re:Cut #1 - A Project Stolen From Someone IRL-?! (Patreon)

Important Note:

Posts in this series may sometimes be an "audio post" if there are WIP clips available for the project. I highly recommend reading the story FIRST before listening to the clip if applicable.

Intro:

Hi everyone, Jeff here. This is the first of hopefully several story time with Jeff posts that are part of a new series where we take a deep dive and we revisit some re:TYE/Older TYER cut, dropped, or cancelled projects over the years. While these cancelled projects were cancelled at different stages of production (some many years ago), I will do my best to recover whatever material I can to add to this chill (and hopefully interesting) story time series. If you follow me on social media (or what little I post on social media), you know I'm a big connoisseur of coffee drinks. So with that I recommend getting a nice cup of coffee/latte or if you're a tea person, something nice and cozy as we settle in for Re:Cut Story Time! (name was TBD but we can't come up with anything better)

And for this first post, the title is not a clickbait. While there were several factors that led to the cancellation of this cover, one of the biggest reasons was one of the production members working on this project was literally robbed and the assets and laptop were physically stolen from him-

"Everybody, put your hands up! Now we’re flyin’, it’s now or never, baby~
....Until we were grounded by an IRL robbery-"

Background:

For the first cancelled project in this series, I thought we'd start way back in the very early days of re:TYE. re:TYE made the jump from TYER somewhere around late 2015 or so (the exact date is a bit murky since most of our group planning was done via Skype group chats as this predated Discord and Slack wasn't mainstream back then). Although re:TYE's first upload of &Z wouldn't be posted until April 2016, the decision to wind-down TYER's activities had already started nearly a year earlier. If you go back to TYER's channel at that time, the upload frequency sharply dropped in 2016 with only one full-length cover and three TV-size covers posted. This was due to the re-organization (Editor Spiral Note: you could say re:organization--) of the group where all full-length cover projects were evaluated and potentially reworked to be posted on the new re:TYE channel instead. 

One notable example was "Now or Never" from Phi Brain feat. Ashley. This cover was fully planned and completed for TYER, but was held back to be reworked with a new music track specifically for re:TYE (there is a fully mixed version of Ashley's cover with the official instrumental that was not publicly released. Only Ashley, myself and a few past TYER members who received it as a test-listen track have this unreleased proto-type version).

Around the time of re:TYE's creation, TYER was already in the midst of re-recording earlier popular covers and giving previously released TV-size covers the full-length treatment. At that time in TYER, they were loosely referred to as the "Anniversary Edition" of TYER covers, although only one cover from this series was ever posted on TYER's channel (aLIEz feat. Rachellular). A good number of these planned TYER Anniversary Edition covers were instead reworked and posted through re:TYE which include the following (majority of them were recorded prior to the re:TYE music arrangement track being produced):

&Z - Aldnoah.Zero 2 OP feat. Rachellular
Miraikei Answer - Ore Monogatarii! OP feat. Rachellular
Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari - Bakemonogatari ED feat. Spiral
irony - Oreimo OP1 feat. EiS
Take Your Way - Devil Survivor 2 OP feat. Jefferz 

Okay at this point you may be wondering "Jeff we're getting off-topic, what does this have to do with the cancelled song?" 

Heckler Spiral: When are we getting to the FIREWORKS FACTORY?

Well, today's re:Cut project is re:TYE's cover of...

re:Cut #1) Flyers - Death Parade OP (Planned 2015/2016)

The Plan:

Death Parade OP - Flyers
Lyrics: Camille
Arrange: immanuelbear
Mixing: TBD (would've probably been me)
Graphics: 愛梨。
Vocalist: TBD (I'll get into this shortly)

While Flyers wasn't necessarily TYER's top viewed video, it did quite well and is such a fun iconic song which we thought on paper would be a great early re:TYE video cause it's so hype and well-liked. From a more practical standpoint (Jeff is realistic and practical which will be a common theme in this series), Flyers was also a smart choice as most of the song's lyrics and melody repeat themselves, making the production faster and more affordable to complete. 

The original plan was for all of the original staff who worked on the TV-size TYER upload to return including the original vocalist, Aruvn. I had personally taken the lead on this project and had contacted bear to work on the musical arrangement for this project as he had worked on Zen Zen Zense previously on a very aggressive timeline. Flyers would've been bear's 2nd collaboration with re:TYE, which is funny to look back on today as bear is now a regular music-producing collaborator and one of our go-to for J-rock tracks.

What Was Finished:

Camille had completed the full song adapted lyrics prior to re:TYE's creation as this cover was originally planned for TYER's Anniversary Edition series before being reworked. Majority of the lyrics are repeated in the full length song taken from the already released TV-size cut, so her recorded lyric demo only included the 2nd verse which was newly written for this Anniversary/re:TYE version. The clip uploaded in this post is that exact demo recorded back in late 2015. Below is the lyrics for the newly written 2nd verse:

Don’t leave me feeling bound and trapped, I wanna get psyched
A dose of something good to get these thoughts out my mind
Just kick them to the curb and soon you’ll be in the zone
So take those words, the tables turn
Embrace the flaws, make it your own

(Boom boom boom, dancing through the skies)

‘Cause when the going gets tough, you’ll still rise as the champion
(Boom boom boom, dancing through the skies)
Don’t resist temptation
Live in the sensation

The music arrangement track was about 80% completed prior to the project's cancellation and a rough cut was available. The music was not fully mixed yet due to an issue with the signature trumpet being sequenced/played flat in the verses which was not usable as of the most recent version. Vocals had not been recorded yet as the assets for the recording session were still being completed.

Why It Was Cancelled:

A lot of project cancellations are due to rather mundane or unexciting reasons usually due to lack or resources, interest or suitable staff. However, Flyers may be the most wild cancellation, hence why I decided to start the series with this song.

Between the time the original TYER anniversary edition covers were planned in mid 2015 and the time re:TYE was created with most anniversary covers being reworked in early 2016, Aruvn unfortunately was no longer available to return which posed a major problem as TYER did not have very many masculine sounding rock vocalists who would be able to pull off this iconic song. Other vocalists were discussed as possible replacements so this ordinarily wouldn't have caused the project to be cancelled in and of itself.

The biggest reason why this project was cancelled was that bear was literally robbed IRL and his car was broken into.  While still working on the track for Flyers and fixing the flat trumpet in the arrangement, he had left his laptop in his car while out for an errand or he was parked at home(?).  The details are a little scarce since this was 8+ years ago and my old twitter dm history only cover describe the aftermath of the robbery. Either way, someone broke into his car and stole not only parts from his car but also his main laptop that was used to produce all his music. The music project was unfortunately not backed up which meant the entire project was lost including plugins and tools crucial for bear's work (not to mention the financial damage for replacements and being MIA from one of his main sources of income).

Back then re:TYE had a limited budget/resources and did not have many music producer connections.  The complete loss of not only the track, but also the music producer for an extended amount of time completely derailed Flyers as we did not have another music producer available for the genre. Without a vocalist set for the song and it being a difficult voice/style to perform, Flyers was unfortunately sidelined for re:TYE's first year as I was mixing and organizing every early re:TYE project and did not have the time to rework this song when at least 6 other songs were mid-production at any given time. After being on-hold for so long, the project was eventually cancelled due re:TYE's focus during the early years at covering newly aired songs and anime series in an effort to grow re:TYE's channel. Past older songs were generally put on-hold and wouldn't be revisited until re:TYE was on more solid footing. Three years later in 2019 Hyadain no Kakakata Kataomoi-C would be the first TYER revisit after the initial TYER Anniversary Editions were completed, requested per Mero much to my personal displeasure-  joking... or am I?. (Narrator voice: he was not joking)

Closing Coffee Cup Thoughts:

Bear getting robbed might be one of the least expected events and most unusual cancellation story I can recall but it's still unfortunate that Flyers took the hit for it. Flyers was also one of the last songs Camille adapted during the TYER to re:TYE transition so although we have her full lyrics and consent to use them, it would have the odd designation of being written by a non-re:TYE staff member as well potentially needing to be edited to match re:TYE's current standard (she's no longer active though from what I hear from Airi, she's living her best offline life).

There is a bright side to this cancellation story.  Compared to some future re:Cut stories that are coming up, Flyers perhaps has one of the better chances of one day maybe being picked up and finished. re:TYE collabs with many more producers than we used to back in 2015 and although we would not request he work on it again for redundancy and fatigue, bear is very much back in action and worked on our most recent Spy X Family cover released last Dec. And though I can't speak for any of the other members, I certainly know of at least one of re:TYE's past vocalist that I think would sounding pretty swell on Flyers who might sound pretty close to Takaaki Shingyoji's (BRADIO'S lead singer) voice and style.

However, until then (or at least as of the time of this writing), Flyers from Death Parade will unfortunately only be a re:Cut cover, flyin' high in the sky of what could've been-