ReMix:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project "BTMNTBAMLOL" 5:33

TMNT + Danimal + Stemage + KBart = AWESOME!

I'm proud to present an awesome collab mix from Danimal Cannon, which is also our first mix to feature the musical talents of Mr. Grant Henry, better known as Stemage, perhaps even better known as a powerful portion of the glory that is Metroid Metal! Danimal rocked the overall arrangement & "guts" of the mix, KBart (from Armcannon as well) contributes a badass guitar solo towards the end, and Grant aces the drum programming. All this combines for a musical meeting of the minds that's sure to melt faces, shock shells, and rock April right out of that yellow two-piece she always wears. We ran into Kroze, Dom, Dan, and Grant at PAX '09, and the exhibition hall just HAPPENED to have a thematically-appropriate location for a mix-specific photo shoot - the Turtle Van was rockin', and WE came a knockin'... or something like that.

Epic times. And, in case you've been living in a VGM Arrangement Community PR Cave (do such caves exist?), both Armcannon AND Metroid Metal will be at MAGFest this January! That alone should be pretty darn persuasive, but there are PLENTY of other bands/guests announced, including little old us. Honestly, from everything I can see, this does indeed look to be the best MAGFest yet; Brendan, Dom & co. have really outdone themselves, and I'm definitely looking forward to it. But on to the mix - Danimal writes:

"This track was born from a desire to participate in the Dwelling of Duels contest for MAGfest.  I had taken an absence from the competition for a great while due to other projects creeping along and wanted to make sure I did a track so I could join in the fun during the live listening party at MAGfest.  As soon as the theme was announced (sidescrollers), I called up Stemage and told him he needed to start work on a song.  He had told me last year that he wanted to do a track for MAGfest the year prior, and I was calling him out on it.  As it turns out, he was out of town for half the month of December and didn't have access to his recording rig, save for the ability to program drums.  So I proposed an alliance, where I would compose the song and he would program the drums to my arrangements.  While not the most efficient way to compose, I had always thought that Stemage's attention to nuances and humanization are unparalleled in the drum programming universe (it probably exists) and frothed at the mouth at the opportunity to work with a friend/hero/bandmate of mine.

To address the title, it's a pseudo acronym-portmanteau of TMNT and BTBAM, the latter being the acronym for the prog/hardcore act Between The Buried and Me. The "LOL" at the end just on there for OMGWTFBBQ-esque acronym overload.  Several times during the composing process, I told Stemage to just program something inspired by that band.  If you're familiar with the group, you can hear the influence during at least one transition.

KBart is the latest Armcannon bassist in a long line of fallen heroes, he also plays guitar in the original band that contains 3 members of Armcannon, Weapon Ex. KBart is pretty much a modern guitar god in the making, so I asked him to lay down a solo near the very end of the song, and told him to make it "as over the top as possible". In standard KBart fashion he constructed an amalgam of tasteful guitar soul with impossible megalick wizardry to be the cherry on the top of this collaboration."

Pretty epic. So, I think my work here is essentially done, but let me recap the main points you should take away from all of this:

• Metroid Metal (www.metroidmetal.com)
  
• Armcannon (www.armcannon.com)
• Shredder taught them to be ninja teens
  
• Badass rock ReMix (download it, you'll see)
  
• MAGFest: Jan 1 - 4, 2010 (magfest.org)