This week, I’m working on two music pieces – one of the last tracks from the upcoming second Thirteenth Hour soundtrack. The song, called “No Hero (The Future is Here)” is basically the equivalent of the soundtrack’s ending track (like a song that would play over the ending credits). Some previews:
I’m working on the backing synth track today. The version on the podcast was an early warmup. At the time of this writing, many, many frustrating recording attempts (and hours) later, I do have a version of the backing track that is 95% done.
Speaking of ending tracks, I’ve also been playing around with the ending song from the US release of Legend, which we’ll be talking about in the coming week. The song playing as the movie ends is “Loved by the Sun” by Tangerine Dream and sung by Jon Anderson from the band Yes. I’m just messing around with on the guitar with my kids in the version on the podcast, but here is a much better orchestral version of the song done by kids with the O’Keefe Music Foundation, a nonprofit that provides free music instruction to children.
Look for more on Legend next week and the release of Once Upon a Dream later this year!
As with last week, I’m joined by actor Lance Guest (The Last Starfighter, Jaws 4, Halloween 2) to talk more about his favorite project, the 1988 film, The Wizard of Loneliness. We wrap up talking about the film and also touch a bit on some other aspects of his life, including music and on a 2001 Disney Channel film Lance was in featuring a juvenile chimpanzee, The Jennie Project.
If you missed the first part of the interview, you can find it here as well as catch a video segment that gives you visuals for the video clips we’re watching and commenting on together:
Here’s a little clip from David Letterman where Lance (who is portraying Johnny Cash) performs with his bandmates in the show Million Dollar Quartet.
There isn’t much out there on The Jennie Project, but here’s a little promo clip that I vaguely remember playing on The Disney Channel. Interestingly enough, the movie itself is not on Disney+ last time I checked, though you can find it to buy on Youtube or as a part of Amazon Prime (again, like The Wizard of Loneliness, only if you have a subscription). I don’t think it was ever released on DVD, though someone uploaded it here (you may have to sort through the three links to the right to find one that works, though; beware of popups).
Speaking of not having much out there on Youtube, The Wizard of Loneliness has very little there. There is a nice trailer, though, as well as a snippet someone uploaded on a scene with Sybil Oler (Lea Thompson) and Duffy Kahler (Dylan Baker). The scene is very close to how it occurs in the novel of the same name by John Nichols, which was written in 1966.
Above is the cover of the novel, which, interestingly, features two different scenes from the film and merges them together in and outside the Oler house. Unless I’m wrong and this was a deleted scene, not sure why they did that and didn’t just use the movie poster/VHS coverart made for the film (a portion below), though it’s a nice image that works well enough.
Anyhow, thanks to the support of the fine folks on The Thirteenth Hour Arts Patreon, I reached out to Lea Thompson on Cameo to ask about her work on The Wizard of Loneliness and if the novel was helpful in portraying Sybil. I think she is a more complicated character in the film than she is in the book since they merged an additional character (that of the town librarian, Marty) into the on-screen version of Sybil.
In both book and film, Sybil had a short relationship with Duffy, bore their child out of wedlock, married, then lost her husband in WW2. But in the novel, the relationship with Duffy is portrayed as a not very serious adolescent fling, and Sybil’s husband’s death happens during a few brief paragraphs of exposition. We don’t really see it as actively as we do in the film.
In the book, the town librarian, Marty, is a lonely figure that finds a kind of awkward connection with Wendall over books and photography. It’s hinted that there is a kind of mutual attraction there, though I don’t think it was meant to be sexual in nature (more just two lonely souls finding solace in their mutual misery). However, I’m guessing the filmmakers probably felt it best to avoid material that would lead to questions about the age difference between Wendall and Marty, especially if the attraction – however platonic – was to someone of the same sex. In the movie, you kind of get the sense that Wendall has a crush on his aunt (which, to be fair, is also kind of weird), but maybe they felt that was preferable to the former.
In the book, it really is the whole community that helps Wendall come out of his shell, whereas in the film, though the family and community role is definitely there, it seemed like they were going for Sybil becoming kind of a surrogate mother figure for Wendall (even hinted at in the cover art below). In any event, both versions are good, and it was great to get Lea Thompson’s take on the film. Look for more on the novel in the last part of the podcast.
Thanks to Lance and Lea for providing the guest spots for this episode and for the Patrons and all the listeners for their support.
In the coming weeks, we’ll get back to more 30th anniversary Rocketeer celebrating. We still have a handful of Rocketeer cartoon episodes to discuss as well as a number of other guests and other fun activities in the works.
I know we didn’t talk much about The Last Starfighter here, but if you look for The Last Starfighter group on Facebook, you can find many more interviews and pictures from the film, including all those speculations about sequels and so forth. (Just with like The Rocketeer, I will believe it when I see it! 🙂
Speaking of those two properties, if you every wondered what might have happened just prior to The Last Starfighter, should our hapless hero Cliff Secord (a.k.a. the Rocketeer) live to 1983, check out the shenanigans and misadventures that follow in the fanfic short story, “The Last Rocketeer”!
What would happen if The Rocketeer collided with The Last Starfighter? What would happen if Cliff Secord, our hapless hero from the 1991 film and the Dave Stevens comic from the 80s really did live in the 80s? Say, 1983? He’d be about 71. What if Centauri, the fast-talking game creator from the 1984 film, recruited Cliff for a special mission? What if, knowing Cliff’s luck, it all went bad? Will he reluctantly don his antiquated rocketpack and helmet for one last flight? Will his jodhpurs even fit after all these years? Read on and find out as world collide! Cliff’s back may not take the strain, but at least you can do so from the comfort of your favorite chair!
Thanks for tuning in!
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m making a silicone mold for the guitar I finished last week. While the mold for the synthesizer is quite easy, this one is a bit more complex since I’m going to be trying a trick I learned on youtube with a video (below) made by Crafsman, who I support on Patreon. (He has a lot of great resin casting and toy making videos; check him out!). The trick here involves the use of mineral spirits mixed into the silicone with the idea that over time, the mold will shrink as the mineral spirits dissolves out, leaving you a smaller mold. This effectively gives you the ability to shrink objects (in theory – I’ve never tried this before).
Since the guitar I made was a bit too big for Logan’s hands, hopefully, the technique will allow me to shrink it down by about 25%. Here’s the video in more detail described by the Crafsman:
By the way, the one piece mold for the synth I finished recently. Now it’s time to pour in the resin!
And the setup for the guitar mold seen from the top down. I ended up using a thin plastic box as an exoskeleton for the mold. It was what I had lying around, though it didn’t have a flat bottom and the flexible sides meant it had to be supported from both sides, as shown below, where the body and most of the neck of the guitar are already submerged in silicone. The toothpicks are meant as air vents.
The bottles on the sides are supporting the mold as it dries, so it cures straight (a consequence of me suing a somewhat flexible container). Now, it’s a matter of waiting a few days for the mineral spirits to diffuse out of the mold to see if this actually worked.
Last week, a friend of the show and frequent guest / collaborator, AC of ACToyDesign needed some help for funding a surgery for his dog, Mooge. In the span of the past week, Adam and Mooge actually exceeded their finding goal (click above for more info from Adam), so thank you to all that helped!
If you still have a cassette player, take advantage of the following deal and be transported to another world! SALE! While supplies last, grab Long Ago Not So Far Away on cassette! Just $1/tape! https://ko-fi.com/s/5579db9b27
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m working on another accessory for the custom figure of Logan from The Thirteenth Hour that I started two weeks ago. Last week, I made a synthesizer, which is basically done, and today, I’m working on an acoustic guitar for Logan to sing with.
Here’s how the synth came out (from last week):
And here’s what the guitar looks like so far:
I also randomly made a little rectangle that will be one of the playing cards that Logan throws in the book. The #2 plastics in the background above, by the way, may be in a future project. I’ve always thought it would be fun to essentially recycle used plastics into useful things, like little toys. I just need to figure out how to do it safely.
These musical instruments will be for some upcoming (perhaps in 2021?) videos with Logan singing some songs, either accompanied by the synth or the guitar. Some will be his own songs, and a number will be essentially cover songs. I imagined that Logan would sound a bit like the singing rooster minstrel (voiced by folk singer Roger Miller) in the animated version of Robin Hood:
Lastly, a friend of the show and frequent guest / collaborator, AC of ACToyDesign needs some help this holiday season. Adam recently found out that his dog, Mooge, has lung cancer. (If you need further convincing that she is adorable, click on her pic above to go to her Instagram account). Her vets feel confident they caught the cancer early, and that she has a good prognosis. But … as anyone with a pet knows, surgery is expensive. That and follow up visits are estimated at around $7500 (!). This holiday season, please consider supporting or sharing Mooge’s gofundme to help raise funds for her treatment. Thank you!
If you still have a cassette player, take advantage of the following deal and be transported to another world! SALE! While supplies last, grab Long Ago Not So Far Away on cassette! Just $1/tape! https://ko-fi.com/s/5579db9b27
Look for the episode Shawn, Colin, and I did on Willow on I Used to Like This One or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Check them out on Patreon to help support their work!
There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If the past few months have got you needing a break, you may want to chill out to this 80s synth throwback track for a upcoming LP with the accompanying music video:
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
In the first part of the show, I’m reading from a section of The Thirteenth Hour about what Aurora thought about her first experience flying on Lightning, Logan’s magical hoverboard.
We left for the Castle in the Water the next day. Logan showed me his air board called Lightning; it was somehow able to expand itself so I could fit on as well. Let’s just say it’s better if you suspend belief a little. I guess that’d be a fitting theme for the following section, indeed this whole story, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Getting on Lightning was one thing, but flying was something else entirely. There was only one foot strap for me, so I had to hold onto Logan. I think I would have anyway. I had never been more than twenty feet off the ground in my life. Logan said he was still getting the hang of it when Lightning beeped out something. Words appeared on some kind of window near her front. They said that I wouldn’t fall off because there was a protective shield around the board. I wasn’t so sure, and even to this day, a ride on Lightning makes me want to vomit.
I suppose flying was fun, in a white–knuckle–ride–by–the–seat–of–your–wet–pants sort of way, but I never really got the hang of it, even though Logan tried to show me how to pilot Lightning. It should have been easy – you rocked your body back and forth to go up or down and swayed your hips to turn – but I guess it just wasn’t my thing, and I nearly had a heart attack when I accidentally flipped us upside down.
The altitude was one thing, but the speed completely blew me away. Okay, I know, not funny. But really, if you can imagine being shrunk, tied to the head of an arrow, then fired in the air from one of those six foot war bows like the ones the King’s archers used, then you’ll have some idea what it felt like.
Flying that fast always made me nauseous. That first time, after an hour or two, I couldn’t take it anymore and told Logan to get Lightning to pull over to the coast (we were flying over water), where I threw up in some bushes. I collapsed onto my back, staring up at the sky, which, for some reason, kept spinning round and round. That’s how Logan found me. It all seemed very unladylike, and I guess I was looking very sheepish when I climbed back on Lightning, because Logan, who must have figured out what I was doing, asked if I were okay.
I grunted something. I guess I looked okay, so he grinned.
“I puked all over my uniform a few days ago, if that’s any consolation to you.”
It wasn’t, really, because we ended up having to stop two or three more times later on, but it made me laugh a little at the time.
[Logan] Yeah, I always did wonder where it all came from. It’s not like we had an overabundant food supply, that’s for sure. But she seemed to have a never ending supply of that stuff.
You know, who’s telling this section, you or me?
[Logan] Couldn’t help it.
Right. So, blah, blah, blah, whatever, I threw up a lot. Very funny. Anyway, after that, Lightning slowed down to a kind of cruising speed, which was really nice because it gave us a chance to actually see the landscape we were passing.
At the end of our first day out, we stopped on a deserted section of coastline to eat and sleep. We had used our pockets and a sack we found to stash food liberated from the Cordel marketplace, but neither of us were very hungry. You already know why I wasn’t, but I think it was pretty tough on Logan’s stomach, too. It had been a long day of travel for both of us, and our heads were still spinning as we lay them on the damp sand. I leaned over and told Logan that I was glad I could accompany him on his journey and apologized for slowing us down today. But I think he was falling asleep already, because he just smiled a little, as if to say, “forget it,” and patted me on the shoulder.
Another picture painted as the cover art for “Searching for Forever” (that would have fit in towards the end of the book with Logan and Aurora flying to the new home). Watch it being created below:
There’s an instrumental part to accompany the reading – the backing track of “Searching for Forever” – the 80s inspired ending credits song I envisioned as playing as the story ended. Both the instrumental and vocal versions can be found on the LP, Long Ago Not So Far Away, and below:
Speaking of music, I’ve been going through a number of acoustic guitar songs I used to play a lot when I was first learning how to play, since in this time of national quarantine, I try to do music time with my kids as a part of, you know, daddy daycare. I’ve picked out a few that are more hopeful and positive than the stuff songs are often written about (heartbreak, unrequited love, longing, substance use, and other important adult matters). Anyway, I’ve included one such song (“Flying Free” written by Don Besig) since it is about flying (whether figuratively or literally) free from the constraints that bind us to the earth (again, whether physical or mental).
That’s because today’s Rocketeer segment is also about flying!
Today marks the fourth Rocketeer segment as a part of the podcast. Below are a few previous episodes about the Rocketeer:
This week, we’re discussing this little documentary hosted by Bill Campbell that came out about the same time as the movie (and sadly, not available on any of the official Rocketeer releases). It is part history of flight documentary, part behind the scenes movie making, and part experiential journalism into different modes of flight (including actual rocketpacks).
Suffice to say, real life rocketpacks highlight the myriad limitations such a device would likely entail. But … that’s why we have stories 🙂
We also talked, among other things, about those vague Rocketeer sequel rumors. But, you know what? Even if it never happens, we got a cartoon to introduce a whole new generation to the Rocketeer and an epic rocketpack battle in The Mandalorian:
This little animated .gif is, of course, from the point in the movie where the Rocketeer, not above a little self conscious vanity, asks how he looks. Peevy, not above a little blunt honesty, says “Like a hood ornament!” The Rocketeer blasts off for the first time, Peevy gets blown backwards into the hangar, and I get a name for this part of the podcast!
Stay tuned for more Rocketeer gear talk next week! Stay safe!
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I finished one year ago, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week’s show is about clothing – Logan’s Imperial Ranger uniform in Empty Hands and The Thirteenth Hour as well as Cliff’s jacket in the Rocketeer segment (which inspired the way I drew Logan’s costume).
In the first part of the show, I’m reading from a section of The Thirteenth Hour interlude, Empty Hands, which describes what the Imperial Rangers wore for formal uniforms:
The morning of the Drawing was cool and crisp. The last vestiges of winter were still apparent, though you could get by without a coat if you were willing to be a little chilly. For the ceremony, we were supposed to wear our formal uniforms, which we started training in a few days prior. Unlike many things about the Imperial Army, a lot of thought had gone into Imperial Ranger gear, and although there were no surviving craftsmen who knew how to make Imperial Ranger boots, uniforms, and weapons, enough of the old training manuals had survived that the ones in the castle could learn. Compared to the stiff, uncomfortable uniforms the regular Army soldiers wore, the Ranger uniforms were fairly well designed. They were intended to be working uniforms and could look sharp if clean and pressed, but they had both functional and cosmetic purposes due to the Rangers’ multiple roles as soldier, explorer, bodyguard, and diplomat.
As our instructors had said, we did have to move a bit differently when fighting in our uniforms, though not as much as one might have thought. The pants and shirts were baggy and easy to move in, for instance, and the outer tunic that covered the shirt was flexible but offered protection since it was interwoven with a layer of fine-link chain-mail backed by suede to keep the links from embedding in a wound should the chain-mail break. It wasn’t as heavy as wearing a full chain-mail shirt, but it offered disguised protection from glancing strikes to the internal organs of the torso. It wouldn’t stop a point blank shot from a warbow, but then again, there’s a good chance standard plate armor wouldn’t, either.
All this flashed through my head as I raced to get ready that morning. Unlike most days, there had been no early morning conditioning session, so everyone had slept later. My bed was in the corner, and I must have continued sleeping as Blake, who had the top bunk, left with the others for breakfast. When I woke, the position of the sunlight shining in the window let me know immediately that I had overslept, and a glance at the clock in the corner confirmed it was 8:50, meaning I had exactly ten minutes to get to the field where the Drawing would be taking place. Cursing, I ran to the washroom, took care of my morning business, and rummaged through my locker, searching for a uniform that wasn’t crumpled or malodorous. I’d hung up my sweaty uniform in the washroom after yesterday’s practice, but someone must have knocked it over soon after, since now it lay in a crumpled, smelly heap on the floor. We had three each, but my other one smelled even worse, so it took some digging to get to my last one, which was still wrapped in the bag in which it had been issued to me. I raced out the door as soon as I had it on and ran the whole way to the field where the King would be addressing us for the formal commencement of the Drawing.
I was still late.
A concept sketch of the Imperial Rangers wearing the uniforms described above.
Another sketch of Logan flying through the air on Lightning wearing the uniform described above.
There’s a little instrumental part to accompany parts of the story where the Imperial Rangers have to march around (in the LP Long Ago Not So Far Away) that is playing in the background during part of the reading.
Speaking of music, I’ve been going through a number of acoustic guitar songs I used to play a lot when I was first learning how to play, since in this time of national quarantine, I try to do music time with my kids as a part of, you know, daddy daycare. I’ve picked out a few that are more hopeful and positive than the stuff songs are often written about (heartbreak, unrequited love, longing, substance use, and other important adult matters). Anyway, I’ve included one such song (“If We Hold On Together” from the 1988 cartoon, The Land Before Time), as it was co-written by James Horner, who also did the music for, yes, you guessed it, The Rocketeer.
Today’s Rocketeer segment is also about flying – the Rocketeer’s jacket!
Today marks the fourth Rocketeer segment as a part of the podcast. Below are a few previous episodes about the Rocketeer:
This week, we’re discussing Cliff’s jacket – the iconic leather jacket with the front bib making up the front. Although you can totally buy lots of replica jackets, the origin of the jacket is totally unknown to me. I have never exactly been able to find where Dave Stevens got the idea for it but have a few guesses about things he may have been influenced by or watched as a kid:
-Commander Cody serials (which you can totally watch on Youtube) – wears a leather jacket; note the similarities to the Rocketeer’s helmet and double barreled silver rocketpack.
-Westerns, like this shot of John Wayne in Horse Soldiers:
You can see a photo above of Dave Stevens on the right trying on a Rocketeer helmet wearing Cliff’s jacket (he used photos of himself as models for Cliff).
This little animated .gif is, of course, from the point in the movie where the Rocketeer, not above a little self conscious vanity, asks how he looks. Peevy, not above a little blunt honesty, says “Like a hood ornament!” The Rocketeer blasts off for the first time, Peevy gets blown backwards into the hangar, and I get a name for this part of the podcast!
Stay tuned for more Rocketeer gear talk next week! Stay safe!
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There are now Thirteenth Hour toys! If you’d like to pick up one of these glow in the dark figures for yourself, feel free to email me or go to the Etsy store I set up (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio) and get them there.
If you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I finished one year ago, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Empty Hands, the synth EP soundtrack to the novella, Empty Hands, is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I add the guitar, synth, and vocals to “And Now, We Are One,” the last track on the last Empty Hands track, which is an ode to the ending themes of 80s action movies as well as the intros (and sometimes closings) of 80s Saturday morning / after school cartoon shows. I don’t really possess the Sammy Hagar / Freddy Mercury / Stan Bush type pipes to do the vocals the way I envisioned them, so I just recorded myself several times singing the same vocals so it sounds like a chorus of men singing, which a lot of old cartoons (esp 70s and 80s anime) tends to do in their intros anyway. Aside from a few electric guitar bits and the solo, the track is basically done. That plus final Empty Hands edits mean that it should be out in a few weeks (hopefully)! The pixelart coverart for the song is below – 8 bit figures (I used the guys from the NES game Kung Fu as a sort of template), Tron grid, and pastel colors in all their 80s glory:
In the meantime, this page formerly had what I affectionately dubbed a “starving artist” section on little side hustles you could do (mostly on the internet, often with a phone) to make a few bucks here and there, often in gift cards. Well, now you can listen to this show (as well as other podcasts) and get paid to do so! Check out https://www.podcoin.com/ to listen to the show and start earning points that you can redeem for gift cards (Amazon, Target, Starbucks, etc) or donations to a number of charities. Use the code “Thirteen” when you sign up to get 300 extra points. The Thirteen Hour Podcast is now on BONUS this week, so you can earn more than normal (1.5x).
Speaking of music, if you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I have been working on the past year, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m adding a synthesized accented track to the vocals and backing track of “Many Miles.” Inching closer towards completion!
I’m also basically done the instrumental melody of “Dragons’ Eyes” as a short (~2 min) fill for Empty Hands, which has a little scene referencing the song. There’s only one more track to be done for the soundtrack to be done.
Speaking of which, for those of you on the mailing list, check your inboxes for a message asking for volunteers to help with the finishing touches of the upcoming martial arts fantasy novella, Empty Hands. Your suggestions and critiques are most welcome, and not only will you get a free copy of the book and soundtrack, your name will be in the acknowledgements section of the book. If you’re not on the mailing list but are interested in joining and/or helping out, here’s a link or just email me directly, and I’ll be in touch with further instructions. Thank you!
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Speaking of music, if you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I have been working on the past year, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’ve finally come to the point of having a rough initial draft of “Many Miles” that I started a long time ago. It will play at the end of the episode. While still a work in progress, it’s definitely farther along than last week. It’s been a tedious process indeed to get it to this point.
I’ve also included the second part of working on a long lost instrumental melody that would later become the folk ballad “Dragons’ Eyes” in The Thirteenth Hour. This is a tune that I would mess around with as a kid and in college, where there were pianos all over. I never had a name for it but wrote the first few verses of the song in the novel to its melody. I figured reworking to make a short fill for Empty Hands, which has a little scene referencing the song, would be a nice way to come full circle. This week, I’m doing it to a slow (~70 bpm) beat.
Speaking of which, for those of you on the mailing list, check your inboxes for a message asking for volunteers to help with the finishing touches of the upcoming martial arts fantasy novella, Empty Hands. Your suggestions and critiques are most welcome, and not only will you get a free copy of the book and soundtrack, your name will be in the acknowledgements section of the book. If you’re not on the mailing list but are interested in joining and/or helping out, here’s a link or just email me directly, and I’ll be in touch with further instructions. Thank you!
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Speaking of music, if you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I have been working on the past year, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m continuing to work on the vocal part of a track called “Many Miles” that I started a long time ago … I’m a little farther along than last week, but it’s still slow going. Here’s the first part. There’s still some parts in the middle that don’t quite sound right with the timing, so I’ll keep working …
However, I’m starting to experiment with a long lost instrumental melody that would later become the folk ballad “Dragons’ Eyes” in The Thirteenth Hour. This is a tune that I would mess around with as a kid and in college, where there were pianos all over. I never had a name for it but wrote the first few verses of the song in the novel to its melody. I figured reworking to make a short fill for Empty Hands, which has a little scene referencing the song, would be a nice way to come full circle.
Speaking of which, for those of you on the mailing list, check your inboxes for a message asking for volunteers to help with the finishing touches of the upcoming martial arts fantasy novella, Empty Hands. Your suggestions and critiques are most welcome, and not only will you get a free copy of the book and soundtrack, your name will be in the acknowledgements section of the book. If you’re not on the mailing list but are interested in joining and/or helping out, here’s a link or just email me directly, and I’ll be in touch with further instructions. Thank you!
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Speaking of music, if you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I have been working on the past year, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m continuing to work on the vocal part of a track called “Many Miles” that I started a long time ago … and this week, I’m in the process of editing the vocals that I’ve recorded so far, trying to figure out if I can salvage them or just keep practicing them until they are require less work! It’s the timing that I need work on, though that can be fixed with some surgery. It’s just tedious, and what I’ll be working on over the next week.
In other news, for those of you on the mailing list, check your inboxes for a message asking for volunteers to help with the finishing touches of the upcoming martial arts fantasy novella, Empty Hands. Your suggestions and critiques are most welcome, and not only will you get a free copy of the book and soundtrack, your name will be in the acknowledgements section of the book. If you’re not on the mailing list but are interested in joining and/or helping out, here’s a link or just email me directly, and I’ll be in touch with further instructions. Thank you!
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Speaking of music, if you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I have been working on the past year, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m continuing to work on the vocal part of a track called “Many Miles” that I started a long time ago … and this week, I’m singing along with the backing arpeggiated chords. This will be a vocal template for when I record the real vocals (this upcoming week).
In other news, for those of you on the mailing list, check your inboxes for a message asking for volunteers to help with the finishing touches of the upcoming martial arts fantasy novella, Empty Hands. Your suggestions and critiques are most welcome, and not only will you get a free copy of the book and soundtrack, your name will be in the acknowledgements section of the book. If you’re not on the mailing list but are interested in joining and/or helping out, here’s a link or just email me directly, and I’ll be in touch with further instructions. Thank you!
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Speaking of music, if you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I have been working on the past year, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m continuing to work on the vocal part of a track called “Many Miles” that I started a long time ago … and this week, I’m testing out playing the backing chords in arpeggiated form and with a slow backing beat. The song has gone through a number of iterations, like an acoustic version, a dance beat version (a few bits included here), and the one now, which I think will be a slower synth version. Over the course of this week, I’ll see if I can get it to the point of being recordable (i.e. I have to practice it).
In other news, for those of you on the mailing list, check your inboxes for a message asking for volunteers to help with the finishing touches of the upcoming martial arts fantasy novella, Empty Hands. Your suggestions and critiques are most welcome, and not only will you get a free copy of the book and soundtrack, your name will be in the acknowledgements section of the book. If you’re not on the mailing list but are interested in joining and/or helping out, here’s a link or just email me directly, and I’ll be in touch with further instructions. Thank you!
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Speaking of music, if you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I have been working on the past year, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m working on the vocal part of a track called “Many Miles” that I started a long time ago but never finished. It’s gone through a number of iterations, like an acoustic version, a dance beat version, and the one now, which I think will be a slower synth version (not sure if it will have a backing beat). I’m recording a vocal placeholder this week and experimenting with how I want the arpeggiated part of the track to fit in (not sure yet).
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Speaking of music, if you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I have been working on the past year, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, I’m working on a track called “Many Miles” that I started a long time ago but never finished. It’s gone through a number of iterations but I included the original acoustic guitar version I wrote a number of years ago as well as some ideas to turn it into a keyboard track. We’ll see what can be done with over the next few weeks. Here’s a clip showing some of the keyboard ideas:
Speaking of music, if you haven’t checked out “Arcade Days,” the song and video Jeff Finley, Brent Simon, and I have been working on the past year, click on the link below to do so!
You can find more pictures and preview clips of “Arcade Days” on IG as well as this podcast’s FB page.
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Way back in episode 130, I took one part of the main Thirteenth Hour theme and created a short electric guitar part to accompany an introspective part of the book. Unlike the track we created then, the track uses a much more subdued effect – very little gain, more minimalistic, quieter – for a different feel, though the process was about the same. You can see little clips of the guitar part on the soundtrack IG page as well as this podcast’s FB page.
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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This past weekend, one of the early guests on this show (listen to parts 1 and 2 way back on episodes 47 and 48) and a good friend of mine, Justin, got married. About a year ago, before I knew of his plans, I said that I’d write him and his future wife a song as a wedding present. Well, fast forward about a year. When Justin told me the news, I figured it was time to make good on my promise.
There’s an expression, credited to Hans Christian Andersen, that goes “where words fails, music speaks.” Although it may seem odd given that the written and spoken word is key to what I do here and how I make my living, I don’t consider myself a terribly articulate person. But with a song, I figured I could put into words everything I wanted to convey to the bride and groom and let the music fill in the gaps.
Today’s episode is on the creation of this song. Although the actual version I ended up singing at the reception (with just an acoustic guitar) was quite different from this synthesizer rendition, the one showcased on this episode was how I originally intended the song to sound. Well, that’s kind of true. I initially heard it in my head as a Celtic tune with a much faster tempo like something the Pogues, Mumford and Sons, or the Dropkick Murphys might play, but given that I don’t play the banjo, fiddle, or bagpipes, the only aspect of that that remained was part of the instrumental break, which was done with a penny whistle. The rest of the solo was done with an electric guitar as an ode to the groom, who plays the guitar and was one of the first people to encourage me to learn how to play that instrument.
Congrats to the bride and groom on the start of the official life together!
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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week, we’re making an electric guitar fill for future soundtracks to the Thirteenth Hour books using a part of the theme music. It runs about 30 seconds long and is intended to accentuate parts of the story where a little theme music is appropriate (future Kindle editions of the sequels will hopefully have external links to the soundtrack on Bandcamp or Youtube. Here’s some of the gear used this episode:
Coming soon, I’ll be posting about a little side work-in-progress. Remember when I talked in the past about Hero Forge, the site that allows you to create 3d printed miniatures of characters of your own creation for tabletop games? I’ve had an inkling to try casting little resin miniatures along the lines of those little pink M.U.S.C.L.E. (keshi) toys from the 80s. The first step is creating a sculpt, so here’s a wireframe skeleton of Logan on Lightning. Stay tuned!
Speaking of toys, check out the Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/mom_gave_them_away/ for some great 1980s movie and toy nostalgia. Haven’t seen some of those toys in years. I mostly never knew what many of them were called or had just vague memories of them from commercials or just bits and pieces from various yard sales. So it’s been cool finding out more about these artifacts from a few decades past.
Speaking of which, if you’re into new music that sounds like it could have been from an 80s movie soundtrack, check out the Spotify link in the bio of https://www.instagram.com/ironskullet_synthwave/ – there are thousands of songs there, and the list keeps growing.
Lastly, speaking of synths and pixels, this podcast now has a new logo for 2018. I figured that since fantasy, scifi, and electronic music collide so frequently here, why not showcase these things with background art for Long Ago Not So Far Away, and the pixelart dragon I made for that vaporware Thirteenth Hour game I worked on decades ago when I probably should have been studying for math tests or something 🙂
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
After finishing the instrumental theme in episode #120, lyrics started coming. That’s the thing about the muse. Sometimes, unbeknownst to you, she starts doing her own thing at a time you least expect. If you recall, this was a little love theme written for a scene in a Thirteenth Hour sequel book when our two main protagonists, Logan and Aurora, are reunited after a long time. Since the course of true love never runs smoothly, it’s meant to convey a mixture of bittersweet yearning and a desire to push everything else away for just a few moments alone with your heart’s desire.
This song is dedicated to my wife. When writing the lyrics, I was reminded by the short love songs on the collection 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields (that was a car CD we’d listen to a lot in years past) and some saccharine, mellow, haunting songs from a different time, like “Such a Woman” by Neil Young and “If” by Bread.
Today’s backing track was done on the synthesizer and electric guitar with the vocals done afterwards. Mixing was done on the synth and in Audacity. You can hear the final version at the end of the show. Download this song and the instrumental version on bandcamp. You can also stream them below.
Here are the lyrics:
Because We May Only Have One Night
G
If I had one day
Em
Before the world was through
C
I’d spend it all with you
D
No looking back
If we had one night
Just one night to hold you tight
And be there close to you
Never let you go
Bridge:
G
And all those things
Em
That get in the way
C
Make them disappear
D
Forever and forever …
Just one day to
See the world in your eyes
Capture all the memories
Never let them fade
Just one night
One night to hold you tight
And be there close to you
Never let you go
Bridge:
And everyone
Who won’t let us be
Make them go away
Forever and forever …
Just one night
To hold each other tight
Maybe just one night
What are we waiting for?
Coming attraction: watch out for Dev9K discussing their 80s anime inspired video game, Nirvana Pilot Yume, which answers the question what happened if the 90s shareware game Skyroads were a visual novel with a synthwave soundtrack? The game releases on Steam on 12/13, so check it out and find out more next week!
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to the retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Not long after author Chad Derdowski came on the show this summer (hear parts 1 and 2 here), talking about his brilliantly humorous … oh, how shall we say, R-rated Choose-Your- Own-Adventure-style book, Fortune Favors the Bold, I wondered what a soundtrack to the book might sound like. Something out of an 80s movie, I thought, like Ladyhawke or Legend. And then, the muse struck. Of course, it was in an inconvenient place (in the shower), but as soon as I could, I found a keyboard and tapped out the little theme that formed the backbone of these two tracks.
I got Chad’s input and okay to proceed, then went to town. He didn’t put me up to this or anything, and I didn’t want him to think I was trying to steal his creations … I guess in the tradition of fanfiction, you could call this “fanmusic?” =) Anyway, I talk more about the creation of the tracks, called “Gleam of the Widowmaker” and “One Adventures Ends, Another Begins” on the episode and read a few choice bits from the book which inspired the tracks, which you can listen to below or by clicking on the song titles above.
The latter track was made on the iOS app Auxy, like “Flight of the Cloudrider” (listen here or see the music video below) and “There is Magic Inside.” You can learn more about Auxy, download a copy to your phone, and Henrik Lenberg, the creator of the program, by clicking on the highlighted links.
By the way, in case you are curious, here is a youtube tutorial that shows a little about how to use Auxy:
And here are some screenshots from “One Adventure Ends, Another Begins”:
If you enjoy synthesizer music, creating it, or just living your life as if it were accompanied to an 80s soundtrack, check out this great synthwave playlist on Spotify curated by Preston Cram.
I’ll end with more info on where you can find the book that inspired these tracks:
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Today, we’re doing a short reading from The Thirteenth Hour accompanied by a corresponding part from Long Ago Not So Far Away, the soundtrack written for the book. “The Imperial Ranger March,” which is playing in the background, can be heard on the podcast here , where there is more info about the track. You can also find it on Bandcamp. There is also a short video you can see on IG.
I used the same theme in a little short video to showcase the throwing of a large sheath knife that reminded of the similarly large sheath knife the Imperial Rangers were issued to clear brush and chop wood:
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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Today, we’re going to make a music track for one of the Thirteenth Hour book sequels with a combination of digital and analog technology. It goes with a part of the story where Aurora, one of the main characters, is just starting to discover that she has the ability to generate magic herself – something that is surprising, wonderful, exciting, and a bit confusing all at the same time. I was trying to capture that feeling in the music.
I’m using a app called Auxy to make the backing track and adding in a few electric guitar parts as accents. The track was 95% done prior to adding the guitars, and best of all, I did it all in the palm of my hand when I was doing something else (in this case trying to get my son to sleep by bouncing on a exercise ball – that works wonders, by the way).
I made a previous track with Auxy, “Flight of the Cloudrider” (listen here) or check out the link to the EP and music video below. You can learn more about Auxy, download a copy to your phone (only iOS so far, I believe – my error on the show), and Henrik Lenberg, the creator of the program, by clicking on the highlighted links.
Here is a youtube tutorial that shows a little about how to use the program:
And here are some screenshots from this particular track:
If you enjoy synthesizer music, creating it, or just living your life as if it were accompanied to an 80s soundtrack, check out this great synthwave playlist on Spotify curated by Preston Cram.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Today, we’re finish the track we started in episode #112. As mentioned, it’s a short atmospheric piece to accompany the third Thirteenth Hour book and centers around Aurora, who has assumed the part time role of someone called “The Midnight Phoenix,” a name generated by the local papers from the legends of old after she unwittingly saves a man while on a brooding nighttime walk above the city’s skyline. This is not a particularly happy time in her time, and her one real solace is playing a magic lute on the rooftop outside her window, high above the city, allowing her to see the sea, the horizon over which her home lies, and even if she can’t get back there, see an exit to her current trapped state.
Today. we’re finishing the backing track and adding the guitar part in. In the future, I’ll finish the accompanying artwork, which will likely show her up on a rooftop (Batman style), silhouetted against the sky.
This is the tabulature and chord structure of this short piece:
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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Like last week, today, we’re going to create more music together. In order to finish the piece we started last week, I needed to finish some backlogged music projects that I have had sitting around first. My synthesizer only allows you to store two songs at a time, so this is one of them. Like last week, it’s a mostly atmospheric piece to accompany the third Thirteenth Hour book and centers around Aurora, who has assumed the part time role of someone called “The Midnight Phoenix.” At this part of the story (at least according to the rough outline I have envisioned), things get a little out of control, and part of the city she now finds herself in is destroyed. She is standing on top of a tall building overlooking the city and the smoldering ruins. As she does so, this theme plays in the background. Like the tune last week, it’s intended to be slow and a bit mournful.
Today, we’ll be combining the synthesizer backing track that I’ve had in the can for a number of weeks with a guitar part that I recorded more recently. There is a post on IG that shows some video of the guitar part in the draft stage. At the end of the podcast, you’ll hear the more or less finished version.
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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Today, we’re going to create some music together. It’s a short atmospheric piece to accompany the third Thirteenth Hour book and centers around Aurora, who has assumed the part time role of someone called “The Midnight Phoenix,” a name generated by the local papers from the legends of old after she unwittingly saves a man while on a brooding nighttime walk above the city’s skyline.
At this point, she is supposed to be learning magic, which she can’t really do or control, and she misses the home she created, far away across the Western sea, on her island with her husband Logan. She supposed to learn magic since her family essentially needs another set of hands to defend against a new mysterious threat. But all she can really do is make flaming blue fire when she gets stressed or angry.
Here is Aurora doing a meditative exercise to try to help herself control her fire making ability rather let it engulf her (what usually happens, making her kind of a danger to herself and others around her).
Her one real solace is playing a magic lute on the rooftop outside her window, high above the city, allowing her to see the sea, the horizon over which her home lies, and even if she can’t get back there, see an exit to her current trapped state.
I was inspired by the rooftop guitar solo scene from the movie The Crow when thinking of this scene:
You can find the track as “Inferno” on The Crow score by Graeme Revell.
My favorite part of that track was always the slow, melodic intro part, so I was channeling that in marking today’s track. To be continued in a future episode!
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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
This week marks the release of a new track for a new album that goes with a new book. How’s that for a lot of newness? It’s for the unnamed album that accompanies the unnamed sequel to The Thirteenth Hour!
In it, Logan (the silhouette on the right), is playing a reed flute, which happens to carry the melody of this song – hoping that it will reach the ears of Aurora, who he thinks may be in the castle in the center of the picture. It’s a little homage to Lloyd Dobbler from Say Anything:
You can find more info and lyrics about this track, which you can download or stream at Bandcamp.
And, if you happen to be in and around New York City, on March 11th, I’ll be a panel of other authors discussing creating sci fi and fantasy worlds at the Big Apple Con. Use the code ART007 for a discount when you buy your tickets. See you at the show!
As always, thanks for listening!
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Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s instagram pages: @the13thhr and@the13thhr.ost for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art, 80s music, movies, and pictures or songs from The Thirteenth Hour books.
11/13/16 marked the official online release of Long Ago Not So Far Away, and to celebrate, you can listen to the full album these past two weeks. Side A of the cassette version was last week, and side B is this week. Both are about 24 minutes long.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to the new upcoming retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s instagram pages: @the13thhr and@the13thhr.ost for your daily weekday dose of ninjas, martial arts bits, archery, flips, breakdancing action figures, fantasy art, 80s music, movies, and occasional pictures or songs from The Thirteenth Hour books.
In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about what to do with that audio file we made last week in episode #63. Most of today’s episode discusses the use of the program Audacity, which is free and relatively easy to use. But just because it’s free doesn’t mean you can’t use it to polish your audio track into something that is CD-worthy. It does take some fiddling and trial and error (as all these kinds of things do), but after awhile, it gets kind of rote, and the process goes a whole lot quicker.
Here’s a link to an article I did on podcasting that may be helpful. There’s a link to download Audacity there as well as a lot of helpful links to tutorials that discuss audio editing. We go over some of that here, but many of the tutorials (done by people who know much more than me!) go into more detail.
As always, thanks for listening!
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Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to the new upcoming retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s instagram pages: @the13thhr and@the13thhr.ost for your daily weekday dose of ninjas, martial arts bits, archery, flips, breakdancing action figures, fantasy art, 80s music, movies, and occasional pictures or songs from The Thirteenth Hour books.
Free online streaming of the growing Thirteenth Hour soundtrack: https://joshuablum.bandcamp.com/ Stay tuned to a full 45+ min album coming 11/13/16. Join the mailing list for a free copy.
Today, we’re going to talk about how to audio record music with a minimum of fuss and equipment. I used these methods to create the audio tracks for The Thirteenth Hour soundtrack, Long Ago Not So Far Away, and I certainly didn’t spend a lot of money (although, if time is money then, well …)
In any event, I used a combination of recording and editing equipment many people have (smartphone and computer – both aging at this point) as well as an old keyboard and 2 guitars. There are some videos of the keyboard and, I think, the electric guitar on Instagram, and you can see for yourself that they’re nothing fancy. So I think if this is something you’re interested in, don’t necessarily let the lack of money or equipment scare you off.
In this episode, I’ll talk a little about how all this worked and how you might be able to do something similar if you’re interested, culminating in a digital audio file you can then edit on a computer. Part 2 (next week) will focus on editing that file to make it sound professional.
Here’s a link to an article I did on podcasting that may be helpful. There’s a link to the free recording and editing program Audacity there as well as a lot of helpful links to tutorials that discuss audio recording and editing.
As always, thanks for listening!
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Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to the new upcoming retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s instagram pages: @the13thhr and@the13thhr.ost for your daily weekday dose of ninjas, martial arts bits, archery, flips, breakdancing action figures, fantasy art, 80s music, movies, and occasional pictures or songs from The Thirteenth Hour books.
Free online streaming of the growing Thirteenth Hour soundtrack: https://joshuablum.bandcamp.com/ Stay tuned to a full 45+ min album coming 11/13/16. Join the mailing list for a free copy.
Today’s episode is about a song that I originally started started writing as a part of a chapter in The Thirteenth Hour. Finally got around to finishing it. It’s a bit of a folk song. Here’s the passage that talks about it:
Then she looked up at me, through reddened eyes, and I struggled to say, “I thought I would never see you again … I’m so glad I found you.”
She nodded, and I wiped her tear–streaked ashen face with my sleeve, trying to maneuver around the burns and scabs. After a time, her eyelids began to fall, and then right when I thought she might be drifting off to sleep, she laughed a little.
“Do you know, Logan, that since you’ve left I haven’t sang or hummed any of the songs I used to like? I just thought of one now.”
Do you remember when I said Aurora could sing? I suppose anyone who can talk can sing, but not everyone likes to. Aurora did. She had a quiet, mid–range, soothing voice that she liked to use when she was at her work, in the garden at the orphanage, or to quiet some of the younger kids there. I was never sure where she learned her songs – I think she made most of them up – and was never sure how she remembered all the lyrics. She did write some down – I think I remember her saying that was her main motivation for learning how to read – but really, it seemed like she had them all in her head. I learned the melodies, just by being around her and hearing her hum them, but kept getting the lyrics mixed up.
“Which one, Aurora?”
She coughed, and said, “Do you remember ‘Dragons’ Eyes’?”
I did – it was, at one time, a ballad often sung to young children to lull them to sleep. Then people forgot about it for a long time until a rather dodgy traveling bard used the melody in a love song that became very popular. His version was the standard tripe about star–crossed lovers who meet, fall in love, fall out of love, make up, break up, etc. So, of course, people loved it. And that’s how they rediscovered the more somber original version. It told of a magic place hidden from view where anything you wished for could come true. The second verse mentioned a land of gold, and even though that was only one of the possible things one could wish for, it was the one people remembered. But to get there, you needed dragons’ eyes. Once you had them, east would become west, west would become east, and there it would be (to be honest, I never really understood that verse). Anyway, men never found it, the song said, because they killed off almost all the dragons trying to get their eyes, but it was a pair of living eyes you needed.
The last verse, the one the bard used as the basis for his song about human lovers, was actually about two young dragons, a male and his female mate, who’d been wounded and spotted by their human hunters. The dragons managed to crawl into a cave, which the men surrounded. After waiting for a long time, the dragons knew they had to either fight their way out or die in the cave from hunger and blood loss. But they had had enough of fighting and felt too weak to have much of a chance. Finally, they decided that instead of simply giving up and dying where they lay, they would go to the mouth of the cave, but not attack the men. Then the dragon gods would know they were not afraid, and perhaps their deaths would be quick.
And that’s where the song ended. It didn’t say what happened to the two dragons, but I remember hoping that the hunters would be touched by their courage and let them go. They must have, I reasoned, because if they had killed them, the last of their kind, there wouldn’t have been any more dragons today, and of course there were. All in all, a rather strange subject for a lullaby, but it had always been Aurora’s favorite song.
“I remember how it goes, Aurora.”
“Could you … sing it to me? It’s been so long … I can’t seem to remember how it starts now,” she said, looking both sad and puzzled.
My heart sank a little further as I realized the toll the past year must have taken on Aurora if she no longer remembered her favorite song. It meant the girl I knew from yesterday was gone, and a different woman had taken her place. But whoever she’d become, that’s the way it was. I thought of how the tables had turned – Aurora had always sung to me, and now, I would sing to her. (Just be glad you weren’t there).
“Um, sure, Aurora.” I cleared my throat.
A long, long time ago, From legends dead, There comes a tale From which it’s said:
There is a place – It’s hard to see. East of here, And West of there. Where all the eye can see Is made of gold.
And so it goes, The story rolls. Twisted ’round by man In ambitions cold …
“Oh, I remember, now,” sighed Aurora. “You know, of all the things that have changed, it’s nice to know your singing’s still the same.”
“Yeah, thanks a lot.”
She laughed. “I always liked your voice, though. Would you mind singing the rest?”
I bumbled on the best I could, though I didn’t remember all the words. But Aurora filled in for me, except for once near the end, when I looked down and found Aurora asleep. I leaned my head on the wall and kept my arms around her as I sang the remaining verses softly to myself, just so I could refresh my memory. One day, under better circumstances, we would sing it again together. Long after I had finished, I heard the melody, which was usually played on a mandolin if an accompaniment was being used. The chords resonated through the night, and something about them seemed to grow in timbre and encircle us in a protective sphere.
You can hear an acoustic guitar version on this week’s podcast. The song will eventually become part of the soundtrack, which you can find here.
Speaking of which, previews and discussion of music and movies that inspired the soundtrack is on Instagram under @the13thhr.ost. Since Instagram recently changed their videos to allow 60 seconds of footage, I’m considering making 1 min 80s-synth style versions of some of those favorite influential 80s songs. It’s hard to distill the essence of a great song down to just 1 minute … but it might be a fun exercise and different that the usual tribute. Look for those soon!
Lastly, check Twitter for weekly and bi-weekly Amazon giveaways (look for #AmazonGiveaway on social media)- free to enter; you can enter each week until you win if you want.
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More on the creative process next week with author Missy Sheldrake. Preview links below!
Click on the picture to view a trailer for Call of Kythshire, the first book in the series.
As always, thanks for listening!
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Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast and a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s instagram pages: @the13thhr and @the13thhr.ost for your daily weekday dose of ninjas, martial arts bits, archery, flips, breakdancing action figures, fantasy art, 80s music, movies, and occasional pictures or songs from The Thirteenth Hour books.
In The Thirteenth Hour, “Song of an Unsung Hero” is the name of the second half of the book. The name comes from a poem featured in the story about a person who has returned from a long and dangerous quest, successful, but battered and weary, and narrates his inner thoughts while he’s being honored for his success. However, he doesn’t really want accolades. He’s lost something precious in the interim, and no honors or medals will exactly fill the void. He also finds himself thinking that people at the celebration ironically seem more excited than he does – they’re at the party to eat, drink, and be merry – but the real reason for the gala seems lost on them. He feels a bit bitter, self-absorbed, and self-righteous, thinking that, but can’t entirely help it and leaves the celebration alone.
Both the poem and song get at the separation that people sometimes feel after they’ve done something difficult (e.g. returning home from war or some other traumatic situation) and are dealing with the culture shock of not entirely knowing how to relate to the world they once knew in the same way they did before.
The book touches on this theme tangentially, since the main character, Logan, chooses to deal with these feelings in his own lighthearted way, but writing the music to the song allowed me to delve into it further. I thought the somber, introspective nature of the song would fit an 80s new wave emo-style song, like the kinds done by bands like New Order, Fiction Factory, Anything Box, and Tears for Fears.
Though I originally wrote the song with the chords below, I played in the key of C on the track, so if you’d like to play along on the guitar, capo up 1 to transpose these chords up 1/2 step.
B A
I saw the world today.
B Esus2
A thousand faces laughing through me.
B A
The celebration planned for me,
B Esus2
All forgotten instantly.
C#m
After all I did and gave
B A
I’m still outside in the rain.
B A
Outside, looking in.
B Esus2
Don’t want to leave, can’t bear to stay.
B A
Who am I? Who can I be?
B Esus2
I don’t know; no one to blame.
C#m
So I turned, looked at the ground,
B A
Walking away, without a sound.
C#m A
And the way isn’t lighted, nor are the stars
C#m F#m B A B A
All alone here, here in the dark.
B A
No, I’m not sad.
B Esus2
I realize this was meant to be.
B
But where can I go?
A
And what do I say
B Esus2
To those that helped along the way?
C#m
And I’m turning, looking at the ground,
B A
Walking away, without a sound.
Esus2 C#m
After all I did and gave
B A
I’m still outside in the rain.
Esus2 C#m
And I’m turning, looking at the ground,
B A
Walking away, without a sound.
Esus2 C#m B
Who will speak my name, sing for me?
A A
My song to sing, sing for me,
E A E
My song to sing.
You can find this song as well as other songs written and recorded for The Thirteenth Hour soundtrack in high fidelity here.
Thanks for listening!
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Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast and a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s instagram pages: @the13thhr and @the13thhr.ost for your daily weekday dose of ninjas, martial arts bits, archery, flips, breakdancing action figures, fantasy art, 80s music, movies, and occasional pictures or songs from The Thirteenth Hour books.
One of the things I wanted to do with this podcast was showcase music written for the book.
I finally got around to recording “Dreams Go Far,” the song Aurora writes and sings for Logan when he’s going through a rough time (sick, weak, imprisoned) in The Thirteenth Hour. I’ll talk more about its creation next week, but for now, the lyrics and guitar chords are below (visit the audio page to download them on a handy one-page sheet) and the song is above.
C Cadd9 Fmaj7
Where are you now?
Am C G
Won’t you tell me what you’re thinking?
C Am C (Cadd9) G
I’ve been there; no resting for the weary.
Am Dm Am
But in the end, hold true.
C (Cadd9)
For the best is yet to
Am C
Happen to you …
C Cadd9 Fmaj7
Sometimes – it’s hard,
Am C G
To keep your head up high.
C Am C G
You walk alone, feeling cold and scared inside.
Am C Am C Am Em
So close your eyes, open up your mind.
Am C Am
For it’s when you listen that you hear
C Cmaj7 Cadd9 C
All there is inside.
C Cadd9 F
‘Cause dreams go far,
Am C G
No matter where you are.
Am C
If you wish for me, I’ll wish for you,
F C
And we’ll make our dreams come true.
C Am
Long ago –
C Am G
Could you guess this is where you’d be now?
C Am C Am (Cmaj7) G
Yes, I know, it’s hard to watch your world unfold.
Am C Am
But on this long, winding road,
C Am Em Am C
How you think you are is what will come true.
Am C Am C Cmaj7 Cadd9 C
For it’s when you look that see all that you can do.
It’s amazing how long it can take to put together a short movie. The video in said title is technically not even a movie, really, it’s a music video that’s about 4 and a half minutes long. But, man, did that sucker take a long time to put together!
I started working on it sometime in December and finally finished it yesterday! Obviously, I didn’t work on it full-time and had a number of other projects and commitments during that time, but still, that’s about five months. It really does give you a better appreciation for the kind of work it takes to film, say, an independent film or anything else without a large backing in terms of manpower, finances, and resources.
In any event, in The Thirteenth Hour, there’s a poem called “I’ll Fly Away” that the main characters, Logan and Aurora, read at one point. It’s a wistful poem that introduces the idea of the thirteenth hour (you’ll have to read the book to figure out what that is), so I took the poem, retooled it a bit, and made it into a song sung by the main characters who you can see as little pixelated sprites in the lower left-hand corner of the screen (see below) while the background shows illustrations from the book and dreamy, surreal moving images that tie into the song’s theme.
Logan’s flying animation, originally used in the trailer, makes a return, and I had fun figuring out ways to add some spice to his flying scene.
Making a music video is certainly different from recording a song, which I was already familiar with, since the music isn’t just the focus anymore; the eye needs to be kept busy as well. Nonetheless, I actually learned a lot making this video (in terms of video editing and such) and might make more in the future.
You can find the lyrics and chords to this song, as well as other songs in the growing Thirteenth Hour soundtrack on the audio page.
A big thank you to all who helped by giving their opinions in the draft process!
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The Thirteenth Hour 