Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Dr. Octoroc - "8-Bit Jesus"


Dr. Octoroc - 8-Bit Jesus
2008, Independent

1. We Three Konami
2. Ryu the Red Nosed Ninja
3. Silent Knight Man
4. Carol of the Belmonts
5. Joy to Commando
6. Deck the Kremlin
7. Little Drummer Nemo
8. The Legend of Noel
9. Super Jingle Bros.

...and now for something completely different. I stumbled upon this little Christmas oddity while doing an article for a local paper on Christmas music. The good Dr. Octoroc specializes in what are called "chip-tunes." For the uninitiated "chip-tunes" are songs that sound like they came straight from the ol' Nintendo. The original 8-bit Nintendo. Dr. Octoroc produces Christmas tunes as though they came from your favorite classic games. "Ryu the Red Nosed Ninja" is "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as done in the style of the game Ninja Gaiden. "Silent Knight Man" is "Silent Night" as done in the style of Mega Man. It's quite an interesting combination, especially if you grew up with the old Nintendo like I did. I will admit that it's hard to pick out the actual melody of the Christmas tune in question in songs like "The Legend of Noel" and "Little Drummer Nemo." Then there's songs like "Carol of the Belmonts" and "We Three Konami" that are really fun - you can pick out the melody pretty easy. The edition of this album on my ipod is the free 9-song download that Dr. Octoroc offered on his website. You can find it here. The actual album itself has 18 tracks. I decided not to buy the whole album because while it's a lot of fun for me, my wife doesn't like it at all. Also, it's not really something I'll listen to while driving in the car or anything - money's tight and I've gotta save for stuff I know I'm going to listen to a lot. That being said, I've totally been digging these a lot more the past few days so who knows? You can order the full album here. If you're a Christmas lunatic with a deep abiding love for the old grey box, check out Dr. Octoroc.

Useless Fact: Dr. Octoroc has also produced chip-tunes based on Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog.

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