Oh, what a geek I am!
Hands up anyone who played Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario Bros, Zelda or Street Fighter for hours on end when they were a kid... Surely it can't just be me, but maybe I am the only one that while at work, find myself humming the theme tune to "Link's Awakening", or "The Electic Egg Zone".
So a little while ago I got into bands that usually only 14-year-olds listen to, like Hadouken!, Crystal Castles, and :( (aka Colonopenbracket). These bands really are, in my opinion, the new punk, and while not exactly clever or intelligent music, they are setting out to discover some new territories. Alot of these bands are armed only with broken 80's keyboards, circuit-bent drum machines, and Gameboys. It's through these bands that I've recently got into Chiptune - the most geeky genre ever.
The thought behind Chiptune is to take an old Commodore 64, an Atari, or a Gameboy, and compose music played exclusively with the bleeps and noise generated by the sound chips on board these machines. Don't get me wrong, a lot of these artists just make generic Eurocheese tunes, that would be very at home on a Nintendo game cartridge, but many others are making beautiful music. Check out Pixelh8, and Bitshifter, for a real taste of what Chiptune is capable of.
So I've dug out my Gameboy, bought a tracker for the thing, and am hooked. You can hear my attempts on The Last Living Soul's Myspace page.
Sex, Drugs, and Bleep'n'roll!
