Music 音楽

Xenosaga or Xenogears?

23 Mar 2001, 3:10-3:30 PM

The Xenosaga album by Yasunori Mitsuda has been getting quite a bit of flak from fans expecting a followup to Xenogears. The following was a reply I made to a post in the Gamingforce.com forums titled “What is better Xenosaga OST or Xenogears OST?”.

Well in my opinon, I’ve been listening to the Xenosaga soundtrack for the past few days. And as an album, I prefer Xenosaga to Xenogears because the tracks in Xenosaga have more flow than Xenogears. I can say that this is partly due to the fact that Xenosaga was composed for the PS2 which allows for more performed instrumentation rather than sequenced music.

The Xenogears OST had some really fantastic tunes, the opening track, for instance, surpasses the opening track in Xenosaga. The bulk of the standout tunes were in the end of second album in the Id and final boss themes. But the soundtrack on the overall was uneven. In terms of game background music, some of the tracks are perfect, but when it comes down to the purpose of cd music, they are merely filler. However, the reason why I think people love the Xenogears OST (which I do btw) is because the music at the end covers up the deficiencies scattered in the rest of the album. I’m sure a lot of Xenogears fans put the last tracks (“Alpha and Omega”, “One Who Bares Fangs at God” et al.) on repeat mode far more often than the earlier songs in the CD. There could be exceptions I guess, but that’s what I think anyway.

Subjects: Music 音楽

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: Creid, game music, Led Zeppelin, Mitsuda Yasunori 光田康典, Presence, soundtrack, Xenogears, Xenosaga

Hamburg 1973

This picture I made for the CD cover of one of my Led Zeppelin concert bootlegs. I used a picture of the Graf Zeppelin (if I recall correctly) and merged it with a photograph of the sky. I altered the colours, and used some difference effects to get the result shown in the right.

Hamburg 1973

Subjects: Music 音楽

Tags: bootleg, CD, Led Zeppelin

Ayers Rock (No Label)

This Sydney concert was treed in the Led Zeppelin community. I made this insert primarily because there wasn’t any official artwork for it. There were of course, artwork for the bootleg releases which utilised the same tapes for the sources, but they just weren’t the same.

The picture is actually a composite of 5 separate images. I’m not going to name them, though some are quite obvious. I just thought it was a nice idea to put The Object (that’s 1 out of 5) of Led Zeppelin’s album ‘Presence’ into the foreground. The ‘microlith’ vs. the Australian monolith. I was told that the whole thing looked surreal, but that, quite obviously, was my intention.

Front Cover

Ayers Rock (No Label) - Front Cover

Subjects: Music 音楽

Tags: bootleg, CD, Led Zeppelin, photoshop, Presence

Achilles Last Stand

Just today, I was feeling bored while taking a long trip to town in a public bus. So I plugged into my Discman, and played one of my all-time favourite cds: Led Zeppelin’s Presence. As the introductions to the first song Achilles Last Stand delivered through the miniature earpieces, several thoughts came into my mind. Although this was not the first time I felt this way, for some reason or another, this time, I felt the need to put down my thoughts into words:

Achilles Last Stand, is in my opinion, the archetypical rock song. It combines layers of magnificent guitar-playing, evocative lyrics, together with hard-hitting vocals and a rock-solid rhythm track. From the incandescent siren-like guitar solo, filled with Spanish-styled arpeggios, accompanied by subtle (yet brutal) harmonics and octaves… to the extraordinary paramilitary drumming - enhanced by the pounding bass line… to the haunting echo-filled vocals… It was the first real hard rock song I heard, the first song that really got me into the music of Led Zeppelin, and the first song that truly blew my mind.

Subjects: Music 音楽

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: Achilles Last Stand, CD, guitar, hard rock, Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, Presence

Complete Finland (1970)

Front Cover

I made this bootleg CD insert because the ‘official’ artwork wasn’t quite to my liking. So I made this picture using a photograph of a Zeppelin plane against a digitally altered photo of the Aurora Borealis (The Northern Lights). I went to Finland in 1999 and it was the first time I got to see the awesome display of this natural phenomena. Although the artwork isn’t great, I think it brings back memories of surreal 3D-rendered artwork in the early 90s.

Complete Finland (1970) - Front Cover

Subjects: Music 音楽

Tags: 3D, aurora borealis, bootleg, CD, Finland, Led Zeppelin, photoshop

Bedtime For Bonzo

Now I must admit that I didn’t contribute much to this CD cover. The seeder of this concert had a little inspiration from an old Reegan movie, whose chimp star shared the same nickname with John Bonham. A fellow trader took the idea and stuck good ole Bonzo’s head on the chimp’s. All I merely did was to do some skin tone colour corrections, as well as to digitally enhance the picture, which was originally of a lower resolution. I just thought I’d put this up because it really is so quirky.

Bedtime For Bonzo - Front Cover

Subjects: Music 音楽

Tags: Bonzo, bootleg, CD, John Bonham, Led Zeppelin, Ronald Reegan

Angel

Angel

This is one of my personal favourites. Not because it’s particularly great, but because it’s a picture of my favourite guitarist of all time, Jimmy Page. The guitar in the original b/w scan from the book Portraits by Neal Preston was very blurred and not suitable for a wallpaper. So I had to take a picture of the Gibson guitar from the Gibson website, and merge it with the photo. I added wings from a sketch, and using similiar techniques as the first 2 pictures in the gallery, coloured and added highlights to the picture.

Subjects: Music 音楽

Tags: Gibson, Jimmy Page

"Good Times Bad Times", Classic Rock, May 2000

Transcribed from Classic Rock May 2000 Good Times Bad Times, pg 42-49.

Part two of Classic Rock’s exclusive interview with Jimmy finds him back home in England, where he speaks for the first time about the end of Led Zeppelin and of what the future now has in store for the legendary guitarist.
Untitled: Mick Wall

Frankly, I have never known him more excited. “Michael Wallus Maximus!” he bellows down the phone at me. “It’s me — James Patrick Page! How the devil are ya?!”

Good, I tell him. But I wouldn’t mind a bit of whatever you’re on. You sound on fire.

I tell you what,” he says excitedly, “I am!”

It is just after noon on an exceptionally sunny Friday in March. Having spent the previous week in New York talking to the world’s press about his new live album with The Black Crowes — “It was unbelievable! Totally electric!” — Jimmy Page is now back home at his not inconsiderable pile buried deep in the English countryside. Back to normal, you might say — or might if this time he didn’t sound so completely abnormal…

Subjects: Music 音楽

Tags: Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, music

Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes Chat on AOL, Feb 29, 2000

AOL LIVE: Welcome Jimmy Page & Chris Robinson.

Chris: Rich is here as well!

Question: Chris and Jimmy, are you planning on making a tour of the Southern USA? (praying and pleading….PLEASE!!!) -Ariel

Jimmy: We are discussing, it would be nice if it happens.

Question: Good Evening to you both…Mr. Page, Mr. Robinson. I just want to know what the basis for this collaboration was. Whose idea initially was it, and do you foresee any other tour dates…because Oklahoma loves you… both!! God Bless! Thanks…….vonda

Jimmy: The culprit is me! It was me who called! I asked The Crowes if they would like to do a charity event with me and it spiraled from there. That was how it came to be. The catalyst was a charity event in London.

Question: Your recent projects in the Internet has surprised some of your fans. It seems that you are devoting a lot of energy exploring this potential market. What future cyberprojects do you anticipate?

Subjects: Music 音楽

Tags: Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, music

Jimmy Page profile, Guitar Player, June 1969

Transcribed from Guitar Player June ‘69 [Transcription by Richard Maenpaa]

By Bob Kennedy

From the time Jimmy Page launched Led Zeppelin, it did what most groups dream of doing: it floated right to the top, first in England and now in the U.S. We caught Jimmy Page at the high temple of rock, the Fillmore in San Francisco, where he was making one of his first U.S. appearances. Although the Led Zeppelin had only been together two months, they were jamming as if they had been doing it for years.

Jimmy, who plays lead guitar for Led Zeppelin, worked two years with the much-lauded Yardbirds. At that time he became good friends with another Yardbirds veteran, Eric Clapton. “Eric and I did a lot of stuff at my house,” he recalls. “We used to just get the tape recorder working and start playing. A lot of the tapes we did together came out in the media. However, at the time I was recording with Eric, he was under contract and so his company took possession of the recordings. It’s interesting to see the progress Eric has made since then.”

Subjects: Music 音楽

Tags: Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, music, Yardbirds

Syndicate content