Creative: The Making of the Layton Album

Art by AdamOne (the 3rd) Cartwright

The creation of the album we've dubbed Professor Layton & the Bay Harbor Butcher was an adventure, a trial in the face of extreme adversity, and an experience of personal growth for those involved. Though extremely cliché, these words are nothing short of truth. It's hard for me to recall many of the specific details, they were extensive, but I’ll do my best to convey them here. Some time back in November, 2011, after Juja and I had recovered from making Pixel Glass, gone on tour, and got back to our regular lives, we starting entering into Dwelling of Duels again, making tracks for the sole purpose of entering into the contest and becoming better musicians in the process. We never did particularly well, but it was a lot of fun and over the next year or so Juja had the idea to make a Layton vs Dexter themed song for one of the site's regular "free month" contests. I forget exactly why but there were a lot of delays involved with arranging the song, and somewhere through the process, perhaps in early/mid 2012, we thought it would be cool to maybe make an album based on that song concept. Being a bit over-excited, I had the artwork made the next week by my friend Adam, while Juja and I put together a list of the songs we wanted to record. 

We originally intended it to be sort of a "best/worst of Dwelling of Duels entries, plus the Dexter vs Layton song", but the more time we put into arranging the Dexter song, the more months of DoD we entered (which took away from arranging the title track), and the more track ideas Juja and I had for recording and including on the album... We just sort of had a bunch of fun ideas of “oh, let’s do this”, which is how we normally operate, and worked towards recording those songs, quickly bringing an 8 track album to 17 tracks, to 20. It didn't help that Juja was also helping me record tracks for original songs I was working on as well. We were busy guys, just having fun putting together music, learning more about recording techniques with each passing month. At one point I got Juja a better interface so he wouldn't have to record with a 3 second delay, and got myself a really nice headset so I could get an accurate feel for the music we were mixing. I also learned how to program drums, making my first attempt on a Puzzle Theme, but eventually getting pretty alright at it. I also learned a lot about editing, pitch correction, and mixing/mastering while experimenting on this project over the years.

Picture of the 36 hour recording rig

Somewhere in early 2012 I got really depressed for 6 months and stopped working on music altogether (except for shows with RE). I can't remember why I got so depressed, I don't want to. It hit me hard and didn't let up for a very long time. When I finally got out of my depression an unfortunate loss hit Juja and he couldn't really be reached for a few months either. We both got out of our slumps briefly to put together a December entry for DoD then Juja and I stopped talking for another 3 months. It wasn't that we fought or anything, we were both just going through personal stuff and didn't really make any progress on the album. Juja didn't play guitar, I didn't play accordion beyond any band-related obligations I had... But with time we both were able to recover, probably thanks to a call from my good friend Helios, who was moving back to the US from South Korea after 6 years of being away. In addition to being the other founding member of Random Encounter, Helios is someone I genuinely consider family, though we're not related. Over the years he’s pushed me to be a better musician, helped me find a direction, musical outlet, and encouraged me to keep at it when no one else (except my dear mother) would. The thought of him being a mere 3 hour flight away really inspired me... And after talking with Helios on the phone for the first time in a year or more, he agreed to fly in for a weekend and record whatever I wanted on piano, the instrument he had gone to college to perfect the art of. I booked the flight and spent a few weeks arranging the music, mostly the stuff he and I had always wanted to record as Random Encounter but had never got to properly do before he moved away... As Helios was engaged at the time (they got married later), and Juja wanted to also be involved to some extent, we decided to stream the weekend-long recording session. Despite 5 really important piano keys breaking in the opening moments of the recording session the weekend was a success. We recorded for a total of 36 hours, averaged 20-40 viewers (even well into the early hours of the morning), and finishing a whopping 30 songs!!! Despite being utterly insane, the experience reinvigorated us (at least myself) to get back on the proverbial horse and finish the album we started almost two years prior.

There was another huge delay in starting our album, the acceptance of Careless Juja live to Nerdapalooza, which in itself was an immense undertaking, but I already had most of my parts of the album recorded, and it would be good practice for the dreaded Layton solo, so I didn't see it as such a bad thing. In short, Adam (the artist), Juja, Helios, and a half dozen other musicians played some of our songs in a live setting. It was awesome and it was about this time that we hired Brandon Strader (who wrote his own version of the making of the this album here), a really talented guy we knew from DoD and from his album called Random Encounter (which I'd discovered while looking up my band on google). He seemed fairly approachable, so we tried to get him to help us arrange, mix, and master our title track, which needed to sound amazing... But in working with the guy it was really clear to Juja and myself that he understood what we were about, that he's really talented, and that he was just as passionate about our music as we were. While we didn't intend to outsource mixing our entire album, he was a lot more talented than us, extremely friendly, and open to the idea. Now, instead of simply re-releasing DoD tracks on an album, we'd be properly mixing them, re-recording parts, editing others, and really making every track sound as good as possible. Strader finished arranging the Dexter theme while Juja and I worked on the logistics of the live show.

Careless, Helios, Juja, and Ben (my nephew) at Walmart…

Shortly before the Nerdapalooza show

After the Nerdapalooza show, thanks to a mix of Strader's enthusiasm and the good vibes we got from playing the show, Juja and I immediately got to recording. I had just picked up a new recording technique called "recording with dynamics", which made my accordion sound significantly better than any previous method of recording, so though it was really unenjoyable to do, I felt it was right to go back and literally re-record many of the songs I'd spent the last 2 years recording... Including the dreaded Professor Layton solo that literally look me 3 months of daily practice to perfect, and 6 hours to record the perfect take. Sort of like the salmon commercials boasting that they "endure the worst to bring you the best", during the making of this album I broke two accordions (reeds popped out, mics broke), my home completely flooded with 2+ inches of water, twice, my water-pump system & AC broke the same day during the start of my big 4 day "heat-wave recording session" (no AC and no water to the building for 4 solid days of recording), the piano broke 4 additional keys when I started to record the touch-ups to Helios' parts, the computer with all the recordings for the entire album died, the backup hard drive with all the recordings was physically dropped (by me, carelessly down a flight of stairs) and destroyed immediately after the file transfer, there were technical failures at just about every recording session, everyone involved caught some pretty intense sicknesses, and Strader's car was shot with real gunfire after two of his neighbors got into a scuffle and decided to kill one another... I'm sure there are worse horror stories out there for album creations but I just wanted to illustrate the literal blood, mucus, sweat, and tears rendered into the tracks of this album.

Careless Juja

Around Nerdapalooza we hosted a Kickstarter, got lots of help from 8bitX and Nerdapalooza advertising it, and reached our goal in the final hours. I really can't emphasize that without the help of our Kickstarter backers we really couldn't have afforded to put the album together... While putting together a track listing a few weeks later, as we looked at a 35+ track album, we deduced that the average Compact Disc can only hold 70 minutes of music, and that we'd promised to deliver all of the 35 songs. It didn’t take Professor Layton to tell us that we needed to change what we had a problem on our hands… I firmly believed that a two disc Layton album would be a bad idea because I felt the Dexter vs Layton theme wasn't dynamic enough (we didn't have enough music from Layton and didn't want to add more songs as we were already behind schedule) for an epic 2 CD's of music. We also didn't think that people would want two back-to-back discs of our music and didn't have any new ideas for additional album art that fit the theme. Still, we wanted to make sure that all our backers got everything we promised, so in the end I came up with a pretty interesting idea for another album concept, which we could work on after Juja, Strader, and I finished the Layton album.

Interior Album Art

After the recording phase was complete in April (it took a lot of time to coordinate our efforts with the various guest drummers/artists), Juja and I were fairly burnt out (I also juggle Random Encounter, a half-dozen musical collaborations, and Juja works on other music projects too), so we took a breather of sorts while Strader worked his magic... Well, that’s actually sort of a lie... I was working with my good friend Peter Pepper to write the script for the "other album" while Juja and myself were arranging/recording songs for it. In early June, we got a message from Strader saying he was almost done and we spent the entire weekend of June 14th in back and forth conversations in a three way chat, listening to tracks, finalizing, and tweaking the entire album. It was at this point that we decided to throw in the Punch Out song, because it sounded good and Juja had jokingly posted the song to the Careless Juja facebook page as “something that has nothing to do with the Layton album.” This is also where Strader went from “really awesome mixing guy” to “really insanely awesome mixing guy” in my books.

Victory picture from the Airport Terminal I slept in

During that weekend I realized that I’d forgotten to record the intro jingle to our intro track and recorded it using the musical typing feature (literally using my computer's keyboard) while on a flight from Atlanta to Boston. I got a bunch of looks from other people on the plane... Also, at the last possible minute of the final day, Juja informed Strader and I that the intro piano bit in the Layton song was completely wrong... He had apparently transcribed it wrong years ago and had forgotten to fix it. Luckily Strader is a super chill guy and literally 6 hours before the final mixed/mastered tracks were to be submitted to the CD printing company, I recorded the updated version of the piano tracks, he mixed them in, and they made it into the final cut.

I write all of this before the album has been released, little over a week before our album premiere/release/listening party on 8BitX.com [update: posted 1 day before the release], before anyone besides the three of us has really heard any of the tracks, and I'm unsure how our album is going to be received… I do know that I'm proud of our new album, that we probably couldn't have made it any better. My personal goal of creating & releasing these songs to the world has been a success, so I am without regret, though admittedly it would be cool if people beyond us enjoy this too. Juja and Strader are of a similar mindset, and we sincerely hope you enjoy our latest creation: Professor Layton & the Bay Harbor Butcher.

Creative Update: February 2014

The last few months have been busy at best and I've accomplished much. While I have a few Video Game reviews I could post this week, with the start of the new year a quasi self-reflective post on things I'm working on seems healthy.

Photo by Tiffany Mueller

Random Encounter has evolved so much in the last two months that it's barely recognizable to me as being the same individuals or even an offshoot of the band I started so many years ago. I'm extremely proud of my bandmates as Rook has taken to professional bass lessons (far surpassing any skill I once may have had on the instrument), Kit got a huge promotion at work (I'm really proud of him) and has significantly increased in his recording abilities, Konami has really picked up a lot of the "band leadership/motivator" role & writes/arranges with me, and Moose is rapidly improving as a drummer, far surpassing the physical limitations of what he once thought was possible. We've become extremely organized... for us... We have some extreme goals for 2014 we intend to accomplish which I can't really share for awhile but we have some really exciting upcoming shows across the state, and at the shows we've played so far we've been very in-sync with one another to the point where I feel extremely comfortable in our performances... Something I never feel as a solo performer, and don't feel performing with other musicians. Sure everyone in the band (but me) is catching a variation of the MAG-flu, but all in all this will be a great year for Random Encounter, though I don't expect we'll have anything to show the public for our efforts for quite some time beyond live shows.

Careless Juja is also chugging along nicely. We're well into production of the Layton album and while many would find 4 hour recording sessions stressful, I really enjoy them in this creative outlet. Where Random Encounter is something that HAS to sound professional, I am not under the same self-imposed stress with CJ and can experiment as much or as little as I want to. To explain, I'm not particularly concerned if I don't become popular here so the only person I have to really please is myself (and Juja). My goal with CJ is to record music I want to hear, the way I want to hear it and I get that other people might not be interested, which allows me to try new things which I ultimately allow me to really grow as a recording musician. Most of the tricks I used for LMTYAS were things I discovered on accident while recording stuff for CJ. As CJ, when it stops being fun I stop recording, and when I run out of ideas I do something else. Juja's much the same way, we like the same things for the most part, and though we have a specific goal in mind that would seem taxing, recording what's left of 34 tracks in three weeks, I'm glad that we'll soon have a quality product of our musical friendship that we can share with the world.

Early Character Concept

The Liberty comic book series has seen its greatest developmental growth over the last two months than it's seen in the six months prior. There have been a lot of changes, so I'll start from the beginning... The comic book story takes place hundreds of years after the planet "Atrius" was colonized. Adam (the co-creator) and I sort of set an arbitrary marker for the "present" as being "roughly 600 or 800 years", what we thought was enough time passing to justify the social changes that would be required to make our story believable, but we didn't really have any idea or framework for the events that took place between the "present" (year 713) and the initial colonization of the planet. To fix this, and also to clearly compile a list of all government organizations that would be required to make the totalitarian Inner City function (with their respective job functions, key personnel, and jurisdictions) I put together a book called A Citizen's Guide to Atrius. The intent of the book was to paint an outline to the city's events and a (now very colorful) history over the course of 50 pages while giving bios for key figured, places of interest and the like, without giving so much detail as to make writing future books or comics about those events seem excessive. It's sort of like how I read the Wikipedia entry for the Crucible and was still captivated when watching it performed at a local theater, being genuinely surprised with the outcome of the trial despite knowing how it was supposed to end. The Citizen's Guide is effectively written (taking up most of my December), being edited by someone with a working knowledge of the Chicago NB format. The illustrations for the book should be done sometime in March and if there's enough interest we might do a limited self-publishing run, but I'm skeptical anyone will want a background book to a story that hasn't been published.

Recent Character Concept by Adam

With the sudden existence of a detailed history we had a make a large number of revisions to the comic book script to ensure that continuity existed between the history book and the script itself. As we've not published anything we're thankfully free to make revisions unlike authors like Tolkien (who i'm told desperately wanted to go back and rewrite the Hobbit), or Lucas (who everyone was angry at for revising the cannon of the expanded universe) which took the bulk of my January to accomplish. While I was working on this Adam developed a line of "standard issue" firearms for the Inner City, departmental color schemes, and a general color scheme for the comic, settling on an uncommon color scheme we think will be most visible on a comic book store shelf. We also added a dedicated cover artist for the entire series to our creative team, which we're really happy about. In the short-term we are also working with concept artists to create a unique sense of fashion in the world, a designer to create logos for each governmental division/department, and an archaeological illustrator (my girlfriend) to create a legit archaeological illustration of one of the city's key buildings, as well as an awesome 3d rendering. We're also working with someone who designs advertisements and logos as their full-time job to create a title for the series. I'm finding each of these individual processes to be fascinating, and working with professionals in each of their respective fields has been quite an experience. I hope to share some aspects of the creative process in the coming months but for now it's a bit too early to really get into.

On a final comical note, we had a rough revelation last week whereby we concluded that the amazing back-story we'd written for one of the main characters (which is periodically referenced throughout the script) could have never taken place within the confines of our world's history. Instead of rewriting what he have, we sadly concluded that it's all true... in that character's head and that s/he's simply delusional.

Nerdapalooza 2013 Review: The Careless Juja Live Band

The cover image of www.Nerdapalooza.com

The past two months have been a colossal exercise in multitasking and time management as I've done everything within my power to put together a cohesive band from scratch, while at the same time maintaining a pre-existing band, a few day jobs, and a functional life.

Our story begins with a semi-serious application sent to MAGFest and Nerdapalooza in February or April on behalf of a semi-fictitious "10 person" Careless Juja Live Band. The idea behind the application was that I had some free time at the beginning of the year and I was very interested in opening dialogue with some friends (and family) I'd been doing recordings or collaborations with over the years who I normally had little excuse to talk to. I listened to the best tracks that Juja and I had made over the years and counted the number of instruments needed to fully bring them to life, concluding that 3 guitars, 1 flute, bass, drums, accordion, glockenspiel, piano, and violin would be "required." I called Juja to see if he was on board and after promising to cover his airfare he reluctantly agreed to play a single show with a "CJ [Careless Juja] Live Band", in the rare event that we were accepted to perform at either venue. I also checked with the aforementioned friends who happened to play the various instruments listed above and got a similar response: If we happened to get accepted, that they'd agree to play.

The application was very laid back as a result, because even though I came up with the idea I really didn't expect us to get accepted. Here's an excerpt:

"We enjoy horse rides (don't judge it), walks on the beach, painting tabletop miniatures, sex, non-lyrical music, video games, rescuing orphans from bulldozers, cats, good television,  consecutive 18+ hour non-stop recording sessions fueled by a potent mix of energy drinks, propane, and King of the Hill."

My response from Nerdapalooza came in record time: "No." The application guy happened to be a friend of mine and did this every year whenever I applied as Random Encounter. I got a more formal rejection email a few weeks later from Nerda, along with a formal and friendly rejection from MAGFest. I specifically remember informing everyone in the "band" that we'd gotten both rejections and thanking them for being on call for my crazy idea... Then on August 12th, a mere two months, and one week prior to the festival, I got a phone call while was driving through North Carolina in hellishly warm clothing (a suit for work), on a hot summer day, in a truck that didn't have very good air conditioning. The call was from Nerdapalooza, asking if we were still interested in playing and if we'd still be able to pull off the show. I was in the denial phase, thinking the call to be a joke, so I confidentially told him that we could easily put together a half hour set (of music) from scratch, and it was only after the phone call ended, about 5 minutes past the point where I expected someone to reveal that the offer was a joke, that the gravity of the situation hit me. I immediately called all of my new band mates to verify that they could still be involved, and some were now unable to commit learning that much music in that short a time frame. It took about 3 days for Juja to understand that the application was serious and it wasn't until we were officially listed on the Nerdapalooza Website, a full week later, that we were able to confirm the band's full membership. I immediately commissioned the incredibly talented Jaime Kittens to make a logo for the new band that would give us a distinct look and feel from Random Encounter, whose toes I did not want to step on in the slightest.

I really wanted to start arranging the new band's music immediately, but I was already using all my free time to record an album, and playing shows as Random Encounter, which absolutely had to come first, so I didn't get to start arranging for CJL until a week and a half after we knew who as in the band. As I trudged through the first track, about a month and a half prior to the show itself, I had the very hard realization that arranging music for 9 instruments from scratch (in MIDI) was fairly time consuming work. This is the first song I put together, Cave Story: To Grass Town, where I envisioned all of the band members walking up on stage in a specific order to join in and add to the song, making it sound gradually more full. It took me over 6 hours to put together. As I was departing for Belize I downloaded Mixcraft 6 on my laptop so I could work from Central America and spent most of my nights there arranging without any way of effectively communicating with the rest of the band. Juja arranged two songs from his end and when I finally reached a steady internet connection I asked the 88 facebook fans of Careless Juja if they had any requests, because we still had about 4 minutes of music yet unpicked. Someone (I forget who) messaged me with "a song from Goldeneye" and by this point in the arranging/MIDI process I was getting very efficient to the point where I could put a song together in under an hour. At the very last minute Juja added the Game of Thrones theme and a mere month before the show the band mates were all given demos with their respective parts. A partial delay in the arrangement process was when one of the members of the band told me he couldn't commit to the show because a month wasn't enough time for him to deliver a quality performance. I admired his honesty and found a few extremely talented guest artists to take over his parts during key songs but in truth we were now an 8 piece band.

AdamOne's Setup

The practice phase for this band new 30 minute set should have taken every waking hour of my days, but Random Encounter had an album release show, an Escapist Expo, and a Nerdapalooza to practice for, which had to always come first as it's my life's work and passion where Careless Juja is more of my free time and an enjoyable hobby. As a result I focused the bulk of my practice efforts on key moments of the CJ show: the part where I'd reveal to the world that I'd been taking violin lessons for the last year, the part where I'd perform the ridiculously complex Professor Layton accordion solo, and the entirety of the Game of Thrones theme, which is my girlfriend's favorite song and the one people will most clearly recognize if I've screwed up. I was more or less on call for 4 weeks as band members would periodically check in with arrangement questions, transportation issues, or important realizations at odd hours of the night, like the fact that none of us owned guitar amps or a full sized keyboard. As I borrowed practice guitar amps from friends, rigged my computer speakers to accept a guitar input (yep, it came to that), upgraded my room-mate's guitar, and bought a glockenspiel stand, I started to feel excitement as the greater plan started to come together. The musicians I was working with were incredibly talented and if it was not for their collective and individual prowess I don't think we could have pulled it off. The band consisted of:

Ben, Chris, Juja, AdamOne
"Who Ya Gonna Call?"

Juja - One of my best friends, though he lives in Utah, who's just as quirky and into the music as I am. We only met once in person for two weeks but record music together regularly for Dwelling of the Duels.

H3lios - A piano-major in college who created Random Encounter with me many years ago. I see him less than once a year and he's all but my brother.

JY - H3lios's better half, a professional grade concert pianist from South Korea, and a dear friend.

AdamOne - A living, breathing metronome, and the original drummer for Random Encounter. He's now a father of two, a husband, a visual artist, co-worker, and a drum instructor with a few school-level music manuals under his belt. As a drum instructor his qualifications for glockenspiel, an incredibly unforgiving instrument, were perfect. He also can translate my gibberish into music-speech and doesn't get to interact with people our age often due to his occupations.

Lord Pike - A true rock drummer involved in quite a few awesome bands including: The Returners - VGM, and Lords of Thunder! I greatly admire Pike but for some reason we never get to hang out.

The Chris - Another fairly new friend, he is the bass player for Gimmick! and a fellow obscure-game enthusiast i'm sure I'd be extremely good friends with if we lived closer than a 17hr car ride apart.

Ben - The singer/songwriter/guitarist of Space Camp Dropout and my nephew. I can still remember the day he was born and though we sometimes record stuff together, we've never formally worked on anything publicly.

Lord Pike, JY, Helios

Walmart Quest!

The week before Nerdapalooza I'd easily logged over 11 hours into practicing the 20 second solo part for the Prof. Layton song, and still hadn't learned Warcraft 2 or Sword Master at all. I fully expected to have some time to practice the following week and was caught off guard when Ben showed up on Monday ready to learn the set. Suddenly the prospect of free time to learn my own parts, or to go for a relaxing swim was gone. My heart sort of plunged, I think I went pale, and taught him everything I could for as many waking hours as we could fit into each day. Juja arrived the following day, greatly helped speed up the learning process, and by the time the next installment of the band arrived on Thursday Ben knew the entire set. I'll credit him that he was able to pull it off and learn everything before they arrived. As Helios and JY arrived and went to sleep, fresh from a 17 hour drive from Texas, Juja and I left for a 6 hour drive to and from Orlando to practice songs with Random Encounter. We got back well after midnight, practiced our set with just the two of us, and fell asleep at about 2am or 3am on the morning of Nerdapalooza. At some point during all of this I'm told that we went shopping for food and that I cooked two or three meals by myself, that I didn't light anything on fire this time, and that they tasted surprisingly good, despite me failing at cooking at every moment prior to food coming out of an oven.

Sort of like an engagement photo but they're already married

Later that morning, after a hearty breakfast and we practiced as a half-band with AdamOne (who drove over from Tampa). An hour or two later Pike and Chris arrived (with Jen and Jen) and the band met in person for the first time. No one actually knew anyone else in the group except me, so it was a pretty neat experience watching everyone I personally knew interact. AdamOne started talking and snapping poly-meter beats (two different time signatures that line up and are done at the same time!) with Ben, JY was laughing with my girlfriend (who was an extremely good sport about all this much noise on a Friday morning), and Chris was telling stories about some bad RPG's he'd played, while I recalled a few cautionary repossession tales. This was all during a lunch break we took because the rest of the day was spent practicing the hell out of our 10 song set list from 11 or 11:30 through almost 5pm. Then we packed up and departed for Nerdapalooza. Notably I thought I forgot to pack my 3DS, though I just hid it well within one of my bags, and missed out on two days worth of street passes.

A short (~3hr) ride through traffic later we arrived at the official Nerdapalooza hotel. The lady at the front desk was either very friendly or hitting on me, i'm sort of oblivious to the finer points of social interaction, but either way I got the hotel room keys, parked next to a truck with 4'' steel spikes on its wheels, and climbed up the 4 stories to the hotel room. Juja, myself, Ben, Clay, and Prophet (who drove in specifically for the practice) stayed there until around 9 or 10 practicing [video link]. We left immediately after, unloaded our gear at the band room, parked at what I thought was the closest parking lot to the event, spent another 20 minutes walking to Nerdapalooza, got our badges, and immediately started seeing people we knew. People from the Random Encounter album release show, people i'm friends with on the internet, people i'd met at Megacon, at MAGfest, at Nerdapalooza the years prior. All of them were genuinely friendly and every person we passed with the 3DS made me curse my careless nature. We were able to catch the majority of Professor Shyguy's set, which was very energetic, and to both my and my girlfriend's enjoyment he played the Simple Pop Song, and Doctor Who am I?. He also did a song from Tool (a band I don't really know, but other people seemed to really feel it). During the set I noticed that the calm and collected Ben, who previously had no care in the world for geek culture or music, went wide eyed as Shyguy proceeded to play a guitar solo while simultaneously playing the keyboard. It was the first sign of happiness i'd seen him show all week.

View from the Green Room between sets

The rest of the night was sort of a blur and besides bumping into a dozen other people I knew, and giving all of the members of the CJL band tee shirts (which were hot off the press from earlier that day due to a shipping error), I only really remember a horrible restless night of tossing and turning in the hotel bed. I was utterly terrified about how the next day would go down. If we lost our place at any point during the set, none of us (save AdamOne) had any reference as to where we could come back in, especially during the more progressive songs. Before the lights went out Juja mentioned that he wasn't even entirely sure where his guitar solo fit in Tristram or Warcraft 2, and asked that I cue him somehow for both. At about 2am I woke up in a cold sweat realizing that we never figured out how we were going to end the Prof. Layton Song either. I tossed and turned, waiting for 3am, 4am, 5am, then 6am. An eternity of anticipation later and it was somehow Saturday and I was already exhausted.

Photo from the show, not the sound check

We had apples and peanut butter for breakfast, rallied everyone, and showed up at the OCCC promptly at 10am. It turned out that TMBG [They Might be Giants] (specifically their tech crew, not the actual band) was doing a sound check, so Lauren and I got in some last minute practice... because I now realized that she had never practiced with anyone from the band before. As we practiced in the hallway near the stage, John Flansburgh walked by and tried to open a door that I'd previously discovered was locked. I think I must have said something stupid, maybe a horrible pun about the doors or locks because he stared at me for a moment as if I was crazy before the door somehow opened for him. This now marks the second time I've left a not so awesome impression with J.F., and though I'm sure he forgot the moment I'll embarrassingly remember for the rest of my life. Lauren and I followed John out (we had been locked out for awhile) and watched as TMBG sound checked to Rhythm Section Want Ad. About 20 minutes before we were supposed to start our show, we were given the green light to load onto the stage and set up gear for 11 musicians in record time. The sound-guy asked if we could cut one of our songs and we obliged without question.

The Careless Juja Live Band

The show itself was sort of weird, sort of fun; A lot like how the old-school Random Encounter shows used to go. I'd spent the last two months envisioning the moments on stage, planning, plotting, practicing, preparing, and once I got on the stage it didn't go exactly as I'd planned and sped by as if I were but a passenger on a roller coaster. For starters we didn't have time for any sort of grand entrance, just a "You've got 25 minutes, go!" so much of the suspenseful visual stuff I'd planned for the first song, where everyone got up one at a time, was lost for the sake of not cutting more songs. This really wasn't anyone's fault except my own. Sound checking is time consuming work and I didn't want to start our show until I was confident that we sounded great. I'd already made the mistake of trying to play a full set without a proper mix two years back and it didn't go so well. Two other moments that didn't go quite as planned was when I pulled out the violin, played it with the best intonation I've ever managed, and later found out that none beyond myself could hear it because I forgot to sound check the violin into the vocal microphone. Lastly, due to a false start on the Prof. Layton song, band members got confused and the solo i'd spent the bulk of the last month practicing never happened. These three incidents aside the show was a complete success by my standards. I was personally ecstatic as I got to hear the songs I'd been working on for two months (in MIDI) performed with real instruments as the band I had no idea would ever exist actually performed a show! We started and ended the set strong. We kept peoples' interest. We got through the most important/difficult songs well. We nailed Sword Master, Goldeneye, and the crucible of Tristram. All of the members of the band had fun and all of the fear left me as we reached the end of the set. In many ways I was surprised that the set was already over, feeling that way even as we started the last song. We broke down the equipment, cleared the stage, and finished loading all of our gear just in time for the Lords of Thunder. Rasputan, a former RE member who I'm still good friends with, helped us out a lot on Saturday and between him, AdamOne, and Helios we were back in time to revel at a masterful execution of the Perfect Dark Ending Theme (a song we'd recorded as RE but never completed) by LoT. Special thanks are also due to Clay, Jen, Jen, David, Konami, Prophet, Lauren, my parents (who showed up!), and the guy who bought one of our tee shirts.

The first time we got to hear To Grass Town with the full band was on stage

My sense of time after watching the fantastic Lords of Thunder gets a bit warped. I remember getting food with the CJL band, talking about how Lauren and Juja were absolutely beaming during our set and how even Helios had cracked a smile for a few moments. For JY a live show with other musicians was something she'd never experienced, and Ben finally understood what we were all about, and a bit about what the whole nerd-culture thing was like. He referred to it as a sort of "hidden world" akin to the wizard's world in Harry Potter, located just behind the trudge of daily life. We traveled through the vendor/artist areas and spoke with almost everyone we passed. There was a lot of talent there and AdamOne/I began talks to commission one of the artists. I also got to finally meet the extremely friendly and stylish Jaime Kittens (who made the Careless Juja Live image!). We caught the OneUps with brentalfloss set and enjoyed their classy renditions of brentalfloss songs, which are video game songs with often comical (but sometimes serious) lyrics. As I watched the end of the set, people from the side of the stage hurriedly motioned for me to get ready to load my gear next to the stage. Oops... I forgot about that. So, I quickly ran to get my accordion and regretfully missed the end of their set.

Katamari on the Rocks w/ brentalfloss

The Random Encounter was almost entirely stress free for me. All my nervousness was long gone from the CJ set, we (RE) already had a huge crowd of friends sitting front row as we were sound checking, and i'd overpracticed all my parts for a show I could have played with my eyes closed. Just before we were ready to get on Juja was fussy and wouldn't get off his 3DS, but the awesome fog effects (a mere 5% of their total fog abilities I was told) again distracted me from noticing too much. Dead Labs went amazingly well, and I was surprised to see people singing along. I think that's my favorite song we've done so far. Katamari also went very well, and it was awesome to share the stage with brentalfloss again. My only complaint for the set was that I found myself wishing the stage wasn't so high so we could interact with the audience more. Just as we were getting to the part where we intended to play Death of a Friend I had the sudden realization that I hadn't seen Dr. Wily, the lead vocalist for the song, arrive. It turned out that he'd driven to the wrong venue, the Social, about an hour away (parking and walk included) and missed our show by mere minutes, so we played Terra instead. The rest of the set went without a hitch, except for me making a great miscalculation at the end and totally toppling Rook's Korg keyboard off the stand, key side-down in front of everyone, and running from her (she's also wireless) through an area of the stage I certainly shouldn't have run through (lots of delicate gear almost got destroyed by me) but that I couldn't really see until it was too late. I got yelled at for that as well, made two genuine apologies, and felt oddly down for completing an otherwise good show. It's not every day you can leave two negative impressions with your favorite band in a row. Still, getting to see and talk with all of our friends/fans/family after the show helped cheer me up. I was also later told that the TMBG roadie who I spoke with had actually enjoyed our set and felt kind of bad about yelling at me, so perhaps I didn't leave such a bad impression after all.

A rare photo of Jeff Douglas, the guy who takes awesome photos of the bands

I packed my gear quickly, did my best to stay clear of Rook, and followed Clay to some kind of green room that overlooked the main room. There was also a lot of walking before this, and a dinner in a strange restaurant with giant replica animals, but I don't remember how we got there or what we ate. Ben, Clay, Juja, my girlfriend, and I all found ourselves in the otherwise empty green room a few hours later, too exhausted to rock out with the incredibly talented Moon Hooch: a sax duo that circles each other while playing and makes their performance look a lot like a 1980's knife fight musical. We got to briefly chat with the drummer from Green Jelly, who had some neat stories, and Schaffer the Darklord, who had completely forgotten/forgiven the time I'd accidentally screwed up his name at a show two years ago. Schaffer is a pretty chill guy and I felt bad for missing his set. In addition to being a solid performer, the last time I'd seen him he'd given me some musical ideas I'd implemented into my own original works.

Who's that Icky guy?

We (joined by Chris, Jen, and "Mad Hatter" Jared of The Gekkos) entered the main room about the time a crowd started to form and were able to get within 10 feet of the stage for They Might Be Giants! This was the closest i've ever been to them at a show and it was easily one of their best shows to date. They always put on an incredibly live performance, this time starting with Istanbul, going through a lot more of their newer songs (which was awesome). I'm pretty sure J.L. glanced down at me at smiled at one point, which made me feel much better about any negative impressions I might have left with them in the past. It makes no logical sense but if being starstruck makes me feel better about the weekend that works for me. I had a blast and it was only after physical exhaustion started to take its toll on us that we reluctantly departed from the scene, as stickers were being handed out after the show. A quick thanks should be mentioned as Mrs. Douglas saved one of our number from a case of actual heat exhaustion that evening. All of us slept really well on Saturday night, and I forgot to mention but Helios + JY already started their drive back to Texas earlier that evening.

The Returners!
[The only band that my camera-phone was able to get a good picture of]

Sunday was kind of a hangover style day for us. We stumbled out of our hotel rooms by 11am, checked out, admired the Ben-Hurr spikes on the truck next to us (again), and got to Nerda in time for the best (non-TMBG) set I saw all weekend, The Returners - VGM. They rocked a FF VI medley, they rocked Echo the Dolphin, and Lauren sang the Metal Gear Solid ending theme AND the Phantom of the Opera "inside my mind" song! It's not just that they picked good songs to perform, it's not just that it was my first time seeing them in person, or that I'm friends with most of them; It's that they played well, they surprised me with something I didn't expect (singing!), they were cohesive, fairly diverse in style, and everything they played was well arranged. They were also soft enough for my girlfriend to enjoy (she generally dislikes rock), which gives me some kind of +7 synergy bonus to my own enjoyment. Even Ben, who had previously hated VGM (video game music) was smiling up and applauding the Returners by the end of the set.

The Gekkos

A few minutes later, as Under Polaris took to the stage (I was only able to be present for a few songs sadly. Those guys are a fantastic example of what synth/chip-rock should be and their front-man is the very definition of a High Energy Act!), I talked to the Gekkos and discovered that they wanted me to play accordion for a few parts of their set... as much as I could learn and transcribe to tab form in ~47 minutes. Their accordion player, Jarred, had been in a brutal bus accident that i'm told might not allow him to play accordion ever again (I really hope that's not true), and the day before he was told by a doctor that he wasn't allowed to play accordion for the show, regardless of if he could muscle his way through the pain. As a brother in the ever-secretive League (of accordionists) I transcribed as much of the set as I could and played with them for maybe 6 songs, clapping and singing along (sans microphone) during the other songs. They ended the set with my favorite song of theirs, Pokemon League of the Living Dead and by all accounts that show was without real incident. As I got into an issue with the OCCC parking security the OneUps played a great set, and after that we were semi-forced to load up and head home to watch the rest of the festival via stream. We said our goodbyes quickly (from a tow-away zone) and got ice cream on the way home. The reason I mention the ice cream was that it was served by my roommate's girlfriend (of a few months, who is at my home every week), only I couldn't recognize her outside of the context of where I live, which was sort of amusing because she couldn't recognize me either until after she served us ice cream. We watched the rest of the livestream of Nerdapalooza as Juja and I thought up more ways to advertise our Kickstarter for the new Careless Juja Album. Then, just like that, in the blink of an eye, Nerdapalooza 2013 was over... but it's effects were not...

During the course of the week Ben had gone from an apathetic guitar mercenary, playing music he didn't really care about (so we could spend some time together), visiting a "weird and nerdy convention" he didn't identify with, to becoming one of us. It started with Shyguy's multiple instrument solos, the subtle references to Nerdy things Ben was familiar with but didn't realize were nerdy. It expanded through some genuine and friendly conversations with people we met at Nerda (and the CJL band mates). All night on Saturday (and all Sunday morning) Ben complained that he didn't have a 3DS, after Chris had talked to him at length about how 3DS's work, so I lent him mine to use on Sunday (after finding it) and Ben had a lot of fun picking up street passes and battling armored ghosts. By the time he saw The Returners, their blend of VGM covers with the addition of vocals and the non-vgm song pretty much won him over. Now whenever Juja and myself would hum a tune from the CJ or Returners set, Ben would join in (as opposed to cringing and putting a headset on, which happened earlier in the week)! Ben claimed that Juja and I were popular in the VGM scene and was surprised when he, walking all by himself, was approached by someone we didn't know to autograph a poster. I don't that's ever happened to him before and it left a big impact on him, realizing that he was now a part of the community he didn't think he would like. Later that night, at his request, we went to Best Buy to get Ben a 3DS XL and a copy of Animal Crossing, which he swears his friends in NY will never know about. I smile every time I think that he's become one of us... and as I dropped Ben off at the airport on Monday there was actual sadness from both of us because we'd had fun and wanted him to stay. Nerdapalooza had it's magical affect on him, and I've been getting text all week about how there are certain hotspots in his home town, or how he's frustrated that the stores near where he lives are sold out of Pokemon X and Y, and how he just got Pokemon Y and a copy of Monopuff. Nerdapalooza 2013 was a special time for all us. For Juja it was a chance to really shine, in his words: perhaps the only chance he'll get. For JY it was a time to meet friends from her new home town in Texas. For all of us it was a great time with friends... and for me, it was a chance to bond with my nephew for the first time in over a decade.

Personal/Music: Accordion Solo

The Dark Rider [modified]
By Ivan Bilibin

Life is in the fairly boring slow lane these last few weeks between work, finding myself at a graveyard in Dallas late at night, script revisions on the comic, bouts of food-poisoning due to now-confirmed lactose intolerance, and unending practice sessions in preparation for Nerdapalooza, so I've been at a loss of topics to write about. The only remaining social element in my life, my weekly D&D game (Pathfinder), has endured through the chaos, and while there is a unique triumph felt when a painstakingly detailed D&D game runs as planned after months of work (assuming everyone has fun), this campaign is enjoyable because the players go through events and scenarios I couldn't have planned for, that often surprise me just as much as them. For instance: this week a team of level 4 characters decided to attack (and successfully killed) an epic random encounter they were not supposed to fight: Baba Yaga, a CR 22, Level 30 demi-goddess with 2 dancing swords, animated poppets, magic spells a-many, a snake-bite touch attack, polymorph wand, terror-inducing glare, and the epic trio of guardians known as "The Riders Three", the Russian incarnations of Sunrise/Sunset, Day, and Night. I should add that they only got through the encounter because one of them got a series of critical hits that did no less than 40 damage a piece, but it was no less epic. I'd start blogging about their misadventures if people were interested in that sort of stuff but it's probably only exciting if you're actually playing.

The Brooksville Raid of '08
[Picture Unrelated] by Mary Ross

As for real life: I detest this Puzzle Song I'm working on more and more with each passing hour, despite loving the song itself. I can now play half of my accursed solo at half speed, correctly, about 60% of the time. Each finger has to be placed precisely in the right spot (in the sequence as I run through the scales) or else the song simply doesn't work because it's complicated like that. If I lose my place the solo also ends abruptly and I can't just jump back into it at a later point in the solo so I really need it to be perfect and about 8 times better than it is at present. I'm hoping to learn the other half of the solo tonight and speed it up from 60bpm to 90bpm (3/4ths speed) before Monday (while on the road to/from the Escapist Expo), while learning the rest of the Careless Juja Live set and playing a show on Saturday. Next week I need to know everything and be moving on it quickly so my muscle memory can be strong if I'm distracted while on stage and make the song look easy to play. Oh yeah, I almost forgot that I also run through the Random Encounter Nerdapalooza set each night, complete with new songs, before I can even get started on the Careless Juja stuff. It's pretty crazy how much work muscle memory does if you are in tune with your body. You just sort of think about the start of a song and your body does the rest.

Fish BonesAnother unrelated picture 

Puzzle Song [which i'm intentionally not giving the name to] is hell but I feel it's important for me to learn. It's probably silly, or egotistical, but I sort of want a place for my technical accordion abilities to shine through and be noticed as "truly exceptional" by music and non-music folk alike. Having only recently entered into the realm where I vaguely consider myself a "professional" accordion player, playing pieces that challenge me and that can put me anywhere near the lower-levels of the legendary Charles Magnante have become something of an interest. It's hard to balance that interest with a band in a way that's musically enjoyable (large doses of accordion get dull quickly), so a lot of it needs to be underplayed so it doesn't seem excessive. I did that a lot with the new Random Encounter album, LET ME TELL YOU A STORY, and while I'm entirely responsible for writing myself into the position i'm in, a lot of the normal/new solos (more like featured melodies) I've been doing, which are fairly tasteful for accordion solos/features, generally go unnoticed as being technically impressive because they're not as in-your-face powerful as the guitar solos. Growing up on video game music, I always try to emphasize melody in what I play, and after I spent time making/mastering the solo/feature for Another World for the recent album release show, the comment that stuck with me that night was "the guitar solo was awesome and the accordion was good too." While the person making the comment didn't intend to point this out, it became clear to me that in order to impress people with an accordion part (in the modern sense i'm referring to an "accordion solo") it needs to be completely over the top insane, which even my most technically complex moments of my solo in Cave Story (which even the band's drummer, Moose, didn't notice until just recently) don't seem to do. That's why this song is important to me.

Not to sound like i'm feeling bad for myself, far from it, I'm just trying to justify poor (self-inflicted) decisions...

Well, that's all the time I have to write this week.