TRAVIS

“COMING AROUND”

b/w “Just The Faces Change”/”The Connection”/”Rock N’ (Salad) Roll”/”The Weight” (The Band cover)

Released 6/5/00

(Fran Healy)

I used to really love Travis; from 2000 til around 2003, I would say they were one of my favorite bands. I was won over by their second album (the massive U.K. smash The Man Who) and subsequently picked up their debut, Good Feeling. By the time The Invisible Band was released in the summer of 2001, my Traviphile tendencies were at a fever pitch. My friend Ryan and I even went to a Dido concert just because Travis were opening. In the middle of this period of devotion came “Coming Around”, a non-album single released to help ease the wait between records.

Now, the first thing you might notice when you hear “Coming Around” is that it sounds like The Byrds. Not just kind of like The Byrds. Just like The Byrds. My knowledge of guitars is nil, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that’s the 12-string Ricky on the track, the kind Roger McGuinn made famous. But I’ve never let blatant borrowing ruin my appreciation of a good song (Oasis is one of my favorite bands, after all), and almost a decade later, I still really like “Coming Around”. It’s got a good Fran Healy-supplied melody, and I’ve always been a fan of jangly guitars/ Now, it’s sounds like more of a transitional song to me than it did then; the melancholy of The Man Who being replaced by the (perhaps overly) sunny tones of The Invisible Band.

Unfortunately, that change also marked the beginning of the end for my time as an ardent Travis fan. I enjoy Band still (though it’s been years since I listened to it), but I think my affection may be borne more out of nostalgia than enthusiasm. I actually liked 2003’s 12 Memories, though after that my interest in keeping track of Travis faded. I bought The Boy With No Name, but it was out of habit more than anything and I seriously doubt I’ve ever listened to it all the way through. I didn’t even bother to get Ode To J. Smith. Some bands stay with you, and some bands are destined to fall by the wayside. But I still love The Man Who and I still love “Coming Around”…like I said, it was a transition, but I think it still has enough of a sweet spot for me, enough residual TMW qualities to make the cut-off of my Travis love. I also remember listening to it on a plane ride to Japan in the summer of 2000, and anytime a song can take you back to some of the best days of your life, it’s bound to have a positive effect on you.

Here’s the video…there’s a giant egg in it:

G.

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SAMURAI SHODOWN
original platform
arcade
developer/publisher
SNK

The success of Capcom’s Street Fighter II resulted in a legion of imitators. SNK recruited some of the designers of the original Street Fighter from 1987, but considering how terribly that game actually plays it should come as no surprise that efforts like Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury were complete garbage. SNK finally righted the ship with Samurai Shodown, which incidentally plays much more like SFII than the previously-mentioned efforts, while maintaining the high special effects SNK became known for. The setting is feudal Japan and the cast consists of the great archetypes associated with that period. A whole series followed, although the later entries might be more accurately considered updates rather than sequels.

Samurai Shodown was inducted on November 6th, 2009.

Return to the National Game Registry to view more inductees.

MORTAL KOMBAT II
original platform
arcade
developer/publisher
Midway
key personnel
John Tobias (design)
Ed Boon (program/design)
Dan Forden (music)

Mortal KombatII offers the same as the original, but amped up in every way. The gameplay in particular is superior and the imagery is overall much more interesting.

Mortal Kombat II was inducted on November 6th, 2009.

Return to the National Game Registry to view more inductees.

LUCKY & WILD
original platform
arcade
developer/publisher
Namco
key personnel
Taro Okamoto (design)
S. Tohyama (design)
Y. Kounoe (design)
Etsuo Ishii (music)

By the early 1990s, there were legions of racing games and mobs of light gun games but Namco’s Lucky & Wild lets the player drive and shoot. This combination alone would perhaps just be a novelty but the game is well constructed and has lots of personality, ex: the great rear view mirror at the top of the screen displaying the title characters’ reactions.

Lucky & Wild was inducted on November 6th, 2009.

Return to the National Game Registry to view more inductees.

Unlike many of the other illustrators in this series, Johnny Gruelle wrote most of his works.  He secured his fame with his creation, Raggedy Ann (and Andy).  He is best known for this series of books but he illustrated several others, as well.

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Arthur Rackham, like Maxfield Parrish, still enjoys a following today. His legend extends beyond the world of illustrated books and there are several art books dedicated to his work currently in print. It’s difficult to point out works with which he is specifically associated, largely because he mostly provided illustrations for new editions of long-established works like Aesop’s Fables, Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows, etc.  The one original work of some fame that he illustrated is Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, which is largely overshadowed by its sequel, Peter and Wendy (aka Peter Pan).  Anyway, read ‘em and weep!

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Mr. Tenniel is the eldest illustrator featured thus far. Tenniel was not a full-time illustrator of books but rather spent most of his time working on editorial cartoons for Punch magazine.  Still, the in addition to a version of Aesop’s Fables, he illustrated a couple of immortal whoppers, namely Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.  And now gaze at his his handiwork!

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or…
“Demos and Our Bright Reflections”
(following Beati Paoli’s songs from inception to adulthood)

||RABBLE ROUSE||

here’s the demo:

this is the first track from the first full length – “A Sense Of Urgency” (buy it here or on itunes). this album was initially started way back in december of ‘06, when we began slowly (very, very slowly) recording bits and pieces of songs that we had previously written or were currently working on. i don’t remember exactly when this song was introduced to the band, but i feel like it was within the first 1o or so songs we worked on.

the demo, like most of the early songs, was written and recorded by uciel on a digital 4-track. he then gave it to greg, who worked up some vocal arrangements. from there, it was laid out for ryan and myself to have our way with. as you can hear, the basic structure never changed, but many things were added, driving the song in a MUCH different direction than where it was originally headed.

the recording of this song started, like usual, with the drums. i can’t remember what mics we had at the time, so i won’t talk about mic placement or anything, however, i do remember that this is one of the tracks from a session where i refused to mic the toms. because of this, the drum mix obviously focused on overheads and room mics. the drums were played, multiple times, start to finish along to a predetermined click track. interestingly enough, after all the effort, there’s only one section of the song where we actually kept the real drums.

i’m assuming the next thing to be laid down would have the bass, as that’s how we did most of the album. we would get the bass and drums really tight and then layer everything on that foundation. guitars would have been next, and i don’t know the effects chains for any of these parts, as i didn’t play any of them (you’d have to ask ryan and cecil), but all said and done, we probably have 5 or 6 rhythm guitar tracks going on. greg then recorded the vocals on top of all this. we have two vocals going on the verse, paned to the left and right, with a handful of effects on each. again, most of this was done on the fly without a lot of planning, so i don’t have notes about what effects in what order. i will try and do better with my note taking in the future!

i know that the solo on the bridge was added later, as there was never originally a solo there. ryan came up with it one day while listening to an initial rough mix and we threw it in cuz it sounds rad. he also wrote and recorded a couple of cello parts for bridge. and speaking of the bridge… that’s the one place where we kept the original, live drum part. however, i ran it through the vocoder of a microkorg which i had programmed. i also manipulated it in real time to make it more interesting.

the rest of the drums were later programmed using multiple instances of  fxpansion’s BFD. the beat is almost identical to the live version, just not actually live, and some of the verse drums were run through effects. i can’t remember the chain, but obviously there’s some delay and filters. i think i tried another vocoder as well.

at this point, we could have been done… but NO! ryan stole a giant old box fan from his parents and we sampled it, processed it, and layered it at the beginning and end of the tune, along with some other machinery and noise. we also used  battery to put in some samples of marching and metal pipes during the chorus. you know… the usual.

and here’s the final product (found on “A Sense Of Urgency“):

scott

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It’s Wednesday, and Wednesday = comics. So here are some comics you can buy today!

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-27333-Des-Moines-Graphic-Novels-Examiner~y2009m11d4-Wednesday-comics-11409#

Strange Tales, Lobo, Criminal…y’know, whatever.

G.

Remember Steve Ditko? Co-created Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, worked on lots of other comics? He’s 82 today, and I wrote a bit of a biographical piece on him in celebration of his birthday. Please check it out, it took a bit of time to research and write, but I think it turned out pretty well.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-27333-Des-Moines-Graphic-Novels-Examiner~y2009m11d2-Steve-Ditko-cocreator-of-SpiderMan-is-82-today#

Please feel free to offer any comments, criticisms, etc. Thanks!

G.