First Listen - The Video Game Music Show

Last night I discovered my new favorite radio program. A two hour block of exciting, fun and unique music called The Video Game Music Show, hosted by DJ Sysop. And while I’m admittedly rather late to the party, since it’s been on the air at KSPC 88.7 FM since 2007, I was beyond excited to find it.

Whilst traversing the series of tubes last night, a person I follow tweeted something that grabbed my attention instantly: “For next 2 hours DJ on FM 88.7 (LA) is playing video game music, from old arcade to modern consoles, and taking requests. Genius!” Ok, to be fair, my Twitter acquaintance @DeadProgram was retweeting something by another Tweeter, named @esh, but it was the message that grabbed me.

Two clicks later and I am hearing the invisible airwaves crackle with life via live stream from the radio studios of Pomona College. What I heard was instantly recognizable as game music from a bygone era. Based on the melodies, overall tonal quality and delivery of the music it was clearly from a Japanese game audio designer. Rhythmic bass pulses with bright tones punctuating above and a 16-bit melody line which made you want to mash a button to unleash hot fury at whatever evil aliens were being thrown your way. It was, in a word, awesomesaucetastic.

After searching and finding the Recently Played list being generated by the DJ, I found it was a piece called “Say PaPa” from the game Darius 2. I’d never played it, but that didn’t matter, because this was a moment of that increasingly rare thing of discovering music new to your ears via radio. Granted the music was from a video game over two decades old, but it was new to my ears. Following this were more wonderfully unfamiliar sounds, some from games, some very obviously generated by musicians of the most nerdy and wonderful Chiptunes scene. Koji Kondo’s legendary “Overworld” theme from The Legend of Zelda emanating from my speakers sent chills down my spine, as did Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori’s Halo Reach “Overture”, even though I’ve heard both countless times.

What made this experience even better was sharing it with people I’ve come to know via Twitter. After telling a handful of them whom I knew would appreciate The Video Game Music Show, a group of us began seriously geeking out via an on-going Twitter conversation with each new piece played by DJ Sysop. It was a fantastic example of the Real Time Web in action, bringing like minded people together from around the web for a communal listening experience.

While it isn’t nearly what it used to be, I’m still a sucker for radio. I absorbed immeasurable hours of music in my youth from DJ’s like Jim Ladd, Uncle Joe Benson, Dr. Demento and other names long forgotten. I was even behind the mic myself for several years at KSBR 88.5 FM. Suffice to say, finding The Video Game Music Show made my night and whether its bleeps and bloops or a full blown orchestra, I’m looking forward to hearing even more from listening to it.