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SHOWNOTES

00:00-Show Intro
18:09-Drunk Dials
20:31-Mailbag
23:43-Discussion Segment: Beatlemania!
51:32-Beer Talk: Lakemaid Beer-Shell’s
57:00-Retro Review: Starfox (SNES)
65:38-Lightning Round
82:36-The Last Shot
83:27-Show Close

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DGR: 06.27.2011

iPhone 3GS: I know, I know. The obvious choice for the Apple Fanboy in the audience but bear with me. I never bought a 3G back when Steve and Co. debuted the new “faster internet” version of the iPhone. My old 2G hooked into the web just fine, ran Apps decently and did everything I wanted it too. Or so I thought. With this little beauty, not only do I have a much needed compass to help me find my own house when I’m lost, it allows me to stream podcasts and music on the fly and take videos of my kids before they turn into teenagers tomorrow. Hell, I can even mistakenly send that picture of me with no pants to my loan officer instead of just texting him insults to his mother. Technology is, truly, grand. What was already a device that had my very life housed inside it has somehow become an even more important and valuable piece of equipment. I’m never without it.

Vintage 1952 Telecaster Reissue: Like every red-blooded American boy, I’ve always wanted to be a guitar player. Aided by the impending Classic Rock inspired Shmopera 3.0, I decided it was time to stop fucking around and do it. I’ve had my eye on this guitar since I first saw Springsteen playing on an actual 1952 Telecaster as a kid and when it came time to buy my first serious guitar, there could be no other. It may be a reissue but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t rock the shit out of everything you play. It’s a dream and plays like a classic American guitar should: loud and sexy. Add in a new VOX tube amp and I’m in rock and roll heaven. Tom Petty cover band, here I come. If I wasn’t married, I would sleep with this thing. I’m in love.

Up!: I’ve heard tell of animated movies that made crowds weep with emotion. I’ve never had an animated movie move me that way, until Pete Doctor’s Up!, that is. In the course of about three minutes, the story of a man and his wife goes by and ends with the main character sitting alone and holding a balloon after the funeral of his wife. An animated movie had me crying in the theater. Call me a baby, call me a wimp. I call Pete Doctor and the artists at Pixar some of the best storytellers and craftsmen that have ever lived. Thank God they exist.

Twitter: Hilden from 2008 wants to punch the Hilden of 2009 right in his pussy fucking face with this pick. It’s true, however, that Twitter has become one of the most important communication tools for Drunken Gamers Radio and it’s community of kick ass listeners. Not to mention, it’s a great way to keep in touch with what’s going on in world of entertainment, politics, comedy, music, comics and anything else I have an interest in. It’s everything I love about forums but without all the shit I hate. It’s what I wanted Facebook to be before a shit ton of people I didn’t even talk to in High School made the social network the equivalent of a yearbook popularity contest. Twitter is how I like to keep in touch with people. Short and to the point communications with a link to more shit if you want it. Twitter, I hate to say it, is the missing piece to the DGR/Robot Panic puzzle that started with a forum burned to the ground by a merciless robot. I love to Tweet. There. I said it. Fuck you.

LOST: For a show that really started to flounder around Season 3, this show really found it’s stride and once again sits as one of the best shows on television. In it’s 2009 Season, the element of time travel was used, not as a groan-inducing “we don’t know where to go from here” cop-out but as a brilliantly executed tool that was integral to a compelling and pivotal story arc. With only one season to go, LOST has taken it’s place as one of the most engaging stories I have witnessed on television and in 2009, it consistently delivered on it’s promise. My only regret is that it’s only got one more season before it’s over.

The Beatles Re-Masters: I’ve always been a Beatles fan but I’ve never seriously delved into their music. I’m not sure if it just wasn’t the right time in my life or what, but I’ve always had a passing fancy with the group. When the Re-Masters hit this year, the aspiring audio engineer in me decided to pick them up just to learn something about the mastering process. What ended up happening is a multiple month long voyage of musical discovery regarding song writing and construction. Those lessons ended up infusing most of my contributions to the ZomBOOsical! and gave me a whole new insight into what makes a great band great. My only regret is that it took me this long to really understand what the Beatles were all about. The new versions of these classic albums not only sound fantastic but they also restored my love of the physical medium of the CD for my music purchases. While I still download many songs digitally, if it’s anything of worth, I’m back to buying it on CD thanks to these albums.

The Protomen: Act II-The Father of Death: We’re obviously big fans of the rock “opera” thing here at Robot Panic. As such, The Protomen’s latest offering is one of my favorite albums of the year. Yes, it tells a great little story that is set in the world of one of my favorite videogames. However, it’s the songs themselves that set this album apart. They all have great hooks, some fantastic 80′s synth action and they’re catchy as hell. It’s a really well produced album and from a musical perspective, it sets the bar high for other folks hoping to do much the same. Um..yeah…that would be us.

Dexter: I’m a bit late to the party on this one, but I have to mention that Dexter goes down as one of the most cleverly crafted shows to appear on television. It got my wife and I to plunk down another $10.00 a month we don’t have just to see them all in time. I was in love with Season 3, even though many didn’t like it as much. I, however, thought it would be pretty hard to top. With Season 4′s scary, disturbing, brilliant and completely shocking story now over, I have NO idea where things go from here but I’ve never been more anxious to see a season of television start.

And that season finale ending scene will haunt me for months. I’m fucking serious.

All of You: Excuse the bit of cheese that’s about to be written here. I have to say that one of my favorite things of 2009 was all of you who read, listen and contribute to our little home on the web. I’m not gonna lie. A little over a year ago, I was done with websites, forums and podcasts. For reasons of my own addled brain, I was fighting hard to kill everything and shut it all down. Thanks to my good friends talking me down off the ledge, we managed to find what was missing and move things in a more positive direction for the three of us.

In turn, all of you who have been with us since the beginning of Team Fremont (or even GWX) and those of you only a week old have written in, called, submitted articles, left iTunes reviews and (most shockingly) donated your hard earned money to our show. There are simply no words to express how grateful I am for all of you and your contributions. I only hope that our show and site continue to entertain you or at least make you laugh once before you unsubscribe in disgust.

Thank you for making 2009 the best year we’ve ever had.

2009 has been a pretty big year for The Beatles. Not only did they issue amazingly remastered versions of all their albums, they introduced a whole new audience to their music through The Beatles Rock Band. Right around that same time, they quietly released a game of a different sort: The Beatles Trivial Pursuit, the perfect game for uber fans of the Fab Four…like myself.

Put out by USAopoly, the game follows the standard conventions of Trivial Pursuit, with a few Beatles touches. For example, there are different “zones” a player can land on, such as the “Come Together Zone”. If a player lands in this zone, any other player can enter a showdown where the first person to answer correctly wins the wedge. The “All You Need is Love Zone” allows the player to choose an easy question, no matter what the die gives them. The “Get Back Zone” gives a player the ability to move any other player to any other space on the board. And finally, the biggie. The “Ticket to Ride Zone” gives players a free wedge of their choosing.

The Beatles Trivial Pursuit contains nearly 2,600 questions of varying difficulty. The categories include history, songs, albums & singles, movies, the Beatles in America, on their own (solo careers). The questions can be tough for the casual Beatles fan, but not enough to completely exclude those who aren’t Beatles historians. Questions range from their early days playing in Hamburg to borderline absurd questions about what model of car they drove while on a particular acid trip. (Tip: Mini). But there are enough obvious questions peppered in to keep everyone involved.

The board and pieces are fairly well-made, though I would have appreciated a bit more high-end treatment. You won’t find any metal-cast figures of John, Paul, George, or Ringo as everything here is plastic and fairly cheap. Fortunately, the questions are enjoyable enough and the Beatles-specific Zones are enough to make the $35 package worth it for Beatles fanatics.

Click here to buy.

Article by: Tony Garfias

Note: The following article was submitted by Tony Garfias. Tony has a new website we think you’ll all enjoy called My 5 Star Songs. We hope you enjoy his article and encourage you to check out his site. You can also check follow him on Twitter

Are the Beatles Under-appreciated???

Ludicrously preposterous question, right? I mean, yes, there are some people that for some reason or another don’t or don’t admit to loving the Beatles as much as the rest of us, but that’s a relatively small demographic. Generally speaking, we all love the Beatles, right? It’s kind of a given. But that’s where my
question stems from. It is my contention that our Beatles love is, by and large, maintained in us almost by osmosis, genetics and has become a bit rote. It is academic, unwavering and…under-appreciated?

To clarify, I am not suggesting that our love for The Fab 4 isn’t genuine. I am also not suggesting that because our parents, the media and pop culture at large has showered them with praise these many years that we merely hooked ourselves onto the bandwagon. What I am suggesting is that by countless listens,
we are slowly rubbing away the group’s luster, its specialness.

We put on Abbey Road, for instance, and listen to it in the car on the way to work. We throw some White Album songs onto a gym workout playlist. We hear ‘Yellow Submarine’ playing from the Barnes & Nobles speakers as we book browse. But how many of us are still amazed by their catalog. And not in the stock, knee‐jerk reaction (however true it is) that comes to our lips when it’s time to reaffirm that love.

Admittedly, sometimes all I have to do is look in the mirror to find guilty party #1. I love reading biographies about actors and musicians that I really admire. One of the side benefits to reading these, other than the information contained within, is the fresh eyes and ears and new perspective given to me as I reacquaint myself with the original works.

It is with this perspective that I can revel and be amazed, once again, by the work of this fabulous group: the way John, Paul and George’s voices (and harmonies) converge on the phrase, “heavy, Heavy, HEAVYYYY‐YYYY” on ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ (spine‐tingling); the momentum built in the arrangement of ‘Rocky Racoon’ from the initial acoustic guitar strumming to the ever‐building drum part to the saloon piano ho‐down; tuning out the lead vocals in ‘Michelle’ and instead focusing on the brilliant backing vocals (eerie); the final woodwind arrangement in ‘When I’m Sixty‐Four’; the wonderfully melodic bass playing by Paul in “Something”.

These are but only a few of the wonders found on Beatles recordings. Track to track, this group changed the industry. Every song had its own purpose and procedure: the drums were miked differently from song to song, string quartets were brought in to add depth to particular songs, audio loops were mixed in on the fly, and on and on and on. And rare was the instance when the innovation was to the detriment of the music. It’s hard to imagine songs like ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!’ without all the flourish and calliopes and harmonium, but that’s where it undoubtedly began, probably with guitars and piano.

At the end of the day, the Beatles catalogue is there for us to appreciate it in the way that we choose. I’m just saying that there is an opportunity for us to love it even more. And what a wonderful thing that is to say.

The above article is from the website www.my5starsongs.com. I started this site this summer in hopes of starting a place where people can come and share their personal feelings on music, no topics off‐limits.

Come Hit Play.

John and Hilden go it alone this week as they talk Beatles: Rock Band, Raiden IV and get all old school with Contra Rebirth. We also hear your Dreamcast memories and share our Dreamcast Top Ten List in honor the consoles 10th Anniversary. Hilden also renames the show in honor of a special gaming event brought to him by the good folks at Microsoft.

Thanks for listening!

Email Us: mailbag@drunkengamersradio.com
Voicemail Line: 612-424-3835
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SHOWNOTES

00:00-Show Intro
05:44-Mailbag
12:50-Contra: Rebirth Review (Wii)
17:10-Raiden IV Review (360)
21:33-Beatles Rock Band Review (PS3)
32:05-Feature Presentation: Dreamcast 10th Anniversary
1:03:23-Five Things
1:24:00-Show Close

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DGR: 09.13.2009

I’ve always found Cirque du Soleil to be a little – I don’t know – fruity. I’m not a big dance guy, and I’m not really impressed by people flopping around in an overly-threatrical sort of way. I’ll grant them that they put on a good spectacle and a lot of the crazy shit they do is pretty amazing, but it’s just not my cup of meat. But then they had to go and create a Beatles-themed show called “Love”. Love is a project that goes beyond simply jumping around and doing crazy stunts while Beatles music plays in the background. They actually tapped legendary Beatles producer George Martin to remix and, in many cases, mash up various Beatles songs and put them in 5.1 surround sound. In many cases, the results are fascinating. For example, in one segment, Martin takes the awesome drum part from Tomorrow Never Knows and lays it behind George Harrison’s Indian music inspired Within You, Without You with great effect. But Martin’s experimenting goes beyond simply laying a few tracks inside other songs. Some songs sound almost brand new thanks to his creativity.

So it almost goes without saying that the music is the star of the show in Love. To hear these original classic Beatles tracks reinvented in such a way and in such high quality (each seat has a built-in speaker), is almost worth the price of admission alone. Fortunately, if you’re not heading to Las Vegas any time soon, the CD is available for purchase. I recommend the CD + Audio DVD package.

But there’s more to the show than an hour and a half of Beatles mash-ups. This is a Cirque du Soleil show, and as such, there’s plenty of flying, flopping, and freaky shit. (more…)

I’m a lifelong fan of The Beatles, and as such I generally snap up anything related to Beatles history or trivia. Over the years I’ve bought some fantastic books, such as The Beatles Anthology, The Beatles – Complete Scores, and Robert Freeman’s The Beatles: A Private View. Recently, Ringo Starr released a book of his own on the subject of his former band. But what makes this book unique is that it’s not a memoir or a silly tell-all. Instead, it’s a collection of postcards sent to him over the years by John, Paul, and George called “Postcards from the Boys”.

The story goes like this:

Ringo loved to receive mail, especially from his band mates. Didn’t matter much what the notes said—”everything here is still going well, except we miss you,” “doing nothing at all” or “YOU ARE THE GREATEST DRUMMER IN THE WORLD”—he saved them, and now, 38 years after getting a postcard from Paul from Spain (“not understanding a word but having fun”), he shares them in this intimate, funny and moving collection. The fronts of the cards are displayed on left-hand pages—there are Copenhagen rooftops, topless Zulu women, topless Australian scuba divers, Prince Charles, the Statue of Liberty, topless Hawaiian ukulele players—while the backs appear on right-hand pages. The notes allow readers into an insider club of sorts, shedding light on the good, the bad and making music, and Ringo offers commentary below each one.

(more…)