I didn't win.
Ha ha ha! So HBO recently did a Remix Challenge for Season 2 of their upcoming series, “Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon.” I've never done a remix contest before, so I thought I would give it a shot. HBO/Warner provided some stems and I did a cool little EDM version. Apparently I can't post it up to YouTube because I'm using Warner's Copyrighted Stems. But I will post it here so you guys can check it out… Somebody needs to hear it! I'll be pulling it down eventually, so make sure to check it out before I do. If you look below, you should see a little player at the bottom of the screen with a track titled, “House Of The Dragon - Dr. Who Remix” Click play to check it out while you read the rest of my Blog (If there is another track there, just refresh the screen). And if you want to compare it against the original, you can check that out here…
I was actually quite pleased with the outcome. Of course Byron helped me with the final mixdown. We really had a time crunch at the end, as the cutoff to submit the track was this week. I'm also happy that I was able to use my new and developing Modular setup on this. It's the Synth Part that blasts the theme melody behind the strings. It's a very “synthy” organic sound. Gives me Dr. Who vibes. So that's why I named it the Dr. Who mix! As you can see below it is a glorious mess of wires, knobs and modules. It's a musical science experiment gone mad!! But with this I am able to make a custom Synth/Sampler to my own personal specifications.
If you want to read up more on this journey You can check out my Modular Video here. It's a YouTube video with some info on this rig. Though I have definitely made some upgrades since then. Anyway, this whole remix was a lot of fun to do. I think I'm going to look into doing more of those in the future.
So obviously the first I shared with about my “losing situation," were my friends Jack and Byron, because we share everything with each other. Jack made an interesting comment saying, “I bet when you do hear the winning track, it will suck! I've noticed that [lately]…” And this instantly put in my mind this whole North West Lion King situation that is blowing up all over the Internet.
First some info and context, North West in this case is not a direction, I'm talking about a person. And the person I'm talking about is Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's daughter, North West. And the situation is her performance at the Hollywood Bowl, playing Simba for the stage performance of The Lion King. Let's listen shall we? You'll have to play this from YouTube…
https://youtube.com/shorts/-jY3bT8oVPk?si=HAvaQJ6fVe-3aoR1
Now I'm not going to sit here and completely bash this girl on this public Blog. But it does introduce some questions… Do you think she had the talent to pull off this performance in a high profile venue where people paid money to watch? And do you think there are other kids out there with more talent? There have been lots of rumors and jabber online about how she actually landed this part. And it's not good. Especially for those who actually auditioned for this part. One girl claims she went through FOUR ROUNDS of auditions before losing out to North West. And that she never saw North West for any of those auditions except for that last one. And even if North West did Audition all four times, is that performance one you think that would have lasted several rounds of auditioning? Because I know the selection process for roles like this can be rigorous.
I'm going to be a little brutal and honest here.. My heart goes out to the young artists who lost out to an obvious case of Nepotism; to a person who didn't deserve the part, and got it either through the name brand of her parents or the all mighty dollar.
But thems are seriously the breaks sometimes. And though it sucks, the lesson needs to be learned. And it's good to learn it at a young age. Life isn't always fair. But we keep doing what we love. If I were gauging this project on success or the money I would make, I would have given up after my first album. But I had so much fun, I just kept wanting to do it. And I will keep doing it. Because I love making music.
Find what you love, and take time to do it. Life is short, and as noted above, unfair sometimes. So take the little joys you can find in your life and make time for it.
Peace Out!
-Joda
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