What I am doing now

Aside from trying to integrate STUFF with this site, which seems to have been accomplished, I am working on my remix of The Evenings for their forthcoming remix compilation.

Their website lets you pan the music playing in the background left or right according to your preference. I can't see how this is useful unless you either have one ear, or your speakers are set up really badly.

As the track I received (Pure Breakfast) is probably best described as "a steadily increasing torrent of noise," the process is proving somewhat challenging. Challenging, but hopefully rewarding for you, the listener.

More Zak McKraken Music Fun

Vogel was kind enough to send me the exact Zak McKraken remix used in his video - it is by a man who goes under the pithy name of Plasm, and I am hosting it here.

If you would like more from the lovely Plasm, then you can head over to Kwed and look at this.

I Am Giant - Big Speakers - wickywickywicky

Thank you to everyone who turned up to I Am Giant tonight to see myself, Jo from The As Yet-Unnamed Band, and the Big Speakers.

You can listen to their output here. They meld a chaotic, mad, shouty drunk-uncle-at-a-wedding MCing style with ridiculously overblown machismo and are thoroughly good value.

Si the Promoter is a true hero for putting on a very strange band night above some kind of show involving legendary TV chef Keith Floyd which was allegedly occuring elsewhere in the venue. There is little else which can be said.

Nervous Testpilot Meets "Vogel" - The LucasArts Speedrunning Man

"SVGA Bigfoot Watch" looked likely to take Game of the Year.

What drives an otherwise perfectly normal man to an insane frenzy of LucasArts speedrunning? “Vogel” has now secured his place in internet lore with his strange behaviour (people at university even recognise him from the videos), he has left certain sectors of the world asking simply, “Why?”

It was my pleasure to put this penetrating and vitally important question to him, as well as a whole cluster of completely asinine ones.

"OK, scented candles and emulators are SO out."

"I don't want to make the people think I'm a freak,” says Vogel, about his evident immersion in game culture, “but when you're listening to music from fifteen-year-old games and painting pictures of Guybrush, Day of the Tentacle and so on, you pretty much have to love that shit, don't you?

“I started playing Maniac Mansion with some friends back in 1990 at the age of ten and I can remember that we had serious problems solving the game, it nearly took us five months to finish. Until 2000 I kept on playing every adventure game I could get, but since then there’s been a big gap. I guess Monkey Island 4 somehow stopped me playing these games. The earlier games provided the player with a ‘real’ story and character interaction; the music was great too, and all the games have great tunes that created a cool atmosphere.”

Despite becoming jaded with the state of the games industry, Vogel found another way of satisfying his lust for more of the pointing and the clicking through messing around with a camera:

“It happened totally by chance. I found that function on my camera to create interval recordings, like 1/2 second recording every minute. I filmed it combined with a clock and had a time attack. Voila.”

With his gaming partner Jörn (him of the “I’m With A Nerd” sign) he’s created about six other videos in the same mould. But what of the future? At the moment, he’s into TrackMania Sunrise and Farenheit, but his video output might take a new direction: “I want to create a video of how to paint favourite computer game scenes or characters in acrylic on a canvas. This is the next thing to do. But, hey, maybe I should do a KingsQuest and SpaceQuest time attack!”

Despite his new-found fame he still continues to protest normality: “I'm a pretty normal guy. No superduper hardcore gamer.”

Vogel would like to thank everybody “who got to this point of the interview” and invites the reader to offer him feedback and suggestions - vogel@mx23.de

Zak McKracken PC speaker devastation and Manhunter

I was trawling for the mix of the Zak Mckracken music used in Vogel's speedrunning video when I discovered this totally bananas version by Sebastian Steger, who resides here. It's like someone gently pushing a tone generator into your ear at a rave in 1993, just when you weren't expecting it.

I have asked Vogel for an interview about his speedrunning antics, and I would also like to take this opportunity to double-dare him to speedrun Manhunter and Manhunter 2, two of the most annoying point-and-clicks ever devised.

Guy plays 12 adventure games in 24 hours

If you love classic adventure games, and classic Lucasarts adventure games in particular, then you'll undoubtedly relish this video. I love the music, especially the glitch version of one of the Monkey Island themes.

EDIT: Here's an earlier, slightly less extreme version, featuring only three titles:

Profoundest Irony of the Day Award goes to the man filming himself speedrunning Zak Mckracken and the Alien Mindbenders whilst wearing an "I'm With A Nerd" sign:

That's a bit like a member of the Pussy Cat Dolls wearing a sign that says "I'm with the ugly girls."

Vogel, the man in this video described by some wit on GrumpyGamer as looking like he's "straight out of '92," informs me that this version of the Monkey Island music is deployed at one point during the video. The people resposible seem to be ubiquitous game remix lunatics PressPlayOnTape, and this MP3 has a great kind of spaz-out General Midi accordion section and crowd whooping.

An interview with Vogel is all up in here.

It's been done before - stupid Mario Theme thing

Although everyone in the entire world has heard the Mario Theme played in about a million different guises, this version by the LSO has a kind of very silly charm to it.

Nailbombcults

This man will also be supporting Mr. Handchop himself on Sunday and therefore, as I mentioned before, I predict noise.

You should probably check this out for an example of the kind of broken filth he frequently produces.

I am planning to keep things melodic at the weekend to avoid beheading too many onlookers with rogue 909 hi-hats, but I'm sure the other two couldn't care less about that.

It's back

Yes, my laptop is back with me, but it needs major surgery, so I'll be forced to suspend gigging after Christmas for a couple of months in order for parts to be ordered and so forth.

A gig for the 23rd of December in Oxford has been mentioned, so you'll probably have had enough of me by then anyway.

Oh boy

Wheatsheaf on Sunday should be "full-on", especially due the presence of lively upstart Nailbombcults, but there is some doubt about exactly what is going to happen.

I have been promised my laptop back.

Let me say this again - Millennium Music have promised me my laptop back in a working state by Friday so I can prepare. I trust them, because they are a nice company, and if they break their promise my trust in them will be utterly violated.

So, now you know that if Paul Soulsby from Trademark plays horrible sounds on his new drum machine for 30 minutes in my slot, there is someone to blame.