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John DeNardo | Wednesday, December 12th, 2012 at 12:22 am
It’s that time of year again…and SciFi Songster John Anealio is letting folks download his Seasons Geekings LP for the low, low price of free!
Thrill to the soothing sounds of
“Batman Smells (A Rebuttal)” and “The Millennium Falcon For Christmas”, as well as the soon-to-be-classics “Winter Day” and “Is A Chupacabra Kosher?”…
Head on over to John’s blog and start downloading Seasons Geekings!
It’s been a little while since we’ve done a Weekend Playlist feature, which has moved to occasional status as we’ve drifted to various projects. There’s been a whole slew of great geek-related music that’s come out recently, and it’s too good to pass by. For your listening pleasure:
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John DeNardo | Wednesday, November 28th, 2012 at 12:15 am
While the rest of America was stuffing their faces with turkey, SciFi Songster John Anealio was hard at work writing another song.
“The Ferryman” was inspired by John Mierau’s Walk The Fire, a shared world, science fiction anthology that features stories by Jake Bible, Jason Andrew Bond, Brand Gamblin, Nathan Lowell, Patrick McLean, Edward W. Robertson, J. Daniel Sawyer, Matthew Sanborn Smith and John Mierau.
Give it a listen right here.
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Paul Weimer | Wednesday, November 7th, 2012 at 10:00 am
John Anealio writes songs about science fiction and fantasy and other geeky things. Alternate-tuned acoustic guitar picking, soaring synthesizers, and catchy pop hooks power his odes to androids, princesses, and vampires. His newest album, available on his website JohnAnealio.com as well as iTunes is the Chuck Wendig named album Laser Zombie Robot Love. He also recently released a free single to commemorate the fall of Felix Baumgartner from space to the ground. He is the co-creator and co-host of The Functional Nerds and has come up with theme songs for a variety of other podcasts as well, including the one for the SF Signal podcast.
I decided to sit down with John to learn more about him and his writing and creative process…
Paul Weimer: Laser Zombie Robot Love is your newest album. But where did the idea of doing geeky songs, as opposed to, say, covers or homages to Rush or Emerson Lake and Palmer come from?
John Anealio: For years, I was a straight-up folk/pop singer/songwriter. My songs were about relationships and other typical subject matter. As my writing grew, I started to write about all kinds of things. The first CD that I put out as a typical singer/songwriter included a song about vampires and one titled Orbit. At one point, I decided to focus my writing on subjects that would appeal to genre fans and tech geeks. Part of the idea behind this stemmed from my then, new found interest in blogs and podcasts. I was reading all of these Sci-Fi review blogs and I thought if I wrote songs inspired by the books that these folks were reviewing, then they’d probably enjoy them and maybe even spread the word about them. That was the start and it pretty much worked. However, it quickly changed to writing about all different subjects and themes within the genre, not just about specific Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books.
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Leave it SciFi Songster John Anealio to tap into the consciousness of geek pop culture. Here’s his ode to space-jumper Felix Baumgartner.
In episode 148 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester sits down to chat with Singer/Songwriter John Anealio
About John Anealio:
With little more than an alternate-tuned acoustic guitar and a dog-eared copy of The Hobbit, Sci-Fi Songwriter John Anealio composes and performs geeky anthems for writers, librarians, lovers of Science Fiction, Best Buy customers, and robots. His music sounds like John Mayer, Weezer, and James Taylor playing Dungeons and Dragons together on their iPhones. He is the Co-Host of The Functional Nerds Podcast
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Sci-Fi Songster and SF Signal contributor John Anealio shared a stage with Paul and Storm at Nerdtacular last weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah. Here’s the video. John’s set begins at the 26-minute mark.
EDIT (from Patrick): The video is no longer available – we hear there will be a youtube version uploaded soon – when it is, we’ll re-add it back to this post.
Sorry folks – it was a really great video. Anealio’s laser show put Pink Floyd’s live show to shame!
SciFi Songster John Anealio is at it again…creating catchy genre-and-geek-themed music he’s giving away for free. This time out, his new song is “GeekDad“.
Give it a listen…
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SciFi Songster (he loves it when I call him that) John Anealio has just released a new must-listen track “The Empire State“, a song commissioned by Mur Lafferty and Angry Robot Books for the WorldBuilder project, the companion website to Adam Christopher’s novel Empire State.
Listen to the song right here…
…but do check out John’s site for song lyrics and more.
SciFi Songster John Anealio (he loves it when I call him that) has released a new song called “Steampunk Girl“.
Even better, he’s offering it as a free download.
Commence listening and grabbing!
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Science fiction fans love new gadgets. The most recently hyped gadget is the Apple iPad. Sure, it’s sexy, but like any gadget, it has its pros and cons.
We asked this week’s panelists:
Q: Do you own an Apple iPad? If so, what are the things you like and dislike about it? If not, are you thinking of getting one? Why or why not?
Here’s what they said.
Marie Brennan
Marie Brennan is the author of the
Onyx Court series of historical fantasy novels:
Midnight Never Come,
In Ashes Lie, and the upcoming
A Star Shall Fall. She has also published nearly thirty short stories. More information at
www.swantower.com.
Full disclosure: my brother works on the iPad. Which doesn’t give me any special insights or advantages — I spent a year and a half not knowing what his job was, just that he’d been moved to a new team at Apple, before they announced the thing publicly — but if you want to read bias into this, go ahead.
I don’t own an iPad, and am not likely to buy one any time soon, for a variety of reasons: cost paired with lack of immediate pressing need, caution regarding the first generation of *anything*, etc. Having said that, when I saw the specs of the iPad, I admit it looked attractive, for two reasons.
Weight/size and battery life…
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John DeNardo | Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 12:29 am
This week, we turned our attention to SciFi television when we asked our panelists this question:
Q: Which off-the-air science fiction television show deserves a remake? What changes would you make to update it?
Here’s how they responded…
A. Lee Martinez
A. Lee Martinez is a writer you probably haven’t heard of but really should have. He is the author of
Gil’s All Fright Diner,
In the Company of Ogres,
A Nameless Witch,
The Automatic Detective,
Too Many Curses,
Monster and the upcoming
Divine Misfortune. He credits comic books and Godzilla movies as his biggest influences, and thinks that every story is better with a dash of ninja.
I thought long and hard on this one, and with so many great candidates, it wasn’t easy. Manimal? The Night Stalker? Misfits of Science? Century City? Oh, the delightful possibilities. How can one man make such a controversial decision? Well, after much soul searching, meditation, and hours of telepathic communion with my ancient Martian spirit guide (his name is Jack), I can only find one worthy answer.
Darkwing Duck.
How would I update this classic show? Good question. I probably wouldn’t change it much. I’d give it a more action oriented update that wouldn’t lose the humor of the original. Something like Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Fun, retro, and sharp. I’d also expand Darkwing’s universe to include more superheroes and villains. In addition to the classics such as Liquidator, Bushroot, and Megavolt, I’d introduce new characters. And of course, you could never go wrong with a Gizmoduck team up on a fairly regular basis. All of this would inevitably lead to my ultimate spinoff series:
Justice Ducks Unlimited.
But one step at a time…
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If you’ve been reading any handful of science fiction blogs, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the SciFi songster John Anealio. He takes works of science fiction and fantasy and writes catchy folk rock songs.
Well, courtesy of John Anealio, SF Signal has 3 copies of John Anealio’s SciFi Songs CD to give away to 3 lucky readers!
Here’s how to enter…
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SF Signal Contributor and SciFi Songster John Anealio has posted his latest song: an acoustic version of “The Ballad of Wilson Cole” which covers all 5 books of Mike Resnick’s military science fiction series, Starship, the latest installment of which (Starship: Flagship) was recently released. The lyrics have also been printed in the back of Starship: Flagship.
Go give it a listen.
Nice job! Congratulations, John!
TIP: Follow SF Signal on Twitter and Facebook for additional tidbits not posted here!
Note:: The arrival of relatives is imminent! Posting (especially Tidbit posting) may be light for the next 10 days or so.)
We’re getting even more biggerer!
We’re happy to announce that SciFi Songster John Anealio has joined the ranks of our esteemed Irregulars. Before he could realize the error of his ways, we asked John to talk (or even sing) about himself in the third person. This is what he came up with:
John Anealio writes songs about science fiction and fantasy. Alternate-tuned acoustic guitar picking, soaring synthesizers, and catchy pop hooks power his odes to androids, princesses, and vampires. He posts said songs, along with remixes and podcasts, as free MP3 downloads to his blog, http://scifisongs.blogspot.com/ every week. Anealio’s ascent to Sci-Fi music super-stardom began on that fateful day when he composed a catchy tune to John DeNardo’s (SF Signal’s poet laureate) lyrical tribute to Summer Glau. The sheet music to his song “The Ballad of Wilson Cole” will be appearing in the appendix of Mike Resnick’s upcoming novel: Starship: Flagship published by Pyr.
We’re as happy as Grateful Dead groupies to have John on our team. Welcome, John! As you already know (but probably forgot) New Guy buys everyone else bagels! Today I’m in the mood for an everything bagel. Pre-sliced. And toasted. With butter.
While John is taking our orders and running to the bagel shop, listen to his first post: a podcast-review of Terra Incognita: Beyond The Horizon by Roswell Six.
