good seat. Sure enough, I was able to get a second-row seat. And, with no one sitting in front of me, I had a clear view to the performer. The concert was scheduled to start at 3pm and it nearly did.

As 3:00 rolled around, there were a few introductory words by the organizers, including an introduction by the museum’s curator. At least, I’m guessing that it was an introduction — he spoke entirely in Spanish. I later read in the program that the concert was in commemoration of National Day of Spain, which explained both the Spanish introduction and the many Spanish-speakers in attendance.

After the introduction, Soler strolled in and took his seat. His seating arrangement was rather modest — his chair was the same as the audience chairs and his only peripheral was an angled foot-rest. After tuning his guitar, he began his set (all of which were by Spanish and South American artists).

I’ve always enjoyed classical guitar and Soler’s Spanish guitar was particularly pleasant. I was probably no more than three meters from him and I was able to appreciate his guitar technique as much as the music itself. In such a beautiful environment, the music seemed to just flow around me.

Most of my experience to classical guitar has been through CDs. So, I’m not sure if this is atypical, but Soler didn’t use a guitar pick but rather strummed the strings with his fingertips. More than that, Soler also used his guitar for percussive accompaniment — from time to time, he tapped and thumped on his guitar with the fingers and palm of his right hand. Impressively, he occasionally continued playing pizzicato with his left hand while adding the beat with his right hand.

The recital lasted about and hour and a half and Soler added about three encores after successive rounds of applause from the audience. After the show, he walked off stage to pack up his guitar (which really meant that he walked to an adjacent room in the gallery since there wasn’t actually a stage in the first place).

He seemed approachable and so I walked up to him and introduced myself. I didn’t want to take too much of his time, but I expressed to him how much I enjoyed his recital. He smiled graciously and thanked me for my comments (I’m not really sure if he spoke that much English).

In all, this was just what I needed for a Saturday afternoon. And, the price (which was free) was hard to beat. On my way out, there was a table setup selling some of his CDs and guitar tablature books. Considering that I paid him nothing for the concert, I was only too pleased to buy one of his CDs (if you’d like to hear a track, I’d be happy to send you an Ogg or MP3).

Last July, I went to the Meadows Museum at SMU for their Silver Sculptures exhibit. And, at the time, I signed up on their e-mail list for new events.

In their most recent mailing, I learned of a guitar recital on Saturday afternoon:

Guitar Recital
Saturday, October 11th
3:00 p.m.

“From Spain to Latin America” by Francesc de Paula Soler

Experience the Meadows Museum collection of Spanish art accompanied by the melodic, expressive sounds of “The Poet of the Guitar,” Francesc de Paula Soler. Hailed by critics around the world, Soler is considered by many to be the most notable name of the new Spanish guitar. He is currently touring the United States, while preparing his second CD, El Polifeno de Oro, a collection of Spanish music for vihuela and guitar.

Free • Seating is available on a first come, first served basis

I’m a fan of John Williams (the classical guitarist), and I wasn’t sure if this would be similar. But, I talked it over with Josh and he thought I’d enjoy it since Spanish guitar is a subset of classical guitar anyway.

So, I think I’ll try to make it to this. Feel free to join me — I’ll probably aim to get there around 2:30pm in order to ensure that I get a seat.

Josh mentions that KMFDM just released a new album last Tuesday, WWIII. I was surprised to hear this at first, since supposedly frontman Sascha Konietzko had disbanded the band back in 1999 (hence the title of that year’s album, Adios).

Then, as if to say “ha-ha, fooled you!”, Sascha reformed a new band, MDFMK (yes, that’s “KMFDM” backwards). Now, it’s not as if MDFMK was just a wolf in KMFDM’s clothing; it actually had a slightly different — yet distinct — sound from KMFDM. And, I still really enjoyed MDFMK’s sound.

So, apparently Sascha reformed KMFDM. And, I was most curious about how their new album would sound — whether it would resemble the KMFDM of old, or whether it would continue along the progression of MDFMK. Fortunately, there’re some album reviews on KMFDM’s WWIII page. And, though not actually a review, this interview in Rhino Magazine was especially helpful (the interview is on page 14/16 of the PDF).

I expected the interview to be mostly fluff, but it was surprisingly informative. Early in the interview, the interviewer asks “KMFDM’s sound has evolved with each album. How would you compare the sound of WWIII with previous work?” Aha, that’s just the question for which I wanted an answer! However, I was a bit dismayed as I started to read Sascha’s response:

Well I would say it’s definitely a departure from the techno influence in the Symbols and Adios times. […]

Uh-oh… I really liked the direction they were going with Symbols and Adios, so that bit made me a little uneasy. But, Sacha continued:

[…] If anything, it’s more connecting to the sound of Nihil — the aggressive, drum-heavy, guitar-heavy other stuff with less of the techno programming in it.

Ah, no worries! So maybe it’s not quite like their recent albums, but Nihil is still one of my favorites (if I recall, that’s the album which introduced me to the band). It looks like I’ll have to add WWIII to my list of CDs-to-buy (and I’ll keep a lookout for it at the local used CD stores, though I don't expect to really find it there).

Josh passes along Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music, an electronic music family tree. In this Flash-driven app, Ishkur illustrates the origins and derivations of what appears to be every electronic music sub-genre.

Looking over the genres — which could make for an amusing afternoon in itself — I was surprised to find genres that I didn’t even knew existed (“Psytekk”, anyone?). And, likewise, I wasn’t aware that Eurodance and Eurobeat were separate genres (the former is the parent genre of the latter).

One of the more amusing entries is for the catch-all genre “Not Trance”:

Let it be said that electronic music NEVER learns how to “leave the audience wanting more”. Instead, like a spoiled, immature little child, it shamelessly and greedily exploits any whiff of success it sees, to cartoonish extremes. Somehow, a mutant form of trance evolved from Epic evolved from Anthem drenched itself in the “should’ve been put to rest years ago” one-trick breakdown-build-anthem formula and senselessly driven it to new, insane levels of asinine. […]

I heard on Sirius Radio that Queensrÿche and Dream Theater are co-headlining for a tour together!

“Yes, the rumours are true!

“The tour package that progressive metal fans have dreamed about for over 10 years has finally come together for a US tour in July/August!

“Dream Theater and Queensryche will be joining forces for a co-headlining tour, each playing equal set lengths, and will be joined by very special guests Fates Warning.”

So far, there are confirmed dates for various cities in California, plus Detroit (in other words, nothing near this neck of the woods). But, should they schedule a tour stop around here, I’d be rather tempted.

It saddened me when Fear Factory split up in March (see also frontman Burton Bell’s statment on the breakup). However, it appears that the remaining three members may have reformed the band!

The reformed Fear Factory — now consisting of Christian Olde Wolbers (guitar/bass), Raymond Herrera (drums), and Burton C. Bell (vocals) — have posted for download 45-second samples of three cuts from their recently-recorded demo.

[…]

A fourth cut recorded during the same sessions, “Bite The Hand That Feeds”, was not made available for download, but is believed to be among the tracks planned for inclusion on the band's upcoming studio album, tentatively due in late 2003. […]

I’m trying to stay calm, but I’m pretty stoked about this :^0. I really enjoy Fear Factory’s metal-industrial sound and I own all of their albums (well, exept for their first, “Soul Of A New Machine”, which I found less refined than their later works).

Oh, and the “old Fear Factory” (as if reaching out of the grave) is releasing a new album of b-sides and remixes called Hatefiles on April 8 (cover art). (Props to the DJs on Sirius’ Metal channel for spreading the word on this Fear Factory info.)

Metallica is readying their next studio album, St. Anger, for release on June 10th (their first in five years). I haven’t cared for Metallica much since the Black Album days (though …And Justice For All may be my favorite), but they claim that they may be selling-in this time around:

The release of St. Anger on June 10th will bring fans the old Metallica from the early days before the Black Album. The album is said to have the same thrash metal vibe that gained them underground popularity in the mid ’80s. […]

I remain skeptical about that, but hopeful all the same. I’m sure that their songs will get airplay through their usual bribes to radio stations (as all major record labels do). So, I suppose I’ll at least have a chance to hear a few tracks before buying it.

I was listening to the Classic Rap channel on Sirius Radio (live audio feed here) yesterday. Somewhat with the same idea as “classic rock”, the classic rap channel plays tracks from rap of years past.

They play artists such as Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, and old-skool Beastie Boys. So, I was listening on my way downtown, and on comes the Sugerhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”. I was rather amused by the innocence and yet genuine humor of the lyrics:

Have you ever went over a friends house to eat
and the food just ain’t no good?
I mean, the macaroni’s soggy the peas are mushed
and the chicken tastes like wood.
So you try to play it off like you think you can
by sayin that you’re full.
And then your friend says “Momma, he’s just being polite
He ain’t finished. Uh uh, that’s bull”.
So your heart starts pumpin and you think of a lie
and you say that you already ate
and your friend says “Man, there’s plenty of food
so you pile some more on your plate”.
While the stinky food’s steamin’, your mind starts to dreamin’
of the moment that it’s time to leave.
And then you look at your plate and your chickens slowly rottin’
into something that looks like cheese.
Oh, so you say “That’s it, I got to leave this place.
I don’t care what these people think.
I’m just sittin here makin myself nauseous
with this ugly food that stinks.”
So you bust out the door while it’s still closed
still sick from the food you ate
and then you run to the store for quick relief
from a bottle of Kaopectate […]

I had heard parts of the song before from movies, but never before in full (what a treat). And, I’m even more amused just trying to imagine someone like Puff Daddy signing lyrics like those today ;).