#with wildly different jam styles i might add

[doomed-qpr]

unforeseen outcome of immersing myself in a fandom again has been thinking about a roller derby au. for fucking. The Outsiders. one of the least derbyify-able media ever. what if (im dragged away, kicking and screaming)

[dustedmagazine]

Mordecai — Seeds from the Furthest Vine (Petty Bunco)

Photo by Richie Charles

Seeds From the Furthest Vine, the latest Mordecai record, spends 37 minutes disassembling without completely coming apart. The trio plays like a ramshackle miniature train: one moment chugging wildly, tilting and careening, the next tipping back into something like balance, avoiding the wreck. Much of the folkish psychedelia from 2020’s patchy, engrossing Library Music is carried forward. Yet here, Mordecai both raises the intensity of the commotion and channels it into a more structured rock and roll. Seeds from the Furthest Vine, for all its thrashing, tends to find a tuneful coherence in the clatter.

Wild whistles follow the title track’s hop to its sequel, “Seeds from the Furthest Vine Part 2.” The guitar’s nodding, muted strum is right from the 1990s Darnielle school of straight-to-boombox longing. And as in many of those brief, early Mountain Goats songs, Mordecai builds up a shimmering aura in the atmosphere trailing off their simple, repetitive playing and dissonant detours. The brightness is moving. Something similar and wistful is achieved on “Oval Door” in the dogged, is-it-quite-tuned quality of the guitar and forceful hand-drumming. Still, disorder is never far away. “Oval Door” opens with the lyric “I am not in my right mind/as she stands by the oval door.” What’s going on is not exactly clear, but that we’re headed “a long way down” to somewhere is hard to deny. Even “Minted,” perhaps the record’s most staid song, with Holt Bodish annunciating a la Jonathan Richman and playing light, wind-bent chords, erupts in clean, treacly bursts of micro-strumming and clustered notes by the end.

Beyond the natural fizz of the recording style, there’s little distortion applied to the band’s amplified instruments. It’s the practiced unsteadiness of the playing and the exploratory percussion that creates the album’s ambient menace. Perhaps the most menacing, if not the most overtly abrasive is “Meat on a Stick.” It reels, distraught with thin, vertiginous guitar notes which teeter over the tinny explosions from Gavin Swietnicki’s drums (or is it trash can lids?) behind them. The sound is severe and intimate, with Bodish, somewhere between a mumble and cry, spinning out about “a perfect world” and “rotten flesh.” “Never Get Ahead” packs a more robust punch. A keyboard drone shifts up and down; it’s more mechanism than music. Take your pick: ten fingers jamming out a torrent of approximated chords or an exhausted car engine barely turning over. Either way, the band works “Never Get Ahead” up to a pounding ache.

“Divine Sea” is a highlight, both in the sense that it’s one of the album’s best songs and because it illuminates the fundamental elements. We get ranting, rambling bursts of lead guitar, but also a thick, discernible bassline from Elijah Bodish, which girds Holt’s humming, one-sided conversation. Swietnicki, for his part, could be hammering out the beat with screwdriver handles on a cardboard box. The sound is the album’s character distilled: wry and raw, drunk but mostly lucid. If “Divine Sea” is a showcase, then, in an apt bit of sequencing, the seven-minute closer “Down In An Alley" feels like a summation and even a lurch further. H. Bodish’s guitar alternates between chipping away at the space and peeling it back in great, metallic tugs while sundry percussive components, instrumental and otherwise, detonate in the background. What’s probably an accordion sighs. Gleeful, cheapo keys add to the texture and personality. It’s sprawling and wanton; a loose, petulant pleasure. Music that might be described in terms of heavy machinery with a different band is, with Mordecai, the sound of passed down hand tools and decayed electric saws whirling and chirping; the clanks and whines sparking out from under a half-open garage door down the block, or, indeed, alley. To wander over, even just to rubberneck, is to be drawn in.

Alex Johnson

[science-lings]

LU Cooking Headcanons: A Ranked Study

Wild: 15/10 The best cook is obviously Wild. But he’s not just an amazing cook, he’s also a very creative cook who’s also great at decorating. His baked creations are always beautiful and he takes a surprising amount of care to get them that way. I mean seriously, he takes the care to make fish pies actually shaped like fish and garnishes everything he makes. He puts little horns on the monster cake and individually wraps honey candy! I also think he experiments a lot and would totally invent ice cream while playing with ice magic infused items. He’s not just an amazing cook, he’s super fucking extra about it. He can also make 11 different kinds of elixirs and somehow make rocks/ wood edible. But who knows if its edible to anyone apart from himself. My guess is that Hyrule is the only one that is physically able to eat Wild’s famous rock-hard food. However Hyrule lives off of moss and questionable meat so he has to have a digestive system of steel. 

Twilight: 8/10, Knows a few recipes and is really good at making them. But he needs a kitchen and struggles with making things with limited ingredients and equipment.  He’s really good at dishes including goat cheese and somehow manages to make that garbage taste good. He cannot bake. At all. He mixes baking powder and baking soda up constantly and no matter how much he tries, he can’t make frosting the correct consistency. it always ends up lumpy and he has cried over it. At least he knows how to fry things and make any vegetable wildly unhealthy. 

Time: 7/10, Can follow a recipe but he has to keep looking at it because he keeps forgetting the exact measurements. There are certain ‘fun’ recipes that he learned how to make from when he was with the Kokiri, like braided breads and pretzels and dumplings. Everything he bakes gets a childish spin, whether it’s making the batter a fun color or a silly shape. More practical recipes are hard for him and he really struggles with seasoning things right, he always adds too much salt or Goron spice, but he can handle the spice so he pretends that it was on purpose to watch everyone else suffer. 

Hyrule: 2/10, if he didn’t have a supernaturally strong immune system, he would be dead. It’s not really his fault though, he’s used to just eating things raw out of the ground. He picks up mushrooms from the dirt and puts them in his mouth before identifying if its poisonous or will make him trip balls. He tries to watch Wild cook so he might be able to try if he has to but he mixes up all the steps and can’t keep track of how much of each thing to add, so it always ends up as some kind of monstrosity. Wild is the only one that can eat anything that Hyrule makes because his immune system is similarly freakish. The one thing that Hyrule can make is tea and it’s so fucking good that it made his score not zero. Also in fairy form he can help Wild make fairy tonics and that’s pretty cool too. 

Legend: 5/10, he can only bake. He makes rolls in the shapes of bunnies because Ravio showed him how and now he literally can’t stop himself from making them that way now. He’s really good at making things with fruits, from cobblers and pies, to juices and jams. Wild showed him how to make sorbet and changed his life so now he too can make things like that. He can memorize recipes like a pro but he still needs a kitchen. He messes up everything that’s not baking. He burns rice and is too impatient to cook meats so he ends up burning it and still managing to keep it completely dangerously raw in the middle. He is good at folding dumplings though and knows a bunch of different styles. He really wishes he was better at cooking because he wants to replicate different foods from the different places he’s been. He also has a soft spot for island fruits but they’re really hard to get.

Warriors: 4/10, He can only cook very basic things and cannot bake at all. I’m talking real basic like premade noodles with butter and a poached egg on top of plain rice. The only real recipe he knows is a curry that was his favorite growing up that he memorized in a fit of pure passion. He tends to under-spice things but at least his food is not very likely to kill someone. He’s not very confident in his abilities though, he hasn’t had to cook for years after joining the military and stuff. He’s not just bad at baking though, every single time he tries it ends up in flames. literally. Every time it’s a disaster and it’s genuinely terrifying. Why does he need a sword when he can conjure a lava monster out of what was supposed to be cake batter. He’s banned for life from the castle kitchens after trying to make something for Athena’s birthday. He had to pay a lot of money to fix all those ovens...

Sky: 5/10, can technically feed himself, but he tends to make the same thing over and over again until he’s sick of it. He’s very good at chopping things and monotonous parts of cooking like kneading dough and whisking for long periods of time. This makes him an amazing assistant chief, so he is often one of Wild’s favorites to help him. He’s very particular when following instructions and takes his role very seriously. Refuses to use the master sword to chop vegetables, even when Wild didn’t have a knife big enough to cut the pumpkin that Sky wanted to make soup out of so badly. 

Four: 4/10, On their own, the colors are pretty good at cooking but as Four, it’s a disaster. They all think that they’re right and it’s one of the few arguments that is genuinely hard to work though. Red is good at flavor combinations and really likes spicy food, Green is good at remembering methods and has a major sweet tooth, Blue is good at labor intensive steps and cannot stand anything spicier than black pepper, and Vio is good at memorizing steps and exact measurements and tends to micromanage the rest of them. This all causes them to have a lot of trouble making decisions about food and have conflicting information when they’re all combined. 

Wind: 2/10, don’t let him near the cooking pot under any circumstances. He tends to forget that pots and pans can be very hot and has grabbed at scalding metal without a second thought. He can’t really make anything on his own but he wants to be helpful so badly, so he generally gets tasked with cutting things and other tasks that are far away from the fire. He’s a little clumsy and nothing he cuts ends up even but it’s just food and he’s been getting better. Wild is gradually teaching him how to cook, partially because he gets bored after setting up camp and while everyone else is settling down. He may not be good at the start but he’s learning and is pretty determined to be able to make one of his favorite of Wild’s dishes so that when he gets back to grandma and Aryll he’ll be able to impress them with his new skills. 

[optimistpax]

Do you know what order to read the IDW comics in, and/or where to read them all?

I think it kinda depends what interests you about the comics! I haven’t read all the comics (yet) so there might be more comprehensive lists out there depending on what you’re looking for, but here are my opinions on some possible places to get started! The one nice thing about how messy American comics can get is it’s not as important to read them in a particular order.

TLDR: Try starting with either the 2019 comics (Transformers (2019): vol. 1 the world in your eyes) or more than meets the eye (Transformers vol. 1: more than meets the eye). There is a high probability that you will be able to find both at your local library digitally if not in print!

First you’re gonna wanna choose a continuity. I’m assuming you’re probably thinking of the later bits of the 2005 run bc that’s what’s popular here, but I’m gonna talk about both of them just in case!

IDW2 (2019-2022)

IDW2 is the newer of the two IDW continuities. I’m putting it first because it’s shorter and easy to get into since it only started in 2019 and will be wrapping up sometime this summer (2022). You start with Transformers (2019) Vol. 1: The World in Your Eyes and go from there! Straightforward numbered volumes my beloved. There are also beast wars and shattered glass comics that are (will be?) collected in their own volumes if that interests you but they’re separate from the main series.

IDW2 is also easy to get into because all of the main series ebooks (so far) are available on overdrive (the provider for library ebooks) so if you have a library card you can access it through your library’s preferred ebook platform (usually hoopla or libby)!

idw2 has really beautiful art, a large cast of characters, and the plot kicks off with a murder mystery on a previously crime-free cybertron before the war. So if that’s your jam it’s a good place to start with transformers comics!

IDW1 (2005-2019)

IDW1 is a little more complicated to get into due to its longer run time, but there are a couple different built in jumping on points that IDW tried to add for readers who wanted to get into it later but didn’t want to read 200+ issues first.

The most obvious possibility is to read the comics chronologically, starting with Transformers: Infiltration. There are loads of lists online to find out what series comes next! The downside of reading them all chronologically of course is that there are SO MANY comics and the quality varies wildly. Aside from the crossover comics, Infiltration probably has the heaviest influence from the G1 cartoon and the marvel comics in terms of art style in the IDW comics. It’s set on earth jn the middle of the cybertronian war. It’s a little clunky but it’s also kinda fun, so if that’s your jam it might be a good place to start!

Then we get into the comics I haven’t read so I can’t really speak to them, but I think All Hail Megatron was also built in as a possible jumping on point? You would have to find someone who has read more comics than me to figure that out though.

The Last Stand of the Wreckers miniseries works pretty well as a stand-alone story imo so if you’re looking to dip your toes in and are looking for a good, tense War Story that’s a possible place to start as well! It is also available digitally through most libraries and works well as smth optional to read either before or with mtmte to add some context to volume 2!

You can also start with what is afaik the most popular IDW series, More Than Meets the Eye. The first volume starts with the one shot The Death of Optimus Prime (which I would recommend trying to start with if you’re not reading the volumes) and the rest of the series follows the crew of the lost light on their post-war space road trip. The writing is snappy and the art is really nice. Most people start here (myself included) and it’s the best place in IDW1 to start reading imo! As for order you can read all of mtmte, take or leave dark cybertron, and then read Lost Light without too many problems I believe. Lost Light and the first half of mtmte can all also be found digitally in the library!

Mtmte has a sister series Robots in Disguise (which later changes its name to just The Transformers I think?). It happens concurrent to mtmte so if you read the two series at the same time you will have a better idea of what’s going on during the cross over event, but you don’t have to. It’s more of a political drama set on Cybertron as it rebuilds after the war, which isn’t really my jam but it might be yours! There are other series that might be related to this one like Windblade? And Optimus Prime? But hell if know what order they all go in. These series can be found in some libraries but it’s more touch and go. They’re available in the library for the city i go to school in, but not the library for the city I’m from so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And that’s all I’ve got! Hopefully you find this a little bit helpful and I hope you have lots of fun reading transformers comics! I know I sure am :)

[carriagelamp]

May 2020 Book Review - Short and Sweet

Man, my experience with quarantine has been bonkers -- on one hand going stir-crazy with nothing to do, but on the other hand I have officially been working during all of it and it has made my job a very stressful one and boy howdy is that ramping up for June! Brain fry is still my dear friend and companion, so this is a month of 

~short and sweet~ books, most of it kids lit, that take no brain power and are just a pleasant little treat for my brain. Reading is so much more fun when you’re willing to be compassionate to your own brain and what it can handle!

I Spy: A Book Of Picture Riddles

These books were one of the best things in an elementary school library, and honestly? Is still ridiculously fun. I don’t think you can outgrow I Spy books? So fun to look at, amazing pictures especially when you remember they’re made with physical objects that are actually photographed, satisfying rhymes, and a nice shift for your brain. It gave me something to think about that wasn’t covid-anxiety-related and something to look at that wasn’t a screen. Such a nice break.

Spy X: The Code // Spy X: Hide and Seek

The first two books of the Spy X series. My brother and I loved these as kids, and I dug them out to reread them now. Honestly, they’re still cool books. The story follows two children whose mother seems to have “disappeared”. They know she, like their father, works for a secretive “Company” that may or may not be connected to the military, but they don’t realize how sinister that might actually be until they get a mysterious package on their birthday. They slowly realize that their mom is truly involved in something sinister as they’re drawn into a world of espionage and it’s up to them to follow the clues and keep her secrets in order to bring her home safe. This book has lots of fun riddles, mysteries, and gadgets that are excellent for older elementary school readers (and for adults like me looking for a fun child-adventure romp).

The Elders Are Watching

An incredibly poignant illustrated poem done in the form of a picture book. While it’s appropriate for children, this is honestly pretty heavy hitting as an adult and is very worth the read. It’s a collaborative work between a Canadian Métis author Dave Bouchard and a West Coast First Nations artist Roy Henry Vickers. All the illustrations are his and they’re breath-taking. Seriously, I don’t know what else to say about this, it’s worth the read if you want that’s both short and still moving.

Animals of the Salish Sea

As long as we’re talking about the Canadian West Coast First Nations, I’ll add this little board book as well. It’s a cute book about Salish animals and what they represent and teach in that culture. It’s not long, but the Salish-style art is bright and fun, and so are the lessons.

Riding Academy: A Horse For Mary Beth

IS MARY BETH HORSE SHY??!?

I haven’t read a Horse Girl Book in probably decades and I as soon as I realized I was going to settle into a children’s lit reading spree I knew I needed to find one. There’s something so satisfying about books written about young girls becoming enamored with horses, they’re so earnest. And this book was more educational, horse-wise, than I would have expected! It follows Mary-Beth who boards at a new school. Originally she isn’t a part of the horse riding program, but she soon finds out all three of her roommates are and, so as not to feel like an outsider, she ends up claiming that she was just about to sign up for it. Even though she’s terrified of horses. It’s a simple, generic book, but very sweet, and all four roommates have a surprising amount of personality (especially Andie who is a complete shit-disturber and whom I adore)

Dolphin Diaries: Leaving the Shallows // Dolphin Diaries: Chasing The Dream

Another “young girl loves animals and has a Bond with them” series of books because I loved them as a kid and I still vibe with them now. They’re heart-warming y’all. Anyway, this is a series that one of those series that’s written by a million different authors who all share a pen name so the quality varies wildly. Chasing the Dream was honestly kinda garbage, but I enjoyed Leaving the Shallows. They follow Jody, whose parents travel the world studying and filming dolphins. Jody travels all over with her family and the crew of their research ship, learning about dolphins and doing her best to help protect them. I’d say a highlight about this series is that it’s aggressively pro conservation and environmental protection and is pretty educational about those topics, in a way that’s understandable and interesting to young readers. 

The Rainbow Fish // Dazzle The Dinosaur

Had a heated debate with someone re: the thematic underpinnings of The Rainbow Fish that had my head rolling. Let me tell you, an english degree doesn’t prepare you for that. Anyway, it made me go reread The Rainbow Fish (in order to cite my sources) and the lesser known Dazzle because I loved that book as a kid. Book Shiny Is Good sure was the mentality and I stand by it. They’re dang pretty. I am not open to reopening this debate so for the love of fucking everything please don’t message me about it.

The Moccasins

Another Canadian picture book, this time by a Ktunaxa First Nation author about an aboriginal boy who grows up in foster care. It’s a cute book and has a very sweet message, though it was a little underwhelming. I was fairly meh about the art, which is always a downer for me when it comes to picture books. (which is honestly too bad because I like this illustrator, she’s a Cree Métis artist who did My Heart Fills With Happiness and When We Were Alone which are both gorgeous??)

Bloom County: ‘Toons For Our Times

Another comic reread, except that this time it hadn’t been years since I last read it -- I regularly reread this series. We always had tons of comic anthologies at home growing up, and Bloom Country was one of my first exposures to political and social satire. It’s definitely dated at times, and frankly offensive at other times, but I still adore it and it can be incredibly on point, even forty years later. The art is also delightful, the characters are so off the wall and fun, and the constant underlining longing for nature and simplicity and kindness really resonates, especially now.

Calvin and Hobbes: Something Under The Bed Is Drooling // Yukon Ho!

More comics. Never the wrong time to read Calvin and Hobbes. Wholesome feel-good-ness.

Babe The Gallant Pig

I’ve always meant to red Babe and decided now was finally the time. It was delightful! Definitely has Charlotte’s Web vibes, except this time it’s about a piglet who ends up getting adopted by a sheep dog who is determined to teach her unexpected adopted son how to be a proper sheep dog, even if that sheep dog is more of a sheep pig. And Babe manages to blow everyone’s expectations out of the water by his unrelenting gentleness and compassion. So goddamn cute. Only thing that kills me is that they refer to the female dog, not incorrectly, as a “bitch” which makes it a conundrum about giving it to kids to read.

Bread And Jam For Frances

I’d forgotten all about the Frances the Badger books until now! I was so excited to see one again! These books just hit hard in the nostalgia. Very traditional of a children’s book, it feels similar to old-school Berenstain Bears. It has a simple, clear cut message for children that still holds true. It’s really nothing special (the story is pretty simple and the art is mostly duotone) unless you also have warm feelings form your childhood about this series.

Hugh Pine

A chapter book about an unusually large, unusually smart porcupine who realizes that if he wears a bright red hat he found, then drivers on the road are more likely to see him and less likely to hit him. So he teaches himself to stand on his hind legs and wave at the drivers, and is quickly mistaken as a small, old man. The other porcupines, not as smart as Hugh and very much in danger of the cars when they try to cross the road, soon form a committee and come to Hugh for help in keeping the rest of them safe. Absolutely ridiculous and Hugh is a miserable curmudgeon who wants to be left alone, so obviously I align with it.

[wickymicky]

a month ago i watched every Twice video in order, some of them for the first time, because Twice was finally clicking for me and i was “getting it”. i wrote a little thing about which songs i liked and which i didnt, and i wanna expand on that cause my opinions have gotten more fleshed out over the last couple weeks of listening to them, and also some of them have changed. i just really like reviewing things, i hope that’s okay lol

so here are two or three sentence reviews of every Twice title track, in order

Like Ooh Ahh: i think this is one of their best songs, personally. it’s not as much of the bubblegum stuff they go for after this, but it’s extremely catchy lol, the “i just wanna fall in love!” and the “ha~~ ooh-ahh hage!” gets stuck in my head a lot. i just love the way this song’s instrumental sounds too, the aesthetic of it

Cheer Up: um okay so from hot to cold... this is my least favorite Twice song. i’m listening to it right now as I’m writing this, and I’ll listen all the way through, but i haven’t listened to it all the way through very often. i think the chorus feels out of place, so does the “be a man, real man” thing. i don’t like that. that ruins the song for me lol. i also don’t like the chorus much haha, it sounds like theyre saying “chore up” cause they went with 치얼업 (chi-eol/eor-eop) instead of like... even just “chireop” or “chi-eo eop”... they dont usually have ㄹ for an english r sound at the end of a word...

TT: ah okay nice we’re back on track lol, this song is fantastic and totally deserves to be their most popular song (at least in terms of music video views). when i first heard it i didnt like it cause i didnt like anything Twice lol... then when I listened to every Twice title track in order as i was beginning to “get it”, i liked everything except the “i’m like TT, ahhh, just like TT, ahhh” haha, i thought the fact that it was about the emoticon was weird and didnt fit the video, and the “ahh” was goofy haha. but now? god its so catchy lmao i always whisper-sing along to this part when i listen to this song haha. i love the echo-y reverb-y synths in the verse, and the instrumental in the chorus when paired with the vocal melody just makes it one of the best choruses in kpop lol. i think TT is their best song. the rap break doesnt feel like a rap break, it fits sooooo naturally in with the song, it’s so impressive. this song is so impressive

Knock Knock: initially i liked this song a lot, and i still do, but... this would be another group’s best song, easily, but for Twice... it’s a bit overshadowed haha. the guitar plus the synth is really cool though, its rare to hear a calming, sort of mellow, soft song with as high a BPM as this haha. one of the writers, Mayu Wakisaka, also was a composer for Loona’s Hi High and Fromis 9′s Love Bomb... and you can totally see that lol. all of those songs have high BPMs and are wildly catchy. still, idk, i like this song but i dont have a ton to say about it

Signal: this song is weird in a good way, i love really unconventional instrumentals. it sounds as alien and outer space as the music video haha. at first the “sign-eul bonae signal bonae” kinda annoyed me, but i got more used to it. i don’t listen to this song much, but i should change that, honestly. though another thing is that the music video has a lot those things where it adds sounds from the video that arent in the regular song, and has an intro i gotta skip every time lol, but like thats not a huge problem, i can just listen to the song elsewhere haha

One More Time: this song sounds like something you’d hear at a hockey game lmao. i dont even know really what i mean by that, i dont go to hockey games lol.... anyway. i like this song, but again, it’s kinda overshadowed. if i’m in the mood for the vibe this song has, there are other Twice songs that have it that i like more. it’s refreshing every once in a while though.

Likey: this song is so good!!! it didnt stand out at first, like, there’s not really a huge gimmick like some of the others... “likey likey likey” is kind of the same sort as the “just like TT” and “knock knock knock on my door” and stuff from other songs, but for some reason it feels less prominent in this song. i dont think this is their most iconic song ever, and its not genre-defining or one of the ones you’d mention first when talking about Twice, but it’s just a really solid song. one of my favorites

Heart Shaker: yeah, heart shaker is alright. it was apparently just a couple months after likey, and it feels like a similar concept? maybe it’s just the music video giving me that impression. it’s alright. the music video has the longest part with the distinctive way Twice shoots dance scenes... in that very nauseating way lol... but i don’t mind it lol i’m used to that by now

Candy Pop: so like, was this song sorta made for kids specifically? i guess i’m mostly just being influenced by the music video cause i’m watching it while writing this. i dont like the video much lmao it’s like a pokemon ripoff complete with Officer Jennies and Jin-young Brock. the song’s not bad though, it’s catchy but it’s a little too sugary sweet for me (which makes sense given the concept i guess). i like a lot of ideas in the instrumental though... because it was also written by the people who did Knock Knock, including the writer of Hi High and Love Bomb. 

What is Love: this isnt their best song ever, but it’s undeniably one of their most solid. i listen to it a lot haha. the music video has a cool concept, i like when groups do this kind of thing (interpreting scenes from movies or famous music videos or popular culture). i don’t have much to say other than that i like it a lot, it’s one of my favorites i think

Wake Me Up: okay here we go, this is another one of the three Twice singles I just don’t really like. it’s a fine song up until the chorus. i just can’t get over the shift upwards in.. uhh.. scale? octave? pitch? one of those lol, or something else, i dont really know music terms like that very well haha. yeah though i just find it offputting. 

Dance the Night Away: it’s alright. i’m pretty neutral on it. i was put off at first but i’ve gotten used to it. though still, i’m not that into it. i get that its a dance focused song and the choreography does look a lot more intense than their other choreos, and thats cool, but that doesnt make me like the music in and of itself. it’s a summer-jam type of song, and i’m not as into those anyway. there’ll never be a better kpop summer-jam than Red Flavor anyway lol

Yes or Yes: this is the other Twice that i don’t like haha. i just think the constant “you only one choice: yes or yes” thing is kind of annoying haha. also the chorus is catchy in a way that i dont think its especially exciting... it’s an earworm because i think it’s slightly annoying, not because it’s satisfying. of the songs that i’ve said i don’t like, this is the one i could see myself getting into the most. this might not always be in my “bottom three”. it is right now though

Fancy: this was the first comeback they had since i’ve been into kpop, and even though i wasnt into Twice at the time, i wanted to try it out just to see if it would change my mind, and it did somewhat.... sorta. it got the ball rolling for sure. it came out on my birthday, the same day as the Loona Fire dance cover haha, that was a good birthday. yeah this song is great, i think it’s better than any of their 2018 comebacks, personally. the concept isn’t all that different from normal Twice, it just appears that way cause the video is so lavish and elegant. it didnt convince me to be a Twice fan on that day it came out, but I liked what I thought made it different from the other Twice songs I’d heard. but now? what I like most about it is how very Twice it really is. the thing is, I wasn’t into Twice probably because the only songs i’d heard were Yes or Yes and Cheer Up, and those songs are still my least favorites lol. Fancy doesnt sound that out of place when you take into account their whole discography! i looove the video and i loooove the chorus so much, this song is great and i wonder if they’ll be able to top it if they have another comeback this year

Breakthrough: okay so in the last one i said i wonder if they’ll be able to top it this year, i meant in terms of Korean comebacks lol. cause in terms of just songs in general, if i include their new Japanese comebacks, they’ve already topped Fancy. this song is the one that finally won me over. this is the song that made me a Twice fan. now, this one is a little outside their typical concept, but they’re really really good at it nevertheless. i wonder if Twice is going a bit more in this direction? at least maybe half the time, alternating between the two styles now? cause Breakthrough continues a bit down the path that Fancy set for them. in any case, i love basically everything about this song, I’m so glad it got me to finally love their music

Happy Happy: so you know how I said that Breakthrough was a change from the bubblegum fun-fun style they’ve had and that move is what got me to finally be into Twice? well that made me think I’d like Happy Happy less haha, but actually I listen to it way more than I listen to Breakthrough, I like it more overall. this is a very Twice-style song, and that’s fine because it’s fantastic. this song genuinely makes me happy

oops didn’t i say i’d try to keep it to two or three sentences?

anyway yeah my favorite Twice songs are TT, Happy Happy, Breakthrough, Likey, and Like Ooh Ahh in that order i think

[loganeaves733-blog]

(PDF) The Character Of Music Genres

Throughout the United States people are obsessed with all forms of music, however have you ever ever questioned which musical genres are most popular during which areas. Americana; the music in regards to the working class. The hopes and goals of the free American individuals. Driving rock that you could hear in bars and stadiums alike. Jazz, rock or classical are terms regularly used to distinguish between different genres" of music. However they is also described as completely different styles". In that sense, style" would denote the more basic and genre" the more specific characteristics of the music concerned. Be that as it might, it's useful to regard genre" as an outline of the social function of music.

As an instance you are in a shop that's enjoying music and you want to know the identify of the tune or who's singing it. Simply hold down the House button on your iOS machine. Inform Siri Shazam this" and bretedments777471.wikidot.com Siri will give you the track title and artist. Warning: you would possibly lose a whole hour to this… Each Noise at As soon as is a one-web page map of playable audio samples for more than 1500 musical genres, from deep tech house to Finnish metallic to easy jazz to geek people to klezmer to deep opera.

In 2017, more DJs took advantage of the one detail that makes their artwork kind truly unique: they'll play anything. Nina Kraviz, regardless of the absurd controversy it as soon as brought on her, continued colouring exterior the strains, be it with a hundred and fifty BPM techno or straight up drum & bass, on the principle stage at EXIT Competition or in room one at Unsound's Lodge Forum. Avalon Emerson, armed with wildly eclectic music on impeccably organized USB sticks, drifted seamlessly from straight four-4 into hip-hop and R&B. On the final morning of Sustain-Launch, PLO Man appeared intent on encompassing as a lot as possible of all the panorama of digital music in one set, with separate chapters devoted to jungle, garage, deep home, dub techno and ambient. Rock and pop bands use the identical quantity of instrumentation on stage, which is normally two guitars, one set of drums, and one bass guitar. One other similarity is the variety of musicians on stage which includes: vocals, guitar players, bass player, drum participant, and again vocals. The last similarity is the way both type bands perform. Both styles carry out with a robust stage presence, being very energetic on stage. Some examples of bands which might be pop bands and are confused as rock bands are: ‘N Sync, Backstreet Boys, and Justin Bieber. Music in America is at the moment in an interesting place. The internet has made it easier than ever for artists to release their music for the world to hear, but on the same time it might probably feel like a smaller group of artists is capturing the highest of the charts. Still, with regards to touring exhibits and local scenes rock and nation musicians are serving to to carry followers together all throughout the country. While the charts is likely to be dominated by music that's streamed over telephones and computer systems the local concert venues are filled with people searching for that traditional combination of drums, a guitar, and a singer that can make them really feel something. Solo: This can be used anytime, ideally after a round or two of refrain and verse, to add just a little jam feel. Used loads in jazz and can really create cool sections in music. When you find yourself thinking of live performance Solo components are always unbelievable, even if it's not in your released monitor. we fell in love with this music, and it's not one thing you typically grow out of, so long as the music evolves with you. and as long as there is a demand, there will likely be like minded folks supplying.

Eminem!? Eminem is amazing. I like to recommend looking into his music. My favourite genres are Various, Grunge, and Rock. Eminem has meaningful music. I am okay with you not liking him, but categorizing him with the others talked about? No. Just. No. Before John Lennon and http://www.audio-transcoder.com Paul McCartney's songwriting partnership turned the dominant drive of ‘60s fashionable music, there was Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, who were a hit-making duo in rock & roll's earliest days. Elvis made their song Hound Dog"—recorded quite a few times by numerous artists as early as 1953—famous in 1956, and when Presley's new film 'Jailhouse Rock' got here out the next year, they had a monitor ready just for him.

Music based upon a rhythm style, which is characterized by regular chops on the backbeat, performed by a rhythm guitarist. Reggae is an African-Caribbean style of music developed on the island of Jamaica and carefully linked to the faith of Rastafarianism (though not universally popular amongst its members). Some school students discover that one of the best music to study by is so-called put up-rock music. It's a numerous genre that includes many bands that focus totally on enjoying instrumental music with none vocals. Nevertheless, some bands do embrace restricted vocals with hard-to-discern lyrics. In consequence, their songs typically present perfect background music for learning since they do not draw quite a lot of consideration to themselves.The effect of various musical styles on serum cortisol levels, blood stress, and heart fee is presently unknown. Yes, we have mentioned this earlier than- however ya'll do not listen so we are going to say it again. What you are calling EDM falls below the umbrella term of electronic dance music - but it surely's not EDM. The rationale why, is that there is no EDM subgenre. Wait, you imply EDM isn't a subgenre of EDM? STUNNING. music a sort of contemporary electronic music that developed in the Nineteen Eighties, changing disco as the most well-liked form of dance music. It combines deep bass sounds with components that are sung or performed on a synthesizer.3. Tone and Intonation. Jazz musicians will be obsessive about their sound and their tone quality, however overall I'd say it's less a precedence than it's within the classical world. Sometimes jazz musicians additionally go for bigger fairly than higher on this regard, for the above-stated causes. this is nowhere close to a whole listing of musical genres… what about witch hop or s3rl… or comfortable hardcore… or future base. was just wanting to level that out… there is approach to much music for anyone but a big group of lots of to listing and research.

[chelseawolfemusic]

Chelsea Wolfe Interview // MusicRadar.

Full article via MusicRadar

“I’ve been able to do some really cool stuff, despite being undefinable and an outcast,” Chelsea Wolfe tells us.

It’s a strange, especially cruel double-edged sword that the more different you are as a musician to anyone else around at the time, the harder you can become to ‘market’ and gain some reward for that talent. And as compelling as Chelsea Wolfe’s music is when you take the time to listen, and it really is incredible work, there’s no escaping that the Sacramento artist’s five albums to date explore wildly diverse ground that’s difficult to label in traditional terms.

Despite an undeniable but gradual rise that’s seen her solo band play on all manner of varied bills, she remains more a cult figure than we think she should be.

“I think it makes it more difficult for any artist to break through when you can’t be put into a simple box,” she tells us backstage in Bristol on a European tour supporting industrial behemoths Ministry.

“It’s easier to ‘sell’ someone if you can be like, ‘Oh she’s an acoustic singer-songwriter from California’ or whatever. But that’s not really all I am, I have all these different sides and influences, from doom-metal and old country, to trip-hop and I bring all those things together in my own way.

“I think it’s more difficult to get certain opportunities because some people just don’t know what to do with me, but at the same time it’s been really cool because since we can fit into a lot of different worlds we’ve got a lot of different opportunities to play at festivals we wouldn’t normally fit on, because someone saw something in us.”

Wolfe’s last two albums, 2015’s Abyss and 2017’s Kurt Ballou-produced Hiss Spun find her in an undeniably heavy era for an artist who also has a whole acoustic folk compilation under her belt (2012’s Unknown Rooms). They mix dark, dense and abrasive sounds with mesmerising tones and ethereal hooks to stunning effect on a journey into Wolfe’s world, with guest guitarists including Russian Circles’ Mike Sullivan and Queens Of The Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen threading through the maelstrom.

There’s a lot to talk about and celebrate here, but the beginning feels the best place to start with Chelsea…

Going right back, were your musical tastes eclectic from a young age?

“Yes, definitely. Mainly because I grew up with a country musician as a father so there was old country and blues, from Johnny Cash to Led Zeppelin - they were one of my early influences through my father. And then my mum had really good taste too; she’d listen to Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt, so there’s a female folk and blues artist influence from her. I was lucky to have a lot of really cool influences.”

Vision quest

You’ve followed your instincts as a musician, but have there been times when that has been difficult?

“Not really because the label I’m on, Sargent House, are very supportive of what the artist wants to do and their vision. So there’s never been this push of, ‘You should try to do this’ or some radio-edit version. I’m not saying that’s out of the question because a lot of bands have done that and been successful doing that.

“I think I have such a lovely audience who are supportive of what I want to do, I don’t think they want me to become more commercial; they want me to just be me and that has become the biggest blessing as an artist because, as I’m writing, I feel the support coming at me from all sides and it makes me want to do my own thing and want to give the authentic version of myself as an artist.”

You were in a band before you went solo, did you have to strike out alone to find your identity?

“I think so. I started as a singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar and my voice. Then I was putting together my first record that had folk songs and rock ’n’ roll songs and I met Jess Gowrie, who is my current drummer, and we formed the band called Red Host for a few years in Sacramento where we’re both from. And that was heavy rock, hard-hitting songs and it was a lot of fun, but I just knew I had so much more in me and I wanted to be able to do different genres and bring them into my own style. So I had to just fly free for a while to find my own voice and my own style.

“Jess and I unfortunately didn’t talk for a number of years but once we reunited a few years ago it was very clear our musical chemistry wasn’t finished and luckily we started writing songs together again and that became Hiss Spun.”

It seems like it’s been a more traditional, word-of-mouth thing with people discovering your music. Does it feel like it’s been quite a gradual build for you?

“Totally, yes. I mean we’re on year seven of pretty continual touring and that’s obviously a very old-school way to gather a following and we’ve seen the growth from small clubs to some cool theatres. So it’s definitely a gradual growth and a lot of people tell me, ‘Oh I heard about you from a friend or someone recommended it.’ I don’t get a lot of press that other musicians might get. I don’t really know why, maybe because I’m like this weirdo and they don’t really know what to do with me! But it’s been cool doing things in a more organic way.”

And those kinds of fans tend to stick with you, they’re often loyal…

“It seems like it. I see a lot of the same faces at shows and I recognize them from really early shows.”

Who have been influences on the heavier side of your music?

“Queens Of The Stone Age were a big influence for myself and my drummer, Jess. Bands that we’ve played with have ended up influencing us a lot; Swans, Sunn O))), Russian Circles even. I think playing with all these heavy bands is a reason I started going in a heavier direction for Abyss because after [third album] Pain Is Beauty I kind of imagined that I would go back to acoustic but then we were doing all these tours with heavier bands and I thought, ‘That looks like so much fun.’ I wanted to write some heavy songs that are fun to play and that I could really lose myself in.”

Is the acoustic guitar still part of your world?

“Oh yeah, I’ve actually written a ton of acoustic songs in the past year and I’ll probably focus on that next. I just follow my musical intuitions and instincts. For the last couple of records I’ve really wanted to make heavy music but now I think something in me is pulling me back to this more minimal acoustic folk, which are really kind of my origins as a musician.”

Abyss and Hiss Spun featured guest guitarists - with Russian Circles’ Mike Sullivan and then Queens Of The Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen. They obviously felt like the right players to contribute to those records, but how much direction did you give them or is there a trust there from the start?

“I think it’s a bit of both. Somehow it comes together in the right way where I know this is the person I want to play on the record with these songs, and then some of the songs I’ll be like, ‘Do your thing and let’s see what happens.’ But there will be a song like 16 Psyche where I really left space for Troy and I knew that I wanted him to write a big lead part over the breakdown/bridge, whatever you want to call it, towards the end of the song. It was kind of a back and forth situation where he would play something and I would say, ‘Focus on that part.’ It was really cool to have a great player put so much trust in me as I was putting so much trust in him.”

Flooring it

On Hiss Spun there’s also more of a band-in-a-room dynamic than ever before, is that reflective of the creative process?

“Yes, I wanted this one to be more collaborative and more as a band. So we did a lot of jamming together, Jess and Ben [Chisholm, bass player and guitar] and I. Also we’d bring in different lead guitar players to add some flourishes. But a lot of it was just the three of us jamming out. The traditional rock ’n’ roll process of songwriting, and also Ben wrote a lot of the guitar parts. There’s more of his vibe and his influence there, which is cool.”

Do you find in that context there are more happy accidents with things that happen in the moment?

“Yes, totally. I can completely understand why there are people who just jam in their garage with friends and don’t ever play shows or anything. That’s really the most fun part - having some drinks and jamming with your friends. Coming up with these cool ideas. That’s even more fun to me than playing live so, yes, I think a lot of happy accidents come out of that.”

Are some of what sound like electronics on Abyss and Hiss Spun actually guitar? Do things start to blur between those worlds?

“Probably yes, because Carrion Flowers, a song that I would consider to be an electronic song, is actually a bass part that’s run through some pedals into speakers, recorded from there and then run through even more pedals. So we kind of make our own electronic sounds and we like to sample things a lot.

“Even just upstairs there’s a crazy old fan that’s making some really cool patterns so I recorded that and I’m sure I’ll use that in a song later. Ben and I are always collecting weird sounds that we’ll put into MIDI or Ableton, twist it around or top little parts of it and make a totally new beat.”

What’s the strangest sample you’ve ever captured?

“I think the strangest one so far is probably the track Scrape, which is the final song on Hiss Spun and the final song in the set too. Our friend was working at a recycling centre and I think we asked him to take some samples of weird sounds. So he sent us the sound of the tractor scraping bottles up off the floor and it just had that natural rhythm and that ended up becoming the basis for Scrape. I know people might not imagine using the floor of the recycling centre but it really worked out well.”

There’s this relationship between beautiful and quite unsettling sounds in your music, is that difficult to balance, or is it just subconscious for you now?

“I think it’s become subconscious for me. It’s something I’ve always done, whether it’s putting a prettier melody like a softer vocal part over something super-heavy, I think it makes the front of house sound guys’ jobs intensely frustrating because you have this wall of sound with this whispery vocal over it but I don’t know, it’s just what I do.”

[will-work-for-music]

* 2017 ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

two thousand + seventeen birthed fantastic records that found me like friends, over + over again. these masterpieces lead me to people + experiences on adventures far better than i could have dreamed. these collections songs kept me company through the highest highs, the lowest lows + the walking in between of this year marked by hardship + madness, for most of the world. these are the tunes i smiled + screamed + cried + danced to the most, this year. i’m wildly grateful for each artist + the remarkable melody-wrapped memories they’ve gifted me. here’s to the songs that stay. 🖤

loved in no particular order:

* LOVELY LITTLE LONELY - the maine

brilliant + poetic + free. this band has been liberating me since i was seventeen. before lovely little lonely was even born i jumped at the chance to celebrate 10 years of this band of brothers who’ve grown up alongside their family of fans. to truly live the lyric: “let’s fall back in love with the world + who we are + do the things we talked about but never did before..” i’m grateful to the maine for adventures i only ever dreamed + for the soundtrack to them all.. she’s a masterpiece.

* THE SEARCH FOR EVERYTHING - john mayer

“And that ends an era. August ‘14-April ’17. I made this record for *you*. May you hear and see and feel yourself in these songs.” 🌊♥️🌊 - @johnmayer

she’s stunning from beginning to end.. i kept telling everyone this show felt like experiencing a film.. it’s surely safe to say JM has made another stellar, artistic set of songs for the soundtrack of my life. wow, wow, wow.. as he kept saying to us, “thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“[On The search for everything, Mayer] succeeds because he’s not donning a new costume: instead, he’s settling into a groove he can claim as his own, and it feels like he’s at home.” - AllMusic

* HARRY STYLES - harry styles

(on album release day) every once in awhile, a record comes along that surprises you in a great way. as i put it to my best friend, [on release day].. “oops, i think i like harry’s album.” THE cameron crowe recently wrote a truly stunning, intriguing rolling stone cover story with styles as the subject.. (the cover that my mom thought featured “a young mick jagger,” without a clue about the previous week’s SNL sketch, ha). as someone who was never into one direction (sorry, rob sheffield), i likely wouldn’t have given this album a shot, but it’s everything you wouldn’t expect to hear in a “former pop star” solo record. thanks to two of my favorite writers (rob sheffield, who penned the RS review like only he can, + crowe) for encouraging me to see harry for more than the kid from the boy band.. as crowe put it (on the RS music now podcast), “he’s a music geek, in the best way..” his love of classic rock shines through, while still capturing a sound all his own. well done, HS. “from the dining table” + “two ghosts” are early favorites.. which i chose just before ryan adams tweeted it.

Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield put HS at number 3 on his 2017 album list: “What a revelation to see Styles live the same week as Paul McCartney – a tutorial on the connection between joy and brilliance. So is this album. The songs are built to last, standing up to months of ridiculously heavy listening. The only rock star who can come on like Macca and Mick at the same time. The only rock star who could earn all six minutes of "Sign of the Times.” The only rock star using his hard-won artistic freedom to craft the kind of hilariously anti-commercial old-school personal statement where every song counts, making big guitar moves everybody else this year was too timid to try. The only rock star who thinks cigarettes in New York are “cheap.” The only rock star.“

* PRISONER - ryan adams

"i think ‘prisoner’ has so much more hope + sensuality in it—to me, it’s liberating. those songs are more a celebration of becoming something as it’s broken apart.”

a note to ryan, as tour came to a close:

i feel the most alive inside of these songs.. the ones that break me open + somehow heal me, all at once. RA, i know this time out on the road stole your health + your joy, at times, but the wonder with which you kept playing was magic to witness. i’m grateful for your pursuit of growth + grace, no matter what comes your way. be it bronchitis, haters or heartbreak, you never let anything keep you down. thank you for not one, but two flawless dates in two sparkling cities on the prisoner tour. rest up + stay weird.. xo

* ONLY THE LONELY - colony house

just shy of two weeks into 2017, franklin, tennessee born + bred band of brothers colony house released a creative, impactful collection of songs for the soul. the rocknroll band’s strong sophomore effort landed them spots in the year’s finest festivals across the country (homegrown pilgrimage fest, chicago’s lollapalooza, new orleans’ voodoo experience). it will be exciting to see where these driving, honest story songs take them in the coming year.

* WONDERFUL WONDERFUL - the killers

the fifth studio album from brandon flowers + co has been called their strongest in over a decade. the frontman said the lead single, “the man,” was written through the lens of what his 20-something self thought it was to be a man..“being tough + bringing home the bacon, when really it’s about being compassionate + empathetic.”

For NME, Flowers shared that the lyrics of the album are “the most personal and bare” that he has ever been: “I’m looking in the mirror on this record and focusing a lot on my own personal experiences. Instead of just drawing upon all these experiences and maybe using them in other songs, I am going straight for it with this and singing about my life and my family and that’s something different for me.” The track “Rut” was inspired by the struggle of Flowers’ wife Tana with PTSD. He said: “Usually I feel protective of her but I decided to take it head on. So 'Rut’ is about her submitting to it. That doesn’t mean that she’s gonna let it beat her, but rather that she’s gonna finally acknowledge that it’s there and promise to break this cycle.” Flowers also added that putting his wife’s battle into a song helped him understand better what she is going through. “Have All the Songs Been Written?” was originally the subject line of an email Brandon Flowers sent to Bono, in the midst of a bout of writer’s block, before the latter suggested it would make an excellent song title.“

'wonderful wonderful’ is altogether driving + poignant + strong, intricately crafted for the artist + his listener.

* METAPHYSICAL - the technicolors

as soon as i experienced the technicolors–friends/labelmates/co-creators of the maine–live, i knew they would be in my life from that day forward. it seemed previous projects couldn’t quite capture the passion + enthusiasm of that short set, so 2017’s "metaphysical” was highly anticipated by many.

the title’s defined as “relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses. beyond ordinary experience.” the aptly named project evokes a raw, ethereal energy that draws outside the lines, while remaining true to a rock solid focus. “sweat,” “imposter!” + “congratulations you’re a doll” would be welcome additions to any playlist, however it’s recommended listeners follow the sparkling sonic story from start to finish.

* CONCRETE + GOLD - foo fighters the ninth record from foo fighters is born + it is a freaking force. dave says it’s motörhead meets sgt. pepper’s. i sure do dig the super crunchy guitars + layered vocal melodies. paul mccartney plays drums + justin timberlake sings bgvs, just cause he wanted to + it makes me the happiest human.

“I feel an earthquake coming on,” Dave Grohl sings on “Dirty Water,” a moment of fragile guitar poetry from Foo Fighters’ ninth album. Of course, keeping things steady amid chaos has been one of Grohl’s signature themes since the Foos were born from the wreckage of Nirvana a couple of forevers ago. Musically and emotionally, Concrete and Gold is their most balanced record yet – from stadium-punk dive bombers like “Run” and “La Dee Da” to the acoustic soul that opens “T-Shirt,” in which Grohl gets his Nina Simone on, singing, “I don’t wanna be king/I just wanna sing a love song.” “Sunday Rain” is a guitar weeper so late-Beatles great it even has Paul McCartney playing drums on it.

Adele co-writer Greg Kurstin’s production adds big-studio texture without diluting the band’s raw tumult; even Justin Timberlake’s appearance – as a backing vocalist on the space-truckin’ “Make It Right” – is subtle rather than ostentatious. The highlight is “The Sky Is a Neighborhood,” a hulking dream-metal anthem: “Trouble to the right and left,” Grohl sings, driving into the darkness with a Bic lighter raised to the heavens.“ - Rolling Stone

* HALLOWEEN - ruston kelly

ruston kelly captured me, years ago, with the single release of his flawlessly raw, haunting "black magic.” ever since, like a ghost itself, the song was never far from me.

Rolling Stone writes, “Black Magic” is a crescendoing rocker that ponders the bewitching pull of romance –and how it can easily disappear in a cloud of smoke.“

"Kelly is just as adept at making catchy country grooves – Tim McGraw and Josh Abbott Band have cut his tracks –as he is capturing life’s darkest, most introspective moments. The songwriter’s debut EP, the Mike Mogis-produced Halloween, is a solemn meditation on the inevitable end of things, and the spirits that tend to haunt us. Kelly came to Tennessee as a last-minute decision after attending high school in Belgium (he jokes that his father might have been a spy). Once he landed in town, he held tenure in the jam band Elmwood and battled addiction, writing songs on Music Row while exploring his demons on Halloween and his forthcoming full-length. Current single "Black Magic” shows a powerful grasp on storytelling gleaned from his love of the Carter Family and Townes Van Zandt, but also a more ragged rock & roll soul: it’s Americana, if your Americana is Bruce Springsteen with an acoustic guitar, sung by someone who spins a little heavy metal too. “Sometimes I wear both a cowboy hat and a Slayer T-shirt, just to throw people off,” Kelly says.“

* REPUTATION - taylor swift

"hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you” at her core, i still believe taylor to be the fiercely strong, quietly brilliant songwriter she’s always been. the power of the song comes through when you strip it down + it still shines just as bright. thank you for making music that meets me where i am + takes me away, since that very first day, at fifteen (2006). thank you for this one + for playing it for jimmy fallon + his momma (go watch that performance + weep!) i look forward to growing into this record as i have the five that came before.. i’ve never doubted her prowess as a storyteller.. + i won’t start now.

see also: Rob Sheffield’s glorious write up. i wholeheartedly agree. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/taylor-swift-reputation-sheffield-review-most-intimate-lp-w511359

rob is my favorite RS writer/author on all-things music. from his books on life through the lens of pop music–bowie, beatles + duran duran songs, respectively, i wouldn’t trust anyone else’s TS review. he articulately captures how i feel, as a fan from album one.. i look forward to better understanding 'reputation’ with each spin, though i can’t help but miss the classic introspective ballads.

* DIVIDE - ed sheeran

a fantastically diverse record. once again, sheeran proves he can break all of the boundaries + stay true to himself as an artist. he does it all so well, without appearing to care what anyone else thinks. “dive” is a bold, beautiful statement i continue to come back to + feel just the same. the record punches + dances in all the right places, from beginning to end, begging to be played on repeat.

* LIFE CHANGES - thomas rhett

thomas rhett gifted us the quintessential road trip singalong soundtrack record of the year. the day after it was born was spent on a bus from chicago to nashville, so when it wasn’t playing through my earbuds, it was spinning on repeat in my mind. the title track still stands out clear + strong, though i thoroughly enjoyed a live taste of the addictive early maren morris duet–“craving you”–back in february on the hometeam tour. it’s no wonder his career has catapulted with his seamless versatility in blending country’s storytelling with pop music’s neverending ear candy likeablity. this record excellently showcases rhett’s range from anthemic radio jams to heartbreaker ballads and true-to-life tales in between.

* FROM A ROOM (vol 1 + 2) - chris stapleton

stapleton released music this year in two parts, dubbing them “from A room” volumes 1 + 2–not just any room, “'A’ room” being nashville’s historic RCA studio A. some songs included in the collection were written up to a decade ago; ones chosen as they still ring true to the bearded, believable-as-they-come singer/songwriter.

on the authenticity of his craft, stapleton says, “I can’t really speak to why people like what we do. Hopefully, they know what we do is authentically us, and that goes over no matter what kind of music you’re playing. People will kind of hear that and connect with that in ways they wouldn’t if you were trying to be something that you think might be popular; I think that’s always a mistake in music, maybe even in life. Do something 'cause it’s in your heart, do something 'cause it’s what you’re supposed to be doing.”

“broken halos” + “second one to know” will, to me, always conjure up memories of seeing him open for tom petty and the heartbreakers at wrigley field, on their 40th anniversary tour, this summer. music is medicine and these honest-to-the-bone tunes are instant classics as well as a balm for the soul.

* FIRST CIGARETTE - travis meadows

“we rise. we climb. we shine like broken stars.”

the above is perhaps the defining statement of next-level nashville singer/songwriter, travis meadows’ 2017 studio album, 'first cigarette.’ the veteran of a different kind of war, there’s not much meadows hasn’t faced in life–cancer, heartbreak, addiction, depression.. and no story is off-limits for the wonderfully raw-voiced, honest-as-they-come artist. each song stays true to travis’ heart, some a little more uncomfortably authentic than accessible (ie radio-friendly), but that’s the way meadows prefers his craft.

“underdogs,” “pontiac,” “hungry,” + “better boat” stand out from first listen, yet each track was chosen to land where they do in the lineup + in the heart of the listener.

Rolling Stone writes, “To his most ardent fans and peers, including Eric Church, Dierks Bentley and Jake Owen, who have all cut Meadows’ songs for their respective albums, his open-book approach to his craft is his greatest gift. But Meadows lives in fear of rejection. That ever-lingering sense of distrust remains…

[On having label support backing a project for the first time]:

"It validates all of the suffering that I went through to get here,” Meadows says. “It gives it purpose.”

“I try not to be too hard on myself,” Meadows continues, “but I don’t deserve any of this. So I’m grateful for every inch I get walking that mile.”

* STEEL TOWN - steve moakler

steel town had only been out for nine days + i’d woken up with these songs in my head, every morning. i’m partial to “wheels” + “gold” + “summer without her” (co-written with + ft. my favorite-for-so-long, sarah buxton!!) + the title track, but i cannot pick a favorite, friends. the long wait from 'wide open’ to this one was oh-so-worth it. thanks for another heartfelt record filled with story songs i can spin for years + years to come. seriously, don’t sleep on this love letter to a historically hardworking hometown.

* BRETT ELDREDGE - brett eldredge

“Brett Eldredge’s self-titled third album is the Number One country album this week. The Illinois native also scored the highest all-genre chart position of his career, landing at Number Two on the Billboard 200, behind Kendrick Lamar’s LP Damn.” - Rolling Stone (August 15)

eldredge is both effortless + earnest, perfectly showcasing his ability + personality on the record he calls, “the most [himself].” from the playful first single, “somethin’ i’m good at” to the heartfelt vulnerability of “castaway,” listeners experience all-sides of the equal parts smooth sinatra, fun-loving country crooner. the standouts are story songs–“the long way” is dreamlike while “no stopping you” is wistful–both shine brilliantly on studio LP number three.

[darrencrissource]

Song List

Lost Boys Life

Every Single Night

The Damage

Same Old Situation

Show Review

A little while ago, alt-pop duo Computer Games stopped by the Baeble office for a stripped-down Baeble NEXT Session. While Computer Games is a new collaboration (they just released their first EP, Lost Boys Life, back in March), the members of the duo are pretty well seasoned in the music industry - the duo is comprised of brother Chuck and Darren Criss. Although they’ve always wanted to do a collaboration like this, the brothers initially ended up going their own ways and making their own names in music. Darren Criss has obviously made a big name for himself, creating the Youtube sensation Starkid and starring on Glee, while Chuck spent his time as a part of the indie-rock band Freelance Whales. Computer Games grew out of the brothers’ frequent basement jams from their childhood, and their regular songwriting collaborations.

For their Baeble NEXT Session, Computer Games performed some songs from their debut EP, including title track “Lost Boys Life” and “Every Single Night,” as well as a couple songs of older songs from the brother’s early days playing together; “Damage” and “Same Old Situation.” Beginning the session with a full backing band that includes drums, bass, piano, and the Criss’ on acoustic guitars, they strip it down for their last two songs, performing with nothing more than a couple of acoustic guitars and their harmonizing voices. Between songs, Chuck and Darren talk about their 80s-inspired songwriting, how their collaboration came about, and their goal of making music to make people happy. If you’re finding yourself in need of a little 80s alt-pop happiness, our newest NEXT session might do the trick.

Artist Bio

As high school kids, Darren Criss and his older brother Chuck spent nearly every afternoon playing music in their basement for hours upon hours. With Chuck on guitar and Darren on drums, the San Francisco natives tapped into everything from British power-pop to Bay Area punk to create their own rowdy breed of garage rock. Though they’d always planned on forming a bonafide band together, each ended up striking out on his own path: Darren embarked on a singing/acting career that included the creation of YouTube sensation StarKid, starring on Glee and in the next season of American Crime Story, and a string of successes on the Broadway stage. Meanwhile, Chuck joined acclaimed indie-rock act Freelance Whales, with whom he recorded and toured with as a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter for several years. But in 2016, the two finally decided it was the right time to revisit their teenage ambitions and launch a guitar-fueled alt-pop band that they’ve named Computer Games.

The basement was a really hallowed place for us growing up, and spending all that time knocking around and making music together is what made us into the people we are now, says Darren, lead singer for Computer Games. So to finally follow through on that dream, and start this band together after wanting it for so long it’s just wildly exciting for us.

With its blazing guitar solos and boundless energy, Computer Games debut EP Lost Boys Life perfectly captures the spirit of adolescent abandon. At the same time, Computer Games show a sharp sense of songcraft born from years of refining their musical vision. One of the things about this project being a long time coming is that were taking the kind of riffs that we would’ve played back in the basement, but adding different layers to turn it into something new to put out into the world, notes Chuck.

Darren and Chuck share songwriting duties for Computer Games, drawing on their indie sensibilities to build the ideal backdrop for their often-introspective lyrics. In the making of Lost Boys Life, Computer Games went for a chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter effect by enlisting the pop expertise of New York City-based music production team THE ELEV3N. Known for their work with artists like Meghan Trainor and Jesse McCartney, the Criss brothers hoped THE ELEV3Ns production sensibility would add a more contemporary, familiar sound to their initial left-of-center tracks. The result was just that: a shiny sheen polish on scrappy garage pop. And for the mixing of Lost Boys Lifean EP that gracefully blends raw live performance with electronic elements the band looked to their long-time hero, producer & mixer Tony Hoffer, whose responsible for a number of albums that shaped the Criss brothers musical background: Phoenix Alphabetical, The Thrills So Much For The City, and Becks Midnite Vultures, to name a few.

With the band name referencing a bit of low-key childhood mischief (As kids we weren’t allowed to play video games, but we had games on our computer so there was a loophole there, explains Chuck), Computer Games delights in what Darren refers to as nerdstalgia. As were crawling out of our 20s, a sentiment shared by the band is this eternal sense of nostalgia, which is something pretty prominent in nerd culture, he says. It’s about liking whatever you like, and not needing to ever apologize for that.

That nostalgia also extends to the pop heavyweights of the mid-80s, according to Chuck. A lot of bands seem influenced by the 80s right now, but they’re usually going for that darker, Blade Runner vibe, he says. We wanted to look at parts of the era that haven’t really been explored as inspiration some of the music that just super fun. Naming Miami Sound Machine, Lionel Richie, and Huey Lewis and the News among their reference points on Lost Boys Life, Computer Games channel that outrageous fun into a deeply melodic sound that feels both fresh and timeless.

The most unabashedly joyful track on Lost Boys Life, Every Single Night fuses jangly guitar riffs and intricate rhythms with huge harmonies and some Michael Jackson-esque vocal styling. I tried to crush those consonants and vowels and make as many phonetically inspired lyrical decisions as possible like how with Michael Jackson, ‘jam on is suddenly a really cool lyric, just because it sounds cool, says Darren. On We Like It, a flurry of handclap-backed acoustic strumming gives way to a soaring, soulful anthem that’s epic in scope and subtly defiant in the message. 'We Like It partly came from hearing people of my generation or older generations worrying about kids being glued to their phones, and how that’s such a cyclical concept like how our parents were worried about us being glued to the TV, and their parents were worried about them listening to rock-and-roll, says Darren. It’s about kids saying, 'This is our life and this is how we express ourselves, and we don’t have to explain that to anyone.

The EPs moodiest moment, the slow-burning Lost Boys Life merges its heavy beat with an intense synth riff inspired by the darkly glamorous vampires of the 1987 horror movie. In the lyrics, meanwhile, Computer Games slip into a dreamy romanticism that’s more autobiographical in nature. To me, that riff sounds like so many nights walking home alone in the city, whether it’s San Francisco or New York or L.A., says Darren. There’s an aimless quality to it, and the songs about finding meaning with someone after living an aimless Lost Boys life for so long.Throughout Lost Boys Life, Computer Games sculpt a kaleidoscopic sound that reflects their eclectic appetites. Listing early-90s grunge, late-90s pop, Led Zeppelin, Supergrass, and Spoon among their formative influences, the Criss brothers each started studying music as little kids. But while Chuck quit piano lessons early on, Darren kept up with violin and added guitar to his repertoire by elementary school. Chuck was a late-bloomer, which impressed me and made me jealous at the same time, says Darren. At some point in high school he got a banjo as a joke but then got really good at it really fast. After that, he started playing guitar too and then got really good at that really fast. Once Darren got his drum kit, the two took to the basement and started working on original songs together. 

Through the years, they continued sharing songs with each other, sending demos back and forth via email while away at college. I always admired those early songs, and I’ve still got aspirations of putting them through the Computer Games filter and seeing what we can make of them now, says Darren.

For Chuck and Darren, there’s at least one major upside to the long delay in launching Computer Games: that hard-won sense of freedom that comes with pursuing their purest passions. Instead of trying to chase whats next, we’re trying to do right by those kids in the basement, says Darren. We’ve learned to embrace our love of what makes music fun for us, and we’re putting that into a project that’s 100 percent dedicated making people happy. It’s about creating something completely unique to us, and trying to make as many smiles as humanly possible.

September 6, 2017

[literaryreference]

Top 5/Bottom 5 fanfic meme

A meme in which you talk about your five most popular and five least popular fanfics on AO3.

Rules: tag the person who tagged you, always post the rules, answer the questions, and add the date!

Nobody tagged me, but I felt like doing this, possibly because it’s 2 am and my better judgement is already asleep. I don’t usually talk about my fic on here because I’m self-conscious, speaking of which, if you know me IRL either don’t read this or just never, ever mention to me that you did. Thanks.

I am also not going to tag anybody, but I would totally be interested to see other people’s results/thoughts. (Actually, @obstinaterixatrix, I feel like this might be your jam? I don’t know who else would want to do it, though.)

Also, under a read-more because I can’t shut up apparently

What are your five most popular works? (starting with the most kudos)

1. Guarded Bodies: Dangan Ronpa. Aoi/Sakura plotless smut, but like, in a vaguely depressing way because murders are going to happen shortly.

2. Aces Over Queens: Also DR. My magnum opus, the Kirigiri/Celes noir AU. Kirigiri is the private eye and Celes is the femme fatale, obvs.

3. The Way from Here: Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Kyoko/Sayaka fix-it (but like, in a vaguely depressing way)--they survive but are no longer magical girls and have to deal with that loss of purpose and also they fall in love. Probably the only PMMM fic I will ever write, because at the time it was just the TV series and now there are 500 pieces of auxiliary canon and catching up with all of them would be Effort.

4. All the Pretty Girls: Dangan Ronpa again. A collection of f/f ficlets for different pairings, which is why the title is so dumb--I was like “what’s the unifying theme here? Uhhhh, they’re all femslash I guess?” and here we are.

5. Thief of Hearts: Love Live. Nico/Maki phantom thief AU. What more needs to be said, really.

(The “Nikola Tesla in the world of Hatoful Boyfriend” fic clocks in at #7, but it is top five in my heart.)

What are your five least popular works? (starting with the least kudos)

1. The World Beyond the Forest: Fic inspired by the song Wooden Girl Thousand Year Wiegenlied, but not fic for the Evillious Chronicles. This is because of the exchange it was written for, which I’ll explain more about below. Basically, it’s about a girl and a tree spirit who fall in love in a vaguely fairy-taleish setting.

2. Undressing: Fire Emblem Awakening. Mildly racy Lissa/Maribelle drabble.

3. All I want: Analogue/Hate Plus. Heo Ae-jeong/Mae Jin-a fix-it... ish? As much as it’s possible in a society that’s that fucked up? Written in the style of their logs from the games--one entry each, describing an event from each of their perspectives.

4. The Tower of Song: Fic inspired by the Leonard Cohen song, because I’m really creative when it comes to titles. Fantasy dystopia kinda thing.

5. Victory’s Contagious: Fic inspired by Glory and Gore by Lorde. Therefore naturally it’s about teen girl gladiators.

Are you surprised? Why?

About the top five: Mostly no. DR, LL, and PMMM are three of the largest-on-AO3 fandoms I’ve ever written for, and the latter two are femslash-dominated, so you don’t get as ignored writing f/f there as you do in fandoms that actually, like, have male characters. Guarded Bodies and Aces Over Queens in particular had the advantage of being written right as DR was taking off in popularity, so there were a lot of potential readers but not much yet out there to read. Guarded Bodies is literally the second English-language Sakura/Aoi fic ever, I think, and Aces Over Queens was the first Kirigiri/Celes to be posted to AO3, though I think there was one on the kink meme before that. Nothing else I’ve written in the fandom has taken off like those two have, because once the fandom got bigger I think my stuff just got lost in the shuffle.

All the Pretty Girls (ugh, I still hate that title) does surprise me, though. Ficlet or drabble collections are usually not wildly popular, and I have better-developed DR fics that haven’t gotten close to the top five. I guess people are just really thirsty for DR femslash rarepairs? I dunno, man.

About the bottom five: Definitely not. For starters, Undressing was posted literally two weeks ago, whereas the next newest fic has been up for months--also it’s a drabble, so I don’t expect it to become a Huge Success, but I expect it will rise out of the bottom five when it’s been around for more than two weeks.

Analogue/Hate Plus is a tiny fandom to start with and most people are more interested in *Mute and *Hyun-ae than any of the people from the logs. I have to admit, though, I am actually pretty proud of All I want, and I’m sad that my first Analogue fic, which I am less happy with, has twice the kudos it does, presumably because it’s about *Hyun-ae. Well, also All I want is first-person and I know a lot of people hate that, but that’s the format the logs were in, so.

And then we’ve got the other three. All of those were written for JukeboxFest, in which you are basically supposed to write original fiction with songs as prompts. The songs can be from an existing canon, like a musical or a TV show or something, but the fic can’t be for the thing that the song is from. These three fics were all pretty well received during the reading period for their respective rounds of JukeboxFest, but none of the three has ever gotten a single kudos outside of JukeboxFest. People just don’t have any reason to go looking for fanfics of those songs. Which is understandable and fine, but I do feel a little sad, since I worked as hard on those as any of the other ones. And I rather like Tower of Song, in particular.

Optional: If you want to calculate this, what are your works’ average number of notes?

I was gonna be like “uuuugh that is entirely too much arithmetic,” but then I realized the AO3 stats page already gives you your total number of kudos across all works, so then it’s just a matter of dividing that by number of fics. The answer is 35.

Today’s date, so you can see how your results might change if you do this again in a year.

August 12, 2017, but hahahahaha I’m not gonna do it again.

[kristablogs]

Eight great sandwiches to make with your wild game and fish

Catch it, cook it, and put it on some bread. (Michael Kilcoyne/Unsplash/)

This story was originally featured on Field & Stream.

If there is one meal that’s more satisfying than a delicious, well-crafted sandwich—it’s a delicious, well-crafted sandwich stuffed with the hard-earned meat of wild game or fish that you’ve brought home from the woods or the water. Over the years, we’ve published many sandwich recipes, but the eight here—featuring venison, moose, upland game, and no shortage of fried fillets—are our favorites. So dig in, and enjoy.

Fried catfish po’boy

A fried catfish po’boy makes for the perfect summer lunch. (Photograph by Christina Holmes / Food and Prop Styling by Roscoe Betsill/)

If you ask me, there’s no recipe more representative of Cajun cooking that the humble po’boy. You’ll find fried catfish po’boys at almost any Louisiana deli, but it’s much more satisfying to make your own with the fresh summer cats you catch. Pair this sandwich with a side of sweet-potato fries and a cold beer. — Jean-Paul Bourgeois

The venison stand-wich

This sandwich almost looks too good to eat. Almost... (Plamen Petkov; Roscoe Betsill (food and prop styling)/)

The “shooter’s sandwich” became something of an Internet meme a few years ago, triggered by a British food writer’s deeming it the best sandwich in the world. Loading a hollowed-out loaf of bread with steak, mushrooms, shallots, and a fat dose of horseradish yields a kind of portable beef Wellington—the pinnacle of British cuisine reinvented as a trail snack. Hunters (i.e., real shooters) saw the potential for a game version—an ideal pack-along for sustenance on a long day afield. — Jonathan Miles

Fried pheasant sandwich

No fast-food sandwich can compare with this wild thing. (Colin Kearns/)

Back when the country lost its mind after Popeye’s launched its fried chicken sandwich, we took it upon ourselves to come up a with recipe for a sandwich that was tastier, healthier, and didn’t require you to get in line at six in the morning. (Also, unlike their sandwich, ours won’t give you heartburn.) The result was our Fried Rooster. — Colin Kearns

Venison sausage breakfast sandwich

Serve this at hunting camp, and you’ll be a kitchen hero. (Colin Kearns/)

Two scrambled eggs, American cheese, and a hefty patty of venison sausage all sandwiched between an English muffin—this is a meal for hunter who wakes up with a serious appetite (or hangover). The secret ingredient with this sandwich is a generous drizzle of honey alongside with some hot sauce. Trust us: The sweet-and-savory combo really hits the spot first thing in the morning. — C.K.

The Lake Erie Monster

.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }

Melt Bar & Grilled, in the Cleveland suburbs of Lakewood and Cleveland Heights, has one specialty: grilled-cheese sandwiches. The menu presence of 26 variations on that humble childhood favorite—there’s even one stuffed with lasagna—is just one indicator of how far and wide owner Matt Fish is willing to take a grilled-cheese. Another: the Lake Erie Monster, in which a Guinness-battered walleye fillet is swamped in a gleeful mess of melted American cheese, jammed between thick slices of toast, and served with jalapeño-spiked tartar sauce. This is fish camp cuisine taken to its belt-loosening outer limits. — J.M.

Wild hog tonkatsu sandwich

Panko breadcrumbs result in a super-crispy, wildly-crunchy sandwich. (Photograph by Christina Holmes / Food and Prop Styling by Roscoe Betsill/)

Growing up, my mom would pack away smothered pork chop sandwiches from leftovers from the night before for my school lunch. As I got older and experimented more with cooking while in high school, I would make my own lunches—but with fried pork cutlets on white bread with yellow mustard and bread-and-butter pickles. When I moved to New York, I discovered tonkatsu sandwiches, which offered a different crunch from panko crumbs that my palate was not use to. I now regularly use the two influences (Cajun roots and Japanese technique) to create a tonkatsu sandwich that is completely unique. —J.P.B.

Turkey Fil-A sandwich

If you ask us, there’s no better way to cook turkey breast than in a deep-fryer.

In my opinion, the Southern fast-food chain’s chicken sandwiches, basic as they may be, owe their popularity to one thing: the pickle-juice marinade. The soak not only adds flavor, but plumps up the chicken—or, in this case, the turkey breast—leaving it moist and juicy, even after frying in hot oil. You can read the full recipe here, in my roundup of seven great wild-turkey recipes, but here’s a quick video to show you how it’s done. — David Draper

Deer testicle po’boy

Don’t knock whitetail balls till you try one. (Michael R. Shea/)

Yes, we know—another po’boy. But this one is too good to leave off of this list. Your buddies might flinch at this recipe—until they try it. Or just let them eat it first, then tell them what they’re eating after they’ve scarfed it down. Rocky Mountain Oysters have a cult following in the West, and for good reason. They’re delicious. So don’t leave these tasty bits in the gut pile. You can’t really mess up this simple recipe, and you’ll have plenty of joke material around deer camp, too. — Michael R. Shea

[scootoaster]

Eight great sandwiches to make with your wild game and fish

Catch it, cook it, and put it on some bread. (Michael Kilcoyne/Unsplash/)

This story was originally featured on Field & Stream.

If there is one meal that’s more satisfying than a delicious, well-crafted sandwich—it’s a delicious, well-crafted sandwich stuffed with the hard-earned meat of wild game or fish that you’ve brought home from the woods or the water. Over the years, we’ve published many sandwich recipes, but the eight here—featuring venison, moose, upland game, and no shortage of fried fillets—are our favorites. So dig in, and enjoy.

Fried catfish po’boy

A fried catfish po’boy makes for the perfect summer lunch. (Photograph by Christina Holmes / Food and Prop Styling by Roscoe Betsill/)

If you ask me, there’s no recipe more representative of Cajun cooking that the humble po’boy. You’ll find fried catfish po’boys at almost any Louisiana deli, but it’s much more satisfying to make your own with the fresh summer cats you catch. Pair this sandwich with a side of sweet-potato fries and a cold beer. — Jean-Paul Bourgeois

The venison stand-wich

This sandwich almost looks too good to eat. Almost... (Plamen Petkov; Roscoe Betsill (food and prop styling)/)

The “shooter’s sandwich” became something of an Internet meme a few years ago, triggered by a British food writer’s deeming it the best sandwich in the world. Loading a hollowed-out loaf of bread with steak, mushrooms, shallots, and a fat dose of horseradish yields a kind of portable beef Wellington—the pinnacle of British cuisine reinvented as a trail snack. Hunters (i.e., real shooters) saw the potential for a game version—an ideal pack-along for sustenance on a long day afield. — Jonathan Miles

Fried pheasant sandwich

No fast-food sandwich can compare with this wild thing. (Colin Kearns/)

Back when the country lost its mind after Popeye’s launched its fried chicken sandwich, we took it upon ourselves to come up a with recipe for a sandwich that was tastier, healthier, and didn’t require you to get in line at six in the morning. (Also, unlike their sandwich, ours won’t give you heartburn.) The result was our Fried Rooster. — Colin Kearns

Venison sausage breakfast sandwich

Serve this at hunting camp, and you’ll be a kitchen hero. (Colin Kearns/)

Two scrambled eggs, American cheese, and a hefty patty of venison sausage all sandwiched between an English muffin—this is a meal for hunter who wakes up with a serious appetite (or hangover). The secret ingredient with this sandwich is a generous drizzle of honey alongside with some hot sauce. Trust us: The sweet-and-savory combo really hits the spot first thing in the morning. — C.K.

The Lake Erie Monster

.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }

Melt Bar & Grilled, in the Cleveland suburbs of Lakewood and Cleveland Heights, has one specialty: grilled-cheese sandwiches. The menu presence of 26 variations on that humble childhood favorite—there’s even one stuffed with lasagna—is just one indicator of how far and wide owner Matt Fish is willing to take a grilled-cheese. Another: the Lake Erie Monster, in which a Guinness-battered walleye fillet is swamped in a gleeful mess of melted American cheese, jammed between thick slices of toast, and served with jalapeño-spiked tartar sauce. This is fish camp cuisine taken to its belt-loosening outer limits. — J.M.

Wild hog tonkatsu sandwich

Panko breadcrumbs result in a super-crispy, wildly-crunchy sandwich. (Photograph by Christina Holmes / Food and Prop Styling by Roscoe Betsill/)

Growing up, my mom would pack away smothered pork chop sandwiches from leftovers from the night before for my school lunch. As I got older and experimented more with cooking while in high school, I would make my own lunches—but with fried pork cutlets on white bread with yellow mustard and bread-and-butter pickles. When I moved to New York, I discovered tonkatsu sandwiches, which offered a different crunch from panko crumbs that my palate was not use to. I now regularly use the two influences (Cajun roots and Japanese technique) to create a tonkatsu sandwich that is completely unique. —J.P.B.

Turkey Fil-A sandwich

If you ask us, there’s no better way to cook turkey breast than in a deep-fryer.

In my opinion, the Southern fast-food chain’s chicken sandwiches, basic as they may be, owe their popularity to one thing: the pickle-juice marinade. The soak not only adds flavor, but plumps up the chicken—or, in this case, the turkey breast—leaving it moist and juicy, even after frying in hot oil. You can read the full recipe here, in my roundup of seven great wild-turkey recipes, but here’s a quick video to show you how it’s done. — David Draper

Deer testicle po’boy

Don’t knock whitetail balls till you try one. (Michael R. Shea/)

Yes, we know—another po’boy. But this one is too good to leave off of this list. Your buddies might flinch at this recipe—until they try it. Or just let them eat it first, then tell them what they’re eating after they’ve scarfed it down. Rocky Mountain Oysters have a cult following in the West, and for good reason. They’re delicious. So don’t leave these tasty bits in the gut pile. You can’t really mess up this simple recipe, and you’ll have plenty of joke material around deer camp, too. — Michael R. Shea

[recentanimenews]

Sinking Our Fangs into Code Vein for Some Delicious Action

  When I saw the announcement trailer for Code Vein being unveiled, I thought: "Wow, this game might totally be my jam!" But what I mostly heard from others watching the same trailer was: "Wow, it's anime Dark Souls!" It seems overdone lately to compare games to Dark Souls, to the point that the comparison is starting to not mean anything anymore. If a game is difficult, it’s Dark Souls inspired. If a game is dark fantasy, it’s Dark Souls. Co-op or Antagonistic online interactions? Dark Souls. Suffice to say, the comparison to From Software’s popular Souls series is starting to become meaningless, so when I heard people say that “Code Vein is anime Dark Souls”, I wasn’t really sure what that meant before getting my hands on it. 

Code Vein’s first impression on players is an almost ridiculous amount of character customization. The amount of options available sound almost comical when put into some sort of list, so let’s just say you can choose from things like pupil shapes, sclera colors, hair lengths, tiny hats, how many individual tiny hats you want to wear, your gas mask, and other things. Though, the only real disappointment is that body size isn’t a slider; your character just goes from ‘unhealthily skinny’ to ‘approximation of normal human weight’. Also, ladies, you’re gonna have some big… assets. A player could spend literal hours in here, and the game seems to note that maybe you want to change things up after you start playing, as you’re able to change your appearance at will in the central hub of the game once you unlock it. There have been a lot of people posting recreations of anime characters and others in Code Vein, and honestly the creation aspect is perhaps one of the best parts of the experience, really letting you spend your time crafting a character that is uniquely yours. Unfortunately, the game… sort of forgets that this is who the protagonist is not too long after. 

Players take their newly awakened (and amnesiac) main character out into the destroyed world of Code Vein, a place where Revenants are constantly trying to secure their survival after a calamity, with Revenants that succumb to the parasites within them morphing into dangerous Fallen. The world of Code Vein is in shambles, and your character may hold the key to unlocking a way forward… If you can survive long enough to do so.

The first thing that struck me with Code Vein is that there is A LOT of talking. Like, a lot. Within the first 5 hours of the game, I felt like I had spent most of it listening to people talk, walking my way through memory fragments, and seeing things happen without taking a lot of agency in making those things happen. This, personally, was where I first started seeing the flaws of “It’s like Dark Souls” falling apart; Souls games have always operated on a very specific story aesthetic, where the character has arrived too late, things are already falling apart, and there’s really nothing left to save, just an attempt at piecing together what was happening before whatever calamity befell everything around you. Code Vein is different: There are a lot of characters still kicking and talking, and at times your silent protagonist fades into the background as the other NPCs talk to one another, as if you weren’t even there.

My first real disconnect with the game happened after the first major boss, which was followed by numerous cutscenes that made my character feel like an accessory to what was happening; if Code Vein were a directed action game where I was asked to play as Louis, an NPC you meet early on who becomes integral to the story, I think I would have been less disconnected to what was happening than how things were presented.

In fact, this might sum up my biggest complaint about Code Vein: you don’t ever really get to feel “alone”, unless you go out of your way to do so. The game works off of a sort of “buddy” system, where an NPC ally follows you around during the game’s action sequences, fighting enemies with you and tagging along. The problem is that they seem far better at doing things than you are, charging headfirst into waves of enemies and usually clearing out mobs far faster and with more style than your character is capable of. This changes a bit as the game goes on, where instead you end up babysitting your NPC companion into not dying because they can’t seem to read enemy patterns and behavior, but early on the game very much feels like you’re playing a supporting role to the NPC, a problem that presented itself to me in the first major boss fight. 

Without spoiling anything, the boss fight felt… hectic. The boss’s behavior was almost totally random, with no discernable patterns, because it would change wildly based on whether characters were near it or not, and would switch between targeting myself and my AI companion seemingly at will, leaving sometimes little room to react or block. Eventually, I had to adopt a more long range fighting style, simply so I could stay far enough away from the enemy to have it focus on my companion, then lure it towards me while they would recover. This system eventually worked out, but it felt far less satisfying than I had wanted it to be, essentially making me change my entire playstyle and weapon loadout to complete rather than going at it with whatever I had and figuring out a strategy from there. I even tried fighting the boss solo, but that proved to be an even worse nightmare, as the AI seems coded to work best (as in, most fair) against multiple targets, and became ridiculously oppressive against me by myself. Attempting a later boss using the online multiplayer had a different issue: bosses became far too easy, as they couldn’t seem to handle 3 attackers, 2 of which were human and less prescribed than the AI NPC. 

This was when I realized I had to make a decision that would affect how I would look at Code Vein: It was a more action-oriented version of God Eater, which happens to share numerous staff members with Code Vein. 

Areas are bland, and opening shortcuts really just allows you to avoid having to walk through them again, but almost every area is a straight line of sorts, meaning there really isn’t much reason to backtrack to begin with unless hunting particular enemies for crafting essences or grinding. There is no diverging path: you simply go in the direction the game points you in, and work from there. Map exploration feels less important to exploring the game, and more important to just figuring out where to go next, or what specific item or location you were attempting to reach might be. Unless you were totally reckless, your AI partner will ensure you stay alive (unless, as the end of the game starts to invert, you’re racing to keep THEM alive), meaning that brute forcing your way through Code Vein is also totally possible, making the game seem fairly easy. At times this is nice, as Code Vein is certainly an accessible action game; players can somewhat coast to victory on the support of their NPC partners, and can even adopt supportive playstyles by equipping Blood Codes that allow them to buff and heal party members, and the limited online functionality allows you to call for help from other players (if you can find any; in my time playing I was only able to get this to work twice) to add a second partner to the mix. 

This wouldn’t be so bad if the world of Code Vein was interesting to explore, but it never really feels like it is. It also adopts the “storytelling” method of Souls games in that many items fill in lore gaps and info dumps, but this feels superfluous at times because despite how much narrative the game throws at you, it never really tells you enough information to know what anything that’s happening means. While your character is an amnesiac, it takes that issue too literally, as characters will begin talking about events and important ideas without ever taking time to clue your character in on what any of that stuff means until perhaps hours later (or you discovered it on your own from some sort of item description). 

Code Vein gives you a huge amount of options and customization (25 Blood Codes, all with different stats, abilities, and specialities), allowing you to tailor your approach to enemies and areas in whatever way suits that particular challenge best. The story makes a big deal out of your character having the ability to be this blank slate, and the game seems to push you into taking advantage of this in terms of gameplay too, without outright punishing you for only using one approach. As you level up, the stat specializations and changes come from swapping Blood Codes. While you can change them on the fly in the pause menu, I will say that I wished it were possible to have hot keyed at least two of them, making it possible to change during battle more seamlessly than just mashing the Option button to get to my menu, change all my gear and set up, and then go back to the fight.

Early on, it’s hard to appreciate the Blood Code system, as you don’t have a lot of access to things that let you take advantage of the variety they offer. You start with very basic gear and start finding pieces along the way, and I found myself prioritizing fast attacks with wide arcs to damage or variety until about midway into the game, where it started to become obvious that my best approach wasn’t a “Jack of All Trades” method, but instead creating and maintaining gear that would suit particular circumstances best. While you could very likely brute force your way through Code Vein with only one or two Blood Codes, the game really seems to expect you to change your build constantly; the game encourages you to make a character that can change on the fly when a new problem rears its head. 

The game has you fighting hordes of enemies and occasional bosses, meaning the combat has to be faster paced and also a bit more hectic. Combat can be a bit slow to keep up, though, as you don’t really have a lot of combat variety in your combos, and while you can change to various weapons and styles, there are really only a few basic types of weapons in the game. The amount of buffs and abilities you can use are where the real customization comes in, but it combat can still feel a bit rote and clunky as you mash the same buttons over and over again to mow down mobs, and using abilities like Drain to increase your Ichor count, or special attack abilities, can become costly as Ichor tends to be a small resource, and your AI partner will occasionally steal your kills, meaning your flashy attack not only doesn’t work, but wasted resources. 

While it may not sound like it, I enjoyed Code Vein quite a bit! One of the best parts about it is that it is a far more accessible version of the “Souls” style games that everyone knows and loves, while also being a bit more like God Eater in the way it presents some of the gameplay in a far more accessible way. For example, while your healing is limited, you and your partner can use a skill that shares health between you, and you have some window of time to use this skill before a character dies completely. While exploring an area, I got attacked by a huge enemy, and their attack knocked me out; I assumed I was done for, but Luis actually revived me using his skill, allowing me to roll to safety, recuperate, and then team up with him to take down the enemy. During our fight with the boss, I was able to do the same, sacrificing my own health to heal him and keep him in the fight, allowing us to take the boss down on what was essentially our last ditch effort to do so. In these little moments, Code Vein really shines, letting you feel cool and do cool things with the character you spent so much time creating.

And while the action is a bit stale, the flow of combat can feel fun and cinematic, especially as you unlock more complicated abilities and Blood Codes. Code Vein operates on a Rule of Cool, sacrificing challenge at times in order to make sure that you feel like your character is a badass, doing cool, flashy attacks and decimating hordes of enemies. This doesn’t always work, but when it does, it feels fulfilling and enjoyable. The game rewards your investment into your character, allowing you multiple opportunities to take pictures of your character, posing them at various stations in your home base, and has flashy cinematic sequences during certain combat attacks, that let you look as cool as you hoped your character would after all that time in character creation. I appreciated this, but some may not, as it does tend to make the game feel easy and somewhat unchallenging; even though I butted heads against the first boss a few times, after that, the game was fairly smooth sailing, with the occasional death coming as a result of trial and error more than specific, unique challenge. The game has a LOT of bosses, so if you enjoy big, cinematic battles, you’ll find a lot of them here, although ironically I felt that the second boss in the game was one of the hardest, with many of the bosses having similar, repeated attack types: AOE, tracking magic, big 360 swings, and somewhat erratic patterns. This meant that while the bosses were quite different in aesthetics, they have somewhat similar movesets with some slight variation; the second boss, who uses poison, is something of an outlier because it hits you at a point in the game where you have limited resources and haven’t seen a status ailment yet; the rest of the bosses feel more “fair” in that regard. 

Code Vein feels a bit like an RPG in terms of story; characters talk a lot, and the story is the main motivator to continue the game, but there are sometimes a few speed bumps to this. While the game’s characters push a sense of narrative urgency, nothing ever feels overly urgent or dire, and the focus on reclaiming memories (both your own and of NPCs) makes the game feel like most of the bad, challenging, or dramatic events have all happened in the past, leaving many of the big character reveals to feel somewhat inconsequential. Even when I finally learned the big secret behind my own character and her companion Io, I couldn’t really say I was very surprised (the game kind of telegraphs everything), nor did I find the game treating these revelations as anything big; if the characters in the game weren’t very concerned about it, I didn’t see any reason I should be. I did, though, enjoy the various characters that I met and can’t say I didn’t like any of them, but it just felt like I wasn’t on the edge of my seat, worried that something bad will happen to anyone.   

The game forges a style of game that centers on the idea of reclamation and forward momentum. Your character’s amnesiac past isn’t that important, because what matters in Code Vein is moving forward. Even as characters regain their memories, they react to them in a way that centers on what that means to them now, rather than what it meant to them then. If you're itching for a fun action game with a colorful anime-styled world, Code Vein is the game for you! The game will never ask too much of you, and rewards short play sessions quite well, meaning that you can take your time and enjoy the story and world that Code Vein have to offer, even if the challenge isn’t particularly there. Personally, while I’m quite finished with the game, I do still find myself turning it back on to mess with the character creator, posing to take screenshots and occasionally doing some small adventuring with my partners for gear I didn’t complete, while trying to occasionally find multiplayer sessions to join and help others.

  REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Aesthetics and visuals are great, with character creation being a big high point.

+ Action is fun and fast, and develops more as you get more Blood Codes.

+ While not groundbreaking, the story is very enjoyable.

+/- Difficulty is somewhat on the easy side; accessibility is nice, but self imposed challenges (like playing solo) become far too difficult due to game balance.

+/- NPC ally mechanic can be somewhat odd, as it shifts wildly between holding your hand and babysitting fragile CPU partners who can’t read patterns. 

- Online is a bit boring and hard to manage, and not many people seem to make use of it.

- Exploration is kind of dull; maps are generally straight lines with the occasional loop.

  Does the vampire curse of Code Vein call to you? Do you also spend hours in character customization like I do? Let us know what you think of the game in the comments! 

    ----

Nicole is a features writer and editor for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[operawindow9-blog]

What’s missing from our list of 2018’s best TV?

As we wind down 2018, our best-of coverage continues with the following question:

What’s missing from our list of the year’s best TV?

Kyle Fowle

There’s hardly reason to argue with almost any year-end list these days because of the sheer number of good TV shows out there, but I’m genuinely surprised that HBO’s High Maintenance didn’t make our list. The second season of the HBO run keeps with the anthology-esque spirit of the show, but it goes deeper in ways surprising and touching. So, there’s still the random characters that populate New York and The Guy’s life, but what’s different this time around is a narrative through-line involving The Guy’s ex. That character arc, one of pain and jealousy and moving on, adds so much to a season that’s already achingly honest. Add in the fact that one of the year’s best episodes—“Globo,” reckons with the election of Donald Trump, and the completely indescribable feeling of moving through the world on the morning of November 9, 2016 in a smart, poignant, and stirring way—and you have a season of TV that’s more than worthy of any year-end list.

Myles McNutt

It’s difficult for an established reality show to make it into a best of TV list: Beyond the fact that critical conversation privileges scripted programming, reality shows are built on iteration, and that feels less novel or memorable when we reach the list-making time of year. And I’m part of this problem, because I failed to put CBS’ Survivor on my own list despite the fact that its fall cycle has been absurdly enjoyable for a show in its 37th—not a typo—season. Yes, the David Vs. Goliath theme is profoundly dumb. No, I couldn’t tell you a single thing that happened during the season that aired in the spring, so 2018 wasn’t all great for the series. But something about the alchemy of casting and game-play has created a season with a succession of satisfying twists and turns, reminding us that although we may not instinctively think of it as list worthy, a reality show 18 years into its run can still create some of television’s best drama and comedy. (I’ll never hear the name “Natalie” without laughing now.)

Eric Thurm

Making reality TV really pop is an artform: There are hundreds of hours of interactions to film, comb through, and precisely edit into a narrative that will make sense, delight viewers, and feel just slightly off, like humans hanging out too many years in the future to quite make sense to us. So every year, I become more and more impressed with the reigning queen of the genre: Vanderpump Rules. The sixth season is one of the show’s best; over half a decade in, Vanderpump Rules remains an examination of fame, misfired charisma, and the terrors of tenuous social status that would put any 19th century novel to shame. Whether it’s Jax Taylor maybe falling in love with his reiki master Kelsey while his relationship with Brittany Cartwright festers like an untreated sore, Stassi Schroeder’s then-boyfriend creating a new god tier of social faux pas by grossly hitting on Lisa freaking Vanderpump, or the slow-moving car crash of James Kennedy ignoring the “best friend” he was clearly sleeping with (not that anyone else cared), Vanderpump Rules remains mesmerizing. The cast of past, present, and future SUR employees are stuck with each other forever, and it’s incredible. It’s not about the pasta; it’s about dread.

Clayton Purdom

Aw, come on—am I the only person who thought Maniac was one of the year’s best? Well, apparently. Cary Joji Fukunaga’s 10-parter was far from perfect, but it aimed admirably high, wrangling spy action, elven fantasy, late-capitalist malaise, intense family dynamics, corporate psychotherapy and more into a freewheeling caper across several levels of reality. It also got career-best comedic performances out of Emma Stone and Justin Theroux and a fine, sad-sack turn from Jonah Hill. And Ben Sinclair! Not all of its ideas stuck, but it was messy, smart, and light in a way I’d love to see more sci-fi attempt.

Dennis Perkins

I’ll admit, I was worried going into the new, Mary Berry-less (not to mention Mel- and Sue-less), Great British Baking Show era, but I am pleased as rum baba to say that this enduringly endearing and delightfully stressful baking competition series has marched on just as sweetly. Sure, there’s a lingering bitter aftertaste to the great British baking show schism that led to those departures, but not on the Great British Baking Show itself, which rides remaining judge Paul Hollywood’s gruff charms alongside new judging partner Prue Leith and celebrity goofballs Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig without missing a trick. The key ingredient to this series’ success has always been the utterly generous heart that goes into every episode, and Fielding and Toksvig, if anything, seem more emotionally invested in the fates of the contestants they have to expel, one-by-one, from the show’s famous tent. And if Hollywood and Leith continue the necessarily merciless judging of soggy bottoms, overworked and under-proved doughs, and the occasional collapsing confectionary disaster, they, too, provide warmly constructive criticism rather than the traditional reality show scorn. A series—as the departed Berry was wont to say—“cram-jammed” with delights, The Great British Baking Show remains one of the most cozily exciting TV experiences going. [Dennis Perkins]

Alex McLevy

Maybe it’s the curse of distance that comes from being released way back in January, or maybe it’s simply a victim of the era of Too Much TV, but I’m bummed out to find the Steven Soderbergh-helmed Mosaic failed to crack our top 25. The miniseries is everything you could want in superlative television: a sharply nuanced and well-written mystery, performed by a coterie of uniformly strong actors at the top of their game (longtime character actor Devin Ratray deserves to be getting award nominations for his star turn), and an ace director brilliantly shooting and editing the whole thing into an intriguing puzzle? It’s the one thing I have felt comfortable recommending to anyone all year long who’s asked me what great show they should check out, regardless of individual tastes, and sadly, not a single person to date has responded with, “I’ve already seen it.” (Feel free to ignore the accompanying multimedia app as an experimental lark on Soderbergh’s part.) You’d think an HBO series from an Oscar-winning director wouldn’t need underdog-status championing, and yet here we are. Give it a watch if you haven’t yet—and odds are, you haven’t.

Caroline Siede

Come on you guys, Netflix’s Queer Eye gave us two full seasons and a special in 2018, and we couldn’t even give it a spot on our list?! I get that it can be hard to stump for reality TV when there’s so much great scripted stuff out there, but Queer Eye at least deserves a special award for being one of the most unexpected joys of 2018. The new Fab Five offered an updated spin on the early ’00s Bravo original, emphasizing self-empowerment, confidence, and empathy along with styling tips and home makeovers. Karamo used his vague “culture and lifestyle” assignment to deliver some really thoughtful therapy sessions, Tan invented a whole new way to wear shirts, Jonathan established himself as an instant icon, Antoni put avocado on stuff, and Bobby did five times as much work as everyone else while getting barely any credit for it. Whether we were bonding over tear-jerking transformations or mocking Antoni’s complete inability to cook, Queer Eye was the rare cultural unifier based on something lovely and uplifting, rather than dark and depressing. I’m guessing we’re still going to need that in 2019, so it’s a good thing the show has a third season on the way. Until then, I’ll just be rewatching A.J.’s episode on a loop.

Lisa Weidenfeld

I watched and loved a lot of TV this year, but it’s possible Wynonna Earp is the show I looked forward to the most, and also the one I wish I was seeing on more best-of lists this December. It’s a Western, a procedural, a Buffy descendant, a horror comedy, and probably a few other things as well. But mostly it’s fun. Its wildly entertaining third season was the strongest yet, and featured a potato-licking mystery, a Christmas tree topper made out of tampons, and one of TV’s sweetest ongoing romances—the usual stuff of great drama. The show’s mythology keeps expanding into an ever larger battle between forces far more powerful than its scrappy team of heroes, but it’s the writing and character work that make the show shine. Wynonna may be tough and merciless in her pursuit of victory, but it’s her sense of humor that keeps her human and compelling, and the bond between her and sister Waverly has provided a grounding emotional force on a show with an increasingly complex central plot. There just aren’t enough shows on TV that would work a Plan B joke into their heist sequence.

Vikram Murthi

Even correcting for James Franco’s involvement, which might put people off for legitimate reasons, it blows me away that The Deuce didn’t crack AVC’s main list. David Simon and George Pelecanos’ bird’s-eye view of the inception and proliferation of the sex industry in the United States represents some of the most mature, compelling television of the year. Simon’s detail-oriented, process-focused approach comes alive when examining a side of American culture that functions as a metaphor for everything: gentrification, the rise of cultural conservatism, urban renewal, late capitalism, and, most potently, the filmmaking process. This season, Simon and Pelecanos pushed their subjects toward broader freedoms that quickly revealed themselves to be traps in disguise. Not only does all social progress come with a price, but also it’s limited to those pre-approved by those controlling the purse strings. Yet, Simon and Pelecanos never forget that the tapestry of human experience is neither exclusively tragic nor comprehensively optimistic. Some people discover happiness, and others lose their way. Rising and falling in America has always been a permanent state because social environments and political context circumscribe life-or-death choices. It’s been a decade since The Wire ended, but its worldview lives on through Simon’s successive work: everything’s connected, follow the money, and bad institutions fail good people every damn day.

Danette Chavez

Although the show’s title addresses a certain demographic, Dear White People has so much to say beyond calling out the oblivious and privileged. Yes, Justin Simien’s adaptation of his 2014 film of the same name wears its politics on its sleeve, but they’re right next to its heart. The show is much more a winning coming-of-age dramedy than it is a polemic, and even then, it’s still miles ahead of most college-set series in both style and substance. Simien’s created his own visual language to capture both the intimacy of the relationships among the core cast, as well as the microscope they’re under as black students at an Ivy League school. And I really cannot say enough about the dialogue, which crackles and informs. Season one had such a moving coming-out storyline, made all the more so by DeRon Horton’s vulnerable performance; the new season follows Lionel’s adventures in dating and dorm sex, with hilarious and poignant results. Really, the whole cast should be commended, from Logan Browning, who provides a wonderfully complex center as Sam, to Antoinette Robertson, who may have given the series’ best performance in season two’s “Chapter IV.” Dear White People still makes a point of punching up—at racist and sexist institutions, tangible and otherwise—but many of its most extraordinary moments have come from characters like Sam, Gabe (John Patrick Amedori), and Reggie (Marque Richardson) recognizing their personal foibles. Thankfully, Netflix has already renewed Dear White People for a third season, giving you all a chance to get it together.

Gwen Ihnat

The odd Amazon sitcom Forever had a lot to say about the monotony of monogamy and marriage: Can you really stay with someone happily for the rest of your life? (Or afterlife, as the case may be.) With anyone but Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph cast as that main couple, Forever might have slowly slid into bland drudgery. But the two gifted comic actors injected a lot of life into the monogamy question, aided by a spirited supporting cast including Catherine Keener, Julia Ormond, and Noah Robbins. Sure, there are some days when you want to talk to anyone but that person sitting across from you at the breakfast table. But who else would discuss with you, ad nauseam, banal topics like the perfect way to spend a half-hour, or the best way to sit in a chair? The standalone episode “Andre And Sarah” makes achingly clear how much finding (or not finding) that person who makes you shine steers the path your life will eventually take, all in a mere 35 minutes.

Allison Shoemaker

While I’d love to praise one of the many things that aired this year that I’m sure to revisit in future—someone else is going to mention Wanderlust, Salt Fat Acid Heat, and the dazzling Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert, right?—I feel compelled to bring up a program I’m almost certain I’ll never watch again. It’s unlikely that when HBO snapped up The Tale at Sundance this year, the network was thinking of the benefits of the pause button. Yet it’s a benefit all the same. The debut narrative feature from documentarian Jennifer Fox follows a fictionalized version of the director (played by Laura Dern) as she re-examines a traumatic childhood experience she’d filed away in her mind as loving and consensual, managing to be both gentle and almost unbearably upsetting all at once. Dern’s simple, seemingly relaxed performance belies the nightmare which fuels it, and that pause button may prove invaluable to some—it certainly was for me. The Tale is a film which seems to demand that you witness, rather than merely watch it. Should you need to walk away for a minute, it’ll keep.

Noel Murray

I know, I know: At least once or twice a year someone tells you about some cool animated series you should be watching, and talks about how trippy and ambitious and strangely deep it is. But guys, trust me: You need to catch up on Cartoon Network’s Summer Camp Island. Only half of season one has aired so far (20 10-minute episodes, mostly non-serialized), with the rest of the first batch reportedly set to debut before the end of the year. It’s a show parents can watch with grade-school-aged kids or on their own—a treat for animation buffs, and for anyone who enjoys a the kind of surrealism that’s more adorable than upsetting. With its snooty teen witches, dorky monsters, and never-ending parade of anthropomorphic clothes, toys, plants, and foodstuffs, Summer Camp Island is like a weird old Disney cartoon crossed with an ’80s teensploitation picture. And it is glorious.

A.A. Dowd

Mike Flanagan is a Stephen King guy. You could guess that from his adaptation of Gerald’s Game and from the news that he’s doing King’s Shining sequel Doctor Sleep next. Or you could just watch his work and marvel at how plainly influenced it is by the author’s, at how well it captures that signature King touch—the division of perspective among multiple characters, the interest in history and trauma, the graceful juggling of timelines. There’s much more King than Shirley Jackson in Flanagan Netflix take on The Haunting Of Hill House. The miniseries didn’t scare me as much as it seemed to scare a lot of my friends and colleagues—while well-executed, its jolts were mostly of the familiar James Wan spirits-slithering-up-walls variety. But I loved the intricacy of the storytelling, the way Flanagan moved fluidly from the childhood scenes to the adulthood ones and back again, mapping the entwined lives of these damaged siblings to suggest the way that our past and present remain in constant conversation. (It’s memories, of course, that are really haunting the Crain family.) In the end, I found Haunting Of Hill House a better, more spiritually faithful adaptation of It than the real one from last year. Guess that makes me a Mike Flanagan guy.

Erik Adams

The contents of The Big List demonstrate that it’s a great time for television comedy of all stripes: Animated, musical, workplace, detail-oriented genre parody, surrealist examination of the agony and ecstasy of existence. And while I would’ve liked to have seen some notice for the humble charms of NBC’s Superstore or a nod to that episode of Joe Pera Talks With You where Joe hears “Baba O’Riley” for the first time, I’m surprised that we didn’t heap more praise on another Michigan-set cable show co-starring Conner O’Malley. Like Myles with Survivor, I’m willing to accept that I’m part of the problem: Detroiters didn’t make my ballot’s final cut, despite all the hearty laughs, shoddily produced TV commercials, and General Getdown dance routines (“He’s a general—he’s the best”) the Comedy Central series gave me this year. Sam Richardson and Tim Robinson’s love letter to their shared hometown will always be powered by the stars’ explosively silly onscreen connection, but season two did some stellar work at fleshing out their characters as individuals, whether it was Sam reuniting with an ex to record a sultry grocery-store jingle or Tim (loudly) grappling with the family legacy of Cramblin Duvet Advertising. If nothing else, these episodes proved that when it comes to comedic news anchors, sometimes the inspiration for Ron Burgundy outstrips the legend himself.

Source: https://tv.avclub.com/what-s-missing-from-our-list-of-2018-s-best-tv-1830979080

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/how-indie-developers-finished-half-life-3/

How indie developers finished Half-Life 3

On 25 August 2017, Marc Laidlaw, former writer on the Half-Life series with Valve – from the original game to its extended second chapter – posted a short story in the form of a letter entitled Epistle 3. While the names had been gender-swapped and other details disguised, it was clear that this was an interpretation of Half-Life 2: Episode 3, or Half-Life 3 as we have come to refer to it over the years. It was a concluding chapter in the story of Gordon Freeman (who refers to herself as Gertie Fremont in the text), a story that was never given a chance to be finished.

It was an extraordinary moment. After so many years of looking for clues and references to a Half-Life sequel, of seeing the number three in any Valve or Valve-associated title as a portent of Freeman’s return, we finally had this. A vision of what could have been. 

Gordon Freeman: Rational Man is a creation of the Half Life 3 game jam.

A vision that writer Laura Michet didn’t want to see go to waste. “I saw someone tweeting it out and I was immediately fascinated,” the originator of the Epistle 3 Jam on itch.io explains to us. “That evening, at dinner with some friends, I ended up reading parts of it with them. We were all people who had grown up with the Half-Life games and started games careers in the shadow of the perpetually unreleased HL3.” And when the dinner was over and the enormity of what Laidlaw’s text represented settled into place, she sprang into action. “I rushed back to my computer to make the jam, actually.” 

“There’s something fascinating about taking this thing that will never be made and letting it go free”

Brendon Chung, creator of Tiger Team

Game jams are a curious and wonderful thing. They are cauldrons of creativity in compromised conditions. Limits of time, resources and accessibility make them the open mic nights of the games industry, where veterans can play with new materials and up and coming creatives can make a name for themselves and show their talent. “They’re my favourite creative activity in the world, pretty much,” says Michet, who started out in the game jam scene after graduating a few years ago. “I love running game jams on itch, too, since that platform gives you instant access to other people who might be interested in the same topic. I love seeing the stuff  that comes out of itch jams.” 

How did the Epistle 3 game jam link to Half Life 3?

Epsistle 3 is a more psychedelic take on Half-Life 3.

The Epistle 3 Jam started on 26 August (the day after Laidlaw’s piece was revealed) and ran to 1 November, attracting a swathe of developers with the desire to finish what Valve had started. Developers such as the aforementioned Brendon Chung, creator of Thirty Flights Of Loving and Quadrilateral Cowboy for Blendo Games. “I was (and still am) a tremendous fan of the Half-Life games. They really blew up the definition of what a first-person shooter can be. Half-Life played a big part in shaping the kind of work I do,” he tells us. “There’s some really elaborate and ambitious stuff happening in the synopsis. Lots of great temporal and dimensional hopping. I wanted to use this aspect as the backbone of the project, to have you and your memories bumping around time and space.” 

“It’s a beautiful, poignant farewell to a series that will never reach a proper conclusion.” Heather Robertson, creator of GENDERWRECKED and, for this game, the psychedelic EPISTLE 3, tells us. “Also, in the wrong hands, it is a ridiculous comedy piece where nothing makes sense and everything is horrible. I have those wrong hands.” And pretty much everyone we spoke to concurred that the prospect of creating a bootleg Half-Life was just too good an opportunity to pass up. How the developers chose to take it from there and what they created was wildly different, however. Of the 32 submissions to the jam once the process had closed, very few are actually first-person shooters or, even if they are, not in the traditional sense. Thanks to the nature of the jam and the source material, the creators felt a freedom to go wild. 

What games did Half-Life 3’s unofficial synopsis inspire?

Rational Man is billed as a ‘visual novel parody’ of Half-Life 3.

“Evidently, not even Valve wants to take on the challenge of making a shooter follow- up to Half-Life 2, so I felt there was zero mileage in us attempting it – instead, a game focusing on relationships or dialogue seemed the most entertaining direction – especially playing with Freeman’s role as a silent, killing machine who’s always washed along by events,” says James Kapella, one third of TEK Collective, behind HL2: Episode 3 – Gordon Freeman: Rational Man. You can download the game to play on PC through the link, if you’re interested. Others had a much simpler mission statement. “I wanted to make the biggest, dumbest piece of garbage possible. I’d like to think I succeeded,” Robertson declares enthusiastically about her first-person fever dream of an experience that pretty much every other developer we spoke to praised for its design and ingenuity. 

“I aimed for a literal interpretation of the most cynical take on the linear FPS genre,” game designer Dave Hoffman, AKA Dave Makes, tells us. “That is, walking down a hallway, killing everything, occasionally pausing while people talk at you. I’m not actually as cynical as all that, even as a joke, so I couldn’t help getting sentimental while writing the dialogue.” The result was something like a merging of Fruit Ninja with a relationship simulator called THE THIRD ONE. 

In fact many of the developers looked to find the funnier side of the story, leaning on the absurdity of it all while also being reverential to their inspiration. “For a while I’d been wanting to make a game that was just a single joke, setup and punchline, communicated through gameplay instead of writing,” Nicholas Kornek, maker of I Have No Mouth And I Must Freeman, explains. “I actually came up with the title before figuring out what the game would be. I just knew that I really wanted to make something about Gordon Freeman’s strange inability to speak to anyone. In the end, I decided to make a game that would reflect on the futility of trying to communicate when your only impact on the world is through violence, but, you know, funny and stuff.” 

And while the text of Laidlaw’s script gave these creators a lot of freedom to be inventive, the jam process enhanced it too. “The stakes in a jam are super low because everyone comes into the project expecting they’re going to fail,” says Laura Michet. “I ended up just making a bizarre interactive short story where you make only one real choice – whether or not to shoot the BreenGrub. The game keeps track of whether or not you killed him, and it also keeps track of how many people have killed him since the game has been running.” 

How Half Life inspired an interactive fiction MMO

You can play text-based MMO The Grub right here.

In actual fact what Michet made has been described by some of the other developers as a Twine MMO, as the text-based story actually involved measuring the number of people making the choice to kill or save Laidlaw’s depiction of a Dr. Breen-like grub and challenges you to shift the numbers (similar in concept, but more complex in execution, to the Lutece twins coin toss scene from Bioshock Infinite). 

“I think Twine is very much mischaracterised by both game fans and indie game developers,” Michet adds. “It has a very low barrier of entry, but a very high skill ceiling for people who want to use it as a complex expressive tool. Hypertext itself – telling stories using clickable links – is a kind of interactive fiction sub-discipline that nobody has quite yet mastered, I think. The possibilities of hypertext are pretty immense.” 

Everyone’s approach in the jam was different, from sifting through old concepts to coming up with something original, using the longer jam schedule to play with a work in progress or come up with a new system altogether. It was a personal journey for everyone we spoke to.  

“To be honest, I jumped into this jam with very little thought. I had been following Heather Robertson’s work in progress and it made me laugh so hard I couldn’t help but join in the fun,” Dave Makes tells us, for example. “It’s funny, THE THIRD ONE is probably my most personal game to date. The art style is just my rough doodles, they’re the kind of thing I fill notebooks with when I’m having fun.” 

“I had already written a bunch of top-down game code for a game pitch I was working on and it came to me that I should make a Lego Star Wars-type game where everything is a caricature of the Half-Life universe,” says Owen Deery, creator of Small Radios Big Televisions who made a kind of chibi-shooter called Expo. Decay. “I figured I was already making an unauthorised Half-Life game, so I had nothing to lose by re-using Valve’s assets. This sped up the production process a ton since any time I needed a new asset I could probably find it in the Half-Life archives. More importantly, though, it really helped the game feel like a Half- Life game. When you kill a Combine soldier and his radio plays that flatline noise it really makes a huge difference.” 

“Something we imagine that Valve would approve of”

Brendon Chung also delved back into the real games to fish out some authenticity for his homage. “It was a lot of fun taking the dialogue lines from Half-Life 2 and re-using them in a different context to create new scenes,” he reveals. “I basically listened to every line of dialogue in Half-Life 2 and ‘wrote’ my script around the suitable lines.” 

The strange array of different approaches, the sense of humour, the irreverence of it all, based around a franchise that is so revered and praised for its narrative is an interesting thing, but something we imagine those at Valve would approve of. The love of Half-Life is so clear from these titles and the sympathy the developers feel for the creators was apparent. 

“I’ve worked on games that have been cancelled, or suspended indefinitely, and it’s heartbreaking,” says Dave Makes. “THE THIRD ONE is a goofy, silly thing, but underneath that, it’s a love letter to game developers who have felt that heartbreak.”

I was also very pleased that most people didn’t just dunk on the HL3 developers or make a lot of angry games,” adds Michet. “It’s worse that the HL3 devs didn’t get to make their game than it is that we didn’t get to play it. Working on a project and watching it get cancelled or die sucks – that’s happened to me a lot in my professional career.” 

So, while the Epistle 3 Jam may not have delivered much by way of an authentic conclusion to the Half-Life story, what it has inspired is a wide variety of fun and experimental games as well as a fantastic platform for a number of developers, some of whom only work on games part-time, to find exposure and have their creativity appreciated. And while many said they wouldn’t be coming back to these titles now the jam was done, some will be looking to build on what they created here. 

“I want to play a little more with the world of Half-Life, rethink the barnacles, return the Vortigaunts as enemies. Make something crazy with it,” says Alexey Sigh, maker of HL: Minimal Edition, which mixes 3D world design with pixel art characters. “It’s simply fun to come up with something new using known characters and express your own vision. Also, I treated this project as a practice  at level and game design because its minimal visuals allowed me to spend less time on assets and more on the gameplay experience.”

HL: Minimal Edition in action.

Deery also had an eye to the future with his creation. “I used the jam as a jumping off point to experiment and prototype my next project, which has similar mechanics, and this allowed me to take all the feedback I received from the jam and use it to improve the experience. I had to remove all the Half-Life assets obviously, but it feels like the same game in spirit,” he tells us. 

“I am a firm believer in the idea that a game is like a little bird. Once it flies from the nest it grows wings and a beak, and would try to kill me if I got close,” Robertson tells us with an alternate view on things. “There are birds worth tracking down and binding so they would not peck me, but this bird deserves to be free. Also it has massive talons and a gun. Why did  I give it a gun?” 

“More than anything I’m really happy that a lot of people seem to be enjoying the game,” is Kornek’s take on the experience. “I’ve seen a lot of playthroughs of it on YouTube and the joke seems to land well for pretty much everyone, which makes me feel like I did a solid job on the design.” While Dave Makes just had a lot of fun with the development process, as he explains to us. “I had an absolute blast recording all the sound effects. My wife was trying to study while I was banging on things around the apartment, slamming a head of cabbage against the floor, obnoxiously chomping on carrots, swinging a big stick around for that crowbar ‘swoosh’ noise… and then I made her do head crab screeches with me. It was fun.” 

“The outcome was better than I could have hoped”

Tiger Team was made by Blendo Games.

A jam is about giving game developers the spark of an idea that will send them forward. Sometimes that’s the one thing missing between talent and execution. Besides, thanks to Laidlaw’s writing and Michet getting the game jam running as quickly as she did, we now have all of these games and all of these interpretations of the Half-Life world to enjoy. Michet herself seems delighted with the response. “I was overwhelmed! 

The outcome was better than I could have hoped. A lot of people interpreted the jam in a wide variety of strange, incongruous and hilarious ways and that is absolutely the best outcome,” she enthuses. “There were a ton of extremely funny, weird games in this jam, which was also amazing – I love how jams let people make the kind of outrageous joke-games they otherwise wouldn’t ever be able to make.” And so, while it feels more and more like we might never see Valve finish its saga, at least developers like these are tending the flame of Gordon Freeman, keeping the dream alive and giving us experiences that even a team as creative as the Bellevue outfit would balk at attempting. 

“A jam is a great opportunity to capture a moment, either in your own development (technical or personal), or something external,” Kapella sums up for us. “Marc Laidlaw sharing Epistle 3 was both a stimulating gift to the community and a full stop the series was lacking – and this was our modest tribute. Half-Life belongs to the people now”. 

Watch 10 years of Gabe Newell addressing rumors of Half-LIfe 3 in a 4-minute video.

Source: https://www.gamesradar.com/how-indie-developers-finished-half-life-3/