Hello, World.

Posted: December 11th, 2008 | Author: minusbaby | Filed under: Blip Festival 2008 Liveset Recordings, Blipfest Diaries | Tags: 8bitpeoples, design, live, live performance, minusbaby | 5 Comments »

by benzamg

You know, I don’t remember much about my set. I remember DJ Big Wiz on my left. My ThinkPad, Yamaha PSS-140 keyboard, a Behringer mixer and a bottle of water in front of me. The expectation of eight musicians joining me across eight tunes. The rest is fuzzy. Maybe things will come back to me as I write this down.

In July, I was asked to design the artwork for this year’s Blip Festival. I was also invited to play. I figured I’d finish the design work early and then get to my set. Silly me. With non-pixel art, it would be a pretty tight deadline (logotype, website, poster, postcard, t-shirt, press kits, advertisements, web banners, poster, et al). With pixel art, I’d have to be insane to accept that gig. Call me crazy and I love this scene.

«
I jumped into this scene in 2001. Well, there really wasn’t one. There was Nullsleep and I. We had met via micromusic.net and then in person a few weeks later because we were these two guys in the city looking for a scene; or, looking to build a scene. Maybe both; to be seen, at least. We played our first show together at a makeshift club beneath the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown called “Fun”. The name of that night was “Blip”. I continued playing some shows for a couple of years, released “Monkey Patch”, written in GoatTracker and with VSTi, then sort of disappeared. I had been involved with Metempsychosis, S900 and Ninja Tune’s Pirate TV and flew over to London for a couple of gigs while looking for my sound through DJing. So that was me, floating between chip music and not chip music. I always have been and always will.
»

In mid-July, I came up with a logotype. It didn’t work out. So I started over. This happened a few times until there was a Eureka Moment™. It’s the third festival, so I put three notches in Blip’s first “i”; something personal without coming across as a greeting card. After that, things began to make sense from a design standpoint, but not one-hundred percent.

October rolls around and I still had not touched my set. I still I had to figure out a solution to make a partner for the logotype I’d designed. I had a few ideas, but nothing stuck. I thought of my friends, the scene, New York City, oh yeah, I had an idea. Ancient Geek Mythology. New mythical beasts and they’re all born from Blip Festival. With that, I wanted very short stories to go with each beast – friends would write them – their place in Ancient Geek Mythology. Where they’re from, how they look, what they do, why they do it, who they are, why they are it. Like this: http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast146.htm. So there we had it.

I’m veering from writing about my set, but it’ll make sense in a second. All of this stuff is connected.

My parents were born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York City. They’re Nuyorican. I was born and raised here; I call myself Sorta Rican. From birth, I was an instant hybrid – a mixture of African, European and Native blood. My work reflects this. Sometimes it’s the point, other times it’s just a reflection of who I am; an instant mutt. When I disappeared from the scene in 2003, I was uncomfortable with having preferred software to tracking when it came to making music. People would ask, “what do you use? I love it!” I’d tell them and they’d walk away like I ruined their day. Nowadays, I don’t care. I see that I’m a hybrid in several ways and that someone telling me what I ought to use to author music is repulsive. I just leave it alone. A few people asked during this year’s festival and I told them all the same thing: it’s like a pen and spray paint. When I want to make technical drawing, I use a pen. When I want to quickly get the ideas and tunes out of my head, I use spray paint. Trackers are pens, software is spray paint.

So, all of the beasts in this year’s promotional material are hybrids. On the back of the t-shirt is Tronesus, a three-headed beast with a serial port ass. It is equal parts bird, dog and cat. On the poster is an as yet unnamed beast (Rigo from Meneo is going to write its story) who is part arcade cabinet, camel, giraffe, socks and fish. Without seeming narcissistic, I want to say that they all have something in common with me and it was my way of saying, “hey, it’s all good – make whatever music you want, however you want, because the end product will always be a magnificent beast. ufeemi.”

by lf979883

Back to my set. I kept on with the idea of combining traditional instrumentation with chip music and thought it would be fun to do it with friends old and new. Claire and Jesse, trombone and trumpet respectively, were introduced to me by Damon of Starscream. Max ZT, the hammered dulcimer player, was introduced to me by Asif of 2 Player Productions (and as Greenleaf, produces some wonderful music). José and Angélica are from one of my favorite bands, Balún. They played melodica and accordion. I’ve known Suzan for a while now, but only recently did I find out that she can play the glockenspiel. Two weeks before showtime, she learned her part for the tune and practiced when she could. I learned of Carl’s drumming finesse back in July. We played a show together in Brooklyn. He usually performs as My Two Robodads, but I usually know him as Oxygen Star. DJ Big Wiz and I met at a listening party for an in-progress Together Brothers record a couple of years ago. We hit it off and since then I’ve been lucky to call him a friend and collegue. I met Javi, one of the toasters on “FRIQUIDIQUI, No. 1″, through José. They’ve known each other for years back in Puerto Rico and now here. The emcee on that tune, Champ aka Sugarspade, has been my friend since, oh, 1990. He was ten years old then and always my little brother Tim’s best friend.

We rehearsed once on the Monday and Tuesday leading into the festival. On Monday, Claire, Jesse, Max, Carl and Suzan practiced their parts. Carl and I stayed up until 2 AM. On Tuesday, José and Angélica rehearsed. DJ Big Wiz returned from a trip on Wednesday. I sent him files on Thursday and he showed up at the Bell House on Friday.

Jose Olivares on melodica during minusbaby’s set by .elektropionir

by Robert Pappagallo

There were some issues. I remember Carl going off-beat on the drums for a while because the audio for his PA was coming from Wiz’s mixer. The scratching threw him off, but I also remember him going back on beat. I also remember the horns missing a few notes and being a bit late. But, all I really remember is the energy. The mess ups are just technicalities that may be worked out by rehearsing more than once. I feel like it was a great start to what I’ve been wanting to do for years now.

minusbaby’s set list by starpause

Some people called my performance “historic”, “game-changing”, “next level shit”, “spiritual”, people bowed and hollered, someone walked up to me afterward to confess to crying during the set because it felt so good. There were times the crowd chanted notes as if they were lyrics. I spun around twice on stage. I’d never done that before. The 2 Player Production guys, looking at the show through viewfinders, said that I looked the happiest I’d ever been for 34 minutes, and they were right. I’d temporarily left the scene because I felt I didn’t fit in. And now, I really feel like I’m a part of it – me and my crazy, muttly mix. All of this stuff blows my mind and if I disappear from the scene again it’s only because I’m dead. Then again, 8bitpeoples never die, so good luck getting rid of me.

Thank you, everyone.

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Brendan Becker of MAGfest recorded the festival from the VJ area using Audio Technica ATR20 mics. Thanks, Brendan!

It lacks bass, but it sounds pretty good and the vibe gives me goosebumps. I hope you like it.

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http://minusbaby.com/music/minusbaby-blip_festival_2008.ogg
*.OGG • 12.6MB • 35m 29s

TCTD OGG Mirror
http://blip08.truechiptilldeath.com/…/minusbaby-blip_festival_2008.ogg

MP3
http://blip08.truechiptilldeath.com/…/minusbaby-blip_festival_2008.mp3
*.MP3 • 66MB • 35m 29s

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