Iceage at Slowdown Jr., Oct. 24, 2014. The band plays at The Waiting Room June 18.

by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Yesterday Darren Keen, who you might remember from The Show Is the Rainbow, shared links to a couple new albums he just dropped. They’re instrumental albums called Let Me Score Your Video Game and Let Me Score Your Video Game #2.

As the names imply, these albums contain 8-bit- and 16-bit-style music that would be appropriate as soundtracks to your run-of-the-mill ’80s- or ’90s-era video game. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you will right after clicking the links below.

I asked Keen if he was a big gamer.

“I’m not a ‘gamer’ because I don’t play lots of games, but the games I do play, I play obsessively,” he said. “I grew up playing Final Fantasy games for NES – SNES – Playstation. I used to hit ‘save points’ at certain parts of the game where I liked the music a lot. The music was so so so important to me. It wasn’t til I started doing my ‘Darren Keen’ music that I realized what a huge influence Nobuo Uematsu (the dude who scored the Final Fantasy games) was on me.”

Keen would love to add “video game music composer” to his already large music resume. Maybe these albums will be the tokens that get him into that very special music industry arcade.

BTW, Keen will be celebrating the release of his new The Show Is the Rainbow LP in Lincoln this Friday and on March 3 in Benson at The Sydney.

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One Percent was busy announcing Junes shows this morning. Among them:

— Okkervil River June 9 at The Waiting Room.

— First Aid Kit June 13 at Sokol Auditorium

— Iceage June 18 at The Waiting Room

The additions are a welcome relief after a pretty quiet winter show-wise. What else does 1% have up its sleeve? And will there be any Stir Cove announcements that rival last year’s Beck concert?

Summer can’t come fast enough…

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2018 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.