Retronauts - 731: The Protomen Acts I & II

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Nadia Oxford, Kevin Bunch, and Lucas White talk about the Mega Man-inspired rock band, The Protomen. Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts 

Build a more secure, resilient self and strengthen your relationships. For 15 years, mental health professionals at the Center for Interpersonal Relationships have offered psychological treatment and assessment services to help you, your couple, your adolescent, and your family. Psychotherapy starts at $75 per session. You don't have to live with depression, anxiety, or difficulties in your relationships. We offer some services in English and in French. Book an initial session online or in person in Toronto at 790 Bay Street. Visit cfir.com.

I find myself reliving old patterns and having heavy thoughts. I feel stuck. I struggle to feel secure and authentic. You don't have to stay stuck. Mental health professionals at the Center for Interpersonal Relationships are available to provide you with confidential, compassionate services customized to you to help you feel well, secure, and alive. Psychotherapy starts at $75 per session.

Book an initial session online or in person in Toronto at 790 Bay Street. Visit cfir.com. This week on Retronauts, Hope dials a phone. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Retronauts. I'm your host, Nadia Oxford, aka the Gambler 2, because I couldn't come up with a better codename. So sorry about that. I have a couple of rebels joining me, though, some real motorcycle, revving turbo, revin young punks. Let's see, we have Kevin Bunch.

Say hi. We all know Kevin. Hi, it's Kevin. I didn't come up with a clever nickname because I didn't realize that was part of our homework. No, that's okay. I just thought of it the last second. Cops are going to get us anyway, so why even bother? The cop robots.

Yeah, okay. Robot cops. Lucas White, also a good friend of mine and also a triple Revin, young punk, et cetera. Say hi. Hello. Most likely also among the dead in the scenario. Yeah, I think all three of us are dead here. So this should be a really good, really cool podcast because all three of us are

pro-men weirdos, as in the prodomen, the rock opera band. And when Act 3 was announced last month, I was like, Oh, my God. All right, everyone, emergency protomat episode. Let's get this happening. So here we are. Thank you, too, very much for joining me. But I guess by the sounds of it, you're fans as well.

So it's no real chore to have you here, I think. Yeah. As soon as you mentioned, you want to do a protomint episode, I was just like, say less. I'm in. I was here yesterday. Hell yeah. So we'll talk a little bit about how we, like, got into the protom end. But let's just briefly say, who are.

are the Proto Men. And they are a band out of Nashville, best known for Acts 2 through 3, which are Mega Men rock operas with an Orwellian twist. They've also done covers for Queen. They have an album of assorted covers. That's also part of the ongoing protomen lore. That's the cover-up. We'll probably talk a little bit about that. And yes, there is lore. It's a rock opera, fam. There's always lore. I mean, I am a fan of, I grew up with, like, Jesus Christ, superstar and Tommy. So there's no hope for me. There was never. any hope for me. The main singer of the Proto Man, his codename, his codename is Rall Panther the 3rd. There are about a billion band members in the protoban, and several billion others have cycled in and out of the lineup. Currently, the lineup is, Kazoon Hyatt to my husband, is Rawl Panther. Murphy Weller, who's the bass synthesizer, bass drum. Oh, God, he's like, so I'll just say there's a lot of Proto Man. There's a whole bunch of Proto men people, and they're all very multi-talented on their instruments. I know we're going to talk a little bit about if we've met the band members, but

have you guys met the band? I have, actually. I have not. Yeah, I have as well. I got to chit-chat with them for a little bit. It was fun. Oh, cool. How about you, Lucas?

Yes, no? No, the only time I've been in the room with them, I was extremely drunk. So I kept my distance. In fairness, the both times that I've seen them were an area. where people were drinking a lot. So I think that's just, it's part and parcel of meeting the protom end is being a little bit hammered.

Yeah. The one, when I saw the band in Toronto, I wasn't drunk. I mean, it was way too expensive to get drunk there. It was a little bar called Missy's Sister.

I did, however, meet Kilroy, because he was just kind of standing beside me, being Kilroy, I guess, waiting for his cue. And I just decided,

hey, what the hell. First of all, I was standing on a chair because everyone took pity on me. and give me a chair so I could see what was going on. And I'm like, hey, man, thanks for coming. And he was like, oh, no problem. And then we started talking.

And I said, you know, this was his first time in Canada. He's like, you can't, you Canadians are fucked up. And I think this was before that the whole war crimes thing, Canadian war crimes thing, was like common knowledge and the First World War and all that. He's like, I don't know what it is with you guys, but like, you're so nice. But like, when you're on the hockey rink, like, you turn into monsters. And it's like, yeah, yeah. That's accurate.

I don't have you ever seen that substance episode, but Lisa goes bananas when she gets on the hockey rink. But that's pretty accurate. So, yeah, let's try to go over the band names again. Murphy Weller, Commander B. Hawkins. I think he's like the mysterious member of the band. Sir, Dr. Robert Backer, Shock Magnum, Gambler Kirk Douglas. She's the female voice of the band also plays Emily, and I guess in Act 3, she's rule. Reanimator Lovejoy on drums

And of course, Kilroy, who we just talked about, has been credited for fist pumps, hand claps, armorer, sledgehammerer, Maracas, and I don't know what a Gronara is, but that sounds pretty cool. He's everywhere you want to be. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Very guar-coded, in my opinion. I actually only, okay, so as I said, we're going to talk a little bit about the cover album, but I do want to say, like, I've been listening to it. And this is, like, my first chance really listening to a lot of Mr. Roboto because that is not a, that is not a song. My dad played a, my dad was a hard rock kind of guy. And Mr. Roboto was not in his, in his repertoire.

But I'm playing this, right? And you get to the point where I'm Kilroy, I'm Kilroy. And it's like, wait a minute. And I realized, Secretamana has a robot enemy named Kilroy. And I'm like, holy shit, I got it. Like 30 years later, I got it. Thank you, Ted Woolsey. and your never-ending love of classic rock,

like turning the aqua breath spell into aqua lung. God, I would think it would go back to that. Yeah, I remember the first time I saw them, they played Mr. Robato. It was like, I think it was the only cover song they did that concert. That is so funny. It really stuck out because it was the only cover song. I know that, like, sticks has set outright. Yeah, we play their version now.

It's a cover of a cover because. they realized, apparently, for years, like, what are we doing wrong? Why can't we play this song live? Then they heard it, the Proto Man cover. It's like, oh, okay, I get it. And, I mean, I'll be honest. I fucking love Galwin's voice. It's just such an angry, bishy voice, angry, bishy Scotty, Canadian.

So, yeah. I love his solo work as well. The time has come at last. I'm not a secret. To throw away this mask Now everyone can see My true identity I'm Kill Roy

Kill Roy Kill Roy Kill Roy Kill Roy Kill Roy Anyway Anyway getting back to our robotic friends So the band formed in 2003

most of his founding members are from the Middle Tennessee State University alumni. They apparently have a recording program that's quite prestigious. I did not know that. Yeah. I know Tennessee, like, a lot of music has come out of there, so I'm not shocked that they have a really good musical program there. Yeah. Thinking about it, now that you mentioned, oh, yeah, some dude named Elvis or something. I don't know.

Dally Parton. Dallie Parton might have had something to do with Tennessee. Yeah, there's something I noticed when I was listening to. to, like, the Proto Men Live, they're live in Nashville, which I wholly recommend. It's a great album if you want to get into Act 1. He sounds a bit like Elvis, just when he's live. Panther, I mean. That's kind of cute.

Yeah, the Tennessee really comes out on the Dr. Light parts, and so I appreciate it. It's very, very Southern. Very Southern Dr. Thomas Light, very Southern name. You know, this was... The Father worked in the mind. My Father worked in the mind. You know, this was a part of the country that had, like, you know, major nuclear, like, research facilities. I think they still do.

So the idea of a Southern Dr. Light, whose family, like, there were minors, he, you know, got to a point where he got to do, like, scientific engineering and research. Like, yeah, that tracks with Tennessee and, like, that background. I actually did not know that about, like, Tennessee, like, being a, a, a strong. strong mining state. Appalachian Mountains. Yeah. Makes sense. You mentioned, like, what, nuclear engineering?

I cannot remember the name of the site. Is it like Willow something or other? Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, it was a major nuclear research facility. I'm just going to look that up because now it's going to gnaw at me if I don't. Oak Ridge, yes. Oak Ridge.

Okay, okay. I'm thinking. They mine uranium or something, but just good old coal. I'm not sure what they mine in Tennessee. Could be coal. I feel like coal's mostly north of that, but probably that or like copper. Either way. Copper makes sense if you're building robots.

Yeah. But actually the protomans started in a little Tennessee town called, I'm going to mispronounce this. Mifresbrough. Mreisbrough. Mreisbrough. Thank you. Thank you for the accent there. according to them

and an interview they did with joystick it's about halfway between Nashville where the country of music kink pins feed off the mass apathy of the music industry

except for that Taylor Swift fellow she's dreamy this in 2009 by the way and Manchester Tennessee where hippies go

every year to offer up creepy sacrificial dances to their fish gods we were born in that war-torn village

the only thing to do was circle up and fight and yeah that's uh by the sounds of it there was a huge

rock void that they aimed to fill, because as they said later on in the interview, although now to think about it, there is a level of Voltron like collaboration. We basically gathered up all our good friends from the local rock bands of Fristboro,

tied ourselves together and tried to walk, and somehow it worked. At the time, we noticed a void in rock and roll, and that could only really be filled with grown men and women painting up like robots and playing some fierce and furious rock music based on a 1980s video game. We were faintly certain, one else is going to fill that hole. But by God, it is filled now. You can thank this

later. And I like this quote here. One thing we're going to shoot for is not to take five years to get Act 3 out. We're already working on it. But our plan is to, right now, is to tour behind Act 2 as much as possible. Well, they did tour. And I did see them a couple of times. So that's pretty cool. You know what? They did not take five years to get Act 3 out. We got to give them that. Five plus 11. They didn't say more or less. They just said it won't take five years. You got it.

They got you there. So, um, So, um, what's our history with the band? I'll go first, I'm just going to say, pretty easy sell. I'm a Mega Man fan and I am a rock opera fan. Act one got me pretty hard. I just realized I really worded that wrong. What I meant was it got me really hard. Not like it got me physically sexually hard, which I guess, whatever, I'm just going to admit it did. Especially the song, The Stand. I am also a theater nerd who never went to theater. And it is the most Broadway song, the Prudeman have ever done in my opinion. I was really impressed with Act Two's polish. I think that's when I was sold on the band having some very real talent. That was solidified when I first saw my first show at one Odecon or another. Can't remember which one. I also saw them once in Toronto in a bar called Missy's sister, which I mentioned. The next time they played in Toronto, they were at Echo Beach, which is actually a not

small venue here. It's named after a great song by Martha and the Muffins. Look it up. Couldn't go to that show, but Act 2 was well-timed because by the time it came out, Inifune was pretty much done with Capcom and the great Mega Man Drought of the Tens was about to begin. So the pro-a-man fan. I'm kind of intermingled with a regular Mega-Bend fans and gave us like a really nice morale boost. So that was some good timing. How about you, Kevin?

I was going to say, it's really a bummer that the, you know, Mega Man drought really hit the same time as the Act 3 drought, but yeah, you know, we all had each other to lean on. We need each other. So, you know, I'm also fan of Mega Man and rock

operas, like one of my favorite albums in College was Blind Guardian's Night Fall and Middle Earth, which is a rock opera about the Silmarillion. Great album. But, you know, I used to go to the Anime Central Convention fairly regularly in the 2000s. And a friend of mine who also always went and I usually crashed in his room, he really liked burning McSedes or just CDs in general. And in ASEN 2006, he just hands us a burned copy. of the first Proto Men album, which had just come out like, I don't know, six months prior or

something like that. And he told us, he's like, you've got to listen to this man. It's really, really good. So on the drive back, we listened to it at least twice, I'm pretty sure. I mean, it's not a very long album, so, uh, but like, it hooked us really good. I ended up, like, buying an actual copy just to, like, support the band. Um, and then they came through, uh, Detroit in February 2008, uh, uh, They were playing at a bar called The Painted Lady in Ham Trammec.

And this really sticks out in my head really, really sharply because it was friggin' cold, like colder than usual. It had to be like below zero at that point. I'm pretty sure. It was also the furthest north they'd ever toured because I remember always, like, griping to myself. I'm like, man, they always tour like to the south. I wish they'd come up here. And of course, they picked like the worst time to do that. Yeah.

So as such, their equipment from. in the bus. I remember this because they spent a good half hour trying to like thaw everything out and make sure it worked. And not everything did. Like the last song, the, the brothers of fate. Yeah, sons of fate. Yeah, sons of fate. The microphone in the proto man helmet was not working. So they, they just got really close to each other and you could tell he was just like trying to shout really loudly so that you would hear it in the other microphone and the megaphone. Man helmet. There's a history of that, of that microphone not working at Helmet. I've seen them make jokes about it in like spots and stuff. Well, if it broke, like maybe this was the first time it broke and it just never worked right since. But yeah, afterwards we got to chat with the band for a bit because like there's only

like three dozen people there. So to see them in a very small show. And that's when they were telling us, well, first we had to make the joke and like, oh, you've heard of this game called Mega Man. I think you'd really dig it. And they're like, no, I'm really interested. Tell me more. But no, they were telling us that, like, yeah, you know, we really only played the NES games.

And even then, we really, really only spent time at the first three. So, like, it really comes through in, like, some of the stuff that they have in the first album. Like, especially the epilogue, do vendetta, where they're like just referencing stuff from the games. They're really, really only referencing the first three. So, yeah. I've kind of noticed that they, when you have the plot of Protoman being evil, instead of being like Mega Man's heroic brother, that tends to happen because people get mixed up because Mega Man 5 had like a clone of Proto Man that was evil and of course not him. But the cartoon at the time really latched on to the idea of the evil Proto Man. I can't really say that's what they were inspired by.

But it was just the impression I think a lot of people got of Proto Man at the time. And of course he does serve as a good foil to Mega Man, like in any context. So that was a pretty good choice, I think. I love just, God, they must have had a terrible impression of the North, just thought it was like a frozen moonscape. Why did we come here? Well, the next time they came up was in March 2010 after, like, Act 2 had come out. So that's a bit better.

Yeah, it was a little warmer. It was at a weird hippie commune in Detroit near Wayne State University, which that had like a tree growing out the middle of the building. It was very strange. Nice. The main thing I remember about, that show is that it was a much bigger crowd and pro wrestler Alex Shelley

was there. Oh shit. You get it. I got a picture with them. So, yeah, and since then they've gone on to just fill ballrooms at conventions and whatnot. And I'm like, wow, I cannot get as close to them on stage as I did those first couple shows. Yeah, I noticed that when

at the time it's recording, they were announced for Magfest 2006, and that sold out immediately. Like, it was gone as soon as they announced that concert. I got just a nick of time. I don't know how I'm going to get there, but I'll get there. Figure that out later. We'll figure that out later. Lucas, how about you? What's your history with the band? Sure. So, uh, speaking of Magfest, which is now like a 30,000 people convention in Baltimore.

Yes. Uh, it started where I'm at in central Virginia, speaking of Appalachia. Nice. And, uh, Magfest back then was like fewer than a thousand people. And it was very, very focused on the music part. And it was like a big, a really big piece of like the whole like Nintendo core or whatever scene kind of really blowing up when it did like in the mid 2000s. So I've kind of been going there for a while. And Magfest goes further north to Virginia after they kind of outgrow slash destroy a couple of smaller hotels. And that's what the legends. Oh, yeah.

Legends involving lots of flower. So when they go to Northern Virginia, you know, they have a bigger space. They have more money. And the concert experience gets much bigger. And the Protomen were Magfest 9. And it was like the second year they really expanded their concerts. It was also the January after I turned 21. Oh, boy.

I was having a great time, to say the least. So, as I kind of alluded to earlier, I didn't see or listen to or fully, you know, absorb the proto-man for the first time so much as kind of experience. Didn't fully comprehend what you were listening to, but you know it was good. It was really intense because, like, you know, part of it was like Magfest being a bigger deal and having more money and their concert experience. being more elaborate, so they had more, like, lighting stuff going on than Proto Men. You know, they're not the typical, like, Nintendo core band where it's usually like, we did the Mega

Man 2 theme, but with guitars, and that's kind of the thing. This is, like, fully original music. So that's harder to process because you're not used to it. And then, like, the costumes and everything. And so it's like Mega Man fan fiction meets, like, industrial rock opera meets like Guar and so I'm just like what is happening

I'm too drunk for this yeah pretty much like I knew what was going on was awesome but I did not you know absorb any or retain any of it really but I bought the album like immediately afterwards and you know

actually like dove into it into the material and everything since then but yeah it was just like happenstance at first in a really fun way. Your experience actually kind of reminds me. I forgot to mention when I went to my first show at Odecon. I wasn't at the venue.

It was somewhere else in Baltimore. Now, Baltimore is a city where you have your nice spots, and you have the spots that want to kill you. And I just have to say, on that walk to the venue where the pro temen were playing, I was with several friends. And now I am city born and raised. I fear basically no city,

but Baltimore, that scares me. And I love Baltimore. Like, I'm not talking shit about Baltimore. Like, I've had great times there. The people that are great, they never give me any kind of hassle. But also, I walked down the street and saw six rats just running around the alleyway, just having a ball.

You want to talk about Orwellian. It's like, my friend and I were just like, do it to Julia, do it to Julia, like screaming down the aisle at the rats. And I saw the biggest cockroach ever seen in my life because, thankfully, up here, for now, it's cold enough that you don't get a American cockroaches, which are big.

I realized that I learned that big. So that was my walk to the protom in. Fully worth it. Thank God, I think we got, someone gave us a ride back to the hotel because we were way to, for one thing, I was kind of drunk. I don't know what happened, but they actually mixed a strong drink for me, figure that out. And then just the vibes of the concert itself, because you have a whole bunch of repressed

nerds and you have the protom end, and that I have never been to a higher energy concert in my life. And I've been to some, I mean, I just went to my chemical romance. And it still didn't touch the energy of that Protomen concert. Not to say that MCR was bad. They were fucking fantastic. But, you know, just something about Protomont, like, brings it out. Brings it out of the nerves. Brings it out of me. You know, Magfest's coming up. They're, they're going to see if you can beat that energy level. Oh, they're going to, it's going to burn. Oh, they do. Either way, it's all going to burn. That scene is crazy. Like, as much as it's, like, super, you know, mainstream or whatever now, like, when it's concert time, it's, it's,

It's like, at all, it all comes back. Oh, yeah. Agfast, don't mess around. You know, it's funny, the first time I ever visited Baltimore, like, I love the city, but the first thing I saw getting out of the car was, like, a little rat, like, running by a bench that said Charm City on it, and I'm like, this is, this is just like something out of a sitcom, and my wife's like, it's more than just rats. It's a very nice town, and I'm like, I get that, and I understand it.

But also, that was objectively funny. that was very funny that is really like the setup you would get like always sunny or something right he was perfect no notes Crash, flash, heat, bomb, ice, fire, Riley, rock. As for pro-men influences, like with their influences for the band, you can really get into a whole thing here, but I would say like rock, prog, rock,

Megament, Orwell, the Dark Tower, Blade Runner, Punk sometimes. And I'm afraid to classify them because I know I got yelled at. There was already an incident where they had an article up at Metal Sucks promoting Act 3, and of course, metal fans are not happy that these people existed. So they said what they thought. There were still lots of people who liked them, though. So don't worry about that. But as Panther said in that interview that I mentioned earlier, the truth is we listen to a lot of good music, which directly and indirectly shapes what we do. But this band is really all about taking in as much pop culture as humanly possible, yes, and creating something that prompts people to pay attention to the

the music and the live show and find the good stuff that they might have missed, especially the younger audience. We're really hoping that our music and band will teach them something they can't learn from Clear Channel and MTV 2. Artists like Sid Mead, films like Eddie and the Cruiser, Streets of Fire, books like 1984 and Atlas Shrugged. Those are the pretty obvious ones you can pull out of Act 1 and 2. But what you might not know is that we own every Ernest movie ever made and we watch them all the time. Shout out to Ernest Goes to Camp. That was like my childhood. Like, that was my childhood.

That was peak. That's my favorite in this movie for a long time. Yeah. Atlas Shrugged is a funny one because, like, there is definitely like a libertarian streak, especially in that first album. The first, I noticed Act 1 certainly has some libertarianism to it, but it's also, well, they were like edgy ass 20 years old when they wrote that shit. So whatever.

Everyone gets one. Everyone gets one. And, like, from a video game perspective, like, it kind of fits because a, a lot of video games, you're like the one person who can save everybody, you know, stop the bad guy. So, like, it thematically fits. It's just very funny to look back out now. It is. And we'll get a little bit into the albums themselves and just like, it was a very, spoiler.

I'm writing something separate about the pro temend for my own web page. But it's not a very happy album, Act 1, Act 2. no hope whatsoever for man. There is no heroes left in man, and they mean it. It ends on a really sad note. It starts on a really sad note. And I don't know if Acts 3 is going to be much better, but we'll see. I don't know if you guys are better at musical genres than I am or less afraid of them,

but how would you classify the pro to men outside of Nintendo core? We'll get to that in a minute. I would go with, well, for me, the first album is definitely very, like indie rock, at least of which, because the recording equipment that they used is clearly a little... Sounds frozen. Like it was frozen once in the back of a van. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds like it's been through a lot and comes across in their, like, audio, which, from what I remember from like an old interview that they explained, like, yeah, you know, the equipment was kind of janky, but we kind of worked that to our advantage and, like, decided to purposely make it sound like it had, this was recording that had gone through. hell. It sounds like a lost record that was like picked up sometime down the line.

Yeah. So I would say the first one's indie rock and the second one's like, it's like a mix between sort of a, more of a country rock and a synth rock, which like they flow into each other. Yeah. I don't know a whole lot about this country rock coming from up here in communist Canada. So tell me a little bit about this country rock. Well, I'm not much of like a musical genre like expert either, but like it's got like the

trappings of, you know, country music, you've got, you've got a lot of acoustic guitar, you've got that sort of like twanggy thing going on. But it's still a rock song. Yeah. Thinking about it, it's probably like, there's, there, we do have some country, like, singers mostly out of, like, the West, Alberta and whatnot. But, uh, my wife's the country, uh, expert. So I, I would have to ask her and she's doing other things. Oh, Lucas, do you have any opinions? Yeah, I'm no expert either, but I think you do get kind of this fusion of like Southern coded, not quite metal, but like something kind of in between almost rockability, but not quite.

Like they really are like playing around with, you know, multiple genres at once. You know, you mentioned the kind of like twangy stuff. So to me, that's like, it's, you know, bluegrass where you've got, you've got instruments that sound a little more, you know, like rustic, I guess. But then it's combined with the synths and the kind of cyberpunkky vibes. And it's, it's all over the place. That's why I guess that's why I like it. God damn, I love synths. I'm a child who was born in the 80s.

And it's just when I hear, like, Van Halen's jump, I just stand at attention. Like, I can't help it. That's not even the best synth song out there. God, there's so much better. I mentioned Martha on the Muffins, Echo Beach. Listen to that. So you live in the land of Metric, which is a great synth. Oh, there you go.

Boom chica, boom. I was actually walking down the street once in downtown Toronto, walking past the much music building. And I just hear, I swear to God, boom chika, boom, chika. You know, just that at the beginning of Monster Hospital. I was like, look across the street and there's fucking metric just playing there. Like, hi, metric. Incredible. Hello.

Yeah, it's the kind of thing that happens in Canada, just random-ass artists. But, yeah, the metric's a good example. Question about Nintendo Corps. Would you say that the product meant our Nintendo Corps? This is something that people have opinions about, as it turns out. Kevin, you wrote something down already. Yeah, I did. So, like, you know, Lucas already mentioned that a lot of the Nintendo Corps acts at the time.

We're just sort of doing, like, covers of, like, NES game music, which is valid. That's cool. I really enjoy that sort of thing. And they never really, like, do that. They're sort of, like, pulling from Nintendo games. And I think it's... They actually, yeah, they mentioned that.

And I think in the joystick interview, they say they had no idea that people did that until they heard about it later. And they said, well, it sounds fine. But the music, you know, we already think it's perfect. We can't really prove upon it by just adding some guitars. So that's, that's an interesting viewpoint. Yeah, but I understand it. Yeah, but like the first one for me, the first help,

because the second one I would not consider Nintendo core in the slightest. No, no. Or anything since. But the first one, like, you know, you've got a bit of like the NES style like beeps and boops in there is the best way I could put it. Especially with do Vendetta. Yeah. And also just like some of the riffs that they play in the songs themselves are very like,

they call back to Mega Man songs. without actually being from any Mega Man songs that I could really pick out. Yeah. They just sound like they could be in a Mega Man game. So I would give them, like, a little bit of an edge case there. But that's where I land. Yeah. Lucas, do you have any opinions?

Yeah. Just to kind of echo what we've gone over already, I associate Nintendo core more with, like, the mini-bosses or, like, power glove, where they're taking the actual music from the games and kind of, you know, adapting it in some genre or another. But, like, I also hesitate to say part of them at aren't Nintendo core because they certainly, like, are in that space physically. Like, they are showing up at the Magfuss and then kind of courting the same audience. But then the argument is that they're doing something much more transformative. and I kind of feel like the first act is more directly like,

this is about Mega Man, you know, you've got the guy of the heavy southern accent going, Guts, me, and stuff like that. It's like one of my favorite things. Guts me. And then they kind of move away from it with Act 2 and 3 where it's like it's still there and like their like redesigned logo still kind of has like the helmet lining going up into the M and everything. but they put a lot more effort into, like, making it more of a, I don't know, their own thing in a way.

And Rush isn't there, which I just sort of realized while I was talking. That's kind of disappointing. Hey, we haven't heard all of Act 3 yet. Oh, true. That's true. Bringing the dog at the very end. We might finally get the Rush Jet that they teased and do Vendetta. Actually, speaking very briefly of Act.

3 for a moment here. I don't know if you've listened to The City Made Us, the song. That has the riff for Spark Mandrill in it. That is straight out of Mega Man X. There you go. They finally played something past the NES. They did. And there's a couple of things. I can't remember off top of my head, but there are a couple of like X-ish things about Act 3. And it makes me suspicious because I'm putting on my clown makeup here, everyone, putting on my clown makeup. Pax, sorry not Pax. MagFest for 2006 is very Mega Man X-themed,

and the Proto Men are going to be playing there. And they have worked with Capcom in the past. Like, they did a song for a Mega Man album, built to last. That was the one. And not my favorite song by them, be honest with you, but it was, like, on the album that Capcom produced. So I'm guessing they're not really at odds of Capcom. And Calcom themselves have said, like, yeah, they're cool with us.

Like, they're even said, like, it's not even NintendoCore. They're using their own music. They don't really reference us at all, except vaguely in the story. So, yeah, it's hard to say. I definitely think that whereas the Act 1 can be considered Nintendo Core, definitely two and three, I think are a little too well-produced, I guess, for lack of a better term, Really kind of have a own story and sound and everything that borrows names and borrows certain themes for sure. But otherwise, yeah, Dr. Light needs working in the minds.

It's funny you mentioned the Magfest theming because the first year they were there. Magfest 9 was like classic Mega Man themed. I was really upset I was trying to find my shirt to wear for this because it's like the Magfest 9 logo and it's like the Mega Man 2 title screen. Oh, sweet. Yeah. It was super fitting that the Proton Man kind of showed up there. And, yeah. Did they announce a Megaman game that year, 2009? It would have been early 2010, I think January.

Okay. So there was still some good times happening in the Megamman community and we're still getting games, but it was going to dry up real fast when it was in a food and I pieced out in 2010. And that was around October, I think. I remember I was riding the bus to work. And I'm like, ah, fuck, there goes Legends 3. Sure enough, there went Legends 3. Well, I'll still have Mega Man Universe, right? God, that thing was a disaster area. Yeah. You know, now you've made me a little bummed because I just remembered that I had, like, a Mega Man, like, or Mega Man, a Proto Men concert t-shirt.

I got back in, like, 2010 or whatever, like, when they came through, and, like, I got to wear it a few times and it just sort of vanished into my parents' basement, and it has never turned up since. and every so often I'm like Ma, dad, have you come across that since then? I'm like, no, I don't even know what you're talking about. It's such a cool concert t-shirt. I don't think they make it anymore. Come on.

It's got the grid. Oh, so you had the real vintage. I know exactly the one you're talking about. Yeah, shirts sometimes come and go in parents' houses. Maybe they're portals. Because one time I was going to my mom's house, I was like running. I got caught in the rain. And mom was like, okay, let me get you a shirt

because we were roughly the same size around that time. she comes out with a shirt for digital pictures as in the sewer shark people the sewer shark people I'm like mom where do you get this because I didn't have it wasn't mine she's like I don't know it was just in my closet to this day maybe your protomans shirt ended up in someone else's closet like what the fuck is the protomened with incredible They set up by I'll give you one more word I'll give you one more word You have heard me tell the story many times before you sleep

this time this I'm carefully Oh, okay, let's uh You can talk a little bit about the albums Act one, that was 2009, I believe. I wrote here, not exactly your papa's Mega Man narrative. And I think, Kevin, you wrote some cool stuff here, but we'll talk about in a second.

I usually kind of hate gritty shit. Like, I didn't really like Castlevania. I found it was just like, you know, okay, the games are like PG at worst, and you give me this M-rated game, you know, anime, sure, whatever. But I don't know. I kind of like this narrative, because it's not really R-rated or anything.

is just like gritty and silly and it doesn't take it. The proto men don't take themselves very seriously. Whenever you listen to them talk, you know, they're just fucking around. Also, I can never say no to a torture Dr. Light. I just love seeing this guy get beat up. I'm so sorry. I don't know

if you all ever watched the obscure Mega Man fully charred cartoon. Like, it was by Man of Action. It was weird. Had some interesting ideas. That had a torture, Dr. Light voiced by Gary Chalk. he was a real daddy.

Like, he had these huge ass forearms and, like, he had hair that he tied back in a ponytail. And he was like, a veteran of the quote-unquote robot wars. I'm like, oh, shit, I want to hear more about this guy, but the show got canceled. So that was into that. I remember hearing about that when it was coming out and announce and everyone in games media just being confused. It was so weird. And then you never heard of it again. Man of Action just does weird stuff.

Like, they did the Sonic. I forgot the name of the Netflix. Sonic cartoon that came out, but it was not great. Like, they just took all of Sonic's narrative and made their own thing with it, which is, like, I'm not saying Sonic has, or Mega Man have, like, fantastic narrative

to build off of, but it can be done. We are talking about it right now. So, just taking man of action, just taking that stuff, and man of actioning it, for lack of a better verb, didn't really set well with me. But anyway, act one, features a, I'm

just reading, I'm reading the summaries that I wrote, and then we'll get into the depths. Features a newborn Protoman as a young robot Jesus Christ who was built to defeat Wiley's Army of Evil robots, that's Hope Rides Alone. He gets his ass kicked while if people mourn, We Are the Dead. That comes up a lot.

Heartbroken, Dr. Light builds a new son, Megaman, and tells him to keep his ass at home. Megaman says, no, don't be a coward. That's will of one. And he fights through hordes of robots to avenge his brother's death in vengeance. Only to find out, oh no, Proto Man has been turned by Dr. Wiley, which is The Stand.

And now they got a fight to the death, which is sons of fate. Mega Man kills Protoman, and humanity tells Mega Man, wow, poggers. Mega Man says, you are the dead, throws his helmet to the ground, and fucks right off into the wilderness. Yeah, I think that's an okay summary. Kevin, why don't you read your notes that you added, because this is really cool. Yeah, so, like, this album came out in 2005, which is... smack dab in the middle of, like, the Bush era, the war on terror. It was, it was like a time frame where if you were in the U.S., like,

if you expressed any sort of, like, opinions opposed to, you know, their war crime, a pelusa that they were working on, you would get, like, lambasted, you would get ousted, like, you couldn't really get away with that, even though they were deeply unpopular. And I think that, like, sort of comes through in, uh, in sort of the premise of this whole album, it's like, yeah, people are like beaten down. They're not willing to question wily, at least not openly, because they, they're scared of them at this point and the consequences.

And then here comes Mega Man. He's your, like, libertarian hero, I guess, as we talked about earlier. And, uh, he, uh, like, he has to kill his brother, very, very Shakespearean, if you will. And then it breaks in. That whole experience breaks him. Like, no one is really, like, sympathizing with him. They're like, why are you sad? Your brother sucked.

Your brother sucked. He failed us, and then he was helping, like, you know, stomp on our necks. And Mega Man gets all disgusted, leaves town and leaves them all to get, you know, murdered by Dr. Wiley's robot army for daring to, like, get excited about his downfall. so you know that all just sort of like it works for me and like one of the other things that works for me really well in this is that

like proto man has sort of like the vocator thing going with his voice which you know suggests to me like one he's a prototype two like when he got fucked up why we did not repair him like all the way but three whenever he's like

angry and like being kind of evil like it really like is amplified and at the very very end, when Mega Man is telling everyone he's, like, upset and he's, like, shouting into the void. Proto, man. Like, that sort of vocator starts showing up in his voice, too. Like, it's him starting to get, like, frustrated and turning evil and turning into his brother's mindset.

I thought that was a nice little subtle touch that I did not notice the first, you know, dozen times I listened to this. I didn't even ask that. That's a pretty good pick. Yeah, now I will. Yeah, that was around the time of the Iraq War, and it was kind of phony baloney. And I lived, of course, in Canada, and we were not popular with the States because we said, no, we're not going to do this, you guys have fun. So, yeah, it did kind of strike me as just the mood, the idea of protomans saying, like, you will never have another hero, you will never have another chance. he will fall because he never tried to stand up for yourselves.

And maybe that's the libertarian aspect of it all. Just, you know, you got to wait for a hero to do it for you. And even when he tries, you all just don't support him. So now you're all dead. Yeah. And like, it's a, it's a bleak narrative. And like he got his butt kicked by Wiley in the first place because like, nobody was really helping him. They were just like hanging out while he was doing all the work.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just kind of watching and mourning, like, oh, no, we are the dead while this poor guy is getting his ass kicked. Well, he might be the one in a little more trouble right now because, well, apparently he got carted away and repaired by Dr. Wiley, which, whether intentionally or not, does echo a little bit of Mega Man canon in that Proto Man in the game does have a faulty power supply that was repaired by Dr. Wiley. And by repaired, we mean he put some kind of nuclear reactor on it that could potentially go critical. and kill everyone. So Proto men, both Proto Men basically were repaired by Wiley

and maybe not to the best of Wiley's ability. So now they are kind of beholden to him in certain ways. Like, that's why in Mega Man 4 you will see that he is working with Wiley. It's implied that he finally betrays him. But yeah, that's a nice little bit of detail. That I'd have nothing intentionally put it there or not,

but I enjoy that. Wiley's not really whole-assing this. It's like, this is someone else's project. Like, I'll do something here, but. He's not going to get trashed again. I guess what that little blue twerps going to show up for vengeance one of these days. It's kind of the, like, fun through line with a lot of the, like, cool guys in Mega Man, right? Like Porto Man, Zero, I think even Bass are all kind of like vaguely associate with Dr. Wiley in some way or another.

And they all kind of like, it's neat. He builds the cool robots. Dr. Light builds the lame-ass robots, like not a scarf or a hair amongst them. I was like, yeah, Dr. Light builds like the refrigerator and the lighting unit. Dr. Wiley's like, I'm going to build the punk rock guy with the sunglasses. There is a Casey Green comic. It's like a sketch. I only vaguely remember it, but I just remember it's like little stick figures of Dr. Light and Dr. Wiley.

and Dr. Light is saying, like, you know, robots are for making coffee. And Dr. Wiley saying, no, robots are for stacking books on. And there's just a little Mega Man there sitting there with a little book stacked on his head. So when I think of the Protomen and them arguing, like, you know, in the father of death, I just think of them arguing about, like, Mega Man having books on his head. I know that sounds stupid, but. It's tangential, but, like, I just, I saw a comic earlier today about Act 3, and it was like, here's the characters from their proto men albums

and here's like their canon versions and here let's just have like roll talking to roll Oh I saw that You know if you mix styrofoam and gasoline together You get napole And also this is how you hot while you're a car And they're like Capcom rolls like

Why do you know these things? Yeah Capcom rolls like please why do you know these things That cracked me up I was I was losing it And then you see in the fourth panel like you know Blues is saying to to Mega Man, I, you know, I care about you guys, even though it doesn't seem like I do. And Megman's like, oh, I'm just glad we can all be safe together like this.

And Roll has this thousand-yard stare just looking to the distance. She's learned things that she could never unlearn. And I think Protamand-Role in that comic was holding a beer bottle, like just... Yes, just casually. Drinking. Oh, Act 3 rules. Control what would they do If you have ruined

If you destroy You can pose what you get as a broken machine I'm thinking of life On the fire in the screen Life Life tonight There is a sit Like the star in the sky

There are the arms Of the fire's come out But I just drinking the heat on the skin Um, are we ready to move into act too, perhaps. Are you ready for act two, perhaps? Are you ready for act two? Yeah, let's do it. It's got much more to, it's got, it's much beefier. It does have more. And again, I kind of wrote a summary for this. This is actually produced by Alan Albert Shackalock of the 70s band Babe Ruth, which is apparently another major influence for the pro. him in. He's done a great deal of professional production work for Meatloaf, Andrew Lloyd Weber, other musical Big Wigs. So it's no surprise that Act 2 sounds better produced than Act

1s. Much cleaner. Sound levels are also much better. You can actually understand the lyrics. It doesn't sound like complete mush when you try to play it through an old car stereo, saying that out of experience. That may be to the album's detriment, depending on whomst you ask. But since, oh, Luke's pointing himself with listeners, why don't we talk about this a little bit, Lucas? I think it's purely a vibes thing. I think the sort of like darker energy that Act 1 has, the grittiness, the scratchiness, it just really hits for me. I was a teenager in the early 2000s. I like Shadow the Hedgehog, and Rock Man and Forte was my favorite Megam for a long time.

Oh, God, was it? Yeah. So I think just that, that energy hits me harder than, like, the more produced, clean and scinty. So, yeah, it's vibes. Yeah, especially, yeah, this is definitely more synth rock 80s inspired than the first album, which is a little more loosey-goosey with his influences. I got to say, the synth rock really hit for me as a synth-rock nerd. Oh, I'm a major synth-rock nerd, yeah. I'm like, oh, man, this sounds like.

this could be like an album from the late 80s that I didn't hear at the time, and they never play on the radio because it wasn't like a one-hit wonder, but it works for me. As with Act 1, much of the story in Act 2 is told through supplementary writing, including the CD booklet or the vinyl, if you're real sicko. Anyone here have the vinyl? Can't say I do. That comes with like a pop-up scene or something. It's ridiculous with that thing comes with.

But yeah, a lot of people are already saying, where's the vinyl for Acts? And they're just like, yeah, we're not even discussing that at this point. Let's get the album out first, everybody. Let's finish this first. Definitely a more popular album than Act 1. I don't know if I'd call them mainstream by any means, but if they are mainstream to any degrees, because of Act 2, Light of the Night shows up where you least expect it, e.g. Bruce Campbell's single-season action horror comedy called Hysteria.

It was on Peacock, never saw it. Wolf Among Us 2. I forgot it was in the trailer for that. Or was it the trailer? Yeah, it was the trailer. during the game awards or something like that when it was announced but yeah

oh sweet I think it was in like one of the rock band games too yeah that's right 2000 I can't remember when but yeah they put it in rock man four oh shoot never got to play it because I put my rock band stuff away so long ago I could have sworn it was in like a movie trailer

or something too but I couldn't like manifest it in my mind and when I looked that's when I found the Wolf Amongus thing so maybe I was just misremembering that but I still just like, in my head, I'm like, I feel like I was watching a trailer for some Normie movie and then light up the night started playing and just I did a double take, but maybe I just made that up. I could not find anything.

That's how you know is popular because it breached like Normie. Like it went to the normie pen or at least like the kind of the, how you have brackish water between salty and fresh. You kind of have the brackish nerds like Bruce Campbell, who is like, yeah, this is really cool, but Roos Cabell likes, you know, like, campy things, or we mentioned earlier, sticks were, like, huge fans of the, they did do a little mini, uh, kind of movie, if you remember that, that called Light of the Night, had, like, the fall had light up the night and had, oh, I didn't have to keep quiet, but yeah, it was like, it was like a mini,

little mini movie. I don't know if you guys watched it. I remember seeing that, yeah. I was trying to remember, like, I feel like my brain wants to say that Light up the night got used in gray's anatomy and that doesn't sound right at the same time they used so many like off the wall songs on that show that it wouldn't shock me if it showed up at some point I would believe that fuck are they going to do it to gray and to light up the night in gray's anatomy like surgery I mean that show goes places like that hospitals have like terrorist attacks they've had plane crashes like there's a lot of options here but I didn't know about the plane crash it's like donnie darko just plane just like crashed into the fucking hospital

Well, they were riding on the plane. Okay. I saw too much Grey's Anatomy when my wife was re-watching it during COVID, so. So that would be convenient, though. Plane crashed? You gotta go to hospital. Got to light up the night. Don't even be an ambulance.

Played him the night, indeed. Yeah, I feel like it was used on some, like, mainstream TV show. You might be right. In fact, it's very likely you're right. I feel like the song just sneaks into places and you're just like, oh, I know you. but the album begins with Dr. Light writing a letter to his beloved Emily wherein he confesses that Dr. Wiley is going to fuck off the whole worker-armie robot idea, worker-robot army idea he's had by giving them guns and shit.

That's intermission. That's the song name. Dr. Light appeals to Wiley one last time, tells him, Why, Father, work the minds till the day it took his life, homie. Wiley says, no, it's time to use the robots for a power grab because men are weak and they will follow the man who turns the wheel. That's the good doctor. Dr. Light says, Fuck, I really fucked up

I'm making all this robots and turning on the power. Guess I'm the father of death now. Meanwhile, Dr. Wiley tries to steal Dr. Light's girl, gets turned down, and orders a single-light sniper robot to kill her with a knife because that's what a sniper do.

Father of death. Dr. Liley then pins the murder on Light, the hounds, which is like probably one of their top songs. Super jazzy. I love that song. Very, very jazzy. D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D.

Who is dragged before. for the courts, which is the State v. Thomas Light, and found innocent. This plays into Wiley's plan, as he's been using telescreens to broadcast propaganda about how the courts and the media are incompetent. Oh, no, too realistic. Just as Kekaku, Dr. Light is hounded by an angry mob and chased out of the city. Give Us the Rope Slash How the World Fell Under Darkness. 20 years past. Second half of the album centers around an 80s action movie rebel named Joe,

who's gotten restless in Wiley's quiet button-down world. He announces the entire world That he's breaking out of the city Which is appropriately named Breaking Out He does indeed leave But something follows him down the highway To the industrial ruins that ring the city Is Dr. Wiley's knife-wielding sniper

The one who killed Emily And has decided Fuck it, he's going to pull the knife on Joe too Joe calls him out as the shadow Who's been hunting the city And keeping everyone in fear Keep quiet, probably my favorite song off act too Oh yeah, it's the best one

I saw him perform it live at OdeCon And that was fucking incredible They didn't do it, Missy's sister, unfortunately. Joe kills the sniper, though it's an exiled Dr. Light who makes the final blow. The doctor and Joe make plans to blow up Dr. Wiley's main talism screen. Light up the night. The plan fails, but oh, what a spectacular failure.

The fall. Also, great fucking song. I love it live. If you haven't heard the live version, just incredible. I have not. Excited to. Oh, shit. You got it.

Turns out Dr. Wiley prepared for this eventuality and blew up the tower himself once Joe near the top so he could blame the explosion on Rebel Factor. Actions, oopsie-dupsy. Dr. Light says, well, fuck this, and finally reads the letter Emily gave him the night that she died. Emily assures Light that she loves him, et cetera, et cetera, and the city needs you now. Light says to Joe, if you see Emily, tell her to hang on because I got work to do. So here comes the arm.

This goes into Act 1. The end, no moral. Incredible. That's just a eggwood rip-off. The end, no moral. I just want to say that, well, I think Act 1 is like the one I would. you know, enjoy listening to more. The portrayal of Dr. Wiley as, like, a character in this album is so cool.

He's like, he's like an Elon Musk or like a Tucker Carlson type, but like with actual charisma and not like a weird goblin person. And it works so well. I like that in the hounds where like he's going over like his whole evil plan and everything to himself. And like there's even a moment in there where he's like, uh, I don't know. I've done some pretty fucked up things in this process. I don't know that that's great.

I don't know that I feel good about it, but, like, I've already done it. I can't stop doing, like, what I'm doing. I just got to keep going forward. And I'm like, huh, I guess you do. Both Dr. Light and Dr. Wiley have moments like that and act too, where Dr. Light, he turns the city on. And he's like, oh, well, yes, that's that. Whatever happens happens.

And Dr. Wiley fucks with the robots or whatever. He's like, oh, well, whatever happens happens. But it's, yeah, he says, like, if it's too late to wash this blood from my hand, so, uh, poggers, let's go. He's all in. Let's go all in. One thing I do think is fun is, like, listening to these back-to-back, and either order kind of works for me. Because, like, you know, the first album, if you skip, do vendetta, does end with, like, someone sort of, you know, playing around on an acoustic guitar. And then, like, this one opens with intermission, which is someone.

noodling around and including acoustic guitar again. And then, like, the reverse, like, you have the big sort of bombastic end of the album, and here comes the arm. And then, like, that goes kind of into that high energy opening you have in the first part of Act 1 with Hope Rides Alone. Oh, yeah. I don't know that it's like, I don't know that it's like intentional per se, but it works either way you listen to it if you're me and a giant nerd.

No, no, you're absolutely right. It does kind of fit it, probably on purpose. It fits into each other. Ryan's a little bit about how the wall kind of ends and starts on that one sentence. So, who knows, makes a shout out to that. It's the Mighty Max album effect. They just keep looping over and over. Yeah.

It's a lot of I can feel it coming in the end of day Oh no And I've been waiting for this moment Of all my night Oh no Can you feel it coming in the end of night Oh no

Oh, no So, Kevin, you mentioned here, and I want to bring it up briefly as well, the cover-up, which is, I think it came out in 2015. It's an album of covers, just, you know, they got a nice variety of air. You got Queen, we've got sticks, we've got, of course, Genesis. Is in the air, is that Genesis or just Phil Collins? That's a question for Parrish. I'm sure he'll write into the comments and tell us. I'm sure he'll tell us, yeah.

But either way, that's worth mentioning off the bat because if there's one song that, again, gave Prudeman any, like, kind of mainstream relevance, it was the fact that their cover of In the Air showed up on, I think it was the season finale of Season 3 of Cobra Kai, which was a huge deal because it brought back. What's His Face? Who played What's His Face? The Bad Guy. It's been so long. So I've watched this Karate Kid. I'm sorry. What's his fart?

The bad guy. The blonde guy. I've never seen... I've never seen Karate Kid or Kobra guy. So I have no knowledge of who this character is. Jesus, I might be kind of dating myself here, but how old are you? I'm 42, man. Okay, so you have no excuse.

Yeah, I just didn't watch a lot of movies. I'm 36. I've seen the karate kid, I just couldn't tell you the character names. Okay, fair. But for people who are very, very big on the 80s and very, very big on the karate kid, it was a very big deal. And they did, they directed these things particularly well where bad guy, blonde bad guy, walks out at the same time. They do that fucking amazing, like, drum solo slash synth. They drop the bass.

They just completely dropped the base. And, of course, everyone's going to remember this song for the rest of their life now because it was the Cobra Kai song. So, yeah, good job on them for that. Yeah. The only thing I really strongly associate with the karate kid is when Ralph Machio said Undernight and Birth during the Game Awards. I feel like I mostly just know the NES game.

And not even, like, having played it myself, I've just seen other people play it. And I'm like, wow, this looks pretty awful. Not great. Yeah. What amuses me about the cover-up is that they, like, they didn't even have to. They're just like, oh, you know what? This is part of our backstory to Joe from Act 2.

You know, he saw this movie that this is the soundtrack to, the soundtrack album. And that's what radicalized him and made him decide to go take it to Wiley. I'm like, that is extremely silly, and I respect that you went and you went for it. If you want to go even deeper, it's not just a movie that radicalized him. It's a retelling of what happened. Basically, the movie that we're talking about, the cover-up, once you get past all the, like, you know, it's within, within, within, like, spinal tap sort of thing. Like, you know, what it is, basically, is it's a telling of the hounds from Dr. Light's perspective.

He is being chased by, here's the summation, so I can, like, kind of put it together. Sorry, I'm going to look at the track listening because that's the best way to, like, keep it. Okay, so pick up. That's Emily. She picks up the phone. Someone rings, and she says, hello, hello, hello, no one's there. Someone hangs up. It's assumed to be Dr. Wiley checked and see where she is to see, like, you know, if it's

safe to go scrounge around, Dr. Light's lab, whatever he had in, in my. mind. And of course, that goes into, as is like kind of expected of a movie soundtrack. It's not necessarily narrating what's happening, but it is giving you like an idea of the temperature of this movie and the events within. So like because the night, which is a fucking amazing version of that song, is done like a kind of a love duet almost. Like it sounds like something between Emily and Dr. Light, not saying that's what it is, but it could certainly be like the same. soundtrack to that. Princes of the universe. You can say, oh, that's Dr. Wiley. Mr. Roboto. That could be the sniper. No easy way out. Okay. So when you get to the last stop, that's Dr. Wiley, sorry, Dr. Light talking to Emily at her grave and saying, you know, I have to go. I'll see you soon. And he's about to surrender himself to the cops. You can actually hear the cops getting louder and louder as it goes into that like kind of gloomy opening for in the air, which is so good.

I drove all night. Apparently what I'm thinking here is like there's a reporter who is like reporting on what happened and the whole cover up and totally close the heart, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Basically, it's a whole thing. I'll just leave it at that. It all does kind of connect to the protiverse. As he say, it's very silly, but a lot of fun. And it's, you don't really have to know any of it to enjoy the album. It's just a great album on its own, probably my favorite cover of, I still.

believe, which is kind of a cross between the original and the saxophone-heavy version from the Lost Boys soundtrack. So, yeah, good stuff. Classic. That's awesome. You know, I like the idea that Dr. Light left town for 20 years and became like a movie producer to make this. I realize that's probably not what happened because there's never really any discussion as

to what is exactly outside of the city other than, you know, the industrial ruins. Yeah, they mentioned, they mentioned like how Dr. Wiley modified, sorry, modernized the city and left the old coal mines, the old, like, rail, the old steam train stuff, just kind of left it all to rot. So I think it's insinuated. That's all rotting. It reminds me a lot of cyberpunk, frankly, 277, where you have the city, I'm Knight City, and you have that those long, dusty rows to practically nowhere, but you will see, like, you know, industrial stuff. and whatnot, and I don't know if they're fans of cyberpunk, but certainly would track. It would track, yeah. But it's a cute album, and I think I could see this as being like, oh, well, here's a conspiracy that Dr. Light was actually, like, innocent for realties.

Yeah, no, exactly. That's cool. It's like they kind of start with Mega Man 1 through 3, and they make the more specific references early, And then they come into two, and it's more loosey-goosey, but then, like, sniper Joe. And he's this, like, amalgamation of pieces. And he's got, like, the deepest lore in the whole set of albums. That's right. One thing I forgot to mention.

It's the annoying green guy that you just deal with sometimes. But, no, he's a huge part of the... Yeah, because one thing that's, I forgot to mention, is that when Dr. Light destroys the sniper that's been following Joe, he gives Joe the helmet. Yeah. Here you go. Free. free hat, I guess.

You're riding on a motorcycle. You probably should have a helmet, Joe. Come on. That's true. We're thinking of your safety here, Joe. Just don't blow in after. My heavens will matter. When the flood washes over me,

God, I hope it can wind in my mouth of my family. Maybe we'll get out of this. Oh, love. Anyway, let's talk briefly about Act 3, because, as I put here, Jesus, Mary, and Holy St. Joseph is real. Sixteen years later, I was scrolling Facebook when I saw the news. I almost scrolled right past it because I didn't think anyone posted anything worth to Facebook anymore. I thought it was like, oh, I don't know, some, you know, announcing a random sale or something.

And it's like, wait, wait a minute. This is act three. Literally the same. Like, I've been following the Protomen, but kind of admittedly ignoring them, doing all, like, the covers and stuff. Because it's like, no, this is the 80s music, but it's not what I was interested in the first place. And then all of a sudden, just scrolling through, Act three, what? It's wild. Yeah, it was like coming up on Band Camp Friday, I believe, is when they announced it.

And I was just like poking around, like looking to see like what was coming up. That would be worth picking up. And then I think if it was that Blue Sky or Discord or something, someone posts about Proto Men Act 3. And I'm like, oh, my God, it's finally happening. And, you know, people were saying, oh, it'll never happen. Oh, it's dead. It's never happening. But to be fair, like they've always been playing Act 3 songs like throughout the year.

years, basically. And even at their latest Magfest appearance, I think, was not last year, but the year before. It was last, it was, it was actually January 25. They were there. Oh, were they? Huh. Someone told me they weren't. But. Was it 24? I don't know. I think it's 24. Because 24, the, that was the, um, when I was looking at recordings, I saw their, the 20, 24 performance of which one was it? No way back. That's it. And Jesus, that was incredible to the point that, like, people who are watching the show, like, started chanting, holy shit at the end of it. Because there was that, just that really incredible, maybe we'll make it back alive.

Or just, like, Panther holds on to that note forever. And it's just, dang. It's got a good voice. Yeah, it was 24. 24, okay. That's right. Yeah. It was the, it was like the Magfest 20th anniversary. And they brought back, like, their biggest acts. And I think that was one of them. So I am not waiting for the whole album. I'm way too weak. And the album is just too good.

So it's been like one song a week since, I think it was October 4. Like sometimes you get two songs if you have like a small musical interlude. For example, the calm, which is where the album starts. And you just hear this mass-ass explosion followed by air sirens. And there's a lot. See, at this point, we don't have. have the supplementary materials that we usually get like the CD or whatever.

So everyone's just kind of going crazy with the speculation. With the calm, when you hear the explosion and the air ray sirens, it's like holy shit was going on, and then follows up by Holdback the Night, which is one that's been played several times at like other shows and whatnot. The train yards are really

cool, just collection of train sounds. Dr. Light doing his thing. I guess he lives near the train yard because he's Dr. Light. and I love just the sound of trains So hey, we did a train episode Not too long ago and Retronaut So go ahead and listen to that

See, if this had been out in time We could have talked about the train yard Right, right Too bad Re-record And then No Way Back, which is a song we just mentioned And here's were things that interesting

With the Storm and Buried in the Red Now Buried in the Red is Dr. Wiley's song It is the Hounds cranked up to 10,000. Like, quite literally, it's just, it's just, he's like, I'm awesome deal with it. This is my son. He's like, I'm awesome, deal with it. You know what? Fuck the city. I'm going to run it right into the ground. Fuck you. And I think, I'm not really speculating too hard on the story at this point, but I think it's pretty obvious. This is where shit starts to go down. Maybe he's crazy. Maybe he's

whatever. He says, like, get back. Get in line. Don't get in my way this time. I guess he's talking to Dr. Light. Whether or not Dr. Light dies here, don't know, but there is some speculation since children these days don't have any sort of media comprehension. Some of them in the Reddit thought that literally Dr. Wiley has run over Dr.

Lyce with his car. He's got a Tesla. It's a cyber truck. Like it's unsafe for pedestrians. He didn't even mean to run him over. He just got you know, bisected. Oh my God. Oh, it's a great one.

Bright red, like some Char Aznebole shit. Yeah, that way you can go 30% faster than a normal Tesla. Shit. Just picturing Charaznabole, just driving a fucking cyber truck with that shit cranking is like whatever shitty-ass stereo he has going on there. I don't know. I don't care about Tesla. Shitty car.

Now, so far, I think my favorite song is Calling Out, which is, is role song. It's a role song. Now, here's the thing. Nobody knows what she's role. Everyone just calls her role, which is, of course, the name of the female character in the Mega Man series, who is also Mega Man and Proto Man's sister. I don't know what's going on as role in this version of the mythology. I think she's human. I think it's just the name they took for her.

She has a really cool red leather jacket that I swear to God my mom has, and I'm going to probably steal it so I could do it a roll cost. play at Magfest, spoiler alert. This is such a great song. This is, I think, role going up to Megaman, who has been gone since due vendetta and saying, hey, bitch, the city's been in a lot of trouble. Can you help us out? And now, the really cool thing about Act 3 so far is that we've seen illustrations

of each song as they've been released. And it gives you an idea of what is going on in the story. And for the calling out, it's a really great perspective of, Roll's boots as she's walking away and Mega Man has her back turn to her and the helmet, it's just kind of in between them because it's, it's speculated that Roll is the one who picked up Mega Man's helmet

after he threw it and said, fuck the shit, I'm out in Act 1. So that just says it all. Like she's saying, you know, help us out. Megamon's saying, no, he's still jaded. And then he goes on to This City Made Us, which is all about this city. It'll eat you alive.

That's literally what the lyrics are. The city made us, the city ate us alive. So I guess Rolls like, okay, whatever, she leaves. And then you have what's to this at the time of the recording, the latest song, which is hold on slash a distance between. This is such a cool song for so many reasons. Number one, it's Megman's first song, like his first like kind of monologue in forever since basically Act 1. 20 years. Ah, no big.

Jesus Christ. The artwork for this one really gives us our first what Mega Man actually looks like as like without his helmet, without anything covering his face. Because we've of course seen like, you know, vaguely what Mega Man looks like, vaguely what Mega Man looks like, vaguely the part of man looks like. They always have that kind of visored face in the artwork for calling out. He has like a trench coat. So kind of get that like dusty Western looks. But here he just has this really sad look on his face.

He's contemplating his helmet. And I guess singing because he realizes, okay, screw humanity, I guess. But I've left Dr. Light behind. I left my father behind. I got to do something about that. And that is where we are. And so far, this is probably my favorite album of the year because I'm a sucker. Fair.

Yeah. I was just going to say, like, I do love the idea that, like, roles like, all right, listen, I got, like, I got some people. We're going to do this last stand against Wiley. And if you help us, that would be super because you could turn the tide. And if you don't, we're going to die trying. It's like, okay, this is sort of like, Mega Man realizes it's like, no, the hope is not riding alone. There's, like, other people who care about this stuff and are willing to die for it. I should probably go back and help them, huh?

I hope I get back before they're all dead. Yeah, he does say, like, oh, shit. Well, hopefully I can make it in time. This song, like, it kind of fades out as if you kind of like hear. you're, as if you're like kind of zooming out and you're looking at the, I guess he's lives in some kind of like shipping container or something, some party is living in some dark space. And it's kind of almost like zooming out and looking back at that space that Megaman happens to be living in. And I'm thinking to myself, it's like, Roll just sitting there saying, what the fuck is that sound? Because you hear some singing and it's just like broadcasting outside faintly.

Like, all right, dude, you do you. Uh, hold on I'm coming If you need a hero tonight Some understand my inner side, oh, I'm not the man that you need, uh, yeah, I don't run from in spite. don't know what happens after this for the protoman. I have looked into some stuff. They say, like, you know, maybe we're done. Maybe we're going to, like, you know, settle down. Maybe we're going to tour. I personally, like, desperately want to see them tour over the Cybertronic Spree,

which I'm guessing they're going to be at Magfest as well. So, God, what I wouldn't give to hear them sing a cover of wrong with us. There's a little bit of Canadian stupidity there. Yeah, so any, any last thoughts on the proto-men, my friends? Kevin. Yeah. You know, Act 2, I think, is just, like, genuinely one of my favorite albums I've ever heard. It's just, like, top to bottom, all bangers. And this new one so far, you know, from the first half of it or so that they've released, like, I think it might actually surpass that.

Yeah, like, unless the second half sucks real bad, but I don't think it will. I don't think so. They've had enough time to work on this thing and, like, fiddle with it. I saw an interview with Panther where he said, like, you know, if we had released it earlier, it would have been a turd. So we didn't want to be a church, so we waited. I mean, I'm pretty sure, like some of them, if not all of them, most of them have kids. I think, I think Panther has a kid. I just remember at, I saw some Magfest footage, I think it was 2024 again, where he brought

two kids out on the stage, and one was him, just a little tiny clone of him, like, had the little bandana and the vest and everything, and he's like, yeah, yeah, jumping around, rocking his ass off. And that other kid, it's like a little younger, I think, he has his little Sonic shirt on, and he

just has this, like, just deathly afraid look on his face, like he's about to piss himself. Like, it's just, you can tell who takes after who, I guess. I know the look, yeah. Yeah, I've been there. But yeah, top notch, and I feel like you don't really need to have like a background in Mega Man to enjoy this stuff because they're really

just pulling like some of the theming from it and kind of doing their own thing. So even if you don't care about Mega Man, I still recommend checking out the albums. Absolutely. It is, yeah, I should have, I said to mention that earlier. It's definitely not the kind of album you need any sort of preparation for. The themes are so basic, like again, Orwellian that if you've read 1984, you're set, you're good. And if you didn't read 1984, uh, listen to this album and do your book report on it and your teacher will be like, wow, you're the coolest person ever and give you like 10 stickers. But don't use chat GPT.

Come on. Don't use chat. Get your own report. Yeah, yeah. The protoman frown upon chat GPT, I assume. Lucas, any final thoughts? I think it's, um, it's pretty awesome that as much bad stuff is going on in the world. It's, it's possible that you can do like a transformative work of Mega Man as a rock opera and that can

be your life's work and like a legitimately successful thing. There's like an anecdote on their Wikipedia that's like they're one of the most highest paid bands out of Nashville right now. Wow. That's just crazy to think about. And as like, you know, as someone who's been in the Mega Man for for a long time and is well familiar with like that fandom and like all the, you know, years ago it was like web comics and stuff and

it's always been like a fan fiction friendly space and of course like Mega Man being the big musical force it is the Nintendo core scene loves it. Right. So to see kind of these things come together into this

I'd say very unique project and just break containment in a way. It's really fascinating. Kind of in a bigger sense. And yeah like as someone who prefers the first album kind of stylistically. I think the

third one, you can really tell it's kind of like a fusion of the two and almost kind of goes back and forth depending on like who's singing and I feel like the characters and like what's happening in the story are like easier to follow in Act 3, at least from me so far.

More like clearly defined and stuff and that's really neat. You can you can kind of listen and see the sort of evolutionary path of like how they kind of figured out what this is. Yeah. And yeah, it's cool.

Yeah, great stuff all around. This has been a really fun episode. And like I said, it was like an emergency protoman episode kind of thrown together. So thank you so much, you guys, for joining me. Yeah, that is it for this dark and oily episode of Retronauts. And thank you for joining us. Let's sign off by telling everyone where they can find us. Kevin, you first.

Well, we kind of know. You can find me on Atari Archive.org. That's my website and my Blue Sky account. I also have a YouTube channel under the same name and a book through limited run games. Also the same name. So if you like Atari history, you should absolutely check that out. 100%. And Lucas, where can we find you?

You can find me working the content minds on the internet on Blue Sky. I'll follow them. Blue Sky at Hokuto Lucas. I write about video games as a freelancer, a lot of different places, but most of my work, reviews-wise, pops up on Shaq News. I also am a co-founder slash managing editor at a website called Skybox at skyboxcritics.com. We're Patreon supported. We're trying to do writing that's not driven by the news cycle.

and search engine optimizing. So if you are interested in kind of like stuff that's a little meatier and not beholden to algorithms, please check us out. Yes. We have a Patreon. Absolutely. Support independent writing and support independent broadcasting, which is why if you like this episode and you'd like more of it stuffed into your audio receptors, you should head to patreon.com for us last retronuts. Support us at one of our tiers. $3 gets you the episodes a week early and add for.

$5 a month gets you that plus two full-length episode exclusive episodes plus Discord access Our popular Nintendo $64 tiered, which lets you choose the topic of restaurants every six month is currently sold out. You snooeth. You snootheth, you looseth.

However, that ad went in the Zelda. That Zelda ad went. I don't remember. As for me, I am Nadia Oxford. If you want to hear more of me, please support me at Axe of the Blood God Patreon. That is at patreon.comfors slash Blood God Pod. do we cover RPG's old and new Eastern and Western?

We podcast about him. We've been around for 10 years. That means we're aged of perfection, like old cheese. But until next time, we must ask. So, act for when? I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Are you?