Title: Rock the Casbah
Artist: Solar Twins
BPM: 145
Simfile #017
Difficulty: Light- 4, Standard- 5, Heavy- 7

Solar Twins are sadly completely unknown, even in the world of trance. They had a minor hit with "Aleluias," and it was that song that turned me on to them. Their album (self-titled, brought out in 1999) is simply fantastic, very new-agey and packed with awesome melodies. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys vocal trance of the sort exemplified by Rock the Casbah. As for the aforementioned tune, it's a great cover of the classic rock song by the Clash. Joanna Stevens' breathy vocals provide a strong complement to the harder male vocals and rocking beats of the chorus. It's one of the best techno covers of a rock song I've ever heard, for sure.

The steps I tried to design with "fun" the utmost thought in my mind. At 145 BPM, the song is swift without being overwhelming, so there was a lot of room to produce something fun and energetic. I cut the song a little long (right at 2:00), but the first 20-30 seconds are too soft to step anyway, so the actual length of the steps should be just about right.

Light I created to be a fun challenge, and definitely not for the absolute beginner. Lots of jumps and slightly complex patterns will keep the experienced Light player on their toes.

Standard is meant to be a taste of the Heavy steps, without being "Heavy with less stuff". A few hidden surprises, but the steps shouldn't be as challenging to a Standard player as the Light steps would be to a Light player.

Heavy is a strong 7, with lots of crossovers and 4th-8th bounces (a couple of my favorite things). The opening doesn't have a beat, I know. Bite me. I'm not about to have 30 full seconds without any steps, and I've already opened with freeze series on the previous two difficulties, so you'll just have to try listening to the music in order to figure out what to do. Hopefully, anyone who plays these steps will have to go a couple rounds before they can get them perfectly. Everything can be done easily enough, but I've attempted to trip up anyone who isn't paying attention, so consider yourselves warned. My main goal was to give a feel for the music, so maybe the player will feel like they're, oh, I dunno, dancing.

No Challenge chart was included, as I don't feel the song really warrants one. All the patterns that could fit into this song have pretty much been taken care of. No background videos, either, as the song doesn't have one itself and I'm just not that good with them yet anyway.

Steps created by TakeWalker: n64philodox@yahoo.com

Background image taken from the album cover for Solar Twins; banner image from the CD insert. Text created by Take Walker, meant to imitate the style of the actual font they used. This is quite possibly the pinnacle of my simfile graphics creation.

Mega thanks to Mordecai and Wag at #ddrfurs for feedback.

CDTitle created by Blink. Thanks!