Chiptunes for BRKfest

A new music festival starts this weekend.  A chiptune festival for the Southeast and Mideast called BRKfest in Lexington, Kentucky, July 13-14.

The event was created by local game boy musician Solarbear. The whole thing will be two nights of chiptune musicians playing.  The show starts each night at 7pm till about 12:30, with each act playing a thirty minute set.  Friday it will be Al’s Bar and on Saturday at Cosmic Charlie’s. The event is listed as 18+, so keep that in mind.

The acts for the event come from the Chicago area, Cincinnati, Nashville, Atlanta, St. Louis, and more.  Smiletron, Nestrogen, Roboctopus, Shitbird, Freque, Nonfinite, Saskrotch, Kkrusty, CCDM, Compycore, Dream Fox, AndaruGO, Awesome Force, HunterQuinn, Sp00ked, SPRY, PANDAstar, Datacats, Str8Bit, and The Bitman. 

Tickets will be $15 per night at the door, since pre-reg has already closed.

Pegasus Awards

Since 1984, the Ohio Valley Filk Fest (OVFF)  has given out Pegasus Awards to the top in filk music.  They are currently taking nominations for this year’s awards.  Anyone with an interest in filk and the filk community is encouraged to send in their suggestions.

Each year they have four constant categories: Best Song, Best Classic Filk Song, Best Performer, and Best Writer/Composer.  They also have two floating categories that change every year.  Examples of past years’ floating categories are Best Love Song, Best Literature Song, Best Techie Song, Best Sing Along, Best Battle Song, Best Song that Tells a Story.  This year they are Best Gaming Song and Best Travel Song. Explanations and nominee requirements of categories below.

Best Filk Song: Any filk song is eligible in this category so long as it has not previously won a Pegasus Award, and has not been on the final ballot in this category in both of the previous two years.

Best Classic Filk Song: Any well known filk song that is at least 10 years old and has not previously won a Pegasus Award, and has not been on the final ballot in this category in both of the previous two years.

Best Writer/Composer: Any writer/composer of filk songs who has not won this Pegasus Award in the past 5 years.

Best Performer: Any performer in the filk community who has not won this Pegasus Award in the past 5 years.

Best Gaming Song: Any song that refers to gaming, reflects activities in a game, etc.

Best Travel Song: Songs that take you somewhere, or are about destinations.

Nominations can come from anyone in the filk community or fan of it.  Ballots are online of the Pegasus Awards website.  Nominations will be taken till the end of July; the ballots will be counted and the selection process begins.  The top five nominees in each category will be announced the first weekended in September, Labor Day.  The Final Ballots will be online and distributed at conventions for anyone to vote.  You can vote up till the Wednesday before OVFF.  If you attend OVFF, in Columbus, you can submit on-site ballots till Midnight on Friday night of OVFF, after the Pegasus Nominees concert.  The winners are announced at the Pegasus Award Banquet on Saturday.

Nominations can be anyone who is part of the filk community, anywhere in the world.  Filkers from Europe, Australia, and Asian have one in past year. If you want to take part in the voting process but do not know a lot of filk artists, Pegasus has lists of already suggested artists and songs to check out.  Also, you can look at the ones I have list on the right site of the blog.  Remember this is for people who fit in with filk and are fine with being part of it.  Weird Al is not one of them.  Past winners and nominees are also listed on the website as well, so check there too.

Bit Gen Gamer Fest 7

Let this one slip by me till now, so it is kind of late to really help out.  Anyways today on June 30th is the seventh Bit Gen Gamer Fest in Baltimore, Maryland. Bit Gen is one of the biggest video game music festivals out there.

Bit Gen Gamer Fest was started in 2005 by members of the band Entertainment System, with five bands and 150 attendees.  It started as 8-Bit Gen, then 16-Bit Gen the next year, then 32-Bit Gen the year after that, and then 64-Bit Gen for year four.  Deciding 128-Bit Gen was not a good idea they settled on Bit Gen Gamer Fest.  They bring in some best acts in video game music and fresh new acts as well.  Some bands who have played include: Powerglove, Anamanaguchi, and the Protomen.  They like to refer to the event as “nerd-vanna” or “bit-halla.”

The event will have a large selection of both classic and current video games with old-school arcade machines on free play.  The concert hall itself will be lined with video games to play, so you can rock to the bands and play your favorite games at the same time.  Gaming provided by MAGFest.  The show has open exhibition space for video game inspired artists as well.

This year the have gathered over 10 acts to perform on two continuously rotating stages, meaning when one band is done on one stage another will be starting on the other stage not that the stages themselves spin.  From rock bands like Metroid Metal, The Megas, Rare Candy, Armcannon, and X-Hunters to chip tune acts Danimal Cannon and Cheap Dinosaur, rapper Mega Ran, funny man brentalfloss,  DJ Cutman, Final Fantasy rock opera by Those Who Fight, plus Bit Brigade and their speed run Bit Brigade.

Tickets are available at the door for $20.  The show takes place at the Sonar one of the largest concert club venues in Baltimore with room up to over 2,000 people.

Adam Warrock Donation Drive Week

Adam Warrock is one of my favorite nerdcore hip-hop artists.  Two years ago on this day he left his job as a lawyer (only rapper with a law degree) to pursue his music career full-time.  On the anniversary he holds  a donation drive during the week asking for donations and gives out cool stuff to everyone.  This is the only time during the year he does this kind of thing.  No donation buttons on the website, no Kickstarter or other fundraisers, or anything else.  Now he is not just asking for free help from people, you get stuff for your donations.  All of costs of music production, travel, and merch production come out of his own pocket, plus he still has to live and eat.  He seems to never stop (not even bank holidays) making new music, both for album release and free tracks to the whole world.  This is a way for fans to give back.  And get new cool stuff too.

All donators will receive an exclusive mixtape album with 12 new songs called Longshot (cover art by Ming Doyle); free downloads from his singles album with tracks including Starving Artist, I Believe in Harvey Dent, and seven others; an exclusive autobiographical digital comic written by Adam and drawn by Ed Piskor of American Splendor and Wizzywig fame; and a thank you sketch from Chris Haley of the webcomic Let’s Be Friends Again.

Also during this week he premiered his first music video to the world.  The song for the video is called “This Song.”  The song is off of the Longshot mixtape.  It was directed by his friend Joey Miller.  You can also catch bloopers from the making of the video.

If you want to hear a few of the other tracks from the exclusive album, Adam’s has them up all over the place. Adam gave the blog Destructoid an exclusive EP earlier this year about Mass Effect, so he gave them another track about the character Garrus called “Garrus Got My Back” to listen to.  Comics Alliance  has the title track of the album, Longshot.  His ode to Veronica Mars, one of his favorite shows, called “Mars Investigations” is up on his Youbtube account.

You can also read about 10 things Adam learned about making his first video on his guest blog on YOMYOMF. He also release a free track for everyone using Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” turned into a rap song called “Maybe (I Can Call You?)”.

The drive only lasts till this Monday, July 2, so if you want to give and get some cool stuff in return you have till then to do it.  And finally, go here to make donations.