Lost Levels interview with Gamesblog on Guardian Unltd. AKA Call To Arms!

Lost Levels is a nerd-rock band that is being hailed as the Pink Floyd for the Nintendo generation, and, after sending a copy of their EP to Keith Stuart of the Gamesblog on Guardian.co.uk, are beginning to be noticed as a player of video game influenced music.
While short, the interview is a good example of outside media taking attention to Nerdcore culture, and while I haven’t heard Lost Levels, the fact that a lesser known band can send out their EP and get noticed bodes well for the more hardcore acts that perform at shows like blipfest and MAGfest.

So! Do your part for our community! get an account at guardian.co.uk and post a comment about OCReMix, RKO, VGMusic.com, R:TS, 8bitpeoples, Hellven, VGMix, the SID music archive (the HVSC), and anything else you can think of!

The gamesblog on the Gaurdian
The Lost Levels’ MySpace

Staff Member(s) Wanted

Sakari has a need for more staff members. However the staff members we need right now are not musicians, but from other areas.

Check out this link for more information:
http://www.sakari-infinity.net/opportunities
What I’m really, really looking for right now is a Site Coordinator.
Someone who can be in charge of site content, official emails and
newsletters, some event coordination, and redirecting hate mail to our
good friends at Microsoft. (Note: We don’t get hate mail)

I’m
looking to turn this site into something nicer than what it is, and as
hard as we try, we staff members are only musicians with naught the
skill set needed for this position. It’d be a real perk for this person
to live in Maryland, but it’s definitely not required in the least.

This position comes with the following:

  • Full access to the Staff forums
  • An email account
  • Access to parts of the Admin site
  • Other items to be discussed upon decision


The other position, Asst. Web Developer,
is an experimental position. I’d like to test it out to see how it
works, but I foresee an interesting outcome. The catch? This person has
to be able to keep up with me, thus the high-set requirements for the position.

It’d
be best if this person were in a similar geographic location as me, but
not required – though it will be tough to convince me if I can’t meet
with you face-to-face.

This position comes with the following:

  • Full access to the Staff forums
  • An email account
  • Full access to parts of the Admin site
  • FTP Access to the site
  • Other items to be discussed upon decision


If you know someone or are interested, please let me or another staff member know. Cool

Eminence returns to Sydney and Melbourne

Playing since 2003 and appearing last December in ‘Passion’, Eminence has announced a new game music concert in the form of ‘A Night in Fantasia: Symphonic Games Edition‘. Not only featuring music from such game franchises as The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid, Eminence founder Hiroaki Yura has mentioned that 80-90% of the pieces to be played are live world premieres. Such music may include themes from the recently released Zelda: Twilight Princess or fan favourite Katamari Damacy.
Big names composers
are set to return to the showings for a free meet and greet, such as
Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger) and Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy
XII), as well as new attendees Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts), Junichi
Nakatsuru (Soul Calibur) and Masaru Shiina (Tales of Legendia).

A Night in Fantasia will be playing on the 20th and 21st at the Town Hall in Sydney and the 27th at the Hamer Hall in Melbourne.

RPM Challenge: Make an album in February

It’s a bit late in the month to be posting this, but I just found it myself. The RPM (“Record Production Month”) Challenge isn’t a competiton, but “[the] point is they get busy and stop waiting around for the muse to appear. Get the gears moving. Do something.”
There are a few restrictions: the album has to be completely recorded in February (of this year), there’s a minimum of 35 minutes or 10 tracks, and entries must be put on CD and mailed in (postmarked by March 1st). You can read the full details here.

RIAA Claims CDs Priced Unfairly Cheap

Apparently, the RIAA thinks that we (the consumers) are paying too little for CDs from their representative artists/labels. (Brought to my attention thanks to Slashdot, thanks guys).
The original article is by Ben Woods of Whas11.com, targetting a webpage set up nearly four years ago attempting to mislead consumers into believing that CDs should have cost 33 dollars in 1996. Unfortunately, this is an arbitrary number that is meant to loom large because the RIAA thinks we are dumb. Thankfully, mathematics were an integral part of my education and with a little digging, I found the initial MSRP of the compact disc in 1983 was $16.98 [1], and with a 60% increase in price over the next thirteen years, would come to nearly $27 dollars, a difference which definitely leads one to question even more the validity of the RIAA’s argument. Mr. Woods comes to a similar deduction, simply guessing at initial prices and shoving them through the CPI (Consumer Price Index) calculator until he got the answer he was looking for.

Original Article on Whas11.com by Ben Woods
Slashdot
Techdirt
RIAA’s “Cost of a CD page”
Bureau of Labour Statistical Data (with the CPI Calculator)
[1] Early History of Oldies CDs

OLRmageddon Month Two Competition

OverLooked ReMix is now accepting submissions for February’s OLRmageddon competition! This month’s theme is “Games From 1998”. Mixers also get bonus points if their mix contains rapping. We are looking forward to submissions from eager newcomers as well as old favorites. This competition is open to mixers from all remix communities.
This Month’s Official Thread: http://olremix.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6818

Official Rules: http://olremix.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6603

Mixing ends Friday, Feb. 23rd, 12AM EST

Happy mixing and good luck!

Tanaka: No Chrono in Development

Jeux-France recently interviewed Hiromichi Tanaka, the producer of Chrono Cross, concerning several projects at Square Enix. To summarize, the news is that it’s currently too difficult to reunite key personnel involved with the Chrono series to try and develop a new game. Here’s hoping to Masato Kato and buddies getting back together (and getting the hell away from Mana) to make something new. Please click read more for Tanaka’s comments on the Chrono series.

Q: I know you’ve worked on Chrono Cross. There are a lot of fans of
this game even here in France where it wasn’t released, so could we
expect to see a sequel, one day?

(Tanaka takes a huge breath when he hears the translation, then he
laughs a little bit, as if he had been expecting the question or
something…)

A: Well, the problem with Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger is that, the
Chrono series is what it is because we always had a very particular
team to develop it. Chrono Trigger is kind of the “game of the miracle”
because it was a period when great creators like Akira Toriyama and
others were available at that moment, and that’s how the game could be
made. And for Chrono Cross it’s the same thing. The producer for Chrono
Cross who is now the scenario writer for Secret of Mana 4[see note 1],
the producer for Chrono Cross who was Mr Kitase[see note 2] who is now
very busy on the Final Fantasy games since the VII or VIII… And so
this means that it’s very difficult to be able to reunite the original
team, to be able to make a sequel to the Chrono series… Simply
because if we don’t try to reunite these people but take other people
instead, we will find ourselves at that point with a game which will
feel different, since there would be different persons in charge and we
would possibly lose the Chrono spirit, if we make a sequel that way.

Q: So for the moment it’s a no?

A: As of now, there is no sequel planned.

[Note 1] Unless Tanaka slipped and accidentally revealed the name of a
new, still top-secret project or something, the interpreter is probably
referring to Seiken Densetsu 4 alias Dawn of Mana, which has just been
released in Japan. And of course, the scenario writer referred to is
Masato Kato, who was not producer for Chrono Cross (that’s Tanaka right
here!) but director.
[Note 2] Yes, the interpreter says “producer for Chrono Cross” twice,
he made a little mix-up. Kitase was co-producer for Chrono Trigger, not
Cross. I think Tanaka also mentioned in Japanese the name of one of the
other co-producers for Trigger, Tokita, but the translator just said
Kitase. Don’t criticize him, it’s hard to translate Japanese to French
orally with all those names and functions!

~

Well, if you have ideas for supporting the development of a new Chrono game without resorting to
the “WTF SE SUX, WARE IS CRONO I MAEK PETITION” attitude, give the Compendium a ring.

Thanks to MasamuneCyrus for bringing this to attention and Chrono’99 for translating.