The 1990s was a major decade for both video games, and the music industry. Hip-hop was beginning to take a substantial piece of the market away from rock and roll, and gamers were putting down their quarters and purchasing home video game systems. These two cultural forces meshed in the form of one of Nintendo's early releases for their Nintendo Entertainment System. Rick Ross: The Boss, was based on and co-created by rapper Rick Ross. Released in 1991 this title boasted some of the most advanced graphics and sound for its day. Each level was accompanied by an original, full-length song. Fitting 10 songs, the game logic, and graphics onto a 32 kilobyte cartridge is an amazing technological achievement. Sadly, the compression schemes used for the game were lost when Rick Ross Interactive Media closed its doors in 1996. For your nostalgic pleasure, I have dusted off my old cartridge and ripped a screenshot from level one, along with the theme song.

Level 1 - Miami

BeenCaughtTweetin

So one time a friend of mine posted the title of this song (with a G) to twitter. I dunno what it was about, but having been followed by random avatars for crimes as varied as mentioning zappos or some technology or another, I think I have some idea how she feels.

Having said that, I'm not really clear on what these words mean. As erf said, sometimes the first take really can't be improved upon, even if the words make more sense.

This song also features King Solomon on bass and drums by the way, so enjoy them!

Here is another one of my old video-game-style midis that I rerecorded with my current resources. I originally composed this about seven or eight years ago. About 5 years ago I tried to record a live instrument version with guitar, but it wasn't coherent at all. The recording here is my recent attempt that I made this weekend.

By nightfall, the hero wins the battle against the demonic horde with the aid of his trusty NPCs, but the battle is grueling and costly and it's beginning to look pretty hopeless for winning the war.  This piece would loop at dawn when the hero's hope is renewed and he begins a quest to find a way or afirm his righteousness  or something silly like that.

To break-down the arrangment:

there is a continous arpegio bell that is a sequenced synth. The Drums are essentially sequenced.

There are two main guitar tracks that overlap, and three other guitar overdubs for highlights. On all othe guitars i put on the thick Tracktion chorus filter for that eighties, fantasy sound.

The lead is played on my piano with the same Mellotron flute samples I've used before in other tracks.

morning

On the Hella Gems email list we've talked about how the posts have started to dry up around here, so I'm unilaterally going to double my output on Tuesdays. Having made this decision rather recently, I threw this song together yesterday. It does not really traverse much new ground for me, and by and large I don't see it as a very successful piece except in parts, but that's the risk you take writing and posting more quickly. It's all about letting go of that need to "finish" something endlessly until you finally either finish it into the ground or give up on it entirely.

The instrumentation is pretty similar to last week... piano, drums, vocals... this time some guitar, which I struggled to fit in there without overwhelming the rest (except for when it needed to overwhelm things). I did some sort of bizarre heavy metal bass drum thing at the end, which I tried to sync up with on the bass and guitar. Thankfully, I recorded this piano demo with vocal to a click this time. It does make things much easier when you overdub the other parts later. Sorry to get you excited if you saw "Brick Wall" and thought this would be an electronic orgy with a brick wall limiter.

I did manage to get feedback going with a software simulated amp, which basically required me to turn up the monitoring while I was recording the guitar. I was pleased with how well it worked.

As usual, improvised vocals, so don't try to listen to closely. Pretend it is in a language you don't understand. That's how I love my J-Pop.

download mp3

download (7.1 MB)

After Michael Jackson died, my inclination was to do the same sort of thing that Bill did, which is to record either an MJ cover or a dance song in that sort of vein. As usual, my braggart inclinations gave way instead to introspection, so I started tinkling on the piano instead. Eventually I remembered this song, which is one that I had written two years ago for a concept album that was never finished.

The subject matter of the album was the rise and fall of a boxer, and this song was going to be the last song of the cycle, chronicling the end of his career, as the fans have gone away and his body is no longer capable of the fears needed to regain them. With both the positive and negative lights being shone about as bright as they can on Michael Jackson, doing this song seemed appropriate.

In any case, I had many of the elements of this arrangement lying in my head for quite a long time, and their recording was almost accidental, since I recorded the initial piano and vocal without a click, hence the floating drums and other instruments not quite being in time with one another.

There is actually 60% actual lyrics in this song, mostly the 1st verse and the chorus/bridge bits. Everything else was a first take piled upon another first take:

Piano/Vocal -> Drums -> Bass -> Strings -> Backing Vocal on the Bridge

Thanks to Bill for nudging me to post this as is.

The title came from seeing this memorial at Oakland Cemetery:

At first I thought the lion was only sleeping, but no, the lion was dead.