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Blip Festival Round Table: The World Of 8-Bit Music Is A Small One

The world of 8-Bit Music and chiptuning is a small one.

Posted 15th January 2010, 4:31pm in Interviews, by Max Foxman
Albino Ghost Monkey The world of 8-Bit Music and chiptuning is a small one. renowned artists in this musical genre often have to play along with novices and newcomers to their world. Such was the case at last month's Blip Festival, when DIY reporter Max Foxman invited chiptuning luminary minusbaby to join in conversation with up and comer Albino Ghost Monkey about everything 8-bit. Albino Ghost Monkey, a Wisconsin native, had just played his first show in New York City the night before and, relative to minusbaby, is newer to the 8-Bit music scene. Pretty soon, the two artists were joined by the slightly more established New York duo Starscream, who have worked with minusbaby and others in the past. The four were happy to give their opinions on not just their shows, the Blip Festival and chiptuning in general, but also Kanye West and few other things.

So what would... We can also keep going... I mean in theory we can split the time if you [Albino Ghost Monkey] want to add some commentary too. I figure we just keep it casual.
AGM: I just have to say that 3-D thing was the shit. I saw Friday the 13th in 3-D a couple of weeks ago and it really inspired me after that. I should have brought my Friday the 13th 3-D glasses. I would have felt a lot more comfortable right.
minusbaby: Well maybe if I do it again, you can get a hockey mask and put the glass in the eyes. Wear it like a hat.

I think it's a 3-D Revolution.
minusbaby: Yeah it's happening. We played a show at Webster Hall a couple of months ago and I did a version... I've been working with text a lot. I just love drawing letters and whatnot. So I did a version a few months before that... where it looked like a screen print where the screen was slightly offset so it looked wrong. So I figured I would do it with Red/Blue 3-D for the Webster Hall one and that sort of gave me the idea to go on and do Red/Blue. Yeah...

What would you say sets your sound apart from others playing in this medium? What makes minusbaby be minusbaby?
minusbaby: It gets girls asses moving. It's nice. And that's a big reason why I like playing so often. Chip music. A lot of it is like this, but my thing gets the bottom end moving and I think it's probably because of the bass. I don't know. There's just no way around it I guess. The ass just starts moving. It's a beautiful thing, yeah. I remember somebody interviewed me and asked me the same thing and I was like 'I like it when the girls' naught bits jiggle' or something. And that's not the only reason. That's not why I make music, but it's nice when what I make, makes people do that.

It's kind of like the happy consequence of the music you make...
minusbaby: And I have all these weird influences too like I listen to tons of samba and bossa nova and Brazilian prog and what not and that makes it into my tunes somewhere. Like in my last EP there's a samba loop that's playing throughout lots of it and it's been what I've been growing up with. Like I grew up with on the Lower East Side, so I was surrounded by all this shit. Well not shit, but you know. But I figure if I am making tunes, I may as well include what I hear when I'm home working. Like things passing from my window. Like yeah yeah.

What sets New York from the other scenes? The European scenes. The midwest scenes.
minusbaby: It's hard to say. There's so many of us. There's no one sound really...
AGM: I think we look toward the New York Scene at all times. They're like the ones that give us the information of what's going on for the most part. Like in the whole Chip scene, we like look towards them as 'That's what we gotta keep up to.' The rest of the scene is catching up with the New York scene for the most part.
minusbaby: It's weird for me because I have been part of this for so long that I don't... A friend of mine told me how it's different for him. Krull who plays drums for me, he started listening to chip music kind of recently. So it was intimidating for him to walk into Blip Festival, meeting people he's been listening to all this time.
AGM: Oh. Same here. Same here man. Like I've been doing it for quite a few years now and just me being so detached from it. Like coming to this and seeing this whole... Wow this is the first show I've played where everyone's into the same thing. It's just so mind boggling that you guys in New York... And that's why it happens in New York, because you are the only guys right now that can get all those people into the same thing and actually have some resonance in the whole community.
minusbaby: Yeah, like hearing that, I'm in here. I'm so in it, so I don't know what people thing. You know what I mean? This isn't ego trip or something, but honestly...
AGM: That's completely understandable. It's the same way how I feel when JDDJ3J came up to me and was like 'Dude, you're awesome.' I'm like 'What are you talking about?' It's that same feeling. It's hard to take cred in this scene. It really is because everyone is so awesome. Everyone is influencing everyone. Everyone brings their own plate to it.

One of the things I noticed last night was that a lot of the people on stage were interacting and seemed to know the people offstage. So that's a pretty cool scene in and of itself. I mean do you think that's something unique to this chiptuning scene? That you're interacting with your friends?
AGM: Very much so. I think. It's the one time when at least for me, any chiptune musician I ever met, since we're so few and far between (especially in my area [Wisconsin]) you already know them. You're already buddies with them. It just seems like a genuine connection and when coming to something like this, it doesn't matter if you know them or not. It doesn't matter if you know them or not. They're all here for the same reasons. So, we're all equals. We're all buddies. It's like a little old get together party pretty much.
minusbaby: Yeah it's a trip. It's crazy. And it reminds me of, I mean I was a kid when it was happening, but like when hip-hop started in the Bronx and here. My brother was a DJ and so he was playing all the new shit and yeah it was the same way, where family and cousins were showing up for people's shows. And it's like what we're doing what hip-hop did and even punk. And then those scenes started mixing. And that's what I'm wondering. I'm wondering where our music is going to go next. Because, hip-hop and punk sort of merged. You have that Afrika Bambaataa. The one with Johnny Rotten. Destruction. And things are similar. The whole Do-It-Yourself thing. Buy a cheap-ass belt drive turntable and figure out how to scratch there. And punk had that bullshit guitar and figure it out and I wonder what we're going to connect with next. I mean there's kind of nothing really. There's circuit bending.
AGM: That's a different thing. Which is nice about that. That's a whole separate genre. People have been dabbling that for a long time without even posing. Like Nine Inch Nails for example. Trent Reznor has been using that stuff forever, but it's more of a noise thing. It gets more drawn toward the industrial side of music. I think it's a little more 'You have to be into that.' It's a little more noise driven and its hard for the public to accept, but it's more easily getting into it because anyone can do it. You can take apart a toy and start messing around and you get some cool sounds. Sample that. Golden, you know?
minusbaby: Yeah chip musicians is sort of like listening to ourselves writing a tune or something, which is real cool because we're composing full tunes on that. But yeah, I think. I just don't know where things are going to go next.

The other thing I noticed last night was that you do seem to have a lot of overlap with cultural groups. I don't know if this is something you are trying to avoid or maybe this is me stereotyping, but I met some people who know about the Dorkbot scene. I met a lot people who are working for Comic-con and companies around comic-con. Everyone seems to know each other. Is that true too?
minusbaby: That's what I like doing... because I want to bring something outside of what hasn't been here already to chip music. It's my hard headedness. I was raised listening to records. I figure everything should be in what I do. Yeah I think people... Chip music fans do tend to pick certain styles to listen to and stay there. So, yeah.
AGM: But that's what makes chiptunes different right? Because you can be any style of musician you want. You can be a punk. You can be a hip-hop guy. You can be a metalhead. It just happens to be that your platform is an old game machine or an old computer. That's what I like about it because honestly I am just a punk rocker who happened to pick up a Gameboy and I just felt that I can do it on there better than starting my own band.
minusbaby: Yeah a lot of people choose Chip music because of that. Like it's easy to just walk around with your gear and not have to deal with separate musicians.
AGM: You don't have to listen to a drummer saying 'Oh you missed a beat, dude.' Well my Gameboy don't miss a beat! I've been in enough bands... It's rough because you have, as a musician, you have your own idea of what your band would sound like. I hate to sound egotistical, but every musician has an idea of what a song should sound like. Even electronic music in general, I think that's why guys do it on their own because they want their sound projected. You get full control. If you mess up and people don't like it. Whatever. It's all you.
minusbaby: That's why I pared down my set this year. I sort of went all crazy last year. But I liked the improv aspect at the same time. I also like to bring out people once the tune is done. It's like the control freak in me eases up a bit. I am going to arrange my last EP for string quartet. So it will be even looser.

So what is next on your plate minusbaby?
minusbaby: That and visuals. I am going to start doing VJing. Yeah. Because I've been thinking about that a while and I think it would be really cool to get up and do it.

Well those are my questions for you minusbaby. Though you are free to stay while I ask some questions to Albino Ghost Monkey. You guys [Starscream] can come over here too if you want. I am trying to keep things casual. Try to make a little round table discussion.
minusbaby: Yeah. yeah.

Why don't we get all your names and bands.
AGM: Umm Dise [also known as] Albino Ghost Monkey. Wisconsin
George Stroud: George Stroud
Damon Hardjowirogo: Damon Hardjowrirogo. Starscream.

So general question for now anyone. How did you think your sets went?
AGM: I had a blast. I always have a blast. That's why I do it. I mean just to see other people getting into it. That's the enjoyment for me honestly. That's why I make music is for me to have fun. That's my outlet. I don't care if anyone else likes it, but if people do like it. Fuckin' right. I love you guys. That is the coolest thing for me. Other people want to rock out with me. I'm all down for it, ya know? I've never been one to judge anyone. If you like my stuff, I don't care who the hell you are. You rule in my book.

And was this your first time in New York?
AGM: This is my first time in New York.

So how does it feel?
AGM: Dude, amazing! Being in the midwest, there really isn't much of... we've got a lot of good musicians out there. We got Logain. We got New Corn Dream. We've got the Chicago boys like Saskrotch and Crusty. We've got a lot of good guys, but it's so hard for us to get all together and actually get a crowd and we're all so far away. It's ridiculous. Maybe once a year we get together, but it's nothing like this. There's no scene. There's no hub. We don't get a hub. We just all get together and find an excuse to party basically and that's about it.
minusbaby: But that's fucking hardcore
AGM: I know that's what I'm saying
GS: We played Castle Taco Skull. That shit was awesome. That was fun
AGM: It's hilarious. Our best shows are in houses.
GS: But that is an awesome house.
AGM: That's completely understandable. That's the rough part for us. Our best venue for chiptunes is the Garage up in Burnsville, Minnesota. It's an all ages venue and it's like the only one in the area. Even in Chicago you can't get an all ages event in Chicago if you tried your ass off. This is like the one place that accepts any type of music and gives us a shot to actually book a whole night and we can get like eight artists on at one time because they have two stages and everything.
GS: The all ages thing is definitely a big part of it because we played this summer in Chicago with Fight Dragons at Martyrs and we weren't allowed in after our set.
DH: It was fucking douchey.
AGM: I totally get it because honestly it's the kids that bring out more people and I'm going to be honest, they have dispensable income from their parents that they can spend. That actually keeps that venue going too and that's how you can actually get those guys. We can bring up Saskrotch. We can actually pay them. Because otherwise, you almost feel bad even though they do just want to come up and hang out. You kind of want to pay them for their time. They are amazing artists. It's like, 'Dude, you just rocked it. We got to pay you for that.'
DH: It's like... I always do it for the fun, but it is so hard when you can't get money if you are trying to go far because a lot of us can't get the money to fly or...
AGM: I'm always happy if I can break even. If I can break even, get gas money and food for that night, I'll play anywhere. You give me a place to crash and you get me there and I am good. That's all I can ask for is a good time and that's why I do music is to have a good time and if you basically get a free vacation out of it like Blip Festival, you know, dude, how can you turn that down really? I don't know. I have three jobs technically. I had to drop a lot of stuff to just be like 'Dude, yeah, I'm coming here.' I got that email from Jeremiah and I'm like 'Yeah, I'm here, awesome.'

And how did you think your set went Starscream?
GS: I'm feeling really good right now. Yeah. Especially there were two songs we didn't get to practice much and I felt pretty on top of them
DH: A little tired but satisfied.

Any highlights for the shows from all three of you?
DH: Failotron's set. Beautiful. It almost brought everyone around me to tears.
AGM: JDDJ3J
GS & DH: Oh yeah that was so good!
AGM: Like I never really wanted to break shit. As far as... because I am a nanolooper and him being one of the guys that I really look up to. Wow he really pushes that thing. That first song he started was so... seriously... I wanted to pick something up and fucking break it. You don't get that much chiptunes and he does it.

So now rehashing a couple of the questions that I said to minusbaby. You guys are using a specific medium, but you are all doing something different in terms of genre, influence, etc. So tell me about it. What sets you apart from other chiptuners?
AGM: I know I am one of the few and far between Nanoloopers. I recently have gone to 2.3 and I just felt for me that I got a distinct sound out of it, just because I can mix that FM synthesis with the normal chiptune sound, the square wave. You can just put that square wave, put that FM Synthesis. It's almost a little bit of that Sega in there. I know it's a bastard term sometimes. Mix a little of that Sega in there and it's great. I just like songs that are honestly just punk songs. Intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus and end. You know, straight to the point, balls to the wall, wall of sound. You know, like let's go. That's about it?
DH: My devilishly handsome looks.
GS: There's one thing that we've done that I don't see in a lot of chip groups. It's that a lot of people will start within the chip scene and then branch their way out playing with other musicians and we started by playing with local punk bands and all our friends' rock bands and worked our way into the chip scene. So we didn't play our first like 'Chip' show until we were around for a year and we had been doing shows actively until then.
AGM: Same here man. I was intimidated when I got to play with Logane and Unicorn Dream Attack. Like that was my first chip show.
GS: And I was like he's going to judge me. He's going to judge our shit.
AGM: It was about a year until I played with other chiptuners. I was so like 'Really? This is cool! This is awesome.' I was a giddy little school girl...

One of the things that I noticed particularly in your set Albino Ghost Monkey and JDDJ3J's set, you each have to perform onstage in a unique way. You have to be a presence, dancing on stage. Do you have things you will and will not do in terms of your performance.
DH: I used to hide behind my hair and then I cut it all off. I really feed off the energy of the audience. If not too many people are there, I can still have a fun time, but like tonight I think I have had the most time I have had in a long time playing a show and that was directly the energy of the audience.
AGM: I think always my favorite bands I ever listened to or been into have always been bands who put on one hell of a live show. It doesn't matter if it's two people or 200 people or 2000 people, they'll rock the hell out and that's how I kind of go at it. That's why I love making my music. I'm going to rock the hell out, no matter what. I think that's the fun part about it. I like putting on a show. I think that's what people pay for. It bothers me a little bit when you see these metal bands or something. There's all this gnarly heavy stuff and they just stand there. What are you paying for? I am just listening to the cd. You come there to get that energy from that person. You've got to put on that show. You're a musician, but when you go on stage, you're an entertainer. You may not want to be an entertainer, but if you're performing, yeah you're an entertainer. Put on the show. That's kind of how I feel about it.
minusbaby: That's why in 2003, I had to figure out why I was performing, so I stopped for like two years. Because I was thinking why are people going to hear and watch a guy on his computer. And, like, part of it was I wanted to perform, but I didn't know why, so I stopped for two years, then came back and figured out, like Daniel just said, like when the energy's good, it doesn't matter if you're jumping up and down or whatever. A musician, doing their thing and working.
AGM: If you get into it, that makes other people are getting into it. If you truly love what you're doing and you're freaking out, those other people are going to loosen their inhibitions and everything and be like, 'That dude's acting like an idiot. Let's go man.'
DH: That's so true, but it always takes everybody else's energy to remind me of that. Sometimes. I just won't get into it the whole time because I'm just freaking out there onstage.
AGM: I'm not going to lie to you. I slammed a beer before I went up there and that really helped me out. It was almost like I was playing my first show again. I almost feel like I had to, not say prove something, but you get asked to play Blip and you got to deliver something, especially following a guy like JDDJ3J
minusbaby: And it's different too. It's not like you're playing to a room full of newcomers. Everybody knows it's going to be fucking cool more or less, unless something happens, you get shot onstage. And if that happens that's pretty fucking cool too. Some Kanye shit happens.
GS: Kanye got up on the stage, man, I would punch him in the face
AGM: Yeah right. Slam my Gameboy on his fucking head. Steal this.

I'm enjoying recording this for posterity.
minusbaby: Fuck Kanye! Actually, I'm two steps of beef from him. I always listen to Sa-Ra Creative Partners, I don't know if you know those guys. In the Gay Fish Episodes, they're his crew. And they're producers on their own and they produce for all these people. So I listen to their record and their first track, they're singing in Spanish and it's really bad. So I tweet it. I said, you know, and I mention Mos Def sounded really good in Spanish. He sounds like a drunk Cuban, which is fucking perfect, so I wrote 'Yeah, remember I mentioned Mos Def sounded so good. Sa-Ra not so good.' And then the next day, it was still in my head. I'm like, 'Remember I mentioned this, this is a track.' And then I forget his name, but a guy from Sa-Ra tweeted me back saying, 'Hey why are you sending us so much hate. Free up evil man. Fly Away.' That's what he said!
DH: Sounds like wandering bear.
minusbaby: So I wrote back. I'm like, 'Yeah, I make fun of my own Spanish.' So, yeah, Fuck Kanye! And the guy who gets shot onstage should live.

So maybe also speak about the visuals backing you up as much as you saw them.
DH: So I got to work on mine with our visualist. And we just went all out custom for it. People were telling me it looked great and I got to see it beforehand and too bad I couldn't turn around because that would look weird. People were telling me at the Data Beat shows that there were monitors so that people could see their visuals and I liked that idea a lot.
AGM: I wish I would have had that because I took my glasses off. So I know he did a great job from what everyone else is telling me, but I saw a blurry mess because that's what happens when I take my glasses off, because I can't rock out with my glasses on. They just go and I break them.
minusbaby: Get some prescription goggles right?
AGM: Should I do like the Dennis Rodman?
minusbaby: Yeah. Yeah!
AGM: That'll be my shtick.
minusbaby: I guess today I was caught off guard though. This is during the end, I looked to the side and I saw myself flying?
AGM: That was priceless! The look on your face was just like, what the?
GS: Enso's signature move is to find like your first picture ever on Facebook and make it fly across the screen.
minusbaby: We worked on that together for this thing in Brazil, but he told me he was going to use it, but I didn't think... You know I saw myself fucking 14 feet tall. I thought, Oh shit it's me! Then I realized I was doing shit, so I had to run back to it, but yeah we do need monitors or something onstage.
DH: That's just another energy to feed off, then, because when it matches your songs, it feels good. You know there's this whole experience going on and like...
AGM: That would be really nice because once again I take my glasses off and I have to be fairly close to see what's going on. It would be really nice. That screen is really big.

So, quite a few of you it sounds like are visual and musical people. How does that come about? Is it a love of all things technological or something else?
DH: I just love doing as much as I can, making a whole product. And if you want to make a whole product, you have to know at least a little about each part. Like I'm not a really good graphic artist, but I have tons of friends who are amazing like Rich, minusbaby, who just did some art for our new CD and that's coming in a booklet. I have ideas, but I have friends who help me make those ideas happen
minusbaby: For me, it's a lot of control freak stuff. And like I was saying before, I don't have anything against gaming references and graphics, but it's just not where my music is coming from, so I would like to be able to go at it from cubist's angle. I know more about Mark Rothko than I do Duke Nukem. That's just where I come from.
AGM: I think mixing your art in general is a good idea. I mean hell, no offense. I'll use a cheap reference: Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. I mean really. That's just a common thing, but having visuals in our music is nothing new. It just seems to be a really nice accompaniment to everything.
minusbaby: It's personal, you know. If you're making the tunes, it's nice to be able to control how it comes across.
AGM: Just like people make music videos right? You want to see some sort of visual representation of what is going on.

But I have been to plenty of concerts with a visual or artistic component where the artist isn't mentioned. That seems to be something inherent to Blip and Chiptuning.
DH: Well as soon as I started going to these chiptune shows and everything, I realized there was a strong emphasis on the visuals just from the organizers standpoint. Like you'll go to a lot of giant music festivals and whoever is doing visuals, running lights is never listed on the bill and it's always whoever makes the flyer or organizes the show makes a point to say, 'blah blah doing music and graphics by...' they're never left out. It's a part of it.
AGM: I always like seeing that. It's nice to see visuals done by... because those guys do work. Even lighting guys, who just do stage lights, they work their asses off to keep that stuff on beat.
minusbaby: And a lot of DJs write their own software. It's not a mistake.
AGM: It's a whole other art form. And when you're a musician, you should appreciate art in general you know.
minusbaby: And a big reason I do pixel art is because of that control aspect. Every pixel counts. Which is amazing to me. Like I did the Saskrotch cover and it's a silouette of a woman's breast and the nipple's there.
AGM: Amazing!
minusbaby: Underneath, there are three pixels missing. When the pixels are there, it looks like a lifeless tit. Without the pixels you want to squeeze it. That's amazing to me. It's three pixels. It's nice to be in control.

One more question left: What's next for Albino Ghost Monkey and Starscream?
AGM: I got some albums coming out. I'm a Nanoloop fanboy. I will promote Nanoloop until the day I die. So that's basically what I'm going to be doing, just pushing Nanoloop as much as I can. That's about it. I messed around with a lot of other programs, but man I just keep coming back to that Nanoloop
GS: We have a release party scheduled next month for our next CD. It's like a concept EP and at least two others were already working on, so never not working.
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