Taj Williams (00:35.982)
Choice Tracks Press Start Guest Taj

Damon (00:44.813)
And I'm Damon.

Taj Williams (00:45.368)
You

Taj Williams (00:53.55)
What was that? That was a little volume there, but okay. All right. I like it. I like it.

DW (01:02.781)
I like it too.

Taj Williams (01:05.006)
So this is Troy's Tracks. Welcome back. We're a music podcast where we pick a theme or in this case, a genre of music and we pick songs to reflect that. So what I challenged the guys to do was we decided to do the genre of music chiptune. So chiptune, case you boys and girls don't know what that is, is a form of music where in...

In most cases nowadays, it's a form of music where somebody took a gaming console, whether it be Game Boy, NES, Sega, they've taken an older 8 to 16 bit system and used the musical set that's in the system to create music. Really, you can chiptune anything that has its own music library in it. So this was kind of like a poor man's version of a MIDI player, because a MIDI player, could kind of...

use the songs that are in there, create your own patterns, right? But chiptune is there's preset sounds or stuff in there. And so you would use the chip set to create the music, right? So it had preset instruments in a limited scale. So video game music has been around since video games, right? And in the 80s, you had a lot of synthesizers. Some of it came from

chip tuning stuff, but some of it didn't. But nowadays, if you say chip tune, I think most people, in my opinion, think about gaming consoles and music that reflects that 8 to 16 bit sound of video games, which I grew up on. I'll be honest, my first gaming console was Atari 2600. But then I was lucky enough a few years later to get NES.

So Nintendo Entertainment System, In case you guys didn't know what that stood for back in the day.

DW (03:05.493)
This is it.

Damon (03:09.139)
I fucking hope so, dammit. If you didn't know what that was, yeah, you should go to a pawn shop or some kind of like video game store where they have all kinds of old school stuff. I did do that once, I took a gander and there was like, there are some consoles there. Yeah, you can get the new one, new version of it too, but it's not the same.

Taj Williams (03:10.766)
You

Taj Williams (03:34.018)
Right.

DW (03:35.017)
Emulators suck you need the original console to go through the original trouble that we all went through the paintings and blowing out the cartridges and pulling them back in the pains of disk that expunged and weren't sure if you got past the PlayStation logo or not if you had to get bad read on the disk you tarot 2600 you had to make sure that those damn games were like built like bricks

Taj Williams (03:40.706)
Right?

DW (04:02.941)
You know, you did mess up the actual motherboard on the inside, take it in apart, to get those inside there. I've been through pretty much all systems that you could think of, except for the newest, newest of new. But even then, I still got a little bit of something. But yes, if you didn't go through the struggle of getting those systems and understanding what it was to wait for a game to come out and not just download it, we can't be friends.

Taj Williams (04:29.368)
Yeah.

Damon (04:29.555)
Sure, sorry. Yeah, and also like blowing down the game cartridge. It probably just filled it with spit. So don't know if like maybe it just created some kind of like conduit for the electrical current to run through the chipset inside the cartridge. But yeah, it kind of worked.

DW (04:34.101)
Bye.

Taj Williams (04:37.102)
No?

DW (04:49.909)
Yeah, you just held the spit back. you know, make sure your mouth was dry before you put it in there. It was only about two or three blows, quick blows. That was it. And played more than you were asking for trouble. So.

Taj Williams (04:52.526)
Right?

Taj Williams (05:00.192)
All

Taj Williams (05:04.376)
So, yeah.

DW (05:06.909)
Yes.

Taj Williams (05:08.194)
Yeah, the other thing that I found out like years ago was like the whole up, up, down, down, left, right, left, A, A, B. That was really, that wasn't really supposed to be a cheat code. Really the original purpose of that was for the game testers to change the settings so they could test the game. Like it wasn't really a cheat code. It was a back door for the game testers to have extra lives so they could test games. That's why.

all of the Capcom games in that era use the same code to get to the menu settings.

DW (05:46.624)
Yeah, we actually learned how to decoders by accident.

Taj Williams (05:50.222)
Right? Exactly. So.

DW (05:54.362)
good.

Damon (05:54.995)
I'm just gonna sip on my Moscow Mule while I ponder that, t'nish.

Taj Williams (05:57.454)
Right, now what was that? You love the sound effects, right? That's true. All right, so.

DW (06:00.157)
Mm-hmm.

DW (06:04.462)
I love the sound effects. Yeah, that sounded like a Coke commercial on the cool.

Damon (06:13.255)
I'm gonna refrain from blowing out a cartridge anytime soon.

DW (06:18.411)
So, to do in your private life is none of our concerns.

Damon (06:22.771)
blowing in cartridges! No, I'll stay away from

DW (06:26.111)
That didn't make it any better. We're good. We're good. I promise I'm good.

Damon (06:33.587)
All right.

Taj Williams (06:35.458)
All right, so that's kind of what chiptunes are. So originally, music in video games was designed to be a loop. They would write it out. They had to watch the memory space on that, just like they did with the graphics. But you designed it to be in the loop. Well, once memory was no longer a problem and people started using chipsets to make songs, yes, there was people that recreated the classic songs from video games so you could listen to it.

There's people that use the chiptunes as an instrument in their songs. But one of the big things that's turned into is people taking original songs and then making them into a chiptune cover. And so that's the genre we chose to cover today is a song that is being covered by chiptune. And so I chose one that it is self-labeled boss level, but yeah, it's

It's one that you would play, you know, right when you enter the boss zone, but it just fits perfectly in its danger zone.

Taj Williams (07:57.634)
Right. So I was a big contra player back in the day. This I would this would have been cool on a contra level because it's totally that you walk in on the highway and you start taking off and go little bullets start flying at you and you got double jump and then grab the spray gun. That's what this song reminds me of. It's like.

It's one of those that just kind of blends into the background, but you're like, my God, I'm sweating bullets while I try and avoid all these bullets on the screen. But yeah.

Damon (08:32.103)
Yeah, I could see that, just dodging fucking digital bullets coming at you. And you're trying to eat a sandwich and play the game at the same time and then fucking mom calls you and you're pissed and you drop everything and you gotta play it over again because you died. Yeah.

Taj Williams (08:34.286)
Right.

Yeah.

Taj Williams (08:44.39)
All right.

Right. And it was back in those days, you had to be careful with rewarding. You can't be like, mama, try and kill the aliens. You have to be like, mom, I'm trying to feed the aliens because if you said anything negative, parents are like, you're doing what? Like, I'm trying to knock out the aliens so they don't steal my sandwich. Right. It's a peaceful game, mom. I'm not doing anything by it.

Damon (09:01.597)
Nah, video games.

Damon (09:08.029)
Yeah, it's like Space Invaders. You gotta put it in simple terms, they?

Taj Williams (09:17.546)
you

Damon (09:18.771)
Yeah, that's true. It seems like when we were younger, the violence thing was a big issue. Because there's a lot of censorship in music, And then it flowed into video games, because that's what all kids were doing. They wanted to make sure there wasn't going to be like a half naked chick on the beach when you're running through in your Contra game or whatever.

Taj Williams (09:24.221)
Right?

DW (09:27.318)
Right.

Taj Williams (09:31.883)
All

Yeah

Right?

Damon (09:42.269)
They threw that stuff in there though. I think there were some games.

Taj Williams (09:43.906)
They did. Yeah, because Contra had Contra had one that was a it was a lady in a red dress and then she turned around and she had an alien face like, OK, I'm going to stay away from that. That's trouble right there.

DW (09:57.039)
It's butterface.

Damon (09:59.955)
Butterface yeah, they threw a butterface in there to throw you off

DW (10:07.047)
Mm-mm.

Damon (10:09.043)
sense of being the boss at the end of the game.

DW (10:12.353)
Just saying no kids.

Taj Williams (10:12.856)
So what did you guys think of Danger Zone? I think compared to the original Danger Zone, they're both really great songs, but this one, even though it doesn't have the lyrics, the tone range of the chipset, it just makes it its own instrument. And plays around great. I think it just hits it right.

Damon (10:18.483)
Yeah.

DW (10:39.358)
song to your original.

Taj Williams (10:41.463)
don't know. can check on that. Was it?

Damon (10:43.869)
Kenny Loggins.

DW (10:45.397)
That's what I thought it was. I thought it was Kenny Loggins, but it wouldn't be.

Damon (10:48.851)
Well, even then, yeah, even on the version, I think it says it was written by him, but they have to say that, right? Okay.

DW (10:53.841)
Yes. Yes. That's what suffices it as a cover and not them trying to take an original song. Sort of where they can't get sued for it. But yeah. Yeah, anytime you have to provide credit, know, to keep things moving.

You know, I love the original. I love the one that used it in Top Gun. I love the one the Top Gun video game came out because you could actually hear the song being played in the background like a chiptune situation. So that was that was actually pretty cool. I thought this was a good way to start off this episode because just listening to what we were talking about, you just swore we were just talking about video games and not the fact that, you know, they evolved from this situation. So, yeah, I definitely do like the track.

It does give me back that nostalgia of listening to the actual song itself and it's got very good vibes Even though it's in an 8-bit format it still plays very well. So, yeah, we're good

Taj Williams (11:55.726)
We're good? OK.

Damon (11:57.543)
Yeah, I really dug this song. I was grooving to it a few times. Definitely, it fucking hits, man. It's fun. The chiptune sound is really cool. And then when you have something like Danger Zone thrown in there, I think it just made it extra awesome. yeah, I guess I kind of knew it was a thing, but I didn't realize how much was out there.

Taj Williams (12:04.854)
You

Damon (12:25.093)
So there's some really serious chiptune stuff,

Taj Williams (12:28.012)
Right? For sure. So, okay. So, Damon, what did you pick for your chiptune genre song?

DW (12:28.117)
Yes.

Damon (12:39.057)
Yeah, okay. So I mentioned this to my wife actually, and she was thinking about, she's like, yeah, there's a band that does the theme song for that TV show, The Goldbergs. And turns out they're like a chiptune band, but they do a lot of different stuff. And it seems like they have a lot of good stuff out there. I didn't realize, you know,

Taj Williams (12:57.413)
yeah, okay.

DW (12:58.261)
Hmm.

Damon (13:08.211)
I didn't know she knew because she was like a fan of the show and of course she just pulls random facts out. I'm like, that's awesome. yeah. Yeah. So the Goldbergs was a show that came on, I don't know, like 10 years ago and it ran for a little bit and it was kind of based on the eighties. So that makes sense for like, you know, like Nintendo and all that, you know, that's probably why they maybe picked this band, but they wrote this, they actually wrote the theme song and did all that. So.

Taj Williams (13:26.232)
very much so.

Right.

Damon (13:38.643)
I Fight Dragons is the name of the band. And I think it's a pretty decent sized band. There's like five members, it switches up for different projects. And there's a couple of different projects that we're working on.

Damon (13:58.077)
But yeah, one of them was the project Atma and then they ended up getting like GoFundMe and they did a rock opera that ended up being like number five on the billboard. So it's kind of kind of cool. I haven't been able to find it, though. I was trying to find it. I think that's on the Internet somewhere. Maybe we'll find it before the end of the episode. But yeah, so they did a rock opera. But then they, you know, they

DW (14:08.097)
Mmm.

Damon (14:27.187)
We're working on that was like when they first kind of were really starting out. But they got a lot of money for it. I think it was over $100,000 or something. I don't know. But, yeah, the band formed in 2008 and I mean, it's I guess like Nintendo core is a genre that they fit in, but they're also like rock pop.

Taj Williams (14:53.602)
Okay.

Damon (14:57.383)
know, alternative rock. Geek rock?

Taj Williams (15:00.994)
Yeah. Yeah. Chit-chin is kagikura for sure. Yeah.

DW (15:02.081)
Thanks.

Damon (15:05.969)
And it's, you know, they fit into the pop rock too. I mean, it's kind of like eighties and today, eighties to today. And that's sort of like the sound that they're going for. But it's, yeah, it's definitely, takes a lot of time to devote yourself to like learning how to make something into like chiptune. So I think there's a lot that goes into it. It's pretty, pretty damn awesome, I think. And then, so based on all this, I picked, I think we might have even done this song.

DW (15:10.369)
you

Damon (15:34.717)
by Huey Lewis in the news. But I'm not sure if he picked this song before or not, but if he did, it doesn't matter because this is a chiptune version and it's totally different. But this is, the song is by iFightDragons and it's Power of Love, the cover Power of Love chiptune.

DW (15:37.963)
Okay.

Damon (16:09.551)
So there's like some lyrics in there and they sound pretty good. And here's a lot of video game sounds. Kind of randomly thrown in there, but it just makes sense, I guess. And you can tell it's that song. Maybe more because he's singing though. You know, with your song, Taj, I think it was easy to identify, but this would take a minute. You might not get it without the lyrics.

Taj Williams (16:17.003)
Right?

Taj Williams (16:27.435)
Right.

Taj Williams (16:37.528)
Yeah, no, I got you. And it is one of those things where like sometimes like the songs, you know, it's it's kind of like a sprite because so sprites were like I played a lot of RPGs when I did PlayStation and, you know, sprites are those little 2D animations of the characters that taking a chiptune of a song is basically that like trying to make it.

Damon (16:56.68)
Yeah.

Taj Williams (17:06.324)
abstract as possible, but still having its essence. And so that's what's interesting. Some songs can do it and some songs can't. I think this one does. I think the lyrics do help, but it is kind of a really different song for sure. But I enjoyed it. It rocked a little bit harder. The only thing that was weird that threw me off was that the intro where they are are acapelling the 21st century.

Damon (17:11.304)
Right.

Taj Williams (17:36.238)
song and then they kind of do the the back to the future theme before they go into the song you're like okay so this is an interesting intro but yeah

Damon (17:36.828)
Mwahaha

Damon (17:48.627)
I'm glad they tie it to Back to the Future. And by the way, I didn't mention it's off the album. Welcome to the breakdown from 2010.

Taj Williams (17:50.659)
Yeah.

Taj Williams (17:58.37)
Okay.

DW (18:01.31)
So, you know, as far as the vibe of it, I'm totally into it. I like the way that they took the song and made it their own.

and it gave it an edgier tone because when you listen to the Q &A on the nose, like that's all 80s with the synthesizers and all that, this just wrapped it up a notch. And they made it their own tune. And literally, you know, the fact that the vocals was inside there, it did help with the beginning of the song because you wouldn't recognize it off top. But then once the hook came in, was kind of, I remember that. But, you know, even to that point, they still did a

guys job with the track and vocals didn't overpower the track within itself all of their their their big synthesizers were in place like it made it a jazzy little tune i'm not mad

Taj Williams (18:57.966)
Right. And even in that clip, I had a hard time telling if the bass was all guitar or synthesized, but it seemed like it was a mixture of both for sure. It seemed like they had double bass, one on the tip tune and one on the actual instrument.

DW (19:11.327)
Yes.

They did and that's what made it gritty was the fact that they were able to combine those two together. And normally when you're talking about any kind of synthesized sounds, you got to be careful with what you're using because it could actually blow out not the speakers, but it could blow out the harmony within the sound, the sound itself. But in this situation, they were able to tune that properly and it worked out.

Taj Williams (19:34.076)
gotcha.

Damon (19:41.531)
Nice, yeah, I definitely, I really just like, was digging the band, I Fight Dragons and like, wow, okay, so like a chiptune band made it big. They got a theme song.

Taj Williams (19:53.28)
Right? Right? They got that Hollywood money. Just like they might be dragons.

Damon (20:00.207)
Well, a different realm there, but yeah. I feel like I fight dragons. They probably do concerts. I know they do concerts. They do. But, I feel like the fan base is going to be different than imagine dragons. I don't think, I don't think they're going to be ripping their shirt off or anything. they might be, they might be giants. okay. Sorry. I misheard you there. yeah.

DW (20:00.435)
playing a

Taj Williams (20:04.558)
But no, how is it different realm?

Taj Williams (20:18.336)
No, no, they might be giants.

Taj Williams (20:24.866)
Yeah.

Damon (20:28.972)
I think they're definitely like, like they're the comedy like it definitely fits the bill for that.

Taj Williams (20:35.638)
Well, but I say that because they might be trying to did Big Bang Theory theme song. So that's what I'm saying. Like you have these two weird bands are like like made that Hollywood money by doing a theme song for a TV series that went on for a good number of years. Yeah.

Damon (20:41.539)
yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Right.

DW (20:42.507)
Mm-hmm.

Damon (20:54.405)
Many years. They might be giants that they have. Do they do chiptune stuff too?

Taj Williams (20:59.178)
No, they don't. they're kind of that geek rock very much. Yes, they're both geek rock for sure. 100%.

Damon (21:04.915)
They're both Geek Rock for sure. That totally makes sense.

DW (21:06.165)
Really?

DW (21:12.191)
as well.

Taj Williams (21:14.572)
But all right. So Dietrich, what did you pick? Something cool, something with big vibes, I bet.

DW (21:22.977)
no, I picked something that represented total anarchy. so think of this, think of you're playing a video game, right? Especially back in the days when we talked about, Atari, which rarely did we ever have a game where we could get to the end of it, right? or beginning of, Nintendo when it came out with certain games like Mega Man or, you know, Mario Brothers or

Taj Williams (21:43.345)
yeah.

DW (21:52.753)
or you know, Metroid, things of that nature. When games start coming out and you really start figuring out like, what's a bad guy, right? What is the actual villain? And then some of the music that they played in the background literally puts you in the mode of, okay, now I gotta get serious. Cause now I'm kind of scared from being a kid. And then Ninja Gaiden came up and fucked my whole world up. Because when you got to the final boss battle.

the intricacies of trying to move around and not get hit at the same time only to find out that the boss elevates to another level and it's like, fuck, I just thought I killed this dude and now I gotta kill him again. And it's a whole other situation. And if you die, you gotta start all over type stuff. It's that kind of depression that kicks in. And so I think what song would be perfect for this situation? And yes, we did cover this band before.

This released off of their 2001 album Toxicity and this was definitely their first hit off of the album. And it wasn't their first album. Their first album came out in 98 but this was three years later when you got signed and were actually prepared to come out and do some damage. And this song just took the world by storm. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, talking about Chop Suey by System of the Down.

DW (23:28.097)
Nah, that doesn't sound like main boss stage. I don't know what the hell does.

Taj Williams (23:34.317)
Right? No, for sure.

DW (23:36.011)
So, yeah, they even got the little tones in the background of the note changes in the guitar lyrics. And it's like, you know, they're trying to go along with the actual words and it just, it flows. So what do y'all think about Toxicity's system of the down performed by Chiptune Planet?

Taj Williams (23:57.506)
Yeah, I liked it for sure. Like it was crazy. Yeah. When you said boss fight and it's like, yeah, it is one does. And the thing was like, what's interesting is like it could you could loop this and you wouldn't notice. OK, like because it kind of starts out the same way. And that's totally what boss fight is. It's like that heavy pounding music. And you're like just sweating bullets and it's still going. You're like, my God. Like for me, it's be like I'm out.

DW (24:14.838)
and

Taj Williams (24:25.71)
healing potions and I got one guy and please don't hit him so can revive the other person. You're like, God dang it. Took out the one guy that could heal anybody. You're like, all right, Phoenix down.

DW (24:28.939)
Mm-hmm.

DW (24:38.222)
Yeah, could hear this in Zelda all damn day. don't know why, but I can't like Zelda is running through my head when I'm hearing this song and it's like damn Mega Man is running through my head when I'm hearing the songs, you know, it's like it's one of those situations. It's like it takes you back to that time frame where you knew that you spent all this time being a player on this game. You had to beat it. That was the only way you were going to redeem that time.

Taj Williams (24:58.083)
Mm-hmm.

DW (25:08.425)
otherwise it felt like a loser.

Taj Williams (25:11.726)
Because I played, it's one of the few games I've beaten multiple times. I played the Final Fantasy V. I think it was three here in the US, but it Final Fantasy V on the NES or Super NES. And that one was like, one that was like, I beat that one multiple times. But it's crazy because it had boss fights that you couldn't win on purpose because you were supposed to lose. And then it had boss fights where, like you said, it transformed.

DW (25:21.437)
Mmm.

Taj Williams (25:40.546)
You're like, you just beat them. You're like, all right, victory song. You're like, where's my victory song? Like, nope, I'm going to transform. Like, really? You can do this to me now.

DW (25:42.209)
Thank you.

DW (25:46.443)
Mm-hmm.

DW (25:52.389)
One of the hardest games to ever beat was Battletoads. This put me in Battletoads mode, like for sure. So, I don't know.

Taj Williams (25:59.243)
yeah.

Taj Williams (26:03.287)
for sure. So but no, I liked it a lot. And what's crazy is there is a lot of chiptune covers of this song. Like I search YouTube, try and find this one. And you're like, all right, chiptune. Like how many different videos are there? It's like a lot of people like this song for 8 bit. So there's at least 10 different videos up there.

DW (26:05.109)
Same. Hit lower.

DW (26:12.353)
Yeah

DW (26:28.897)
Yeah, for sure, for sure. The cleanest one, there was another one that was a little bit cleaner than this, but I felt like this stuck to the original tone of the song. So I definitely went with that. Shout out to Chiptune Planet. Appreciate y'all for putting this in. This was definitely my pick at Chiptune's and moving forward, yeah, you call it geek rock or whatever you want to call it, but it's just cool as if, I'm sorry.

Taj Williams (26:55.214)
Right. Yeah. And like I said, feel like it's kind of that breaking something down to its bare essence, and you're still looking at it, you're like, I still recognize it, and this is the coolest thing. If you can make a copy of a copy, and a copy is still, or a copy of the original, and the copy is still amazing, then sometimes you reflect back on how great the original is. Or that might be a weird analogy. But you know what I'm saying. So yeah.

DW (27:21.833)
Nah, it works. I guess it's just that.

Taj Williams (27:26.136)
So, all right. So did you guys enjoy this genre of music or was it torture?

DW (27:27.669)
D.

DW (27:32.373)
I was saying, did he give his opinion on it or he's been kind of quiet?

Taj Williams (27:36.224)
yeah, what did you think, Damon? I mean, he doesn't like system of down. It's OK. It's OK that if you don't.

DW (27:41.493)
Yeah, I thought you had.

Damon (27:41.715)
no, that's not true. Yeah, I was fucking getting boss vibes all over the place with this one. I think that it definitely like threw me back into like 1993 or 1992. I'm playing Nintendo with a little fucking controller. Hands are all sweaty. I've been playing all day and I'm finally at the boss level and like my mom's yelling at me to do some

Chores or some shit. I'm like, I can't I can't You know just yelling back. I can't right now, you know Just turning into like, you know Like that's gonna like pull me into the video game. That's how long I've been playing and that music just was total boss level fucking craziness sweaty all day long just got soda bottles fucking Bags of chips all laying around. Yeah, just a disaster but

DW (28:12.768)
Yes.

Damon (28:39.153)
Fucking great. Yeah, I loved it.

DW (28:41.576)
All right.

Taj Williams (28:43.8)
Yeah, for sure. So OK. Glad you like it. All right. Well, this is I guess we'll go and wrap this up then till the next DLC comes out. I don't know. Right.

Damon (28:57.787)
I don't know, did we get the boss yet? Did we get the boss? Alright. Might have to redo the whole game. Alright.

DW (29:03.989)
We got to the end of Metroid. We got to see her in the bikini. It was all worth it. Yeah.

Taj Williams (29:08.206)
You

Damon (29:12.059)
Until the next new game comes out.

Taj Williams (29:14.062)
Yeah, for sure. All right, well, let's go and wrap this up. This has been Troye Strikes. You can find this on our website of TroyeStrikes.com or emails at TroyeStrikes.gmail.com. Both of those end with a Z. And we ask that you please subscribe to listen to all past and future episodes. Let's go and sign out. I've been Taj.

DW (29:16.747)
I

Damon (29:35.376)
I'm Damon.

DW (29:37.065)
and I'm sleepy as hell, but my name is D-Trick and we're gonna pick up the needle, but y'all keep spinning those choice tracks and play your favorite video game. E for everyone.