Ahoy there.
Good news today. Nay, great news. I recently made contact (well, them to me to be more precise) with someone who, while he/she (hereafter a he) doesn't consider himself a "true S.S.H. fan", he evidently is a fan of history and possesses a decent memory that might shed some light on my project. I'll save the best for last.
1. Music embedded in S.S.H.'s website in 2003
So according to him, he has been aware of S.S.H. existence (and S.S.H.'s friends/acquaintances) since 2000. In comparison, I didn't find out about S.S.H. until 2004, or maybe 2003 at the earliest. To begin with, here are some random facts about S.S.H.'s website back in 2003 according to his memory, and he admits his memory isn't perfect but who can blame him. They're not super amazingly interesting, but I do it for the sake of completeness and history:
04.mid - This song, a MIDI version of Final Fantasy VI - Slam Shuffle was embedded (i.e. plays automatically) on S.S.H.'s website circa 2003.
smb3.mp3 - Also possibly embedded in the homepage. This song is スーパマリオブラザーズ～背中で語るルイージ (Super Mario Bros. - Luigi Talking In The Back) and is a downbeat guitar version of the main Mario theme.
ff6-sff.mp3 - Possibly played on the diary/blog page. This song is FINAL FANTASY VI / 仲間を求めて [Ver.2] (Searching for Friends) and is an acoustic version with Parasite Eve-sounding synth opera vocals.
kimi.mp3 - Also on the diary page, possibly. This song is 天空の城ラピュタ～君を乗せて(生ギター) (Laputa: The Castle in the Sky - Kimi o Nosete), a live guitar arrange.
Note that although they are reasonably rare, these songs aren't new to me (with the possible exception of the midi one). Like I said, this is just for history.
2. The mystery and lost history of the entity known as "Placebo"
Quote:
Originally Posted by layzee
Also note the URL in the video description box: http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~placebo/ut/ (which I assume was the clan's website).
My memory is quite hazy but I do sort of remember downloading an "original" track called "Theme of Placebo" from his website back in 2003, give or take a year. I put original in quotes because it's basically "Rambling Feather" from Lost Child OST Side-B, except the instrumentation sounds a bit different or maybe it's just differences in volume. I dunno, I'm not good at examining music with a fine-tooth comb. In any case, my theory is that "Theme of Placebo" WAS in fact, an "original" track until he decided to use it for the Lost Child game, and in the process, went through a rename. |
This guy must have some good memory because it rang a bell when I mentioned it. According to him, "Placebo" is the name of the website owned by game musician and S.S.H. associate, Ese (似非) AKA ECE-SMZ AKA Yohsui O'asa (大麻 葉吸). Similar to S.S.H. and his website where he offers .mp3s for download, Ese does the same with Placebo. The Unreal Tournament Clan is basically one part of the website. I don't follow the doujin scene, but in general, I do recall that Japanese doujin artists (whether musicians or drawers) would, as a way to connect, draw art or compose music for a fellow artist. Then the receiving artist would post it on his website. Very common with drawing artists in periods such as Christmas. For example, an artist who does Final Fantasy character fan art might draw Cecil (Final Fantasy IV) in a Santa Claus costume and then send it a few doujin fan artist.
In the case of S.S.H., I guess that he composed a tune for Ese, titled it "Theme of Placebo" (the name of Ese's website), and gave it to Ese. This "Theme of Placebo"... which sounds remarkably similar to (well, practically the same) "Rambling Feather" from Lost Child Side-B. This probably all happening well before the 2006 release of the PC game Lost Child. Well, the game was released in 2006, the Side-A and Side-B soundtracks in 2003 and 2004 respectively. This lends credence to my theory that "Rambling Feather" was originally a non-game related song called "Theme of Placebo" until S.S.H. got the composer job for Lost Child where he probably thought that it was worthy enough to add as a game tune (after a track title change).
3. Early S.S.H. history
I'm sure most of us S.S.H. fans are familiar with his current website, and the older of us might also be familiar with his older version website (i.e. before 2012) which existed since 2004 or 2003 or maybe earlier. Well, he had at least one more website even older than that which was probably created in 2001. And the URL of that website is as follows:
http://www4.plala.or.jp/TMCS/
Don't bother clicking, it doesn't work. Fortunately however, the Internet Archive has saved a single page of which is all that remains:
http://web.archive.org/web/200107111...S/midi_s2.html
Immediately, we see something amusing: "Saitama Saisyu Heiky" (instead of Heiki). Also, we learn of one possible origin of the S.S.H. name: it is simply a silly made-up name. The rest are his early MIDIs with "liner notes". Note that "Neon Night" is one of those MIDIs, and I am looking for the .mp3 version.
4. Personal information of S.S.H. and his brother
No I don't mean bank account details. Not only did the person I speak to have a good memory, he also had the wisdom and foresight to save something in 2004 before it got wiped from the Internet. 13 years later, he kindly hands them to me. I basically have two text files containing interesting information on S.S.H. and his brother and they appear to be self-surveys of some kind (similar to the ones on Facebook or whatever). Categories include: interests, favourite bands, musical influences, favourite games, strengths and weaknesses, etc. Normally I wouldn't find someone's favourite food interesting but considering how little we know about S.S.H. considering his quantity and quality of musical works, finding out anything about him is like water in a desert, a needle in a haystack, and similar mataphors. To the best of his knowledge and memory, he possibly saved this information from the above website but he could be wrong. In any case, after I get the time to translate them, the info will eventually make its way to the S.S.H. biography page.
And finally, the best news...
...will be revealed in my next post tomorrow.