Interesting week. We released the new song, "Learn to Spell," last week -- hopefully you've heard it. If not...



Then we got our own page at Entertonement.com, which is sort of like YouTube for audio clips. They liked "Halo" so they approached us and it was a huge compliment to get that kinda love.

Then...it went to Digg. Someone posted the Entertonement clip to Digg on June 5 and it went nuclear with 1200 diggs in 24 hours. The irony of getting our song on a website that spells "dig" wrong is not lost, but the attention is very gratifying.

Hopefully more people check out our other songs as a result, or at least recognize the name next time we release a track. That's sorta the point, I guess, since we're not makin' money.

Back to the studio to see which ideas pan out next!

This has been a big week for Palette-Swap Ninja, culminating with the release of our seventh track, "Learn to Spell", a parody of "Gives you Hell" by The All American Rejects.  This is our anthem to those who post like English is not a second language, but a distant third or fourth.  We here at Palette-Swap Ninja, along with many of our friends and fans (who can be heard on this track) are taking a stand for gamers everywhere!  The next time you see someone barely communicating on the forums, post a link and send them our way.  Your friends will thank you.  As always, you can download the new track at our main website.  While you're there, check out the brand new Palette-Swap Ninja merchandise, sporting our new logo!  A t-shirt or a hoodie with our logo is a great way to show that you like your music served with a side of obscure gaming references.  The goodies are not free, but our music still is--enjoy! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0PddvmUrrM

Our new song is out! Go to our site to download it as an MP3. We created this in conjunction with Maximum PC's 100th podcast, so make sure you hear the song in its original context at http://bit.ly/maxpc100th. Who knew we could do songs this fast? :) See our http://paletteswapninja.com for full details and to download all our songs.

We've got a new one out! Take Halo, add some Red Hot Chili Peppers, and you get a hopefully amusing tale of a braggart who gets pwned on Live. Feel free to add it to your profile, or just download it from our site:

http://paletteswapninja.com/?p=158

We are blogging more regularly at the main site now. And of course you can get all the other songs over there too.

Better still, we have half the next one recorded too...!

Episode 29 of TalkRadar is now available via GamesRadar.com or on iTunes iTunes right now. At the 32 minute mark, they talk about the contest and debut the song. But you should listen to the whole show, as Rob Smith is a guest, discussing his new book about Lucasarts, Rogue Leaders. Oh, and if you're never listened to TalkRadar before, here's your explcit content warning. As podcasts go, it's vulgar, drunken, and rambling. In other words, it's quite popular.

So the contest is pretty straightforward: Make a YouTube video for "Wii Christmastime" -- however you want to, animated, acting stuff out with friends, Flash, whatever you like -- and post the link to your entry in the TalkRadar forums. You've got three weeks, and then the GR staff and Jude and I will pick our favorite (we'll be judging on creativity, of course), and the creator of that video gets a 30GB Creative Zen Vision W, pre-loaded with all four Palette-Swap Ninja songs (and a surprise or two). I took care of that today, charged the thing up, loaded the MP3s onto it -- it's sweet. You'll like it.  

So, listen to TalkRadar, then go to paletteswapninja.com tomorrow and we'll have the full song posted for download. (The MySpace version is not downloadable, it's just for adding to your profile -- feel free to do so if you like it.) Let the holidaze begin! 

Okay, so we have details about the release of this week's song. On Thursday, TalkRadar will release show 29 (because 28 is already out), including the first appearance of the new song "Wii Christmastime." If you want to hear the track, download their podcast (there should be a link from the GamesRadar front page).

On Friday, you can come back here or to paletteswapninja.com and download the song directly, then get to making a video for our make-a-video contest, so we can spread some viral holiday cheer. You'll have a few weeks to put together a video, then we'll pick our favorite and ship out the prize -- a lovely 30GB Creative Zen Vision W media player -- so you can take all of your Palette-Swap Ninja songs with you, including your award-winning video. See what we did there? Full contest details are on TalkRadar episode 29. 

Two very happy announcements. Palette-Swap Ninja finally has its own website. This will be the main home for the band, and it's where we'll be posting new songs first from now on. Bookmark paletteswapninja.com, won't you? 

Also, this Friday, we'll be debuting a new song -- our first holiday song, and our first one not about the Xbox 360. The song will debut on this week's edition of TalkRadar, the podcast of GamesRadar.com. That'll be show 28 and it should be up Black Friday, November 28. Then I'll post the song on our site for download.

I realized while working on all this stuff this weekend that it's been a year since the last song release. Too long. Guess what our 2009 resolution is.

Yes. Really. Jude's parts are done, he had the lyrics I'd lost, and I have learned the bassline. Working on it today, actually. I have arranged a big debut on a popular gaming podcast so I'll post links when that is ready for release.

This time of year, the problem is there are too many good games to play (Gears 2, Fallout 3, Fable II, WoW: Lich, MKvDC, Mirror's Edge...hell, even Bejeweled Twist) and I kind of need to stay current this time of year, for the magazine's sake. But then again, when it's not games, it's a bunch of other side projects that suck time away.

In that regard, I have a small announcement. I realized a few months ago that I don't have enough time to do all the things I want to do. Work is understandably demanding and I realized I just wasn't getting the fun stuff done that I wanted to get done. So I decided to leave Fast Times, the 80s cover band that brought Jude and I together in the first place. He left the band because he moved to the other side of the country; I left because I realized...I had kind of done what I set out to do, on a personal level, by trying to sing in a band. The phrase I have been using is "Achievement unlocked." I was singing in the band for five years, on and off, and I had a blast -- but now I see I have all these other things that I also want to do. Jude and I have ideas for more parodies, and even the handful of fans sometimes send in ideas for songs they think would be funny. So the creative energy is sorta here and I'm going to follow it. It's been hard for me to focus on multiple musical projects at once, so PSN is on the front burner again.

I have played my last regular gig with FT so I'm focusing on home recording projects, both covers and originals (though the latter won't be under the PSN banner, since they're not about games). We'd also like to make some videos, hoping that one or two might go viral and we get some exposure. And just to prove that it's for real, I've bought paletteswapninja.com and we're talking over what we want it to be. But you can bookmark it until then; we'll probably move primary operations over there once it's built.

So. The takeaway is, new song before Christmas. Figured that would be good news. :)

Show of hands: How many people thought we were dead?

We have not given up. We have just been busy. But we got to see each other in real life recently for a friend's wedding and said...yeah, we gotta get back into this. It helps that I am leaving my main band so I have more time to focus on working on this (as well as some originals -- we'll see how that goes).

There's another issue. I lost some data in a hard drive crash, including the all-but-done version of a song Jude and I did last year but never released. It will make sense as to why when it comes out. But even if we have to redo it from scratch, it won't take long and it will be out by the end of the year. Other songs are suggesting themselves but just require attention. They will get attention.

We like doing this. And for the five people who actually thought "I'd like to hear more from those guys" we hereby thank you for your incredible patience. Hopefully you will enjoy the stuff we have planned.

I also appreciate that you didn't just yell at us to release new stuff. There's a line between "can't wait to hear more" and "when are you jerks going to do something new" and I am very encouraged to note that nobody ever crossed it!

Dan

I gotta admit -- I am surprised that people are still asking for a downloadable version of "The Viva Pinata Song" after all this time.

So, in honor of the release of the VP sequel, Trouble in Paradise, have at it. It's downloadable again.

But you know what would be awesome? If someone made a YouTube video to show how much they like it, and thereby brought us the nerdcore internet fame that has so far eluded us.

Or, you know, just load it onto your iPod, crank it in the car, and make the people at the next traffic light scratch their heads.