The Making of Lost Frequency

The Making of Lost Frequency

Coat of Arms - By Adam Cartwright

In 2010 I had an idea. I wanted to create a crossover between my two passions: Music and Comics. I had been working on a sci-fi comic for a few years and the idea of bringing music to the world and art to my music was really exhilarating. My band was on the rise, working on our first album (Self Titled), and I was eager to create some original music. In short, Adam, Miguel and I wrote a few songs, the band disbanded, I bought the rights to the music, and reformed the band with a completely new membership.

The new band recorded/released Unavenged as a matter of necessity, because we desperately needed recordings that were reflective of our new sound, however, I hadn’t stopped working on this ‘Space Album’ idea I had. In fact, I was already in talks with Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy) about cover art, and swapping emails with a Japanese translator who could help me communicate with my future collaborators.

The original sketch from June 16, 2012

The intent was to write a series of songs that all tied together to form a story that would tie into the comic book world. I would attempt to collaborate with a few key composers and musicians whom I greatly admired, and who had inspired me to become a musician. As a kid, I specifically started listening to music so I could hear the catchy tunes from video games, and as a teenager I learned to play the accordion so I could play those tunes. The idea of possibly talking to and working with the very same people who unknowingly introduced me to music still gives me goosebumps, but I made it my goal.

Big Dreams for Vinyl

Since the band was a democracy, and the others didn’t fully understand my vision (I was notoriously bad at explaining things back then), my Space Album kept getting pushed further and further back in favor of learning more video game covers for live shows. Being a live band, there’s a pressure to always bring new music to the stage and it’s not as easy as you might think to learn too much new material at once while maintaining a regular set of songs people have come to expect from you. However, I was able to forego more sleep than the others and by 2012, I’d already written outlines for 20+ songs. I was arranging these songs into sequel stories/albums. I actually had a release schedule too, which outlined proposed releases for the next few years, leading to a meeting of the characters from the comic with those of the Space Album in 2018. It all seems sort of silly in retrospect, but I was really passionate and organized about it. I also must have been annoying because on more than one occasion the band basically said that I was forbidden from mentioning the Space Album or anything to do with it for three to six months.

The music, which was fully original, drew inspiration from video games to give many of its songs context in a story sense. A careful ear can discern subtle nods to the Mass Effect, Diablo, Silent Hill, Wizards & Warriors, Metroid and more.

 

Character Concept - Adin

As we passed the end of the world into 2013 and released the Dead Labs single (from Space Album II) I began talking with the collaborators I’d mentioned. In addition to working with friends and local musicians like Adam, Miguel, and Michael (and my cousin Johnny), a chance encounter at MAGFest led to talks of a collaboration with Kinuyo Yamashita (Castlevania)! I had also begun to hunt down the original mod (WAD) team & composer from Doom II's HRII, a process that took something like 18 months (and used a LOT of old email extensions). I had also begun talks with Terri Brosius, the voice of SHODAN, about reprising the role for a song I’d written! Somewhere in 2013 the band voted to release a new album consisting of 50% original and 50% cover songs, basically so we didn’t upset our fans with a 100% original album too soon. I, banned from talking about the Space Album for six months, used the extra time to refine the songs I was writing, and ultimately gave up one of my ‘Space Album’ songs to finish the album (LMTYAS) on time... without telling them that it had anything to do with the Space Album and the emptiness of being alone with your thoughts for too long.

Recording with Eric

Between 2013 and 2014 many amazing things happened. The stars aligned and Amano was able to find time in his very busy schedule to create not only the cover art, but 9 additional pieces for the album, I also finally made contact with the right person on the DOOM II HRII team, and I also flew to Boston to create the System Shock inspired ballad with Terri and Eric (who composed System Shock and created the effects for the SHODAN voice)! A series of extremely fortunate events (and two amazing tours across Florida and the EU) also led to us working with Tommy Tallarico on a track! On the side, I also started working with Wily and Bruce (of the NESkimos) to create 15 rough songs for a new story within the Space Album/Liberty setting. I also somehow got to hang out with Brian Johnson (AC/DC) a few times (just us! It was insane!) and he said quote “I love that Hacked song!” Mind. Blown.

I cannot express how great these two years were from a writing/creative perspective.

Concepts for Grey and Arkhain by Casey Bailey

However, on the band front, Moose’s job became increasingly demanding and he had less and less time to practice or learn new material. The two times we arranged for him to go to a recording studio were both cancelled by freak accidents (he nearly drowned himself after hitting his head on a rock, and after recovering from that he was hit by a car while riding his bike and briefly hospitalized). Moose and I had Phil (Careless Juja), Michael (Star Lake), Adam (RE), and Wily (NESkimos) record live drums for the entire album, while Juja, Michael, and Johnny recorded live guitars and bass for 1/3^rd of the album to help speed along the recording process, unknown to the rest of the band. The others, who were now out of college, had less and less time to learn the songs outside of our limited and very busy practice schedule. Since many of the songs would probably not be performed live, having close friends record parts for the album, with Moose’s blessing, seemed logical from my perspective. However, when revealed, the others were not as enthusiastic and expressed that they wanted to contribute musically to the album (which is understandable). So, all of these tracks, about six months of work, were completely scrapped. Around this time it was also put to a vote that I would not be singing on the album, as I have a fairly limited vocal range.

Powerless without the others, progress on the album slowed and eventually ceased. We set up deadlines multiple times that we consistently missed due to legitimately great opportunities like shows, tours, and the chance to write our own video game soundtrack. The band created/released the Big Blue EP and started talks of a completely new full length cover album that would be recorded before the Space Album but by that point my own ability to spend the entirety of every weekend in Orlando had also diminished as met my future wife and I got started on my career path.

Lone Survivor by Casey Bailey

While I was leaving the band, and at their request I didn’t mention the Space Album for about nine months until after they were squared away with the incredibly talented Jackson. They actually had a joke inspired by a Fight Club line: “What’s the first rule about the Space Album”. By this point I was fairly disheartened, and basically took the best tracks from the various Space Albums I’d written that could fit the story of Lost Frequency and cut everything else that even felt vaguely weak to me or that didn’t directly push the story forward. Clearly the one album would be it, if it would ever happen at all. I was fortunate to be working with the incredibly composer and musician Steven Melin on two of the last “missing” tracks I needed to complete the story after the cuts were made. I was now able to effectively use my own experiences in creating the album to write better lyrics too. While I’d started the album superficially writing about the emotional journey of the protagonist, to me the creation of the music itself now represented a very personal journey of loneliness, bitterness, silent victories, anger, euphoria, and depression, which I was able to use to write better lyrics. In many ways the album’s very tone is a reflection of its creative process.

Sometime after I left the band we started talking about the Space Album again and it was agreed that it would make the most sense to release it as Random Encounter, as the art strongly reflected the membership of the band, I had approached all of the guest artists as the band Random Encounter, and because Kit & Konami had both invested time in learning the music. Somewhere around late 2015 we had a meeting where Kit promised to create the drums for the album, Konami & Kit would both work to create the guitars and bass for what was left, and I’d work on accordion, violin (did I mention I took two years of violin lessons?), and keys. It was fairly hard work and Konami & Kit vastly improved upon my creations and added their own songs to the mix as well, which I swapped out for more cut songs.

  

Anyone recognize those guns?

At some point, when I used my comic’s social media to mention the Space Album, the band expressed that most of them were unaware of my plan to set the album’s story in my comic book universe. It had been years since we’d had any formal discussions about the album (I’d only just been ‘un-banned’ from talking about the album… again) and they’d felt blindsided by this idea. The short version is that the Space Album would no longer be a part of my comic world.

A full year and a half or so later, the final tracks were submitted and much to my delight, probably due to time constraints, my original vocals for one of the songs was passable enough to be left in! I will say that while Konami is a much better vocalist than I am in most ranges and styles, and brought a dept I couldn't have hoped to on pretty much everything he touched, there's something about singing the words to your own song that feels nice. Brandon Strader worked his magic over the next few months to make the album sound great while Kit and I revised the story booklet. Hearing the final mixed songs brought a smile to my face. Strader, Kit, and Konami did a fantastic job.

Though I had deviated some from my original intent, I’d accomplished something far greater and grown up somewhere during the process.

So, inspired by the very people who helped bring it to life, fueled and lovingly crafted with real and very raw emotions, Lost Frequency is finally complete! I hope you’ll take the time to check it out now that you know the story behind the music:

http://music.randomencounterband.com/album/lost-frequency

EU Tour: Stockholm, Sweden

--Stockholm, Sweden--

We again woke up to an airplane landing and now found ourselves in Sweden, which was less cold than Helsinki and less wet. The VGL crew had rented a van that was larger than they needed so instead of taking a series of trains we got to simply ride with them to the venue, the Annexet. We arrived at the venue early (a first) and sat back, napping as the crew (made up of extremely attractive men and women who dwarfed Kit and were capable of lifting objects ten times their own body weight!) put the stage together. The crew gave me an idea for a song about Valkyries, which I wrote the lyrics to the following flight.

The Annexet

The stage being built

All color drained from the room

Somehow, despite being in a warmer environment than Finland, the Annexet in Sweden was the coldest part of our journey. It was so cold in there that it pulled the color out of the room (just look at the pictures)! We had a warm breakfast with the crew, and spoke with the owner/manager of the Stockholm Concert Orchestra, who happened to be an old school punk rocker from the 80's who utterly loved hearing that we were living the rock life and touring Europe! He was friendly, extremely candid, and I wish we could have talked with him more. During the sound check one of the crew asked me personally if I could play random VG songs I happened to know on accordion, and I was able to deliver seamlessly, making a friend in the process.

Kit taking a double take on his guitar for the night
Henrik is not without humor!

Fun times in Sweden!

It was about that time that Henrik, aka Motherpluckin' B, aka Killed by Koopa arrived! He'd admittedly gotten a bit lost and I had to ask the security guard (who was extremely friendly and reminded me of the Jarl of Whiterun from Skyrim) for directions to help Henrik get to the right building. Henrik showed up and it was as if we had been friends in real life for a very long time (as opposed to internet acquaintances). Seriously, Henrik is a cool guy and he looks like a total undercover rock star. He drove a few hours to hang out and lend us his guitars for the night and we did our best to make him feel at home and hung out with him during the down moments of the sound check.

The door guy from the Annexet was a badass

Kit making final preparations on his guitar

Toward the end of the sound check there was a second treat as my friend from Moscow, Sergey arrived! I've been good friends and pen pals with Sergey for a few years and it was fun getting to meet him in person for the first time. I helped him get in touch with Tommy, who he had a scheduled interview with, and after the sound check we all went out to get a bite to eat at a Swedish pizza place, which apparently was the least Swedish restaurant we could have possibly eaten at besides McDonald's. When questioned about life in Sweden, Henrik or one of his friends (who joined us for dinner) informed us "it's horrible. Every day I am surrounded by beautiful women and none of them will talk with me." It's apparently not easy being handsome in Sweden.

Sergey, so stoic!

Drinks and pizza with friends in Sweden

Fantastic show that night

Between having friends in the audience (including a genuine Random Encounter fan we met during the intermission who had no idea we were going to be at the VGL show and who got really excited when he noticed our flyers on the seats), being wireless again, being in one of my favorite places of all time (Sweden), and knowing this was our last performance between us and sleep in a bed, we put on a solid performance. It was my personal best for the tour as I was literally able to jump off the stage, run 1000 feet into the room and rock out with folks in the audience. The meet and greet after the show was fun too! We signed a guy's back, met some interesting folks, and eventually said our goodbyes. 

We signed a baaaack!

Our view from the stage

Just like that we found ourselves in a hotel lobby-bar at 1AM, trying not to get ourselves kicked out, with the promise of a ride to the airport when the sun came up. In retrospect, I'm pretty positive that the VGL staff arranged for their extra van to be there just for us, though they didn't mention it because we'd have felt bad inconveniencing them. They're pretty awesome like that. In the early hours of the morning we drank coffee, chatted with the VGL crew who didn't want to sleep, avoided a creepy but silent guy who we were pretty sure was on some pretty intense drugs, we drank beer, and we enjoyed the 8bitX album premiere Listening Party for our good friends: the Returners, until about 4am. We caught a ride back to the airport and Emmanuel, Konami and I chatted at length about music theory, theorized how left handedness might affect musicians, and philosophized over a slew of really deep music-related topics you wouldn't expect to come coherently from such sleep deprived people. To give you an idea of how sleepy we were, Kit literally fell asleep sitting up and very nearly fell on the person next to him. That's how utterly beat we were. At the airport I bought as many coffee and soy hot chocolates as I could hold to keep us awake for the final sound check of the tour.

Album Listening Party or Ring Wraith listening party?

Hotel Airport

Travel Journal: FL Supercon '14

Downtown Miami on the 4th of July

My time at FL Supercon was spent almost entirely behind a booth but I feel that the adventure is no less worth of being written. The adventure starts on Wednesday, the day before the convention. While on a break at work I took a few minutes to refresh myself on the exhibitor code of conduct and was surprised to see that the event started on THURSDAY, not Friday, as I had previously thought. In a panic, I contacted my partner in crime Peter Pepper (whom I would be sharing a booth with) to inform him that we'd have to depart a full day earlier than expected, called out of work for Thursday, finished out the day at work, and rushed to prepare for the journey. The following morning at 6am Peter and I loaded up the tour van, got gas, caught a quick breakfast, and departed for Miami before 6:45am. The typical problems I've associated with the tour van were not present, save for a cluster of spiders guarding the fusleodge. We arrived at the con, timely at 10:10am, unloaded, and moved dozens of boxes to our booth, #314. Notably my wheeled tote broke, making the loading process more difficult than it should have been. In a flash we set up the booth and were ready for business by con opening.

As I started to play accordion, which is what I do when I'm at these conventions, an awesome cosplayer immediately ran to the booth, face full of recognition and a huge grin. After a few awkward moments of big hugs and greetings where I had no idea who I was talking to she finally identified herself as Destiny Faith-Hope, a close friend, battle-sibling, a former neighbor, roommate (who had moved to Mississippi years ago), and a former member of Random Encounter! It turned out she and her S.O. Rob Smith III (who is also a former roommate, neighbor, battle-brother, and close friend) were not only in Florida, but were the booth next to mine! Neither of us had recognized each other at first, until I started playing music. There was a lot of catching up throughout the weekend. I've missed them both and it was really cool to run into them.

Throughout the day I played accordion, sold CD's, introduced people to my band, and got to chat with some really interesting folks, including 2 members of the band Hypnotic Tones, which i'd never heard of but now like. The first evening, after the con closed at 7:30pm, Peter and I caught food with some of his friends at a German (actually Austrian) restaurant, joined them at their house later, and I got to play with a quasi-Egyptian short-haired cat which was extremely playful to the point where I'd compare its behaviors to being dog-like... It even enjoyed playing fetch and fell asleep on my lap!

The next morning we were back at the booth by 10:10am (traffic), and played music. When Peter left to go hang out with the cast of the Walking Dead a number of people asked if I was Peter Pepper, which greatly amused me, and later in the day a messenger with a short blue wig and big glasses stopped by to give me a mysterious hand written note, sealed with an octopus pin. When I looked up from the note the messenger was gone and I was left with an anonymous letter of admiration. It was really elegant, written in cursive. It talked about my "ashen locks" and how my accordion playing, seen from afar, had tugged at the heartstrings of the author, and how s/he did not want to talk to me for fear that I would steal his/her heart. As I'm the one in the band most easily described as "the one with the hat and the broken nose", and with the other bandmates being more good looking than myself, such a politely written letter of admiration caught me quite off-guard. Peter suggested that perhaps I got it because I was approachable, but I was quick to point out that I hadn't technically been approached.

The day went on, more people were met, and I spoke at length with the makers of Sanctum Polis, a new retro RPG i'm interested in. Peter, friends, and I caught a 4th of July dinner at an Asian diner in downtown Miami called Bonding, and we shared food as random people shot of fireworks in the streets, oddly close to and the skyscrapers we were near. We missed the big fireworks display and caught a silly 80's movie about a boy who gets kidnapped by aliens and travels at the speed of light for 8 years. Before I fell asleep I noticed a business card one of our friends had that matched the artwork on the pin from the aforementioned letter and used my phone to find the location of the artist's booth at Supercon.

The following morning we arrived a little bit early so I stopped by the booth of the artist who made the pin (from the letter), casually said "I got your letter", handed her a CD, and walked away. The letters were really flattering, so I thought no harm in it. It was only an hour later that I realized that the woman's expression was more confused than the face of someone trying to hide the fact that they'd been found out. So, I went back to the booth and explained myself to her. She said that a Frenchman had given them (her and the guy at her booth) a 2 page poem about their art as well, albeit not anonymously, and suggested that perhaps the Frenchman liked my work as well... But the handwriting from their note (which they wanted to show me) wasn't cursive and was signed completely differently. Odd... The three of us laughed about it and I went back to my booth to continue the day. Throughout the day I saw familiar folks from Sanshee, fellow vendors and artists from cons past, people who i'd met at Megacons and Shadowcons of years past, people i'd never met before who knew of Random Encounter from Spotify/iTunes/Youtube/or the general internet, and a lot of people who had seen our performances with Video Games Live. At one point I met a guy who had seen us back in 2007. The conversation went something like
"Holy S***! Random Encounter! I remember you guys from 2007, you guys were awesome!"
Me: "Then I have some extremely good news for you... we got a lot better."
Hilarity ensued. Towards the end of the day the blue haired guy stopped by while I was in the middle of a conversation and said "message for you" while dropping something. Before I could stop him he'd already run away and I had a second anonymous letter of admiration, this one describing that this person liked the music I was playing, specifically the Game of Thrones theme I'd remembered how to play earlier that day. It seemed that perhaps this wasn't a blast-letter series made by the Frenchman after all...

That evening we ate at a really nice French place we found on Yelp (I wish I'd remember the name). They had amazing cheeses and a Belgium chocolate moose that's the best I've ever had. I think Peter went off to party with the GoT cast or something. I went to sleep. The next morning, I alone went back to the booth, arriving an hour or so early. Somewhere mid-day my friend Jennifer (one of the con organizers) stopped by and chatted for awhile about how the convention was going. She also brought up the fact that I'd apparently met her sister and sold her sister an album solely on the fact that she (Jennifer's sister) had said "my sister will really like this", not knowing that Jennifer had backed that album on Kickstarter. Awhile later I got a really horrible photo with really good Khal Drogo and Peter Baelish cosplayers I won't post (it's REALLY bad), and played accordion some more. I gave a personal concert to some kids who had all of our albums but had never seen the band in person, and mid way through the day a girl stopped by with a mysterious note for me. I quickly asked her not to run and she said that she actually had no idea what the whole thing was about, but that she (bored) had been asked by a stranger if she could deliver a letter to me. The cover of the letter clarified "I seem to have lost my other courier" and once again the contents were sealed with a pin from the shop i'd visited the day before. The courier was just as amused as I was at the situation, which I fully explained, and agreed to try to counter-deliver a CD with the message "got your letters" (and mysteriously vanish like a ninja). The courier also verified that a woman had indeed given her the note (not that i'm against men admiring me, though I'm not bisexual/gay, I was just curious). It was only after the courier left that it dawned on me that she very well could have been the author.

Later in the day a man playing a saxophone, dressed as the Sexy Sax Man, stopped by and we totally jammed out on Careless Whisper. It's extra silly because my name is Careless and it was about mid way through the song that I realized that it was THE Sexy Sax Man! Peter (who had appeared with his camera at the last moment) caught a bit of the jam on camera and also verified that he was the real deal. It was pretty awesome and totally unexpected.

All in all, I pride myself most on making people smile, living up to the archetype of "entertainer/storyteller" and this weekend I brought smiles to dozens of faces of people who were clearly having a bad time (without telling them to smile, which I see as being rude). By playing my accordion (and making silly faces) I got three babies to flat out stop crying, two really distressed ladies to cheer up, and a guy who looked like he was going to fight someone to switch his mood a full 360 by the time they walked away. That was the real victory of the weekend. At the end of it all, still having some semblance of a voice not yet lost, I gave my best rendition of -72 hours- and while Peter, myself, and two friends were all packing up the booth, chatting about the weekend, I noticed a scrap of paper on the table that wasn't there a few seconds prior... It was a fourth note! This ninja had somehow solo-delivered a really nice thank-you card (for the CD, which she'd received) without any of us noticing its delivery! All of us were pretty impressed with the mystery admirer and loaded up the van in under an hour. We caught dinner on the rough side of town and drove back north well into the early hours of the morning, chatting about a fictional group of bad-land bandits we hope to write a silly story about one day.

Like I said before, though I spent 9 hours each day sitting at a booth FL Supercon was still quite the adventure. Here's to you, Supercon!

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.

Con Review: Megacon 2014

Fun Fact: The chair is also balancing on top of something...
Photo by Brittany C. Horne Photography!

About 95% of my time at Megacon this weekend was spent from behind the table of my band's merch booth but I still feel like I have quite a lot to share. Let's start with some stats: This year Megacon grew exponentially from a normal, state-sized convention to a nationally epic 85,000 person super-convention! There were countless guest artists, special guests (including Stan Lee), and vendors which occupied the Orange County Convention Center's South Concourse (a move from the smaller West Concourse). To clarify: the line to get in on Saturday was so incredibly large that people literally wrapped around the convention center (exceeding a half mile of total line, but more likely a literal full mile of line i'm told!), cell phone reception in areas of otherwise good reception slowed and ceased altogether due to the extra 85,000+ people, and the halls were literally packed so tightly that it was neigh impossible to walk through without constantly touching or bumping into someone. The costumes were amazing, the people were friendly, there were cool things in sight every step of the way, and Megacon was better than ever this year!

Waking up at 4am on Friday

My story begins on the Friday morning of the convention at about midnight, packing my car full of my band's merchandise. With the assistance from my good friend Peter I was able to pack the car with over 1000 cd's, shirts, hoodies, stickers, posters, and all of the other merchandise that a band would need. This weekend I would be representing my band, Random Encounter. I slept for about 4 hours, woke up around 4:40am on Friday, and drove to meet with our guitarist Konami to pick up a few hundred copies of an album he forgot to bring to the last band practice (or just didn't have room for). We met at a shady gas station at around 5:20am, exchanged packages, drove our separate ways, and by 7:30am I found myself at the Orange County Convention Center loading docks. Moose (our drummer) arrived at around 8:15, about the time the doors opened and exactly the same time I got my exhibitor badges from the loading gate. We loaded in, set up the booth, he headed out, and I took a few minutes to look around the convention center.

LIFE SIZED RANCOR!!!

The amount of traditional vendor booths this year felt about the same as last year, with some natural growth of course. This year saw the return of the giant collection of robots (Literally. R2-D2 style robots, Daleks, etc), a series of star wars set replicas including a Rancor, a giant Lego area, a significantly larger artist alley consisting of up-and-coming artists, a larger guest signing area, and wider alleys for people to walk through. In the final minutes of my only real free time to walk through the convention center (before I had to go back to the booth to relieve Moose, so he could go home) my eye caught sight of a print that looked remarkably like something Charles Vess would make. Since he more or less stopped making prints YEARS ago I was in disbelief and started talking with the couple that owned the booth/company known as Chimera Publishing. We talked for maybe 10 or 15 minutes about art and artists, having a really great time. I learned that the image I saw was indeed a Vess print, and that they also had another print of his as well. Lacking a last minute birthday gift for my girlfriend (a huge Vess fan) I got both and victoriously returned to my booth, comically enough numbered "666." I'm not superstitious, but the number certainly helped people remember which booth to find us at. It also got me a lot of advice from superstitious individuals.

The 8am line on Saturday was said to be a MILE long,
extending well outside the entrance!!!

The doors opened and a flood of people came in. Over the course of the morning I gradually positioned my chair precariously atop the band's merch tote box and played songs while people walked by. I talked with a bunch of people, made friends, made fans, and made people smile. I think that's what I enjoy most about conventions, making people smile. I gave out stickers to kids and played music based on what people were wearing (Doctor Who was huge this year). I talked to pretty much everyone who walked by my booth regardless of ethnicity, age, or attire, and I've found over the years that some of the most interesting and friendly people are those you never thought you'd want to talk to: gruff punk rockers, the extremely Satanically inclined, older folks walking by with scowls on their faces. I really like cheering people up, entertaining them, and it was a pleasure to be the first accordionist ever seen by many I talked to. I caught up with old friends, played music, chatted, and gave my sales pitch nonstop until the doors closed. By the end of the day I was completely exhausted and fell asleep in a room (at a friend's house) that I was later informed contained a half dozen decomposing rabbits.

Among my favorite costumes of the weekend...

Day 2 was similar to day 2. Waking up at 7am to insane traffic; a blur of a day playing music, meeting with people, and selling merch. I forgot the cash box half way through the drive to the convention center and had to go back for it, waking up everyone in the house on accident. At the convention I watched as a "very straight man" hit on a "very cute girl", only to realize when she opened her mouth that she wasn't a girl at all. As Forbes Magazine suggested in their article on Megacon, geeky things are now becoming mainstream and as those people who would not refer to themselves as geeky are gradually introduced into this new world things like this will become more commonplace and "normal" folks will gradually find themselves liking things that were formally thought of as being reserved for the extremely geeky like anime, comic books, and (if I have anything to do with it) video game music. The future looks fun!

My chair only slipped once the entire weekend!

Cave Story: Download it for FREE NOW

Throughout the day I gradually got higher up on the chair, still recklessly balanced atop the tote, sold stuff with the help from a few friends like Peter Pepper, Kat, and Loki, and saw dozens of friends and fans from cons/shows past. Being my 4th year as a vendor at Megacon I've made quite a few friends and was pretty nostalgic at points through the weekend. There were more insane costumes, new friendly faces, and literally THOUSANDS of people walking by the booth every hour. At the end of the day my band played a show (the Ongaku Overdrive Megacon After Party) with Shammers, Sci Fried, and Marc with a C a few blocks away which I felt was a grand success. I slept on the sidewalk before the show started, was utterly exhausted before/after the show, and did my best to give a high energy performance and sing, despite having just played for maybe 8 hours a day for the past two days on no sleep. It was a great night and we didn't get to Moose's place to sleep until 2am, this time in the room NEXT TO the room with the decomposing rabbits.

Friendly faces at the rock show

I woke up on the morning of Day 3 feeling off. Undaunted, I got to the convention center by 8am, but I still felt sick, shaky, and tired. By the time the doors opened I phoned for backup and did my best to sell merch with Kat's help until Konami and Rook arrived. I played one final round of Ren and Stimpy's: Happy, Joy with a man dressed like Powdered Toast Man who stopped by the booth and was utterly exhausted. My bandmates took over the booth from there as I packed up and took the long walk back to my car. None of you will believe this, but I was able to spot Waldo again this year. I just wasn't fast enough to snap a good picture before he ran off and blended into the crowd. I was unable to find him again on my way back to the car. Traffic at 1pm was still pretty bad for Orlando traffic but it was nothing compared to the insanity of the Saturday crowd. 

Voltron anyone?

Megacon was an extremely fun time this year. It's grown a lot and and I feel I've personally grown with it. My only big regret this year is that I could not have been there longer but I am extremely grateful for all of the awesome people I was able to meet, and for having the ability to play a show within walking distance of the convention center this year! I'm already signed up for next year and can't wait. 

Who is awesome? This guy!

Feel free to share your stories from this weekend here or post pictures (or links to pictures/videos) in the comments section below!