Recently it became necessary for my wife and I to wade back into the swamps of Florida. The tales spawned by that journey are many but this post is about just one: a sojourn to The Haven on Monday the 19th, where I took in the phenomenal experience that is a performance by The Protomen, and had a fine chat with a couple of them besides.

Last Summer, I made a similar trek to Nerdapalooza with Bryan (that’s Autopsy IV to you) and was disappointed to see The Protomen’s efforts undermined by all manner of sound problems. Especially after, as Commander graphically retold at the recent show, they risked life and limb to get there; piloting their tour van, Jesse Christine, on a nervy course down the peninsula with a near-total lack of braking ability.

With The Protomen’s recent appearance at PAX East, YouTube has been flooded with (often crap, sometimes not) videos of their performance, reminding me that my previous experience was not representative. So when I discovered, my appetite already stoked, that my visit to swamp state would coincide with that of our freedom fighters, my excitement was …frothy.

And so it was that I found myself broiling wetly in the cell phone waiting lot at Tampa International Airport this past Monday afternoon, soon answering my brother’s signal to retrieve him and dash as swiftly as we dared through searing sun and relentless rain to land at dusk upon the threshold of The Haven, nodding and grinning foolishly to an amused Panther as he strode to the door, amused by my stupor.

A guitarist co-worker of mine told me to expect excellent sound and lighting at The Haven (the fortunate result of Full Sail University’s immediate proximity) and his words were true. The technical production of the show was flawless excepting only the volume of Panther’s Protoman helmet mic, which probably should have been set up separately from what he used for the rest of the show.

I wish I could give you a set list, but I’m terrible about that. I can’t interrupt my intake of the performance to take notes, and I’m simply unable to remember which songs were played unaided. Just pretend that, whatever your favorite Protomen songs might be, they were played. It was an energetic performance with few lulls, and a thoroughly engaged audience. There was clapping, stomping, more clapping, fist pumping, yet more clapping, indeed more fist pumping, and sometimes too much singing from the crowd.

When the music stopped, I turned to find the entire bar had filled behind me. Dazed, I made my way through the crowd, found my brother who had backed away when a sort of mosh pit sprang up even as I pushed through it to the edge of the stage, and left the bar. As I considered whether to find and attend the after-party at A Comic Shop (allegedly not far) others filtered out and conversations began, eventually including several of The Protomen.

I approached Commander and struck up a conversation that grew and mutated as other participants came and went, including Sir Robert Bakker and Nerdapalooza’s Hex. We talked about upcoming shows (they’ll be playing Nerdapalooza again this year, if you hadn’t heard) and Act III, which Commander was exceptionally cagey about and from which I took away two clues. But for the safety of The Protomen, I will maintain silence on those planned operations.

Yours truly surprisingly struck a nerve when asking why the Father of Death single was not made available digitally, sans accompanying physical media. Commander expressed, let’s say, passionate umbrage and some chagrin at my complete disinterest in owning CDs and records. So much that after our conversation had tapered and he’d disappeared into the bar again, he soon came pounding back out the door toward me, Act II case and its booklet open in his hands, perplexed album owner trailing after.

“This is what I’m talking about!” he proclaimed, going on to describe the art on every surface of Act II’s packaging and every page of its booklet, front-to-back, while swiveling and turning the subjects of his narration to ensure my maximum ocular intake. I smiled, nodding and returning comment with each new vision. “And here’s a train, ’cause there’s a train in the song!” “Oh yeah, Light leaving the city. Sure!” A less hardy soul, one who perhaps had not been on the front lines of humanity’s fight for survival against an army of oppressing robots for years now, may have felt satisfied that his message was communicated after a few of these exchanges. Commander soldiered on, stopping only when there was nothing more for him to show me.

The subject’s owner looked on, having eased slightly but still alert. Apparently Commander would provide the second-to-last autograph required for his complete set, decorating the interior of his Act II case. But when my tour of the Act II art was complete and Commander found a place for his scrawl, the marker was found to be dry, having sat open for the duration of his sprint and explication. Another marker was produced, black rather than the silver of all the other autographs, and the collector’s request was fulfilled.

I hadn’t simply been placating him with my responses to the narrated journey through Act II’s physical aspects. I was totally unprepared to defend my digital-only music consumption, giving only a lame “uh, portability…” when prompted to provide some excuse for it. But all of the usual arguments for physical media, though brought up, are not why I found myself agreeing with Commander. The thing about The Protomen is that their songs are a soundtrack for their story, which is delivered in whole in the CD booklets.

Before my brother and I decided to call it a night and make our way back to Tampa Bay by a reasonable hour (I’m not as young as I used to be) Commander decided I needed my own Act II package, retrieving it from the merch booth and delivering it himself. Whether he did it out of kindness or to challenge my anti-CD lifestyle, I don’t know, but I gladly accepted it with the anticipation of devouring the booklet’s contents as I eventually did during my flight back to cool, green Seattle.

Hex has finally posted more concrete details about this year’s Nerdapalooza. There’s good news and bad.

The good news is that Nerdapalooza is returning to a two-stage format, setting up in the newly-remodeled Orlando Airport Marriott, which is hoped to reduce the downtime between performances and the resulting, notorious schedule drift that was such a problem at last year’s event. Be sure to check out the event rates for rooms at the hotel in this post.

The bad news is that this required rescheduling the entire event, so that it is now on Saturday, July 17 and Sunday, July 18. The reason that’s unfortunate is that it meant Dual Core was forced to withdraw from the bill due to scheduling conflict. Dual Core’s most recent album, Next Level, was one of our picks for 2009′s Essential Listening, so naturally I’m bummed about the news.

You can find the always up-to-date list of performers on Nerdapalooza.org. Personal favorites among them are MC Frontalot, Schaffer the Darklord, Captain Dan & The Scurvey Crew, and Random.

A few of the names I’m hoping to see appear on the list soon are The Protomen (their current tour dates only extend through May), Scrub Club (especially Kabuto the Python and Dr. Awkward), and Metroid Metal. To be honest, I’m on the fence about flying across the country for it this year (I was nearly local, last) without the addition of a few more of the performers I’m interested in seeing.

There’s an unfortunate lack of organized information on the official site, but you can find concise venue info on the Facebook event page, and info about the artists on this page of the official site. For anything else, you’ll have comb their blog, and failing that, contact the organizers directly.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the coolest gig poster of all time. Of all time!

Yours truly, a resident of the coolest neighborhood of all time (yes, of all time! it is the Center of the Universe, after all) in which mister The Front’s touring will occur for Seattle denizens, was happy to hear that he could lend a hand in getting the word out locally. But look, I’ve got a website that knows no geographical boundaries. I’m international. Intergalactic, even.

So while the poster above implores you to attend one of Fremont, Seattle’s fine venues, High Dive, on the 8th day of May, 2010 to bear witness to the astounding feats of lyrical and musical entertainment purveyed by MC Frontalot and our own Billy the Fridge, I also wish to provide for my readers outside the comfortable environs of Seattle a list of dates and locations which may be more suited to your geographical and temporal requirements.

Not yet familiar with the Front? Check out my recent post about his freshly born album, Zero Day, which is worthy of your attention at the least, and perhaps even a modicum of worship. If the samples included within said post do not sate you, and I assure you the reality is that they may not, you will find a bevy of additional treats on Frontalot’s own portion of the world wide web.

If you are of the type to have your visual stimulation habit supplied by Netflix, you also have available to you the documentary film, Nerdcore Rising, which takes you along for MC Frontalot & friends’ first tour some years past, culminating in his performance at the legendary Penny Arcade Expo (once PAX, now PAX Prime) in this very city. You may even stream this documentary film to your computer immediately, if you’re into that sort of thing. I know I am. I hope you are too.

See you at High Dive!

UPDATE: Here’s the Facebook event page!

The Front’s latest endeavor is high quality awesome, so let’s just eliminate any ambiguity about that right now.

To be frank, I’ve had a hard time embracing MC Frontalot’s music prior to Zero Day, despite appreciating his stage presence at Nerdapalooza and PAX, and thinking he was a pretty cool guy based on repeated viewings of the Nerdcore Rising documentary and a short conversation at Nerdapalooza last summer. His peculiar delivery is often, let’s be honest, challenging and the non-lyrical elements weren’t all that compelling on their own, but there’s unquestionably a lot of cleverness and humor throughout every Frontalot album.

But Zero Day succeeds on all fronts (yes, I did that.)  All of the characteristic terse lyricism is still there but it seems like Frontalot has found a way to employ it without staggering through a murderously jagged syllabic rhythm that shakes off any but the most tenacious listener. The instrumentation has likewise been raised to a new level, with fun, interesting music backing every track.

Finally, the collaborators lacing this album all had fantastic contributions and I think Zero Day is so excellent as much due to their efforts as to the Front and his perennial cohort. The album would have been an altogether different creature absent their additions.

Though I have many expressions of wonderment I could continue to offer in service of Zero Day’s edification, every album has its warts, and I would not be me if I did not strive to make them evident alongside the features deserving of adulation. But my grousing may be easily confined to two topics here. I like John Hodgman and all, but his skit was sadly a clunker. Just not funny.

The other thing is …The Painstakingly Concealed Secret Track. Which only annoys me because it isn’t easy enough to just access the track if you’re not interested in playing a game to get it. Hell, it’s a miracle I managed to throw enough time together to make this post, I don’t really have the time or attention to play mini-games to access stuff I paid to hear.

Anyway, check out a couple of my favorites from the album and go buy it. Frontalot actually sells FLAC copies of his albums. Support that my friends, for it is far too rare a thing.

MC Frontalot – Zero Day
MC Frontalot – The Council Of Loathing

MC Frontalot’s official site

In hindsight, I’m still not sure how it happened.  Sure, I loved the original, self-titled Protomen album.  But it was a frenetic, metal-laced cannon shot of an album with only occasional moments of contrasting lo-fi, acoustic notes.  Act II is another matter entirely.  It retains some of the first album’s organic components, and rather than metal it features a fearlessly executed retro ’80s pop-rock style.

I have to admit, my age probably has a lot to do with my initial bias against that element of their composition, where younger listeners probably find it as endearing as I found ’70s rock when I was growing up.  Nonetheless, my initial reluctance to embrace Act II has been fully reversed.  I now find myself listening to the new Protomen album more than anything else in my collection, combined.

Yup.  It has me in a grip, no doubt.  I find myself wondering how many times I can talk about the Protomen before I annoy my wife enough for her to say something about it.  And my followers on Twitter.  And Facebook.  And IRC.  You get the idea.

It’s hard to say where the turning point was.  Certainly, I became more and more engaged as I worked out the lyrics and the story they tell.  And I suppose I’ve built up some immunity to the cheese factor through repeated exposure.  Regardless of the causes, I’m now free enjoy Act II for what it is: a thoroughly awesome concept album that tells an overdriven drama of heroes, villains, and the robots they create.

I am so sold on the new album at this point that I want everyone to hear it.  If you like robots.  If you like the hero’s journey.  If you like music.  If you have hearing.  If you have partial hearing.  Or even just a pulse.  You get the point; Act II – The Father Of Death is Essential Listening.

Official Protomen Site | Random Protomen Stuff on YouTube

A lot of nerdy music, and especially nerdcore hip-hop, focuses on consumer-based traits of geeks and nerds like science fiction movies and video games. Some, like my friend Steve Rush (whom you know as funky49) have included science in their music. (His Rapbassador album deserves its own post here.) But I think this is the first time I’ve seen anyone effectively put music into science instead of the other way around.

There are, so far, only two videos available at symphonyofscience.com, but they are devastating works and if we’re lucky there are more to come.

As noted on the site, Sagan’s landmark series, Cosmos, is available on Hulu. You know what to do.

OK? No, not really. I couldn’t get halfway through that. Not even close. I’ve never been a Star Trek fan, but I can understand it. I cannot understand the Klingon immersion thing. The costumes and the speech… I just don’t get it. This is not nerdy, it’s just lame.

Now, topical in message and contrasting in quality, we have this:

Ahhh… that’s more like it. Alright, back to whatever you were doing.

If you read my PAX recap (I’ll understand if you didn’t) you’ll already know that I’ve taken a shine to Metroid Metal. Their performance at PAX was thoroughly enjoyable and I resolved to pick up their music immediately.

This album is good old-fashioned [metal] fun. The Metroid themes are easily recognizable, and the music is very tightly played. Listening to Varia Suite takes me right back to those red-eyed explorations of lonely, alien worlds scattered with abandoned structures and crawling with hostile life forms.

So much of the mood and atmosphere of the Metroid games is conveyed through its scores, and if anything, Metroid Metal’s translations not only preserve their message but amplify it. And where, perhaps, they deviate or embellish, I assure you it is always a successful attempt at more completely rocking.

Metroid Metal also gets kudos from me for using Bandcamp to allow a full preview of the entire album, and at least as important, offer the music digitally in all manner of formats, including Ogg and FLAC (yes!!) So I feel it would be redundant and perhaps a little rude to do my normal practice of putting up MP3 links when I can just allow you to check out their music directly.

So here you go, check it out for yourself! I particularly like these tracks:

4. Item Room (NES)
7. Ridley (NES)
8. Phendrana Drifts (MP)
14. Theme (NES)

Official Metroid Metal Site, MM on Bandcamp,

Maja (pronounced “MAY-ja” by the way–a surprise to me) isn’t incompetent, but I felt his even tone throughout each track conveyed boredom, and I could only echo that temperament when listening, often completely tuning out the music as it rolled on smoothly.

The lyrics are often clever or cleverly pronounced, but the lack of any emphasis at all made paying attention to them a chore. The one exception to this impression was “Hip Hop Daikou” which has nice, minimal beats, a fun chorus, and more of the punchy flow that I find engaging. If I understand correctly, it’s outside of the Bleach-themed set of tracks on the release, explaining the scattered references to other anime and video games.

The samples were totally lost on me. Not only did they fail to add anything to the overall composition because of language, but I didn’t recognize any of them, though one guy sounded a lot like Gendo Ikari in Neon Genesis. Wait, that was indeed the same guy. Thanks, Wikipedia.

Maybe a Bleach fan would get a lot more out of this album, but for me, the so-so musical aspect combined with complete lack of familiarity or interest in the theme made this a very hard album to get through, and after a few subsequent attempts it didn’t get any better.

However, I do look forward to checking out what Maja does next. I think if he were to create a more personal musical project, it would result in a very interesting and engaging album. As a whole, Bleach’d Out was not for me.

Maja – Hip Hop Daikou

Maja on ReverbNation

In all honesty, I was not expecting to like The Free Estate, but Karl Olson, aka Ultraklystron’s difficult-to-categorize new release turned me right around.  Before I knew it I had his sharp rhymes and clever hooks bouncing around in my head at all hours, unable to be exorcised without touring the tracks a few more times back-to-back.

My expectation has to do with Ultraklystron’s rep for anime and manga fandom.  While I was a rabid fan of Neon Genesis Evangelion when I was younger, that’s the only anime* I could ever claim to be a fan of, and as for Manga, well, I feel that the best work was done a long time ago.  So I don’t expect to catch any of the references, and I expect the music to be as …how to put this gently… juvenile (whoops, that didn’t work) as those influences.

*Anything Hayao Miyazaki does transcends its medium and any genre-boxing to become simply wonderful storytelling.

But either I was mistaken in my impressions, or I’m losing my perspective as an outsider of this music scene, or this release was a departure from previous efforts, as it rests so lightly on any of those undesirable influences that they are easily digested.  Indeed happily digested, as this is one of those nerdcore releases that strikes me as having strong cross-over potential.  With great production, smooth performance, and engaging material, this has everything and more that you could expect out of a good pop album.

I challenge you to avoid nodding and grinning along to the refrain of Webcam Girls or Greatest, or if you go ahead and download the full, free release, empathizing with him in Not A Criminal and Dumb Crush.  I expect that, like me, you’ll wonder how it went by so fast when the whole album has finished playing, and that’s because (and this is the best part) this free version of The Free Estate is a subset of the tracks from the full release.  Kudos to Karl for embracing the new methods of getting your music noticed.  I’ll be the first in line when the digital retail release is ready!

Ultraklystron – Webcam Girls
Ultraklystron – Greatest

Karl Olsen’s Website, The Free Estate on Rapidshare, Buy Ultraklystron Music