Noel Estep’s Offical Blog

As I said when I started, I was in the middle of moving so dedicating time to do a blog post every day would be tough.  I’m happy to say the move was a success, and I still have lots of unpacking to do, but here’s a photo diary of the moving process:

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for letting me stay at your place.  Here’s almost all of my stuff already packed up in my parent’s garage in Scottsdale.

Uhaul’s lovely “reservation” system forces us to move at night!  We started out with my stuff which went quickly, and then moved on to the daunting task of moving stuff out of John’s old place.

We got backup to help unload at the new place in Tempe!  Thanks everyone!

Oh dear God, we have a lot of unpacking to do.

The future place of a housewarming party… to be continued!

I learned about this guy from a british music blog which has since up and kicked the bucket.  At the time he had just released a 4-song EP of songs he had performed, composed, and produced all himself at the age of 19.  Two years later, he has gained some ground in the UK music scene with a hit song.

Frankmusik – 3 Little Words

His music is along the lines of electronic pop music, which may not mean much to anyone here, but the composition of the songs are just really catchy!  What is impressive is that he is able to do all of his songs live, acoustically on a piano, without the ever-popular “auto-tune” tools that many performers today rely on.

Frankmusik – In Step (live at a promotional appearance)

Now, I’ve collected as many of the copious demos he’s uploaded to his myspace over time, which numbers many, but after signing with Island Records it seems he’s focused in on releasing a full length debut album called “Complete Me”.  Producing legend Stuart Price (Madonna, The Killers) is working with Frank on perfecting his sound for a broader audience. Looking forward to checking it out.

Frankmusik – Confusion Girl

I first heard The Mountain Goats during a particular episode of the Showtime TV series Weeds, and since then I’ve come to like many more of their songs.

The Mountain Goats – Cotton

Usually when “they” play live, it’s just the one guy on the left( John Darnielle) on acoustic guitar and vocals.  Occassionally he is accompanied by Peter Hughes, pictured right, on bass guitar.

The Mountain Goats – This Year

Darnielle’s vocals are a bit harsh and seem off-key at times, but it is just one of those that fits with the music after you get used to it.  I actually prefer the newer albums of his where he either got guest musicians to help add piano, drums, and backup vocals to his songs, as opposed to his older stuff.

Much to my surprise and nerdy delight, The Mountain Goats recently performed a collaboration with Kaki King, creating a song which references Super Mario Brothers.  ”Thank You Mario! But Our Princess Is In Another Castle!”

Anyways if you like a bit of indie folk music with mellow and fast songs, you might enjoy The Mountain Goats, as I do.

I know I’ve mentioned these guys before but it’s worth mentioning again as I kick off music theme week here at my blog.

Anamanaguchi is  New York-based 4-piece band consisting of college students who use an original Nintendo Entertainment System as the fifth member of the band.  Peter Berkman, pictured on the far right, has been composing original songs using Nintendo hardware for years now.  He uses software to compose on his computer, after which the music is written onto a chip, which then gets soldered onto a NES cartridge, and played back through an original console.

Video game blog Kotaku calls them “The Chiptunes Band That Just Might Break Through“.  Its definitely on the more mainstream side of chiptune/bitpop music.  Chiptune is a relatively new genre of music, defined as “music written in sound formats where all the sounds are synthesized in realtime by a computer or video game console sound chip.”*

Most chiptune music is comprised solely of say, a Game Boy, as the sole instrument.  Anamanaguchi was arguably the first musical act to accompany an original Nintendo-system based song with a four piece rock band.  The sound ends up being very electronic, very fast paced, very…energetic, and a really awesome combination of nostalgic and cutting edge at the same time.

Anamanaguchi released a free EP back in 2006 called Power Supply, which is still available online.  The recording quality of these can be considered “demo” stage, but nonetheless it showcases the band’s sound.  I recommend the song “Helix Nebula”.

They just recently released their first full length album called Dawn Metropolis, which can be purchased through iTunes or their own web portal.  A more refined version of their sound, I recommend almost all of the tracks!

I really consider Peter Berkman to be an amazing composer and I hope to see more from his work in Anamanaguchi as well as other venues in the future.  In addition to Anamanaguchi, he was commissioned to make jingles for a line of toys called Tinpo. (Click here to check out a commercial for Tinpo featuring his music.)

Anamanaguchi can be seen live regularly in gigs in and around NYC, annually at PAX (gamer’s convention), SXSW, and of course Blip Festival.