Michael's Texas Embrace

Well, yesterday was my birthday. I'm 27 now. That seems like a lot. It was a pretty good birthday, though. Maggie got me a new distortion pedal (mine has been dead for years), a jaw harp (which scares me a little), and a gameboy. The gameboy is one of the old, big, gray, brick-like gameboys from waaaay back in 1989. It looks like this:


Why would any sane, modern gamer want one of these? The dot-matrix screen is hard to see. It's big and clunky. Newer gameboys can play the games that this one does, but this one can't play any newer games. Also, I have a DS. But this old gameboy has the best bass, and a warmer sound tone over all. You know, it's got that sweet 4-bit sound with that wicked 11 khz (or something like that) sample playback. Why did we even go on to make fancier sound chips? To this day, no one knows.

We went and spent more money on sushi than we've ever spent. It was wicked-sweet. I wish I was still eating sushi, 28 hours later. Sure, I'd be bloated or vomiting or passing out by now, but it would totally be worth it. Then some cool cats came over and we played games and drank into the wee hours of the morn. I am pleased.

I haven't posted in a while, I realize. I've just been working and reading, etc. I haven't recorded much music. But I'm kind of working towards and new musical dream. That is, to combine my bedroom toy orchestra/lame-ass indie rock with the sweet sounds of lo-fi video game music. And any time you're working toward something new I guess there's a pause while you learn and figure stuff out. But now I've got my gameboy and I've got a demo to show. This isn't a finished thing, but it's a good start, and I think it's beginning to come together.

I Fall Asleep and Wake up in the Underground Forest. (this song has been removed. Listen to the finished version on the Aug 19th post.)

I'm still figuring out how to compose on the gameboy, and how to get everything on there, but you'll get the idea. The gameboy puts out stereo sound, which I use, so headphones might be pleasing. I meant to put up some demos with my melodica and the glockenspiel, but never did. So you can hear them on here in the later half of the song (it's not done so it fades out.) Composing on the gameboy is like using old midisoft. That is, it's all one note at a time. And the interface is weird, on that tiny olive-colored screen. But for authentic video game sound, you really have to do it with a video game system. Because damnit, you're a nerd and you deserve the nerdiest.