Nerdy Show

My fellow Nerds, a crisis is upon us. As some of you may have heard, a recent high court ruling in the UK has greatly jeopardized the future of the Chiptunes movement. The hardware integral to creating music from current and retro gaming systems is now illegal. This aggression will not stand, man – and we won’t sit by idly while our bothers and sister across the pond cannot pick up their Gameboys and bleep bloop in public. …Did that come out wrong? NEVERMIND.

In response to this ruling, Nerdy Show has created Fight the Power, an organization and movement dedicated to fighting for the rights of nerd musicians and the right to make nerd music of all kinds. Read the Fight the Power Manifesto, join the Facebook Page and find out what you can do to join in the fight.

In this episode we elaborate on the plight in the UK and talk with British chiptune musician, Pixelh8 about his feelings on the ruling, what he’s doing to turn the tide, his upcoming projects, and how BBC America butchers British television. We’re also joined by chiptune beatsmith: DJ RoboRob, calling all the way from Iraq, and yo-yo master and chiptunes rapper: Doctor Popular. All that plus a surplus of cool video game news, Mike gets weirdly (and disturbingly) political, and crackpot Russian conspiracy theories – oh boy!

As though we needed to further emphasize their relevance Chiptunes just recently got its own showcase at PAX Prime!! We also want to give a shout-out to a handful of WPRK DJs who are taking up the Fight the Power cause and dedicating their radio shows to Chiptunes awareness: Flying High in the Mushroom Kingdom, Marc with a C‘s radio show, the Real Congregation and the Freaking Geek Show are doing a combo show for five hours of pixelated political partying! You can catch Flying High in the Mushroom Kingdom in the taint of this Friday night/Saturday morning at 1 AM – 3 AM, and the Freaking Geek and Real Congregation mashup next Monday night/Tuesday morning from 1 AM – 6 AM. These are, of course, Eastern time, so plan accordingly!

This won’t be the last you see of Fight the Power! We have big plans including not just for fighting hate on the chip community, but also fighting big corp wherever they stick their head in the nerd’s world.

 

 Episdoe 29 :: Fight the Power Button [133:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tracks:

1. Aurora (Meet Me In the Strars) :: Anamanaguchi
2. OutBrk :: Sabrepulse
3. Computability Love :: Pixelh8
4. Spiral :: Pixelh8 *NERDY SHOW EXCLUSIVE*
5. Before I Go.. :: .:ikanetik:.
6. The End :: Firebrand Boy
7. Harder, faster, Stronger, Better (DJRoboRob) :: Daft Punk
8. So Say We All :: DjRoboRob
9. SysOp :: ComputeHer
10. Artificial Ocean :: Plain Flavored
11. Crimson Dreams (ft. Doc Pop & Beefy) :: crashfaster Purchase Album
12. Hassle the Dorkening (Doc Pop Rare Demo) :: MC Frontalot *NERDY SHOW EXCLUSIVE*
13. Bedbugs (ft. YTCracker) :: Doc Pop

Contest:

Show Willrow Hood fanlove WIN Star Wars prizes!

Links:

• Read the Fight the Power Manifesto
• The Fight the Power! Facebook Page
• Pixelh8 on E24, BBC News
• Pixelh8 on BBC Look East, BBC Radio 1
• Pixelh8 BBC Look East, Obsolete? at The National Museum of Computing
• Pixelh8 BBC Look East, Obsolete? PART 2
• The BBC article on the court ruling
• Wired‘s Geekdad article on the court ruling, “Death Knell for Chiptunes”
• Check out Doc Pop’s Mighty Boosh App
• Watch the BioShock Infinite trailer
• VGChartz’s article on what the US Military thinks of playing as the Taliban in Metal of Honor
• Crazy Russian conspiracist
• A picture of the “Pixelh8 One 128k”‘s control board
• Real life Koopa skeleton
• Brian’s art for Captain America: The Fighting Avenger
• Homebrew game, Colors, now a legit App
• The Colors gallery
• Lisa Frank parody art

Brian Lee O’Malley‘s series of Scott Pilgrim graphic novels are awesome.  They take video game culture and smoosh it inside comic books!  In Scott’s world, the nonsense logic of video games are part of reality – you beat up hipsters and generic dudes and they turn into coins – THAT ROCKS! Now that Scott Pilgrim is a movie written and directed by Edgar “Shaun of the Dead” Wright all that geeky goodness is exploding IRL in a nerdgasm the likes of which has never hit the big screen before.  In this episode the gang is joined by nerd comedy musician, Insane Ian, to talk about the coolness of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, the differences between the books and the film, and the super-stars behind the soundtrack and score.

PLUS we dialed up Pete of Anamanaguchi, the chiptunes rock band that are providing the score for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game.  Together we fight mediocre cellphone reception, dodge the cops, and find out how they scored this sweet gig.  We also talk to Reid, Ryan, and Charlie from Starmen.net and Fangamer, about the currently running Mother 3 Fanfest, their upcoming release of chiptunes documentary, Reformat the Planet on DVD as well as chiptunes-inspired merch, and the origins of their prolific fan communities.  There’s lots of old school video game conversation including some truth-bombs about River City Ransom, one of the games that most influenced Scott Pilgrim‘s world.  So strap on your power glove… and then take it off ’cause it’s useless- But play some cool games and listen to this episode.  It goes a little something like this:

 

 Episode 27 :: Nerdy Show Vs The Generic Dudes [117:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tracks

1. We Are Sex Bob-Omb :: Sex Bob-Omb
2. Autotune :: Insane Ian
3. Black Sheep :: Metric
4. Threshold :: Sex Bob-Omb
5. Threshold (8-Bit):: Brian LeBarton
6. I’m So Sad, So Very, Very Sad :: Crash and the Boys
7. We Hate You Please Die :: Crash and the Boys
8. Garbage Truck :: Sex Bob-Omb
9. Mom’s Hometown :: katanaswordfish
10. Super Mario Land :: Action Adventure World (watch video)
11. Personal Space :: Shael Riley and The Double Ice Backfire
12. MvL (ft. Odd Austin & TV’s Kyle) :: Insane Ian
13. Power Supply :: Anamanaguchi
14. Airbrushed :: Anamanaguchi
15. Rap Loogies (ft. Fatty Goodness) :: KABUTO THE PYTHON
16. Death to All Hipsters :: Beck & Nigel Godrich
17. T.U.R.T.L.E. Power (ft. MegaRan) :: Klopfenpop

Links:

Play along, August 6th-27th

• Fangamer’s Reformat the Planet DVD set and chiptune-inspired merch
• Watch the Reformet the Planet trailer
• Insane Ian’s “Everything I Know” video
• Watch Triforce Mike play Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World: The Game at E3
• The archive of Nerdy Show’s E3 2010 video coverage
• Watch “Know Your Meme: Weird Al Yankovic Helps Explain Auto Tune”
• Help fund Twenty-Six & a Half, the Weird Al tribute album on Kickstarter
• The official page of Twenty-Six & a Half
• Help fund the next Shael Riley & The Double Ice backfires’ album
• katanaswordfish’s YouTube channel
• Check out Flying High in the Mushroom Kingdom Radio Show Saturdays 1AM-3AM EST

Triforce Mike’s Formspring is pretty amazing – you can ask him ANYTHING there and he answers – sometimes with Internet gibberish, sometimes with profound mico-essays packed with intense geekitude.  Well, the rest of us are tired of him having all the fun, so we decided to do one better!  We invited our fans to call in and ask us anything or geek out with us about whatever comes to mind.  The call was answered!  You reached out to us, Fandom, just like a glowy E.T. finger and touched us in a way that makes a boy a man and Stephen Spielberg very rich.

Along for the whole ride we have not just the fabled Nerdy Show four, but some of our comrades in arms: Nerdy Strip writer/artist, Tony Baldini, video game correspondent, Gina Lockwood, and sci-tech correspondent Jon West - for the whole show, not just a segment.  Together we conquered many a harrowing phone call!

In this episode we discuss Nerdy Show’s secret, and not-so-secret origins – how the team formed and how Brain joined up.  Fans ask hard-hitting questions, like just how much of Red Hulk is in continuity? what kind of characters are we going to play in DC Universe Online? And when the hell is Brain returning to Dungeons & Doritos?  That plus MORE including a way-cool call-in from super-duper remixer, Klopfenpop, our first impressions of Starcraft 2, Cap’s review of Alan Wake: The Signal, and a call from Dean Wallace’s… son!?

 

 Episode 26 :: Dial A Dork [124:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tracks:

1. Song 6502 :: Inversed Phases
2. The Link :: ytcracker
3. Children of the Elder God :: Old Gods of Asgard
4. Zerg, Shotgun, and You :: Whiteboy James and the Blues Express
5. Terran One :: Glenn Stafford
6. Shark Attack :: Math the Band
7. (The Legend of) Area Dolls Guys (a Mix to the Past) (ft. MegaRan) :: Shael Riley & the Double Ice Backfire
8. My Skateboard Will Go On :: Anamanaguchi
9. The Ultimate Showdown (RBN Mix) :: Lemon Demon
10. Left 4 Paper Planes :: Positive Attitude
11. Death From the Skies :: George Hrab
12. If I Had a Rocket Launcher (ft. Possible Oscar) :: Insane Ian

Links:

• Help fund the next Shael Riley & The Double Ice backfires’ album
• Gamers fight back in an epic LAN Center brawl
• Preview commercial for Phil Plait’s Bad Universe
• Poets of the Fall “War” music video featuring IRL Alan Wake
• Video of the WoW Easter Egg in Starcraft 2
• Silent Hill 8 trailer
• Scott Pilgrim game zombies code: down,up, right, down, up, right, down, up, right right, right
• Listen to Cap and Hex on OCAD talk about the Sega Saturn

This summer has been fat-packed with events and they keep coming.  Riding on the heels of Nerdapalooza is the mother of ‘em all – San Diego Comic-Con.  In recent years the convention has become so much more than comic books – it’s the nerd media event with EVERYTHING: movies, teevee, video games, comics, action figures – the whole savory enchilada of pop culture smothered in a verde sauce of geeky juices. It’s a lot to handle!

Nerdy Show has tasted the many flavors of Comic-Con’s meaty soup and picked out the most delicious nuggets of news including the Marvel films, the Green Lantern movie, and other outstanding comic film showings like The Goon! Joining us to talk about his first hand V.I.P. experience in San Diego is A Comic Show and Bleeding Cool‘s Aaron Haaland.  Plus: stabbings, protests, and cosplay bank robberies, hurray!

We also talk about the forthcoming release of PC Gaming blockbuster – Starcraft 2 and Cap give his review of the epic new X-Box Arcade game Limbo and more more more!

 

 Episode 25 :: ComiCon Carne [119:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tracks:

1. Henchmen :: Kirby Krackle
2. Boot Straps :: Shael Riley & the Double Ice Backfire
3. Dokuta Wairi, Rival to the Light :: Sixto Sounds
4. Everclear Hangover IV :: The Crakaz
5. Heights :: Linde
6. Thunder Jack Flash :: G3RSt
7. Penpal :: Anamanaguchi
8. Cost of Living :: Torrentz
9. Dr. Jones :: Sci-Fried
10. Hero vs. Villain :: King Pheenix
11. Only an Expert [Tech Support Glitch Mix] :: Laurie Anderson
12. Title Screen (16-Bit Firefly) :: Doctor Octoroc

Links:

• AMC’s Walking Dead Comic-Con Trailer
• The Goon amazing animated short
• Green Hornet Comic-Con trailer
• RED Comic-Con trailer
• Mind-blowing DCU Online opening movie
• See Darth Vader rob a bank
• VGChartz Starcraft 2 sells 1.8 Million in a day! (Excluding Korea)
• A photo of a South Korean Starcraft tournament

Celebrating the chiptunes genre/movement (whichever you prefer to call it), the Nerdy Show team invites British chiptunes maestro, Pixelh8, on the show to give us his take on it. We also have the amazing return of the incomparable Brian Clevinger! We missed him so much!!

 

 Episode 12 :: Blips & Chips [165:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

1. Love Foolosophy (live at Blipfest 2007) :: virt
2. FXLP :: Mr. Spastic
3. Showdown in the Disco :: Pixelh8
4. THEN GOTO 1980 :: Pixelh8
5. You Were Born to Save the World :: Pixelh8
6. Winter Death :: Fighter X
7. Chuck Norristendo :: Superpowerless
8. *7 :: 8 Bit Bandit
9. Running in the 90′s :: Sabrepulse
10. Island in the Sun (Belmont’s Revisal) :: VideoGame Orchestra
11. The Price Is Right :: Doctor Octoroc
12. Hipster Hoax :: Shael Riley & the Double Ice Backfire
13. Heads Up, Hearts Down :: I Fight Dragons
14. Spacetime Before Suppertime :: Jay Tholen
15. Hexadecimal Genome :: Bit Shifter
16. Itty Bitty Pigeons :: Supercommuter
17. Helix Nebula :: Anamanaguchi

Links we discussed:

Halloween Make Article with crazy flame shooters
Esquire Magazine Augmented Reality Article
Secret of Monkey Island Deleted Extended Scenes
Hugo Chavez is a fucker