ReMix: Castlevania 'Vampire Spanker'

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I've heard of spanking monkeys before, but... vampires? To each their own. This was actually supposed to be posted as OCR01605, before XMark's mix, but the file was severely truncated. Funny thing is, the judges seemed to have passed the truncated version conditionally, so even without the extra bits, newcomers Danneman and Silverknekt (Daniel Öman and Emil Englund) had some nice stuff on their hands. Truth be told, I was a little weary that there was enough substantive arrangement before hearing the full version, which includes more interpretive passages towards the conclusion. Essentially, while you've heard Castlevania on guitars many times before, they were probably electric, whereas this arrangement takes an unplugged approach. The ReMixers write:

"Name of the original tune is Vampire Killer, from Castlevania of course. We're calling our remix Vampire Spanker 'cause (insert some deep and meaningful reasons), but really for lack of imagination and low humour. It's purely an acoustical version (except for the bass though which is an electric bass) of the classic tune with some extra stuff thrown in. Silverknekt on the nylon guitar and bass, and Danneman on the steel guitar. We like it and hope you do as well. Enjoy!"

"Nylon and Steel" actually would have made a half-decent mix title, imo, but the appeal of low humor is undeniable. BGC writes:

"Yeah, my first impulse was "hmm, crud. Gonna be a cover..." Not so! This is really awesome to listen to! Very enjoyable! I'm an acoustic guitar man, and you've put this one together very nicely."

While Larry waxed philosophical on his judging ideology:

"Short and sweet. The duel guitars are performed well and mixed well. For my personal view towards judging, live performance arrangements always get more "leniency" on interpretation in lieu of personalization and the need to actually learn the parts in order to perform them. A live performance arrangement has more room to border on the cover side, but the style needs to be different, there have to be meaningful modifications in the structure, and original part writing and melodic phrases help any submission seal the deal. This has all of that in spades. Nice work, bros; I hope we hear more from you."

As I said before, without the ending I personally would have been on the fence, but the soloing and bluesier melodic touches towards the end help solidify the arrangement factor, in addition to the overall instrumentation/performance factors. Recording isn't absolutely crystal clear - there's some hiss here and there, perhaps artifacting as the result of running some noise reduction algorithms - but it's definitely good enough to not get in the way of Daniel and Emil's playing, which is superb. Good stuff; it's the type of music the Esteban infomercials make you THINK you'll be able to play after three easy installments of $29.95 and a couple weeks of practice, but which in reality is sadly more difficult and requires talent, patience, and creativity, all of which Danneman and Silverknekt possess.

― djpretzel