Music Archives - RPad.TV

Hellbent’s Chris Mair on Music Helping Him as a Game Designer

Hellbent Games Founder and CEO Chris Mair is one of my favorite people to hang out with on the road. We have so many common interests and our conversations can go in all sorts of directions. Obviously we’re both videogame nerds, but we also share a love for pro-wrestling, hair metal, and guitar. The last bit made him the perfect person to kick off my four-part “Guitar Heroes” series.

In the conversation about, Chris Mair and I talk about all things guitar. It was especially cool to hear about how studying jazz guitar has helped his career as a game designer and the head of a game studio. Other guitar topics covered include:

RPadTV 3000 Episode 3: Karen Chu and Chris Kohler

Good Job Brain showrunner Karen Chu and co-host Chris Kohler are the latest guests on RPadTV 3000! I was lucky enough to know these cats when I lived in San Francisco and we were all part of the games media. At the time, Karen was at 1Up and Chris was at Wired. I respected them as peers and enjoyed their company as friends. One of their favorite leisure activities was pub trivia and they were able to parlay their love of trivia into the ultra-successful podcast Good Job Brain.

In addition to sharing the story of Good Job Brain and how the podcast has evolved, Karen Chu and Chris Kohler talk to me about:

Coffee #677: Who’s the Best Supergroup?

The other day I was learning “Handle With Care” by The Traveling Wilburys and it got me thinking about supergroups. From Cream to Audioslave, supergroups have been a staple of music for decades. In today’s Coffee Talk, I’d love to hear who you think is the best supergroup. As for me, I’m (conveniently) going with The Traveling Wilburys.

Ariana Grande to Appear in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius

Pop star Ariana Grande has teamed up with Square Enix for a special appearance in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. In addition to appearing in the game during a mid-January event, the diminutive superstar with a larger-than-life voice has cut a remix of her song “Touch It” for the game. For those of you unfamiliar with Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, it’s a free-to-play RPG for Android and iOS devices. It uses a simple interface and old-school turn-based mechanics, similar to Brave Frontier.

Fans of Ariana Grande are surely familiar with her predilection for wearing bunny ears. On her Instagram account, she showed off some pixel art from her appearance in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius in all her bunny-eared glory. Check out the short video she posted below.

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Coffee Talk #671: The Best of 2016

Another year is in the books! Thanks so much for making RPad.TV a part of your 2016. To celebrate and reflect on the year that was, let’s take a look back at some of the best things of 2016. Naturally, when I mean “best,” I really mean “favorite.” (The idea of a movie or a record being “best” is…stupid.) Below is a “Best of 2016” list of my favorite movie, vaping gear, album, WWE Superstar, and more. I’d love to hear about your favorite anything and everything of 2016. Please share your personal highlights in the comments section. Now let’s do this!

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Thoughts on We Got it From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service

We Got it From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service is the latest and final album from A Tribe Called Quest. Released 18 years after the group’s last record and months after the death of mercurial MC Phife Dawg, We Got if From Here is an outstanding record. For longtime Tribe fans, it’s a reminder of how excellent they were. For newcomers, it’s a great introduction to Tribe’s brand of thoughtful, layered, and catchy hip-hop. Here are some random thoughts on We Got it From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service.

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Today’s Poll: Mandolin Battle Royal — Rod Stewart vs. REM

The mandolin is a wonderful instrument. Whether it’s a bard singing tales at a tavern or a British pop/rock star with unexplainable hair, the soothing sounds of the mandolin enhance just about anything. It’s a scientific fact that reciting a recipe for turkey stuffing to the dulcet tones of mandolin music will result in an instant classic. It’s true.

Today, I’d like you to vote on which song uses the mandolin more effectively. Both songs were massively successful during their respective heydays. And while they’re both fine songs melodically, they were both taken to another level, thanks to the mandolin.

In the red corner is “Maggie May” by Rod Stewart. This catchy tune tells the timeless tale of a young man sleeping with an older woman. Key lyric:

But you turned into a lover,
And mother what a lover,
You wore me out.

Next up is “Losing My Religion” by REM. In 1991, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing this song. Lead singer Michael Stipe describes it as “a classic obsession pop song.” Key lyric:

That’s me in the corner.
That’s me in the spotlight.
Losing my religion.

If you’re ready to vote, here’s the poll.

[poll id=”197″]

In case you need a refresher on either of these songs, here they are in all of their mandolin-fueled glory.

As an added bonus, here are some fine cover versions of these excellent songs. The first is by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, while the second is by Clelia Vega. I’m particularly fond of the former…mostly because I wanted Susanna Hoffs to be my “Maggie May” while I was in high school.

Alina Gingertail Hearthstone Theme Music Cover

Embedded below is an excellent cover of the opening theme for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft by Alina Gingertail. It reminds me of Fredde Gredde’s stellar cover of the theme from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. If you dig Alina’s cover then check out her YouTube page for more excellent music. She does acoustic versions of music found in videogames like Chrono Cross and The Witcher 3, as well as favorites from nerd television shows and movies. I’m particularly fond of her banjo version of “The Imperial March” from The Empire Strikes Back.

Anyway, please give Alina Gingertail’s Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft opening theme cover a listen and let me know what you think of it.

Coffee Talk #665: ESPN’s Closure of Grantland is Disheartening

On October 30, 2015, ESPN made the horrible decision to shut down Grantland. The website offered a fantastic combination of sports and pop-culture coverage. It quickly became my favorite website on the Internet shortly after it launched. Grantland’s writing was longer, smarter, and sharper than most of what you’ll find on the Internet. The site’s closure is disheartening on several levels.

As a reader, Grantland’s closure is disappointing because it had some of ESPN’s best writing. The site excelled at long-form articles that were informative and entertaining. It had a wide variety of writers that skillfully covered a wide variety of topics. While sports was Grantland’s emphasis, it also covered movies, music, television, pro-wrestling, and more. No matter the topic, I could always depend on a well-written article on Grantland that always entertained me and often left me a bit smarter than I was before I read it.

As a reader, I also appreciated Grantland’s simple layout. The design emphasized content and the advertising was tame by today’s standards. Grantland loaded quickly on desktop and mobile devices, unlike some of my other favorite websites (I’m looking at you, The Verge). Sadly, a website with great writing and user-friendly design is uncommon these days. That Grantland offered both was extraordinary.

As a longtime Internet writer, Grantland’s closure is depressing. It shows that corporate hacks are unwilling and/or unable to support great content creation. It’s sad that the dozens of fantastic editors and writers at Grantland no longer have jobs, while ESPN continues to pay Stephen A. Smith to act like an idiot on television. It makes me wonder what kind of support the website had from the suits, its advertisers, and its readers. Obviously something was missing. The high-quality content was there, but did the suits support it with enough marketing? Did the site not get enough ad dollars? Were people uninterested in longer articles? It’s baffling.

As a longtime ESPN.com reader, I’m amused that Grantland’s closure killed the best writing the company had to offer. I used to love ESPN.com, but it has become garbage. While the site is ESPN’s Internet flagship, the writing on Grantland and FiveThirtyEight (another ESPN-owned website) was superior to anything on the “main” website. ESPN.com has devolved in a mashup of moronic click bait, AP reposts, thoughtless opinion pieces, daily LeBron James updates, and the occasional solid article. Copyediting is, sadly, optional on ESPN.com.

Add it all up and it’s disheartening. My favorite website is gone. Another corporate overlord has pissed on the value of quality content. Instead of enjoying my daily dose of Grantland, I’ll have to read the crap on ESPN.com. Oh well, maybe it’s time to give Yahoo! Sports another look.

Coffee Talk #663: Colbert, Fallon, and Nerd Guests

Earlier in the week, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert featured music from The Legend of Zelda played by The Symphony of the Goddesses. Colbert has had several nerdy guests on his show, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. As a nerd, I absolutely love that The Late Show With Stephen Colbert has had tech and gaming segments. Considering that many of his viewers grew up as gamers and technology is more mainstream than ever, it makes sense for his audience. Still, I was surprised (pleasantly) that his show’s guests have been so nerd-friendly.

Changing the channel to NBC, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon has been a disappointment in terms of nerd content. When the comedian hosted Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, guests from gaming and tech were common. Off the top of my head, I recall Kudo Tsunodo giving a demo of Xbox Kinect, Cliff Bleszinski showing off Gears of War 3, and journalist Josh Topolsky talking tech gear on the show. For whatever reason, these types of guests have largely been absent from The Tonight Show. Perhaps the producers felt that gaming and tech content weren’t appropriate for the “big” show. Perhaps some hack executive mandated that Fallon go with traditional guests that have movies, music, and TV shows to promote. Whatever the reason, it’s disappointing that Fallon has mostly abandoned nerdy programming.

The unfortunate programming choices on The Tonight Show, have made me appreciate the guests on The Late Show. Hearing the wonderful music from Zelda on a late night talk show was brilliant. Watching CEOs of the companies that make products and offer services that I love (or in Tesla’s case, dream about) was outstanding. It’s fantastic that these types of segments are mixed in with the overly polished “artists” promoting their latest movie, album, tour, TV show season, etc. When Colbert debuted on Comedy Central, I was delightfully surprised by his mix of comedy, intelligence, and satire. With The Late Show, he has delightfully surprised me with his nerdy guests. Keep ’em coming, Mr. Colbert!