Gorgonzola Cheese!

I love music gizmos and don’t blog enough about them.  This is what I’d like for Christmas please:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hELTtsBRie4

Buy it here

I’m still working on getting the next big post up. In the meantime, enjoy this music video by Capsule. Their style used to be very Shibuya-kei (think Pizzicato 5 and early Fantastic Plastic Machine).  But like Fantastic Plastic Machine, they have evolved into more electro-house in recent years.  The song is called “Retro Memory” and available on their 2004 album, Sound Furniture.

external link to video for facebook users

I’ve been painstakingly trying to learn how to play piano for the past year anticipating the moment where I’m sitting at some old timey eating establishment minding my own business when an old crooner from the live band suddenly announces that the keyboardist has been injured and they will have to cancel the show unless there’s anyone in the audience who can fill in.  Like physicians on airplanes, the 2 keyboardists next to me will suddenly get very quiet and avoid any eye contact and then I will rise up to the occasion, a la Marty McFly, and meticulously plink out the keys to the theme of Dr. Wiley’s Castle stage from Mega Man 2 while the band jams along with me and we ROCK OUT.  Until that happens, here’s a guy with actual talent named Ronald Jenkees. There’s no telling if this guy is some Rain Man-esque savant or a classically trained musician fooling the world. Either way, I love how he can play so fluidly and freely and genuinely looks like he’s having the greatest time doing it.

I was reminded of this song the other day and thought I’d share it since it’s a big part of my childhood and probably why I enjoy trippy cartoons, pinball, and have problems counting above 12.  The Pinball Number Count made its debut on Sesame Street in 1977 and was recorded by Oakland’s The Pointer Sisters.

There is an excellent remix by DJ Food on Ninjatune’s Solid Steel Presents Sesame Street.

This cover of Europe’s The Final Countdown using a kazoo, ukelele, and keyboard hybrid made my day. I’d start my magic tricks illusions with this performance any day.

via Reddit

Here’s an excellent cover of Daft Punk’s “Something About Us.” It’s done by Randy George via Reddit.

He’s using a Nintendo DS with Jam Sessions (known as Hiite Utaeru DS Guitar M-06 originally in Japan), a Moog theremin (I had no idea that Moog even made theremins!), and vocoder and keyboard powered by Ableton Live.

Randy George Cover:

Original “Something About Us” Music Video:

So I was cooking juicy steaks today and enjoying my day off by remembering what Independence Day is all about: to commemorate the day that Will Smith saved the world from aliens back in ‘96.  Remember when he punched one in the head?  That was outstanding.  He even saved us again from zombie/vampire things in December last year, which I think is probably the reason why people celebrate Christmas.

Well I offer a 4th of Julyish tip that may improve your life as it has exponentially changed mine forever and even made me want to post about it.

My tip is how to get those coals on fire in your grill without lighter fluid.  If you are a manly man, you know that the only way to start a fire is by polishing the bottom of a Coke can with a chocolate bar to reflect the sun into highly focused beam of light to ignite your coals (this method is actually doable as shown in episode 45 of the Mythbusters). But I’m really lazy and want to light things as fast as possible.  Usually I just pile the coals into a pyramid and then give them a healthy Homer Simpson dousing of lighter fluid and toss a match at it and hope my eyebrows don’t get burned off.  This usually takes a couple tries to get it going, doesn’t light all the coals evenly, and makes my food taste sorta funny.  So the secret tip of the day is to use a Charcoal Chimney instead.

I picked one up at Target for about 7 bucks today and filled the bottom of it with about 4 sheets of wrinkled newspaper.  Then I filled the rest of it to the top with charcoal, lit the newspaper from the bottom, walked away and played some Katamari Damacy (which was on sale last week on Amazon for $9.99).  When I came back 15 minutes later, the coals were bright red and I was just amazed how quick and simple it was.  I owe this tip to my bro-in-law after seeing him miraculously make a fire in mere minutes using a charcoal chimney to start a fire to cook delicious Korean galbi.

I apologize if I might be the last person on Earth to know about using charcoal chimneys so bear with me if you already know this and pretend you just read something new and interesting and act surprised.

As a personal note, I know I haven’t updated this site in over 2 months.  So I think I owe all of you an explanation.  I’m sorry but it’s sorta a long story but my life recently got flipped upside down.  So if you have a minute, just sit right there and I’ll tell you how I became the Prince of Bel Air.  In West Philadelphia born and raised, on the playground is where I spent most of my days.  Chillin’ out, maxin’, relaxin’, all cool.  And all shootin’ some b-ball outside of the school.  When a couple of guys, who were up to no good.  Started makin’ trouble in my neighborhood.  I got in one little fight and my mom got scared.  And said, “You’re movin’ with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air.”

Last Saturday, I attended the Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy concert in Chicago. I was impressed by the turnout since the crowd was made up of all kinds of people young and old. I saw a couple dressed as a Red Mage/White Mage combo, an Advent Children Cloud cosplayer, as well as a young woman dressed up as Edea from Final Fantasy VIII. Besides that, I saw mostly normal people who looked like they were dressed up to go see the opera. And boy did we did get to see opera that night.

As we all sat at our seats waiting for the show to begin, a man surrounded by a Japanese entourage walked into the room to sit about 20 seats away in the same row as us. The entire room stood up in respect and started applauding furiously. This man was none other than Nobuo Uematsu, the composer for all the music from the Final Fantasy series.

It started off with some music from Final Fantasy VIII. 3 large projector screens were hung above the symphony displaying FMV and in-game footage from the games. They proceeded to play music from every Final Fantasy game from the series, even FFXI. One of my favorites was a jazzy swing interpretation of the Chocobo theme called “Swing de Chocobo.” Here’s YouTube footage of it from another Final Fantasy concert:

For another song, “Maria and Draco,” they brought out 3 opera singers to do the opera scene from Final Fantasy VI.

The opera song from FFVI was supposed to be the last song for the night, but they came out for an encore, which happened to be my favorite song from all the Final Fantasy games, “Terra’s Theme” from Final Fantasy VI.

The crowd went nuts and yelled for another encore. That’s when the conductor came back out and played everyone’s favorite, “One Winged Angel,” from Final Fantasy VII with Advent Children scenes playing in the background and a full choir singing along.

It was an excellent show and definitely worth watching, especially since Uematsu-san was the special guest of the night. I have never seen young people get so excited to go see a symphony. During “One-Winged Angel,” one attendee stood up and started pumping his fist in the air to the music like it was punk concert. For those that are interested, you can check out the CD of Distant Worlds when they performed in Stokholm, Sweden here. If it ever comes back to Chicago, I’ll definitely go see it again and next time I’m putting on my robe and wizard hat.