For a long time (more than a year, in fact), I had what you could probably call an addiction. Not to anything life-threatening, mind you, but to something far more geeky and (usually) fun. Each week, the fine folks at Harmonix release new content for Rock Band, a music video game that I enjoy far too much. I had made a point to purchase everything they put out regardless of quality for the sake of ‘completeness’ - something I tend to do with many things in life. The end result of this was a massive library of mostly fun songs and lots of my former money in Harmonix’s worthy hands.
I recently changed my tune on this for mostly financial reasons, but still try to hop on the DLC bandwagon whenever it’s actually worth doing. This still happens more often than not, but after perusing Joystiq this morning I found out that I’d given up on DLC-whoring just in time. I enjoy a lot of different music across pretty much any genre. I really do. But this guy is fucking terrible. Should these tracks ever grace my Xbox’s hard drive, I want everyone who reads this to shoot me.
Erik Video Games
I mentioned a while ago that much of my business-related updates would find themselves elsewhere soon. Now, I’m able to elaborate on this.
I am now the owner and CEO of “Electric Flannel”, a game design studio that hopes to put high quality over high art and showcase many of the brightest young talents in the game design industry. The creation of “Electric Flannel” is the culmination of a lot of hard work and planning, and I couldn’t be more excited to show you more of what I’ve been up to. Our first title is well under way and will be announced very shortly. I hope you enjoy it as much as I’ve been.
For more on the company and its current and future ventures, you can visit electricflannel.com. The site will be updated regularly with game announcements, developer commentary and much much more.
Erik Uncategorized
In my half-assed quest to develop my presence on the internet for personal and professional reasons, I’ve found myself spending more time than not on my Twitter page. The idea of quick-fire updates seemed weird at first, but I’ve since realized how much easier it is to write on Twitter than on, say, this blog. So little thinking required! It’s great. I do hope to keep this page active, though, when more lengthy or interesting topics come to mind. Hopefully this will become the place to go for updates on my life in general - a place for friends, family, and so on.
While this site began as a place for my demo reel and other professional endeavors, you won’t see many more business-related posts here. Those posts will soon be appearing on a new site, which you’ll all hear about really, really soon.
Erik Life
This might be total bullshit but it’s so amazing I need to discuss it anyway.
Josh Freese, drummer extraordinaire for A Perfect Circle, The Vandals and Devo (and until recently, Nine Inch Nails), is releasing a solo album this spring. In what may or may not be a poke at Trent Reznor’s somewhat ridiculous limited-edition-tiered price structure for Ghosts I-IV, Josh has announced 11 different price levels to choose from for those wishing to buy his album. The greatest of these, coming it an at the low, low price of $75,000, includes among the most ludicrous ‘bonuses’ imaginable. I for one hope that each and every thing on this list is 100% legitimate. Without further ado, here’s the whole list of options (after the break):
Read more…
Erik Humour, Music
Listening to some more-spiritual-than-usual music has gotten me thinking. It’s been a while since I’ve had anything resembling a crisis of faith, and I’m not sure that I’m in one now, but damn if my mind isn’t filled with thoughts on the subject.
I consider myself a Christian, albeit not a very good one. I am that way for a few reasons - I don’t go to church for lack of feeling welcome, I don’t often pray for lack of feeling heard. Many cling to religion due to the need to feel something, but I’ve never felt much from it. Perhaps I’m just disenchanted by organized religion. I can say, thankfully, that I do feel things like inspiration and faith by way of God’s creations - music, nature, and so on. I would imagine that I perceive God in a unique fashion, and I like it that way.
I’m definitely a skeptic in many ways, which doesn’t help with the whole ‘faith’ thing, either. Calm, nerdy, logical Erik is unsurprisingly skeptical of the idea of a man dying and coming back to life, let alone the idea of a man’s doing so having a profound effect on me 2,000 years later. I fear that I will never truly come to grips with this - that logic, which generally never steers me wrong, will prevail in my mind. The part of me that does truly want to believe also hopes that I’m wrong about that. It seems rather illogical that one who, despite his best efforts, can not seem to fully accept the Biblical concept of Christ can consider himself a follower of Christ, but…well, here I am. I do know that even if Christianity was some sort of elaborate hoax, the fictionalized word of God would still be chock full of amazing lessons and ways to live your life, and that whether our worship is justified or not, we are being told to live good lives. I take a lot of solace in that for some reason.
In any case, I hope that my perception of God is correct, and that the measure of a man’s worth can be found in his deeds and not in his perpetual lack of doubt.
Erik Religion
First, you may notice that the site looks just a little bit different. If you hit F5 and reload it may be even MORE different. You see, I’ve begun the process of converting erik-nelson.com into a much more dynamic site. Instead of several HTML pages filled with links to my work and other random crap, the site is now entirely powered by Wordpress. What does that mean? Basically, it’s just a blog now - but a powerful one. All of the content of the old site, including the free game and music downloads, will return very soon. And, I expect, they will bring a lot more new and awesome content along with it.
Now then, along to even more cool business. The first of my several semi-wayward projects has finally seen the light of day! Specifically, it’s a podcast titled “The Musical Moron Twins”, which I’m running with my good friend Brian Hammes. Basically, we discuss/argue about rock music and awesomeness ensues. It’s genuinely entertaining, and you can subscribe on iTunes! Here’s a link:
Musical Moron Twins on iTunes
If you like what you hear, be sure to let us know on our blog:
Musical Moron Twins Blog
More coolness and updates are forthcoming. Stay tuned!
Erik Uncategorized
At least in blog form, this will be my only top-ten-of-the-year list. More on that later. For now, here are my choices for the best games of 2008. This was a great year for gaming (though not as great as the monumental 2007), and making this list was tougher than I expected. So without further, ado, here it is. Read more…
Erik Lists, Video Games
Today marks the first birthday of Rock Band, which is still the best party game ever and easily the one I still spend most of time time with (well, now it’s Rock Band 2, which is largely a glorified expansion more than anything else). It’s developers made a promise to offer new songs on a weekly basis, and they’ve amazingly kept that promise. Now, there are almost 500 songs available for the game, and hundreds more are undoubtedly in waiting.
Around a year ago, I made a post listing 5 bands that I really, really wanted to see in Rock Band. Were my wishes granted? Let’s take a look.
Read more…
Erik Lists, Video Games
In their first music-related act since 1996 or so, MTV has launched MTVMusic.com, which appears to host nearly every music video ever, streaming and embeddable. My reaction: Hell. Yes.
As if the videos weren’t enough, there’s also a handful of “Pop Up Video” episodes as well. Rock rock on!
Erik Music
I’ve seen many great videos in my day, but few have matched the greatness of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtjkxDa4GHg
Erik Humour, Video Games