SXSW: Night 4
Saturday night ended up being a night of interesting dance music. That seems to be a recurring thing at SXSW this year...I guess it's the new hotness or something. To start, I headed over to the 8-bit Peoples showcase to hear some 8-bit gameboy music. Hung out there for a while on the rooftop patio at Molotov with Jeremiah, Hime, and Vicente while Hime and J had cigars... then headed over to Vice a bit early for MSTRKRFT. 3:30 AM food afterwards at Kerbey Lane with Kel-Kel, Lisa, M, Vicente, and V's friend David.
Bit Shifter: Enthusiastic fellow, and man could he work that Gameboy. I was expecting blippy Nintendo music... but I got some seriously thumping beats and a cool pixelated light show. J hated it. Vicente and I were floored. One of my favorite acts this week, and seriously hard to believe it was all coming from a Gameboy. Crowd was really into it, too.
Bud Melvin: 8-bit country? A Nintendo providing beats and bass... with a banjo and cowboy-ish vocals over it? Interesting. I kinda dug it in it's strangeness.
Tree Wave: Hate to say it, but I pretty much sat upstairs for their set. I dig the shit out of them, but they do need to write some new material... I've seen them perform basically the same set for what, four years now? Still, it *is* pretty amazing stuff. I just want MORE! Please, Paul, write MORE!
Null Sleep: More thumping Gameboy pwnage. As opposed to Bit Shifter, Null Sleep operated more like a traditional DJ. He worked a pair of Gameboys in tandem, with a mixer between. Good stuff. Left his set early, though, because I was scared of the MSTRKRFT show at Vice filling to capacity.
DJ Z-Trip: Apparently, he's like the father of the whole mash-up thing? It was a lot of mashing up and scratching.
MSTRKRFT: Holy shit, was this show packed. I attribute that at least in part to one half of MSTRKRFT being Jesse F. Keeler from Death From Above 1979, who achieved a rather ridiculous amount of hype before their demise. They were loud. Really, really, really fucking loud. It was like being in a Euro-disco or something. They were really good... but the repetitive nature of house music was pretty apparent. Let's break that beat down! Speed it up... faster...faster...faster... Now let's drop that beat again, with more bass!
Bit Shifter: Enthusiastic fellow, and man could he work that Gameboy. I was expecting blippy Nintendo music... but I got some seriously thumping beats and a cool pixelated light show. J hated it. Vicente and I were floored. One of my favorite acts this week, and seriously hard to believe it was all coming from a Gameboy. Crowd was really into it, too.
Bud Melvin: 8-bit country? A Nintendo providing beats and bass... with a banjo and cowboy-ish vocals over it? Interesting. I kinda dug it in it's strangeness.
Tree Wave: Hate to say it, but I pretty much sat upstairs for their set. I dig the shit out of them, but they do need to write some new material... I've seen them perform basically the same set for what, four years now? Still, it *is* pretty amazing stuff. I just want MORE! Please, Paul, write MORE!
Null Sleep: More thumping Gameboy pwnage. As opposed to Bit Shifter, Null Sleep operated more like a traditional DJ. He worked a pair of Gameboys in tandem, with a mixer between. Good stuff. Left his set early, though, because I was scared of the MSTRKRFT show at Vice filling to capacity.
DJ Z-Trip: Apparently, he's like the father of the whole mash-up thing? It was a lot of mashing up and scratching.
MSTRKRFT: Holy shit, was this show packed. I attribute that at least in part to one half of MSTRKRFT being Jesse F. Keeler from Death From Above 1979, who achieved a rather ridiculous amount of hype before their demise. They were loud. Really, really, really fucking loud. It was like being in a Euro-disco or something. They were really good... but the repetitive nature of house music was pretty apparent. Let's break that beat down! Speed it up... faster...faster...faster... Now let's drop that beat again, with more bass!