DarqByte

I posted awhile back about Ronald Jenkees… Yeah, it was a short post basically telling you to go out and check his stuff out.

Well, his second CD, Disorganized Fun, came out at the end of July. I can’t believe I missed it for basically three weeks, but I got it earlier this week. It is awesome. The stuff awesome is made of. Seriously. I thought his first CD was pretty good, but his second effort is truly great.

Disorganized Fun

The first five tracks comprise probably one of the most tremendous opening five I’ve heard on any CD. The CD as a whole is one of the best and most complete I’ve ever listened to. I’m serious. His stuff is really that good.

My favorite track from Disorganized Fun is Throwing Fire, while Guitar Sound is really awesome as well… It doesn’t hurt that it’s a longer track too, which I always love to have when it comes to excellent sounds and riffs. The title track, Disorganized Fun, opens the CD and it’s very strong too. Stay Crunchy is a pretty strong track too.

The only downside on this CD for me is the rap songs. I know he has a lot of fun with them and they can be fun, but I think his non-lyrical music is far superior. But that’s just my 2 cents. Hell, there was even a track on For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge that I didn’t like, and that’s the best album of all time as far as I’m concerned…

Robert Entertainment, Music ronald jenkees

Alright, so this blog post title is referencing the infamous Leeroy Jenkins…

But actually, you should go check our Ronald Jenkees (and here’s his MySpace). He’s an electronic music artist, and I really, really like his stuff. His YouTube videos are pretty funny and good to jam to as well. I just bought his first album and it’s pretty sweet. The new stuff that will be on his second album sound even better than the first.

Robert Music electronic music, electronica, hip-hop, ronald jenkees, techno

To those that know me, this is not old news. Laura and I have different bands we hold as our favorites. For Laura, it’s The Beatles. For me, it’s Van Halen.

There was a time when I tried to convince Laura that Van Halen was far superior to The Beatles. Well, they are. But I don’t try to convince her any more. All she does is bring out sales figures and the number of bands that say The Beatles influenced them. I’d counter with things like how many bands said Van Halen influenced them and that The Beatles came first, so you can’t judge sales figures.

Of course, The Beatles influenced Van Halen. But that doesn’t make them better. The Beatles probably had influences too, but that doesn’t make the influences better than The Beatles now does it?

But I’m not here to argue the point much. I’m here to point you to an article about two video games coming out this fall. Well, you don’t really need to read the article, I’ll summarize.

Just about everybody knows about Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The two mega-popular rhythm games based on guitar-based bands. Well, for some time now Guitar Hero has been rolling out band-specific versions of their game. Aerosmith and Metallica have already come. Rock Band hasn’t done the same.

Well, recently Rock Band announced they were developing a Beatles-specific version of their game. Naturally, Laura was super-excited and we’ll have to get it eventually (hopefully our existing equipment will work well with it).

And now there are rumors that Guitar Hero will finally release a Van Halen-based game. That’s only natural progression, right? Using Van Halen, one of the greatest guitar-based bands ever, in a game that features the guitar more than any other? Makes sense.

And the kicker? It looks like the Van Halen game is being developed and deployed at the same time as the Beatles game to combat it. How could it get any better for Laura and me? Now our bands battle can continue in video games!

But I still won’t quote sales numbers for the games to determine which is better. I could make guesses as to why which game would sell more, such as:

• Van Halen because the band is better
• Van Halen because it’s based on the Guitar Hero franchise, and it almost always outsells Rock Band
• The Beatles because Rock Band has never released a band-specific game
• Or, one of the games is far and above better than the other and is more enjoyable to play

Let the throwdown begin!

Robert Entertainment, Music, Musings, Video Games guitar hero, rock band, the beatles, van halen

Just curious, but have you noticed my recent penchant for plays on words, etc. in my blog post titles? Well done if you have. That means you’re probably reading my blog relatively often! Huzzah!

So anyway, on to the real reason I’m posting: I think techno is growing on me.

In recent posts I’ve been mentioning Need For Speed: Undercover, and as with all of EA’s NFS games, it’s got a selection of commercial music that plays during races and while you’re just driving around the city.

EA’s brought in cool songs before in their NFS games. The popular Black Betty cover by Spiderbait was in Need For Speed: Underground 2, and I ended up getting that one. I think there might have been a good track or two in Need For Speed: Most Wanted as well. I don’t think I got any from Need For Speed: Carbon, though.

In any case, there were two songs in Need For Speed: Undercover that I liked enough to download on iTunes. The first song is Supergrass’ Bad Blood and the second is Justice’s track Genesis from their Cross album.

While the first one is cool, it’s not techno, which is obviously the point I’m even writing this post. The second one… Is cool. I think parts of it have been used in some recent automobile commercials. In any case, you should hop online and listen to it’s preview on iTunes or find a way to listen to it. Very funky, very cool.

As a result of this song, I’m thinking of getting the rest of the album it is on. Every time I hear the song, I want to hear what’s coming after it on the album, since the songs blend together and it’s the first song on the album.

Another song that’s come around recently is the one used in the new Geico commercials. It’s Mysto & Pizzi’s cover of Rockwell’s Somebody’s Watching Me. As soon as the new Geico commercials started coming out, I thought the snippet they were playing in the commercials was pretty good. Eventually, I evolved to dancing to it when Laura was home just to make her laugh. But it’s a cool thing to dance to, actually. Since Geico was offering that song for free on their website, I download it too.

Thus, these two songs have convinced me that techno is growing on me. Again, really, because I used to listen to it a little more when I was younger. So I guess I’m rediscovering it a little bit with some newer material.

I better be careful though, I may turn into Louie Traub! Ahh!

Robert Music, Musings electronic music, electronica, techno