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Thought this would be a funny discussion.
I did a local mini open-mic tour for random hole in the wall bars, and just brought a carload of friends to cheer it on.
The reactions were anywhere from "DAFUQ?" to, "This is so awesome, tell me more about chiptune!"
My favorite reaction was "play something we know!" - random drunk old guy at the bar
If nobody has done this before besides me, you should get on it; unless you're like scared of people's reactions or something.
I played a few open mics at a Starbucks on campus. The hipsters liked it for one song then asked if I could play guitar like everyone else.
I tried playing some tunes at a bluegrass bar, and got a lot of positive reception. Given, I played some very "folk"-y music for that.
I once played trombone at the chip open mic after BRKfest with Gameboy backing. People there ate it up. I also managed to randomly solo over kkrusty's cover of "The Final Countdown," it was pretty fun. Afterwards I played along with my thrashy cover of "The Pretender" by the Foo Fighters.
Open mics are fun, you just have to know how to work the audience. It sometimes helps to play them a song they know, it helps ease them into chip sounds.
When I was first getting my head around LSDJ a friend of mine and I decided we'd do some covers for fun, me on the gameboy him on guitar. We did Teenage Dirtbag and Bloodhound Gang.
For that night only we were 2 guys 1 Gameboy.
The pub was pretty full and it kind of blew up. People fucking loved it.
We went for the novelty factor for a good night to get pissed and it was a lot of fun.
I've played my own stuff there since and people are generally pretty cool about it.
EDIT: I hazily remember a very drunk bloke introducing me to his girlfriend as "Mr. Nintendo"
Last edited by ForaBrokenEarth (Jan 17, 2013 1:31 am)
I was nearly regular at some friends of friends/messageboard friends' open mic night at one point. You are talking about getting WTF reactions but for me playing chip stuff at these was actually a compromise and concession to accessibility haha, tho i usually gave them at least a bit of NOISE. they seemed to like it overall.
Here's a recording of one on this very site in fact!!! - http://chipmusic.org/cementimental/musi … -sept-2010
Nanolloop shambles (I think i accidentally chose some default demo loops at one point <-_-;) and noiserave.
Haha the audience reaction at the start! PRO TIP: always let non-chip audiences hear the gameboy switching on ^_^
Last edited by Cementimental (Jan 17, 2013 1:57 am)
Awesome stories, the open-mic's i played were usually flooded by shitty metal bands with girl singers; or some old guy playing dylan covers haha. I have made a couple covers, but nothing mainstream; i'll look in to something that'd be fun to turn into chip that i can get everyone involved in.
Not sure if this is exactly what you're asking, but I performed an LSDJ track in the "Passenger Talent Show" during a vacation cruise I was on last month. Not an open mic, per se, but certainly a situation in which people were not ready to see a dude playing music with a Game Boy, hahah. It was really pretty bizarre -- average passenger age was probably about 50, and judging from my conversations with other passengers leading up to the event, chip music wasn't exactly a known thing, so there were a lot of extremely confused people. I did get a good amount of positive feedback from the younger set; at least one dude was super stoked to discover a chip musician onboard and was familiar with Sabrepulse. I had some nice, albeit kinda awkward conversations with endearing older people who WANTED to understand WTF was going on but really had no idea. (Direct quote from someone I talked to: "You must be really good at that game!")
The only real bummer was that I heard some people REALLY hated it, mostly because they had no idea what I was doing and apparently didn't have the patience to give it a shot. This annoys me because a big part of this particular cruise's "mission" or whatever is to expose passengers to different cultures, ideas, people, etc., in order to enrich and expand their minds. So you see all these people bragging about how they've been trying to fit in in various countries by purchasing Panama Hats or eating Guinea Pig in Peru or whatever, and attending various lectures on subjects ranging from civil rights to the extinction of tree frogs, but they won't even take the time to try and enjoy something creative they've never seen before just because it's coming from a Game Boy? Other than that though, I enjoyed doing it 
guy playing acoustic guitar doing a james blunt cover. everyone loves it.
guy playing acoustic guitar doing a cover of something i don't know that could have been james blunt or coldplay or something. everyone loves it.
guy playing electric guitar. he learnt a hendrix song. well done.
me. a table passes a note to a few friends of mine at the next table that says i am gay. it kicks off a little bit, they get thrown out.
woman playing acoustic guitar. its just as dreary as a james blunt or coldplay cover but at least she says that she wrote it. she is cute and everyone loves her.
and so on.
eugh.
Last edited by Jellica (Jan 17, 2013 9:16 am)
Back when Borders Books was a thing, I hit up their coffee shop's open mic nights with my DMG all the time. Some cute older girls who worked at the front were into it, which, in itself, I count as a small success.