The Music of PAX Part II
In my ultimate quest to have the most fun at PAX that I can, I continue to research the bands that will be playing the concert series each night! I love me some good video game and video game inspired music, so I’m eager to check out the tunes of people who I’m honestly not too familiar with. I looked at the bands that will be playing the Friday night concert last blog post (Bit Brigade, Mega Ran, and The Protomen) and now let’s take a look at Saturday and Sunday’s line-up!
Saturday Night
Hideo is a story expressed through both musical and dramatic performance—a “theatrical concert.” Over a dozen pieces of music have been selected from venerable Japanese animated series and video games and weaved into a cohesive whole to inspire a new story: the tale of the reckless young hero, a mysterious traveler, and the dark secret that ties them together.
A pair of sisters — Angela and Aubrey Webber — who sing about Dungeons & Dragons, dinosaurs, and Mr. Darcy. They play cello and ukulele. They have been called snarky, geeky, and sweet. Their latest album, Lasers & Feelings, includes songs about Mars Curiosity, meeting people on the Twitter, and their emotions. The Doubleclicks tour the country regularly, playing at game stores, comic shops, and conventions, and have shared bills with Jonathan Coulton, Paul and Storm and Wil Wheaton.
Damian Hess better known by his stage name MC Frontalot, is a Brooklyn-based hip hop musician and self-proclaimed “world’s 579th greatest rapper”. He is best known in nerdcore hip hop and video game culture, for naming the nerdcore subgenre, and performing at Penny Arcade’s annual Penny Arcade Expo. Hess graduated from Wesleyan University in 1996 with degrees in English and Electronic Music.
Sunday Night
Steve met Sam back in 2007 at a local coffee shop he was performing at with a mutual friend. After seeing Sam’s incredible classical skills, Steve knew the two of them had to start making music. After their first jam session together you could tell the two of them just clicked. They’ve been playing together ever since. Not only do they both love making video game covers, they have been working on many original songs, which they plan to share further down the road.
Call it nerdcore. Geek music. Whatever. Adam WarRock raps about the comics, TV, movies, video games, and culture that he loves and makes it personal. His story is one of do-it-yourself, independent determination, having gone from a humble website to a full-time music career. Having tapped into the current culture, he’s caught attention from the biggest figures and sites on the web. Whether being personally cited by Nathan Fillion for his Firely-inspired Browncoats Mixtape, praised by TV critics and cast members for his Parks & Rec EP, or made fans out of artists and writers for his comic book-influenced music, he’s gained the respect of the most fickle audiences and harshest critics around.
100% of Supercommuter’s music is written while creeping along State Road 520, in the peak moments of rush hour traffic in the Pacific Northwest. Electronic guru Stenobot composes beats on a classic Game Boy while nestled in the comfort of a King County Metro bus. Optimus Rhyme’s Wheelie Cyberman downloads these compositions and adds words while piloting a Prius toward an ever-present ergonomic chair.
The individual components are pieced together and infused with continuity by Tron Juan, and the outcome is the music of Supercommuter.
I’m really not sure on this one! There’s a band called SuperGiant with a channel called SuperGiantRock on Youtube. Their music seems pretty good, but there’s no link from the PAX site… so when they say “our friends Supergiant” it could also be people from the game company. Anything’s possible… but here’s a song from SuperGiantRock
The Verdict
Tough to say! The problem with the concerts is that there are lectures happening simultaneously that also have my interest. I’m also likely to be tired and crabby by night time and will likely want to not stay out too late given that there will be stuff starting at 10am that I want to go to. Hey, it’s how I roll.
I like the sounds of Supercommuter and Super Guitar Bros, so I would be intrerested in the Sunday night concert series… but maybe Sunday night will actually end up as a great time for some Sprixel synching since Matt and I are both interested three lectures in a row that will be happening concurrently including: Awesome Video Game Data, How Games are Art, and The Worst of the Worst,
The Saturday night concert doesn’t really feel that appealing to me. I may just end up using that evening as some downtime.
It looks like Friday Night may be my go-to session. Both MegaRan and The Protomen have my attention, but I’ll likely be missing out on Bit Brigade while attending the PAX10 Panel.