Edinburgh Festival Gigs: Ultrachip @ The Forrest Cafe 2010/08/21 - 22 (Saturday, Sunday)

A friend recommended this to me. "Scotland's first chiptune festival" sounds like a laff! Don't know any of these guys yet, but I'll try to get along to at least one of the nites.

"There will be live chip music, visuals & DJing from 8pm – 3am on the Saturday and Sunday night. Age limit: 18+ due to there being a bar.

During the day on Sunday there will be workshops on chiptune composing, circuit bending & VJing (full details here). Also, there will be a Chip Market with a range of chip-related goods on sale, running 12-5pm in the main hall upstairs. Age limit: none, all ages welcome."

So bring along yer casio n a crosshead n get bendy wi that noise making equipment!

Got into the modscene and chiptune stuff as a teenager after downloading a trippy old-school mod for Doom called 8-bit deathmatch. Dark, claustro, boxy levels with eppy-inducing flashing walls, strobing lights, and a pixelated power arsenal. Best thing was the soundtrack tho - some of the modscene's best grindy and bleepy loops and tracks were also included!

So I'm hoping it will sound not completely unlike these:

Doom 8bitdm Part 1


Doom 8bitdm Part 2

Edinburgh Festival Gigs: SOMA Party @ Cabaret Voltaire 2010/08/20

So keen for Soma! See you there tonite!

DF Concerts presents The Edge Festival

SOMA RECORDS NIGHT

Main Room:
Slam
Funk D'Void
Harvey McKay (Live)

Room 2:
Telefunken: Alan Gray & Nick Wilson

www.somarecords.com

Edinburgh
Cabaret Voltaire
Friday 20th August 11pm - 4am


www.theedgefestival.com

Edinburgh Festival Gigs: Three Musicians and a Beatboxer @ Lebowski's 2010/08/18

On Sunday me and my friends had an afternoon jam at Lebowski's! First gig, got paid, even got invited back!

Arren got a sunday slot and roped his friends together to form some sort of band. We were a ragtag bunch, but I think it went okay! He played guitar and sang, while Paul brought his congas ad guiro, Myles was on bass for a bit, and I was beatboxing once the bongos were packed up.

Highlight of the day was definitely Paul on the bongos. Some of the tunes just came to life with his rhythms. Under the sea, for example!

The Little Mermaid - Under The Sea


Same again next week! We did agree to practice some more, but I may have to cancel that if I perform at all, given how busy my non-musical life is getting!

Edionburgh Festival Gigs: After Dark @ Henry's Cellar Bar 2010/08/14

This should have been posted a while ago, but like I said, it's been a busy week! Ideally, I'd like to write about gigs before they happen as well as after, but, y'know, I'm having too much fun.

We do like After Dark, so because we had a free late weekend flyer for Henry's Cellar, it was clearly the right thing to do to go see them again!

The mercifully short act before was some terrible warbly singer-songwriter girl telling us how amazing it was to be here and what lovely people we are.

After Dark stepped to the stage more confidently than last time, and it was a better set overall. Different line up too, tho I don't think I've seen the same one twice tbh. Paul brought the congas again for a little latin flair in the rhythm, but they weren't without the drumkit where it was needed.

A most pleasant surpise was their new material. My fave song of the nite was one they called "P. Irate" or "P. I. Rate" or something like that, a fun wee accordion-driven pirate shanty which became a raucous singalong as soon as we learned the chorus: "Yo ho, me hearties, yo ho!" "YO HO!". About half way through they got shipwrecked on a very funky island, so it took another latin swing as they learned the local rhythms.

Love it every time they play their funked up laid back Snoop Dog cover.

Snoop Dog - Sensual Seduction


As ever, "I got my mojo working!" got all eight of us in the place on our feet and grooving and flailing to the end. It goes a little something like this classic Muddy Waters performance.

Muddy Waters - Got My Mojo Working


Holgate, the new guitarist, was a bit shy on some of the tracks since he only learned the material that day, but he sounded great on the mike singing a lovely blues song he knows. (I'll try to find out what it was.)

Hope they lay this stuff down to disc soon!

Edinburgh Festival Gigs: Animal Hospital @ Sneaky Pete's 2010/08/12

This should have been posted a while ago, but it's been a busy week, what with all-day afterparties, getting a job, and moving house and such!

Animal Hospital: Minimal techno
for sick puppies and kittens
(Credit: David Lewis)

Animal Hospital was fucking awesome, as always. Every second Thursday of the month at Sneaky Pete's.

Nick Dow was first up when I arrived. This guy blew everyone away with his own material. This guy's doing really well, and I wanna hear more from him! Eerie minimal soundscapes with pleasant clicks n pops. Have a listen on his Myspace.

Course, coz it's festy time, the place was bangin' till 5am! The residents impressed as usual, and there was another guest pumping out the silky tunes too. I think I caught his name but was too busy dancing to remember.

Nick Dow

After a bit of sit-down sitar + beatbox fun while waiting for a taxi, the afterparty got underway, and did it go on its merry way! 20 hours later still spangled. The peak moment was probably sometime just before noon Friday when this balkan banger hit the deck.

Sebastien Leger - Balkamaniac


And this wasn't actually played ("because it's hard to mix"), but I was pointed in the direction of this filthy obscene pounder. Makes me wanna run things over.

T. Raumschmiere - Monstertruckdriver


This nite I also met a guy who has a radio gig in the borders playing whatever alternative tracks take his fancy. These days he seems to fancy glitchy stuff and folktronica. Have a listen to the Dinner and Bass show on Soundcloud! As I write, on the second hour of the first show is available; Soundcloud might be having issues, because this guy has 2 public tracks but only 1 is visible.
Dinner & Bass on TD1Radio.co.uk - The Alternative Selection(2nd Hour) by dinnerandbass by dinnerandbass

Edinburgh Festival Gigs: Admiral Fallow @ Sneaky Pete's 2010/08/11

Admiral Fallow played a bouncy-flouncy, fun-fun-fun-fun-fun set at Sneaky Pete's sweat box last nite!


These guys are up-n-coming indie rock from Glasgow. Whimsical and fun, thoughtful and emotional, but not dreary and wrist-slitty like so much of this genre can be.

They played all the faves (my friends were having a great singalong), a few new ones, and even squeezed in their first ever encore at the end!
Check out their Facebook or Myspace for their tunes. 'Sqealing Pigs' is a belter. 'Old Balloons' is a singalong favorite for my friend. 'Subbuteo' is one of those "really quiet tunes... shh" that explodes with sound halfway through. When I heard it live it nearly melted my face. Good work!
Gotta run, back to Sneaky's tonite for some filthy minimal till 5am ;)
Image credit: Greig Middlemiss (Different Light Photography)

More Hick Hop

After listening again to Gangstagrass I thought of a couple of track that would go quite well.

Jack Parow - Cooler As Ekke

More on Jack Parow later when I get round to blogging my South African musical discoveries. :)

Nelly feat. Tim McGraw - Over And Over

Okay, the Nelly/Tim McGraw track is cheezy as hell, but my dad liked it!