Now I’ve put up “The Fighting Illini Become Huge Ninja Robots and Take the Championship” and “World’s Most Wanted Wiener” (from last Friday’s Kwakfest). The videos are on YouTube, but the audio is totally busted because they’ve started brickwall limiting all audio in new videos. There’s a workaround, but it’s too late for these videos, so check ‘em on Vimeo and comment on YouTube, if you like. Enjoy!

and:

Okay, so I’m a year and a half late, but you guys know all the crazy stuff that’s happened in the past year and a half –I have not forgotten about my album(s), and last weekend I finished recording all my best Kwakfests, and I’m releasing a few previews as Youtube videos. Here’s the first:

Keep checking back for more info, this is going to come together quickly, I think. So far, plans are to sell an actual disc and maybe put it on iTunes somehow. We will see.

Please welcome the newest member of the Kaufman family: Nugget the Puggle! His dad is a pug, his mom is a beagle, and he is 100% pure love. We got him last week, at 8 weeks old, from Rowland Family Puggles, who I can’t recommend enough as a loving, responsible breeder. He’s very docile and quiet, but loves to scamper, hop, and play (followed immediately by a nap). You’re all invited to come over and meet him!

And yes, you can bet I’m going to be sampling him extensively. He’s got a tiny adorable version of the beagle “baroooowoowooo” bark. YES.

In yet another freakishly timely turn of fate, Kristi and I have moved to Champaign, IL and I just finished my first week as a sound designer for Volition Inc., makers of Saints Row, Red Faction, and Freespace!

This puts my freelance career on hold, since even if I could legally contract independently, I wouldn’t have time! On the other hand, I’m working with a phenomenal audio team on the kind of games I love to play, at the cutting edge of next-gen audio design, learning new skills at a rapid pace. I wish I could talk about the tech stuff we’re developing — it’s incredibly cool.

Looks like I’ll compose there as well, but because it’s not my main job, I’ll have a lot of “music juice” left over when I get home, so I can focus on my album projects without getting burnt out.

Champaign itself is a wonderful little city, a college town with all the modern conveniences, only everyone’s about 30 times nicer and more patient. Midwestern hospitality is amazing! It’s the kind of place I’d love to settle down, much more my speed than NYC. Plus, as a bizarre coincidence, most of the cast and crew from Press Start live a few minutes away! I’d visited Champaign for our theatrical premiere (which was, even more coincidentally, sponsored by Volition?!??) but never imagined I’d actually be living here a few months later.

This kind of thing happens to me a lot, really strange. But hey, I’m not complaining. Life is amazingly good, and keeps getting better.

We had a Kwakfest right after my interview (the stated theme was this picture), and I had to celebrate in song.
Here’s the MIDI file!

I will have a live recording (hopefully board recording + ambient recording mixed together) soon, but for now, here are the raw tracks I played, with all the instrument parts intact, for your listening pleasure:

Blast Off Forever (FM + PCM)
Jamiroquai - Love Foolosophy (VRC6 +FM)
Shantae - Bandit Town Redux (GBA + GBC + various synths/samples)
Loli Fishing Next 20,000 Leagues (SCC, MSX-AUDIO, PCM)
DnB Chip Mix 07 - Stas, Tomato Formula, Vectors (FM, PCM, LSDJ x 2)
Staring at my Spaceship DX EDITION (NES, orchestration)

I guess this is the first release of new original music from me in a while… More to come - got some new gear and a ton of energy after Blip Fest! Enjoy!

Guys, I’ve been trying to liveblog every set like last year, but I’m having too much fun dancing around and hanging with people to sit around with a laptop during the show, and I’m too blown out when I get home to write a big report. HOWEVER, I am still going to post a day-by-day play-by-play on each act, just like last year (well, I think I forgot to finish Day 4?) — just gimme a little time to recuperate.

I played tonight. I just got home, my entire body is broken and battered, and I need to be up in 6 hours to get back for the FM Synthesis workshop I’m giving. At the risk of sounding immodest, tonight was unquestionably my strongest performance ever. I seriously need to get in shape because my heart almost exploded during each song, because I was dancing my fool head off. The energy in that room was UNREAL. I will post all of the songs I played (and hopefully a straight board recording, when I get access to it). AND THE FESTIVAL IS ONLY HALF OVER. God, this rules.

I can’t thank everyone enough who came out tonight, old friends and new, to see me play among artists I so deeply admire. This was a sanity boost I desperately needed; been going through a lot of stressful times lately. I love you all, and I will keep sharing music as long as you will listen.

HI FRIENDS!

If you’re here because you saw us play at the Final Fantasy XI Fan Festival, Welcome! I’m virt, the keyboardist, and this is my personal homepage — we don’t have a band website yet, but I’m gonna make one soon.

We are the Smash Bros., and we play arrangements of awesome video game music from Castlevania to River City Ransom to Zelda — we live all over the country, are all composers and arrangers, and frequently jump up too fast in the Waterfall stage of Contra so the other guy dies, leading to fistfights and broken dreams. We play each year as the “house band” at MAGFest, the Music and Games Festival, in Virginia.

This was the first time we’ve played at such a big convention, and we had a BLAST! We know you were expecting the Star Onions, but thanks so much for rocking out with us — hope we scratched that itch. Also, wasn’t Ms. Tanioka awesome? I wish I could play like that.

We don’t have a CD yet, since this has just been a fun side project thus far, but we intend to record one soon! Keep checking back here, and I’ll let you know when we have something you can download or buy.

Hope to see you again soon!

THAT IS ALL.

Argh! I had had this written up but didn’t actually publish it because I was waiting for the thing to actually get released through one channel or another - it seems the awesome new chip label II got it out, and not a moment too soon.

I don’t often (uh, actually never) post about other people’s work here, but this is too good to pass by - Joshua Morse, who many of you know from his awesome game music arrangements, has released an EP of 5 tracks done entirely using FM synthesis. It was recorded on various ancient hardware devices and software recreations thereof, capturing the sound of 80s genesis/arcade soundtracks in the styles of funk, jazz, soul, and the like. The range of timbres and colors in jm’s work is amazing, and he has a great sense of harmony. These tracks are pure groove, and the best use of FM I’ve heard in a long time. Go listen right away.

WAVEFORM

While you’re at it, browse around at iimusic - they have some AWESOME people on board, including the inimitable, maniacal Norrin Radd.

ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

A refresher:
- Hilarious, lovingly-made independent film, chock full of game nostalgia
- You’re supporting indie filmmaking instead of wasting money on Resident Evil: Punching You In The Balls Over And Over For Two Hours Oh What’s That You’re Crying Too Bad So Sad
- Over an hour of original virt music that will NOT BE RELEASED ON THE INTERNET!

“Well, I thought it was the best game related movie I’ve ever seen. It was really funny.” –Kristi, who usually never finds anything funny.

Now for serious, beyond buying a copy, what we REALLY need is for people to spread the word. This means writing to your favorite gaming site - Kotaku, IGN, Destructoid, Gamesetwatch, or any other news site or blog you visit. The more people talk about this, the more attention it will get from the media, who typically ignore us little guys unless there’s significant buzz.

If you’re of the Digg persuasion - or even if you’re not - there’s a Digg entry up here, so make sure you stop by and Digg it. Every bit helps.

For everyone who has already ordered (that’s everyone reading this, right? Right.), on behalf of Dark Maze Studios and myself, ENJOY!

In case you’re reading this via a feed or something, or are too lazy to scroll down two posts, Press Start is my first feature-length film score. It’s a comedy about a trio of adventurers who are the video game world’s ray of hope against a hilariously twisted evil sorcerer. Along the way they meet shopkeepers, fight orcs, and stop to chat with a talking CG-animated tree.

If that doesn’t tell you enough, I’ll spell it out: It’s a light-hearted, moderately cheesy no-budget film done by a bunch of friends and volunteer actors and voice actors and makeup artists and choreographers and writers and yours truly — not Hollywood, nor Bollywood.

But make no mistake: it’s not just some stupid thing they threw together because they were bored, it’s a huge massive labor of love. The kind of labor familiar to mothers of triplets - including the knives and painkillers and potential circumcisions. Just the score alone took me 6 months, countless sleepless nights, tons of technical/stylistic studying and pushing my abilities to their absolute limits. I leveled-up like 15 times during the course of this, and can say for sure now: I LOVE SCORING FILMS.

Seeing how much devotion they’ve put into it has really endeared me to it, and will probably win you over, too, even if you’re a super jaded post-ironic anti-anti-hipster, which describes many of my friends. Wankers.

So: Here’s the trailer. (The only music that is mine is the “Not Final Fantasy” battle theme, and the ending jingle - I was slammed with work while the trailer was cut)

Here’s an interview clip (You can hear part of the score in the first two minutes)

It really was a fun project, but don’t just take my word for it - come September 25th, go order a copy - vote with your dollars for independent comedy films!

Plus, you get to hear an HOUR AND A HALF of brand new virtkwak, including some chiptunes. ?????

Okay, sleep time. Metroid Prime 3 is totally radical, by the way. You should buy that too.

(OH AND: If you’ve sent me mail recently and I haven’t responded: I’m sorry :( I’m catching up slowly but surely, I promise. I’m better about it now than I was last year or the year before, but still, no excuse. I love you Mom please don’t disown me!)

Wow. NOTHING escapes the internet, huh? I still can’t talk about it, save for what’s now public knowledge: That I’m responsible for audio in Contra 4. I’m surprised by how positive the response has been, given that I’m so early in my career, and the difficulty of living up to such brilliant past soundtracks. For what it’s worth, I’ve studied Konami music obsessively for most of my life, and have approached this with the utmost love and respect.

To anyone coming here from gaming news sites or blog links: Welcome! The Contra arrangement that everyone’s linking to is 8 years old! You can imagine that I’ve grown and changed a lot since I was 18. So enjoy it for what it is, but expect something that reflects a more well-rounded musician than the high-strung kid who wrote that. Okay, I’m still a kid, but at least now I can write for guitar, not just overblown melismatic wankery. There’s a time and a place, you know?

Feel free to browse around here, check out my freelancing demo site, and my latest chiptune work! Send me an email or comment to say hi, if you have a free moment!

Hello, friends!

First off, a new song: Sock Patterns, An unapologetically cheesy early-90s pop song in the style of Janet/Michael Jackson, and other Teddy Riley new jack swing-style stuff. If you don’t like sugary indulgent pop, you should avoid it. But you also should go die.

I made this using only sounds on my new Motif XS6, as the “demo song” I’m obligated to write when I get new gear. Keyfax’s Motifator site is even featuring it as one of their unofficial demo tracks for the XS series! I’m loving this synth so much - using it heavily in Press Start, for all sorts of pianos and pads and drums and stuff. About time I got a new main keyboard. The XP-30 treated me well, but by now it’s “vintage”.

NOW for the big news: I’m officially a free agent. Working at Gameloft was fun and a stable paycheck, but I reached a point where I had to decide between becoming a “company man” and abandoning my freelancing career, or going full-time independent. It was getting to the point where I was working 20 hours a day, health and sanity slipping away, and something had to give.

So, I decided to risk it all: I resigned, and spent 3 weeks going all-out on 8 different projects. I have more lined up, and it looks like I’m going to succeed as long as I keep networking and making friends. If you want to be on my STREET TEAM and support your neighborhood badmen, pass along jake.vgmix - word of mouth matters, so if you like what I do, you can help a lot by linking, blogging, and spreading buzz. Thanks so much to you dudes who already do. I’ll make burritos for you when you come visit.

As for the future, I’d like to move out west (San Francisco or LA) and build a studio where I can work outside of my apartment, and hang out more with local game developers, filmmakers, animators, and whoever else makes pretty stuff that goes well with music. There’s a lot of planning involved, so I probably won’t do anything drastic for at least a few months.

Since the release date was announced, I figured I’d start the hype machine over here, and let you know I’m scoring my first full-length movie!

Press Start is an independent film by Dark Maze Studios, directed by Ed Glaser. It’s a “comedy/adventure” parodying tons of classic video games at once, portraying their various cliches - character archetypes and plot devices - in a real-world setting.

Oh yeah, and it guest-stars the Pesina brothers, better known as RAIDEN AND JOHNNY CAGE. And yes, they get to kick some ass.

I’ve been wanting to get my feet wet in film for a long time, but was worried I didn’t have the skill or resources necessary to produce a serious soundtrack. But I got around that with this project - since this movie is videogame-themed, it’s a great transition because I can comfortably mix my game music styles and epic orchestration without taking either too seriously.

So, September 25th, get ready to order the DVD - and spread the word! The world needs more video game movies that aren’t made by Uwe Boll!

The title says it all - Kwakfest tune. Last time was the biggest turnout we’ve ever had, 38 entries spanning like 4 different communities. That’s 38 people who wrote a song in an hour! What’s your excuse?! We’ll need to make a proper Kwakfest site soon with archives of song packs and a better upload script.

Download and come flying with us!
(The story goes, he starts out on a hilltop holding up his wiimote, and a dragon swoops down and picks him up, and they fly low over lakes and valleys laughing excitedly and burning up trees)

So, guys, in addition to doing the FX3 arrangements, I’m planning to release a CD this year containing super-high-quality renderings of my Kwakfest songs (I have too much to fit on a CD [God, I love Kwakfests] so I’ve picked 20 tracks.) They won’t be arranged or re-performed, because I think that would kill the spontaneity and fun. When you think about it, it’s kind of an exhibitionist thing, flaws exposed and magnified. Just be glad I do this with music instead of cameras.

.. .. Well, there was that time I t

FX3 is COMPLETE!

Over the years I’ve released two EPs of Konami-style NES chiptunes - FX1 and FX2 - which have been fairly popular among the chiptune and VGM crowd. After what seems like forever, I’ve finished a new full-length album, and released it with awesome chip label 8bitpeoples. Even better, Prozax and I are working on a double-disc set containing arrangements of all these tracks - watch this space!

Download FX3 from 8bitpeoples!

If you haven’t already, while you’re there, download some of the other awesome stuff they have - over 70 albums, all for free, from the best names in chiptunery! Love to everyone who has helped me get this done, and cheered me on while I’ve been under such insane amounts of stress.

As I sit here typing away, bobbing my head, Bubblyfish and Mr. Neil Voss have been rocking out on the last night of the festival. I can’t believe I’ll be back at work tomorrow, no longer getting my eardrums blown out with square waves, no longer passing by chiptune legends every 10 feet and yelling “YEAAAHHH!!!” back and forth with them. Bittersweet.

Anyway, here’s what went down last night:

The Depreciation Guild: I was privileged to see their very first show at The Tank (In fact, it was my first time attending a chiptune show) and I heard a band that was rough around the edges but who I thought had a lot of potential to write catchy, emotional songs. Looks like I was right - over the past year they’ve totally matured and are playing stuff that hits hard. They were impressive, and have a very pleasing sound (heavy on the Triangle wave bass).

Aonami: AOOOONAAAAMIII!!!! He came out wearing a PANDA MASK and screamed at the top of his lungs into the mic while the most fucking searing noises imaginable blasted us directly in the brain. He’s definitely the most crazy person at Blipfest (Though USK and Goto80 come close to matching him for pure energy). He thinks nothing of leaving a high-pitched squarewave blaring (alone, raw) for 30-45 seconds while he headbangs in his panda mask. I want to hang out with him.

Covox: I’ve loved Covox for a very long time, and it was a real thrill to see him live. I was trapped near the back of the audience (At this point it was more crowded than at any other time during the weekend) but it’s okay: He’s about 7 feet tall, so I could see him just fine! His set was the most characteristically Euro-style of all, and I have to say after Aonami it was like a cool shower after being in a sauna. Of course, that didn’t last long, he started making people bounce pretty quickly, and they didn’t stop until he was finished having his way with us.

Bud Melvin: WOW! I have to say, I didn’t see this coming. Bud’s one weird mother. I’ve seen “weird chiptune guys” before (In fact, I’ve seen them this weekend) but Bud takes the cake for originality. He plays BANJO over glitchy / mathy electronic tunes, and sings semi-unhinged lyrics along with ‘em. And he has a great beard. Bud didn’t make the audience bounce so much as, well, trip balls. Yes, you read that right, a banjo picker over chiptunes. Yes, it’s everything you imagine.

Nullsleep: The man himself: The obsessive, laser-lighted 8bitpeoples godfather. He played stuff that, well, pretty much sounds like only Nullsleep can sound. Check his website to see how I describe his music - his style is one of the most distinctive out there. In fact, he premiered some new material, and was the most energetic I’ve seen him yet, truly in chip ecstasy. I’m pretty sure every girl in the audience wanted to take him in the back and rape him - I know I did.

Hally: Why does this show keep outdoing itself? Hally’s easily one of the best chip musicians in existence on both technical and compositional levels, though with his characteristic Japanese modesty, he won’t hear a word of it. After Hally finished, I was again drenched in sweat, and all of us OTHER chip guys (Random, Nullsleep, Anamanaguchi, even WAVE) were hugging each other and squealing in ecstasy. He not only played INCREDIBLY energetic stuff (which I happen to know was all written with MCK, which - take it from me - is hellishly difficult to write with), but he ALSO PLAYED A NARUTO SONG USING A ONE-CHIP MSX. I was in the front row screaming like a little girl the entire time, and I hope the show was as memorable for him as it was for us.

Touchboy: I have to be honest - after Hally I pitied ANYONE who had to perform - it would simply be impossible for anyone to match that energy. Luckily, Touchboy didn’t try to match it - he played a solid set and we all wound down and enjoyed some very nice, complex tunes. I wasn’t really paying attention at first because I was totally wrecked (more so than even after my own set).

Kplecraft: HAHA! Live saxophone and latin hand percussion over chiptunes! YES!!! These guys were good! I’d never heard them either, but now I’ll be going after their stuff ON THE INTERNET. There’s really nothing I could do to motivate myself to get up and dance at this point, but this was a great end to the evening. After the finale of their set, these dudes convulsed and fell on the floor while everyone cheered. I love chiptunes.

Afterwards, Prozax and Chibi-Tech and hcs and I got on the PATH as quickly as possible, headed to our respective beds (with varying degrees of success - boy does Jersey transit blow) and collapsed. Motherfucking Hally. God damn. Ridiculous.

Stay tuned for the final update (tonight’s show), which I’ll make tomorrow after sleeping off all this 8-bit noise!

Fuck tomorrow:

Hally. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

[prozax] haha i thought that said “oh my goat”
[virt] haha hang onOh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

That is all.

p.s. Oh my god.

[nullsleep]: “What the hell are you doing over here? Are you ..”
[virt]: “I’m blogging”
[nullsleep]: “You’re blogging in realtime, hahahaha, you bastard”

Last night was again surreal and incredible. In addition to the mind-bending artistry, there were a lot of surprise dudes showing up (Like my friend Mike, who I met last month at a business meeting [he’s a fellow mobile audio guy] - and, we just learned last night, who had seen Hally perform in Japan years ago!!)

Here’s my rundown:

Rabato: So, this hairy Spanish dude takes the stage and I’m really hoping he’s just going to go insane and start screaming, but instead these utterly blistering dance beats start exploding out of his Game Boy. Meanwhile, herr_prof is sitting next to me, telling me stories about how he used to give this guy tips on LSDJ, and now he’s basically godlike.

Quarta330: Ah, the first Japanese artist of the festival, and a hard one to beat - he started out playing some impressive dub beats (with delay all over the place) and ended up rocking the floor with heavier stuff later. The one thing that struck me most of all about his music was that the bass HIT HARD. The whole building shook when he played sustained basslines, requiring a suspension of disbelief as to their origin.

Pepino: AWWWWWWW!!!! They’re SO CUTE!!! A Spanish Game Boy artist (who lives in Japan) and a Japanese singer, who got up together and started doing the most adorable songs and dances. He wore a little bear hat, she held a tambourine, and they cheerily played everything from improvisational “metal solos” to a cover of .. ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”. I can’t make this shit up.

Mark Denardo: MARK! MARK! MARK! One of my favorites, and one of the strangest and most unique acts in the whole scene. When Mark gets up, nobody knows what to expect, as his idiosyncratic guitar/vocal routine never plays out the same way twice. He fought against bugging-out equipment and sang about Street Fighter characters, and asked that everyone be his friend. Please indulge.

Coova: AWWWW! Are all these Japanese artists this adorable?? Coova came out with her Game Girls blazing, really really interesting polyrhythmic experimental stuff. Couldn’t really nail down the skittering beat, and there was a lot of stuff happening at once, sort of modal impressionist stuff. It was funny watching people try to dance to it, as I imagine it must be for the majority of “intelligent dance music”.

Bit Shifter: The man himself - easily my favorite Game Boy artist, and one of the most prominent names in the scene - and for good reason. He refuses to hear it when I tell him how much I enjoy him, but then went and nearly blew out the speakers again with the ludicrously heavy beats and metallic Nanoloop drones. He played some new material in addition to my old favorites. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Herbert Weixelbaum: I am ashamed to admit that I’d never heard of Herbert before the festival, and I didn’t know what I was missing. By this time we were all totally exhausted, and he basically said fuck that, we’re not done hopping around, and played Austrian elektropop, a cover of “Back in the USSR” and some bizarre surf rock that sounded at home in California Games.

Random: Whenever we talk about Random we just kind of look at the floor and shake our heads. The thing with Random is that he went from a total beginner to just unreal in a matter of weeks. Somehow he hasn’t plateaued and is STILL improving, and last night was one of the best sets of music, from anyone, that I’ve ever heard. The entire set had people just BOUNCING, shouting their lungs out, and tripping on exhaustion. By the end I was soaked in sweat, dancing my fat ass off with Hally and Chibi-Tech - this is one half hour that will remain with me forever.

Afterwards, Bubblyfish told me a “few people” were going out to grab a bite after the show, and somehow a “few people” became “35 people, including most of the weekend’s artists from Europe and Japan” - we all packed into a subway car (instantly 15 people whipped out their DSes), headed to the Village, went to a Japanese restaurant and spent the early morning celebrating and drinking.

I got home at 6:30 and slept for about 12 hours, and I’m typing this on a wifi link at BLIPFEST DAY THREE, with Prozax sitting next to me (wide-eyed) as Bud Melvin blows our minds out with his banjo. More on that tomorrow! ROCK ON!

So, last night was one of the best nights of my life, and absolutely worth the insane finger-bloodying practices and gear-lugging across two subway lines. There’s no way I can even begin to do it justice with words - every single act blew me away - but I will give a quick rundown of each performer (And I’ll try to do it for each subsequent night, too, so keep checking back daily!)

Virt: FX 3.0 is complete, and is a full-length album pending release on 8bitpeoples. I debuted half of the songs last night (not a single other person had heard them prior), and Kristi recorded it using my iPod. Sorry for the clipping, and for the misnotes (my guitar was WAY too low in the mix [my own fault], so I couldn’t hear it to correct my hand positions until it was too late). I made far fewer mistakes than I expected, though, and rocked out very very hard (small clip, there will be tons of video footage later). 

Receptors: Awesome mohawked vocoder-heavy chiptunery. I was still so buzzing/shaken at this point that his set was a blur, but I remember enjoying it.

Glomag: Upbeat, very technically accomplished game boy electropop, reminded me of Bit Shifter in his nanoloop timbres, which is definitely a good thing. Sang also. This really set the mood and got us all happy.

Starpause: Insanity - I’m not sure what I enjoyed more, the ripping off of his shirt mid-set, or the fact that at several times I forgot I was listening to chiptunes and thought he was a club DJ. Extremely genre-transcendent material, had everyone moving.

x|k: One of my heroes, without a doubt - the guy who made the MIDINes!! Predictably, he uses it much better than anyone else, and played unbelievably good house tracks that, again, had everyone jumping around. Right now my neck is sore from bobbing my head to his music.

Goto80: DAT BWOY CRAZY!!!!! Got up and started screaming his lungs out about gay snuggling and possibly bunnies on top of awesome, deliriously frenzied c64 tracks. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I want to see it again and again.

Tugboat: Very smart indie rock/punk chiptunes that you can just tell were made by a shy perfectionist, with a live drumset which he literally bashed until it fell apart. He reminded me of Anamanaguchi at times, same kind of happy energy. He started the set by being interrupted by a “phone call” from his parents (represented by high and low pulse waves imitating voices).

Chibi-Tech: Probably my favorite act of the night, from probably my favorite NES musician overall. Did some ABSOLUTELY ASTOUNDING technical covers of j-pop songs and themes. I could go on for hours about all the insanely brilliant tricks he uses to thicken and articulate sounds - his technique is absolutely as good as it gets on the NES. There were several times where I swore he had sampled vocals, but in fact was just using pulse waves with duty cycles to emulate the vowels and consonants in the songs’ lyrics. That might seem gimmicky but it really is AMAZINGLY effective at simulating vocals. Plus he danced his heart out, jumping up on the table and getting way way down.

It was a pretty good turnout for the first night, more folks than I expected. I got to meet Hally, YMCK, and Kplecraft, all of whom came over from Japan, and all of whose music I adore. I also had a blast hanging out with Jeroen “WAVE” Tel, Pete from Anamanaguchi, NightsB, and tons of other friends. One of the awesome dudes from work even came out (he snapped those pictures at the top of my post, and took the video clip too)! Thanks Steve!!

Of course Kristi was awesome throughout, cheering me on and seriously reducing my stress level just by being cute and smiley. I’d have been a wreck without her there. I’d be a wreck in general without her there. Dayum, bitchezzzz.

MORE TO COME AFTER TONIGHT! There are 3 more days of this! HOLY BALLS! I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE HALLY’S SET. MY ENTIRE LIFE DEPENDS ON THIS.