Fortune And Glory, Kid

September 19, 2009

What the hell is he waiting for?

Filed under: Uncategorized — feenwager @ 8:57 am

If you’ve been following along, you know I had hoped to have the CD done very shortly. Clearly that isn’t the case, and there are a few reasons why I’ve gone dark, the main one is to not bludgeon anyone over the head about a CD that you can’t buy anyway. Seems like basic marketing to me.

Here are the real reasons for the delay, though:

  • There was a 2-3 week break built into the schedule to accommodate my vacation, and to allow Pete (my recording / mixing partner) to move and break down / set up his studio.
  • Turns out doing everything yourself takes a long time. Who knew?
  • I ended up having to start one of the songs over from scratch due to some issues with the recording. I’ve pretty much known this all along, but was sort of avoiding dealing with it.
  • I simply lost momentum a little bit there. This is not a huge deal, and it’s mostly (mostly) due to the nature of a project like this. Some of these songs are years old, and even the newer ones were starting to grate on me after hearing them over and over for the better part of this year. It doesn’t mean I like them any less, I’m still very confident that this album is going to be really good, but I needed to get away from them for a little bit.
  • Lastly, and most importantly, I really want this CD to be as good as it can be. If that means that it takes a little longer to be released, so be it. It’s not like I’ve got a concert tour scheduled and I need to get out of the studio and on the road by November. I can take my time, but don’t worry…we’re not talking Axl Rose Chinese Democracy take my time here. I just want to cross some I’s and dot some T’s, and make sure that this sumbitch will be worthy of all the time I’ve spent working on it and talking about it.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support. It’ll be done soon, I promise.

July 7, 2009

Next step!

Filed under: Music, Uncategorized — feenwager @ 11:35 am

As promised, I’d like to let you know the title and also reveal the cover art for my upcoming CD.

The CD will be titled:

Jeff Parsons – Solo

And the cover art will look like this:

cover-2

I’d like to thank Christina Tullo for the use of her photograph. Visit her at Designedbreakdown.com to check out some of her work. It’s really great stuff.

Please note: this isn’t completely final, and the CD you eventually hold in your grubby lil’ hands may look slightly different. Offers may not be combined. Void where prohibited.

Next up? Finish recording (the last bit of writing was finished yesterday) and announce a release date for this sumbitch.

Thanks again for all of your support.

July 2, 2009

It Begins…

Filed under: Music — feenwager @ 4:54 pm
Tags: , ,

A few words about my upcoming CD:

It’s coming soon. Well, depends on your definition of “soon” but it will definitely be out before the end of this year. Most likely late September/early October.

It’s not going to be called GarageBand Days. No real story here, just changing my mind. As soon as I have a title, you’ll be the 2nd or 3rd to know.

There will be 12 songs on it. Here is the final track listing:

  • Emilie Sighs
  • Leaving
  • Princess
  • Something Beautiful
  • Stay Famous
  • How Did We Get Here?
  • Facade
  • T.O.F.T.S.
  • Spinning My Wheels
  • Sunflower
  • Alright
  • Still Angry

It will be available on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, & wherever else I can make it appear. It will also be available on good ol’ fashioned CD’s for those that prefer that sort of thing.

I’m determined to keep the album cost at $9.99, even for the physical CD.

There may or may not be a bonus track or two on the physical CD.

I think it’s pretty good.

Here’s the best place to check out the tunes before the release date. I’ll be keeping 3 or 4 up at a time for now.

http://www.reverbnation.com/jeffparsons

More info to come, including the title and actual date.

Thanks for listening.

June 2, 2009

E3, Sony Style

Filed under: E3, Rant, videogames — feenwager @ 11:54 pm
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The final press conference. Let’s see what Sony’s got to say.

•    Nice work taking a shot at your own press leaks, Jack.
•    Jack: we have a larger screen than the other press conferences. Also, look at my immense penis.
•    Facts and figures: boring.
•    According to Sony, inFamous is good. And popular. Thanks for the update.
•    You have no idea how happy I am that Uncharted has become a franchise. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves may be my most anticipated game this year.
•    Holy. Shit. UC2 looks fucking amazing.
•    Now MAG. The Massive Action Game…game.
•    Did they import seat fillers and pay them to applaud? People weren’t rooting as much at the other press conferences.
•    Here’s my prediction about MAG: within 2 weeks of release, 1% of the players will get so good that it won’t be fun for the other 99% anymore. Count on it.
•    Why did a bunch of guys just applaud a Lilac colored PSP?
•    It’s Kaz! Say something crazy, please!
•    PSP GO. Not replacing the PSP OG. Riiiiight.
•    Why do I have a feeling that this new media manager dealy for the PSP doesn’t work on Mac?
•    Sony is trying to really position the PSP as a music machine. Nope. Not gonna happen.
•    $249? Ummm…yeah…that’s probably not gonna go well.
•    Let me make this clear: I think the PSP is really cool. I don’t see a need for the PSP GO in my life.
•    I hope that next guy wasn’t warning of an impending attack by Godzilla, because I skipped it the minute Grand Turismo’s logo showed up.
•    Hideo “Whore” Kojima just announced another Metal Gear game I won’t be playing. Zabadoo!
•    We need a montage! Everything’s better in a montage! Well, I guess I better go charge up my PSP.
•    Playstation Home: No. Really. It’s working exactly how we’d hoped. Really. Please use it. C’mon! No? Ok. Sorry to bother you.
•    Another montage? Jeez, Sony…slow it down a bit.
•    Agent: exclusive PS3 game from Rockstar set in the 1970’s? Huh, how about that?
•    Assassin’s Creed 2 gameplay footage. Looks cool. It also looks like it’s going to be hard not to beat the snot out of everyone at what looks like a giant Ren-Faire.
•    More FFXIII. We get it. It’s good. We’re all going to buy it. Move on.
•    And here’s why it’s not finished…Final Fantasy XIV. An MMO…exclusive to the PS3. Well, that’s certainly a big announcement. Gotta say I simply don’t care. I happily skipped FFXI, and I’ll most likely never play this one.
•    And here’s Sony’s magic motion controller. Whatever. Wake me up when there are games that are worth playing with these things.
•    ModNation Racers? Not doing anything for me, guys.
•    The Last Guardian: anyone else getting a Neverending Story vibe here? Or perhaps Pete’s Dragon? Certainly looks cool.
•    More Gran Turismo. More not caring.
•    God Of War III: Looks awesome, but you already knew that, didn’t you?

Overall, I think the exclusives for Sony look pretty great. I still think Microsoft has them beat with multi-platform games based on Xbox Live, Achievements, Community, and a better controller. That doesn’t bode well for the PS3 emerging as the “victor” but I think it should enable it to carve out a large enough niche to remain relevant.
Oh, yeah…I guess the PS3 Slim wasn’t the real deal? Or maybe that was never intended to be an E3 announcement? No price drop either, that seems a bit odd. Although, they can’t really go to $299 on the PS3 when the PSP GO is $249.

PS: Would it have killed you to show some Ratchet? Humbug.

It’s-a Me, E3!

Filed under: E3, Rant, videogames — feenwager @ 12:40 pm
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Just watched the Nintendo Press Conference, typing (and eating a sausage sandwich) as I did.

And…Go:

•    Cammie Again? Not a good start
•    Oof…business speak. Category. Analyze. Innovation. Bleh.
•    Nice…going right to the Mario well…and this is…a bunch of games I’ve seen already…
•    New Super Mario Bros. for Wii? I’m listening…
•    Looks a bit like Little Big Mario. I think I’d play this. I wonder if there’s online without friend codes.
•    They’re not mentioning online…hmm…I wonder if they didn’t put it in.
•    Wii Fit Plus. Minus…me.
•    Reggie! Reggie! Reggie! Actually I think he’s kind of a tool. It’s just fun to say that.
•    Wii Motion Plus nonsense. Do not care.
•    Wii Sports Resort: Filled with many minigames my dad will enjoy for 20 minutes when he visits.
•    Final Fantasy Crystal Bearers Hmm…I can’t really tell what this is all about. Looks sort of like Final Zelda. I’m intrigued.
•    Kingdom Hearts DS? So it’s a remake? No thanks.
•    Mario & Luigi RPG. Sold.
•    Golden Sun DS? No shit, really? This bears checking out. The music has a very SNES quality to it, and I mean that in a good way.
•    Hi. I’m James Patterson. Next.
•    C.O.P. doesn’t look like my kind of day.
•    Blah blah blah “designing outfits” Badoop Badoop Badooop.
•    We are Nintendo. We’ve sold many DS systems.
•    Mario Vs. Donkey Kong DSiWare game on Monday. Crowd goes mild.
•    Haven’t every played a Wario Ware game. Don’t intend to start now.
•    We are Nintendo. We’ve sold many Wii Systems.
•    Super Frakkin Mario Galaxy 2???!!!! All is forgiven, Nintendo. Muah!
•    The Conduit actually looks pretty great. This June? Hmm…pending reviews, I may have to check that out.
•    Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles. The first Wii deal was pretty good, this looks pretty good as well. Nice job, Capcom.
•    Dead Space Extraction: well…shit. That looks pretty great. Not the same as the original, but I actually sort of like rail shooters.
•    New, edgy game from Nintendo? More Geist? I keed, I keed.
•    This looks…Japanese.
•    3rd person Metroid? Wait…that was just 1st person. I’m so confuzzled.
•    Metroid: Other M? Awful name. Game looks pretty decent. 2010? Booooo.

OK…I’d give Nintendo a solid ‘B’. It certainly beats them telling me to take a hike last year. Welcome back, Me Caring About Nintendo.

Ubi Dooby Doo

Filed under: E3, Rant, videogames — feenwager @ 9:11 am

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

On to Ubisoft:

•    You sir, are dying out there. Nobody wants to hear jokes. At least, not these particular pieces of poop.
•    U Play seems dopey, only with a French accent.
•    Ubisoft: Very impressed with themselves. 15 minutes in, and they haven’t shown a second of game footage.
•    Hey! It’s James Cameron Crowe! Haircut, sir. Haircut. Also…SHOW THE FUCKING GAME.
•    Red Steel 2: it certainly looks better than the first one, but that’s not setting the bar very high.
•    Pele, with a children’s game. He’s speaking Soccer, so they needed to bring out a translator for Americans. Yawn.
•    Splinter Cell: Jack Bauer looks neat, but we saw this earlier in the day.
•    I’m not sure what Ruse is all about, but that commercial was crap.
•    Comedian guy: Still not happening.
•    And now a quick “badoop badoop badoop” as we skip the casual game portion of our show.
•    Rabbids: Go Home. More mini-games. I’m sure there’s a few minutes of fun in there, if you like that kind of thing.
•    Turtles? Looks decent enough, not sure if I’m 15 enough to care too much.
•    No More Heroes 2: No, thank you.
•    Finally, the game people wanted to see: Assassin’s Creed 2. It gets huge points just for the setting, I can’t think of any other DaVinci themed games. No gameplay, but the cinematic certainly seems well done.
UbiSoft: Weaksauce. You guys got your heads handed to you by EA today.

Also, I saw the preview of Alpha Protocol. This was a game I had written off, but I’m now going to pay more attention. It certainly looks like it could be very entertaining.
Thus endeth my thoughts of Day 1 of E3 via my TV. Back tomorrow with whatever else catches my interest.

June 1, 2009

More Noise

Filed under: E3, Rant, videogames — feenwager @ 11:13 pm

Continuing my bullet-pointy thoughtsicles. This time about Electronic Arts’ press conference.

•    Dante’s Inferno: looks better than I expected. Has a very God Of War feel to it. That’s a good thing.
•    Sims 3: Who fucking cares.
•    Littlest PetShop? Umm…nope. Also, this guy has a daughter? What, with his life partner?
•    Hold on a sec…after Dante, which wasn’t really part of the show, we’re leading with Sims and PetShop? This does not bode well.
•    Charm Girls Club? What. The. Fuck. EA?
•    Need For Spzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
•    The Doctors! Dragon Age! Crap…you guys could have just stood there and said, “We’re making this game. It’ll be on sale eventually.” And I’d have still bought it. October 20th? Happy Birthday to me!
•    Now Mass Effect 2? Ok…this is more like it, EA. Gameplay trailer you say? Just hearing Shephard’s voice made me smirk. That shit looks amazing. Something tells me we’ll be waiting until fall of 2010 for that one, though.
•    I’m sure Fight Night 4 will be neat, but it’s just not my thing.
•    Looks like EA sports has some interesting online ideas. I was encouraged by what they did with last year’s Tiger Woods, so I’ll be watching what they do in this space.
•    EA Active sounds like too much work.
•    Hey look! It’s EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis! Just like every other tennis game you’ve ever played! Now with more Wii Sports clone-age!
•    Why haven’t I heard of The Saboteur until right now? I’m intrigued. I like the 1930’s setting, but the game seems to have a little bit of GTA-itis to it. We shall see.
•    Tim Muthafucking Schaefer, ladies and gentlemen. Brutal Legend. I’m buying it. Duh. Mad props for using Diamondhead’s original version of Am I Evil? In the trailer.
•    I wish I cared about Crysis. I do not. Maybe when it hits consoles.
•    Ok, so imagine if GTA were an MMO then it would be APB, new from EA, ok?
•    Speaking of MMO’s…here’s another one I won’t be playing, only this one has a bunch of nerds holding fake lightsabers. Nope, sorry guys.
Overall, a solid performance from EA. It didn’t start off too strongly, but they definitely brought it in the middle there. Nice to see that they picked up Brutal Legend with the intention of actually selling the damn thing.

Adding To The Noise

Filed under: Rant, videogames — feenwager @ 6:14 pm
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Everyone with 8 working fingers and an operable keyboard will be spouting what roxz0rs and what sux0rs at E3 this year, so why am I doing this?

Because I feel like it?

So there you go. Here are my thoughts on Microsoft’s press conference today:

  • Beatles Rock Band: I love the Beatles. Could not care less about this game. I’m over music games in all of their forms.
  • You paid to have Paul & Ringo there…maybe have someone write something for them to say? Just an idea.
  • Tony Hawk: Anklebreaker…not interested.
  • Modern Warfare 2: Looks awesome, but the first one was killer, why wouldn’t this one be great? I’m excited to play it.
  • Final Fantasy XIII: Not sure what the point of this was, other than to remind us that it’s also coming to the Xbox. Meh. I’m still gonna buy it on the PS3, that just feels more right to me for some reason.
  • I’ve already forgotten the name of that Epic game, but it looks super cool. Very old school Metroid.
  • Left 4 Dead 2? Really? This year? Is this the anti-Valve? I dunno…maybe it should have just been an expansion pack if it’s just going to be more levels. I’ll withhold judgment until I see some more details.
  • Splinter Cell: I haven’t played any of these games, so it’s tough to have an opinion. Looks like a riff on 24 and Taken.
  • Forza 3: I don’t do racing games not named Burnout.
  • Halo 3: ODST….that still really sucks as the name of a game, but I’m suddenly excited to play this one. That’s a complete 180 from when it was announced. It looks very solid. The multiple viewpoints to tell the story seems like it could be very cool if done correctly.
  • Halo: Reach. Hmmm…why did Bungie split off from Microsoft again? To work on Halo, Halo, and more Halo? Fuck it, I’m sure it’ll be cool.
  • Alan Wake certainly looks interesting. I just wonder if the models don’t look a little dated considering they’ve been making this game for about 50 years? Still, definitely one to keep an eye on, it’s tough not to pay attention to any game that tries to be mature without resorting to saying “eat shit” every five seconds. But…Spring 2010? Jesus.
  • Last.fm is retarded on any platform. Bah. At least it’s free.
  • Zune video? Really? That’s what you’re calling it? Good luck with that. 1080p and instant streaming is pretty hot, though.
  • Not sure why I would ever want to do a “Live Party”. The technology is neat, but I don’t see why we can’t just watch stuff on our own.
  • Facebook and Twitter on Xbox…great. In case there were any moments of my life left where people didn’t know exactly what I was doing.
  • Don Mattrick: you’ve had all year to prepare. Memorize that shit.
  • Metal Gear is gonna be on Xbox!! Woo-hoo! Another platform I can ignore it on!
  • I am not going to stand in front of my TV and flail around like a fucking retard with a car battery attached to his nuts. This is the last I will speak of this abomination.
  • Ok, one more thing: I want to murder the fake family that starred in that commerical.
  • I think Kudo is a massive toolbag.
  • Fuck you, Milo.

Ok, we’re done. The first half of the press conference was badass. The 360 has some kickass games coming this year and next. The second half made me want to barf. Clearly Microsoft has way too much disposable income that they are pouring into researching and developing new and exciting ways to sell consoles to people that have no interest in actually playing games and supporting the industry.

Sigh.

PS: Telltale Games: Please do not fuck up Secret Of Monkey Island. Thank you.

April 9, 2009

Rock And Or Roll

Filed under: Music, Nonsense — feenwager @ 12:21 pm
Tags: , , , , ,

I’ve been putting off this post for a while, because once I post this for all to see, then I actually have to follow through and ya know, do something. But since I started plugging myself (eww) on the latest Squadcast (available shortly), I guess it’s time to start pulling the curtain back just a tad.

I’m recording a CD.

There. I said it.

Obviously, if you know me for real this isn’t some great revelation. I’ve been playing and writing music for over 20 years now. The thing is, in all of that time I’ve never actually released anything. As a band, we recorded a few demo tapes and even a “full album”, but we never did much more than pass them out to friends and use them to get gigs. This is a bit different, for a few reasons.

Reason #1: I’m doing everything myself (sort of, more on this in a moment)

Reason #2: I intend to use some serious Web 2.0 shit to get the word out, and hopefully get my tunes into as many hands as possible

The name of the album (until I change my mind) is going to be GarageBand Days. Hopefully you get the joke. It’s cool if you don’t, as long as you like the tunes.

There will be anywhere between 12 and 14 songs on the finished CD, and I hope to have it done this summer. It’s mostly newly written material, but I’m also going to dust off a few of my older songs that I don’t feel ever got the proper treatment and try to do right by them.

As for the Web 2.0 shit, I’ll be posting the songs, one at a time, on Soundclick as they’re recorded. They’ll be medium quality streaming MP3s only until the album is finished, at which time hopefully there will be a place where you can download them in the high quality format of your choosing. I’m still working on that part.

Huge, HUGE thanks go to my good buddy Pete Rizzo, who is mixing the whole mess for me, and generally making my primitive recordings sound as good as possible. Anything that sounds good is all Pete, and the bad stuff is all my fault.

I’m preemptively thanking anyone who reads this for all of your support, and I really hope you enjoy the rock and or roll.

Jeff Parsons

GarageBand Days

Summer, 2009

March 3, 2009

Twits

Filed under: Nonsense, Rant — feenwager @ 12:06 pm
Tags: ,

I’m sure I’m not the first to say this, but I think we need a Twitter / Facebook Status Code Of Conduct of sorts.

I am more than happy to read your status updates. But I ask that they:

  • are interesting
  • if not interesting, are funny
  • are spelled correctly
  • don’t mangle grammar any more than the 140 character limit forces you to
  • never (and The Rock means Never) use LOL. As far as I know, I don’t follow any 14 year old girls, so I don’t expect to see LOL. A simple Ha! will suffice if something is that funny
  • aren’t just a link. Tell me why I want to click on whatever it is you’re posting

I don’t need to know:

  • that you are tired
  • that you are bored
  • that you are tired and bored
  • that your job sucks
  • that you have a cold
  • the intimate details of your private life

Remember, if all else fails never forget the three magic words: Be More Funny.

Thank you and good day.

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