The Bit Gen Gamer Fest 8 presented by MAGfest was like a convention with the atmosphere of a live concert. There were vendors selling game art, memorabilia and cartridges. Rams Head Live conveniently entertained the event the same weekend The Baltimore Convention Center hosted Otakon; an Asian pop culture gathering celebrating music, anime and manga.
Video game inspired music has been rapidly increasing in popularity the past decade. It hasn’t just been the newer game scores either. There have been sound samples from classic consoles popping up in all sorts of recently produced material. The new Jay Z track “Tom Ford” off the Magna Carta Holy Grail album has a chiptune style beat. Take the 50 Cent and Justin Timberlake song “Ayo Technology” for example that clearly has a Commodore 64 sample. Or the Timbaland and Nelly Fertado song “Do it” which appears to be a song Timbaland copped from some C64 download torrent he thought was “public domian” that was originally the work of a Finnish composer Janne Suni titled “Acidjazzed Evening.” He countered plagiarism allegations during an interview on Elliot in the Morning. I mean I’m not going to rip Timbaland too hard I like remixing Nintendo songs as much as the next but at least give the dude some credit. Then there’s Rusko with his “Bionic Commando” dubstep remix and also Alvin Risk and Zedd who each have their own Legend of Zelda remixes, respectively. It’s all over the place! Take Cartoon Network’s “Regular Show” for example which frequently uses old school game references and sounds in their episodes, or you can look up “Code Monkeys” on Netflix. I loved that show!
I have always been keen about the idea of an arcade/Nintendo themed concert and quick to notice any chip tune type sounds on television and radio. The MAGfest Bit Gen Gamer Fest 8 kind of disappointed in these regards. There wasn’t an abundance of stand alone old school Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Turbo Graphics 16, Neo Geo, Commodore 64, Gameboy or Atari type electronic sounds. It was more so an abundance of heavy metal game covers sometimes played over synthesizers, which isn’t bad for an act or two but I wanted to hear more chiptunes!
The closest acts to achieve this were Cheap Dinosaur with an amplified Gameboy and fuzz pedal, Rare Candy which was synth heavy and Megaran who incorporated a Famicom system into his act. He actually had original Mega Man cuts and remixes and did so with permission from Capcom. During Megaran’s set the audience got so excited whenever they heard an original Mega Man song excerpt. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want more of that? Famed video game composer Tommy Tallarico confessed on stage during Video Games Live (VGL 2013 at Wolf Trap) that he was a little embarrassed about being a chiptune composer and 16-bit game scores never really got any outside recognition because of the quality. It was just a bunch of blips and bleeps. He covered all his classic game scores on electric guitar. I tend to disagree. I love the old school chip tune sound! I can’t get enough of it! People might call it a bunch of noise but they said the same thing about rock n’ roll when it first came out.
A good example of what I was looking for would have to be 8bitpeoples which features a wide assortment of modern chiptune artist. Artists such as Psilodump, Animal Style, Nullsleep, Bit Shifter, Minusbaby, Tangible, Twilight Electric, 8 GB, M-,-n, Mr. Spastic and Trash 80. All of which create their own original chiptune scores, music and album artwork all available for free download at 8bitpeoples.
One of the best features of Bit Gen Gamer Fest 8 was the interactive entertainment. There was a free play arcade; Tron took up a bit of my time. There were consoles hooked up to analog televisions with games such as Golden Eye 007, Super Mario World and Mega Man 2 to name a few. My favorite was the mixed media projected on stage of mostly old Nintendo television commercials. It was classic! I had forgotten just how ridiculous some of those commercials actually were, you don’t see that anymore.
There were decent acts, Megaran was good. The X-Hunters had some real quality guitar solos; I liked their Dave Wise “Donkey Kong Country 2” covers. Rare Candy’s Super Metroid “Brinstar” cover was pretty awesome! The Megas “Message from Dr. Light” was great and Power Glove was a bolt of energy with their “F*ck that Bird” Storm Eagle cover. There were a lot of redeeming features to this concert I just wanted to hear some more chiptunes whether it be classic scores or original arrangements. A side note, some relatively new chiptune arrangements from Ippo Yamada can be heard on Mega Man 9 and 10 released via virtual console. A really awesome pair of games!
Back in 2003 finding original game scores on .mp3 format wasn’t cut and paste; you couldn’t even buy them! The .mid formats from vgmusic had their uses especially in Fruity Loops but didn’t have the same sound. I actually had to record them off emulators. Sega games were the best because they usually have a sound test option in the menu. The Shinobi 3 soundtrack is classic! Finding the originals now is relatively easy. Most have been uploaded on youtube and you can download them using a video to mp3 converter. Capcom music has its own tumbler page with plenty of tracks and there’s a Nes Snes soundtrack page that has free downloadable .mp3’s and sprites. So there are plenty of options! I have a pretty awesome collection growing myself. My favorites are from Data East and Capcom.
Although the Bit Gen Gamer Fest 8 didn’t completely fill my need for original nes scores and chiptune sounds. It was still fun! MAGfest 12 is already planned for January 2-5 2014 at The Gaylord National Harbor. I really feel this has the potential to grow into something HUGE! Mainstream musicians are incorporating chiptune sounds into their songs like its some kind of secrete. It’s time the chiptune genre gets the recognition it deserves.
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