October 28, 2016 – Halloween Music Special

It’s Halloween 2016 and The Arcade is back with our annual Halloween Music Special to fill up your auditory pillow case with treats of a musical sort. We strive to present a variety of songs and styles on these shows, and this year is no different.  Our adventure beings with the Ludicrous Leadoffs, which this year, is built around a central theme… haunting horror hip-hop! Did you know the Crypt Keeper did a rap song in the early 90’s?  Or that Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff made a song for A Nightmare on Elm Street 4? Have you ever heard Warwick Davis rap as the Leprechaun in Leprechaun V?  We’ve found all these oddities and play them for you in our opening block.  From there, we class the show up a bit and explore what the world of Creepy Classical and Spooky Symphonies for us.  The class, however, will only last so long as we have to include the obligatory heavy metal group.  What could be more Halloween than the image of blood raining down from the sky as sung by Slayer, or Peter Steele using his bass-baritone vocals to sing an ode to All Hallows Eve?  This Halloween show closes out by paying homage to some of the great musical talents who left their mortal coil and joined the afterlife this year as we’ll play seasonally appropriate selections from Motörhead, David Bowie, and Prince.  So tune in and let us be your soundtrack for this scary season.  As always, we encourage you to follow the iTunes links below to purchase these songs for yourself, to enjoy at Halloween and beyond.

What Was Played:
(click on the links to buy!)

Dennis’s Nickname:

The giver of chocolate, the taker of souls

October 30, 2015 – Halloween Music Special

Happy Halloween boils and ghouls! It’s time for us here at The Arcade to celebrate the season of ghosts, goblins, and candy by shelving the video game talk for one week to bring you a hearty helping of Halloween-appropriate songs on our annual Halloween Music Special! Despite what commercial radio would have you believe, there are more Halloween songs out there than Thriller and the Monster Mash, and we’ve brought some of them together on this year’s show.  Our playlist ranges all the way from Elvira to King Diamond, remixes of 90’s kids TV show themes to German power metal about a Stephen King novel, and songs from Broadway musicals to a song about the Great Old One himself, Cthulhu!  So tune in and let us be your soundtrack for this scary season.  As always, we encourage you to follow the iTunes links below to purchase these songs for yourself, to enjoy at Halloween and beyond.

What Was Played:
(click on the links to buy!)

Dennis’ Nickname:

The man who will avenge any child stricken with crappy, cheap candies this Halloween.

Blast From The Past:

Are You Afraid of the Dark? (TV Series / Oct. 31, 1990 – Apr. 20, 1996)

April 3, 2015 – “Easter with Al” Music Special

For this week’s episode of The Arcade, we’re doing things a bit differently.  In light of the Easter holiday weekend, we’re holding off on the video game talk and replacing it with the musical stylings of “Weird Al” Yankovic.  Yes friends, it’s time once again for our “Easter with Al” Music Special!  We’ve scoured though his catalogue to bring you songs which explore themes of food, television, and love.  Before we get to any of those, we bring you some of his rarely heard ditties in the “Obscure Originals” group.  As always, we end off the show with our Blast From The Past segment, which this week is the movie Sin City!

What Was Played:
(click on the links to buy!)

Dennis’ Nickname:

The man whose anger against religion is amplified by copyright infringement.

Blast From The Past:

Sin City (Movie / April 1, 2005)

December 19 & 26, 2014 – 8th Annual Christmas Music Special

Friends, it’s time once again for us here at The Arcade to celebrate the holiday season in our own special way as we present to you our 8th annual Christmas Music Special!  On the show this year, we bring you four completely unique takes on the holiday favorite, Carol of the Bells.  We also have a group of songs from unlikely Christmas crooners that is sure to surprise you, as will our always popular Ludicrous Leadoffs.  To close out the show, we dug deep and unearthed Christmas instrumental covers of AC/DC, Green Day, and Metallica.  Oh yes, they exist, and they are tremendous.  Like all of our music specials, we encourage you to click the purchase links below and add these songs to your own music collection.  As an added gift to you this week, we have two movies as Blasts From The Past which are sure to cure any seasonal blues you might be suffering.  Listen, enjoy, and all the best to you and yours from us at The Arcade.

What Was Played:
(click on the links to buy!)

Dennis’ Nickname:

The frantic last minute holiday shopper

Blasts From The Past:

October 31, 2014 – Halloween Music Special

Friends, this week we continue our tradition of celebrating the spooky season with devilish ditties and bewitching ballads on our Halloween Music Special!  We’ll be jumping all over the musical spectrum to bring you Halloween music that’s outside the standard offerings of Thriller and the Monster Mash.  If you’ve ever wanted to hear songs ranging from 1960’s vocal jazz, to a zombie-tribute of The Beatles, to GWAR, then you’ve come to the right place because we have all that and so much more on this special edition of The Arcade!  As always, we encourage you to follow the iTunes links below to purchase these songs for yourself, to enjoy at Halloween and beyond.

What Was Played:
(click on the links to buy!)

Dennis’ Nickname:

The man who is happy that the Count and the Gunslinger won’t ruin the show this year.

Blast From The Past:

Phantom of the Paradise (Movie / Oct. 31, 1974)

July 4, 2014 – Summer Music Special

Friends, this week we’ll be taking a break from our usual video game banter to bask in the warming glow of summertime with our Summer Music Special!  This year, our musical selections are based around one of four summertime themes: summer cars, summer romance, summer jobs, and summer vacation.  As always, we encourage you to click on the links below to purchase these songs from iTunes and add them to your collection.  So kickback with an ice-cold glass of your favorite drink, and enjoy this year’s Summer Music Special!

What Was Played:
(click on the links to buy!)

Blasts From The Past:

Dennis’s Nickname:

The man who finally fell victim to his first Summer Steam Sale

April 18, 2014 – Easter With Al Music Special

Hi friends!  We decided to celebrate this Easter weekend the only way we know how; with our third ever “Easter with Al” music special in which we play nothing but great music from the musical icon that is “Weird Al” Yankovic.  Set out another plate, because Al is coming for dinner!

What Was Played:
(click on the links to buy!)

Dennis’ Nickname:

The man who doesn’t fully understand the Heartbleed bug, but implores everyone to change all of their passwords and start using a password manager.

Blast From The Past:

Super Metroid (SNES / Apr. 18, 1994)

Also Worth A Look:

January 3, 2014 – MAGFest Music Special

Greetings friends!  In honor of this weekend’s MAGFest happening in National Harbor, MD, USA, we thought this week’s show would be a great chance to play selections from some of the talented musicians who will be playing down in Maryland.  While we aren’t attending the 2014 MAGFest, we’ll still take this opportunity to espouse its many virtues and spread its gospel to all the people of the land.

As always, we encourage you to click on the links below and purchase these songs for yourselves.  That way, you’ll be helping to support the artists who are just regular folks with a passion for music and video games.

What Was Played:
(click on the links to buy!)

Dennis’ Nickname:

The Man Who Would Like To Thank Santa Claus For Giving Me NHL ’14 This Christmas

December 20 & 27, 2013 – 7th Annual Christmas Music Special

Greetings friends!  It’s that time of year again when we put aside all things video game and focus on all things Christmas music for our 7th annual Christmas Music Special.  We’ve lined up a slew of great holiday tracks that you’ve never heard before, or if you have, then it’s been a damn long time.

This year, you’ll hear a hair metal Christmas song that’s sure to become a staple of your holidays, as well as robots who come to learn what the true meaning of the season really is.  Plus, we will answer the question that’s plagued mankind for ages: what does it sound like when a 90-year old British actor performs a heavy metal Christmas song?  All that and so much more is in store on this very special edition of The Arcade.

As always, we encourage you to click on the links below and purchase these songs for yourselves.  That way, you can enjoy them for this, and all future Christmas seasons!

What Was Played:
(click on the links to buy!)

Dennis’ Nickname:

The man who will never shop at a mall ever again during Christmas time.  Ever.

November 29, 2013 – Frank Zappa Music Special

Hey friends!  With all the recent excitement of the new console releases from Sony and Microsoft, we figured that it’s best to take a bit of a breather and recharge our batteries this week before heading into the busy holiday season.  So we decided the best way to do that would be with the wild and varied musical stylings of Frank Zappa!

What Was Played:
(click on the links to buy!)

Dennis’ Nickname:

The man who is both impressed and disturbed that Jean Claude Van Damme can still do the splits like he did in the ’80s