There are basically two steps left: polish and approval. The video needs polish because we’re mixing footage from several locations with varied (and sometimes poor) lighting. Jude’s sister Sheridan happens to be an ace at this stuff so she’s going to take a crack at evening out the color balance and whatnot; she has already created an awesome animated logo for all future video projects going forward.

Then there’s approval. We are not expecting any issues here, but since we shot most of it on location at California Extreme, the folks who run that show would like a look-see to make sure, like, nobody who is shy is accidentally caught on video. I don’t think there will be any problems, as we brought our own cast of volunteers for the shoot and you barely see anybody who isn’t in the band or a friend of the band. But for all the trust and access the CAX team gave us, this is the least we can do. So once we have their sign-off on the final cut, we will be ready to post. Fingers crossed, hopefully first week of September.

I have posted a few more of Kat’s shots from our CAX photo session at Facebook (we have a new group, did you know?), none of which are from the video…but after the video comes out, there will be a few more.

The show was a blast anyway, but the video shoot made it extra special. I don’t want to give too much away about exactly what is in the video because I want it to be a surprise to anybody who wasn’t there. I can say that we made good use of over 400 classic arcade machines — everything in the song was on the show floor except for just two games (Daytona USA and Ladybug). Also, several members of the GamesRadar/TalkRadar crew helped us out and stayed up in the wee hours of the morning while we lip-synched with the best of them. We are forever grateful to the CA Extreme gang for trusting us when we came to them with this crazy idea and we hope the final video will do them proud.

The video is being edited now and we are picking up a few shots we didn’t get during the weekend. I figure it will be online sometime in the next six to eight weeks. Hopefully sooner but realistically, we have a lot going on in real life.

Also, after talking with Spreadshirt about how they handle issues of copyright infringement, we feel confident they will not pull our designs without a clear notification. For that matter, we don’t think they’ll tell us that our original designs belong to someone else the way Zazzle did, but that almost goes without saying.

However, we are keeping our embroidered hoodies and caps up at Zazzle for the time being. There was a significant setup fee for us to make those items available, and Spreadshirt does not yet offer embroidered items, so those are the only items that remain in our Zazzle store. As soon as we find an alternate vendor for those, the Zazzle store will close.

Everything is available through our Merch page, of course. Thanks for your support.

Now it’s tougher for us both to make it to CAX — Jude’s on the east coast, I’m in SoCal — but we’re still planning to attend this year. And we are going to make the most of it. We are not doing a live concert (sorry), but we are doing something special beyond just enjoying the expo — and, depending on how crazy you are, you may be invited to participate. Remember how we solicited for people to sing along on “Learn to Spell?” I think this is cooler.

If you have any desire to be involved, buy your tickets now and comment below when you do.

Anyway, we debuted “Wii Christmastime” on episode 29, and the whole TalkRadar crew has been very supportive of us, playing our songs and giving us exposure to all their perverted little fans. And we really, really appreciate that.

So the very least we can do is return the favor. Go listen to TalkRadar 100. It’s only six hours long.

The lyrics are posted at YouTube and Entertonement but I’m trying to figure out how to best post them here too — with the song, on their own page, just in the blog? Dunno. But I did realize that there were some lines that didn’t make it that you might find interesting.

Jude came up with the core concept, the story, and some of the lines, then I spent a few weeks (on and off) putting together polished lyrics and fleshing out the story. Over the course of that I wrote down anything that seemed even remotely plausible or useful, and I made a list of about 100 classic games to try to pair up with rhyming partners. A lot of classic games were omitted simply because the meter of the game names never fit the meter of the song’s original words. I also found that tons of classic games, like Centipede, stress the first syllable, and I needed ones like Defender that hit the second. SINistar, ASteroids, PAperboy, GALaga, SPY Hunter, TIME Pilot, STAR Castle, BATtlezone, TUtenkham, XEvious, ZOO Keeper, CLIFF Hanger, DRAgon’s Lair, JUNGle Hunt, MOON Patrol, ARKanoid, BUMP ‘n Jump — none of them fit because none of them rhymed well, and they all had to fit in the same few holes anyway. I was even going to throw in Radarscope, but only had a handful of places in the whole song where I could accomodate those three-syllable names. For a while, Space Invaders and Eliminator were paired up but they didn’t fit anywhere, as were Kangaroo & Pole Position II and Wizard of Wor & Robotron 2084. I also tried to work in Polybius but never found a home for it.

Usually, lines don’t get used if they sound awkward or something else that rhymes better or helps the story presents itself. Among the bits that were cut or never made it was this list of lame one-liners to rhyme with “Arcade Gaming Shrine” before each refrain:

He’s out to redefine
He’s moved onto cloud 9
Now the old games will shine
Coin-ops are just divine
He’s got a grand design
Where did he lose his mind?

I had a lot of alts for “and playing golf with Golden Tee” but could never rhyme them:

And Neo games like Metal Slug
And going ape with Donkey Kong
And Jungle Hunt when it was King

I was really sad to lose that Jungle Hunt one because it was such a really geeky inside reference, the way Carney Holes were to “Halo (All I Play-Oh)).” The closest I came with anything in this section of the song was:

A Space Ace is right there
With laserdiscs like Dragon’s Lair

Instead of the Flynn’s Arcade line, a working lyric was “Who says arcade gaming is obsolete? (Insert coin)” but I never found a good rhyme for it either. And instead of the Pac-Man death sound after “Stop!” we originally wanted to use either Donkey Kong’s stomping and grinning sounds from the start of the game, or some of Jumpman’s running sounds to approximate the sort of rhythm of the stopwatch from the original song. We tried Donkey Kong sounds first, but it never sounded as good as we’d hoped.

But the biggest cut was the fourth verse. Since we had the “Fight! Fight Fight!” and “Run! Run! Run!” layers planned, we decided to repeat the first verse as the original BFS song does, because that last verse on the way out is a sum of all the parts that have come before it, with lots of fun layers just for effect. Rather than try to feed people new information, we simply added the quotes from the game as the token new bit and repeated verse 1. But having depleted all the good game rhymes, verse 4 went in a slightly different direction on the same theme:

Centuri, Konami
And Tetris from Atari
There was Midway with Bally
And shooting games from Exidy
Pre-console Nintendo
Plus Capcom, Stern, and Taito
That’s all that come to mind
The arcade arcade arcade gaming shrine

Anyway, I guess that shows how much work goes into our silly songs. And you can be uber-l33t now and sing the lost lyrics if you want to show off!

For the future, we’ve got the lyrics completely done for one song, and the instrumentation underway for another, so we’re hoping to have both out before the end of this year. One of them may need to be delayed and timed to a real-world event, so no promises on exactly when they will be released. Stay tuned.

–Dan

For details on this track, click the link below.

Good heavens. I just updated the Songs page and saw that it has been almost a year since our last release. I’m so sorry. Right after that song was released, I switched jobs, then switched jobs again. It took Jude and his wife less time to have a baby than it took me to finish up my half of this song.

If I recall correctly, this track was one that Jude came up with, and it only makes sense since he is essentially the title character in the song. In his spare time, Jude collects and restores old arcade machines and has since long before I met him. He helped me bring a Ms. Pac-Man back to life and has helped me out on several other coin-op adventures. People often ask me “what’s your favorite game system of all time” and I honestly, truly believe the answer is the arcade machine. What could possibly beat a 400-pound box dedicated to playing ONE GAME PERFECTLY and decorated to match? I cut my gaming teeth in arcades and the coin-op games of yore will always have a special place in my heart as a result. I still have two arcade machines in my garage; Jude may have ten times that by now. His basement is apparently very cool but I have not had the chance to see it yet.

Jude did the drums and cymbals and helped isolate some of the sound effects from the games; I did guitars, bass, and vocals. This is the first song we’ve done without any keyboard parts at all, so I really worked hard on the guitars. All told this was 21 tracks, most of which were guitars and vocal layers. I lost my voice in March and had to put off the recording of the vocals for three long weeks, but believe me — I did some tests a week prior to the final recording session and it just wasn’t there.

Jude and I want to seriously thank all the great people behind the great games that are name-checked in this song. If you are in the Bay Area this July, we both urge you to go to California Extreme, which is our favorite arcade show. We’ll both be there this year and it’s well worth the money. This show is put on out of pure love for the games that built an industry and we proudly support it.

– Dan

The answer is both “never” and “now.” It’s never for the same reason that we do not charge for our songs: we only own partial copyright. The recording, the lyrics — those are definitely ours. However, the music/songwriting? Clearly the work of the original band. We pay a licensing fee for each song we record, but we do not have the rights to give our masters to the Rock Band Network or the Guitar Hero team and say “Thanks, have fun.” If we ever write an original song, then we’ll have the rights to do with it as we see fit, and we could approach the games about it. But until that time, the nature of what we do is derivative, and therefore we must respect the people who created the original works.

However…the answer is also now. All you need is a copy of the lyrics and you can sing whatever you like when you play the original songs by the original artists. So, here’s what we know is available so far:

ROCK BAND FRANCHISE
“Halo (All I Play-Oh”) – “Snow ((Hey-Oh))” by Red Hot Chili Peppers, as Rock Band DLC
“Vista Drivers” – “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor, on the Rock Band 2 disc
“Learn to Spell” – “Gives You Hell” by All-American Rejects, as Rock Band DLC

GUITAR HERO FRANCHISE
“Vista Drivers” – “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor, on the Guitar Hero World Tour disc
“Learn to Spell” – “Gives You Hell” by All-American Rejects, as Guitar Hero DLC

As long as you hit the right pitches, the games do not care what words you sing. Have a few drinks and try singing the words “fruitcake” and “pants” to every song; as long as you are still hitting the notes, you’ll do well.

I personally had an issue with Zazzle a few months ago when they told me that photos we’d taken for a calendar infringed on copyright. I lost that battle and had the calendar made elsewhere, but vowed I would find a new place for PSwap swag too.

When we uploaded the first PSwap designs to Zazzle, we were immediately challenged on ownership — strange, since we had already legally asserted our ownership by uploading, per Zazzle’s own terms of service. But we went through the extra red tape anyway and life went on.

These lyrics belong to us.

We are not using any imagery of Halo or its properties. We are not claiming affiliation with Bungie. We are Halo fans. We used the word Halo. That, says Zazzle, is infringing.

The lyrics are copyright of Palette-Swap Ninja. We wrote them. This is not even open to debate and we have the legal right to put them on a t-shirt and sell that t-shirt. The whole reason we went with a text-based shirt was because we knew we had to use something we truly owned; we did not want some overactive lawyer to make it an issue.

Zazzle’s overactive lawyers have made it an issue.

Zazzle will not talk to us about this. It took three contacts to learn what the issue was that caused the shirt to be removed in the first place. They will not elaborate further than it “infringes on the intellectual property rights of Bungie Software”. They will not transfer us from customer service to content services to discuss the fact that we are the legitimate intellectual property rights holders to what is displayed on this shirt. And they do not answer their Twitter feed.

What about Bungie? They liked the song and went so far as to help spread the word for the fan expression it is. I do not believe this claim of infringement actually came from Bungie. I think Zazzle is overzealous.

A company that will not engage in conversation with its customers is a bad company. After these two instances of improperly claiming copyright/IP infringement and poor communication, I have concluded that Zazzle is a bad company. If you would like to tell them so, feel free. You can call if you want (408-983-2800), or you can be ignored by their Twitter elves.

This is preposterous. Zazzle is wrong in its allegation that I do not have the legal rights to something I created. Palette-Swap Ninja will be taking its business elsewhere very soon. We’re open to your suggestions and we’re evaluating some of the many, many companies that do what Zazzle does.

All we want is a retail partner who will respect our intellectual property rights. Talking to us now and then would be nice too.

UPDATE: Spreadshirt assures us that there would be no issues with this design and they welcome our print-on-demand business. We are investigating their art templates and product offerings.

UPDATE 2: Zazzle’s Twitter team was behind in responses and is now “looking into it” and coordinating three departments.

If this can be resolved, great — but Kat spent a long time on the phone and in emails yesterday with Zazzle and got nowhere. They simply would not go into any detail and would not allow us to speak to any of the people who made that erroneous decision.

My frustration comes from the fact that there is no process to dispute one of those IP claims when it is faulty. If I was a kid ripping off the Coke logo, I could understand, and I even understand the logic of “your photo of a Fender guitar contains the Fender logo” being a gray area — but if someone at Zazzle makes a legal decision that has no merit — and I can prove it — I want to talk to them about it and explain in more detail so they are better informed. There is no structure to do that at Zazzle — your product gets spiked and you have to take it.

UPDATE 3: Okay, we have a dialogue with Zazzle, and a survey to fill out to improve future situations like this, and it looks like the shirt might be resurrected. I hope that in the future, this survey leads to a better form of communication and dispute resolution. ‘Cause I don’t like getting angry any more than Zazzle likes me getting angry.

I will help improve the process, but I am still evaluating alternate vendors.

UPDATE 4: I’ve been watching Zazzle for several months now, and there’s still crazy amounts of inconsistency — copyrighted designs are frequently offered for sale, but our original designs were harassed into oblivion. We have closed our Zazzle store completely and we’ve set up shop at Spreadshirt — several months in, it’s been smooth sailing. The end.

More details about what you REALLY missed after the jump, including incriminating photos.

Left to right: Dan, Jude, Chie (aka Mrs. SitSamBry), KDorff, SitSamBry, JugglerOfGeese, Xiantayne. I think. Photo courtesy of HeartbreakRidge — check out his Flickr gallery, he’s got some lovely shots of random stuff.

Our goal was to have the latest song done in time for PAX, and our big surprise was going to be handing a CD to the people who attended. Then I lost my voice due to illness and travel, and only got as far as finishing the guitars and the lyrics. So nobody got the new song at PAX, but the good news is we are that close to finishing it — vocals are always one of the last things to be recorded. Once I’m healthy (which, given the nature of how bad his voice is, may take a few weeks), you can look for a release soon. We’re tracking for late April.

Those in attendance did get some other juicy info: What the next song is about, what the next two songs are about, and what we’re thinking of doing a bit further down the road. We really appreciated having a sounding board for those ideas but it was definitely something that had us worried as to whether we should do or not. We generally keep everything super quiet for two reasons: one, jokes are funnier if you don’t know they’re coming, and two, we were afraid other people might steal our ideas if we shared them too soon. We are less concerned about the second reason now, but still strict about the first. The surprise factor is, I think, what makes it worth doing, and hopefully with repeated listenings, you pick up on little things and subtle elements you might have missed.

Jude and I got to wander around the show a little bit, and spend some time in the Funspot classic coin-op room. We both got to play the only known copy of Crazy Otto (the Pac hack that became Ms. Pac-Man — that’s Jude playing it in the photo to the right) and the oddball laser game Us vs. Them. Jude also got a nostalgic warm fuzzy for the cockpit edition of Sega’s Buck Rogers game. Then he went next door, saw that there was a “beat Mike Tyson” challenge in NES Punch-Out!!, and showed the kids how we old-schoolers do it. He very nearly beat Tyson while everybody watched!

On the plane ride back, one of the song concepts we discussed got fully fleshed out into lyrics which are now more or less final. That’s nice when it happens that way but it’s not usually that easy.