There's also 5 free cover songs available to download:
www.reverbnation.com/lachlanbarclay
Includes:
10 - Crossfire
11 - Battletoads
12 - Blaster Master Level 2
13 - Castlevania II Ending
14 - Gyromite
This album is a compilation of all of the music that I've done over the years for the Angry Video Game Nerd (or the AVGN) - aka James Rolfe. I keep on getting emails from people saying "where can I get that song that you did on video XYZ?" but I've been hesistant to send it out - mostly it wasn't recorded properly due to tight deadlines, and I really wasn't too happy with the final product. So I've cleaned up the tracks, remastered everything and generally given it all a big polish for your listening pleasure!
I've been credited under the name Clockwise (my old username), VoiceOfApollo (my old band), Toehider - (the band I play guitar now!) and Lachlan B, due to a result of my own incredible stupidity. But this time it made sense to set the record straight and put it all out under my own name. It's actually quite funny, due to all of the credits on the videos I still get messages from people saying "hey, you didn't do this track, someone else did! Stop ripping them off!"
I have to thank extraodinare Mike Mills from Toehider for tracks 8, 9, 11, 13 and 14, for doing the mixing and mastering.. and even providing the drums - a masterful and thoroughly excellent job! If you haven't heard Toehider yet... check them out, they are incredible!
reverbnation.com/toehider
Also big massive thanks goes to the AVGN himself, James Rolfe, for being an overall cool dude and using all my music :)
Side A:
1. AVGN Theme tune (used on the chronologically confused about zelda vid)
This was the original track that kicked it all off. I'd been watching a bunch of the AVGN videos and noticed that there were a whole lot of covers of the theme tune on youtube... but no rock version! Eighties metal is kind of my thing, so I figured I might as well record my own version of the tune with a monster guitar solo. I spent about 3 hours on it on Saturday, and then put together a quick video for it on Sunday:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBHbK336bAQ
for some reason it took off! People really dug it, so I emailed the mp3 to James in case he was interested, but never heard back from him. A few months later I was watching the latest nerd video, and when the title sequence started I was really surprised to hear my own track!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHIP9UtkQDQ#t=1m10s
Now that was coooool!!
2. Epic as Hell (mario 3, gyromite final battle)
A few months later, James posted a message on his forum saying "I need some music that's really evil sounding". Not really knowing what to expect from the video, I recorded something that turned out to be epic, but not particularly evil! To my surprise it was included in the Super Mario 3 episode:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TWQz8TMsc0
But then even better the same tune was used in episode #100 !
www.gametrailers.com/video/angry-video-screwattack/711094
3. Sophia The Third
James needed another tune for the Gyromite video, and originally he used the music from BlasterMaster (level 1). Inspired by that I came up with this!
4. Introducing The Dragon
On the 26th of May 2010, James put out a message on his site saying that he was looking for some "dramatic music". I didn't know what he meant so I sent him an email, and he replied with a link to download. It was the "Dragon in my Dreams" video, and I was really blown away by it's honesty and strength of emotion. I really had to do this short film justice!
This tune was originally meant to be at the end (and the outro tune was meant to be at the start), but James swapped them around... turns out he knows what he's doing.
Here's the video, and the tune is right at the start:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kc3JqVIIJA
And that's his 300th video. Crazy.
5. Meeting the Dragon
I tackled this part first as it was obviously the crucial part of the movie. It's very difficult to balance the line between a haunting sentimentality and awful-dripping-with-sugar corny crap. So after a few attempts I trimmed it down just to a few instruments, kept it really simple and did my best not to make the music the feature. Just enough to supply the emotional input needed for the ears to hear what the eyes are seeing.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kc3JqVIIJA
It starts about 5 mins in.
6. Leaving The Dragon
This tune is kinda of a reprise of the intro tune. Good fun this one, going for a Satriani-esque tone and a real laid back feel. Mike did a great job on the drums.
7. Assemblying The Robotic Operating Buddy
The Gyromite video, AVGN episode one hundred! Six months later, James sent me an email saying "For my latest video, I used a few tunes from old Nintendo NES games, do you want to replace them with your own stuff? I'd need it pretty soon". My first thought was cool... until I saw the list that he sent me:
0:17 - 2:09 - Super Metroid
1:14 - 2:09 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit
3:51 - 4:14 - Metroid theme
4:23 - 4:40 - Gyromite
4:42 - 5:30 - Blaster Master level 1
7:38 - 8:07 - Battletoads
12:11 - 12:37 - Blaster Master level 2
18:09 - 18:47 - Castlevania 2 Ending
It's not a few tunes... it's 8 tracks! That's practically an album!!! Needed to be done in two weeks!
So I emailed my buddy Mike, who is the singer/guitarist/songwriter in the band Toehider, and who also happens to be the most amazing and talented guy on the planet. My email consisted of forwarding on James' and me saying "HELLLLP!"!!
So we divided up the work between us, Mike wanted to do the opening tune and the Roger Rabbit one, and he figured he might as well do the last one, and Battletoads seemed like fun. The rest were up to me.
So over the next two weeks we madly wrote and recorded all 8 tracks. About a week in I figured we might as well release all of this stuff on the internet because it's starting to sound pretty good!
This tune is used when the AVGN start putting the Gyro's onto the R.O.B. at 3:51.
www.gametrailers.com/video/angry-video-screwattack/711094
I was going for a kind of grandiose theme for this one. After all, you're putting together your own robot!
8. Toehider beat the last boss (Roger rabbit replacement track)
For those in the know this is actually a Reverse-Nintendocore
(it's a genre... look it up) version of a song called Toehider
If you haven't heard Toehider before... boy are you in for a treat:
www.reverbnation.com/artist/song_details/1497634
and here's a live version!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyZts_4z5xs
9. AVGN Theme tune
The opening of the Gyromite video originally used music from
Super Metroid. It needed to be dark, but it also needed to hint
at the AVGN theme tune, which unusually isn't used to open this
episode. Mike wanted to have a crack at this and I knew he'd
do it justice... but boy, what a killer track!
Side B - Bonus Tracks!!
10. Crossfire
Used in the Board James episode. The first guitar solo is pure insanity by Mike Mills!
11 - Battletoads
Everything done by Mike Mills, I can't take any credit for this one! Here's a video to watch with it:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4otsFcO6L0
and here's the original:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHfxXHDWrMU
12 - Blaster Master Level 2
Used in the Gyromite video! Here's the original:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JRh_WHCkO4
13 - Castlevania II Ending
Mike's amazing cover of the ending music from Castlevania II. Here's the original tune:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHbGPOdcyuo#t=1m02s
Mike used a Bouzouki for this track!
14 - Gyromite
This one had me tearing my hair out! I originally tried to do the intro note for note, but couldn't quite get it right. So stuff it, I just pumped out some classic power-metal style rif. Here's the original version:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1YmeZs91bs
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