Watch the cast of Life from the Inside bite the big one, like totally to the max.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Episode 9 Update
Hello everyone, I'm back with another sneak peak of Episode 9 for you and this one is beautiful!
What the heck is going on here?! And why are the colors so nice?
Well, good thing for you, Episode 9 is being edited as I type this. Oh the wonderful agony of anticipation. How will you ever survive?!
Well, I could give you another sneak peak. Let me see, what's going to really peak your interest...
I know! How can you stand it?!
Sorry, I'm stuck in sarcasm mode today. Just know we are working hard to get this next episode done and out to you wonderful viewers as soon as possible.
Tanya
Friday, July 31, 2009
Episode 9 Sneak Peak
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
We're Stuck in the 80s
You can tell we're stuck in the 80s by that song posted there, just above this sentence. If you haven’t started playing it yet, maybe you should. It’s the perfect accompaniment to this blog post! Isn’t that strangely coincidental?
Wow.
Kismet.
It’s New Music Wednesday!
Okay, so if you’ve been reading this blog regularly (and if you are the person who reads this blog regularly, I just want to say “Hi, mom. Don’t worry, other people will care about this stuff someday. I know… I know, mom! Don’t say that, mom… They can’t possibly all just be jealous… Okay. I love you too.”) you’ll know that I’ve taken “great” pains to come up with original 80s music for our last episode. And some of it has been more successful than others.
This, I think, is one of the more successful attempts.
It’s a tune called “Stuck in the 80s.” It’s funny, when we conceived episode 8, the 80s were but a quaint memory. A novelty. Little did we know that just a few short months later the 80s would come roaring back. Most notably in fashion. In fact, every time I see a skateboarding kid wearing tight, tapered jeans and spiky hair, I just want to grab him and shout, “we tried that! It didn’t work. We’ve lived in regret ever since. Don’t make the same mistakes we did. Oh, and teal is never a good color.” But they wouldn’t listen. They’ll chalk it up to “experimantation.” But we’ll know the truth. It’s misguided rebellion. And it’ll ruin every photo they take for the next year-and-a-half.
…kids…
So, Stuck in the 80s was my attempt to write a song in the style of Oingo Boingo. I never really listened to Oingo Boingo when I was a kid. I wasn’t really into New Wave music. Actually, I wasn’t really into anything contemporary. When other people were listening to Cyndi Lauper and Madonna, I was listening to Glenn Miller and New York Voices (Yes, I was a strange kid, and yes, my jazz tastes have matured since then. I was pretty into Duran, Duran and Hall and Oates if that helps? It doesn’t, does it?). But, I do have a great appreciation for bands like Oingo Boingo. They were just a little too hip for my young ears.
Anyway, I had a good time writing and recording this song. I had a good time writing all of the songs for episode 8. I can’t wait for our next episode. I think I’ll keep this soundtrack thing going. But who knows? Episode 9 is really long. There may not be enough time for a lot of music. Plus, it’s not really a genre piece. Though there might some need for early 2000s music… hmmm… I’ll let you know.
ROBB
By the way, if you’re dying to put this song in context, you can hear it during Episode 8, Part 3! Why not go here and see for yourself! In fact, why not just watch the entire episode over again?!Why not indeed.
Also, this song has been posted to the Life from the Inside Facebook Page! We would love it if you went there and became a fan. Loooove it. Not on Facebook? Well, why not? It’s fun. It’s free. It’s face-y.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Episode 9 is Alive
It's funny how life works out sometimes. I like to think that things happen for a reason and the casting of Episode 9 has definitely had several moments that fall into something of that sort.
As of last night, we finally have this episode fully cast.
Not that anything has gone horribly wrong (although I have on a couple of occasions joked about the universe not wanting this script to be produced)it's just the normal pitfalls of producing an online show. Hell, the normal pitfalls of producing in general.
But, in the end, fortune has smiled on us and the fixes have proven to be pretty darn awesome.
I can't wait for our rehearsal next week, to finally get all of these players into the same room and watch them interact.
So now we go into the midst of rehearsing, prop finding, costuming, location scouting and so on.
It's going to be good.
Very, very good.
Tanya
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The Slip
Reason has given me the slip. At least it did about a month and a half ago when I wrote the lyrics for the tune that I’m about to share with you.
Tune? Did someone say “tune?!” Yes. I did. Haven’t you been paying attention? No? You’re looking at that graphic there on the right, aren’t you? It is pretty swell. You’ll get to see a lot more of it in the future. But that’s a topic for another post.
Today it’s New Music Wednesday!
The only reason to get out of bed in the middle of the week when you really think about it.
Anyway, today’s offering is in the classic 80s style. In case you don’t remember, in the 80s there was strange fascination with the 50s. I blame the movie Grease. Even though it came out in ’78. That’s close to the 80s. And things took longer to catch on back then. Yeah, sure. Why not.
But some of the most famous 50s/80s musical crossbreeding was accomplished by the new wave band The Cars. They were unmistakably planted firmly in the 80s new wave scene, but there was a lot of 50s throwback in their style. Especially in Ric Okasec’s vocals.
I’ve always liked The Cars. When I think of the 80s, The Cars invariably come to mind. That’s why they were a shoo-in to be emulated on the LFTI Episode 8 soundtrack.
Now, I’m not sure exactly how well I actually emulated them. I wasn’t really going for a sound-alike or anything. I was mainly going for their essence. Plus, they’re very talented musicians and I’m just one dude with half of their talent (on a good day).
The lyrics were something that came as I was composing the song, though they weren’t finished until after the episode aired. This didn’t matter too much since the version in the episode is instrumental. Like 80s musak. In case you’re curious, you can hear it in Part 4 after the “time-elapse” montage (around “Universal Truth #37”).
But now you can hear the lyrics here! They’re fascinating. I had a lyrical theme for all of the music in this episode. Since the episode is about a cult and brainwashing and such, all of the songs have something to do with mind-control or subservience or group think (albeit, sometimes very tenuously).
So, without further ado, I give you The Slip!
Pretty slippery.
You can also hear this song on the LFTI Facebook Page! Why not go there and become a fan if you haven’t already? Sure. It’ll be fun!
LFTI Facebook Page
Now I’m off to get some very important design work done. What am I designing? Well, it’s for LFTI…
And it’s a secret.
Ooooooohhhhhh!
ROBB
Fun Fact: If you listen closely just before the vocals start in The Slip, you can hear my Blackberry go off. It sounds like a baseball hitting a metal fencepost (at least that’s what it sounds like to me since, during my little league days, most of my hits went foul. Straight behind me). Or, if you will, it sounds like a metal chime. A little “dong.” Maybe that’s a poor choice of words. And hurtful to some. I guess the real question is “why the heck didn’t I edit it out?!” The answer: because I didn’t know it was there until after I mastered the tune. And now I kind of like it anyway.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Let’s Get Violent
And effeminate?
Sure. Why not? When I was younger, I, like most red-blooded American kids of my time, was a fan of the early 80s, folk-punk stylings of the Violent Femmes.
Of course, like most red-blooded American kids of my time, I wasn’t a fan until around 1991 or so…
But the important thing is that some of the Violent Femmes most influential and popular music was created in the early 80s. And even if it didn’t enter the general American zeitgeist until a decade later, it’s a moot point here.
Authenticity is my only concern. And thus it was when I set about creating the soundtrack for LFTI Episode 8.
But, hold on, why am I talking about the soundtrack from LFTI Episode 8? Because it’s…
…say it with me…
New Music Wednesday!
I’ll wait for the applause to die down.
Done? Good. For this soundtrack I was trying to span across a few different early 80s music genres. I never quite got around to full on pop music (though I do have a discarded Huey Lewis-type song. And, no, I can’t post it because I never actually finished it. There’s a distinct possibility that it’ll appear in a more contemporary fashion in LFTI Episode 9. We’ll see.).
And I wanted something that sounded contemporary without destroying the “integrity” of what I was trying to do with the soundtrack. The Violent Femmes fit that bill nicely. I’ve always been impressed with how ahead of their time they were. It’s an obvious solid decade at least. They gained popularity in grunge era even though they created their music in the punk era (yeah, okay, “potato, potato”). When you hear a Violent Femmes song you think of the 90’s (unless you’re an OG). Like how when you look at the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and say, “man, how 70s!” And then the more enlightened people around you point and snicker and belch out, “you mean, how 1910s and 20s, ignoramus! Ha ha ha! What a dolt!”
Assholes.
Anyway, being a Violent Femmes fan and caring more for historical accuracy than verisimilitude, I decided to add a Violent Femmes-y song. Of course, you don’t really hear the song too well in the episode. And that’s just fine. I’ll post it here instead. That way, instead of being heard by thousands, it can be fully enjoyed by tens. That makes you, as a person which I just know is about to listen to the song, super-duper special.
So, this the point of the post where I would direct you to our Facebook page to hear the song. Well, screw that. I’m posting it here today too! How’s that for “added value?!” Of course, I’ll still direct you to the LFTIU Facebook page so that you can become a fan and such.
LFTI Facebook Page
Now, listen to the song! (and marvel at a new music hosting site that I’m trying out. The sound quality is a bit lower, but it’s definitely stylish!)
Oh, yeah. Maybe I should mention the lyrics? It’s about co-opting the whimsy of youth to sell the truly materialistic world of adulthood blah, blah, blah…
I know! I’m no Violent Femmes! I could never write “Body and beats. I stain my sheets. I don’t even know why.”
And here’s the tune from last week. You can read all about it here.
And don’t forget to check back here for the next New Music Wednesday! Of course, it seems like it’s nothing but New Music Wednesday around here. That’s because Tanya and Steve broke all their blogging fingers.
Pray for their speedy recovery.
ROBB
Oh, snap! Yes I just called Steve and Tanya out on this blog.
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