This story technically starts like a month or more ago. Being of an inclination towards progressive rock bands, I realized one day that all the singers appeared to be men. I don't have any issue with male singers obviously, but decided it would be nice to have some more variety in the voices I hear all day, so after a quick Google search I came across Renaissance, with the singer Annie Haslam.

And they were good. Very good, in fact, good enough that I will now link some of their stuff here because it is also relevant to the band this post is actually about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDNMDugFju8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMcbhwoEzr4

But eventually, as is the case with basically all bands and musicians, unless they happen to be Rick Wakeman's solo career, I ran out of their albums to listen to so had to move on to another band. I decided to choose the same path by which I'd found Renaissance but was feeling in a Pink Floyd mood so rather than searching for progressive rock I instead chose psychedelic rock. I then came across a list of recommendations of not entirely psychedelic rock bands but just rock bands in general, all with women as the singers, and came across this band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4qgL7KhQGw

This was the first song to show up when I googled the band, and I personally really like it, even if the English is maybe a little messy. I thought the singer, and also flute player, whose name is Youko Rouyama, or Yoko Royama depending on who's writing, had a very nice voice too, but what got me somewhat interested about the goings-on with the band is immediately seeing upon a google search for them that they only had 2 albums to their name and that Google only seemed to know one member, Masumi Sakaue, who I believe was the harp player given the videos associated with her:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoJ1fXraDt8

I'm given to believe the channel this was posted to is actually run by her so that's quite nice in its own way.

But what was interesting to find was that when trying to google their history I only came across the page explaining said history in the citations of the Wikipedia article on the book Vermilion Sands, rather than the band. The first thing of note in said history, was that the band started as a cover band, and the first band that the history mentions as a point of inspiration for them to cover, is Renaissance. And I think you can somewhat hear the similarities in vocal style between the two bands, even when Yoko's singing in Japanese:

https://youtu.be/kyZJ8SFcxj0

I ended up listening to both their albums in one day, and they're both very good in my opinion. It was some way through the second album that the whole affair made me feel very sad, because the vocals change. They change quite a bit, seeing as the singer, as far as I can hear, for the later songs in the album, is not Yoko Royama but Hatsune Miku:

https://youtu.be/ua5eq6EKjKc

Which of course took me off-guard, but what I had read about the band and what I was hearing, after a few minutes, sunk in in a rather dreadful manner, because I had already read that Yoko had died in 2004, of cancer, so then came to realize that there was a rather upsetting motive for her replacement. The album came out in 2013, as a tribute to her, and the effect of her voice suddenly being replaced in the middle of an album like that really made me feel quite bad for her and all the people involved, as if I could feel her hanging over the project like a ghost.

I don't know why the replacement was Hatsune Miku nor am I in the mood to enquire but I'm guessing the band had started recording before she died and then either couldn't find or didn't want to find a replacement singer, and still had the lyrics that she'd written to work from so in either case eventually decided to finish the album in the interesting way that it's finished now.

The whole story really makes me both wish the best for the members who are still around and also somewhat reflect on the nature of art. It seems to me that all these guys were all pretty talented, and they have what I'd say is quite a powerful story behind them, but I hadn't, and haven't, heard anyone, outside of the writer behind that list I found them on, and the people that I've told about them, talk about them in any capacity in my life.

They, as far as I can tell, simply sat down and made music, and it seems that even if they'd been sure no-one would've ever heard them apart from themselves, which was almost the case, they'd have made it anyway, which I think, even if it's not technically motivational, is inspiring.

So finally, though I know they won't see it, and it's likely that very few people will read this, if any, respect to all the members of Vermilion Sands, living and dead, and rest in peace to Yoko.

111 is a cool number. I like the number 111 because it consists entirely of ones, not that I have an issue with naughts, twos, threes, fours, fives, sixes, sevens, eights, or nines, of course, but consistency is fun. 111 is also a multiple of 3 and 37. In all seriousness, thanks for following me, everyone. I know it's just a number but even still it's nice to see a funky number in these trying times. I, personally, have gotten one project done already that I otherwise probably wouldn't have due to being quarantined so that's also nice to have done in these trying times. If you're reading this, remember to wash your hands before performing any secret handshakes, public handshakes, high-fives, low-fives, mid-level-fives, baseball games, volleyball sessions or slapping competitions.

Like who would do that smh that's silly ah shit oh fuck

Axman13's iconic review was posted on February 3rd 2010, meaning today is its 10th anniversary. What a time to be alive. If you see this and haven't seen the video before, or even if you see this and have seen the vid before, I'd recommend going to have a look at it about now, since it's still a good laugh. Don't click on a different tab tho or wierd Flash magic will make the video stop while the audio keeps going.

I dunno if anyone'll see this but I felt compelled to say it anyway. Happy pixel day to everyone here, hope you knock it out of the park. Wish I could've participated this year but stuff got in the way. I'll be looking at as many entries as I can and I hope we all can have a roaring old time with it.

Seeing as I haven't posted any proper art recently I thought I'd post something in here, because I like to show these off but I'd feel compelled to put a background on any that I posted as full art pieces in isolation and, as there are already over 40 of them, that would take a while.

This wizard is Water/Fighting type. He's got water in those pots and is extremely balanced. If you can put them off-balance, which makes for a pretty big "if," they will impart their wisdom.

This is part of a long-running thread on Twitter where I decided to design a wizard in accordance to every possibly type combination in Pokemon, of which there are, if I remember correctly, 171.

Perhaps once I've made all 171 of them I'll post a massive image here with all of them at once.

I am working on a full-sized thing at the moment, but it's progressing slowly due to exams. I don't think it should take more than a week to be finished, though.

(I wish Newgrounds wouldn't have compressed it but I guess that's what I get for posting it in a blog post.)

Have a nice day.

Yeet.

An only slightly interesting and somewhat meaningless number below my username hit a funky figure that made my dopamine spike. I feel like a big boy now. I can take on the world. I can take on the universe. I can take on the entire multiverse if there is one. And most importantly, I can not take on the crushing reality of my existence and subsequently can not celebrate this milestone because it is presently one of the annual peaks of my exam density. Hooray. Hope anyone who sees this has a good day, and has something happen arbitrarily that makes their dopamine spike too. Like getting really far in the Google Chrome no internet dinosaur game. Or even like getting inexplicably followed by someone they know and admire on such places as newgrounds dot com or even twitter dot com if you hang out on that hellsite, due to hating yourself, like me. Have a good one, and remember to dress warm. Or don't. I don't know where you live. Dress appropriately, or be a rebel if that suits you. Maybe have a bad one if that's how you feel. I don't know you. Go and do or don't do what you think should be done, or shouldn't be done. And always remember,

I guess I just post small art in blog posts here now. I designed some funky masks with some funky shading, each one centred on one of the three fundamental shapes, and I think they're neat and worth sharing.

I'm not the most active on here, which is partially because I think a lot of my art is too small-scale to post here as a submission, but I do still like it so I've decided I may as well post some of my favourite entries into this project, where I decided to make a wizard for every Pokemon type combination:

It occurs to me that this post contains an entire quarter of what I've done so far, since my most recent was number 40. I think this is a fun project since there are, according to my math, 171 entries to make overall, so whenever I grow disillusioned with one project or the other I can get back to these lads. Posting it here because I am aware that many people, especially many people on newgrounds, would consider venturing onto Twitter to be a bit of a dumb move.

This is Big McBiff

He is commonly referred to simply as Biff.

Or by his actual first name, George.

Some people address him by his actual full name, George Biff.

There is no mood cited for this post.

That is because the mood of this post is not a given option.

The mood of this post is, simply, Biff. Thank you for reading.