I was recently able to attend the inaugural PaxEast, the new gaming convention in Boston. PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo, has become a rather big thing for the videogamer, regularly attracting up to sixty thousand attendees. It showcases new videogames, card games, roleplaying games, and indeed the history of videogames, with both the games themselves and the people who played them.
However, I had a mission in Boston. I had to meet as many people as possible, and talk to them about music for my dissertation. I certainly didn’t HAVE to meet Wil Wheaton or play un-released videogames. That was just a bonus.
The music of videogames today is often billed as atmospheric, enchanting, or in the least well composed. Yet only a short time ago, some of the best acclaim that could be expected was simply ‘melodic’.
Back when the sound technologies available were extremely limited, when music was advanced if it had access to sixteen different bleeps, the theme tunes of Mario and Tetris and Final Fantasy had to remain simple.
Today, an international community of musicians uses the technology of these early gaming systems, such as the Gameboy or NES, to accomplish great feats on composition across all sorts of musical genres. Using computers or modified hardware to compose new tunes, chiptunes, the new music scene, amidst rising feelings of nostalgia, continues to grow.
So off I went in search of the Jamspace, where various musicians over the weekend could meet up and play, and where the local chiptune scene had booked the room for a musical showcase.
I met up with a hoard of oddly-named artists, from the bouncy pop duo Br1ghtPr1mate to the frenetic and spasmodic dancing of Active Knowledge.
Behind the helmet he wears on stage, Chris Mahoney (Active Knowledge) is passionate about his musical scene, founding Boston8Bit, a group promotional tool for the artists and the music scene itself: “There’s this global community that all seems to know each other… I realised that all these people see each other and talk to each other like they live next door, you know? And I’ve never seen that before… I started Boston8Bit kinda like “Hey, I might not live in Boston, and I might have no connections, but let’s figure out how to do this.’”
This is the fifth time Boston8Bit have organised such a chiptune event in Boston in order to showcase local talent. However, A_Rival flew over from San Francisco to appear at the event. Blending chiptune and hiphop into chiphop, he drew a large crowd to dance at the front of the Jamspace. Connecticut-based OxygenStar, with his outrageously large blond afro wig, also had a similar effect on the audience.
PAX also holds large concerts, with the cover band Metroid Metal and nerdcore artist MC Frontalot playing over the weekend. Chiptune group and PAX regulars Anamanaguchi also play, to a massive audience of wildly dancing fans. With a full band on stage and a modified NES system and Gameboy to provide a melody instead of a singer, the band play an hour-long set from their album. They also announce that videogames have moved full circle, and that they will be providing music for the videogame of upcoming Michael Cera film Scott Pilgrim, based on the comic book of the same name.
I suppose I should now tell you that the first time I saw a live chiptune show was last year at Hull’s very own Sharkey’s.
Somewhat brilliantly, the UK chiptune scene is booming, and Hull, and the rest of Yorkshire, has plenty of artists to boast about. So I urge you all to go out and have a listen to this amazing re-use of outdated technology and the new music it creates.
Ben Hall
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