LEVEL 5

Since I asked for users’ stories on how they got into contact with the LMH and what’s their individual love story, I figured I might as well start with providing this info myself.

I think I accidentally stumbled upon the podcast while browsing the Nerdist website after having listened to my very first podcast ever (The Tenacious D interview in April 2012). I knew nothing about 8- and 16- bit music to this point. Later I found out that I already possessed copies of the soundtracks for Donkey Kong Country I and II by The Wise One since I loved the games when I was a kid and collect soundtracks for a long time now. Further I didn’t know how great podcasts can be and how they were going to enrich my everyday life from then on.

LEGACY MUSIC HOUR did sound cool and I liked the artwork so I took a look. I think, but I’m not sure about it, that the very first episode I listened to was episode 65, “Water and Underwater”. I was like “Whoa, these guys literally listen to this ‘old-school beeps and blips music’?” I was such a fool back then. Shortly after I had listened to most of the LMH-stuff that was on the Nerdist page (as far as I can remember, the show didn’t cross the 100 Episode threshold yet) and I wondered, why there was no material before episode 63. I even wrote a quemment on one of the episodes asking for earlier stuff. I didn’t really get the fact that they had their own website (although they mention it only like EVERY episode). Eventually I found out about legacymusichour.com and started to listen to all the episodes again, this time in chronological order. I was absolutely bedazzled by the quality of the production, the amount of care and detail that went into the fabrication of each episode and tracklist as well as the continuity with which they managed to release a new episode each week.

Over the course of the last two years, this podcast accompanied me with every trip I took (holidays as well as groceries), every sports activity I undertook (to quote the guys quoting one of you users: “Racing-music is good for running”) and I even listened to new episodes during work because I was too eager to know what’s up. Simultaneously to the new episodes, I listened my way through the back-catalogue several times, always astonished how I missed stuff earlier, always discovering more interesting facts about the music as well as Brent and Rob.

And the personal stuff between Brent and Rob is another thing that makes the podcast so great. They don’t artificially try to be funny or particularly entertaining aside from the entertainment that comes from the musical aspects of the show. This makes the jokes and anecdotes even more funny and entertaining when they come up naturally. Brent’s story about how he skipped school to play a game he rented then carried the level-password around in his purse for years just to lose it again shortly before re-acquiring the game was both funny and entertaining. And the story-arc revolving around Rob’s marital situation with him going from announcing his wedding on the show to getting divorced and then mentioning some possible reunion in the very last episode feels more real, more gripping than any cliffhanger-ridden television show.

Further the guest stars on the show ranking from top-composers to comedians and VG-icons like Nathan Barnatt/Keith Apicary indicated the growing popularity and importance of the podcast in the realm of video games as well as music in general.

But first of all it was the great music that kept me listening on and on. What I initially thought of as ‘old-school beeps and blips music’ turned out to be a great addition to my already existing love for (mainly film-) soundtracks. Some composers ended up being in my continuous playlist permanently (especially Kazuo Hanzawa and David Wise) and I realized how carefully these tracks were composed as well as how difficult it was to create music with such severe hardware restrictions.

Thanks to the Legacy Music Hour I got into composing synthetic music myself (using Caustic for Android which allows the use of synthesizers such as the legendary FM-Synth – thanks to Brent’s hardware insights!) some of which is going to be used in an up-coming iOS mobile game.

So this is my story. I’d love you guys to share yours. What are your thoughts and feelings about the show? As mentioned earlier, feel free to send texts via email to guest post on this blog.


Thanks, Markus