UPDATE: MAGFest, New Tunes, and Other Great Things

Nearly three months without an update on my own website?! What the hell's my problem? Though it may seem things have been quiet here in Mega Beardo Land, I can assure you that is not the case. I've been sort of secretly working on a few tracks for compilations all set to be released between August 28 and October 31. But more importantly, HOLY CRAP I'M PLAYING AT MAGFEST.


At MAGFest, I will be joining the mighty Viking Guitar's live band along with Stemage, Adam Henry, and Travis Morgan. We'll be hitting the second stage. It's going to be awesome, and you should be there. Here's a taste of what's to come:


Oh yeah, new tunes. So what compilations are they?

1. Spectrum of Mana
You may have heard about this little, tiny project that has been in development for quite some time now. It is a tribute album with a ridiculous amount of people involved, and I feel lucky to be a part of it. I did an interview for the project that explains a little about my music background and my involvement with "Spectrum of Mana."

2. Vampire Variations II
This year's "Vampire Variations" album is two discs worth of Castlevania remixes. The first disc is all "Rondo of Blood," while the second disc is "Bloodlines." I'll be contributing a Rondo track, and you can hear a little bit of it in this trailer below (second song in):



And what's the third album, you ask? We'll just keep that one a secret for now :) Let's just say I'm not remixing a video game song on it.
 

A New, Non-Djenty Zelda Remix for Free Download!

This is a leftover idea from the "Ledjent of Zelda" writing sessions. I originally planned to end the album with this song, but I felt it would ultimately mess with the overall tone and cohesive statement of the other tracks. Hence, I never recorded this idea.

UNTIL NOW!

As a 'thank you' to all you awesome people who have supported me all the way through my "Ledjent of Zelda" EP, I wanted to give you guys a little something in return. So, THANK YOU and ENJOY! This one's on the house (free free free).

Download link

You'll also notice that this melody did make it onto the album as a solo for "Triforsphere." It's around the 2:34 mark:

I Randomly Recorded a Journey to Silius Track!

Howdy, BeardHeads! It may seem like things have been quiet around Mega Beardo Land since the release of Ledjent of Zelda, but I can assure you this isn't the case. I've got a couple non-Mega Beardo related projects in the works right now, which I plan to update you all on very soon. But in the middle of all that, I randomly picked up my acoustic guitar and starting jamming on one of my all-time favorite VGM tracks, and this happened...




I've always felt like tackling some of (if not all of) the Journey to Silius soundtrack, and this seemed like a cool way to do just that. I may revisit this soundtrack in the future, but I can tell you I have a bunch of other ideas I'd like to tackle too, and that includes more original material. We'll just see what I feel like doing first.

Anyway, enough rambling. If you want to download this track, head on over to my bandcamp page! I've made it part of my ever-growing Extra Lives album of random B-sides.

Journey to Silius - Stage 2 (download)

Footage of My Old Band 3-Hole Face Emerges!

You may have seen through facebook or twitter that I'll be recording vocals for a project called 3-Hole Face. Well, 3-Hole Face was an industrial metal band that lasted from 2000-2004, during which I was the lead guitarist. Terry Smith, the mastermind behind 3-Hole Face and the dude the masters all the Mega Beardo stuff, has stockpiled a bunch of new tunes that he wants me to sing on. So that's happening this year.

BUT check this out! I was doing some spring cleaning and happened upon a pile of VHS and cassette tapes that I squirreled away for some reason or another. On one of those VHS tapes was a 3-Hole Face show from 2002 that had no audio. And on one of those audio cassettes was the soundboard audio from that very show! So through the wonders of cheap modern technology, I was able to sync them up and post a couple of the tracks on Youtube for your viewing pleasure. This is a good chance to get a good idea where I got my start. In case you don't recognize me, I'm the dude with the long hair, the black SG, and the Dimebag Darrell beard.

"Synthetic Skin"


"Dollars For Blood"


As far as I know, we were pretty much the only industrial metal band in West Virginia at the time aside from another awesome band called Screw-Worm (and I haven't heard of any since). Needless to say, coming to a show and seeing some small-town boys all painted up with highlighters and playing crazy industrial metal was something quite different for the Morgantown scene. Unfortunately, we had to call it quits after 2004, although we played a one-off reunion show in 2010 to help raise money for cancer research. But you'll get new 3-Hole Face tunes hopefully by the end of the year! So there's that.

Ledjent of Zelda is Finally Here!

Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come. My new E.P. Ledjent of Zelda is finally available! Along with the usual bandcamp download options, I also have CD copies available for pre-order. I hope to start shipping those out by the end of April.

Four tracks, clocking in at 25 minutes. 25 minutes of condensed Zelda zaniness.

Enough blabbing. Here's the bandcamp link!:

http://beardomusic.bandcamp.com/album/ledjent-of-zelda


And here is the amazing cover art by the incomparable Brian Pickens. He really keeps outdoing himself.

 

Ledjent of Zelda Release Date! It's Real Soon!

Oh, hey. ALBUM RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT.

"Ledjent of Zelda" will (finally) be released on Tuesday, March 19. It will be available for download (pay what you want!) at beardomusic.bandcamp.com

The 25-minute E.P. consists of four tracks with these goofy titles:

1. Triforsphere
2. Labyrinths of Fragmented Wisdom
3. Ganon Lives!
4. The obzEnd

Pre-orders for the CD version of the E.P. will be available on the same date. They come with an instant download of the album, per usual.

Album cover art coming soon! Keep dem eyeballs peeled!

P.S. If you want to hear the E.P. one day early, come on over to the listening party at www.alphaomegaradio.com at Monday, March 18, at 8PM Eastern. Here's the facebook event page!: https://www.facebook.com/events/163919620431559/

A "Ledjent of Zelda" Super-Update Post!

Judging by how infrequently I have updated my own website, you can sense that things have been quite busy here in Mega Beardo Land. Not only have I been working on my soon-to-be-released Ledjent of Zelda (a modern, proggy metal take on the original LoZ OST), but I am working on contributions to some really awesome compilations coming out this year. PLUS, I am getting a couple of new projects off the ground.

With that said, let us get a quick rundown of the status of Ledjent of Zelda, shall we?

• The writing part is completely finished. That was the hard part, of course. Now it's just a matter of re-recording most of the guitar parts to make them sound better than the demos, pretty much.
• Rhythm guitars are completely finished. The only thing left is to do lead guitars, clean guitars, and bass. Lead stuff is next on the list!
• There will be 4 tracks all adding up to be 25 minutes in length (this is an EP). 
• The EP is still projected to be out to you, at least in downloadable form at beardomusic.bandcamp.com, by March. Physical copies in the form of those archaic music depositories known as compact discs are also in the works.
• The artwork will be handled by the ever-incredible Brian Pickens, who did the artwork for all of my albums up to this point.
• Last, but certainly not least, there will be REAL drums on this album! I've programmed drums for everything in the past, so this is a real treat. Drums are being handled by fellow VGM remixer Angel Hernandez (Another Black Day). You can check out his amazing remix work at masikus.bandcamp.com!

So I think that brings us up to speed. Of course, always check back for more updates. I'm also on Twitter (@megabeardo) quite a bit, tweeting updates on music and just talking video games/music/movies/randomness in general. That's a good way to keep up with what's going on in my little world. With that, I shall leave you with the final two video updates for Ledjent of Zelda. Enjoy!