My town is crazy.

Murfreesboro has had a few strange events over the last five years I’ve lived here. We’ve had our radical preacher’s getting pushed around by butch lesbians, 20 feet tall displays of aborted fetuses, students setting themselves on fire in a dumpster, uber-conservative tea parties, anti-Obama rallies, and all sorts of other things.

Today there was a group of people marching to the courthouse to sign a petition to stop a Mosque from being built. As I understand it (poorly), there was a counter-protest to this as these people marched from a nearby school into the courthouse.

I got quite a bit of Rutherford county’s ignorance recorded, as well as the typical uninspiring chanting from the liberal college kids of the town. I know quite a few of the pro-Mosque individuals, and they are good people. This isn’t meant to question their methods. Nay, this is merely to allow you a glimpse into the twisted, Islam-hating town that I live.

There’s rednecks. There’s people holding signs. There’s people screaming out things about Afghanistan and how the Muslim people are going to take over America and kill us all.

There’s even a dude wearing a shirt that says ‘infidel’ on it that does the Nazi salute.

This month, I went around taking advantage of what Nashville’s music scene has to offer.

Generally speaking, Nashville can be a pretty boring place as far as actually seeing bands you’d like to see. The majority of bands I’d like to see skip Nashville altogether. They will usually go to Memphis, Chicago, or Atlanta instead. That’s perfectly understandable, Nashville probably isn’t the Holy Grail of ticket sales.

Our town probably also leaves a bad impression on many artists given the fact that nobody ever dances. At least, very rarely does the audience become engaged.

I had liked Mono for quite a while already. This show was utterly amazing and it was everything I thought it was going to be. I really wish there was more to say, but everything about this show was spot on. The venue even had a nice balcony for recording, something the other two shows did not.

I considered the next concert to be more of a chiptune show; however, it was a mixture of chiptunes, metal, and a bit in between.

The Collapsed Desires Tour 2010 featured Smiletron, rainbowdragoneyes, Nullsleep, Destroy Destroy Destroy, and Magic Hammer. I had already seen Magic Hammer, but I was most interested in seeing Nullsleep.

His music isn’t exactly something I listen to on a daily basis, but it has its place. When I listen to chiptunes, it has to be much more aggressive. Nullsleep wasn’t like that. The other bands were.

Smiletron was sort of a chiptunes version of Dot Dot Curve with less perverted lyrics. Rainbowdragoneyes was chiptunes mixed with death metal screaming. I accidentally deleted the video of his performance, but I did get a few seconds worth of audio before a very hilarious snafu occurs. Destroy Destroy Destroy used to be a local band that I never got around to seeing. This group was very energetic, and played a variation of symphonic metal.

I didn’t stick around for Magic Hammer. I had seen enough metal/eurobeat fusions for one year.

Then there was the Ke$ha concert.

Not exactly sure why I went. I like her music to the extent that a normal person can like mainstream pop music. The music isn’t the deepest trench in the sea, nor were most people in the audience. Let’s just say that amid the heat and the inane amounts of bratty high school girls trying to dress as slutty as possible (Hey girls let’s dress ASAP!) one could say that I amounted a great deal of stress.

Burning up, and three people were already sent to the hospital for heat stroke, I struggled maintaining good angles. There was a frat boy in front of me making out with his sweetheart the entire time, and kept switching hats with her. And apparently, there where little girls poking me and snickering until my wife gave them an evil glare.

The concert was fairly flashy. I was led to believe there would be a condom machine shooting condoms and glitter. There was only glitter.

Her set was relatively short, and it felt like only five or six songs. Then again, it’s an all-ages flood benefit concert. I’d expect either Nashville’s curfew to blame, or the extreme heat. Granted, she doesn’t have an armada of songs to pick from.

I don’t think I was necessarily ‘let down’ by the Ke$ha concert, but as it was the final show of the month perhaps I had misjudged what sort of expectations I should rationally maintain.

So what’s in store for July? The agenda dictates that I am going to go see Ear Pwr, Future Islands, Sleigh Bells, Everything Is Terrible, and maybe The Liars.

Dan Deacon came to Nashville last Monday and performed a stellar show at The End; Nuclear Power Pants and Totally Michael opened for him, and they were (almost) equally as brilliant.

I took quite a bit of video footage from all three bands, and perhaps offer some insight as to how awesome the whole night was. Be sure to check out BFM Podcast 19 [forthcoming] to hear more about my impressions of the night.

The first band was Totally Michael. He’s sort of a pop-rock act that’s conscious of hip hop culture. It’s exactly the most serious music, and it’s a lot of fun.

The second act was a group called Nuclear Power Pants. They are a bit more aggressive, and had more tendencies of psych-rock. The show had lots of glow in the dark objects, and people dressed up in costumes. There was one member on the audience floor opposite of me that you may not see. I think he was playing an oscillator or something, I’m not exactly certain.

Lastly, there’s Dan Deacon to show off. There were some parts of his show I didn’t record like the human snake chain tunnel. Everyone had to form a tunnel for us to pass through and work our way through back to the inside. I also didn’t record the last few songs. Wham City and Crystal Cat are my favorite songs so I compromised my good recording spot to get next to his recording table in order to actually enjoy myself and freak out a bit.

Be sure to buy his album too!

I had the fortunate opportunity to see Sunn O))) at an amazing set at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville September 30, 2009.

It was a face-melting experience that I won’t soon forget. Namely because I recorded a good portion of it. I apologize for the bad sound quality. I was right up front and did not figure out a good way to pad the microphone appropriately.

Sunn O))) is widely recognized as Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, but at this concert they had a guy on the synthesizer who also played trombone. Attila Csihar from Mayhem performed the vocals as seen in the later videos.

This is a playlist of youtube videos, since youtube only allows 10 minutes at once. Just click on the corresponding arrows on the window to move between the different shots. Each are around nine and a half minutes.

You can buy their new album now. I hear it’s pretty great. There’s a lot more instrumentation than in their previous endeavors, but it’s supposed to be getting a lot of good reviews.

Sure you can read reviews for this game, but there’s no better way to judge a game than seeing visually what the title has to offer.

Sexy Poker is a strip-poker game for the Nintendo Wii’s Wiiware platform. You either play texas hold’em or blackjack against several manga-styled female characters. There are certain goals, and as you win more money the girl will take off part of her clothes.

This is Black Flower Music Podcast episode 13, and we have some crazy musings to share with you tonight. We have our podcast tagged on iTunes for Explicit, but this one definitely merits the label. Join us this week as we talk about some hot summer movies, Japan’s new summer anime season, BlazBlue, Michael Jackson, and perverted female duo dance music. On the table this week for our segment is “The latest hotness”. You know that thing where everyone goes and buys the latest games because all their friends do, or something… I’m not going to explain it here! Then you wouldn’t need to listen to the podcast

Introduction- We actually introduce ourselves this time! Thanks HorusInExile for noticing!

What’s Your Week? It was July 4th, so I’m sure you can imagine there were human sacrifices and fireworks and the usual rituals that just scream “Freedom”…

Segment: Bend over, it’s time to buy all the latest and greatest stuff without thinking twice about whether you even want the game or not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a) Anime -- Higurashi kai -- NEEDLESS -- Code Geass

b) Gaming -- BlazBlue, Piyotama, Sonic’s Genesis Collection, zen pinball, Red Faction Guerilla

c)Music -- Gorillaz, Checkicco, Lords of Acid, Michael Jackson, Baadd, Avenue D

d) Movies/TV -- The Hangover, UP

Housekeeping: itunes | RSS | MP3 | podcast@blackflowermusic.com | twitter

 13 - We R Teh Newest So We Coo! [1:35:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1341)

Everyone’s favorite leek-toting green-haired mascot invaded Japan’s Playstation Home central plaza server today to promote her new Playstation Portable game, “Project Diva”. Here’s a look at what the Hatsune Miku performance looked liked:

Those Japanese people really love their Vocaloid, I suppose. Expect to hear impressions on Hatsune Miku’s new game Project Diva in Black Flower Music Podcast episode 13!

--UPDATE--

Seems like there were some warning signs first. A floating girl in the sky, some leeks on the ground, and a mystical floating leek haunting the rails.

The 3DO was known for its cool shooters, and its awesome sports titles. However, as the fated system began to go under, almost anyone could license a game for it.

Most of those ‘games’ were adult videos formatted for use with the 3DO. I say adult, but it’s mostly softcore stuff or “please take my picture player-sama!” types of visual novel-esque games.

Sort of like a precursor to DVD, although familiar territory to laserdisc owners. The games had nearly VCD quality video, but I’m assuming not full VCD spec as a VCD add-on was later released for the system. Some of these games were straight-up menu-driven videos. Others, such as Mind Teazzer was an adult jigsaw puzzle wherein the reward was a Vivid! Entertainment produced clip.

Being one of those ‘games’, Body Conscious Part 1: Shinjuku & Takashi Digital Rave! does not really have much of a summary. Some club owners just wanted advertisement, I think.

We’re back again this week with yet another exciting anime segment! Don’t worry, we also talk about E3 in-depth. We have a guest joining us, but we felt like leaving it a mystery…sort of. As usual, we also have a youtube playlist

Witty Introduction

How’s Your Week?

Segment: Mind Game Discussion

Games: infamous, Trash Panic,Uncharted 2 Beta, Wolfenstein 3D

E3: Modnation Racers, Final Fantasy XIV, God of War III, Hannah Montana, Scribblenauts, Brutal Legend

Anime: Saikano, Kare Kano

Music: Dinosaur JR, Lady Sovereign, Miles Davis

Movies/TV: CONAN RETURNS! Colbert Report goes to Iraq!

Craigslist Missed Connections: Naked women, Mary Kay, and Crossdressing!

Housekeeping: itunes | RSS | MP3 | podcast@blackflowermusic.com | twitter

 011 - Mind Game Meltdown [1:23:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (914)

Part 4 out of 5 podcasts we’re recording this week. Unfortunately, I did not schedule a special guest for this episode. Unless you’d like to consider alcohol as the third wheel in this relationship, then I guess we did have a guest tonight! In this episode we discuss Games as an art form. You know, games that make a point. Games that go beyond the guns, the pigskin, and the testosterone bleeding from the seams.

We also talk about some movies. Namely, Observe and Report and also the new Star Trek film. House MD and Dollhouse round out the TV segment.

Also, remember episode five, where I talked about making a noise music AMV?

Intro-

What’s your DAY

Segment: Games as Art -- What makes a game artistic? As opposed to…just “pretty looking”. That sort of thing. You’ll understand.

Agenda: Movies/TV -- House. Dollhouse. Star Trek. Observe and Report.

Housekeeping: itunes | RSS | MP3 | podcast@blackflowermusic.com | twitter

Tomorrow will be our final episode in this quintet of awesomeness. We will be discussing Moe’ culture. Yeah. It’s an anime thing. I don’t quite understand it myself, but we can all learn together! And then get upset that every new anime has too much moe, and you want to strangle something.

 08 - Games as Art [0:57:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (856)