I’m a little surprised I hadn’t posted this already. But I hadn’t. So here. Enjoy.
More gaming content sometime after this weekend (with luck). Day job has me on the ropes at the moment. But dayum this new Sword album is tasty.
Well howdy there, anyone who still happens to have Strange Stones in their RSS readers! Yeah. I know. Long time, no blog. I just haven’t had anything I felt compelled to share. But I have been gaming some, at least:
And since it’s now October I find my mind turning to:
But hey, I’m gaming at least semi-regularly and that’s a good thing.
In Other News
The Sword’s new album comes out in just two weeks. And the advance tracks I’ve heard have been tasty. So that’s exciting.
And speaking of music, I’ve been playing a lot of bass lately (I’ve been playing bass almost as long as I’ve been gaming), having taken up with an absurdist jazz punk art noise rock ensemble here in Austin. We’ve even, in spite of the expected limitations of the genre, had a couple of actual gigs and there are at least a couple of additional shows on the horizon. And some recording that should actually lead to some kind of released album of some sort. So that’s a thing or two.
What Now?
Well, I’m not going to shut the blog down or anything. There’s stuff here that people keep finding and enjoying (the mighty G-Man’s BoL adventures, if nothing else). And really, who knows when inspiration will strike and I’ll have to start posting like mad again or risk burning up from the inside? So there’s not really an answer to the question I’m afraid. I just decided I should poke my head in and say hello, yes, I’m fine, thank you, how are you? So I did.
Cheers,
tvp
p.s. I’ve been trying to read a lot more of the Appendix N classics lately, too. Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword is on my table right now. Just beneath it in the stack you’ll find Clark Ashton Smith, the smattering of Lovecraft I’ve never read, Beowulf, the recent non-Conan REH compilations, Vance, Moorcock, and more. Yay, books!
The Sword, whom you’re probably sick of me mentioning, are headed into the studio later in June to begin work on a new album. Apparently it’s to be titled Apocryphon and will be produced/engineered by J. Robbins. The cover will feature art by award-winning comic artist J.H. Williams III (notably Promethea & Batwoman, but lots of others).
The album will be released early this fall and a worldwide tour, starting in October, will follow. One can only presume, Maxwell Luther, that the DFW area will get a visit this time around 🙂
Hey folks. In keeping with my voluntary role as nerdblog PR flak for The Sword, I thought I should note that they’ve just announced a mini-tour for the summer. The dates are:
June 17 – Houston – Fitzgerald’s (w/ Red Fang & Honky)
June 18 – New Orleans – House of Blues (w/ Red Fang & Honky)
June 19 – Atlanta – The Masquerade (w/ Red Fang & Kyng)
June 20 – Raleigh – King’s Barcade (w/ Red Fang & Kyng)
June 21 – Baltimore – Sonar (w/ Red Fang & Kyng)
June 22 – West Chester, PA – The Note (w/ Red Fang & Kyng)
June 23 – Atlantic City – Orion Festival
So if you happen to live in one of those lucky cities and want to get your face rocked off with some serious metal that appeals to the geek crowd, keep your eyes open for ticket sales to begin.
And just to tempt you a bit more, here’s the teaser for their newly-released single, Hammer of Heaven…
Hammer of Heaven, the new release of an Age of Winters-vintage track by The Sword is now available on iTunes. They played this one at the show I caught a couple of weekends back and it’s tasty. It definitely sounds like it was part of the AoW sessions, so let that guide your hand before you drop the $1.29 to download it. Personally, I dig it, but I know that some folks are more partial to the Warp Riders sound than the earlier stuff. Never let it be said I didn’t do my best to keep my audience of three well-informed about stuff related to The Sword.
In other news… I’m half-sick of RPGs right now for a number of reasons that are no one’s fault, which kinda explains the generally glacial pace of posting ’round here. This malaise will surely pass (it always does), so hang tight amigos. There’s bound to be some new content eventually.
In the meantime, quit reading my idiot words and go rock out to The Sword (or your own choice in rocking out material).
Yep, The Sword made the rock & roll happen tonight. Here’s a photo of the setlist to make you nice and jealous:
Sword Setlist, Emo's East, 4/21/12
The encore, not listed above, included Iron Swan and Winter’s Wolves.
There were 3 or 4 new tracks that should appear on the new album (expected this fall). They were thick & heavy without sounding like retreads. The astute among you will be able to pick them out on the set list. For what it’s worth, JD announced the first one as (I think, the sound was a little rough) Purple Feather and it appeared to be about some kind of bird woman.
All the songs were a little sludgier than I would have had them be in my ideal world, but the performances were aces. My only real complaint was the fact that they didn’t do Warp Riders itself. But all-in-all I’m damn glad I got to catch this show and I will repeat my usual refrain exhorting you to see them when they wind up in your neck of the woods. It sounds like it’ll be a while before they go out on tour, though, so you’ve got time to save your pennies.
So, at long last I got to see these guys last night…
They were awesome.
Now I want to get back on the train of thought I was on for a while regarding some kind of psychedelic-ish science fiction B movie game. I make no claim that such material will ever appear here, but damn if I don’t wanna fo watch “The Angry Red Planet” and take a bunch of notes.
So 8tracks.com seems like a cool way to share music. I just started playing with it after discovering it this afternoon. Here’s my first mix:
I don’t listen to Metal exclusively (or even predominantly) by any means. But it’s always fun for geeking. I might just get around to making more mixes. If I do, you’ll find ’em here. I figure my first challenge will be a nice 80s New Wave mix for the infamous Doctor Rotwang. I’ll do it tomorrow…
I meant to post this a while back, but somehow I forgot. Silly ol’ pao.
This has, I believe, already been all over the geek blogs and such, but I had to share it anyway. See, I have a brief and amusing anecdote about the song that it parodies.
And here’s the original, for reference (pardon the commercial at the front, I’ve got no way to prevent that):
Oh, the anecdote. During my unemployment I had an interview to be the web monkey for a local hip hop station. I’m not really a hip hop guy. But I figured I’d find at least one song that I could use as the basis of my bluff. I wound up with this “Like A G6” song stuck in my head for three days and I didn’t get the gig. Wah wah wah.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled abandoned blog.