NOTES: So SnappleMan challenged me in DoD for June 2010, right? Well, I needed an epic, extraordinarily ambitious arrangement to ensure a victory. I’ve been wanting to arrange Dancing Mad for quite a long time, because pretty much all of the arrangements I’ve heard don’t deviate away from the source enough. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I always felt that there was so much that could be done with the church organ solo sections.

The other thing is that I’ve always wanted to do a One-Winged Angel arrangement. I did one a while back and I posted it here, but time has passed and I realized it blows and really had nothing special about it (straight Advent Children version cover? C’MAAAWWWNNN!!!!). The other problem was that by itself, I had NO original ideas on how to arrange the song. Between the Advent Children and OCR’s Voices of the Lifestream “Black-Winged Metamorphosis” versions, I couldn’t do anything with it. But as I was arranging this I had the idea to slip some One-Winged Angel sections in here, and it worked great! If I remember right, One-Winged Angel was actually a leftover from FF6 anyway. The styles meshed very well, so that’s great. I’m a little disappointed that I couldn’t slip in more of One-Winged Angel into the remix, but that’s alright. Anything that’s missing is in the first parts of the song, and Dancing Mad has a ridiculously epic opening statement as it is. Plus, the cheesy anvil’d, bass drop’d half time breakdown is just too sweet as the first OWA statement.

Also in the song are several references to certain prog bands that you may or may know. If you know who they are, then that’s an easter egg you can laugh at and enjoy. If you don’t recognize them all, then stop being a damn noob and get edumacated on your prog rock!

By the way, this song does have lyrics, and I know they’re hardly decipherable. The way Symphonic Choirs was made makes it very difficult to cut through the thick horrible mass of noise in this song.

SnappleMan, Going Down (x2)

Don’t let your pubic fat
Get in the way

You’re fucked (x4)

SnappleMan is fat and greek
He masturbates with feta cheese
He thinks he can win DoD
But he will never beat me

He’s crazy
Fat and lazy
Pussied out
Last time around

SnappleMan, Going Down (x2)

He does not know what he got into
Thinking his only threat was that Jew
I think that the time has come to pass
To open up this can of whoop-ass
He thinks he can win this fight using wank
Unaware how much he’s gonna get spanked

You’re fucked, you are fucked (x3)
You’re fucked, fucked fucked fucked fucked!

SnappleMan is fat and greek, masturbates with feta cheese (x8)
(He is crazy, fat and lazy) (x4)

NOTES: Yes, this is a straight cover of SnappleMan’s “Dead Batteries” remix from the OCR Project Chaos album. Early in June 2010, SnappleMan challenged me to a DoD duel. Since he backed out the previous February (SnappleMann/Paragon is an Asshole (part 1)) he decided he had unfinished business to attend.

Well, so did I.

That’s how Prancing Dad and this song came about. This song however, is the result of me killing time a couple days before the deadline. I made this straight cover to add to the mockery, hence the name. Plus, I’ve been wanting to do live bass on that song for a while now, but I figured why not do it myself?

Song formerly known as “SnappleMann is an Asshole (part 1)”

NOTES: So uh…this song…yeah…Let me give you a little backstory.

Early February I decided I wanted to participate in the Dwelling of Duels of that month, the theme was Sports Games. I talked to Snappleman about it, and we decided to collaborate. We brainstormed several ideas but never settled on anything. Finally, Snappleman gets the idea that he and I should have an epic DoD battle, where he would cover the NBA on NBC theme, and I would do the NFL on Fox theme. Both are in video games. So we start trash-talking and I get pumped up. Snappleman sends me a link to the NHL on ESPN theme, which is likewise as epic and he tells me that he was going to add it to his song. Not about to let him one-up me, I added the MLB on Fox theme. The battle was ON!

…but Snappleman flaked out a day later and told me he wouldn’t do his song. I kept on trucking, because I was hoping that he would make the song 3 days before deadline (which he always does, mind you), but if he didn’t then I still had a cool song to enter. But time apparently was not on my side in February, and I found myself scrambling hardcore to finish up the track, and I was in Super-Punchfest mode the day of deadline to get tangible material in to compete. The shred section was meant to fill length and really didn’t add much musical content.

But, apparently I had another dilemma. Those sports themes were not created for video games, and there’s been a constant debate and grey area over at DoD about such songs. Not to mention, there was no section created on the DoD page to address music of this manner, but I was way too far in, I submitted, and prayed that Paragon would understand, and I threatened to kick his ass if he disqualified me.

So he did.

This is why Paragon is now the asshole. Without negotiation, my track was demoted to Alternate and taken out of competition. It was originally named “SnappleMann is an Asshole (part 1)” obviously because of aforementioned reasons, but also because this track is more of a beta track and I will develop it into the original vision I had for it. It’s not NEARLY the song I want it to be. Plus, it’s a parody of a couple of Snappleman’s song names: “Manning Up (part 1)” and “Where No Mann Has Gone Before (part 1)”

So just be wary. You might think this arrangement rocks, you might think it sucks, but do know there’s a LOT more to come and I guarantee it will give you chest hair and increase your testicular fortitude when you hear the final version.

NOTES: The 3rd place track from the Dwelling of Duels month for MAGfest 8. I was actually intending on submitting what will be a song from OCR’s upcoming Lufia remix project, but 5 or so days before I had to leave, I determined that that wasn’t going to happen. So I totally pulled a SnappleMan and put this together in that time. This track actually started out being quite a bit more bullshit than what you hear, but it was much too late. I’m planning on developing some of the individual sections into full songs.

This song first started off as just the Toejam & Earl cover, but I decided to add a bunch of B.S. for humor points. Break-neck transitions, Disney songs and sound clips are just a small part of what this song has to offer!…well I lied, that’s really all what this song is about. The “you’re looking into the eyes of satan” quote is actually a clip from an adult movie that virt showed me one time. If you know adult movie it’s from PLEASE CONTACT ME ASAP BECAUSE I REALLY REALLY REALLY WANT TO SEE IT!

NOTES: One of two alternates entered for the Dwelling of Duels November 2008 Sonic Themed competition (same month Sonic Gargles was entered). Don’t know why I haven’t posted it until now…Every sound you hear in this song is made with one of my basses. It’s part of a “Bass Exclusive Series” in which I take songs and play them entirely on bass. So far it’s only these two Sonic songs, but there will be more to come.

NOTES: One of two alternates entered for the Dwelling of Duels November 2008 Sonic Themed competition (same month Sonic Gargles was entered). Don’t know why I haven’t posted it until now…Every sound you hear in this song is made with one of my basses. It’s part of a “Bass Exclusive Series” in which I take songs and play them entirely on bass. So far it’s only these two Sonic songs, but there will be more to come.

POSTED November 6th, 2009

NOTES: An unreasonably progged out arrangement of the Gemini Man theme from Mega Man 3. It takes inspiration from Steve Vai’s “Voodoo Acid” and incorporates a ridiculous amount of random ethnic instruments and styles. I totally whored out my EWQL RA library for this song. Originally released for the Dwelling of Duels July 2009 competition.

NOTES: Sonic song #2, eh? This was released for the April 2009 DoD month, which was "8-bit vs. 16-bit" month. The idea to do Chemical Plant Zone was actually created by Dan Orosz (aka prozax) when I was hanging out with him at MAGfest. This song was also intended to have Dan play the lead guitars, but he went AWOL for a while and I had to record the lead guitar parts. This is the first song I tried to do a big Jazz brass arrangement on. Expect a suped up version of this song with even more people on it soon!

NOTES: Despite being my worst placing DoD track to date, it was still really fun to make this song. Ever since the first time I heard the original Knights of Cydonia song by Muse, I thought it sounded like Zelda metal. Only until recently did I try to turn that into a reality. During the DoD month that this for (February) I was very busy with many other things, and while I wanted to enter that month, I couldn’t do a lot of work. So this song came from that. As I was arranging it, I became very surprised at how well the songs went together, and you will be too. The reason why this song is under arrangements instead of video game covers is exactly that. It’s more of the Muse song than the Zelda songs, which ultimately led to it’s demise in DoD. I got my musical compadre Travis Moberg to do vocals in one night and a few hours of recording from never having listened to my version of the track, nor the vocal melody, nor the lyrics. On the spot. Way to go.

Lyrics:

Listen to me,
I’m the great Deku Tree,
Put the boy to the test
He must begin his quest

But how will Link win,
With his health almost gone?
Use the red potion
Or Ganon will waste you

No one’s gonna take Link alive,
Heart pieces will make him survive
The Triforce must return to the light,
He’ll use the Ocarina of Time.

(Title pronounced "Ah Koh-ay-loh Oo-skay Ad Sen-trum" and means "From Heaven to the Center of the Earth")

NOTES: MAAAAGFEEEEEST!!! The 3rd place track from the greatest month DoD has ever seen (Even getting in top 10 is quite an accomplishment). Knowing that anybody who’s anybody was going to enter this month (christ, even BrainCells did a track!) I knew that I had to make a track that just grabs you by the balls and not let go until the last second. I talked to GuitarBizarre and had him help me figure what soundtrack to do for it. He told me to check out Actraiser. Instantly I was hooked. This was also right before I learned that the MAGfest songs were going to be randomized. Since Actraiser would have undoubtedly gone first, I needed to make the biggest opening statement ever. The arrangement took me quite a bit of time, but I actually arranged as I went along, using EWQLSO Gold, so the Orchestra parts you hear now are the same parts that I wrote during the arrangement process. After all the arrangement and recording was done on my end, I decided to have both of my guitar-playing collaborating veterans play on the track. This is how the lead guitar duties broke down:

01:16-01:52 – Lead: GuitarBizarre

02:13-02:36 – Lead: PoD

02:45-03:40 – Lead: PoD
03:41-04:16 – Solo: Chris Feener
04:16-04:33 – Lead: PoD

05:13-05:35 – Lead: PoD

05:35-06:02 – Solo: PoD

06:23-06:44 – Solo: GuitarBizarre

06:47-07:14 – Lead: PoD

07:25-08:08 – Leads: PoD

08:38-09:07 – Lead: PoD
09:07-09:26 – Lead: GuitarBizarre
09:26-09:47 – Leads: PoD

Also available for download is the ‘stripped down’ version of the song. Since I did not spend nearly as much quality time making the orchestra more standalone-able as Hell March, I wont give it it’s own spot on this page. In that version I included Lead Guitars and Synths to fill in blank spots.

DOWNLOAD FULL SONG – DOWNLOAD STRIPPED DOWN VERSION