This week, I reflect on the year and look back on the goals I had for 2020 back in episodes 230 and 231.
Despite all the zaniness of the past year, it’s been a good year creatively. Besides the things discussed on the show, I also started a Thirteenth Hour Arts Facebook group as well as a Patreon, so many thanks for all your support!
Lastly, I’ve decided to wrap up by trying to finally finish a song that I’ve tried to work and rework many, many times, the aptly named “Many Miles,” a song I wrote for the next Thirteenth Hour book and last worked on in episodes 190-199). I’m working on the vocals today.
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, just before Christmas drops, I thought it’d be fun to talk a bit about 3 songs from the 80s that aren’t traditional Christmas songs but are, in many ways, still holiday songs.
The holidays often serve as a time to reflect on the year and think about what you’d like to see happen in the future – a time of hope, good cheer, and family. Of course, it’s not that way for a lot of people. And that contrast is why I picked these three songs:
1.) The Waitress (1981) – “Christmas Wrapping”
I didn’t know who did this song about a woman who’s a bit over the hype of holidays season until recently but always thought it had a great hook. There is also an almost 30 second funky instrumental break in the middle that I think would actually be a good breakbeat.
3.) Band Aid (1984) – “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
There are things to like about this song – e.g. the melody, the chord progressions, the collaboration, the underlying good intentions (raising awareness of famine in Ethiopia and raising funds for assistance) – but … the lyrics are horrendous! They reinforce the stereotype that Africa is a place of “dread and fear / Where the only water flowing / Is the bitter sting of tears” and “nothing ever grows / No rain nor rivers flow.” Ok, folks, I get you were writing about famine, but the entire continent? The best gift “they’ll get this year is life”? Holy self righteous Jesus, Batman. But, if you put images of colonialism and missionaries doing God’s work aside and ignore 95% of the lyrics, you get a song that essentially about remembering to be grateful for what you have and that there is a “world outside your window.”
These songs were something I was mentally thinking of for a Christmas song episode with show guests Joe Esch and Adam Crohn (last on the shows when we discussed 80s foods and The Lost Boys – 272 and 273). We had tossed around a bunch of ideas for nontraditional Xmas movie ideas (like Gremlins and Die Hard) and then the song one, but never quite got around to recording. As you may know, Adam has been tied up with more urgent things than recording podcasts these past few weeks as his dog, Mooge, just had surgery for lung cancer and will need extended treatment in the near future. Of course, nothing in life is ever simple. You can read more about their challenging journey on the GoFundMe by clicking on Mooge’s picture below. But the upshot of all this and the connection to the above is that I’ll be looking at some ways to continue to raise funds into 2021 to help Adam and Mooge and will post more over the coming weeks.
So in lieu of retro Xmas movie podcasts this year, please go check out Shawn and Colin over at I Used to Like This One for several weeks of Christmas movies. They’ve put together a much better lineup than I ever could. So far, they have episodes on Home Alone, Lethal Weapon, and A Christmas Story!
Lastly, I’ve decided to wrap up by trying to finally finish a song that I’ve tried to work and rework many, many times, the aptly named “Many Miles,” a song I wrote for the next Thirteenth Hour book and last worked on in episodes 190-199). I reworked the intro, created a new opening riff, added a short chorus section, and cut out a few redundant verses. So – essentially starting almost from scratch and reworking it from the ground up. I have a backing track done so far and will be figuring the vocals next. So far, I think it will work! I was practicing while holding my son earlier today, and we were singing along with the new repeating riff (and it sounded okay!).
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 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.
This week, I’m working on an accessory for the custom figure of Logan from The Thirteenth Hour that I started last week (that I am just about finished now). I’m making Logan his own synthesizer to play! He’ll use them for some upcoming videos. But today – we’re starting the sculpting process for the keyboard from Aves Apoxiesculpt, the hard drying clay I used to make the initial sculpts for all the minifigures I’ve done as well as the custom sculpt parts of the Logan figure that I wrapped up this past week.
Here is how Logan looks so far:
And here’s how the sculpt started:
The keys will all be from toothpicks. I’ve slid 21 keys (which will be the white ones) into the clay before it hardened. Here, I’ve added speakers and a central console. Once the clay hardens, I will further sand it and add a few more details that I want to show up on the final cast version. As you can see, I have yet to add the black keys. They’ll be smaller toothpicks glued on in between the keys. There will be 15 of those (3 total octaves).
“So I’m going to be playing this thing …?” Yup! And next week, a guitar!
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.
This week, I’m working on a custom figure of Logan from The Thirteenth Hour. In some ways, I’ve been planning this for years. It was the original reason why I got into clay sculpting, though I ended up going the direction of making minifigures entirely from scratch first. But I’ve been meaning to go back to try making customs. This isn’t the first custom I tried my hand at (the first custom figure was a mini of Aurora), but it is the first one I’m making where I’m actually using all these spare action figure parts I’ve been slowly collecting over the years from yard sales, flea markets, and the loose bins at comic con conventions where I attended as a vendor.
This first custom, detailed in episode 264, was only about 2″ tall and was part kit bash, and the rest was sculpted.
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.
This week, I’m joined by Shawn and Colin from the podcast I Used to Like This One. I’ve mentioned their show a few times here before – around Halloween for an episode they had me on for (The Monster Squad）and their own rewatch of The Lost Boys. Later this week, there’s a show I did with them for Willow. But first, Short Circuit. Well, to be precise, Short Circuit 2. (Shawn and Colin did their own episode on the first installment, so if you don’t recall the story, check that episode out).
Yes, Johnny 5 and Ben are back, this time in NYC.
Johnny 5 is enjoying life, liberty, and a whole city full of input.
Ben (Fisher Stevens), on the other hand, didn’t do so great after the last adventure. He’s peddling miniature Johhny 5s on the street for $20 each. Even in 1988, that seems like way to little! If the neighbor hustling watches to his left looks familiar, he’s Michael McKean from This is Spinal Tap.
And, yes, like in the first movie, Fisher Stevens (below) is in brown face playing an Indian guy. We get into it a whole lot on the episode, so I won’t go into all the issues here. It’s made somewhat better by the fact he’s such a good actor, clearly put a lot of time into researching the role, and the writers actually made him a real character this time, with a story arc, a love interest, and underlying motivations (as opposed to simply comedy relief).
The cast.
Thanks to Shawn and Colin for coming on the show! Look for the episode we did on Willow later this week on I Used to Like This One or wherever yu listen to your podcasts. Check them out on Patreon to help support their work!
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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, we have one simple goal – adding a guitar parrt to the Terminator theme we started last week. I experimented with a few different electric guitar effects, and in the end chose two – a quiet one with an echo and one with distortion. Both are included in the podcast (in that order) – see which you like best!
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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.
To piggyback off the last few weeks talking about 80s memories, this week (and probably next), we’ll be making a version of Brad Fiedel’sTerminator theme. Here’s three version of the main theme – the one from the first film, a slower piano version from the first film, and slow synth string version from T2 – a great example of how a central score can be voiced in different ways to fit different scenes.
I’m actually not sure which key the score is done in since I don’t usually use sheet music, but the version I figured out is in the key of Eb, I think. I’m not sure I’m using the same syncopated chunking drum beat that the movie theme uses, but the version I’m using in this track uses a low synth bass sound that I originally figured out by hitting a toy hand drum my son was playing with. Next week, I’ll try to add an electric guitar overlay. I can’t recall if there are official guitar versions of the theme, but I always thought it’d sound great electrified like that. Stay tuned for that coming next week!
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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.
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.
Adam from the Instagram account that he runs, mom_gave_them_away (dedicated to 80s toys, mostly action figures, and other 80s memorabilia), rejoins us this week for the second part of our conversation on 1980s childhood nostalgia. If you grew up during that era or just have an interest in some of the things kids were playing with back then, do yourself a favor and check out his site – it’s a virtual encyclopedia of information on toys and other memorabilia from the 80s! This episode, we again cover a diverse array of topics – starting with molding and casting, to Adam’s custom action figure business (see below), and many more 80s toys and their obscure associated cartoons. Like last week, here are some 80s cartoon intros and commercials to get you in the mood:
Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors – the intro to Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors is quite typical of the era – lasers, explosions, rings that shoot fire, and men singing the name of the series over and over in the intro 🙂
This unbelievably epic commercial was for Air Raiders. Despite the animation in this commercial, there was no cartoon I’m aware of, though there was a comic. This page, which details a number of toy lines from the 80s (such as Air Raiders) that didn’t quite take off for whatever reason, is fascinating if you’re into this sort of thing.
The anime opening theme for Combat Mecha Xabungle (above) requires some explanation. Recently, Adam posted a nameless red robot torso on his page (below). Thanks to the magic of the internets and the contributors visiting his account, he was able to quickly find the name and full version of the figure. When I saw it, I was reminded of a similar blue robot that also had a penchant for falling apart! Turns out they were from this Japanese anime series, originally airing in 1982.
Having never seen the show before, I must admit, my curiosity is peaked! I’ll have to try to track some of the episodes down.
Remember these toy guns? The one on the left shot rubber BBs (it was basically a low powered airsoft gun with a gravity fed magazine), and the one of the right fired little discs. Both were high capacity (the BB gun could hold about 40-50 BBs; the disc shooter I think held around 20 discs in an internal, nonremovable, spring fed magazine) and offered the possibility of semiauto fire (one shot for each pull of the trigger, assuming the gun didn’t break in between – always a risk – which, despite the durability issues, was pretty cool for a toy). This page lovingly pays homage to these bits of toy gun history – click to read more: BB gun / disc shooter.
I’ll finish with a little retro 80s visual that you can hear at the end of the show – a remixed version of “I’ll Fly Away” from The Thirteenth Hour soundtrack – this video being a nod to all those flying scenes in 80s movies through dreamy cloudscapes.
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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 and next, I’m joined by Adam from the Instagram account that he runs, mom_gave_them_away, which is dedicated to 80s toys, mostly action figures. If you grew up during that era or just have an interest in some of the things kids were playing with back then, do yourself a favor and check out his site – it’s a virtual encyclopedia of information on toys and other memorabilia from the 80s! This episode, we cover a diverse array of topics – from 80s toys, to the lure of cassette tapes and VHS, to many obscure 80s cartoons! The fact that these toys were made to be be played with made them educational, in a way (I’d argue). Good for the imagination!
Here are some cartoon intros (GoBots, Visionaries, Inhumanoids, Dungeons and Dragons) and toy commercials (Sky Commanders, G.I. Joe, Battle Beasts) to whet your appetite:
And though this wasn’t something we talked about, the G.I. Joe clips reminded me of this clip from a Reading Rainbow episode I turned on for my daughter the other day.
Teamwork! Talk about a blast from the past. The high-water socks, the headbands, the electric guitar in the background, the dry ice in the glass the waitress hands to Levar around 1:00 – classic!
Stay tuned next week as we continue the conversation with Adam. In the meantime, check out some of the most excellent custom action figure work he also does (like this Macgyver custom below). We’ll start with figure making next week!
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 weekend, I took a bunch of my songs plus a number of (mostly) 80s songs and played at a local arts festival for about 4-5 hrs. I had about 26 songs ready for the keyboard and the guitar and ended up playing most of them at least twice, some more, during that time. I also had the chance to work out a few new songs (one of which you’ll hear a clip of) and polish old ones (since you can only play the same ones over and over for so long). I’ve just included a few snippets since the audio quality was especially bad even after a lot of editing, but here are two songs I did on the guitar from 80s movies (Sixteen Candles and Purple Rain) in their original form:
Next week, stay tuned for synthwave artist, Starfarer!
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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 a lullaby that was partially written as something to help my children go to sleep. But it was also a little song that Aurora, from The Thirteenth Hour books, sings to help young children in the orphanage (where they are living as children) go to sleep. Later in the books, she learns to play the lute and she and her husband (see the cover art) will sometimes play it with him accompanying her on the flute. When Logan is alone later in the story, he will sometimes sing it to himself to remind himself of happier times.
Aurora’s Lullaby
C Am When the sun goes down and stars appear C G Comes a time when you shall hear Am F For now it’s time to close your eyes. G C And to you, I’ll sing this lullaby.
C Am Rest your soul, lay your head C G The hour’s come to go to bed Am F For now it’s time to close your eyes. G C And to you, I’ll sing this lullaby.
Solo E D E C C D E G G E D G F E F G C G F E F G C C E D C C
C Am And so the day is done. C G Your failures, your kingdoms are won Am F For now it’s time to close your eyes G C And to you, I’ll sing this lullaby.
Am F For now it’s time to close your eyes G C And to you, I’ll sing this lullaby. G C Yes, to you, I will sing this lullaby.
It took a few months to finish since I wanted ti try to learn to play the penny whistle for the little instrumental break in the middle. You can hear the final version at the end of the show and stream or download it from Bandcamp.
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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.
This week, we are reading from a little blast from the past that I first encountered as a kid. It’s a little slice of the early 80s called Chip Mitchell: The Case of the Stolen Computer Brains, about a middle school age boy named Chip who uses a personal computer in his bedroom (big deal in 1982) to solve crimes and various other problems in his neighborhood.
It was written by computer educator pioneer Fred D’Ignazio (more here) and illustrated by Larry Pearson. Although quite difficult to find today (eBay and Amazon have a few used copies sometimes), this book and its sequels (which are even harder to find) are a treat for folks nostalgic for an era of dimly lit arcades when games only cost a quarter, dark skating rinks with flashing multicolored lights and pulsing music, the promise and hope as we looked ahead into what computers would do for us amid the secrecy of the Cold war, and the pixelated graphics of early video games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders. (Click on the images below for more nostalgia.)
So tune in this week as Chip, his pals, and his personal computer, Hermes (who can talk, has a robot arm, and a modem – remember, this was 1982) try to out outwit a university supercomputer (that probably took up a whole room at the time) in a test of speed and programming skill akin to something out of War Games or Real Genius.
Some images from the book:
This is the computer problem that is referenced in the book – some Cold war era cloak and dagger stuff.
Chip and Legs are on the right, Kate and her gang on the left (these are the characters referenced in this story).
Included this part (from a different part of the book) since I couldn’t resist sticking in the part about the synthesizer (way before the sound card era).
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 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.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
The Thirteenth Hour 