Hey Buddies!

We have been nominated for Best Live Band in the Flagpole Music Awards (the local Athens art weekly) and you can help by voting for us in that category and any of the write-in categories that you think we may deserve.

THANKS!!
The Buddy System

Click to: VOTE!VOTE!VOTE!VOTE!

Posted by ryan on 02 May 2008 at 03:14 pm

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So today is the anniversary of my lovely wife’s D.O.B. and as part of her present I got my Buddy System bandmate and all around buddy Lauren Gregg to paint a Lewis Fambly portrait. The resulting painting is far cooler than I could have imagined so I am sharing it here for all to see.

Please to enjoy the Lewis Fambly…

Posted by ryan on 22 Apr 2008 at 01:02 pm

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Most people who lurk around this here blog have heard of The Buddy System but seeing as how we are getting ready to head to SXSW I figured I would post some videos (sorry about the crap quality of YouTube) and an MP3 demo as an introduction for the uninitiated.

The Buddy System creates original short films (cartoons) then plays the live soundtrack in front of projection of said films (cartoons). The group is made up of Ryan Lewis (that’s me. I previously played in The Agenda, The Four Corners, Kincaid, The Sunshine Fix, etc), Mat Lewis (my brother. Previously of The Agenda, The Max Levine Ensemble, The Pocket Rockets[Teenbeat]) and Lauren Gregg & Craig Sheldon of the Kangaroo Alliance animation studio (they made the video for Of Montreal’s “Wraith Pinned…” and had the first animation podcast on iTunes, in addition to working for Disney, Nickelodeon, Yo Gabba Gabba, Target, etc)!

Check out the videos, snag the MP3 (keeping in mind that it’s a demo ‘natch), make friends with the band and then make plans to hang in person at The Light Bar on Friday March 14th at 11pm.

Clap Paws

Return to Horse Mountain

Nature’s Tiny Realm (Live at the Go Bar in Athens, GA)

Rap Music (Live at The Go Bar in Athens, GA)

Clap Paws (demo):
clap-paws.mp3

Posted by ryan on 07 Mar 2008 at 02:34 pm

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Click it to make it all big and stuff:

Posted by ryan on 05 Mar 2008 at 04:09 pm

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Here’s a sneak peek at images from the new jam we will be premiering at The Georgia Theater on January 11th with We Versus The Shark and MegaBand!

Posted by ryan on 03 Jan 2008 at 02:53 pm

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Here is a little teaser for the new Buddy System song we started working on for our next show which will be announced shortly…

Posted by ryan on 13 Dec 2007 at 04:08 pm

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Metaphors are pretty awesome. You take one thing, and relate it to another in such a way that it implies and reveals a truth about one or both things. People are most familiar with metaphor in the literary form (i.e. “All the world’s a stage”), but metaphors are everywhere and they are one of the most powerful tools used for communicating. By using a metaphor, an author, filmmaker, musician or any kind of storyteller can relate something familiar to something alien and in that way bring greater understanding to the reader/viewer/listener. Nothing is more powerful than things that are familiar and within our own experiences.

I remember writing stories in English class in middle school and the teacher would tell the class “Show, don’t tell!” I never understood this when I was younger. I always thought “Show? Does my teacher want me to draw pictures on my story? I thought we were supposed to write it.” What my teachers really meant was “illustrate with metaphor.” Even that, however, is somewhat of a metaphor. You aren’t really showing anyone anything except the words you have put to paper. In literal terms, you really are telling your story through the words you write.

Compare this, then, to films which do literally show you a story. This can be far more immediate than reading the same story, though it’s also far more passive. When reading, your imagination is following along in the story the author has laid out for you, and is thus that much more powerful because of it. There is far less room for your own imagination when watching a movie, but it’s strength lies in the ability to present it’s story in a direct manner. It’s metaphors are audio-visual. It can cut through barriers of understanding and create metaphors that are even more familiar because of it’s direct presentation.

In neither medium, however, do you have any control over any part of the story. (Except for maybe the awesomeness that was choose-your-own-adventure books.) Metaphor is the only way to truly enter the worlds of the stories presented in such mediums. There is a medium, though, that has the ability to let the viewer become an active participant in it’s world.

Video Games.

Books tell you a story, films show you a story, games let you take part in a story. The presentation of video games can be just as immediate as any film (in most cases more so) while simultaneously providing plenty of room for your own imagination through the ability of player interaction. (Note: I said “can be.” There are of course exceptions for all the things I’m saying about all of these mediums. I realize I’m speaking in generalities here.)

It’s because of this that I believe video games have the potential to be an immensely powerful medium. Their interactivity lends them the ability to present metaphors in ways unique to it’s delivery. Video games provide the ability to create metaphors of actions.

I guess I can’t speak for everybody, but I personally can’t count the amount of times I’ve moved my head to dodge an oncoming rocket in an FPS or shifted my whole body to somehow steer my on-screen car better. Sure, the more you play games the less these kinds of things happen as you get used to using the controller to translate the abstract act of pushing the buttons into the actions of the character (though I said “ow” just the other night when I died in Mass Effect) but everybody has either done these things or seen them done. You may cringe when something bad happens to a character in a movie, but that’s just empathizing with the character. In a game, it’s possible to actually feel it yourself, if only on a conceptual level. Just like putting on different clothes makes you feel different, stepping into the shoes of a virtual avatar can also make you feel different.

Having actions as metaphors is a double-whammy of potential power. Not only are you drawing the player into an immediate world through her actions, but once you have her there, you can give the actions themselves meaning. Unfortunately, most game designers are obsessed with a single meaning for player actions: killing things. Or, in the very least, triumph over enemies. This is not to say that Super Mario Bros. or Halo isn’t fun as hell (yes, I love double negatives), but it seems to be such a shameful squandering of latent capability (as well as being potentially dangerous.) This is exactly why The Sims is the most successful game of all time. For most fans, it’s an intoxicating combination of immediacy and familiarity. That game, however, is also somewhat squandering it’s potential in a way. It takes familiar actions and relates them to familiar actions. It doesn’t use any of it’s power of familiarity and immediacy to bring about any greater understanding of our world or it’s own.

I have played a game recently, however, that illustrates the power of these metaphors of actions. That game is Passage by Jason Rohrer. This game is pretty much why I love video games and have so much optimism for their future. On a surface level, the game is simply about the player exploring a maze. I won’t explain it much more than that, because I honestly don’t believe it needs a whole lot of explanation. What the game is trying to say is pretty clear and elegant. (A slight warning though: don’t play it if you have shiz to get done. The game itself is only 5 minutes long, but it’s also deeply touching, and somewhat exhausting. At least for me it was. Don’t let that scare you away though. Please, please play it. You can consider it my x-mas present.)

I think the reason Passage is so successful is because of it’s simplicity; a quality most modern games do not possess. The interactivity draws you into the world, and because of the simple graphics and music, there’s still plenty of room for your own imagination. The characters, because of their old-school video-gamey representations, exist on the same level as cartoon characters. That is, the level of concepts. It’s easy to see both yourself and the game’s creator in the main character you control. If the game used the Unreal 3 engine and were completely phong shaded and bump mapped with specular highlights and etc etc, this game would be far less effective. There would be no room for concepts, no room for your own imagination, no room to connect the dots. There would be no room for metaphor.

Also, if this was a film, even everything else being exactly the same, it would be far less effective. Even if you don’t explore at all, just the act of pushing the right arrow key to trudge forward has meaning (in fact, the first time I played it, I didn’t even realize you could move downwards very far). Without the input of the player, it would sit there on the surface. By pushing the arrow keys to control the character, you’re essentially putting on a very pixely costume that somewhat resembles the games creator. Just like a nice hat can become part of your identity, so too does the avatar on screen. Without the input, it would be the equivalent of looking at the same hat hanging on the coat rack.

Passage is not the first game that someone has thought about on a level beyond entertainment. Others have tried their hands at “art games.” (Other notable recent art games include The Marriage by Rod Humble and game, game, game and again game by Jason Nelson.) Passage, however, is one of the first truly accessible and genuinely moving of it’s type of game, and I believe it speaks volumes about the future potential of the medium.

Though, I am pretty excitable about such things.

Posted by nick on 10 Dec 2007 at 11:14 pm

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Hey kids!  

For the past few months Mat, Craig, Lauren and I have been working on a new music/animation band called The Buddy System. Think Cornelius, Stereolab and Tullycraft playing along to the Electric Company and old Disney or Hanna Barbera cartoons. We are making our live debut at the Kindercore Xmas Party on Saturday, December 8th with a miniset - in case you didn’t know, animation takes a while.

We also have a song on the upcoming XMAS 3: The War on Christmas comic and compilation!Anyway there will be more news, music and video from us as time goes on but I wanted to announce the band here and point you all to our shiny new (but still in progress) MySpace page so that we can be friends! You can listen to our XMas song and a demo of another jam while you are at it. Also if you want a sneak peak at some of the animation in progress click HERE just don’t tell Craig since it isn’t finished yet!  

Oh and while I am at it here are some images from upcoming animations: 

Posted by ryan on 28 Nov 2007 at 04:12 pm

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Want to see the writers treated fairly? Want to get your favorite shows back on the air? Head HERE and see what you can do to help!

Posted by ryan on 15 Nov 2007 at 11:36 pm

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If you aren’t the pop culture obsessed TV/Web nerd that I am you might have missed this rant from a “fan” in response to people dogging on Britney Spears for her outfit and performance at the MTV Awards. Peep it now as it’s the necesarry set-up for the payoff in the next video. If you have already seen it then feel free to skip right to the next jam:

Magic, right? Anway now lay your eyes on this slice of gold from comedian Phillip Wilburn:

Ah, the confluence of retarded pop culture and deadly serious government warmongering. Only in the good old U.S. of fucking A!!!

Posted by ryan on 13 Sep 2007 at 03:08 pm

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