------
NOTES:
------

General:
During this performance, Zac is very very sick from what later turned out
to be serious bronchitis. He has also spent the last two hours practicing
the main melody for the SMB Main Theme. The only amp we could get for his
keyboard was a tiny, tiny one made by Lee's uncle; so it sounds very
distorted and weird. Other than that, we're in good spirits, despite being
really stressed out from having to get these songs down at an increasing
rate in the last day.

Zombie Nation:
Since it is so difficult to tell what Rob "Zoma" Holzer is saying in the 
recording we have, here is the text of the Zombie Nation story:

1999. What appeared to be a harmless meteorite crashing in the Nevada desert
has turned out to be Darc Seed, an evil alien creature with horrible powers.
By shooting strange magnetic rays, Darc Seed had turned the helpless nation
into zombies and had brought the Statue of Liberty to life to do his dirty
work. These rays had also given him control over many deadly weapons, but
none were more powerful than the legendary samurai sword, Shura. When the
great head of the samurai, Namakubi, heard that the sword had fallen into
evil hands, he set off immediately for the United States. For only he
possessed the strength and knowledge needed to recapture the magical sword
and free the U.S. from the evil clutches of Darc Seed.

Castlevania Medley:
This owes a lot to Tom Kim's fantastic sequencing job on his medley MIDI at
the Videogame Music Archive. We screw up in the transition from level 1 to
level 2 and in the arpeggio section of level 3.

Legend of Zelda Main:
We had decided beforehand to play this one twice through. Due to uncertainty
about how much time we had available and miscommunication, Ben and Zac both
drop out after the first time. It doesn't sound like an error, but it is.
The performance goes downhill from there. [Cole sez: "When the crowd started
roaring, I got really nervous all of a sudden. Before that I was smooth."]

Legend of Zelda Cave:
Nothing much to say, except that this is one is hard to play.

Chubby Cherub:
We picked this one to play because it is so incredibly insipid. The last
second high-C guitar squeal was an afterthought.

Super Mario 2 Main
We pulled this one off well, despite Ben forgetting a bit of his monster
walking bass line.

Super Mario 2 Character Select:
The pause in the middle, combined with our collective and simultaneous
head-bobbing, is the reason for the audience's laughter.

Karnov:
Nothing much to say, except that it's a cool theme; too bad it's about
the only one in the game.

Super Mario 3 Main:
Lee wasn't sure what we were playing, so there's a bit of a mistake at
the beginning. Lee's only mistake of the night.

Super Mario 3 Ocean:
Went well.

Super Mario 3 Airship:
Went well.

Metroid:
Would have gone well, except Cole hits two distinctly sour notes at the
end.

Super Mario Starman:
Easy. Went well.

Super Mario Underwater and Underground:
Went well.

Super Mario Main:
Cole makes one mistake coming back into the Bb part.

Super Mario Flag:
Went well.

------------------------
ZAC'S PERFORMANCE NOTES:
------------------------
I don't remember the exact day that we performed, but Cole assures me
that we can find out very easily. He sez it's the second Saturday in 
November. As stated above, I was very sick during the performance. Cole 
came to my room around three in the afternoon.  I had to drink whiskey 
in order to dull the pain of living long enough to pull myself out of 
bed. After that I remember we went to the grocery store and spent a 
good portion of the afternoon drinking orange juice.  It was one of 
those days that begins too late and even though it's pretty sunny
outside nothing feels completely right.  My pessimistic attitude could
be attributable to the 103 degree fever I had throughout most of the
practice and through the performance.  I kept taking cheap Wal-Mart
psudeoepehdrine HCl and acetaminophen... if I didn't take it every four
hours a fever so horrible I couldn't move my body would rise overtake me.
Several weeks later, when I finally went to the doctor, my white count
was 16 and the doctor said "If you ever get this sick again, come to us
immediately."  I thought that was pretty neat.  There's a part of Also
Sprach Zarathustra in which Zarathustra gets really sick and I like to
think of this time of my life as something resembling that part of the
book.  

But now, my second complaint about the performance: my hair. I had just 
gone the night before to get my hair cut.  Usually I get my hair cut at
a place called Mastercuts, but experience has taught me not to say "I 
would like a haircut," because then they cut all the hair off my head and
I look like a bust of Caesar.  Instead, I say "I would like only a trim,
and then only on the back, if you would please," and then as you can see
in the asf file, they make me look like Samuel Beckett.  That's why I
keep pulling at my hair throughout the show.  It's much longer on top
than it is on the sides.  

Now I'll comment on the music:

Mad props to Lee Whatley, the saxophone player.  He fucked up a grand total
of one time during the whole show.

Zombie Nation:  I didn't play anyting on this one, but I played with my
hair a lot.  Through the feverish haze, I understood less of what Rob said
than you.

Castlevainia Medley:  At the beginning, I didn't have the keyboard keyed
to the pipe organ it was supposed to be keyed to, so during the first part
of the song I am playing some sort of piano noise.  When I realized this I
was so shocked (and also quite feverish) that I completely quit playing for
several measures.  Then I remedied the problem by keying the organ noise
and didn't make all that many mistakes.

Zelda Overworld Theme:  This is my favorite among the songs, but it is also
the one during which we fuck up the most.  Before the show we agreed to play
it twice, but as you can tell, Ben sabotages the performance halfway through
by trying to get Cole to quit playing.  After that the song dissolves into
the primordial chaos from which all life has come and to which all life
shall ultimately return.

Zelda Cave:  This one made me a better piano player.  We didn't really screw
up all that much, and it's about as hard to play as the third movement of
Beethoven's Pathetique.

Chubby Cherub:  Right now I can't remember if I was playing accordion or
piano on this one, but I admit that I probably learned the song backstage in
the moments immediately preceeding the show.

Super Mario 2 Main Theme:  This one sticks in the mind. I play it 
instinctively now when my hands touch a keyboard. Many people in the dorm we
live in hate me (probably) because I have played this one so much.

Karnov:  I didn't have anything to do during this one so I danced a little.

SMB3 Main:  Right now I don't even remember playing this one.

SMB3 Ocean:  I played the accordion on this one, and if I recall correctly I
had no idea that we were going to play this one at the time it was played.
I was expecting to play Metroid. So you can hear me screw up, I think.

SMB3 Airship:  This is a ripoff of Holst's Mars, Bringer of War from The
Planets. I don't remember any major mistakes, but I only had to play three
notes so it's not surprising that it came off without a hitch.

Metroid:  The claw into which you have to curl your hand when you play
accordion is as unaccustomed and unnatural a posture as any posture I have
yet encountered. I'm surprised it went well, but it went pretty well.

SMB Starman:  Easy. Easier than any of us expected. Fun.

SMB Underwater:  This was the first of the songs we ever tried to play, and
it may be responsible for all the others. One night I was trying to play
this, and was playing a B major chord instead of the E diminished it should
have been. Cole corrected me and over the course of the next three hours we
acquired eleven (I think) [CM -- I think it was like eight, but I'm not
sure] other people playing different parts. Later there was a fire alarm and
everybody got patronized by the police.

SMB Main:  As Cole states above, I didn't know any of this when he came to
my room and made me get out of bed on the day of the performance. As I
played accordion on this and had to curl my hand into the claw that no man
should ever have to curl his hand into, it took a lot of practice to get
good at it. Three minutes after the show I forgot every bit of it, which is
unfortunate because I'll probably have to learn it again sometime soon.

SMB Flag:  By the time we played this one I was glad it was over. It's an 
arpeggio of the C chord, and then an arpeggio of the Ab chord, and then an
arpeggio of the Bb chord. Again, the claw into which one of the accordion
must curl his hand was mildly irritating. I was surprised at how warm a 
reception we got when we were done. Whee.

Hopefully another performance will be forthcoming, since the sexual horizon
is as bleak and forbidding as it has been for quite some time.