Top 10 Anime Music List

Anime (animation from Japan) invokes a lot of passion from people who watch it.  So of course some turn this passion into music.  Here is my top 10 list of music inspired from anime.  Songs and albums about a specific series or two.  This does not listen soundtracks, cover songs, or songs about general life as an anime fan.

1. Adam Warrock and Neo-Tokyo, his album about Akira, the classic movie based on one of the greatest comic series ever.  He also has songs on Gurren Lagann and Evangelion.

2. Beth Kinderman has Heavy as Stone about Fullmetal Alchemist and Vash’s Song about Trigun.  Slower and sadder than rest on this list.

3. The Man Power has a song about one of the hottest women in anime Fujiko from Lupin III.

4. Maja and his Bleach album Bleach’d Out was one of the first nerdcore albums I ever listen too.  Remixed music of Bleach and smooth raps.

5. Tom Smith wrote two songs about Death Note.  The first one is Who the F @#$ is Matt, about a short-lived character in the anime who still gets lots of fangirls (not child safe) and the second one he wrote while sick and he got both Death Note and Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog.

6. Area 11 is a British band who’s first album, All The Lights In The Sky, features 11 songs, with 6 of them having a reference to an anime: two songs for Code Geass, one for Elfen Lied, one for Death Note, one for Cowboy Bebop and one for Gurren Lagan.  They have done more since then too.

7. Richie Branson, know for his Toonami rap, did an album about one of the most popular Gundam series, Gundam Wing.  He has another one, Otaku Tuesdays, about various other series.

8.Ever wanted an album that contained a bunch of songs about Speed Racer on different genres and artists with some tracks from the original soundtrack?  Ok so no one wanted this till it was created, but here it is Speed Racer: The Soundtrack.

9. Mikal kHill‘s, of the Thought Criminals, album with Romero Shaw, dust, has a track about Big O called R. Dorothy Wayneright.  An almost love song from Roger to Dorothy.

10. If you are a fan of Dragonball Z or thought it was pretty stupid than I suggest checking out That Darn Anime by Flying Like Wilma.

Honorable Mention goes to Luke Ski and his song Anime Fan with Carrie Dahlby.  A huge list of various animes get named drop through out the song.  Also check out this cool AMV for it.

 

 

Two Mega Man Tribute Albums Coming

OverClocked ReMix and Sumthing Else Music Works have each put together  an album tribute to Mega Man for Capcom to celebrate 25 years of the Blue Bomber.

The first album is “For Everlasting Peace: 25 Years of Mega Man” by OverClocked ReMix.  It will contain remixes, in multiple music genres, from Mega Man, Mega Man X, Mega Man Legends, Mega Man Battle Network, Mega Man Zero, Mega Man ZX, and Mega Man Star Force.

“We’re honored to again be collaborating with Capcom on another iconic franchise, paying tribute to over 25 years of Mega Man,” said OC ReMix founder and president David Lloyd, who will also contribute to the album alongside more than 20 musicians. “The music of Mega Man is as diverse as the many adventures the games take us on, providing the perfect soundtrack to a quarter century of robotic heroism and upgradeable projectile weapons. The OverClocked ReMix community is always excited to explore new interpretations and expressions of such amazing compositions, and we believe that For Everlasting Peace – our first commercial album – will offer fans something new while staying true to our goals of honoring great video game music and composers!”

The second one is “MM25: Mega Man Rocks” by Sumthing Else Music Works.  This one focuses on the classic Mega Man and the X series.  It has contributions from six big Mega Man acts.  The headliner of the album is The Protomen with a new song “Built to Last.”  Arm Cannon and X-Hunters both provide new songs too.  The Mega and Bit Brigrade re-record some of their previous hits.  Plus Mega Ran and The Protomen hand-pick some their personal faves of their work.

The covers for the two albums was decided from an open contest for fans to send in their own work.

Both albums will launch later this fall on various digital distribution sites.

SRP Concert Kickstarter

Synthesized Reality Productions, SRP, is a new live Vocaloid concert group with a dream of doing concerts all over the wold.  To do this they need some better equipment (lighting and effects) for their first concert at year’s Pacific Media Expo, PMX, in Los Angeles, California in November.  So they are asking for some help raising the funds.

SRP include former members of Vocalekt Visions, another live holographic concert team, plus other producers, musicians, animators, and artists from San Francisco and all around the world.  With all the help from Vocaloid industry professionals they have been able to line up shows internationally already.  To make these shows the best they can possible be and to start things off with a bang they are running this Kickstarter.

The reward levels are light on physical awards.  $10 gets you a shout out, $25 three custom-made phone charms, $50 you get a CD from one of SRP’s producers and DVD of the show, $100 and $200 original artwork, $300 2 CDs plus an original song, and much more at higher levels. 

Their goal is $2,500 by November 3.  So far they have six backers for only $540.  Fans of Vocaloid might want to give this a look, both for what you get from it and for helping future live concerts in the future. 

Vocaloid is a vocal synthesizing program created by Yamaha, in its third installment. A Vocaloid concert uses 3D holographic images based on the character mascots of each Vocaloid voice banks. Each Vocaloid has a unique character design, as well as a different voice type for varied ranges and styles of music.

 

The Candy Spooky Theater, GPK, and DJ SiSeN North American Tour

Nexus Productions, Neon Promotions, and Tainted Reality are producing Pandemonium Tour Vol.1.  A tour of J-Rock music that aims to offer fan a more dance club experience, with a Halloween theme, rather than just a concert experience.  Attendees are encouraged to wear their Halloween costume since they will be having an open costume contests.  The winner will get a Pandemonium Tour prize package.

Headliners for the tour are EDM solo artist GPK (formerly of GPKism), Tokyo dark underground DJ SiSeN, and The Candy Spooky Theater, celebrating their 10th anniversary.  Other performers who will appear include DJ Mighty Mike Saga, Ignite Violet, and DJ Super Sonic. Music at the events will be a mix of EDM, Industrial, Electro, EBM, Chiptunes, Dubstep, and House.

The tour kicks off on September 27th in Bellingham, Washington with just Candy Spooky Theater and again on October 5th.  SiSeN and GPK performan on October 2nd and 4th in the same town.  On October 6th they will be in San Jose , CA with special guests Kairu and Belle Mortelle;  on October 11th in Los Angeles, CA with SiSeN only; October 12th in Glendale, CA; October 13th in San Antonio, TX; October 18th in Philadelphia, PA with DJ Zircon and Roger Shackelford; October 19th in Baltimore, MD with DJ Mighty Mike Saga and DJ Supersonic; and finally October 20th in New York City with Mighty Mike and Ignite Violet.

Ticket prices and times vary from place to place.  Also most are 21+ only.  During the tour Tainted Reality will be running a telethon on October 17th online.

Fans of anime convention raves will want to try and find a stop along the tour to hit up.  Other fans of electronic music as well.

Candy Spooky Theater contains elements of deathrock, children’s nursery rhymes, and bizaree styling with elaborate staged events.

DJ Sisen specializes in industrial and rhythmic noise.  He models for Takuya Angel and Kikirara Shoten as well.

GPK is a J-goth artist and DJ who works in industrial/EBM-electro driven.  This will be his first performances in the US as a solo artist.

Nerdcore Comic Book Store Tour

Recently comic nerdcore rapper Adam Warrock has been asking his fans on Twitter and Facebook if they know any good comic shops that would be willing to have a show in their store.  The reason is he is working on a national comic store tour.

Tour will be in four segments during 2014.  Those being: Middle US, the East Coast, the West Coast, and the South/Southeast.  The booking for the Middle US segment is going on now for December, so if you know a comic store owner/manager/employee let them know you have a great event for their store.  No store or town is too small, just needs good people and community.  Though I might know a store that is too small.

The tour is not only to reach comic fans directly, but to bring to bring focus to local comic stores and communities and to offer an alternative for fans who are not big on going to bars and such for what ever reason.  It is he’s way of giving back to stores and communities that have meant so much to him.  To quote him:
Stores mean a lot to me, and I love being able to see the communities around them, talk about what comics are selling. Seeing good done in communities built from love of comics.
And to all the store owners who care, and the communities who make their LCS still a vibrant, wonderful place to hang out and meet friends, thank you for everything. My best friends come from the Memphis LCS community, and Comics & Collectibles is a place I go to every week and lose hours in just hanging out and talking to strangers.

There is also a good chance he will be taking some friends along on the tour, which just makes it even better.  Stay tuned for more news as it develops.

 

Parsec Award For Best Music Podcast

The Parsec Awards were founded in 2006 to celebrate speculative fiction podcasting. Podcast shows are nominated by fans, and finalists are chosen by a yearly steering committee.  Awards are given in several categories ranging from content to audio quality.  One of those categories is Best Speculative Fiction Music Podcast, which was added in 2009.  The Parsec Awards are given out each year at a live ceremony at Dragon*Con in Atlanta Georgia.

The award is given to podcasts discussing and sampling music about, set in, inspired by, or spoofing speculative fiction.  The finalists for this year’s award were Radio Free Hipster by Z, The Funny Music Project by Devo Spice, and Pros and Cons by Jonah Knight and Mikey Mason.  Winner after picture.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The FuMP won this year.  This is their second win and fourth nomination.  Since none of the FuMP’s artists were able to attend the ceremony one of the FuMP’s fans accepted the award on their behalf. 

They have stated that if the plaque were a little bigger, it would have continued to read as follows: “By Devo Spice, Art Paul Schlosser, Bonecage, Buzz Brooks, Carrie Dahlby, Confabulation of Gentry, Consortium Of Genius, Dino-Mike, Donita Smith, Flat 29, George Gidley, Glen Raphael, Grottomatic, Insane Ian, Jeff Kornberg, Jesse Smith, Kill The Band, Killer Calamari, Kobi LaCroix, Komrades Oppression Group, Lemon Demon, the great Luke Ski, Marc Gunn, Max DeGroot, Mel & El, Mikey Mason, Moneyshot Cosmonauts, Morning Sidekick, Nuclear Bubble Wrap, Ookla The Mok, Phil Johnson and Roadside Attraction, Power Salad, Project Sisyphus, Raymond and Scum, Robert Lund, Sci-Fried, Scooter Picnic, Smashy Claw, Some Guy Called Doug, Steve Goodie, Strange Changes, The Boobles, The Chris Waffle Experience, The Doubleclicks, Todd Chappelle, TV’s Kyle, Willie B Poppin, Worm Quartet, and Logan Whitehurst.”

You can watch the Parsec Award ceremony on YouTube.  Performances by Tom Smith at 22:30 and the award is given to FuMP at 52:30.