How is your local chiptune community? (Page 3 of 27)

here in fresno i only know of rei yano, and i got SUPER lucky with him being only about a 10 minute walk from his house. shows are hard to comeby. i did a few at my highschool last year, but the crowds just yell play super mario! or play pokemon! they dont even know wat the hell their saying... we should come up with stickers to label poles and have them say chip friendly area, along with our username or something. would deffinately be cool... anyways. just have balls to ask to play anywhere, get people interested. i also keep a super mario sav in my library to bring in a crowd, then do the chipstep on them then you get people into that shit.

Here's the obligatory San Diego update:

So we're slowing down a bit since I last checked in -- the main three are still me, (Mike) Bleeds, and Hyperwave, but Hyperwave has been pretty busy at school and he hasn't been able to play many shows or write stuff.

We've been playing a bunch of shows but it's kind of plateau-ing, I think. San Diego's a tough nut to crack for pretty unique reasons! One of which is the fact that you have to drive everywhere.

Here's the thing -- our public transportation is not robust enough to get everyone to the big venues around San Diego, so cars are basically required if you want to go see music. The problem is, when you get someone into a car, you basically have to PROMISE them a good time; otherwise they won't go. It's different than in the bigger, more dense cities like NY, where if a band is shitty you can just walk to a bar nearby and hang out.

Second -- even if you manage to get to a venue, they probably won't be playing music from the independent scene. Most of the big venues are concentrated in the downtown area, and the downtown area mostly plays music from outside of SD, or electronic dance music. This means that even if we managed to get known around the other San Diego neighborhoods, we'd still have to compete with huge acts from outside, which is REALLY tough.  And then you have to deal with the fact that half the people in the downtown area aren't even there to hear bands or anything like that; they're there to go to clubs, get wasted, and fuck.

So these two features create this feedback loop where people won't go out unless they're PROMISED a good time, and the only way to promise them a good time is to say "fuck the local scene" and give them a really big act from out of town, which gives them even less of a reason to go out and explore the local scene. Consequently, the rest of the indie scene just wants to get out of SD so they can play in a local scene where it's actually rewarding to NOT leave

I guess the solution is just to play more shows and get more people involved...it's just difficult with a fickle area like this! I want to hear some of the other California musicians chime in on this because I want to know if it's like this in other areas!

SAVANNAH IS A MUSICAL CESSPOOL SAVANNAH IS A MUSICAL CESSPOOL SAVANNAH IS A MUSICAL CESSPOOL

All of these places have awesome scenes in America - i know from first hand experience:

Boston - NYC - Philly - Austin - Rochester

There are many other places too, but based on my experiences these places seem to have a lot to offer...  awesome and inspiring people all over the place!  It makes it easier to formulate and work on ideas being close to other creative people.  Its something that anyone trying to be creative should consider. 

Also, the geographical makeup a city can also effect creativity levels etc.  So, sometimes it's not the people's fault there isn't any good shit - it might be the layout of the town that will fuck you (of course the internet can let you reach slightly farther out now).  But more person to person contact will spark more ideas for sure.  So, if you have a city thats designed to keep people away from eachother, that will usually lead to less creativity.  it's scientific fact actually...  although i'm sure the internet lessens the impact of the phenomenon.

Last edited by animalstyle (May 22, 2012 3:26 am)

chipmusic sucks. i only go to dubstep parties anyway. seriously though in shanghai i guess there is sulumi/amu/baifan/monkey benders, but ive never caught them.....i think they all do that horrible fist pumping techno shit. But anyway its good here, people get into it when i use MGB at gigs, i dont really do much lsdj tbh, and also when i use the arcade mpc controller thing. its seems there's an appreciation for the retro 8 bit thing here definately...but i think its wearing thin since you had that explosion last few years pf like pixelord,doshy, a lot of dub / post dubstep using 8 bit sounds, it became a bit less exciting. but yeah as for PURE chipmusic its pretty much the shanshui roster i guess, but they're pretty popular, especially in beijing which is dope,  its just not really my bag..

Seattle's scene was pretty neat a few years back.. then it was pretty quiet for over a year. It's really been making a comeback these last few months, though. New series of shows called "X-Bit" have been good times for sure.. 3 deep right now and it doesn't look as though it is going to slow down.

I get to see Electric Children & MCFiredrill & Ovenrake & Turtlesaur & Orbital Strike & Deepearth.void & Live Animals & Awesomecat & other awesome people play frequently and it's rad.

There's a lot of emphasis around the live scene lately as well.. some dudes have been putting almost as much time into their live sets as they do their productions (given they track in LSDJ at over 9000 mph). The regular (non-chipartist) show-goers are cool; they like to become inebriated and dance. They're all pretty familiar with the scene and make mario jokes. There are afterparties for most shows. Here, people get more drunk and the attending artists who didn't play at the show usually throw down.. so people continue to shake their rumps late into the night.

Everybody is friendly and every show is a big lovefest. You guys should come see it some time, its pretty darn cool.

I'm fairly new to it all but based off of my experience last Saturday, I would say it's a good chipscene here and friendly one at that. Great people and lots of talent.

Last edited by SubWooferSpecial (May 22, 2012 4:21 am)