Music Monday: The Protomen

How have we not featured The Protomen on Music Monday yet?

The Protomen are a rock band from Nashville, Tennessee best known for crafting a still unfinished rock opera set in a dystopian future loosely based on the story and characters from the NES Mega Man games.

Yes, based on. These aren’t some dudes who found guitar tabs for some NES songs online and decided to make a go of it. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with doing rock covers of videogame soundtracks, but I’m pointing it out so no one goes into one of their shows expecting to hear “Crash Man’s Stage Theme.”

Current band members (from Wikipedia, which as we all know, is never wrong) are:

• Raul Panther III – Vocals/Multi-Instrument
• Murphy Weller – Bass/Synth
• Commander B. Hawkins Jr. – Synth
• TURBO LOVER – Vocals/Multi-Instrument
• Sir Robert Bakker – Guitar/Violin
• Ringo Segundo – Guitar
• The Gambler – Vocals/Synth
• Reanimator – Drums
• K.I.L.R.O.Y. – Fist pumps, Hand claps, Armorer and Sledgehammer

The first track of theirs I’m posting is the opening track from their debut, self-titled album, “Hope Rides Alone.” It’s a great track, and one of the few that has a music video so far (there are some sprite-based fan-made ones, but the sound quality on most of those is crap, so this being Music Monday, I’m not linking to them). Make sure to check it out.

Next, I’m jumping to a track from Act II: The Father of Death. “The Hounds” is possibly the catchiest song ever about framing a man for murder.

And now for something a little different. The band took a little break from the quite frankly bleak subject matter of their previous albums to perform a live tribute to Queen, and lucky for us, recorded and released it. In some ways, they sound more like Queen than Queen does these days.

And lastly I’m ending this segment the way they end all of their shows, by playing “Due Vendetta.” Yes, they even end the Queen tribute show this way. As Raul Panther put it, ”God help up, we are the most self-indulgent bastards in Nashville. I guarantee it.”