This track was featured on the ChipWIN April Fools album 8-Bit Best, an album comprised entirely of Haunted House remixes. I tried to capture the essence of Haunted House’s weird time signatures, and attempted to make them seem more… Intentional. I also tried to tell a story with ambience and sound effects, almost like a cutscene in an NES or Game Boy game. I even turned the lead instrument (which I refer to as a “gadunk”) into 8-Bit Beast’s laugh. To bring the whole thing home, I sprinkled in some references to Cache Boss, my first ChipWIN bonus track.
Category Archives: LSDJ
Mario at a Crab Rave
This is an LSDJ cover of Crab Rave, by Monstercat. This started as a joke over on Twitter, where I combined the sarcastic text Crab Rave memes with a meme from the chip music community, “chiptune is dead.” I wrote the hook in LSDJ, crushed the video into Game Boy-esque graphics (160 x 144px, 4 colors, pea green tint), and added a caption using the LSDJ pixel font. The tweet started gaining traction, so I finished fleshing out the cover and put it on SoundCloud. I used custom waveforms to recreate the steel drums from the original song, and layered waveforms to create a double-octave effect.
Gourmet Skate
This begins as a straightforward cover of Gourmet Race from Kirby Super Star, but becomes a cover of Superman by Goldfinger. This same joke could have been explored as a SiIvaGunner rip, but I was already working on a cover of Gourmet Race and decided it would be fun to perform at Chipspace Open Mic.
The following year, I performed a version where the Gourmet Race portion of the song has 1-2 Oatmeal samples. You can hear that set here.
Spaghetti in my Stocking
This track was featured on the ChipWIN Winter-themed album ChipWINter Wilderness. I started writing this song under the title “Spaghettaboutit,” but I only had the title and melody down, and that I wanted the mood to be happy. It was going to be about the feeling of being awkward and embarrassing myself (or “dropping my spaghetti“), and shaking that feeling off and having fun. I had trouble progressing on the song, so I set it aside for a few years… And then I was approached to create a winter track. I started fleshing the song out with Christmas music tropes (sleigh bells, church bells, generic chord progressions, etc.) and this was the result.
Sound familiar? You may recognize this song from my demo reel. If not, go check that out!
Pumpkin-Flavored Eggnog
This was my first single released to Bandcamp. It’s an original song, named after the season that makes me happiest: autumn! It didn’t have to be based on anything, really, I just wanted to write a happy tune.
Someone Stole All of the Lyrics
A year after Storm Blooper Special: Someone Stole All of the Remixes, we released Volume 2, featuring even more renditions of Storm Blooper’s song. In addition to contributing the ice cream truck sound in the intro track, I submitted an arranged version of Someone Stole All of the Ice Cream with my own lyrics. Scroll down to sing along!
Someone stole all the ice cream,
Now I’m quite saddened,
Wish I had bought some,
Sadly I hadn’t.
I need some ice cream,
I’m on a mission,
I need my daily
Nutrition.
Could someone point me in the right direction,
All I want is to purchase that tasty confection
Can’t someone, anyone, help me to acquire,
The creamy deliciousness that I so desire.
Someone…
Stole all…
Of the…
Ice cream…
Someone stole all the ice cream,
Why can’t I find it?
Here is the freezer,
Nothing behind it.
Nothing can beat my,
Frozen obsession,
I’ll just melt into
Depression.
(BRK solo)
Neopolitan, mint chocolate chip,
banana split, topped with cool whip
orange sorbet, vanilla bean,
coffee chip, filled with caffeine
Strawberry swirl, pistachio,
And don’t forget cookie dough,
Please wake me up from this bad dream,
So I can get my ice cream!
Who stole all of the ice cream,
I have a craving
If I don’t get some,
I’ll stop behaving.
I’ll have that ice cream,
Some day, I swear it,
And when I do I
Won’t share it.
Chiptune Poop
This song was featured on the ChipWIN April Fools album, “Chiptunes=#SrsBsns,” an album full of meme-themed chiptunes. The subject I chose was Youtube Poop, and I used sample kits and custom waveforms to recreate various YTPMV fads and memes in the Game Boy’s wave channel. Structurally, it’s not the most inventive song. I took several Kitsune² songs (which were popular YTPMV sources) and mashed them together to make the background music, resulting in a I V vi IV chord progression. Recreating the meme instruments and making them recognizable was my main focus.
Raichu A Love Song
This was featured on the Nerdfit Valentine’s Day album Love, Lasers, & Lackluster. I decided to step away from the singing wave channel, and figured I’d base a chiptune cover on an old meme: the fact that Sara Bareilles sounds like she’s singing “I’m not gonna Raichu a love song.” Most of this track is a straightforward chiptune cover, but when Sara would ordinarily sing “write you,” the song cuts out and the Raichu cry from Pokémon Red and Blue plays instead. I also imitated a few Pokémon sounds throughout the song, and it ends abruptly with Raichu being caught and the victory fanfare playing.
All Star (MAGShrek’d remix)
This is an LSDJ remix of All Star, by Smash Mouth. The song features some custom wave channel instruments (such as the BRK instrument and the Clean Electric Guitar midi patch), and some sample kits (such as the Colossus Roar, a MAGFest staple.) I didn’t attend MAGFest 2013, but my roommates mentioned that there were posters for Shrek on ice everywhere at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. About a week later (perhaps coincidentally), the first trace of the “Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life” meme appeared. A small circle of my chip scene friends started referencing the meme, so I assumed Shrek had become a MAGFest meme.
The following year, I attended my first MAGFest, and I wrote this cover to perform at Chipspace Open Mic. For every subsequent year that I attended the Fest, I played a slightly different version. Those differences are as follows:
2015 – Improved the “whistle” solo, included a sample of Dan screaming “Get outta here!” from Game Grumps, to accompany the Mycaruba sample. The Grumps were set to attend that year, so I made these changes in the hopes that any of them would be nearby while I was playing.
2017 – Replaced the samples in the breakdown with Buck Bumble vocal samples (the full set including this version can be found here)
2018 – Replaced the whistling with Meet the Flintstones and replaced the Game Grumps samples with samples of Joel’s reaction to 7 Grand Dad
2019 – Changed the notes to Meet the Flintstones, used Snow Halation in part of the whistling solo (later uploaded to SiIvaGunner as Main Theme – Shrek: Fairy Tale Freakdown)
2020 – Removed the entire melody and replaced it with Haunted House (a live performance including this version can be viewed here)
K.K. Chip
This song was my way of demonstrating custom waveforms in LSDJ, by creating a singing Wave channel. More specifically, I recreated K.K. Slider’s samples using the Game Boy’s wave channel, and used that to create a medley of various chiptunes. The first third of the song features songs from Game Boy games, and the remainder of the song features songs from artists within the chip music scene.