Cat Brigade - Messing About

After Yatagarasu, Justin from Cat Brigade got up on stage with a copy of Nanoloop and a laptop. The other guy from Cat Brigade was out camping on the day of the show, so it was a half-staffed act. And then he also got interrupted by the staff, since they closed at midnight (I went on at 11) and kicked everyone out. All in all, the venue could have been better, or we could have started earlier, or something, but it ended up being kind of awkward for everyone involved.

Oh well! The show was done, and so it was time for me to drive back to Grand Rapids, work the next morning, and then get to Chicago the following afternoon for a show of my next three featured bands: Starscream, Anamanaguchi, and I Fight Dragons!!



Cat Brigade's Website

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Yatagarasu - Cut Off

Oddly appropriate for a song title, since Yatagarasu was unfortunately cut off in the middle of their set. Despite the fact that we were in a music cafe, a venue that (I assume) plays music on a regular basis, the neighbors were complaining about the volume. Of course, a band like this can't live with low volume (and would you want them to anyway?) and so after compromising a little bit, they were once again talked to and then got off the stage. Unfortunate, since now that I've bought their CD on iTunes and can listen to their stuff properly (i.e. not on Myspace) I've found that it's fantastic stuff! Their set, as short as it was, sounded really great. Also, Chris (NES Programmer and lead singer) uses Nintendo consoles differently from anyone else I've ever heard of to make music. Foot pedals and a giant drum machine/mixer looking thing are all manipulated constantly during the show, and noise just pours out of his two torn up consoles. It's really incredible.



Yatagarasu's Website

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NOROCK - The Jams

Today, 8-Bit Daily is going to update six times! I both performed in and attended a chiptune show, and so to showcase the awesome artists that I played with and rocked out to, I'm giving them all a place on my site! Woooooo!

So the first act of the first show was me. It was kind of nerve-wracking being up in front of people with just my laptop. There was no light show of any kind, and I didn't even have a mic to talk to the crowd. All I could do was play my music! Well, despite my weird nervousness, I think it sounded pretty good, and I got good reactions from the few people in the audience.



NOROCK's Website

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FantomenK - Slayer Waves

Awesome rock chiptune track that goes through a lot of phases as it progresses. Excellently chosen waveforms for his instruments (especially that lead, wow!), nice clean "real" drums back it up, and a glaze of subtle effects over top really polish it to a soft sheen. Yes, this track is the genuine article.



FantomenK's Website

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Oiki ft. MsPsyjazz - Twilight, September

Really weirdly named track but it's cool! This is the product of two people improvising live at some sort of venue or club or something. It starts off like any jam session, with the artists not immediately meshing, but once they find a groove it's really good stuff. So here. A chiptune jam session.



Oiki's Website

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Anticlimax - Rip Me Open

A healthy amount of syncopation, intelligent and subtle use of accidentals, and some killer percussion and well-placed arps all super-team it up to bring you this sweet track!



Anticlimax's Website

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Sanczo Zapienkanka - Dancing in the Fallout

Made with DS-10. I've actually had the chance (since last I spoke about DS-10) play around with the program and I can now tell you first hand that it is terribly difficult to make music like today's track using that software.

TERRIBLY difficult. Its saving grace for me was the fact that it's a piano roll (despite having unbearably short phrases) layout and it's very, very fun to mess around with the simulated Kaoss Pad. The downside is that there's TWO instruments plus drums, and the instruments cannot be changed much during a phrase (i.e. you can't readily abuse the phrase and manipulate it into having, for all intents and purposes, two instruments in one instrument channel that conveniently never harmonize with each other). So making cool, thick music like this is a product of overdubbing or using the DS-10's wireless mode to sync multiple tracks together. Either way... Commendable!



Sanczo Zapienkanka's Website

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