May 2012
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March 2012
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January 2012
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Post-MAGFest Recap + Taking Game Boy Orders
We’re all still coming down from MAGFest last weekend and as expected, this year was the best it’s ever been. All the chip concerts exceeded expectations, and I was especially pleased to see the legendary Jake “Virt” Kaufman — pink hair, glowsticks and all — back on stage after a few years of MIA. Seeing Nobuo Uematsu and his band Earthbound Papas was also a...
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MAGFest Time Is Here →
MAGFest is an event I’ve had the pleasure of attending annually for the better part of the past 5 years. For those unfamiliar, here’s the dark of it: 4 days of non-stop, round-the-clock concerts, games, panels and partying inside of a giant hotel / convention center in the D.C. area. Accent on the partying.
While I usually steer clear of videogame cover bands and “fan”...
November 2011
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September 2011
1 post
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August 2011
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June 2011
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Blip Festival 2011: Full Set Now Available On Free... →
The full Zen Albatross set from Blip Festival 2011 is now available for streaming and download at Free Music Archive. Board recordings of all the acts will be posted over the next week so keep checking back. There’s also a fair amount available right now.
Many, many thanks to our friends at WFMU and FMA for recording and hosting these.
May 2011
2 posts
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Blip Festival 2011: THANK YOU
Six years ago, I had never been to a chip music show in my life. I had no clue how to use a tracker and I didn’t know what a “hexadecimal genome” was (I still don’t, but I’m known to stagedive when 10K asks loudly into a microphone). Nevertheless, I reached out from my academic prison in upstate New York to channel what I could of the radiant energy that seemed to...
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April 2011
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BLIP FESTIVAL IS HAPPENING: May 19--21 @ Eyebeam...
I attended my first Blip Festival in 2008, after completing my undergrad work in upstate New York. Despite being the focus of my studies for the past 2 years, I had used a tracker maybe once, and had been to exactly two chip shows. The fest was vibrant and exhilarating, and I was perfectly content with watching from the sidelines.
Now, by some strange twist of fate, I’m slated to perform...
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The Sound of #Sworcery: Q+A With Indie... →
Amidst a desolate landscape of barely-stimulating apps made with boring train rides in mind, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (read my review here) stands as a testament to the potential for seriously expressive videogaming on Apple’s iOS platform. Unlike the fruit-slicing, bird-catapulting monotony of its peers, this Canadian indie collaboration is designed to hijack your senses,...
March 2011
4 posts
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Interviewed On WNYC's Soundcheck (Audio) →
Yesterday I was a guest of John Schaefer on WNYC’s Soundcheck along with Grammy award-winning videogame composer Christopher Tin. We didn’t discuss anything earth-shatteringly new if you follow this blog regularly, but I was able to draw a couple points from an article I had written previously on the future of videogame music. I also briefly skimmed the surface on contemporary chip...
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See Ya, GDC. Hello, PAX East
I’m still not fully recovered from all of the rad stuff that went on last week at GDC in San Francisco (see some of my coverage here, here and here), but nevertheless, I’m headed to Boston this weekend for PAX East.
The chip showcase we had there last year was pretty legit, but this year it’s going into overdrive: Local allies Boston8bit have teamed up with MAGFest to organize...
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If You Build It, They Will Play: Interview With... →
[At GDC, I had a chance to interview Nealon Ledbetter, newly-appointed curator of The MADE, a new crowdfunded videogame museum in San Francisco.]
Have you ever played a game on the Apple Bandai Pippin ? How about the JVC X’Eye ? Even if you’re a retro gaming diehard, chances are you haven’t. For most people, these consoles and many others like them remain, at best, dim memories —...
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GDC, Here I Come! Show Info + More Neat Stuff You...
As I write this, Albatross Industries’ latest prototype airship is being prepped for its maiden voyage to the fair and distant land of San Francisco. Upon my arrival I’ll be attending for the first time the world-renowned Game Developers Conference. If you’ll be doing the same, here’s where you can find me:
First and foremost, I’m playing DOPE, a monthly electronic...
February 2011
4 posts
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Gaga, The Grammys & Videogame Music's Ongoing... →
[My latest piece on Motherboard tackles the significance of videogame music’s first encounter with the Grammys, and whether or not either side really understands what videogame music is, was or should be.]
Somewhere between Lady Gaga’s red carpet egg-cellence, a TV anchor epilepsy scare and everyone on Twitter asking who the F is The Arcade Fire, an unlikely group found cause for...
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On Limitations, Image & Elitism In Chip Music
[Below is a comment made by one of my peers about why chip musicians choose to work within the limitations of antiquated hardware. I obviously respect the commenter’s opinion and realize there is some truth to it, but I feel that by posting this and my response here, it might help clear up a common misconception that chip musicians are elitist scenesters who rebel against modern music...
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January 2011
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George & Jonathan Win 'Best Chip Album' In OSV's... →
[One of the sites I contribute to, Original Sound Version, just announced the winners of their annual music awards, and my good bros George & Jonathan have won for ‘Best Chip Music Album’!]
Coming seemingly out of nowhere, dance party duo George & Jonathan have smitten us this year with their toxic tunes and endearing, finger-wagging sass. While not “chip” music by its...
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Upcoming Shows: I/O NYC Tonight + MAGFest This...
It’s a new decade and already I’m inundated with more opportunities to fill peoples’ ears with abrasive waveform synthesis.
Tonight I’ll be performing at I/O NYC in Manhattan’s Lower East Side with my Brooklyn buddy NOTE! and special guest ROCKMAN from Colombia. I’ve had the good fortune of hearing both live a number of times and I can’t recommend...
December 2010
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5 New Years Tech Resolutions To Keep You Alive In... →
[Not my usual style, but here’s a fun little number I did for the holiday, combining year-in-tech recaps with some irreverent and moderately substantiated prophecy; Happy New Solar Cycle, y’all.]
The double-0’s are double-over, and with all the kerfuffle that’s gone on in the past 365 earth rotations, there’s never been a better time to re-assess your role on this lonely planet...
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Ode To A Blip Festival: REFORMAT THE PLANET DVD... →
It was an especially cold December in New York City this year. And it had nothing to do with the massive blizzard that was whipping 18 inches of snow around at speeds up to 35 mph. It had to do with the fact that, for the first time in a long while, the five boroughs (and indeed the world) was bereft of the joyous celebration known as The Blip Festival, the largest chip music festival that...
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What Wikileaks Crackdowns Say About The Game Our... →
[In my latest piece on Motherboard, I’m considering the ‘game’ mechanics inherent in foreign policy, and the real reason Wikileaks threatens the players of a broken, game-like system of international diplomacy]
Remember a while ago when the World Trade Center blew up and we blamed that one guy who sent us tons of videos from his secret supervillain hideaway in the mountains...
November 2010
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The GIF That Keeps On GIFing: Why Animated Images... →
[My latest piece on Motherboard explores the many faces of the animated GIF in order to reveal the secrets behind its long history as a ubiquitous staple of internet culture.]
The internet of yesterday is no more. Long gone are the days of HTML frames, kitschy border graphics and blinking scrolly-text. But from the ashes of the anarchy that was Web 1.0, there is one flavor of imagery that has...
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I Am An Obsolete Warhorse: Obligatory Birthday...
Today marks a quarter-century of my existential blight upon this planet. I’ve gotten into the habit of making a personal post like this each year to keep track of the ever-accelerating whirlwind of successes and failures (and everything in between) that defines and re-defines my role on this lonely, gaseous hunk of rock called Earth. This year has been a doozy, so here goes:
To say that...
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From 'Space Invaders' To 'Call of Duty,' Have... →
[In my latest piece on Motherboard, I draw from Simon Carless’ recent retrospective critique of Modern Warfare 2 to briefly illustrate what’s right and wrong with modern shooting games, and why they’re all still just permutations of a simple mathematical formula]
With all their fanfare, record-breaking sales numbers and accompanying controversy, it’s interesting to ponder...
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11.4.10 - Nullsleep, George & Jonathan and Zen...
If you’ve payed even a lick of attention to my recent posts, you’ve probably heard about the brand-new Babycastles indie games arcade which opened up shop early last month in the heart of midtown Manhattan. But let’s recap anyway:
This beautifully decorated pop-up art space located a block from Grand Central station has quickly taken its rightful place as the hub of...
October 2010
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25 Years of GreatNES With The Nintendo... →
Where would videogames be today if it weren’t for the Nintendo Entertainment System? It’s a question that’s almost impossible to answer, considering the pivotal role that the celebrated 8-bit console had, not just in bringing videogames back into our living rooms after the great game crash of the early 1980’s, but establishing videogames as legitimate part of the cultural iconography.
...
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Nixing the Tali-ban: EA's Censorship & Why... →
Last week, videogame software giant EA made a puzzling and unsettling announcement: Due to recurring complaints from a vocal minority of friends and relatives of fallen servicemen, the company would be removing any mention of the Taliban from their new game, a reboot of the Medal of Honor franchise that focuses on the war in Afghanistan, by re-naming the terror group simply the “Opposing...
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NYU's Frank Lantz on 'Games After Art' →
Sure, we could continue having the “are games art?” debate from now until doomsday. But NYU’s Frank Lantz has a different take on the role of games — video or otherwise — in our culture as human beings. Rather than drawing parallels in order to artificially place games within familiar contexts we can understand, Frank probes the depths of the human psyche to reveal the unique role that games...
September 2010
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Music Update: 1st Single Out Now, New Music Coming...
UPDATE: It looks like Bandcamp got the message, and are now offering to ‘refresh’ everyone’s free download allowances back up to 200 at the end of every month. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Greetings, fellows and female fellows. I’ve been all over the place this month in Seattle, PhilIy and New York with little time for a formal blog post, so I thought I’d take a minute to...
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August 2010
8 posts
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Handmade Music Returns to NYC
Handmade Music, the every-once-in-a-while DIY electronics science fair that doubles as an all-ages concert returns to NYC tonight with a workshop and free circuitbending party/exhibit courtesy of Lower Manhattan gallery space Culturefix.
On the lineup this time: The Neurohedron, a metal dodecahedron that encases a nonlinear sequencer, Modal Kombat, a piece that uses custom software to control...
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Live From The Arcade: The PAX 2009 DVD (Review) →
From webcomic to charity to convention, Jerry Holkins & Mike Krahulik’s Penny Arcade empire has quickly become one of the most successful properties in the videogaming world. So when the duo approached NYC filmmaking troupe 2 Player Productions (creators of the soon-to-be-released chiptune documentary, Reformat The Planet) and asked them to shoot a web series and document PA’s yearly gaming...
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Babycastles: Where Punk Rock & Homemade Videogames... →
[The punk rock spirit is alive and well at Babycastles, NYC’s only indie games arcade. Check out my coverage of their latest gallery opening party on Motherboard]
In New York City, there’s a new arcade in town. But don’t expect to find anything you could purchase at your local Gamestop here. Instead, the homemade titles that fill the ramshackle cabinets of this musty basement just off the...
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"No Cheering In The Press Box" And Other Rules... →
A sobering look at how press fanaticism is killing videogame journalism’s credibility.
Today at QuakeCon, developers speaking on a “Building Blockbusters” panel took issue with “stone-faced” games journalists at product demos, as if the absence of emotional displays in a journalist is somehow a bad thing. Sports journalists never cheer during ballgames — so...
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Shael Riley & TDIB Putting The Finishing Moves On...
Equal parts chiptune artist, guitarist and experienced singer-songwriter, Shael Riley and his band The Double-Ice Backfire, unlike many acts unwittingly branded with the silly and somewhat ignominious label of ‘nerdcore’ music, don’t simply aim to appeal to an audience of geeks jonezing for lyrics jam-packed with videogame references. Sure, there are parts where a working knowledge of...
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July 2010
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The Nintendo Game Boy Is Now Old Enough To Drink
That’s right, folks. They sure do grow up quick, don’t they? Of course, it wouldn’t be proper for our good friend the DMG-01 — whose status as a retro icon was earned by setting innumerable milestones in portable gaming and even helping revive interest in chiptune music — to experience his 21st without having a huge party full of friends, booze and killer tunes.
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