March is a good month for Geek Music fans. Several of our favorite bands have new offerings out this month and we wanted to share our thoughts on two of them, Miniature Menagerie by Toy Box Trio and E For Everyone by Kirby Krackle.

Miniature Menagerie by Toy Box Trio

How best to describe the experience of listening to Toy Box Trio? Their music is enjoyable, well crafted and expertly performed, but the listening experience is more complicated than that. Imagine you decided to make yourself a sandwich one day and you looked in the refrigerator and saw that you only had three ingredients that really didn’t go together. You decide to go ahead and use those ingredients anyway and somehow, almost magically, they merge into one of the most delicious sandwiches you have ever tasted. That is kind of what listening to Toy Box Trio is like.

The band is made up of Dana Wen, Nate Lee and founder Harlan Glotzer. They perform their music on the unlikely combination of toy piano, tuba, and concertina and together they create music that is unique, haunting and strangely compelling.

This may not be music that you want to have in heavy rotation on your iPod, but it is certainly music you want in your collection. If you are looking for something to create an atmosphere the next time you are playing Cthulhu by Gaslight, the H.P. Lovecraft role playing game set in the 19th century, having Miniature Menagerie on in the background would be a great fit. If a movie is ever made of Cherie Priest’s book Boneshaker, Toy Box Trio should compose the soundtrack.

Not only do we recommend you pick up a copy of Miniature Menagerie, we also recommend you make an effort to see Toy Box Trio perform live. They play frequently in various venues around the city and seeing them live really adds to the charm of their music.

We sat down with Dana Wen and Harlan Glotzer to talk about Toy Box Trio earlier this week and you’ll want to tune into the podcast this Thursday (March 11) to hear what they had to say.

You can find more information on the band as well as their concert schedule and samples of their music at ToyBoxTrio.com

E For Everyone by Kirby Krackle

Alert listeners to our podcast will already know that we are huge fans of Kirby Krackle. We picked up their first album way back in Episode #7 and we’ve been hooked ever since. Well a year has passed, their second album E For Everyone has finally arrived and it does not disappoint.

Songwriter Jim Demonakos and musical front-man Kyle Stevens have said from the beginning that their goal is to create cool music with geeky content and that is what they have done with E For Everyone. You could very easily play tracks like Vault 101 and On and On for non-geeks and all they would hear is the rocking latter day alternative sound without ever noticing that the lyrics were about Fallout 3 and Wolverine respectively.

This is not to say that the whole album is all straight laced rock songs. There are some fun fangirl/boy songs like Can I Watch You?, Henchman, and Secret Identity and they included remixed versions of fan favorites Ring Capacity (their summer single from last year) and Going Home (originally given out exclusively to attendees of the 2009 Long Beach ComicCon).

E For Everyone revisits many of the same themes from their first album which works better for some songs than others. Roll Over (which features California hip-hop artist GMK The Great) is an amazingly fun track that is a tribute to the women of Saturday morning cartoons, similar to what they did for the women of comics in Marvelous Girls. Dusty Cartridges & Long Boxes though, while a decent excursion into geek romance, is not quite up to the level of Naked Wii from the first album.

Over all this is a great sophomore album for Kirby Krackle. The addition of musicians from their live backing band to the studio recordings really punched up their sound and the album definitely lends itself to multiple listenings if for no other reason than the density of geeky easter eggs in the lyrics.

You can find more information on Kirby Krackle and listen to the E For Everyone in its entirety at KirbyKrackleMusic.com

People who don’t follow video game news may not have heard about the controversy surrounding the DRM for Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed II. The short version is that Ubi requires an always-on connection to their authentication servers in order to play the game on the PC. If the player disconnects from the internet for any reason the game freezes and becomes unplayable until a connection can be re-established and any progress made since the last save point is lost.

Well yesterday the event that everyone knew would happen sooner or later happened and Ubi’s authentication servers went down preventing anyone trying to play Assassin’s Creed II from starting the game. Initially Ubi officials posted on their official forums (which also appear to be down at the moment) and said that the outage was the result of “higher than expected demand”. As the situation progressed updates on Ubi’s Twitter feed stated that their servers had been “attacked” and that the outage was limited to a period of about seven hours between 2:30 pm and 9 pm Paris time (Ubisoft is based in France). They have also claimed that “95% of players were unaffected“.

The merits of DRM in general can be debated but I think it is clear that this particular scheme has some very serious issues and one hopes that this incident may prompt Ubi to re-think their strategy. There is no guarantee that their servers will not experience similar problems in the future even, or perhaps especially, if this outage was the result of a denial-of-service attack and the only people that will be inconvenienced are the people who actually bought a legitimate copy of the game. As one commenter on the Slashdot thread discussing the problem said, “let’s not lose sight of two simple facts: The only people who can play the game right now are pirates. The only people who are blocked from playing the game right now are those who legally purchased the game. Which group would you rather be in?”

More news under the fold

First off, I’d just like to say hello to all the people that hit this post while searching for book downloads and apologize for your inevitable disappointment when you find that all we’re offering is some great interviews with a group of very cool authors.

This week we talk with Adrian Phoenix, author of the Maker’s Song series, Eric S Brown, author of War of the Worlds Plus Blood Guts and Zombies, Matthew Flaming, author of The Kingdom of Ohio, and Amy Sterling, a founding member of the on-line author collective Book View Cafe. We also start gearing up for our Big Month of Conventions™ by talking with one of the organizers of Vancouver, Washington’s GameStorm 12.

All that plus the weekly geek news, Seattle area geek events and Shannon watches another bad movie

The first thing that struck me about Dawn of the Dreadfuls was the cover which features a primped little girl with haunted eyes and blood dripping from her mouth and hands. Very unsettling. The story inside is equally creepy in parts but, like it’s sequel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith, it has it’s share of humor as well.

The story is set four years before P&P&Z, following the Bennet family as they’re faced with the reanimation of “Dreadfuls” (zombies for you non-18th century English readers). The story starts off with Mrs. Bennet hoping to marry off one of her many daughters to a better life and standing. However, with the Dreadfuls coming back into the forefront, Mr. Bennet has a different road for his daughters to travel. Mr. Bennet has grand aspirations of turning all of his children into Dreadful-killing warriors. He himself had been trained in the East in martial arts and sword fighting and had used these skills in a previous Dreadful uprising (I wonder if this might be another prequel). The girls are much more interested in “coming out” at balls and catching that certain high standing man’s eye than helping their father dispatch zombies. At their father’s insistence, though, they join his anti-Dreadful crusade and the book follows their adventures as they traverse the zombie ridden countryside trying to save their neighbors and England.

This is not a mashup between an Austen tale and new material like P&P&Z was. Dawn of the Dreadfuls is a completely original story using Austen’s beloved characters. Surprisingly, Hockensmith is able to make several 20th century references while still maintaining the demure spirit of Jane Austen’s voice. I enjoyed P&P&Z (the unabridged audiobook), but I was thoroughly entranced by Dawn of the Dreadfuls. I loved it’s unique humor and frivolity while still keeping to the temperament of Jane Austen’s characters.

If you’ve been pondering picking up P&P&Z you might consider picking up Dawn of the Dreadfuls first, since the introduction of martial arts into Regency England seems less jarring in Hockensmith’s book.

Whether you’re into the mashup books, like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, or not you really should look into picking up Dawn of the Dreadfuls. It was a quick, fun read that will delight new or hardened zombie fiction readers.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith is out March 23, 2010.

Contest

Help Seattle Geekly and get a chance to win a prize pack worth over $100 from Quirk Classics Books.

By clicking THIS LINK, you will be taken to Quirk’s public message board. All you’ll be prompted to do is mention that you read Seattle Geekly’s review of Dawn of the Dreadfuls and you’ll be entered to win!

Each prize pack will include:

• An advance copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls
• Audiobooks of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea
  Monsters

• A password redeemable online for sample audio chapters of Dawn of the Dreadfuls
• An awesome Dawn of the Dreadfuls Poster
• A Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Journal
• A box set of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Postcards

In case you missed it somehow, Jonathan Coulton along with Paul & Storm played a show at The Moore here in Seattle on Saturday. I really hope they weren’t just spouting the usual performer line of bull when they talked about how much they enjoy playing in Seattle because that would mean that they might tend to want to come back here. Frequently.

Of course Paul & Storm ARE coming back for w00tstock which is a very good thing.

Anyway, we’re going to be talking more about our impressions of the concert on this week’s podcast (Episode #52 Author Torrent) and you can check our YouTube channel to see some of the video we shot at the concert.

There weren’t a ton of stories that jumped out at me over the weekend but there are a few items that I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention.

In the bad news, good news, more bad news, more good news department Cheyenne Wright, the Hugo Award winning colorist for Girl Genius, was admitted to the hospital late last month with what had the potential to be a quite serious illness. That’s the bad news. The good news is that he was discharged more or less unscathed and a (relatively) clean bill of health. The more bad news is, being a freelance artist (even a Hugo Award winning one) doesn’t usually come with health insurance but that is balanced out by the more good news which is that Girl Genius fans have (or will have soon) the opportunity to buy or bid on original art and other Girl Genius related works as part of a donation drive. Keep your eye on the Girl Genius donations page for details.

While you’re buying webcomic-related swag, be sure and check out the brand new Red Plains General Store. Alert readers will remember that Red Plains is the old-west comic by Caryn A. Tate who we interviewed back in Episode #50.

And finally, Trigun fans in Seattle are in for a treat. The new Trigun movie Trigun Badlands Rumble is having its world premier at this year’s SukuraCon. The con runs April 2 – 4 which means con-goers lucky enough to wedge themselves into a showing will be seeing the film nearly three weeks before it premiers in theaters in Japan. The Japanese premier on April 24 coincides with the start of a new two-part Trigun manga to be published in Young King Ours magazine.

For those of us of a certain age there is something magical about an old-school arcade. Everything about them from the flashing lights to the sound to the smell conjures up the heady days of the beginning of the explosive growth of video gaming. The appeal is such that even those of the later “Nintendo” or even the “Playstation” generations can get swept up in it.

This week we explore that appeal with two serious retro gaming enthusiasts, both professionals in the industry, who have turned their love of gaming’s early days into major collections. We also interview Dan Halligan one of the organizers of the NW Pinball and Game Room Expo which will be at the Seattle Center this summer.

And, of course, we have the weekly geek news and geek events in the Seattle area.

A great giveaway for serious WoW-heads. The art book is filled with over 200 pages of artwork from the first World of Warcraft expansion and the behind-the-scenes DVD offers more than two hours worth of developer interviews and commentary on all aspects of the creation of The Burning Crusade, as well as trailers and cinematics from the game, and even footage of panel discussions from BlizzCon.

This contest will run from today to Sunday March 7 and we’ll ship the book and DVD to you via USPS. As a special bonus we’ll also throw in a “Slashdance” loot card from the WoW collectible card game. The code on the card can be redeemed for a stack of 100 in-game “GRENADEs” (Goblinoid Resonant Electro-Neural Automatic Dancing Emitter) that you can throw at other players to make them dance!

“How do I enter?”
Please register / log in to our website, and leave a comment on THIS POST. You can just say “hi” or whatever! One entry per person please, we’ll delete any multiple or offensive posts. Make sure you use a valid e-mail address when you register so we can contact you if you win!

“How will you randomly pick someone?”
We have D&D dice of all shapes and sizes, even a 100 sider! We’ll roll and see who wins!

This week our spotlight shines on Mark Henry and his latest novel Battle of the Network Zombies. Mark Henry’s style of urban fantasy is darkly humorous and over the top with sex, violence and fashion. Battle of the Network Zombies is the third book featuring his revenant heroine Amanda Feral and it is in stores today!

The Spotlight

Battle of the Network Zombies is available in your local bookstore and through Amazon.

You can read more from Mark Henry on his website

Music

Music for the author spotlight is The Nerd Anthem by Marian Call. Visit her website and check out all of her amazing music.

Tune in this Thursday for Episode #51 of the Seattle Geekly podcast. We’re talking retro video games!

I was tremendously excited this weekend to see that W00tstock is coming to Seattle! For those unfamiliar with the concept, w00tstock is a festival of geekdom put on by the musical duo of Paul & Storm.

For decades, geeks were ostracized, picked on, laughed at and punished by the sun’s harmful UV rays. But there is only so long that a people can be kept down before they rise up against their oppressors; and, indeed, the dawn of the 21st century has seen the ascendancy of geeks and geek culture.

We now celebrate that rise to power–and let’s face it, nerds pretty much run everything now–with w00tstock, a special event for geeks of every stripe. Television host/special-effects artist Adam Savage (“MythBusters”), actor/author/blogger Wil Wheaton (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”, “Stand By Me”) and music-comedy duo Paul and Storm (hey; that’s us!) present a night of songs, readings, comedy, demonstrations, short films, special guests, and other clever widgets born from and dedicated to the enthusiasms, obsessions, trials and joys of geek pride.

This is the dawning of the Age of Geekdom–and its voices will ring true at w00tstock.

In addition to the above named featured guests previous w00tstocks featured special guests from The Guild, including a live acoustic performance of Date My Avatar with Felicia Day and the hilarious comedy stylings of Knights of Good guild leader Vork.

Paul & Storm and crew will be coming to the Moore Theater on Friday, May 7. Tickets go on sale this Wednesday, February 24. Grab them quick!

Plenty more news under the fold

We had a great time at the Princess Bride Trivia Night last night and there was an amazing crowd, second only to our Whedonverse trivia night in terms of size! A big congratulations to Third Place winners Team ROUS, Second Place winners Team of Unusual Size and First Place winners Strike Force Buttercup who got an impressive 46 out of 47 questions correct!

Next month will be Dr. Who trivia. Right now we’re leaning towards having it be limited to the new series, 2005 – present. Keep an eye on our Trivia Night page for future events.

If you couldn’t make it to Neptune Coffee to compete last night, all the questions are under the fold. How would YOU have done?