#the ASDF skit was made for this

[chaos-vulpix]

Superstar Rockin' Jay: 🎶 Yeah, baby! I love you, baby! 🎶

Maya: Stay away from my baby!

Nya: But Mother, I love him

[iwantnodle]

I like how we all agreed that cheese is just a funny food.

Moon is made of cheese

Can can has cheeseburger

ASDF skit that's just a guy throwing cheese

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Secret-Diary Recommends Some Music

I’m not exactly a ‘music person’, in that I don’t know a lot about the mechanics that underpin it: I couldn’t look at sheet music and tell you what the tune is or describe the change in chords in a classical piece. I’m not even 100% sure what the difference between a Ukulele and a Banjo is, aside from the fact that one is played by coquettish islanders while I get shit-faced on Pina Colladas in the background and the other is played by Louisiana bootleggers from the 1920s with comedy accents. All that being said, I know enough to know that the overwhelming preponderance of music produced today is total crap. Every time I’m foolish enough to tune a radio to a musical station, there’s a new barely-pubescent twatwipe peeping about their feelings in a tupperware voice that strongly suggests they don’t actually have any. Either that or its some nominally grown-ass man or woman singing something that they imagine is sassy and empowering but actually just makes them sound like Gary from World’s End- only less charming, because immature, quasi-literate manbabies are infinitely more annoying when they’re real. The point is, it’s a fucking wasteland out there. Trying to find a band (from now or the past) who you’d actually want to listen to can be a chore. That’s why, as your gracious patron and benefactor, I’ve decided to share the fruits of my musical explorations with you and hit you with some recommendations. I’ve tried to be as eclectic as possible, since I want everyone who reads this to find something they’ll like, no matter how radically divergent their individual tastes are. Some of the entries on this list are famous, some are obscure and some were famous but have been made obscure by the passage of time. I’ve tried to limit myself to people whose music you might not be fully aware of, even if you’ve heard of them to some extent, but I’m not plugged into what is and isn’t popular with peeps nowadays, so don’t read too much into my choices if they seem either too obvious or too bizarre. Here goes.

1. The Orion Experience An ultra-camp synthesis of New Romantic music, bubble-gum pop and modern vocal stylings, The Orion Experience are unlike anything else you’ll have heard recently. They seem to borrow as much from the original Decadent tradition in art and literature as from later musical iterations, meaning that their lyrics are complex and sophisticated without being especially deep. They’re primarily concerned with building aesthetically-interesting and richly-evocative language-constructs rather than performing an emotion that no-one in the band is actually feeling. The deliberate artifice is deeply refreshing in a musical landscape of faked sincerity and forced emoting. I recommend starting with the songs The Cult of Dionysus and Sugar. If you like those, the rest of their stuff may also interest you.

2. Trace Adkins During an attempt to write a wild west/sci-fi fusion novel, I went on a musical odyssey, looking for apposite songs that would gel well with the world I was building (knowing a world’s soundtrack can help cement that world in your imagination- try it, if you’re a writer yourself). Anyway, I stumbled across Trace Adkins- a country singer with a palpable sense of humour about being a country singer and a knack for delivering a silly-but-well-turned phrase. Also, without getting technical, his tunes just flat-out rock. I have no idea how well known he in the Country and Western World, but since his existence came as news to me, I’m sticking him on this list. Start with the surprisingly sexy Honky Tonk Badonkadonk and graduate to Hot Momma and Whoop a Man’s Ass. You’ll know if it’s your sort of thing from the first minute of any of those songs.

3. Caravan Palace Have ye heard of a thing called Electric Swing? If you’re reading a blog post about music, you probably have, but just in case you haven’t, let me tell you it’s a fantastic genre. Imagine if The Great Gatsby owned a synth and took a fuckload of mind-squanching hallucinogens. Well, that’s Electric Swing. Few do it better than Caravan Palace, who also seem to borrow heavily from club music and other genres, adding these to their unique blend. For some pure Electric Swing, start with Susie. For something a little more modern, start with Lone Digger.

4. 11 Acorn Lane Speaking of Electric Swing, I can also recommend 11 Acorn Lane, whose lyrics can be a little more playful than those of Caravan Palace. They also have a somewhat more classic sound. Start with Let’s Face it I’m Cute for a great sample of their work.

5. The Fratellis Now, my UK readers have almost certainly heard of The Fratellis, since they actually got some traction on mainstream radio over here. I’m less sure about those of you reading along in America, so allow me to make an introduction. Their music is joyously and unapologetically grimy and proletarian, paring an unrivaled sense of fun and energy with a sly, low-key feeling of cynicism and detachment. The tunes and melodies evoke Rock, punk and New-Wave (think The Ramones by way of The Proclaimers) without wholly relying on any of them. Check out Chelsea Dagger or Henrietta to hear them at their most gleefully up-tempo-yet-jaded, or try Vince the Lovable Stoner for a more chill, tongue-in-cheek song.

5. Dionne Warwick You’ve probably heard of her in connection with There’s Always Something There to Remind Me, especially since it featured heavily in that one fantastic episode of Black Mirror. However, you might not have realised just how much she’s contributed to musical history: her soft-yet-powerful voice and classic Rock rhythms and tunes combine to create something archetypal yet unique. Leap right in with Do You Know the Way to San Jose and discover a fucking legend.

6. Rufus Rex Ever wanted to hear a freakishly talented man singing songs based on horror films and books (particularly the works of H.P. Lovecraft) in a style that evokes Goth music but defies genre on closer inspection? Then get your arse over to Rufus Rex and start plumbing the nightmarish depths of horror-music with the song World’s In Between.

7. Studio Killers Contemporary electronic music with surprisingly inventive and weird lyrics. That about sums up Studio Killers, really. Look, not everything on this list can be genre-transcendent or epoch-defining: some things are just very good examples of the type of music they belong to. If you haven’t heard of them, start with the song Eros and Apollo then check out Ode to the Bouncer, then compare and contrast: those two songs represent the two opposite edges of the musical spectrum they cover, so if you like either one, at least some of their songs will be for you. Also, treat yourself to the music videos on Youtube: they’re surreal and awsesome.

8. Fishbone A punky ska band from back in the day, Fishbone are on this list for one reason and one reason only: Party at Ground Zero. Party at Ground Zero is an upbeat, gloriously energetic song about nuclear war. It’s a total jam and you absolutely have to experience it for yourself.

9. Tomska Tomska... isn’t technically a professional musician. He’s a Youtube comedian, short-film maker and collaborative animator who became internet-famous for his ‘ASDF movies’. On the off-chance that you haven’t seen them, they’re short collections of animated skits and jokes rendered in a simple but immediately-compelling and recognisable style. Anyway, Tomska decided to create fast-paced, catchy songs about some of the recurring characters in his ASDF movies, and those songs turned out to be fucking amazing- being both laugh-out-loud funny and actually really musically ambitious and well put together. Check them out on his channel. I’m particularly fond of Mine Turtles, but you do you.

10. Paul Anka Big band and jazz musician Paul Anka once set out on a quest to create 1920s-sounding versions of famous rock ‘n’ roll songs and the results can only be described as ‘eargasmically epic’. His versions of Jump and Eye of the Tiger are, frankly, better than the originals.

Right, that’s everything I can thing of for now. I’m going to go make myself a big sandwich. By the time your read this, I’ll be settling down with two-slices of bread, some cheese and an unreasonably large amount of cranberry sauce. All the songs and bands in today’s entry are on Youtube, so go have a nosy. Until next time, peace out and fuck off!

[entitydark]

Ok so @r4dguyy asked me to info dump and so I shall!

ASDF movie is one of the first really famous animations on youtube, back when robot chicken was at it's height, and you can see the different ways people have been inspired by it. For example both the theodd1sout and Jaiden animations have mascot characters that were very obviously inspired by the art style of ASDF. It currently has 12 episodes and five full length songs to it's name. All of which I think are bops. The unofficial precursors of the ASDF movies were tomska's (the creator's) "Tom's tales of awesome" and it's sequel, "Tom's tales of brilliance" which was made with his friend edward Gould. Ed ended up creating the juggernaut of a flash series "Edd's world" which tom continued after Edd's passing in 2012. Tom continued to work on Edd's world until 2016, where he then passed it on too Matt Hargreaves, a co-creater on the show and close friend. Tom has not posted an ASDF video since last year, tho there hasn't been any clear signs he's permanently ended the series too my current knowledge.

Personal things about the I like include how random it can be, how some jokes can carry on between skits, and how whenever tom used a gay joke in his skits he managed to not make it insulting. I also grew up with both Edd's world and ASDF and have always loved the humor. It's honestly just a really funny series, and I always ended up laughing no matter how many times I watch it. It's just very good, and I love it a completely normal amount. Feel free to ask me any questions for this, I'd be happy to help! 😊

How would you classify Saladfingers, Charlie the Unicorn and asdfmovie?

that’s...a good question. what genre of internet video is this?

[paracausalitywhatatrip]

A massive influence into (purely) character design is ASDF Movie (from 1 - 12 current). Althought this series is a short anthology of comedy skits. the character creation is simple yet very affective. Facial expressions can be easily made out by adding or disabling eyebrows, how much of the face the mouth takes up, as well as eye positioning. This series is represented in black-and-white. Although my designs are very similar, they take aspects across all 3 shows and creative works to expand on the ideas demonstrated in each. Will be in full colour as well and characters will have SOME form of illustrated clothing attire to fit the character in attempted to avoid a “same face syndrome” situation where characters can be misunderstood due them looking too alike.

[hi-d-blog]

I knew I wanted to do an animation, but at first I didn’t know what to do and so I made a list.

At first, I thought about doing lots of short animated skits and complied them into a 1 - 2 minute long video, much like TomSka’s “ASDF Movies”. However, I later thought that it people at the exhibition won’t quite understand all of the jokes and so on.

[collab-ba3b-1401113-blog]

Before I begin thinking about how I can develop my animation, I decided to look at a few more references just to get some inspiration.

The first two films are created by TOMSKA, and while they aren’t exactly classed under the banner of Farmer Drama, I was looking at them more to see how they do comedy.  The ASDF movies are known for their extremely short skits, similar to how vine comedians made videos, but in the movies they greatly vary in topics from skit to skit.  I think it would be useful to take this into consideration since my animation is only going to be around 10 seconds.

The next video is an odd way of presenting the theme Farmer Drama, but this film was one of my childhood favourites and I couldn’t help looking at it again.  Racing Stripes is a live action film where the animals have CG animated mouths to mimic human movement.  The general plot revolves around a zebra trying to enter a racing derby...the premise is boring, but I like how it includes exotic animals into the mix.  I would probably not consider doing this in my final animation, but it is definately food for thought.

The last film is from Charlotte’s web, a popular children’s story about farm animals dealing with various issues.  I never read the story when I was young, but I was excited they had done several variations for the big screen. This is a more traditional approach to the theme, but unfortunately, this is something I cannot repeat.  Films like Babe and Gordy for the same thing, and I want to try and make my work as unique as possible.