Artist collective 8bitpeoples and Manhattan art space The Tank put on an event known as the Blip Festival this week at eyebeam in Chelsea NYC this week from Thursday November 29 to Sunday December 2. The focus of this event was musicians/composers/performers who make music on 8 bit Nintendos, Game Boys, Ataris, Commodore 64s and the like.
I checked out Saturday night's line-up for a bit. I was surprised to see such a large crowd (probably 500+) but, more impressive, was the quality of the tunes and the enthusiasm of the audience. Not to mention that people knew the words to the tunes and the artists within the scene.
First I caught Tree Wave who was rocking a modified Atari cartridge with his set list projected and mixed with Atari gems like Combat. He was also on the mic and messing with samplers and people were digging it. Nothing like what was to come next, though.
Bit Shifter took the stage and explained through a raspy voice that he was sounding hoarse from shouting all week. I'm thinking, "these guys are this serious about this music?" Using a Game Boy, this guy rocked the place. Fast 140-150 bpm tracks (prob even faster) with those classic 8-bit timbres brought out the mosher in these geeks. Not since the Beastie Boys show have I seen people bug out to this degree, although in a safer nerdier fashion. Crowd surfing was going down and it was inspiring. To pull off this kind of enthusiasm with a fucking Game Boy really put a big hole in the way I see live electronic performance.
This is an event that is not to be missed next year. For more info: blipfestival.org
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