Looking back, I probably wouldn’t have bought Xoc’s newest album, The Beginning of the End, if it had cost one dollar more. Not that I wasn’t interested… GameMusic4All’s description of the Sacramento based musician who performs live versions of video game sound tracks sounded enticing, but without as much as a single preview track, my decision to buy the limited edition 3” CD was ultimately based on it’s price. At $6 with shipping, it was just too good of a deal.

A few days later, the CD arrived, and after a quick household search for something that I could I could play the 3” CD, on I was finally able to see what’s Xoc’s music was about. I was totally won over in the first 5 seconds with the theme to Contra (one of my favorite video games) being played on a Casio SK-1 (one of my favorite instruments). There are 100 video game songs on The Beginning of the End, averaging about 7 seconds each and played on different combinations of toy pianos, distorted guitars, accordions, and drums.

I interviewed Xoc about the inspiration and the process of creating this unique album. Read it after the bump:

The description from your label’s site describes The Beginning of the End as an album 4 years in the making. Can you break down that process for us? Did the album become a full time job at some point, or was it assembled over a spread out series creative bursts?

The short songs became sort of a sub-hobby. By that I mean that there were all sorts of recording projects going on, but then I always did a few short songs every once in a while, and filed them away. When it looked like it was getting near the finish line, I started doing it full-time. There are a couple of songs in there that are four years old, but the way the medley is arranged, it’s a pretty even mix between new and old. Hopefully no one can tell!

The album features a wide array of instruments, ranging from theremin and toy keyboards, to drums and electric guitar. I get the feeling you come from a guitar/metal background, I was hoping you could talk a bit about your musical roots.

The drums were my first instrument. I’ve never thought of myself as a guitarist or bassist or accordionist. I feel like a drummer who’s misbehaving and stealing all the other guys’ instruments to be silly.

I’m actually not a very metal guy! I play in KnifeThruHead – that’s sort of grind/punk/comedy (knifethruhead.com!), and I do my own solo stuff as Recreational Episiotomy (recreationalepisiotomy.com!). But when it comes down to it, I don’t listen to a whole lot of harder stuff. I was a huge Anthrax fan growing up, however.

When you pick a video game track to cover, do you transcribe it carefully and plan out your version or do you just grab the nearest instrument you can find and hit record?

Covering something that’s easily deciphered will always take priority for me! Nintendo music is always so much easier to figure out, as compared to Genesis stuff. I have actually sought out MIDI covers of songs that I couldn’t get a handle on, because I can deconstruct it and discover things I couldn’t on my own. I’m not too good with just the ear.

Although the instrumentation is fantastic, what really blew me away about The Beginning of the End is your production. I know it’s no easy task to assemble such a diverse group of songs and styles into one cohesive medley, but you really pulled it off. What sort of tools do you use for recording and how did you get the whole album to sound so fluid? If you use a program, is there anyway we can get a screen shot of what the final product looked like before you mixed it all down?

Thanks! The arrangement of all the songs was really tough, since I didn’t start out with the medley idea. If/when I do another batch of them, I’m going to try and plan things out ahead of time, I think… or would that take away from the sound of it? Maybe mixing up the production style/quality is what makes it good… I don’t know.

A screen shot of the final product wouldn’t look very exciting, since each song was mixed down and rendered a separate ahead of time. It just looks like a staircase. (If you’d really like to see what I was doing to arrange this stuff – http://www.xocmusic.com/xoc_beginningoftheend_medleychart.html)

The first time I had seen your work was the incredible NESpaul in 2004 (via BoingBoing). Does the NESpaul make an appearance on this album?

It might! Ha ha. It’s hard to tell, there’s a lot of stuff in there. If it does, it’s only for something very simple, since the NES Paul is extraordinarily difficult to keep in tune.

I’ve heard that you were working on an updated version of the NESpaul, using nicer guitar parts. How is that coming along? Are there any other Xoc retrofit projects in the works?

I’m not actively working on a new one – I’ll leave it to someone with a greater knowledge of guitar construction. I’m not the first to attempt such a thing; I remember seeing Genesis guitars and basses, and I think a SNES guitar.

Your musical influences are obviously rooted deeply in retro gaming. Do you play any newer games, or are you loyal only to games from the 80s and 90s?

The last console I bought was a Gamecube, and I recently played through Doom 3. But honestly, that’s as current as I go. I’m not a gamer in the strictest sense.

For retro gaming; console or emulator?

I have to use an NES emulator, since I turned my Nintendo into a guitar!  Yeah, emulators all the way.  I’m more of an arcade fan, so to have every one of my favorites in MAME is something pretty special – it’s completely worth the trade-off of a joystick to a keyboard.

With the exception of the Crystal Castles medley, you have more Castlevania songs on your album than any other games. Would it be safe to say Castlevania is one of your favorite games (or at least favorite game soundtracks)?

It’s more of a favorite soundtrack – at least for the first NES one and the Gameboy game.  I never played beyond those.  But the music is pure artistry. If I had to pick a favorite game franchise, it would probably be Metroid.

Aside from being a game music historian, you’re also highly knowledgeable on many other aspects of gaming culture in the 80’s. I loved your write up on the obscure 80’s film Video Game: The Movie complete with news about the movie’s release and the video game that came out based the movie and the game’s soundtrack… And then to top it all off, you even covered the entire video game’s soundtrack. Was the sound track to Video Game: The Movie something that really impressed you musically, or was the idea of using real instruments to perform the music from a video game about a movie about video games just too cool to pass up?

I’m not sure whether this will be good news or bad to you, but that project was 100% original fiction – the movie, the game, the music, everything.  I just wanted to make sure you knew that.

That was for a contest to create a fictional game and soundtrack.  I started writing archetypal game music (a Mario-style song, a Metroid-style song, etc.), and the story of a game that ripped off other games was the best way I could think to tie it all together.  All the stuff about the movie was just window dressing.  And I have to confess, I’m not that knowledgeable – that story was the product of a LOT of Wikipedia browsing!

Oh my Joss, Video Game: The Movie was all a joke? I feel like such a fool. It was so wonderfully detailed though, I was totally convinced… and it’s not totally inconceivable either, given the era. So the arrangements for the “game” soundtrack are all original? What did you build the “NES” versions in then?

I tried to make it as believable as possible, so I take it to be a high compliment that you were convinced!

All the songs are original; I recorded all the songs with instruments first, and then for some reason I thought it would be funny to create semi-credible 8-bit versions.  But I’ve never been able to figure out any NES tracker programs, and I don’t use MIDI for anything either, so I just sampled NES sounds, and assembled the entire thing step-recording style in Acid.  [see screenshot of "Hometownton USA"] I tried to keep it credible, in the sense that the number of voices doesn’t exceed what would be possible on a real Nintendo.  But there was a forum, I can’t remember which, where some real chiptune artists figured out that I was doing it that way – they could just tell it wasn’t tracked.  I’m a chiptune poser!

I noticed that most of your videogame music is surprisingly devoid of blippy sounds, yet your track “Rubles from Heaven” for II’s Heartcode compilation [free download!] is a glitchy chiptuney masterpiece. I love the organic renditions of video game music you’ve done on your albums, but are you planning on doing more electro tracks? Maybe even an entire album’s worth?

It would have to be a hybrid with real instruments thrown in.  I can’t see doing a lot of pure 8-bit stuff without a solid concept behind it.  “Rubles From Heaven” (thanks for digging it, by the way) was sorta like an experiment, to see if I could pull it off!

Another problem is the sheer amount of mouse work that step recording requires.  (Which explains why the third volume of Xoc & Heavy Friends hasn’t been finished yet…)  I have tendonitis in my right arm, so stuff like that is pretty slow going.

Are there any plans of playing The Beginning of the End live? When can we expect a show in San Francisco?

I’ve never performed any of the Xoc stuff live, no.  The closest I came to that was playing Super Mario Bros. on banjo with Las Pesadillas when we opened up for The Advantage. 

I’ve always been interested in forming a band, but I feel like it should be something really unique in order to succeed.  Even if it were easy to reproduce these recordings live, I think I’d want something more distinctive.  Lately, there’s been some talk about forming a band to play SMW live, albeit with different orchestration.  I would have to be the drummer – I couldn’t handle any of the other instruments in a live setting!

If it ever happens, playing in SF is a 100% lock.    For one thing, it’s only 90 minutes from here, but it’s also my favorite city.  If I ever relocate myself, it’ll be to somewhere in the Bay.

The 100 original CD copies are now sold out, but The Beginning of the End is now available for download from Concatnation for $5. TBOTE includes the 18 minute/100 song medley as well as each song as it’s own separate mp3. It’s well worth the measly five bucks, you cheapskate.

Thanks to everyone involved especially Z. and TradeMark G.! You guys rock.

And the winner, and reigning king of the Crate Digger Death-Match is…

Speaking of obsessive online behavior, I’ve recently joined theSixtyOne after reading Scott Beale’s post about it on Laughing Squid. TheSixtyOne is a music based social ranking network, like a Digg for artists and musicians. I’m usually skeptical about joining networks like this, but I’m glad I did. Within one minute of posting my lolCats song I already had 3 “bumps”. In three hours, 15 more new listeners bumped the song. Worst case scenario, 18 people that had never heard of me, listened to the song, and enjoyed it enough to help push it up. Even if no-one else hear’s the song, that’s enough to make me happy.

TheSixtyOne’s community seems very welcoming, and the voting system is very unusual When you log on, you are given a certain number of points (20) that you can spread around to songs you feel are “bump” worthy. If you bump a song, you lose some of that score, but if other people bump the song after you did, you double the score you have invested. So it is in a listener’s best interest to promote songs and artists they like (to get their score back). It reminds me of playing the stocks. Listeners can leave comments on a song, or on an artist’s profile, as well as follow what their friends are listening too or create their own playlist. Right now, I’m listening to Jay Hathaway’s playlist.

For musicians, the site has proven itself as an exciting way to promote work to new listeners, and an easy way to get music hosted for free. Anyone can listen to your songs without having to be a member, and the site offers options for downloading, etc. TheSixtyOne also offers the ability to sell your songs DRM free, making it a great (and super easy) alternative to iTunes for distributing your music electronically.

Perhaps the most useful of TheSixtyOne’s features (for artists and listeners) is it’s embedded mp3 feature. If you find a song you like, simply click the “share” button and it will offer email, links to social sites, basic hyperlink, or the flash music player html. 4 hours after uploading my song, I found this!

The only problems I’m finding with the site tend to stem from it’s non-intuitive format. It took me five minutes to figure out how to log on as a new user. How difficult is it to have a “register” or “new users click here” button next to the sign in options? My biggest beef, however, is that artists are not allowed to bump songs (even by other artists). The site requires that you are either a “listener” or an “artist”. So even though I’m thoroughly enjoying the artists on Jay’s playlist, I can’t bump them without logging out of my account and creating a new “listener” account. That is plain stupid!

An addition of a “lyrics” feature would rock, and I’d also like to see more room to let fans interpret songs they like by uploading their own fan art (album covers, etc) or videos of them rocking out or whatever. I can tell that the community is very interactive (I’ve gotten tons of great messages and comments), so I’d like to see the site grow that interactive feeling.

In a final bit of news, one of my favorite bands, Scrabbel (who aren’t on the61), have recently uploaded the music video for “Emily, I” a song of their forthcoming third album. Apparently the song has already made it to youtube’s front page, that’s great news guys.

www.DrownRadio.com/cdd01 

Z. has sent out his last minute list of motifs, which was a short list of rules announced at the last minute to keep anyone from starting the project early. These rules included buying at least one item made in the 80s, having one song where the main sample is played backwards, and each album must have at least one country or disco song.

Whenever I would explain the contest to someone they seemed to love the idea, but not quite understand a certain part of it. For instance, when I would say $12 was the most you could spend on the items you sampled your music from, many folks didn’t understand that we weren’t counting the editing equipment (tape decks, record players, computers, etc) as part of that charge.

I think the press we’ve seen online has been great, it proves the story has “legs”, but it would be nice to get more print media or even do some interviews as well. I liked the blurb in Thursday’s S.F. Chronicle that referred to the event as a bit of MacGyver with a pinch of Iron Chef. All the blog coverage has been very positive, but it seems like people leaving comments either get the challenge or they don’t. I’m hoping that we can keep the press coming in and average 400 new unique visitors a day during the online judging phase. Hopefully this won’t only be a fun challenge for each producer, but may also gain them new audiences.

Personally, my plan for the CDD is to get my shopping done by 11am, then get home and start by noon. I haven’t picked out my thrift store yet, but I’ll probably stick with buying cds if possible. In terms of production, I see myself spending the first 3 hours sampling sounds and chopping up my drum kits, before I even start my first song. Ideally, I’d like to take a crack at several producing styles including very simple splicing and mixing together of verses and choruses, but mostly I’ll be creating totally new songs out of kits I create. Unfortunately, I’ll be missing Self Edge’s Super Future party unless I want to sacrifice a couple hours of production time.

Inspired by the 24 Hour Comics Day, the same challenge that spawned off the 48 Hour Film Fest and many others, we’ve started the Crate Digger Death-match to find out.

The Crate Digger Death-match will put the skills of twelve musicians/producers/remixers/circuit benders to the test, to see who can create the keenest album in 12 hours or less only using audio culled from $12 worth of thrift store goods.

Read the complete rules and details here.

The challenge takes place next Saturday, January 5th 2008, with all submissions due by 8am the following day. Upon completion, 4 celebrity judges will rank the albums. Each artist will also pick a “single” off of their album that will be posted throughout the next week for fans to vote on online. On the following Saturday, the results of the judges scores and online voting will be totaled the first King of the CDD will be crowned.

Our judges for the first CDD are:
# Bart Hopkin, famed author and experimental musician, will judge each album based on originality.
# Baddd Spellah, influential nerdcore hip-hop producer, will judge each album based on production value.
# Tim, of long-running UK bastard pop podcast Radio Clash, will judge each album based on overall listenability.
# Z., nerd music and culture blogger, will judge each album based on cohesiveness and structure.

There are still spaces for a few competitors, so if you are interested in signing up, contact me either through the comments or in an email to cratediggerdeathmatch at gmail.com

Thanks to TradeMark G and Z. for co-organizing this event with me, and to Jay Hathaway for his help with the press release.