Merry Christmas With Double Dragon

Hey this thing still works, cool.

Wanted to get one more post out before the year was up. I know that a lot of you who still read this site (thank you) aren’t all that into video game music, but I’ve been meaning to share this for a long time now, and it’s what I really want to write about, so either it’s this or several more months of radio silence.

Before we get to the music, hey, hi, how’s it going? It’s been a busy year for me. Cinema Oblivia, my movie podcast, is still going strong so I hope you all check if out if you can! Unfortunately, we had to call it a day on Alexander’s Ragtime Band, the amount of work involved in researching, recording, and editing was just too much for us. Hopefully it will be able to return someday.

The same goes for my YouTube channel. I really like filming YouTube videos! Unfortunately, I really hate editing YouTube videos, and I REALLY hate doing voiceover on YouTube videos. I’m trying to think of ways to streamline the process. I don’t know how people like Techmoan can bang out multiple videos a month. Must be easier when it’s your full-time job. I do mean to get back into it soon though, I keep getting new subscribers! I have nearly 700 people following me on that hellsite now, I feel that I owe it to them to update with something sometime soon. Maybe over the holiday break?

Speaking of hellsites, I’m still on Twitter. As I write this I’m coming off of a 12 hour “twitter timeout” for saying that cisgender people commit more crimes than transpeople (yes really). I vowed to quit that shitshow multiple times, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. If nothing else, I need to use Twitter to find guests for my podcast. I also follow a billion Japanese record stores too, and how the hell else am I going to know when a copy of Capcom Game Music Vol. 3 is available on vinyl at a Hard-Off on the outskirts of Tokyo? That’s important shit.

Anyways, as I’ve said before, this blog isn’t going anywhere even if updates have slowed to a glacial pace. Thanks for sticking around in 2022 and I hope to get more written in 2023.

Now, let’s talk about game music on tape.

Original Sound of Double Dragon Arcade Version

For those who don’t know, Akihabara is an area in Tokyo that’s well-known the world over for its abundance of “nerd” friendly stores. Most of the biggest electronics stores are there, as are several stores dedicated to other geekly delights such as action figures, comic books, video games, and hardcore pornography of both the animated and live-action varieties.

Of the gaming stores, the most famous is Super Potato. It’s a really good store, don’t get me wrong. But for me, the best store in the Akihabara is Beep, a much smaller store located a bit off the main drag. It’s a tiny basement, and most of the store is dedicated to things I have no interest in, such as vintage Japanese computers and arcade game boards. But I still try to make my way to the store every week or so because they have often great game music releases that I never see anywhere else.

I got a crazy selection of vintage flexi discs taken from old game magazines there, for example. I also bought from them about about three dozen game music releases on motherfucking cassette tape.

I’m not saying I don’t have a problem, okay? I know I have a problem.

Most of them don’t even have any unique or original music. And I even owned quite a few of them on CD and LP. But…they’re tapes! Yeah, they sound like garbage, cost too much, and I’m probably only going to listen to them a handful of time at most, but…they’re tapes! They look cool. Sound bad. Look cool.

But I did pick up a few that were legit rare, with some honest-to-goodness hard to find tracks. Like this Double Dragon tape, for example.

This is the soundtrack to the original Double Dragon arcade game. The game came out in 1987, this tape came out in 1988. It was never released on LP, only on this tape and on a mini-CD that I have never found anywhere ever – not even online.

While it calls itself an arcade soundtrack, the tape is comprised entirely of arranged versions that I think are unique to this release only. At least, I’m pretty sure. The tracks aren’t on any other Double Dragon soundtrack release I have (and I have a lot, trust me).

They’re really good too! They all have that unique, 80s video game sound, just punched up just a bit. They sound too good to be authentic to 80s game hardware, but still sound like game music.  This version of the main theme fucking slaps. And I really dig the version of “The Battle Is Over” and “Forest” too. “Forest” hits especially hard. Sounds like music from a lost 80s ninja flick like New York Ninja (you should watch New York Ninja, by the way).

Another stand-out, simply for how batshit bizarre it sounds, is “Abobo the Giant Appears,” which is a remix of the main theme comprised entirely of sound effects from the game. Imagine Art of Noise covering Double Dragon. Bonkers shit.

It also came with this rad double-sided poster with liner notes. Love the artwork on this.

And it’s nice to know that I am, canonically, the same height as Abobo.

Anyways, Merry Christmas, happy holidays, all that jazz. I’ll be back next year at some point – I promise.

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