I was hoping you would appear here.

I know chipmusic as this whole spectrum of arts is way too young. But my first intention is by merely illustrating and bringing it more accurately to people, showing not too deep about how it feels to be part of it and listen to the music.

Also, what I aim is far from academic - at university we were encouraged to write like a journalist book as you could find in the likes of HIroshima or the gonzo stuff.

My main inspiration is exactly some series of books we had here in Brazil explaining stuff to people in a short book (maybe I should go this way). It's a serie called "What is..." and there was one written about Punk. It was release in 84 and Punk was just some random dudes that started playing. The "scene" was about 5 years if my math is right and still a guy wrote dismistifying it all. Didn't help much, but is something that captured the moment.

My english is not that good to write a book, it would have lots of flaws. But thinking better about it, why try to make it physical, at least for now? Free and digital would be good if it's not a big book.

And it's sad that the material you have, Natty, will stay hidden for a while Also, goto80, when you finish your book, please show!

Well, I will think better about it - maybe stay a little more to start - but it's good to see the good response about it.

Great initiative!

I'm also working on a "book", which is based on my master's thesis about the methods and motivations in chipmusic, that I just finished. As Natty suggests, a book needs to be made more interesting than the dry academic discourse allows for. There are many misconceptions that should be cleared out, and there is long history (in Europe) that can/should be properly documented. Especially when the short-styled Internet-memory has become dominant.

That said, the main purpose would be to write an interesting book about particular things, not to give some wannabe-objective view.

That's... fucking amazing.

Yeah, my mother's family is from the Himalayas so they have an empty house there.

I definitely would like to use the material at some later date, but I don't see it happening very soon, unfortunately.

Natty, that's really interesting.  The Himalayas, really?  Intense.  Do you have any plans for the material you did put together, however incomplete?

About two years ago I began a book about the chip music scene. I conducted over 40 hours of interviews in person, did a few dozen email interviews, read as much as I could about it, watched hours of footage, and wrote the outline for a book proposal as well as about a hundred pages of the book itself while secluded in a cabin in the Himalayas for a month.

For real.

After spending several months working on this project and pitching it to a few well-respected journalists and authors, the conclusion was almost unanimous: too soon.

I think if you want to go for it, you absolutely should, and I think that something like a photo book celebrating the scene and giving an overview of what it is would probably work and appeal to fans within the scene.

However, if you'd want to reach a mainstream audience, and if your intention is to do a history of the chip music scene, then I do think it is too soon. Granted, the scene has been thriving for a long time, but it's still going strong and the future is still so open that I think (and quite a few people have agreed with me) that it's too soon to write a definitive history of it with adequate hindsight.

Having said that, if you do go through with the project I'll help in any way I can and my advice to you is to write something about the people involved in the scene, what it means to them, and who they are rather than an academic analysis of the music or a dry character-less history of the culture.

I'm really not trying to discourage you - just warning you about some of the pitfalls I faced.

Personally, I think that some kind of coffee-table photo book with essays from several people and art from people like Minusbaby, Marjorie Becker, Diana Yee, and the scene's many VJs would be a much better bet at this point and might actually pique the curiosity of a mainstream audience. Plus, if done well I think that you'd be well-placed to market the book to everyone who bought the Reformat the Planet DVD.

Send me an email if you'd like to chat about it further.

i'll help with the proof reading of the translation in spanish. And if you need a hand, please let me know.

cool. got my support.

i would love to be a part of this. sounds so awesome.

http://chipflip.wordpress.com/  <-- would be a valuable source of info in this endeavour

again, sorry for the initial skepticism/negativity.  it just seemed out of the blue. writing a book is a big undertaking. best of luck though, and if there ever is an english version, it would be rad.

This sounds really cool, Kurt. Let me know if I can help out in any way. I also think that you should do it in English as you would be expanding your reader base and chances of getting published.

its a shame because it being in Portuguese would severely restrict the readership, your english seems very good and if your serious about this i'm sure people would be willing to help proof read.

I hope there is an English translation. I know I would purchase in a heartbeat.

Well, it's certainly a good idea. It all depends on the execution. Good luck!