Next up on Liberty ...

Y'know, things have been pretty quiet across the board lately. Eerily quiet. Frustratingly quiet. Spinning off from the only recent news of note -- y'know, the bad news below -- Chris Meadows has a new episode of Space Station Liberty scheduled, an Ulpio Minucci memorial episode coming up on Sunday, March 23 at 6:00 p.m. EDT. Guests will include Tom and Dennis Bateman, so I suspect we'll get to hear about when Ulpio was at Robocon 10 back in '95 -- Tom organized that show and Dennis worked it -- and maybe something of when they were working on the 10th anniversary soundtrack. I dunno, Minucci's note in that was pretty short, so maybe Tom didn't talk to him much for it. In any case, should be an interesting show, whether you listen to it as it airs or, like I probably will, download it after the fact and put it on your iPod or whatever.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention ...

Ulpio Minucci, composer of the ROBOTECH theme song as well as a large number of the music tracks used throughout the TV series, passed away March 9, 2007 at the age of 89. For a brief bio of the man, see this article at Robotech.com.

I've done my part!

Just sent in my order for Lonely Soldier Boy, Michael Bradley's CD of recordings of tweaked and modernized new versions of his ROBOTECH songs. The Masters has put out a report that sales don't seem to be all that strong (the exact words: "Bradley is still not receiving enough sales and needs your support"), but the quotes from Michael himself in the report sound cautiously optimistic to me, such as this snippet from his response to Rhade:

The sales have been pretty good so far...but could be a lot better. I'm sure as time goes on and we keep publicizing it and reaching out to fans who may not know about it, the sales will continue.

While The Masters's opening paragraph on his report sounds very glass-half-empty, it sounds like Michael's taking the glass-half-full side of things, figuring that as the word spreads, sales will keep rolling in. Which, yeah, they should as long as ...

Say it with me, people!

As long as we continue to ...

Spread the word!

Grab a banner!

Review the CD on your blog!

Go bother people on random internet forums!

Print up some bumper stickers and slap them on all the cars in the parking lot where you work!

Make some flyers and tack them to every telephone pole you see!

Harass random strangers!

Okay, maybe some of those aren't very good ideas, but you get the point -- get the word out!

And if you haven't bought the CD yet ... what in the blue blazes are you waiting for?

To be honest, the one bit that really caught my eye in The Masters's report is the fact that Michael is considering follow-up ROBOTECH-related projects ... but only if this CD sells well. So let's make sure it does that, OK?

Hey, are you still up?

Just got an e-mail from Chris Meadows telling me that Harmony Gold Creative Director and Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles director Tommy Yune is on Space Station Liberty right now. Yeah, like, "as I'm typing this" right now. So if you wanna talk to Tommy, now's your chance. Not that it's, like, your last chance, or your only chance or anything, but he's on the line and you're still awake, so if you wanna talk to him, why don't you click on over and pester him with your questions like a good ROBOTECH fan?

Update (12:02 a.m.): Well, it's over -- an hour of talk about Toynami's products, discrepancies between Prelude and Shadow Chronicles, some nudging about the sequel, and thoughts on fan expectations. You can't call in anymore, but it might be worth a listen. And of course, there's the two hours of talk with voice actor, ADR director, and writer Steve "Angelo Dante" Kramer -- having heard him talk two years back at Anime Expo during the Robocon 20 retrospective panel, I can't believe that's anything but two hours of entertainment.

Wonder what, if anything, Chris has got lined up next. Hmmmmmm ...

Keeping the marketing cycle going!

Apparently this coming Wednesday's edition of Comic News Insider, a podcast produced by Dynamic Forces -- peddlers of overpriced signed comic books and superhero busts that make you go, "Who the heck is going to buy THAT?!" -- our old pals Tommy Yune, Dan Woren, and Scott Glasgow will be on to promote Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, which has now been out for about five weeks. Gosh, it's been that long, eh? Anyhoo, if you're not sick of listening to the Harmony Gold gang talk about their movie, visit DynamicForces.com on Wednesday, March 14. There's going to be other TV/DVD/movies/comics coverage in there, so you might need to skim through the file a bit for the ROBOTECH-related content.

Oh, actually, the Dynamic Forces website is kind of busy and will try and sell you the Captain America death issue signed by twenty different people, so instead if you click here you can go straight to the podcast page. The podcast will load right there on the page. Don't say I never did nothin' for ya.

*sniff, sniff* | More on the new Macross

Well, that's that. Darkwater wrote his "Lonely Soldier Boy" review (hint: he liked it) and then signed off, though not before stopping by Space Station Liberty for about three hours while I slept in, realized I lost an hour, and then wandered on out for a late lunch. Sorry I missed it, man. I wish you all the best and all the luck in the world in your time-consuming, well-paying new gig with Unnamed Media Company. ^_-

The Masters (not to be confused with SSL host Chris "Robotech_Master" Meadows) is looking to pick up the slack. Best of luck to him on that front. I doubt he can bring the snark like Darkwater did, but hey, the more the merrier.

Of course, I'm still here, and given that my prospects for a time-consuming, well-paying new job here in The Middle of Nowhere, Kansas are somewhere in the ballpark of nil, I'm thinking I'm gonna be here for a while to come. So don't worry folks -- this show might get preempted, but it's not gonna be canceled any time soon.

* * *
Okay, so on with the news ...

As Darkwater reported last Friday, via Anime News Network, Victor Entertainment in Japan is holding open auditions to find the voice of the pop star heroine for the upcoming new Macross anime series being produced for the original TV series's 25th anniversary.

Now Anime News Service is reporting that animation production company Satelight, the company that Macross-co-creator Shoji Kawamori has been doing all his recent projects with, will be host to a Macross 25th Anniversary booth at the Tokyo Anime Fair in two weeks. The formal announcement of the new series will take place there. To me, this is a good sign -- Kawamori's probably in charge, meaning even if it's a failure, it'll be an interesting failure that will at least be able to lean on some kick-ass mecha dogfights. It won't be, say, another Macross II, a pretty yet shallow rehash of things we've seen before.

Oh, and if you haven't visited the Flash-heavy new official Macross website at www.macross.co.jp, it's worth a look, even if you can't read Japanese. There's enough English there that you should be able to find your way around, and most of what's on display are pictures of characters and mecha from the various Macross anime series. Pretty cool.

You buy now, yes?

Soooooo, Lonely Soldier Boy is out. This is the brand spankin' new CD from ROBOTECH singer/songwriter Michael Bradley, a collection of rearrangements and rerecordings of the classic ROBOTECH songs that he worked on back in the 1980's -- from "Flower of Life" through The New Generation and Robotech The Movie: The Untold Story. He's put a lot of time and energy (and money) into this project for all the fans of his work on the series, and it's been a long hard road getting here, but finally, the CD's available to buy here at MichaelBradleyMusic.com in autographed and unautographed flavors. $14.95 + $3.00 shipping, a couple more bucks to get it signed.

Despite the walls the Harmony Gold legal team put up to prevent the ROBOTECH name from being used on the CD, Robotech.com has an extensive interview with Michael Bradley regarding his career and this project here. So that's pretty cool.

Speaking of promotion, remember, YOU can help. Spread the word by posting one of Viv's lovely banners (see top of this blog and Darkwater's blog) to your own blog, MySpace, forum sig file, or anything else you can think of offhand. Of course, they all say coming soon ... hmm ... hey, is she going to update them all now that it's out? Viv? Darkwater? Anyone ... ?

Me, I'm having to wait 'til payday to buy it. I think I have, like, a dollar in my pocket. Yeah. Oh, you're a lonely little dollar, aren't you? Yes you are.

Zero to sixty ...

I totally stole this image from MedMapGuy.
Apparently back on Tuesday the ROBOTECH podcast RDF Underground went daily, recording live via TalkShoe every weekday at 4 p.m. EST. He won't be taking any callers this week, but starting next week audience participation and discussion will get rolling.

Think about that one, kids -- a netcast five times a week from a guy who went on hiatus less than two months ago. I suppose The Shadow Chronicles did the trick, eh?

I'm bringing the beer.

Or:

Your Space Station Liberty schedule update.

Thanks to show host Chris "Robotech_Master" Meadows for dropping this into my in-box this afternoon. He probably only had to push a button to do it, or maybe it's automated and he didn't have to do a darned thing, but it's appreciated nonetheless.

Tomorrow night at 10 p.m. EST, Chris's guest is Yuri Lowenthal, the voice of Marcus Rush in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, as well as Superman in the new Legion of Super-Heroes cartoon and Sasuke in Naruto. A more complete account of his credits (including lots of video games) can be found at his IMDB listing.

Sunday at 5 p.m. EST, Chris is holding a Space Station Liberty going away party for our dear pal Darkwater, who's ... well, going away, heading for greener pastures that involve more money and less time for bringing da snark about our favorite franchise and the folks who run it these days. You can bet I'm going to be there for this one. Probably with beer in hand. (Yeah, it will be kind of early for that, but I don't think it'd feel right otherwise.)

Tuesday, March 13, at 10 p.m. EST, Chris's guest will be Steve Kramer, best known to ROBOTECH fans as the voice of Angelo Dante in Robotech Masters, who also worked as a writer and voice director on the series. The man's done a lot of voice acting, especially in English dubbed anime. See an accounting of his credits at his IMDB listing.

* * *

Last night, my pals Levi and David and I all watched my copy of Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles; I've, of course, seen it a couple o'times at this point, so who cares what I think? Levi went with me to St. Louis back in November, but hadn't seen it since then; he was quite happy to be able to see it in conditions where he could make out what in the hell was going on in the mecha battle scenes. David hadn't seen it at all, however ... and afterwards, he was sorely tempted to go right out and buy it immediately, which seems like a very positive reaction, though he did make mention -- without any previous knowledge of the never-ending discussions we've all had -- that all the women seemed to have giant distracting breasts. But it didn't detract from his enjoyment of the movie, and even made him want to go back and watch a whole lot of ROBOTECH, despite his loathing of the show's ever-present narrator. I think that's quite something.

But here on the interwobble, it seems someone -- a person calling himself the King of the Fish People -- was far less entertained by the flick.

OUCH.

More later.

So I guess it's NEXT winter, eh?

Via Darkwater, BigBadToyStore.com has opened preorders for Scott Bernard's Masterpiece Cyclone. And when is this bad boy due?

November.

Wow, that's a ways off.

It'll set you back a penny short of $80. Plus shipping, of course.

While Darkwater made mention that the other toys being hyped in New York aren't preorderable yet, methinks that November date gives us a good clue why. Toynami's not one to flood the market with Masterpiece product, and the Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles repaints of the Alpha Fighters will probably follow Scott's Cyclone.

Unless the lack of new tooling means they'll precede the Cyclone and they're just going to spring those on us. I can never tell with Toynami. They're not particularly good with the whole "letting us know what's up" thing.

The Macross is small, but pretty.

Collection DX does the whole extensive photography + video thing with Wave's brand spankin' new plastic & die-cast metal SDF-1 Macross from the film Macross: Do You Remember Love? Clicky-click here to gaze upon its glory.

The video shows how small it really is -- the review says it's eight inches in robot mode, nine from stem to stern in fortress mode -- but given how solid the reviewer says it is, I'm thinking it still might be well worth whatever odd number you can get it for. When I'm a little more financially sound, this is definitely going on my list -- or maybe I can see if someone would be willing to pony up the cash for it for my birthday. Hmm.

I've felt awful all weekend, so this is all I can offer.

STRIKE A POSE!!

We will resume some sort of regular programming later on in the week, 'kay?

Okay, not tonight then ...

My girlfriend was over late tonight, so, um, no video blogging tonight. Maybe Friday night, maybe over the weekend.

And I was really looking forward to recording that, too. *sigh*

LONELY SOLDIER BOY RELEASE DATE!!!

According to the latest posting to Michael Bradley's blog at MySpace, Lonely Soldier Boy, his CD of all-new recordings of the songs he wrote for the ROBOTECH television series and movie, will be released on Friday, March 9, and will be exclusively available on his website, MichaelBradleyMusic.com.

On top of the brand new recordings of these songs, Michael says that the CD will also include the original demo recordings for three of the Yellow Dancer songs from The New Generation: "Look Up! The Sky is Falling," "It Don't Get Any Better," and "Lonely Soldier Boy."

Bitty bit today, video entry tomorrow.

I was planning on showing you all something through the magic of YouTube tonight, but a long chat with my girlfriend about vacation plans later this year -- including this summer's yearly exodus to Anime Expo -- kept me away from the camcorder. So all I have to offer you is some blah-blah about the very first ROBOTECH comic book series -- at least for ROBOTECH as we know it, Comico's adaptation of Robotech: The Macross Saga, over at the comics blog. This is the entry about the series as a whole; once I can block out the time for typing, I'll be adding an individual issue entry on the final issue, because that interests me a lot more than any of the others. I think I've got one worked out for the first issue somewhere here on the hard drive, though, so I might rework that one a bit and throw it up there while I'm at it. I dunno.

Now that I think about it, when I have the time I'm going to have to post up about the trade paperback collections of that series that DC/WildStorm did a few years ago, too, won't I? Crap. Well, maybe I can do that over the weekend or something.

In any case, you should be seeing my smiling face, my big brown chair, and my ROBOTECH poster in a video entry tomorrow night, so be back here then, OK?