BÖC-Hurricane Party Video Mix

If you never hear from me again, I was swept out to sea.

And Miss All This?

I’ve Always Wondered

It’s not been a good week for blogging, but it has been a productive one for writing. I’m closing in on the end of one manuscript and hoping that I have enough time to tackle a short piece of my own before I move on to the next project. I’m also doing a rundown of the various gods and goddesses of Stonehell Dungeon for an inquisitive fan (Be done soon, Mike). I’ve got some more Dragontale posts coming and some assorted other bits in the pipe. Look for them next week. Until then, let me leave you with this observation:

Today, while out and about, the familiar strains of The Pretender’s “Back on the Chain Gang” came strutting out of my car speakers. As I listened to the song, bopping along to Ms. Hynde, I again wondered about the provenance of one of the song’s lyrics.

Ever since I learned of the existence of Robert E. Howard's tale “Pigeons from Hell”, I’ve wondered if Chrissie Hynde is alluding to Howard’s work with the line “Got in the house like a pigeon from hell.” If that is the case, it officially makes Chrissie Hynde the coolest rock n’ roll goddess the world has ever seen.

A Missed Opportunity

I've been listening to one of my more obscure LPs lately while wrestling with a piece I'm working on. It's the album "Cacophany" by the British punk ensemble Rudimentary Peni. The album is composed entirely of songs inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and Howard Philips Lovecraft. It's a bit of an acquired taste but I've had it on vinyl since my college days.

One song on the album, "Imps of the Perverse," features a particularly humorous rant against Grandpa Theobald. I enjoyed it for years before I learned that the rant did not originate with the band, but with Avrim Davidson, the executive editor of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine, who wrote it as a review of The Survivor and Others in 1963. It was intended in good fun.

I recently discovered that some wag put together a video featuring the song and placed it up on Youtube. The staccato appearance of the song's captioning just cracks me up. I'm not sure if Lovecraft would have approved, but I'm pretty sure Two-Gun would have cracked a smile.

Friday Flashback

With apologies to Sham for stealing his bit.

File Under “Things I Wish I Had Said”

Leave it to Red to sum up my feelings at the moment. Man, am I beat.

This week was pretty much shot to hell, but in a good way. I managed to continue to beat the book into submission and I can see the end of the path through the forest of prose now. I’m confident that I’ll everything but the crying done by the end of the month, just in time for me to enjoy a nice break for the Fourth of July. I’ve even managed to start in on this next mysterious project and, after the literary knife fight which the current book began with, the manner in which this one is rolling off the fingertips is an oasis in the Drast of Creative Desolation. I have a good feeling about this one. Hopefully, I won’t be the only one.

GWAR was an unfortunate disappointment and if the show hadn’t been cheap and local, I’d be mighty pissed. The problem was mostly with the venue and with the people I was forced to share my quadrant of it with. I was glad that I finally got to experience them live, as it confirmed something that I’ve long suspected: GWAR is one of those rare bands which is much more smarter than the majority of its audience. If only some of those knuckleheads at the show realized that the butt of the joke was them… Luckily, it looks like Mike’s Punk Rock Summer 2010 has gained a new date, for Blondie’s playing in the city come August. GWAR and Blondie in one summer; one can’t dispute that I have a wide range of musical appreciation.

I haven’t so much as looked at the swag I got on Free RPG Day. I wish I had snagged a copy of D-Infiity, but I missed that it had Mutant Future content and put it down as another indie and 3.5 RPG game mag. I did walk away with the Harn quick start and adventure. Since I’ve had absolutely no experience with the system or setting, I’m looking forward to reading it…as soon as I get a free moment, that it. So, September, maybe?

I’ve got a few things on the line for next week, possibly a piece of news or two to reveal, but we’ll see where we end up after the weekend. I still need to polish up a few things for my Watchfires & Thrones session on Sunday and I’ve got a handful of minis that have been begging for a coat of paint—so I can unleash them on the players in the next session or two.

Enjoy your weekend, folks. I’m off line until Monday.

Patching Holes in My (Gaming) Music Education

For many years, I have heard the band Hawkwind mentioned in the same breath with the likes of Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin, Dio, and other such musical groups that have a certain gaming cachet. However, for varied reasons, I never got around to willingly exposing myself to their work (I cannot completely rule out unwitting exposure to them in college, but the haze in the dorm room’s air made it difficult to clearly see the album covers if you catch my drift). With the summer months upon us and thoughts of upcoming musical performances on my mind, I decided that it was high time to correct this situation. So, thanks to the miracle of interlibrary loan, I’ve gotten my hands on their first two albums – the eponymously titled Hawkwind and In Search of Space.


As it stands, I’m impressed. While not what I’d normally put into steady rotation, the albums have grown on me—Hawkwind more than In Search of Space, but that may simply be due to the fact I've heard more of the former than the latter—and there’s definitely a time when having this play in the background would be beneficial to the creative process. Plus I kind of dig the fact that iTunes labels their genre as “space.” And while I’m not quite ready to go out and purchase the entire Hawkwind catalogue, I am interested in hearing more.

My question then is this: Is there a quintessential Hawkwind album? Something that I would be doing myself a favor by sampling a taste of? Perhaps there’s one of the many which I might get more out of with a gaming background? Please enlighten me so I can best spend my musical budget.

Farewell, Ronnie James Dio

It's official: Ronnie James Dio has passed away from stomach cancer.

I'm grossly under-qualified to sum up RJD's musical accomplishments, but, as those of your familiar with his work might agree, I just know he would have had the coolest dice bag if he had been a gamer.

Generate your next adventure is Ronnie's honor with the Ronnie James Dio Lyric Generator to help inspire you.

Summer’s Here: The Punks Have Arrived

Longtime readers of the SoTPR may remember that I’m an aficionado of punk rock, having spent my formative years involved in the scene and fronting a small but durable ha-core band. Although I’m no longer active in my local scene, I remain a fan.

Last summer, through a series of coincidences and happenstance, I found myself attending a few punk rock shows in my area. It seems that, like the OSR, the punk bands from the late seventies and early eighties are having their own revival—cashing in on their dimming fame while everyone’s still alive. This is a good thing for fans like me in our troubled economic times for it means cheap local shows.

The paper today announced that the first of these punks of yore have arrived on my fair shores so I’m officially kicking of "Mike’s Old School Punk Rock Summer of 2010" this Saturday when I go see The Buzzcocks play a few towns over.



Checking out some of my favorite bands from back then, I see that it looks like Social Distortion and GBH will be in the vicinity this summer too. And although I don’t own any of their albums, my love for the absurd may take me to see GWAR next month. I’m anticipating more shows to be announced in the coming weeks. It looks like it’s a summer of Punkémon: Gotta Catch ‘em All

New Magic Item: Galoot Cologne

Created by an evil prince (and part-time theatre critic), this vile substance is extremely lethal when consumed in its purest form. Anyone drinking the galoot cologne (cuh-LOG-nuh) must save vs. poison at -4 or die.

However, when the galoot cologne is mixed with food before consumption, the results are quite different. On a failed saving throw, the consumer’s Charisma is permanently reduced by 6 points unless he or she already has a Charisma of 6 or less.

If this is the case, the consumer’s Strength is permanently increased by four points up to a maximum of 18. Additionally, the consumer develops certain antisocial tendencies and becomes quick to anger. Should the consumer have a Strength of 14 or better (and a CHA of 6 or less) prior to consuming the liquid, they become a strange creature (never before seen on Broadway).

In this event, the referee is encourage to determine their new form using the tables and methods presented in Exquisite Corpses, The Random Esoteric Creature Generator, “Random Monsters” from The Dragon #10, or similar products. Referees strapped for time may use the stats for an ogre and assign the character 2-5 bizarre traits or new body parts.

Identify Spell Needed

Thanks to a comment to Abode of the Toad from Scott of Wilderlands OD&D fame, I got to browsing YouTube, looking to see what people have done with songs from Blue Oyster Cult and the like. During that search, I came across "Elric - Requiem for Melnibone." Can anyone out there identify the song that is playing in this video? I've been known to use music in my games, but I try to avoid your standard Ren Fair stuff whenever possible. This is most definitely a modern piece, but is strongly evocative nonetheless. Any ideas?

EDIT: Never mind. It's Era's "The Mass". I should occasionally pay attention to those text thingies they sometimes put under the moving pictures.