When it comes to synth-pop songs about girls who are smart, songs about guys preoccupied with your approval of their Wang, songs about theft, songs about tennis and songs about more rokk with less talk, Freezepop have earned the platinum trophy.

From humble beginnings rattling around the Boston area in 1999 to being a major draw at PAX ten years later, the band has slowly emerged and taken on the world. They've ramped up their game as well as the quality of their product, even when, admittedly, much of their charm comes from their DIY championing of technological minimalism. For a long time the band stuck closely to the Yamaha QY-70 as their primary sound source. More recently they broke out of those constraints and flexed their sonic muscles with a broader pallet of lush electronic sounds.

The band has long been a staple among music and rhythm video games, most notably Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Their founding member Kasson Crooker (aka The Duke) works at Harmonix, so their connection is perhaps a given. But it's that very connection that eventually forced The Duke to make his own Sophie's Choice between his work at the game company, or his continued involvement with the band. He chose Harmonix, and in 2009, after a triumphant show at PAX, he left the band.

Or did he?

I had the chance to sit down with Liz, Sean and Seth, the core live line-up of Freezepop for the past three years or so, before their show in Duluth, Minnesota on November 11th. We talked about all things PAX, The Duke and their future future future. Prefect? Read on!

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There's a saying when looking at old houses (or old faces, I suppose), that they have “good bones,” meaning that they are built with quality and character. While people may slather on their own misguided style over the top, the bones stay the same, waiting for just the right person to come along and allow them to shine.

Many of us are familiar with the excellent work done with Nobuo Uematsu's Final Fantasy lexicon, yet it may surprise you to know that there are, in fact, other great lo-bit producers out there who worked on systems other than (gasp!) the reverential Nintendo Entertainment System. Guys like Chris Hülsbeck and the Commodore 64.

While it is becoming more common to see video game music performed live with an orchestra, it's not often that the end result amounts to anything more than a passing curiosity. It's nice to pretend that all retro game music is somehow glorious and profound simply because it's retro and therefore oh-so cool, but the fact is that there's a massive pile of dreck covering up the few gems underneath. The fact that hvsc.c64.org alone has a collection of over 30,000 C64 SID songs is testament enough to that.

How does one manage to wade through this seemingly insurmountable ocean of material? Well, one good way is to follow whatever conductor Arnold “Arnie” Roth is involved with. He's the man behind the baton on two of the best orchestrated Final Fantasy performances released, both Distant Worlds and Dear Friends, as well as PLAY! A Video Game Symphony. Along with arrangers Jonne Valtonen, Yuzo Koshiro (Ys, ActRaiser, and Etrian Odyssey), Takenoubo Mitsuyoshi (Shenmue, Virtua Fighter, and Daytona) and Adam Klemens (Immortal 3), Roth and the WDR Radio Orchestra, FILMharmonic Choir Prague attempted to bring the magic to Hülsbeck's musical history (including Amiga, PC Engine, film scores and the aforementioned C64) with two performances in Cologne. Thus, Symphonic Shades was born.

With such good bones to work with and such talented musical architects involved, it would tough for anything to go wrong. Or would it? Hit that jump and find out. view full story + comments

[Editor's note: Zac Bentz tells us the tale of the magical Nintendo Entertainment System for his Monthly Musing. -- CTZ]

It's still tough for some of us to remember a time before the Nintendo Entertainment System. It's tough to remember that, before 1985, I had been playing my Atari 2600 into the ground day and night. That I was already pumping quarter after quarter into any stand-up arcade game I came across. It's as if that clunky little gray box came not only with a zapper and a junky robot, but some sort of subliminal brain-washing device set to eradicate all memory of videogaming past. “I AM ALL THAT IS, ALL THAT EVER WAS AND ALL THAT WILL EVER BE!” it screamed to every kid within a fifty mile radius.

Of course, to anyone who had spent years drooling over dull-colored squares that could only make mono-phonic “blurt” noises, the Technicolor, polyphonic, next-gen experience that the NES had to offer was enough to turn any joystick jockey into a devoted fan within seconds. Hell, you didn't even need to play the thing. Just seeing a poster full of tiny screen-shots was all it took.

I don't know where or when I first heard about the NES. In fact, I don't think I really had any clear idea what it was until one fateful day in June of 1986. The end of school, the beginning of a glorious summer vacation and the start of an affair that has lasted far longer than that of various girlfriends and, I must admit, that of my marriage. The NES will always have been my first. My real first time was actually not with a girl, but a kid named Vance. Actually, it was a three way with him and my other friend Steve. We all came together that day in June, in his living room, with his mother watching from the kitchen. 

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[Editor's note: Japanator superstar Zac Bentz got a chance to interview Freezpop at a recent concert of theirs this past week. You can read the interview below or if you suffer from the TL;DR syndrome because of how dumb your brain is, you can listen to the interview mp3 style. -- CTZ]

In a gaming scene full of metal masters and guitar Gods, one might question the inclusion of a band that not only has no guitar tracks, but no guitar player, or bass player, or drummer, or songs about Satan, soul crushing angst or even long greasy hair and black leather jackets. Never-the-less, the Boston based electro-pop band Freezepop has probably been featured on more mash-the-controller-in-time-with-the-music based games than any other band in the world.

What started out as an obscure sub-genre has now become one of the biggest gaming franchises ever, and it all started for Freezepop when one of their members, named after a flaky Scandinavian crusty pastry, used his job at Harmonix to get his band into Frequency, then Amplitude, then Guitar Hero, DDR, and most recently Rock Band.

Since then, Freezepop has toured the world (but not Japan!) and made zillions of crazy-ass fans through their un-apologetically upbeat and sometime silly brand of pop-electro-synth majesty. Often playing in full-on '80s preppy tennis gear, singing into sharks and even using for-reals guitars on-stage (mostly un-ironically), the band is quickly becoming more than just a weekend distraction. These guys are serious business.

I had a chance to talk to both singer Liz Enthusiasm and keytar hero Seth Damascus-Kennedy on Monday, March 31st before their free show at UMD in Duluth, Minnesota. We talked a lot about the above mentioned gaming scene, as well as an obsessive Freezie fan, dogs, hugs, future PAX plans and whatever other random junk fell out of my mouth.

You can download and listen to the entire interview either via this torrent or this direct link. HUGE thanks to the band for taking the time to talk with me, for playing an awesome show afterward, and for making some of the best synth-pop around. Check out their site and their MySpace for more great music and news.

Here's a transcription of most of the interview. You'll have to check out the mp3 for the full deal, but here are a few of the main points for the audio-impaired after the jump.

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[We're going crazy tonight, with Zac, Lemon, and Tron all appearing on the front page! ZOMG! -- DMV]

Modding a game to make it glitch out and do freaky shit is one thing. Modding a game and turning it into an amazing work of art is quite another. Take, for instance, these clips of various user created worlds in Super Mario World. In each of them, a sort of Rube Goldberg machine is set into motion, allowing the "player" to do absolutely nothing to get from point A to B. Not only is it hypnotic, it cripples the mind.  

Screw saving the best for last. This is the best one. Sure, it starts off nice and easy with some fanciful Bullet Bill dodging, but things quickly get ri-damn-diculous in the second section. In an elevator, Mario is in constant back-and-forth movement in every direction as bullets fly from the four corners. The final second when he hops onto Yoshi? Brilliant! There's even a boss battle at the end.

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