Welcome back to Friday Night Videos as we continue the Vampire theme for Vampire Month here at the Other Side.
These songs are ones we used in our games for the few times I used music. I do sometimes like to set a tone with some music before playing, especially when I am doing horror.
Back in the day I wrote an adventure for my group called "Ravenloft III: The Necropolis". Yeah, it was not originally named, but some of the things in the adventure later appeared in other adventures and games including what would later become the biggest "vampire game" in my life: Buffy.
The Who's Behind Blue Eyes was the "theme song" for the main anti-hero of the tale. A vampire that you were supposed to feel sorry for and help.
Queen has cemented their legacy as one of the best rock bands ever. But there was a time when this was not the case. Undaunted Freddie and crew still took risks with this song, "Who Wants to Live Forever", from the album A Kind of Magic which also served as the soundtrack to the movie Highlander. Of course a different kind of immortal was featured in the movie, but the song works for either. If you have not listened to this album I suggest you do so.
Yes it is cheese pure and simple, but Meatloaf's Bat out of Hell is one of the very, very few albums I can play D&D too. In fact my Freshman year in college I ran Ravenloft I6 while playing this album.
Also Meatloaf should get special mention here since the video for Bat Out of Hell premiered on Friday Night Videos before it did on MTV.
Not much else on this album is D&D-ish or even Vampire-ish, but this song still has a special place in my black heart.
The 90s began with me playing AD&D2nd ed and mostly Ravenloft. The 90s ended with me, presumably searing off D&D forever in favor of C.J. Carella's WitchCraft RPG.
In between those two times I played Chill 2nd Ed, Mage the Ascension and of course the most 90s of all 90s angst filled games,
Vampire the Masquerade.
If there ever was a "vampire band" it was Bauhaus. No band was Gothier and Bela Lugosi's Dead is almost self-parody. I am sure there were tons of Vampire the Masquerade that looked just like Peter Murphy.
No else one "got" the whole vampire vibe better than Concrete Blonde.
From the album of the same name Bloodletting was a bloody valentine to Anne Rice.
Another love letter to Anne Rice is Sting's Moon Over Bourbon Street.
Blue Öyster Cult was a huge influence on I think a lot of people's early gaming.
No angsty vampire or Victorian sex symbol. This is Nosferatu.
And let us not easily forget "Anne Rice's Dracula", I mean Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula from 1992.
Inspiration will sometimes come from the oddest places.
Take for example the case of Eric Burdon, The Animals and War.
I "discovered" Eric Burdon while going through a stack of old 45s back in my teens. The Animals' song "House of the Rising Sun" painted such an evocative picture for me that I was obsessed with it for years.
Fast forward to the late 90s early 2000s. I began listening to more of Eric Burdon's "new" band, War. "Spill the Wine" was pretty much on constant rotation for me for the longest time. Combine these two and a vista was painted for me in sharp relief. Eric Burdon has the distinction of being the only living person I have stated up as an Occult Poet, he is also the only character I have used both in my Willow & Tara based Buffy game and my lighter tone Hex Girls game.
House of the Rising Sun is a haunting song. It is no surprise to me that it was used in the teaser trailers for American Horror Story Coven last year. For me the House was a house of ill-repute, but it became something more; something much darker. In my games Burdon found the house and uses his occult powers to keep others away.
Don't let me be Misunderstood also had a similar effect on my writing. You could almost construe it as an adventurers lament and not just a man to his lover.
We Got to Get Out of This Place. Vietnam or "Subterranean Fantasy Fucking Vietnam".
Bloggers have spent thousands of pages of text on analyzing the pulp writings of old and their effects on the genesis of D&D, but what about the music? I saw just like the late 70s and 80s captured the mood of the time and D&D, the 60s are what influenced the authors of the games.
Have you ever played a gnome? I have played one and that was during the start of D&D 3.0. Jassic Goodwalker. Jassic was a long haired overfed leaping gnome with a fondness for wine, song, and women. Spill the Wine was the song that gave birth to Jassic. Never played a gnome after Jassic, but I would dust of his sheet in heartbeat.
This week I have a special treat. Well at least for me.
Tonight features what must be the quintessential videos and songs of what was known as "Sword and Sorcerery Rock".
And the lord of all of these was none other than Ronnie James Dio!
He fronted Black Sabbath, Rainbow and his own band Dio. He was a rocker and showman and by all accounts a great guy.
So here we have some of his most "D&D" songs ever. These were huge inspiration to me in the day and then again later one when I was working on newer games.
Man on the Silver Mountain might just be one of the first "Sword and Sorcerery" songs recorded by a "metal" group. Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple and after hearing Dio sing wanted him for his new band, Rainbow. Of course the reasons Deep Purple had problems continued to plague Rainbow, but not before we got Man on the Silver Mountain.
Dio left Rainbow and about that time Ozzy was kicked out of left Black Sabbath. Heaven and Hell is considered to be one of the penultimate Dio-fronted Black Sabbath songs.
Black Sabbath and Dio parted ways, but that gave us one of the best 80s metal bands and early darling of MTV's metal playlist. Many nights when playing D&D we had to stop to watch Holy Diver or The Last in Line.
Rainbow in the Dark became something of a theme during my Buffy playtests.
Welcome to a special Friday the 13th Friday Night Videos!
Let's talk about superstitions, bad luck and bad mojo tonight!
Writing about witches and magic I like to include superstitions in my games and have my characters follow them. Gives a little color to the character and separates them from the other characters a bit more.
First up is the one and only Stevie Wonder.
I will be honest, I LOVE Stevie Wonder. For Once in My Life, My Cherie Amour, Talking Book, Songs in the Key of Life, these are some of my favorite albums. One of the best songs from Talking Book is Superstition.
If you can find a harder case than Mike Ness then you are likely talking about Johnny Cash. Sometimes I think he wallows in self-pity but Social Distortion's Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell is still a hell of an album. And it gave us this song, Bad Luck.
Cream is a group that really had a influence on my writing. I don't know why, it's just something about their blues infused rock and psychedelica that really spoke to me in the 80s. Plus Eric Clapton is God. Let's just all be honest here. This is one of their bluesier recordings, Albert King's Born Under a Bad Sign.
Pete Yorn's Ever Fallen In Love Someone was part of my Sojourn in Hell soundtrack and thus was on constant play while I was working on Buffy and Ghosts of Albion. It also struck me as a "bad luck" song.
Here is something. I LOVE the Police. Really. I have seen them in concert, seen Sting something like 6-7 times. Yeah I am weird like that. But what is weirder is how much some of my own writing from the 80s has obvious and fairly overt influences from the Police.
Here is an older one, from Reggata d'Blanc and written by drummer Stewart Copeland, On Any Other Day. This was my favorite album for the longest time.
Expect a Police night one night.
Another really influential album on my formative years was Who's Next. Here is John Entwistle having a really bad day in My Wife.
Another influence on my writing (but not so much on my playing) was Frank Zappa. I might do a Frank Zappa night, but until then here is his son Dweezil (who is really cool, met him years ago) and the title track to the most under rated album from 1986, Having a Bad Day.
Tonight I want to welcome my very first Guest VJ.
Back on the original FNV guest VJs were a staple. Usually they had something to promote, a new movie or TV show, or they were pop-culture icons.
Tonight I want to welcome my very special guest Elizabeth Chaipraditkul, author and designer of new game WITCH!
I featured WITCH this morning on my Kickstart your weekend post so please check that out.
So without further ado here is Liz!
--
Hi! I am Liz and I was asked by Tim to guest VJ and make a playlist based on my game WITCH and what I listened to while creating it. This was difficult and I spent a lot of time agonizing over my Spotify playlists and YouTube history before I came to this core essence list. I hope you enjoy it.
Florence and the Machine - No Light, No Light
When I need to get in the mood for writing I love listening to beautiful things and for me that is Florence and the Machine. Their lyrics stay with me and make me think. No light, No Light is no exception. It is a simple love song with beautiful lyrics. “You are the night time fear, you are the morning when it’s near, when it’s over you’re the start, you’re my head, you’re my heart.” When creating WITCH, the fluff pieces that are meant to tempt and entice readers, I try to emulate what I feel when I listen to Florence and the Machine
Lana Del Rey - Gods & Monsters
Lana is so apathetic in all her songs, it is brilliant. I am a pretty passionate person, at least I like to think so, and Lana is the perfect Yin to my Yang. Furthermore, the subject matter of her songs is darkly shallow, the perfect mood for a simple noir setting- smoking a cigarette, sipping a martini, and trying to hide the run in your stockings. Lana Del Rey just works for WITCH, she’s mysterious, deceptively shallow, and seductive- just like magic.
Johnny Cash - I Hung My Head
Anything Johnny Cash was the soundtrack to my university years. He is a fantastic storyteller. His voice conveys so much emotion, it’s clear and it’s strong. I try to emulate Johnny when I write and listening to him clears my mind. I Hung My Head is one of my penultimate favourite songs by Mr. Cash, it is a simple story of utter tragedy. It makes me think a lot about WITCH, what would you do if you did something so stupid, what would you give up to get out of a stupid mistake you made?
Stevie Nicks – Edge of Seventeen
We’re shaped a lot by our parents. I wasn’t the coolest kid in school so, when I wanted to get into music, I asked my mom to buy me “cool” tunes (big mistake). She came back with Fleetwood Mac. While this didn't make me the most popular kid, I am now happy she did. I love Stevie Nicks and she helps me when things just aren't working the way I want in WITCH. Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac are my editing music. They get my head bopping, they allow me to let go of crappy pieces of text I through were brilliant weeks ago, and the help me get work done.
Shireen - Unmarked
Shireen is actually a band who’s lead singer I know pretty well. She’s my friend and her name is Annieke and she has the voice of a siren. Normally, when you meet people and they tell you they have a band you cringe a bit. (Note: This normally has nothing to do with the band and more me just being too judgmental). However, when I heard Shireen I was sold. Their music is amazing and haunting. I ended up listening to this one track so much while working on our Kickstarter Campaign. It’s a perfect song for WITCH (especially if you take the lyrics a bit too literally).
Tim here again. Thanks Liz. That's a great playlist.
Are you interested in being a Guest VJ here at Friday Night Videos? Send me an email at timothy.brannan@gmail.com
Tonight I want to feature videos from the soundtrack "A Sojourn in Hell". Never heard of it? No one has. It was a collection of MP3s I listened to while I was working on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG and then later when I was writing Ghosts of Albion.
Some of this music also fueled my playtests of Buffy with games that became part of The Dragon and The Phoenix, my alternate Season 7 of Buffy.
The Wallflowers were at the height of their popularity at the same time Buffy was. So I always associated this song with Buffy's last good season (season 5). In my games I always wanted Buffy to fake her death so she could leave Sunnydale and start over. Maybe with someone that looked like Jakob Dylan.
Around the same time we were hit with the death of a performer that actually meant a lot to me and my gaming life, Warren Zevon. I mentioned in the very first FNV that "Werewolves of London" was one of my favorites and the album Excitable Boy was thrust into my hands by my DM with the instructions to listen to it before our next game.
Lawyers, Guns and Money was one of those songs that just stuck with me. This version is not by Warren Zevon, but by his son Jordan with the Wallflowers (again). Of course the lead singer is the son of Bob Dylan. This is from the Warren Zevon tribute album, Enjoy Every Sandwich. A line that he gave to David Letterman when he learned he was dying of cancer. Sage advice really.
Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory was just one of those albums that came into my life and grabbed every bit of my attention. I admit I have always enjoyed the mashup of hard rock and rap. Public Enemy's Bring the Noise with Anthrax is still one of my all time favorite songs.
"In the End" was just one of the those songs and one of those videos that captured exactly what I wanted my games to sound like.
Spend anytime here and you know I LOVE old horror movies. Especially sexploitation, Euro-sleaze. No one is better at than Jean Rollin and no appreciates this more than our next artist Rob Zombie.
Hellbilly Deluxe was an album I got for my 30th birthday and I listened to it on pretty much repeat for the next four years. Living Dead Girl was what my group always thought would be Buffy's theme song, but really there is a lot here that also influenced Ghosts of Albion. The Charlatan archetype, which didn't make it into the final book, is based on Rob Zombie's character in this video.
This was also one of the first MP3s I ever bought and I put it on the Sojourn in Hell disk.
In the early 2000s Chris Rea seemed to be everywhere for me. I am not sure why a ten-year old album, Road to Hell, was so popular again, but it was. For me the song "Road to Hell" was the title track of Sojourn in Hell at least in spirit. One day I'll revisit this and maybe even talk about why it was called Sojourn in Hell. But until then here is the title track and partial inspiration for my Buffy adventure Road to Hell.
Finally for this set we have the 2007 update of the 1994 Megadeth classic, "À Tout le Monde". I have the 1995 Youthanasia version on the disk, but this version actually captures the feel so much better. A little faster, a little louder and 100% more Cristina Scabbia. If there something I like more than rap with my metal it's Goth. Not only is her French better than Mustaine's, she is a lot better looking too.
Ok. I lied.
I said Goth and immediately thought of this one. Not Another Teen Movie is actually a send up of the teen movie tropes in the opposite direction than Buffy was. Tainted Love of course was huge hit for Soft Cell back in the 80s and in the 2000s Manson made it his own. I actually enjoy how he is not taking himself very seriously in this. I mean really if the Rodney Dangerfield reference wasn't enough. You can be dark, scary and all gothy but that doesn't mean you can't have a sense of humor about it too.
Welcome to the Friday the 13th edition of Friday Night Videos!
If Iron Maiden represents AD&D 1st Ed. Then Original D&D is Led Zeppelin.
Led Zeppelin were the pioneers of what would become "Hard Rock" and even "Heavy Metal". Though it would take bands like Black Sabbath to really provide what we think of when we consider 70s and 80s metal.
Led Zeppelin was heavily influenced by jazz, blues and folk music. Plus a rather healthy dose of themes from J.R.R. Tolkien, they have long been associated with the 70s occult scene (backward masking, drugs, lyrics) and by association D&D.
Let's start with what was start for many my age, Led Zeppelin's 4th album from 1971. Sometimes called "4", "Sticks", "Zoso" or "Symbols". I prefer "Zeppelin IV" myself. This song was on the B side and is often overlooked due to the fantastic set on the A side. Pack your bags for the Misty Mountain Hop.
The same album gave us two other greats. Well it gave us a lot of greats, but two in particular.
Honestly I doubt there is a more D&D song than Battle of Evermore. This song features the amazing vocals of Sandy Denny, the "fifth" symbol on this album.
Zeppelin IV also gave us one of Led Zeppelin's most enduring, if not overplayed song. Stairway to Heaven.
This one song fueled more D&D games of mine than I carry to consider.
Going back a bit to 1970's "Led Zeppelin III" another great song is The Immigrant Song. What it lacks in length it makes up for in Saxon fueled energy.
Finally no Led Zeppelin discussion can happen with out a nod to the near Moorcock-like visuals of Kashmir from 1975's Physical Graffiti.
This barely scratches the surface of their catalog.
I am pleased with the reactions I am getting for this feature. I have often joked that my Appendix N consists mostly of 80s music and bad sci-fi movies. I am starting to think I am not the only one!
I want to lead of though with this one.
I finally found a copy of the intro. Really, could anything be more 80s than this? The 8-bit sounding sound effects. The neon. The lone rocker dude against the world...yeah.
So here are some requests I have had since starting this.
Have a request? Send it to me.
Have a long distance dedication for next week, Valentines Day Weekend? Send that too!
Knightsky requested two songs. First up, Chris de Burgh's Don't Pay the Ferryman.
Next is Murray Head's One Night in Bangkok from the concept album Chess.
Murray Head is also the older brother of Anthony Stewart Head.
Rainswept requested Men Without Hats' Safety Dance.
While the video is more Ren Faire than it is D&D, I do have some good memories of this one and playing D&D as well.
Based on this weeks earlier Sol Invictus post, here is a request. Billy Thorpe's "Children of the Sun"
Might be better for a trippy near future space age game. Or a 70s fueled psychic game.
Ok.
Last week went great. Had some good hits and some requests.
So lets get back to it.
This week I want to feature a band who I, and many others, consider to be the quintessential Dungeons & Dragons band.
Iron Maiden!
I was introduced to Iron Maiden via my Jr. High School DM. He was a huge Iron Maiden fan and lived close to the Capitol Records/EMI plant. So we would ride our bikes there and shift through the discarded tapes that would litter the back lot. We found tons of Kenny Rogers and The Tubes, but finding Iron Maiden was a treat.
He would come up with adventures based on the album covers (at the time he had all five of their first four studio albums and "Maiden Japan") and songs. Later when we got to High School and a new DM (we both kept on as players) we would work "Eddie" into a our universe as an undying assassin. I don't think we ever came up with stats.
Somewhere in Time was my favorite album of those days. So first up is one of my favorites, Wasted Years. This video also features a pictorial history of Eddie up to that point.
"Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short... Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast for it is a human number, its number is Six hundred and sixty six."
Honestly. Could have anything sounded cooler to a bunch D&D obsessed 13 yearolds with an healthy obsession with the occult? No. Nothing else was a cool as Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast.
No discussion of Iron Maiden and my early D&D days can happen without at least acknowledging The Trooper. This was my DM's favorite song and the one video we would wait for before playing.
And another great one from the time, Flight of Icarus.
And my first request, from Mercurius Aulicus, Fear of the Dark:
Going through all these videos and memories I realize I have enough for a Part 2! So look forward to that at some future date.
Have a request? Hit me up!
Want to be a guest VJ (video jockey for those that don't remember MTV)? Also hit me up!
This is something I wanted to start the year off with, but for some reason didn't get it set up.
Maybe it is the age I started playing or the time, but there was a strange alchemy that has forever link D&D (and most RPGs) and music together for me. When I was in Jr. High we would not start playing until we saw at least one Iron Maiden video on the then commercial free MTV. And in High School it was through D&D that I was introduced to scores of new bands and music that I remain a fan of to this day.
So it is with that in mind that I introduce my newest weekly feature. Friday Night Videos. I'll post a couple of videos, maybe around a theme, and talk about how they tied into my games. I won't just focus on the 80s, though there will be a lot of that, nor will my focus be purely D&D related.
For my first post I want to include a video that I first saw on the show "Friday Night Videos" on NBC back in the day. Just like the original, I'll have this up on Friday nights at 11:30 PM Central time.
First up is Ozzy Osbourne with the title track from his 1983 album, Bark at the Moon.
Honestly to this day I can write about werewolves and NOT think about this video. I put this album on repeat when I was working on the monster section of Ghosts of Albion.
My Jr. High DM introduced me to Ozzy and my High School DM introduced me to Rush.
Of course the song has more to do with paranoia (and Paranoia) and a police state, I took it more literally as an enemy within yourself. From 1984's Grace Under Pressure, "The Enemy Within".
Finally. Really how can we talk about werewolves and not include Warren Zevon's classic. Excitable Boy was one of those albums that my DM threw at me and told me I had to listen to it before I came back for our next game (we were doing the Slave Lords adventures then). The album is fantastic and it is almost regrettable that people usually only know "Werewolves of London". You do get people that know about "Lawyers, Guns and Money", but most don't know what album it is from. "Lawyers, Guns and Money" of course I used in my Buffy/Angel games.
"Werewolves of London" is honored in my games a number of ways but the most obvious is my vampire run strip club Mayfairs.
So what songs remind you of gaming? Put in your requests below and I might pick them up on next weeks Friday Night Videos! (People posting on Friday nights get to move to the front of the request lines).
Been really sick over the last week. I have a lot of work to do at work (day job) and then finishing up my obligations to various editors on various projects.
So here is a musical interlude.
This song is much darker than I recalled.
Though somehow it also seems appropriate for the last few weeks.
Day 23: First song that comes to mind that you associate with D&D. Why?
Hmm.
Again, given the age I am I usually associate D&D and AD&D in particular with Led Zeppelin.
I grew up in the mid-west, the middle of Illinois to be exact. Classic Rock was all that was on the radio. So songs like "The Battle of Evermore" or "Misty Mountain Hop" invoke that quasi-Tolkien feel that goes hand in hand with D&D. But I also have to mention "Kashmir" and "The Immigrant Song" as having some lingering associations for me.
I have to admit I once wanted to create a series of adventures all based on the songs from Led Zeppelin 4 (aka "Zoso"). While that is SOOO a typical High School kid in the 80s thing to do with D&D, I still think it might be fun. I mean look as the adventures I did for The Dragon & The Phoenix, Season of the Witch and The Hex Girls. Obviously I listened to a lot of music in my formative years.
White Dwarf Issue # 95 from November 1987.
I want to state upfront that I actually don't have the flexi-disc. It was not part of the magazine when I got it (no surprise really). Plus I don't actually own a turn-table anymore so even if I did have it.
White Dwarf #95 takes us to November 1987. I asked my wife if she remembers what we were doing then. She didn't recall. I know that gamewise my old 1st Ed DM had come up and we were running an adventure together for some other people in the dorm. One of the characters we made that day would later live on as a vampire in other games and finally come back to my 3rd Ed game as the only person in my games to ever be cured of vampirism. I think I mentioned this one before. (yup, WDW 93).
Sean Masterson discusses the influence fantasy and sci-fi has had on rock. There is the obvious influence of metal at least on gaming, at least in terms of how WD does it. So we should not be surprised when gaming influences metal. Thus the flexi disk that came with the magazine.
Marginalia, Open Box's lesser offspring, is next with "reviews" of some GW products. Up first is "The Fury of Dracula" board game. I'll admit I have always wanted to play this one, and it always looked rather cool. Reading these design notes/reviews actually get me more interested in a game. Though I do feel compelled to point out something. The review is written for the point of view of someone who has only known Dracula in movies and maybe never read the book. That is fine, a lot of people don't like the book. They are careful to point out that Dracula was killed with a Bowie knife to the heart in the book (true) but add that he was trying to build an empire of the undead (not true). Not quite sure where they got that. Of course people have also been looking for some deeper romantic connection between Mina and Dracula and that was also never in the book.
Covered next are two city books, one for Warhammer the other for Judge Dredd.
Critical Mass covers a number of Sci-fi books including the latest Stainless Steel Rat book. Never could get into this series.
Our first big adventure of the issue is for Judge Dredd, "To Live and Die in Megacity One, Prog: 2 The Big Sleep". Again hard for me to judge this one, but I have been told that the Judge Dredd adventures of this time are good. It is a long one, 10 pages with 2 more of maps.
Actually if you are looking for you White Dwarf fix every week I would recommend Realms of Chaos 80s as a good blog dedicated to things I only briefly touched on.
Ad for Fury of Dracula. At first I thought it was a mis-print of the first page of Marginalia again. Looked exactly the same.
"On the Boil" is an adventure (or is it Scenario?) for Warhammer Fantasy. 5 pages. I wish I knew more about Warhammer to be honest. Not just to judge these, but because reading these makes me aware of a huge gap I have in my RPG background. I honestly don't think I would get much out of the Warhammer experience. I can't paint. I don't like collecting minis of armies. But there is something so...well, Warhammer, about it. I am sure there has to be something in this experience that I could port back over to my own old-school D&D games.
"The Madcap Laughs" deals with setting the scenes for new Stormbringer Adventures.
"Warhammer Rock" is where the flexi-disk would have been. It is also an interview with the band Sabbat.
Here is a link to the entire article. http://hem.bredband.net/b306090/white_dwarf.htm
And here is the song.
The lyrics are in the magazine and on the video page on YouTube.
Next are ads, then Illuminations featuring the art of John Blanche.
Letters follow and then some ads.
Again we see similar things here that we did in issue 94. I have mixed feelings about Marginalia; I like the in-depth reviews but dislike that they are only focusing on house brands. Granted that is really the only way a magazine would do it and in 1987 I wasn't buying much of anything.
First Movie: Star Wars (I have no idea what "A New Hope" is...;) )
First Book: The Hobbit
First Person: Harder, I mean after all the first people you love are your family. So let's go with first person outside of your family. And that can only be...
BATGIRL!
Specifically, Yvonne Craig's Batgirl from the Adam West Batman TV series.
What's not to love? She is smart and kicks ass. Plus she rode a purple motor cycle before Prince was even born (ok, I might need to re-check that date but you get what I am trying to say ETA: ok, Prince was only about 8-9 at the time.)
