Congratulations to our friends at 2 Player Productions!
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.480045&w=425&h=350&fv=clip_id%3D665366%26server%3Dwww.vimeo.com%26autoplay%3D0%26fullscreen%3D1%26md5%3D%26show_portrait%3D0%26show_title%3D0%26show_byline%3D0%26context%3D%26context_id%3D] from www.vimeo.com
Note: Flash Player 9 is needed to view the clip. Linux version is here.
Their first feature documentary “Reformat the Planet” is an official entry in the South by Southwest Film Festival.
This film documents the 2006 Blipfestival and the chiptune music scene with performances by some of the top chiptune musicians in the world. My graphics (performing as Voltage Controlled) are featured throughout the film along with other video artists. It has been an honor to be included as a visualist in many chiptune music performances over the last few years.
On a technical note - the visuals that I created at the time of the filming of this documentary were done using a laptop with Pure Data and Gem (and sometimes PDP). Since then, my live visuals are done using a GP2X and Gameboy Advance.
Also check out the awesome videos by 2PP of Blip Festival 2007 on vimeo.
The Micromusic HQ Launch show turned out to be awesome.
The music line up was: Nullsleep, A_Rival, Chibi-tech, Starpause, Trash80, Tumult and X|K and they all did great sets. I would have been happy to vj the entire show but shared the night with another vj (oops, can’t remember his name).
The venue turned out to be nice - good sound and even had their own video mixer which sure beat having to use my ghetto switch box.
Some pics are below, more are floating around the net…
Soundcheck of x|k with some of my visuals, photo by Trash80:
Nullsleep by Starpause:
Voltage Controlled (me) by Starpause:
Karlheinz Stockhausen passed away last week.
To me, he was a great inspiration. I think that I first heard Stockhausen when I was a teenager or maybe younger. It was unlike anything that I ever heard before and opened my musical horizons. It was probably this that got me interested in electronic music. Electronics allow one to create and explore new musical worlds and this was more exciting to me than playing C, F, G over and over and over.
The picture above is an old one and I include it because I think it may be the first picture that I ever saw of him. I could tell from the picture that this is someone who I wanted to know more about. Over the years, I collected many of his works but I think what I enjoyed most was the interviews and lectures. Often I would read them when I needed inspiration and they always sparked ideas even if they were only tangential to what he was talking about - which I think is even better! It’s not necessary (or useful, or even possible) to be inspired to try to recreate what someone else has done - just getting the creative ideas going is enough.
He left a great body of work and I’m sure he will be remembered for many, many years.
The official website has a very nice collection of texts, interviews, and talks.
This report is a week late…
Weird thing… for about a week, I was listening to a heavy dose of Pharaoh Sanders while working, etc. So I decided to type his name into Google and see what he’s up to. Turns out he was playing in NYC at Birdland. Weird, right?
I went to the last show on the last night (Sept 15, 2007) and I’m glad I did.
He has the ability to go from a sweet melody to ecstatic blowing and then back. Like a journey.
If you get a chance, don’t think twice, just go.
His site is here
http://www.pharoahsanders.net/
