July 3, 2015 – The Eightiestravaganza finale, with TWENTY songs! Choice!

Note: Videos may contain authoring issues that have been fixed, and are for preview purposes only. Video recording courtesy of Lowlander.

Due to the number of mega-rad songs this week, many rough versions were included in this video. Don’t worry, they’ve been fixed!

http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x2weqlh

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C3 releases for July 3, 2015:

New! The 1980s C03 20-pack

• Aerosmith – “Rag Doll” M (Neversoft, Nunchuck, Lowlander, and farottone)
  Converted from Guitar Hero 5 DLC
• The Beach Boys – “Kokomo” (farottone and GanonMetroid)
• Belinda Carlisle – “Heaven is a Place on Earth” (farottone)
• Billy Joel – “Uptown Girl” (Ultimate_MANG0 ft. farottone)
• Cher – “If I Could Turn Back Time” (farottone)
• Depeche Mode – “Just Can’t Get Enough” (farottone)
• Dire Straits – “Money for Nothing” M (Neversoft and TrojanNemo)
  Converted from GH: Warriors of Rock
• George Harrison – “Got My Mind Set on You” (farottone)
• Madness – “Our House” (Ultimate_MANG0 ft. farottone)
• Madonna – “Material Girl” (farottone)
• Michael Jackson – “Billie Jean” (funkydunkleman and farottone)
• Phil Collins – “Sussudio” (Dash Riprock and farottone)
• Queen – “A Kind of Magic” (farottone and Banzai85)
• The Rolling Stones – “Start Me Up” (Kemiroch, ws54, CrazyCanuck, and farottone)
• Rush – “New World Man” (DoNotPassGo and ejthedj ft. farottone)
• Sade – “The Sweetest Taboo” (farottone)
• The Traveling Wilburys – “Handle with Care” (ws54)
• U2 – “Desire” (farottone)
• Whitesnake – “Fool for Your Loving” (farottone)
• Yes – “Changes” (farottone)

Songs marked with are part of our month-long EIGHTIESTRAVAGANZA!
Check out our rad 80s Timeline to visualize these gnarly releases.

A red X denotes Pro Guitar/Pro Bass charts, a blue M denotes full multitracks, a blue K denotes a “karaoke” multitrack (separated vocals), and a rusty 2x denotes that a 2x Bass Pedal version is also available. FtV denotes a song previously released by a C3 author outside of C3.

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Here it is, everyone. The week you’ve been waiting for. Just like the Power Glove and Michael Jackson, this week is bad.

The Eightiestravaganza has been a bitchin’ good time, and — as usual — it was made possible by our dedicated authors. If you’ve been having a good time these last few weeks, make sure to stop by our forums and tell the authors how totally tubuloso they are. We live for your kudos, dudes!

As we wind this party down, remember to check out the sweet 80s Timeline that farottone has been maintaining. We’ve been doing music from every part of the decade, man! And even though Eightiestravaganza is over, C3 isn’t. (Not quite yet, anyway.) Check back next week as usual for more Rock Band awesomeness, and don’t worry — you’ll get more 80s-tastic songs before we’re done!

Author comments for this week’s songs:

• “Handle with Care” – ws54 writes, “After a yearlong hiatus I am back with possibly one of the greatest songs of all time, not just for the song itself but also for the music it generated. Handle With Care was supposed to be a one off song for the B-side of one of Harrison’s singles but the song was so good and the guys had so much fun it grew into an album and then another. For Rock Band this song especially shines on harmonies where everyone gets to take the lead.”

Fixes uploaded in the last week to previous C3 releases:

• Middle Class Rut – “New Low”: Vocals corrections.
• Middle Class Rut – “Lifelong Dayshift”: Vocals corrections.

See you next Friday!

June 26, 2015 – 80s, 80s, and more 80s!

Note: Videos may contain authoring issues that have been fixed, and are for preview purposes only. Video recording courtesy of Lowlander.

http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x2vivjg

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C3 releases for June 19, 2015:

New! The 1980s C02 (One Hit Wonders) 3-pack

• Bobby McFerrin – “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” (farottone)
• Johnny Hates Jazz – “Shattered Dreams” (farottone)
• Thomas Dolby – “She Blinded Me with Science” (GanonMetroid)

New! Singles

• Hall & Oates – “Kiss on My List” (drummerockband)
• Hall & Oates – “You Make My Dreams” (drummerockband ft. GanonMetroid)

FtV: Single

• Hear ‘n Aid – “Stars” (farottone, shinymonkey, and TrojanNemo)
• Hear ‘n Aid – “Stars (Dueling Solos)” (farottone, shinymonkey, and TrojanNemo)

Songs marked with are part of our month-long EIGHTIESTRAVAGANZA!
Check out our rad 80s Timeline to visualize these gnarly releases.

A red X denotes Pro Guitar/Pro Bass charts, a blue M denotes full multitracks, a blue K denotes a “karaoke” multitrack (separated vocals), and a rusty 2x denotes that a 2x Bass Pedal version is also available. FtV denotes a song previously released by a C3 author outside of C3.

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“Buckle up back there, we’re going into hyperactive.”
…
“Prepare ship for light speed!”
“No, no, no. Light speed is too slow. We’re gonna have to straight to ludicrous speed!”
…
“What the hell was that? The Eightiestravaganza…they’ve gone to plaid!”

We’re in the penultimate week of our majestic Eightiestravaganza, and it’s true — we’re going right into plaid. Every one of this week’s songs is dripping with 80s goodness, and every one is a mega-hit, even if they never surpassed that one hit. We even have a good spread of styles, though plenty of them are the synth-heavy 80s goofiness you expect. Check them all out, and buckle up for next week’s Space-amaze-balls finale!

Author comments for this week’s songs:

• “Kiss on My List” – drummerockband writes, “Surprised Harmonix didn’t release this with their H&O pack, but now it’s here anyway! This track is lots of fun on Keys and Vocals!”
• “You Make My Dreams” – drummerockband writes, “I was in SHOCK when I saw the HMX pack without this song. I thought it was the PERFECT song for RB3 features but HMX never released it, so here it is! Quick note: There’s 2 different guitars going on in this song, one in each speaker. So I only charted one of them, so if you think there may be some absent notes, just remember I only charted one of the guitars. :)”
• “Shattered Dreams” – farottone writes, “This may be a bit of an obscure gem, but it’s very catchy and it features 2 great percussion sections represented in games as solos on drums”
• “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” – farottone writes, “One of the 80s’ anthems, this laid back tune is the first acappella song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. All instruments are voiced by Bobby McFerrin and are translated in game to guitar, keys, bass and drums, plus obviously harmonies. Surprisingly varied and interesting on drums and bass, it screams for chorus singalongs!”
• “Stars” – farottone has a lot to say about this epic song:
  

  Who cries for the children? In 1985, Ronnie James Dio did. It was the Band Aid and USA for Africa era, and for those too young to remember, more specifically those were the times of We Are the World and of the hunger awareness all over the world through the release of music singles to raise money. They were mostly pop projects and it all changed when a supergroup of heavy metal artists was put together by Dio with the help of his band members. We’re talking all stars in the 80s metal scene: Dubrow, Dio, Tate, Halford and others on vocals and guitar gods like Campbell (Whitesnake and others), Malmsteen, Schon (Journey), Murray and Smith (Iron Maiden). The group/project was called Hear ‘n Aid and they produced Stars, an 8 minute guitar shredding bonanza. I strongly encourage you to look up this project because it really was a thing of beauty, on YouTube you can find the full documentary split in parts.

  Anyway, this is one of those things that won’t ever make it to the Rock Band platform and that deserve a nice treatment. So, here it is, a real gem that we tried to polish as much as possible for you to enjoy. The “normal” version has harmonies, guitar, bass and drums. Drums is pretty straightforward but keep in mind that there were two drummers in the original, so in a couple of spots you will actually hear two different drum lines, although you will obviously play only one. Bass is nothing to write home about but still a solid track. Guitar is basically for skilled players. It contains a 4 minute solo recorded by incredible guitar players, so it’s gonna be tough…

  Harmonies deserve a chapter apart. Now, the song was sung by 8 different singers, alternating phrases. To reproduce the experience what we did was having each harmony line assigned to a group of singers. That way, with three microphones you can have 3 singers alternating. Here is the breakdown:
  Harmony 1 – Ronnie James Dio (Dio), Geoff Tate (Queensryche)
  Harmony 2 – Dave Meniketti (Y&T), Rob Halford (Judas Priest), Paul Shortino (Rought Cutt, Quiet Riot)
  Harmony 3 – Kevin DuBrow (Quiet Riot), Eric Bloom (Blue Oyster Cult), Don Dokken (Dokken)
  During choruses, Harmony 1 is the lead voice and 2 and 3 are backing vocals.

  Dueling Solos version: Now, the main solo for the song is a series of 6 solos played by different artists. To replicate the structure here is an alternate version of the song. Outside of the main solo section, bass will be bass. During the main solo section, bass will become guitar and guitar 1 and 2 will alternate: while one plays solo 1, 3 and 5, the other plays rhythm. And you can guess what happens with solo 2, 4 and 6. This also gives the player a nice rest after each solo.

  Production value – As said, this is a very special project and I really lured TrojanNemo into doing A LOT of work, and boy did he ever. Besides the usual excellent work on animations he also did a spectacular job on the practice sessions. Each and every phrase for the singers has a practice sessions, appropriately named with the singer’s name. And all the sub-solos have practice sessions, again with the guitarist’s name. So, a huge public thank to Nemo for the incredible work he did and, well, enjoy!

  

Fixes uploaded in the last week to previous C3 releases:

• Middle Class Rut – “New Low”: Vocals corrections.
• Middle Class Rut – “Lifelong Dayshift”: Vocals corrections.

See you next Friday!

June 12, 2015 – Sade and Whitesnake!

Note: Videos may contain authoring issues that have been fixed, and are for preview purposes only. Video recording courtesy of Lowlander.

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C3 releases for June 19, 2015:

New! Sade C01 4-pack (farottone)

• Sade – “Hang On to Your Love”
• Sade – “Jezebel”
• Sade – “Paradise”
• Sade – “Please Send Me Someone to Love”

FtV: Whitesnake C01 (Slip of the Tongue) 5-pack (farottone and Drihscol)

• Whitesnake – “Judgment Day”
• Whitesnake – “Now You’re Gone”
• Whitesnake – “Sailing Ships”
• Whitesnake – “The Deeper the Love”
• Whitesnake – “Wings of the Storm” 2x

Songs marked with are part of our month-long EIGHTIESTRAVAGANZA!
Check out our rad 80s Timeline to visualize these gnarly releases.

A red X denotes Pro Guitar/Pro Bass charts, a blue M denotes full multitracks, a blue K denotes a “karaoke” multitrack (separated vocals), and a rusty 2x denotes that a 2x Bass Pedal version is also available. FtV denotes a song previously released by a C3 author outside of C3.

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We’re deep in the heart of our Eightiestravaganza now, friends! C3’s authoring machine and forever-vigilant admin farottone, who came up with the whole idea in the first place, is here with nine more tubular tracks. I’ll let him take it from here!

Author comments for this week’s songs:

• “Hang On to Your Love” – “Definitely more fun on vocals than on the other instruments, which are OK but not extremely entertaining.”
• “Jezebel” – “Jazz-Sade at her best by a mile: very emotional singing, a beautiful soft song to listen to and sing. Also, very good sax!”
• “Paradise” – “This is disco-Sade with a disco beat drum part and a nice albeit repetitive bass riff.”
• “Please Send Me Someone to Love” – “Finally, we have blues-Sade, with a great tune to sing and to play guitar to!”
• Whitesnake C01 – “Two quick notes. First one is that some songs in this pack have unauthored synth. I take full responsibility for that personally and I am very sorry. These are FtV songs that I polished up and forgot to check for pro keys until 24 hours ago. 90s month is taking a toll on me but it’s not excuse. Preview video was already done and since the songs are not keys heavy (it’s synth and or strings in parts of the songs) we decided to keep the songs in the pack instead of releasing on a separate thread.Second note: these are very old songs that Drihscol helped with, but except for bass for Now You’re Gone I lost notes on what he did for guitar and/or keys (again, my bad). So, let’s do this: you see something wrong is my bad, you see something done good is because of him. Fair enough? :)”
• “Judgment Day” – “Very Led Zeppelin-like song, heavy riffs, great vocals, technical solos.”
• “Now You’re Gone” – “Starts out like a power ballad, ends up being more of a fast piece than a slow dance. Excellent for harmonies, good on all instruments. Bass by Drihscol.”
• “Sailing Ships” – “For my money, the best (partially) acoustic power ballad of the hair metal era. Coverdale vocals are goosebumps inducing, Vai’s guitar is awesome (oh, did I mention Steve Vai plays guitar on the album?) and the finale… well, it’s just a truly entertaining song.”
• “The Deeper the Love” – “Straight power ballad, fun to sing, good stuff on all instruments.”
• “Wings of the Storm” – “A more metal-oriented song, very fast guitar, solid drumming, high pitched vocals, it’s got everything!”

See you next Friday!

June 12, 2015 – A three-pack of duets, and celebrating LGBT Pride Month!

Note: Videos may contain authoring issues that have been fixed, and are for preview purposes only. Video recording courtesy of Lowlander.

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C3 releases for June 12, 2015:

New! Duets C01 3-pack (farottone)

• Dennis Edwards – “Don’t Look Any Further (ft. Siedah Garrett)”
• Michael Jackson – “The Girl is Mine (ft. Paul McCartney)”
• Philip Bailey – “Easy Lover (ft. Phil Collins)”

New! LGBT Pride Month 2015 4-pack

• Against Me! – “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” (Gigakoops)
• Fine Young Cannibals – “She Drives Me Crazy” (farottone)
• George Michael – “Careless Whisper” (farottone)
• Queen – “It’s a Hard Life” (farottone)

Songs marked with are part of our month-long EIGHTIESTRAVAGANZA!
Check out our rad 80s Timeline to visualize these gnarly releases.

A red X denotes Pro Guitar/Pro Bass charts, a blue M denotes full multitracks, a blue K denotes a “karaoke” multitrack (separated vocals), and a rusty 2x denotes that a 2x Bass Pedal version is also available. FtV denotes a song previously released by a C3 author outside of C3.

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Harmonies in Rock Band were, and still are, a Big Deal. Long gone are the dark ages where you heard a vocal part but couldn’t sing it, or had a bunch of vocalists crammed into one part. And while it’s satisfying to sing “block” harmonies in a group, Beatles-style, duets are truly where Rock Band harmonies shine. Grab a friend and belt your way through these Eighties-tastic songs, and don’t forget about the duets in official DLC, either!

It’s also June, which is widely recognized as LGBT Pride Month (in the US, anyway). To acknowledge this — and hit more 80s songs while we’re at it! — we’ve prepared a pack from acts with one or more openly LGBT members. Rock Band’s famous green, red, yellow, blue, and orange don’t quite represent the entire rainbow, but custom songs let us fill in indigo and violet a bit more.

Author comments for this week’s songs:

• Duets C01 – farottone writes, “All songs in the duet pack have the individual singers assigned to one specific harmony. For Easy Lover, Phil Collins is on H1 and H3 and Philip Bailey is on H2. For The Girl is Mine, Michael Jackson is on H1, Paul McCartney on H2 and H3. For Don’t Look Any Further, Dennis Edwards is on H1, Siedah Garrett is on H2, backup singers on H3.”
• “Don’t Look Any Further” – farottone writes, “X-Files fans will recognize this one from episode 7ABX07 in which the sonh was the centerpiece of the storyline. Bass player will recognize this from one of the raddest bass riffs of the history of the universe. The Temptations fans will recognize it as arguably the best known hits from one of the groupìs members. The duet is amazing to sing, the guitar has a simple but engaging solo and for the love of all that is holy do not look this song’s video up on YouTube.”
• “The Girl is Mine” – farottone writes, “Very fun duet from Thriller, this is another great way that bass players can play the lead role in their band.”
• “Easy Lover” – farottone writes, “The latest Phil Collins C3 appearance sees him sharing the mic with Earth, Wind & Fire’s singer Philip Bailey. About that… the falsetto he sings is quite straining! It’s such a good song on all instruments, with guitar having a very cool solo, not to mention the singing part.”
• “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” – Gigakoops writes, “What’s a better way to represent trans* artists than with the opening song from an album about trans identity? This track opens up the album’s themes of the fight for trans acceptance, and acceptance oneself for who they are.”
• “She Drives Me Crazy” – farottone writes, “One of the instantly recognisable guitar riffs of 80s pop songs just could not be ignored, so here it is along with that snare sound that drums lovers have come to love. Not challenging on any instrument but a blast at parties.”
• “Careless Whisper” – farottone writes, “The first solo single from George Michael technically came when he was still with Wham! (hence the cover). It’s also one of this best singles and fun on all instruments. Not a lot of harmonies but if you don’t have fun singing this one we’re gonna be very surprised. Awesome sax parts and cool guitar licks finish the song off.”
• “It’s a Hard Life” – farottone writes, “The intro for the song is taken straight from Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Vesti la giubba, an aria from the 1892’s Pagliacci opera. Weird connections: this author has lived 19 years in a street dedicated to the Italian composer who wrote the opera. The piece is also one of the most emotional intro I can remember in rock history. The song is fairly challenging on keys, which are also buried and tough to author so if issues are spotted we’ll make sure to fix them and update the file. Guitar is courtesy of Banzai85. Before you say anything: no, you can not have too much Queen, that is actually been proven by numerous scientific experiments.”

See you next Friday!

June 5, 2015 – Journey 8-pack!

Note: Videos may contain authoring issues that have been fixed, and are for preview purposes only. Video recording courtesy of Lowlander.

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C3 releases for June 5, 2015:

New! Journey C01 8-pack

• Journey – “Anytime” (DoNotPassGo and Nyxyxylyth)
• Journey – “Faithfully” (DoNotPassGo and ejthedj)
• Journey – “Feeling That Way” (DoNotPassGo and Nyxyxylyth)
• Journey – “Feeling That Way/Anytime” (DoNotPassGo and Nyxyxylyth)
• Journey – “Lights” (DoNotPassGo and Nyxyxylyth)
• Journey – “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'” (Gep, DoNotPassGo, and Nyxyxylyth)
• Journey – “Open Arms” (DoNotPassGo ft. AddyMilldike and Nyxyxylyth)
• Journey – “Stone in Love” (DoNotPassGo and ejthedj)
• Journey – “Wheel in the Sky” (DoNotPassGo and Nyxyxylyth)

Songs marked with are part of our month-long EIGHTIESTRAVAGANZA!

A red X denotes Pro Guitar/Pro Bass charts, a blue M denotes full multitracks, a blue K denotes a “karaoke” multitrack (separated vocals), and a rusty 2x denotes that a 2x Bass Pedal version is also available. FtV denotes a song previously released by a C3 author outside of C3.

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I’m all out of 80s-friendly terminology from the post below this one, but what better way to kick off our awesome 80s party than freaking JOURNEY? It’s really happening! These veterans of classic rock radio stations and karaoke bars across the world barrel their way into RB3 this week with eight huge tracks not covered by Harmonix. (Unfortunately, you’re too late to buy “Don’t Stop Believing”, but you can still boot up RB2 to rock “Any Way You Want It”, and we released “Separate Ways” back in 2013!)

DNPG writes:

This pack is something that I’m incredibly thrilled to finally see released. It started as one or two Journey songs that I wanted to chart, and grew into something that I feel is LONG overdue here at C3!

Big shoutout to everyone who helped to make this pack possible. Nyx took the reins and offered to chart vocals for three songs of the pack right from the get go; that in itself made things much easier for me. Far was a main playtester and reviewer for most of the songs in this release, and everything would not have been possible without his effort and assistance. Quick shout outs to ejthedj, AddyMilldike, and ws54 for their input and help as well.

Large thanks also to Gep for putting in the work to bring his Lovin’ project up to a C3 release. Congrats on your first C3 release!

And here’s what he has to say for each song:

• “Faithfully” – It’s been requested countless times, and now it’s finally here in all its key heavy, C3 glory. This is likely Journey’s next most popular and well known song following Don’t Stop Believin’.
• “Feeling That Way/Anytime” – While technically two songs, the original album has Feeling This Way segue immediately into Anytime; as a result, many radio stations play the two tracks as one single song. Thus, I have included both individual versions of these songs, along with one 7 minute single song version. The alternating vocals between lead singer Steve Perry and piano/keys musician Gregg Rolie, throughout both of these songs, lead to a magical symphony of harmonies and catchy sections that easily draw you in. I highly recommend picking up these songs even if you do not initially recognize or know them.
• “Lights” – The song is a ballad about Journey’s city of origin, San Francisco. Originally a more minor hit, it was become more popular over the years, and is now one of Journey’s most popular and recognizable hits that is often play on the radio.
• “Open Arms” – A softer song from Journey’s library, and a song that was almost left off the originally album completely. This power ballad is staple in Journey’s live performances, and is, in my opinion, one of arena rock’s most beautiful ballads of all time.
• “Stone in Love” – With likely the catchiest riff from this entire pack, the Guitar is a huge highlight off of this track; along with Smith’s drumming being incredibly on point. While more of a sleeper in this whole pack, I highly recommend the download as it contains some of the most fun instrument charts in this release.
• “Wheel in the Sky” – This song was written around the time that the band was deciding to follow a new direction in edgier and harder rock pieces. Keys take a backstage here, leading to some of the most enjoyable and fun-to-play charts for Guitar, Bass, and Drums in this entire pack.

See you next Friday!

Welcome to EIGHTIESTRAVAGANZA!

 

Yo, homesteaks, here’s the 411!!! Get the STRAIGHT DOPE on this GNARLY new event!

Time to LOG-IN….

TO THE MOST RIGHTEOUS C3 “EIGHTIESTRAVAGANZA”!!!!

 For the next FIVE (5) weeks, our normal releases will all have at least a few TOTALLY SICK EIGHTIES TRAX! Don’t be a narbo, man — get in on this MASS COOL PARTY starting this week, and end it with a TUBULAR SURPRISE WEEK on July 3!!! BONUS!!!

Downloading all of our BITCHIN ’80s TUNEAGE is guaranteed to make you:

• amped
• raw
• totally bad
• outrageous
• icy
• mad proper
• clutch
• “in the mix”
• boss
• mega bulk
• radical
• extra “choice”!!

Cool guy farottone, who came up with the whole shindig, has this to say:

Ah, the 80s. That land where you could hike on the mountains of Glam Metal and relax on the shores of Pop. The land of opportunities, where one hit wonders used to go to retire and dino-prog bands would climb the long stairs of pop-rock charts to finally drink at the pools of fame. But not everything was good: fabric was so scarce that even rich artists could only afford to wear one glove! Even multiplatinum acts rarely had the opportunity to wear more than a wifebeater, sometimes only made of mesh to save on cotton!

The 80s captured Harmonix’s imagination. They released more songs for this decade than any other non-contemporary period, but plenty of acts, genres and big hits are still missing. For this reason, we have decided to devote an entire month to the era of bubblegum and huge hair. It’s going to have it all: big single artists pack, pop, rock, metal, dance, impossibly big acts and one hit wonders. And a lot of sax solos, of course! Since Rock Band 4 will not support keys, please dive in our June offerings: almost all songs were chosen for keys parts and they actually play pretty well in game!

This Eightiestravaganza will end July 3rd and will offer 80s classics each week, with some more recent productions thrown in. But not too many, we like our theme parties to be really historically accurate!

All our authors sincerely hope this month of songs will be as fun for you as it was for us to work on, minus the long nights fixing small issues, the swearing at the producers who buried the guitars in those classic songs and the million things that always go wrong when they shouldn’t…

So CHILL OUT with PRIMO JAMS all this month, courtesy of your RAD BROS at C3, and follow our most excellent progress on this timeline:

SWEET EIGHTIESTRAVAGANZA TIMELINE!!!

SMELL YA LATER!