Chiptunes in the streets of Seattle at PAX 09

[Editor’s note: Our resident Chiptunes expert, Zen Albatross, checked out Lo-Tek Resistance while at PAX 09. — CTZ]

Videogames are cool and all, but one of the major highlights of my weekend at PAX was Lo-Tek Resistance, the impromptu street performance engineered by members of Crunchy Co Records. Anyone near the front entrance of the Washington State Convention Center on Friday was treated to three amazing hours of Game Boy-powered jams from almost a dozen performers including Fighter X, Seanbad, Circles, Spamtron, Infradead, McFiredrill and even Anamanaguchi’s Ary Warnaar. Naturally, I was there to capture some of the performances with my trusty (and now unfortunately missing) camera.

Unfortunately, the convention center’s staff thought we were rocking too hard and kicked us off the property shortly after the events depicted below. After regrouping on the other side of the street, the chiptuning continued. The turnout was excellent: Large numbers of both PAX convention-goers and random passersby stopped to observe our makeshift street concert. The show quickly became an open mic as we passed around the audio jack to anyone who felt like playing — From the driving dance beats of Circles and Fighter X to the experimental glitch sounds of Infradead and the spastic speedcore madness of Spamtron — a wide variety of different styles were exhibited. I even got to perform one of my half-finished industrial tracks before being interrupted by uninvited precipitation. All in all, an amazing time. For those who missed it, I hope the videos and images below give you an idea of how exciting live chipmusic can really be.

And speaking of live chipmusic, you’d better mark your calendars for this year’s Blip Festival, which was recently announced for the 17th – 19th of December. If you’re looking for a reason to visit New York City, this is as good an excuse as you’re going to get. Hope to see some of you there!

Hit the jump to check out some videos of the Chiptune performances! 

SEANBAD:

CIRCLES:

ARY:

PAUL OWENS:

INFRADEAD:

SPAMTRON:

FIGHTER X:

FIGHTER X + SPAMTRON: