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Harmonix scores Freezepop, Super Meat Boy composer, more for Amplitude
There's going to be less talk, more rokk for Harmonix's Amplitude Kickstarter campaign going forward, as the band Freezepop has joined the fight to bring a new version of the 2003 PS2 cult classic to life. The band, which frequently collaborates with Harmonix, won't be alone in their quest, as plenty of other high-profile artists are ready to lend their talents to the project. Danny Baranowsky (Super Meat Boy, Crypt of the Necrodancer), Anamanaguchi (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), C418 (Minecraft), Jim Guthrie (Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP) and Kasson Crooker (FreQuency, Amplitude) will all contribute original music to the game should it reach its funding goal, Harmonix announced via Kickstarter update. As of this writing, the campaign is just shy of $400,000 with a goal of $775,000. Harmonix has until 5 p.m. EST, May 23 to reach their goal. If the crowdfunding campaign fails, Harmonix has said that Amplitude will go "back on the shelf." [Image: Harmonix]
Rock Band Weekly: Freezepop, PAX artists, Jackson 5 and more
Rock Band Weekly celebrates PAX next week with tracks from artists performing at the big games convention in Seattle this weekend. The PAX trax come from nerdcore bands and artists like Freezepop, Jonathan Coulton, MC Frontalot and Paul & Storm; with each song at a wallet-friendly price of $1. Those looking for mainstream musica can consume tracks from 3 Doors Down and The Jackson 5. Check out all the stuff coming to the various versions of Rock Band next week after the break. Select a platform below to view complete DLC listing:
Blizzard at PAX this weekend
As we reported a little while back, Blizzard will be in attendance at the sold out Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, Washington this weekend, and Crygil has posted on the forums that they'll have everything playable that they had at BlizzCon: the new Diablo III Monk class, the Cataclysm expansion, and the Starcraft II singleplayer campaign. Somewhat strangely, they don't actually say that the Cataclysm expansion will be the same starter zones that we played at BlizzCon -- they may actually have some of old world Azeroth open and playable. But on the other hand, they'd probably announce something like that if it was happening, and given that they'll have a smaller setup than BlizzCon, we don't imagine there'll be anything really new there.In other WoW news at PAX, our friends at The Guild will be screening the entire season 2 on Friday evening -- Jeff Lewis and Sandeep Parikh will be there, along with producer Kim Evey and Wil Wheaton (Felicia is headed off to Dragon*Con this weekend). Unfortunately, the screening is during the Friday evening concert, and so you might have to miss Anamanaguchi, Metroid Metal, and MC Frontalot. My favorites Jonathan Coulton and Freezepop are playing on Saturday night, though, so you can fit in both of those if you like.
PAX 2008: Highlights from the Jonathan Coulton concert
Last night, Jonathan Coulton (preceeded by the awesome OneUps and Frezepop) rocked the PAX 2008 house in the only way a bearded man with an acoustic guitar standing in front of a crowd of nerds can -- with clever puns and nerd references. Check out our highlights reel of the show, including: A "Still Alive" duet with Dr. Horrible's Felicia Day A more subdued, romantic "Code Monkey" A cover of They Might Be Giant's "Birdhouse in Your Soul" A sea of arms stretched out mumbling "eat your brains" Lots of great Coulton banter We've embedded the highlights reel above. Check out the separate videos for "Code Monkeys" and "Birdhouse in Your Soul" after the break.
PAX 2008 Music Video: Jonathon Coulton's 'Flickr' and 'Not This One'
Last night we attended the first PAX 2008 concert, featuring The OneUps, Freezepop, and Jonathan Coulton headlining. There are a multitude of great moments (highlight reel to come later this weekend), but one thing that stuck out was Coulton's performance of "Flickr" and special song "Not This One," both songs featuring video accompaniment aided by sound guy Bart Brad. Check out the live performance, embedded above.
Harmonix: No Freezepop in RB2, maybe in the DLC
Bad news for Freezepop fans (like us here at Joystiq) -- the synthpop trio, of which Kasson Crooker, Senior Producer at Rock Band creators Harmonix, is a member, does not have a song in their latest game, Rock Band 2. And that's a shame -- they've had a new song on the disc in every Harmonix game since FreQuency (including Phase, their iPod game), which makes this the first Harmonix game without a new Freezepop tune.Shocked at this revelation, we confronted Harmonix at the Rock Band event this evening, and they confirmed that yes, there is no Freezepop song on the disc in RB2. The reason given to us was that Freezepop hasn't recorded any new music lately, and that they didn't have anything new to put out. But our source at Harmonix did say to look out for some Freezepop DLC -- they may be planning, we were told, a two or three-song downloadable pack of "sweet and cold and fruity and plastic-y" music.There's a rub, though: there is a new Freezepop song in the recently released Guitar Hero: On Tour DS game. Guitar Hero, as you may know, was originally created by Harmonix, but since GH3 has been owned by Activision and developed by Neversoft. Are Liz Enthusiasm and her two compadres jumping ship?Update: Commenter skie reads Liz' livejournal. Apparently the band never got paid for any of their songs in the Harmonix games since Guitar Hero, but they did get paid for the GH:OT appearance. They say they want to open themselves up to as many different fans as possible, and that means showing up in other companies' games.
Rock Band Weekly: OXM disc now for download
The Rock Band songs featured in the February issue of OXM are now available to download for a dollar each. For those looking to save a couple bucks, there's always the option of hunting down an old issue of OXM at the local library and checking if the disc is still miraculously in there.HMX pack (240 MS points / $3) "Rock Rebellion" - Bang Camaro (80 MS points / $1) "Shake" - Count Zero - (80 MS points / $1) "Super Sprode" - Freezepop (80 MS Points / $1) Videos for this week's Rock Band DLC can be found after the break ... yes, enough people asked, so we're going to keep doing it. Don't forget to download "Still Alive," which is available for free. The songs will be available next Tuesday for Xbox 360 and PSN owners will have it available when the store goes back up sometime in April.
Mega64 goes Jonze for Harmonix game regulars: Freezepop
If you've ever played a rhythm game by those musical connoisseurs at Harmonix, you're probably familiar with the idiosyncratic synth-pop stylings of Boston's own Freezepop. From 2001's Frequency ("Science Genius Girl") to last year's iPod smash-hit Phase ("Pop Music is Not a Crime"), their dessert-inspired name has become synonymous with the music/rhythm genre.We can only imagine that the boys at Mega64 leapt at the opportunity to direct the latest music video for the inimitable Bostonian trio: "Brainpower", one of the unlockable songs featured on Rock Band. As far as we know, this is Mega's first music video (apart from their bastardization of a well-traveled internet classic). What do you think of this epic gaming culture collision? Do Rocco, Derrick and Shawn have the chops to "get their Jonze on"?
iTunes compiles Rock Band tracks
I've been rocking on Rock Band almost since it came out (almost done with expert on guitar and hard on drums -- stupid bass pedal is driving me nuts -- and the band my friends and I formed, Fel and the Boatmen, just got ourselves a jet). And now, iTunes has made it easy to rock even away from the game: they've collected all the Rock Band tracks all in one place. That's the good news -- the bad news is that all together, the tracks will cost you a whopping $73.26. That's still 99 cents a song, so exactly no price cuts for a bundle purchase.The tracks don't exactly match up to the game, either; first of all, even where the game has cover tracks, iTunes has the original artists (and sometimes, live versions of the tracks, which aren't necessarily the same as the game). And there are no bonus tracks -- Freezepop is in iTunes (as is Mother Hips, my other favorite bonus song) but not on the Rock Band list at all. Still, if you absolutely have to own one of the Rock Band songs, I guess it's nice that iTunes put them all in one place for you.[Via X3F]
