Happy New Year
As much as dates are meaningless to me its nice to sit back and think about all the things that have happened this last year, as well as things to come.
2008 was a busy year for me. It started off with a unexpected chiptune show in San Francisco with old friends and new. It pushed me to write new material which eventually led to the Icarus EP release on 8bitpeoples. Meanwhile I was leaning electronics and micro controller programming with the Arduino- while in SF I had a small discussion with Nullsleep about using the Arduino to create a MIDI sync device for LSDJ. Which led to my Arduino project: Arduinoboy.
Coming home inspired and pumped up from the show I started hanging out in various Internet community sites such as 8bitcollective.com. After a few stressful visits of slow unwilling to load pages I got into a discussion with one of the admins there by the name of Low-Gain. I convinced him and others to give me code access so I could speed up the performance of their site. Since then I've added a few improvements and met countless awesome people involved in this ever expanding scene- which in turn led to more gigs in LA, Portland, and NYC.
After a few gigs I got fed up with lugging around the NES. I decided to start a new development project for the Gameboy dubbed: mGB - A cart that turns the Gameboy into a musical synthesizer with full midi support- linked with Arduinoboy.
Later in the year Nullsleep invited me to help master his new EP: Unconditional Acceleration - which made me realize how much of a nightmare it is to try to master anything let alone Gameboy music. Followed it up by mastering Minusbaby's EP: Saudade for Beginners.
The year wrapped up nicely playing a show in New York City: Blip festival 2008. Wow! What a way to sum up a year. I've met people for the first time in real life whom I've known for years online. Met a couple of fans. Saw quite a few mind blowing acts. As well as accomplishing a decent performance at the end of the event.
I want to thank friends and family, everyone who've given me the opportunity to perform, helped me with my noob electronics questions, downloaded and enjoyed my music, left comments, bought my cd at shows, and who've helped out the scene in general.
What you can see from me this next year: Expect a new release in the next coming months. Updates to mGB & Arduinoboy. Shows in various cities. Hopefully a tour in Japan. (If you know or have info to help me out here email me.) As well as some new hardware projects.
Comments
happy new year to you too!
love your musics man, keep it up! cant wait for the release. you're my personal hero, no kidding.
How do i donate money? I like your music.
HNY to you too !
I'm really happy for you man, I always knew you would make something really impressive out of yourself. Most impressive, young Skywalker :D
I remember way back when we started working together at Onespace, and I was totally taken in by your friends - maybe a little to much, I almost dissolved myself indulging in things that I should have had more control of. Totally my fault, and I've been kind of cruising ever since. I guess I was wowed by all the different people and attitudes, the downtown culture pre-ballpark years. It's all different now.
Funny, an online friend was posting some stuff on LiveJournal about the NorCal Moontribe, and I remember being at that New Years Eve massive party Insomniac used to throw. I looked up the tribe on a whim and found their website. I was kind of surprised they made one, I remember how that guy walked up to us and invited us just on a feeling, as if Moontribe was truly special and lifechanging, like a house or trance song - whatever genre within electronica - could make a fan even out of an elderly person with no cultural reference point to electronic music, no way to relate. I guess that's the sense of childlike wonder and enthusiasm that made me so in love with that scene to the point that I was headed downhill fast like some story on Dateline or whatever trash tabloid TV "journalism".
I've got no excuse though, in spite of my Mom really secluding me, and my relationship with the woman who became my wife doing much of the same, I've started down a road of improvement, and trying to learn all that crap I started when we met. Man, watching you whip up a song in 30 minutes with some cruddy wav's off of ravelinks and Fasttracker is one of the defining moments of my life. I really saw, live and in person, that one can do just about anything if you actually put your mind to it, really want it, and just freakin' stick with it.
I will always cherish our friendship, and I wish you the success and happiness you deserve this year and beyond.
I was really sad when I found out about your Portland show after the fact. It would've been pretty awesome to see you!
Hey!
Great to hear that your back up in the saddle again. I cant wait to get my hands on your next release. P.s Any chance you can manage to get more of your songs up on Spotify? Icarus is only album available.
Yay :D tacos!
I was just searching to see if you ended up naming that new song from Blip Fest "Tacos" or not
still such a great weekend in my memory, have a great 2009
I've been listening to the Icarus EP since it came out, and it never gets old. Just popping in to say thanks again for making such great music. I can't wait for your next release.
But since I'm here, I might as well ask something: Asking as a fellow (but far inferior) electronic musician, what are the chances of some description of how you go about making tracks? (e.g., do you typically start with a beat? A melody? A chord progression? An ABAC etc song format? What's next? How do you create good sections? Do you rely on music theory a lot or just your ear? What production techniques do you use to get everything to gel together so nicely? How do you fit the 8-bit analog sounds so nicely together with the hifi sounds? What real or virtual instruments do you like to use?)
If you don't want to give away your secrets or just don't have the time, I understand completely. But your music is so well composed and produced it would be a really rare honor. Tracks like Icarus and Robot Sneakers sound like the best stuff I could even imagine making, and I would love to know how you get to that point from a blank page. Myself and I bet tons of other artists would be incredibly grateful.
I always start with some kind of melody or chord progression. It's usually a tedious process. 1 song is usually the result of 15 songs that suck. :)
Somehow I doubt that they suck. Especially given what Yerk was saying about your abilities.
That said, I'd love to hear the 75 rejected tracks for the 5-track Icarus EP. ;D
I enjoyed reading this, you're an inspiration! (cheesy I know)
Anyway, you need to start writing more blog posts, 'cause I enjoy reading them!
I'd have to say, out of all the thing's i've heard from you, Icarus EP is still your best :p
Keep up the good work!
Hi there! Greetings from South Africa. Stopping by to say, much respect for the fantastic music. Thank you.
The Blip Festival 2008 2CD has awaken my lust for 8bit music. But shipping it alone to France would be such a waste.
What about you make CD version of Icarus and Hologram and put it to sale on the 8bits people website?
I'll buy it for sure (and it will divide the shipping cost :) ).