ReMix:Pokémon Trading Card Game "I'm Not Going to Lose to You!" 3:41

From Juan "Sixto Sounds" Medrano, JohnStacy (repping a whole brass section by himself!), & thebitterroost on drums comes this Dwelling of Duels: Free Month (August 2020) entry that puts a fabulous funk-rock sheen on a track apparently named "Ronald," from the intuitively-titled Pokémon Trading Card Game. Juan Medrano writes:

"Heard the track on Ben Briggs' Twitch stream, got inspired to arrange it. Made a new remix with some pals. Some kind of funk, I dunno.

Asked JohnStacy if he wanted to add some kind of brass, got a fully arranged brass section about 2 minutes later.

Then the bitterroost replaced my copy/pasted MIDI drums with his live drumming.

2nd place in August Dwelling of Duels, because you can't beat PuD."

While the mix title may not have panned out against the ever-formidable Dickinson, it's a victory for funky, jam band-style noodling & infectious poke-grooves nonetheless. Roster breakdown:

• Juan Medrano: arrangement, guitars, bass, mixing/mastering/etc.
• JohnStacy: horns, trumpets, trombones
• thebitterroost: drums

Rexy evaluated:

"Juan has demonstrated his versatility as a guitarist and applying his skills to multiple styles across his OCR repertoire, so it's by no surprise that a Chicago-style jazz-rock arrangement like this would be another additional example. He picked a great choice of source, and it's from one game that I've both played and judged remixes of during my tenure here so far - and if anyone was finally going to heed the plea to get more Pokémon Trading Card Game onto OCR, it had to be him and a pair of guests!

Naturally, the source choice wrote the rock sub-genre by itself. So it made sense to go all-in with the instrument palette, added different in the second iterations, the extended solo performance at 2:22 with just the right dynamics to lead back into the C section at 3:08, and some fantastic additional live instrument contributions from John and TBR. Both added parts sound as clean and tightly performed as Juan's tools of choice, too. In John's case, the layered brass adds a sense of human feeling that a backing keyboard part would find difficult to replicate - and for TBR, the grooves and fills established kept themselves fresh throughout, adding another case of his skills as a session drummer.

Juan could say what he wants about not being able to beat Prince uf Darkness in a DoD event, but just being able to place that high in such a turnout is always a remarkable achievement. Know this - in our hearts and on the front page, a winner is the three of them!"

:) Gotta say, John did a really superb job of achieving the sound of a unified brass section, with genre-appropriate mixing. Drums are funky & active, and of course Juan noodles enough for TWO full bowls of ramen (I get the pun now!) - bottom line, it all comes together, and ultimately if it's more about how you play the game, all three artists have played it with style. Irresistibly fun & highly recommended!