RNDM Is Out and Final Tour of The Year

Random (Mega Ran) has released his latest album, RNDM, too much fanfare.  It début #2 in the Mountain time zone on Billboard’s Indy chart.

The album features “Mighty”, the ending credits to the anticipated game “Mighty No. 9.”

They say you can’t go forward without going back. So to move to the future, Mega Ran had to go back to the beginning to say thank you, then to say goodbye. Ran’s 2015 full length album channels the soul of “The Call,” the nostalgia of “Forever Famicom” and blasts into the future with new age production and concepts, while exploring the concept of finding one’s true self through deep soul-searching and experimentation.

Mega Ran calls this “the album of my life.” Hip Hop, pop, electronica and funk/soul meet at the crossroads of introspective, hilarious and heartwarming songs featuring outstanding artists such as Kool Keith, Open Mike Eagle, MURS, Joell Ortiz and more.

The album features appearances from D&D Sluggers, Doctor Awkward, Edy Blu, Elle Winston, Richie Branson, RoQy TyRaiD, Storyville, and Wordburglar.  With beats from Alex Minor, DJ Big Serg, DJ DN3, K-Murdock, Lazerbeak of Doomtree, Lost Perceptions, Michiru Yamane (composer of Castlevania series), RND1, Tunesmith, and others.

You can get the album via download, cassette, vinyl, CD/Shirt bundle, NES cartridge of the album’s instrumentals, or as the Kickstart version of the album.  You can also buy a pair of RNDM socks, only 50 pairs exist.

You can pick it up a copy of the album on iTunes, Bandcamp (with bonus lyric booklet and NES files), Google Play (with bonus track), and Underground Hip-Hop for signed CDS.

 

He is also on his last tour of the year before he gets married.  He is touring with DJ Organic, SkyBlew, and EyeQ.   So check to see if any of the dates are near you.

JUST ADDED:

10/4 ATLANTA at Joystick Gamebar, 3pm to 10pm
10/7 RICHMOND VA (private event, contact Random for info)

After the tour Random is getting married and in lieu of gifts he is asking for donations to the honeymoon fund.

Ongaku Overdrive II, Music Festival For Gamers & Anime Fans, Announces Lineup & Day After Show

Ongaku Overdrive is a music festival in Winter Park, Florida (somewhere around Orlando it seems) for fans of anime, video games,  sci-fi, and the like.  Saturday May 10th will be their second event at The Haven Lounge.  Doors open up at 2pm and will go till 1am.  The event includes a mix of rock, chiptunes, J-pop, nerdcore, and electronic music that draws inspiration from video games, fantasy, comic books, and other realms of nerddom.

New acts this year include Armcannon who preform rock renditions of classic video game music; otaku rapper Cashamil Anime Boy; chiptunes/electronic artists Professor Shyguy; videogame/vocaloid synth-rock band Final Weapon; chiptunes and guitarists Danimal Cannon; and finally one of the blog’s favorite rappers Mega Ran.

Returning acts are J-Pop artist Rai Kamishiro; famed otaku rapper Richie Branson; nerd rock band Sci-Fried; video game remixer and DJ, Benjamin Briggs; the blog’s other favorite rapper Adam Warrock; and 16-bit wizards MagiTek.

Tickets for the event are $15 online and $20 at the door.  Attendees must be 18 and bring ID.

An after-party called “The Day After Show” will be held on Sunday May 11th at The Geek Easy starting at 4pm and goes till 1am.  It will feature performances by DJ Roborob, Benjamin Briggs, DJ Cylon, Doug Funnie, Shammers and Shinobi the MC, MC Wreckshin, Eye Q, and more.  A donation of $5 for the artists performing is asked of those attending.  There will also be a grab bag raffle.

This event has one of the best line-ups I have seen in a while and with a cheap price.  I would like to see this expand to at least two days though to give the performers more time.  Someone go and send me a review of it, ok.

 

Top 10 Zombie Music List To Shamble To

Zombies have become big in both nerd circles and the mundanes’.  Which of course means songs, albums, and bands inspired by them.  Here is some to get started listening to and Happy Halloween.

1. Zombie Blues by Tom Smith gives you the blues from a zombie perspective.

2. MC Lars, YTCracker, Shaffer the Darklord, and ZeaLouS1 do a tribute to zombies and Bruce Campbell with Do the Bruce Campbell.

3. The Gekkos take a different approach to the zombie apcolypse in Pokemon of the Living Dead with having the Pokemon be the zombies.

4. If I Were an Undead Crawler by the nerdy duo Debs & Errol, a song they wrote at a convention workshop to the tune of “If I Had a Million Dollars.”

5. Mikal kHill of the Thought Criminals produced his definitive zombie story as the album The Walking Dead.  Guests on the album include Jesse Dangerously, Tribe One, Sulfur, Adam Warrock, and several other friends of his.

6. A hard rock song by Yoda Guitar called Zombie Town.  Free song, which is good cause it is going to get stuck in  your head.

7. Undead Love Song by John Anealio is a great love song about a zombie and a woman.  Both sweet and gross at the same time.

8. Mega Ran and Richie Branson got together to do an album last year called Ghouls ‘n Ghosts (number two is out this year) on it is Walking Dead a song with an easy rolling beat.

9. Insane Ian gives us two great zombie tunes.  Some Zombie by George Romero tells of a man obsessed with zombie movies becoming one, features The Stacey.  The other one is There’s Something About A Zombie – The ZombAid Benefit Song, a benefit parody which features lots of the other FuMP guys on it.

10. For those of you who have always wanted a zombie themed surf rock band, I have you covered.  The Wakening dress as and make songs about zombies.  What it says on the tin.

Honorable Mention:  From Mystery Science Theater 300 alumni, RiffTrax sells MP3s, VOD, and does live shows making fun of movies of all kinds.  They also put an album of songs based on some of the movies they have riffed.  One of the tracks on it is Zombie Mambo, it lists some great reasons to go zombie.

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.

 

 

Latest News From Mega Ran and Adam Warrock

Mega Ran has a new album out, this time it is based on his second favorite video game (after Final Fantasy VII), Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.  Ran has previously used the skits from the game on early demo albums.  Now the story is retold as a hip hop opera, Castlevania: The Nocturnal Cantata.  Ran plays as Alucard.

The original game’s art and score were composed by female artists, so to help craft this album, and play the role of Maria Renard, he got Sammus to join him.  She helped produce, remix, and perform on the album.  Playing the role of Richter Belmont is The Ranger, an affiliate from the Nerdy Rotten Scoundrel community.  Dr. Awkward makes an appearance in the Overture too.  Art for the album was done by Chris Flocco and special art for the CD version was done by Cody Baier.

Album is a great mix of different beats and showcases why Mega Ran is one of the top nerdcore artists out there.  Let’s you see his many sides and if you have not heard of Sammus or The Ranger before this is a good introduction.  Great new addition for Mega Ran fans to get or new fans to start with.

You can buy a digital album for $7.  The physical album was limited to only 100 and sold out in only a day and a half.  So that’s sad.  Though for free you can get a copy of the instrumentals.  Which is still nice.

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Once a year Adam Warrock holds a donation drive to raise money.  Warrock gives out a lot of free music over the year, does music full time, does not use a donate button on his site, or use any crowdsourcing.  Everything comes out of his pocket, so once a year he asks for a little help and donors get some rewards.

This year’s drive will be June 24 – July 3.  Donors this year we get several things.  An exclusive mixtape album with cover art by Rob Guillory, video of a live storyteller concert feature TribeOne, live storyteller concert album, and free digital comics from several different publishers and creators.  There will also be two new music videos of unreleased songs.

A preview of the drive can be viewed here with more information.

Also this past week Adam has been dropping exclusive tracks on different sites.  On Monday at WIRED a Game of Thrones track called “The Rains of Castamere” with a review article on the latest episode.  Wednesday at The Mary Sue he has “X-Women” about the new X-Men comic featuring an all female team.  A video game based song on a video game site goes up today.

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Richie Branson has charted on Billboard/Soundcan’s Top 100 Rap Albums chart with his Chrono Trigger album “From Guardia With Love.”  You can pick up a copy from Bandcamp or iTunes.  All proceeds of the album will be donated to the Children’s Miracle Network.  Is also has a nice beat flowing through it.

His place on the charts breaks down like this:

#4 First week release on the Billboard Rap Chart
#69 Overall Billboard Rap Chart
#6 First week release on the Billboard R&B Chart
#106 Overall Billboard R&B Chart
#140 Overall Billboard New Artist Chart