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#space town

ellaguro
@ellaguro

interview on my friend's new podcast "What Happened To Chiptune?"

was on chiptune artist/my friend space town's really great new podcast "What Happened To Chiptune?" talking about my... experiences in online music/game communities as a non chiptune artist in very much adjacent spaces.

i talk about my experiences in places like OCReMix in the early/mid 00's and various parts of the the 2010's indie game scene. a lot of talk on this episode about formative online community experiences and the failures of so many DIY scenes as well. hopefully i said enough interesting stuff to justify being on here along with a bunch of actual chiptune artists!

i've really enjoyed listening to all the interviews on this podcast and learning so much about a scene i was only ever tangential to. so anyway - definitely check the episode out (and this podcast in general, it's great) if it seems at all interesting to you!

curiousquail
@curiousquail
Sidestages of Yesteryear
|| Episode 04 ||
A banner that looks almost identical to a Sonic the Hedgehog logo with the words MAGWEST, GOTTA GO WEST and an atari joystick in the middle. The top of the sign reads Santa Clara - Panels 1 and the sign itself is on a chair propping open a conference room door.

MAGWest 2017

📅: August 25-27th, 2017
🗺: Hyatt Regency Grand Ballroom - Santa Clara, California
About This Series:
In 2015 I began a ritual doing volunteer concert photography (and gifography) for all artists on lineups my band played. Many of the artists and venues from these days no longer exist and I wanted to document it all somewhere - Cohost felt like the right place?? Anyway please join me on an adventure into the musical past!

📷 check out the whole series here 📷
Disclaimers I want to link out to where these artists' work can be heard. I'm understandably not in contact with every person I've photographed and performed with over the years, so I've done my best to find links that work or were the last current ones before the groups disbanded etc. Lastly - there's alt text for each image, please let me know if anything doesn't render right.
About MAGWest 2017 The first MAGWest! There'd been several MAGFest sponsored events in California up to this point that we'd been involved with but this was the first officially branded "MAGWest" event and put simply - it was an absolute shitshow lmao. It took place during the same weekend as Crunchyroll's inaugural CR Expo at the same hotel and event center, but you couldn't use your badge to go from one to the other despite both parties advertising this in advance. (I believe they fixed this by the second day) The MAG main stage was located next to the exit of the MAG side and the entrance to the Crunchy side which meant: MAGWest attendees had to go through a maze to find them in the first place, and CR expo people would hear music from their side and try to get in, only to be told by security they had to go all the way around to the front of the hotel AND buy a pass. All that said though, we had a fucken blast. It ran the 25th-27th; I caught some of the first night's acts and most of the night when we played, but had to head back to the desert on the 27th before the final day performances. Also there were two stages but the other stage (the Jamspace) was on the second floor on the other side of the event center and I never made it over there since we had to man our booth at the main stage's merch area. We originally were planning on using MAG's Rock Island (aka MAG staff running merch for all the bands) but three days before the event they sent out an 'oopsie' email letting us all know they had to cancel Rock Island, oh and also everyone need to get emergency California Business Seller's permits or they wouldn't be allowed to sell merch. Like I said - shitshow, but still a blast.
Read Episode ↓

- Space Town -

🗺: San Francisco, CA | Animated gif a person in a grey button up shirt and a black and white hat (Patrick of Space Town) performing music on a stage with a mixing board, an ipad and some other hardware. Stage lights behind them shine as he performns.
- click or tap to expand full gallery - I love Space town so much. Amazing musician, super stand-up dude, I don't believe he's actively making music anymore but he put on a hell of a show. Black and white photo of Space Town from the other side of the stage. He's bent over and adjusting knobs on his hardware. Animated gif of the side of the stage; Sapcetown can be seen dancing and performing but the camera is zoomed out enough to catch the glitch art being portrayed on large screens next to the stage. Black and white photo of Space Town making music; a lens flare from the stage lights is creating a large ring around the frame Close-up animated gif of Space Town twisting knobs and bobbing along to the music as the stage lights cycle colors behind. Black and white photo of Space Town smiling deviously between songs Animated gif of Space Town from the left side of the stage. He's twisting knobs and stepping back and forth from the table with all the hardware on it.

- Boaconstructor -

🗺: Seattle, Washington Close-up animated gif of a person in a blue/green tanktop, a backwards black cap and glasses (Mike of Boaconstructor) on a stage making music with a mixer and other hardware. Stage lights
- click or tap to expand full gallery - BOA. The first time we ever played with this dude was at a FreqFest in LA and despite being from Seattle he arranged for local gogo dancers and someone to do a goddamn marionette puppet show during his set. An absolute showman, the king of the Gameboy Advance. Again, I don't think he's super active anymore either and the world is less for it. Black and white photo of Boaconstructor smiling contentedly. The photo is taken from the crowd and people are cheering and clapping Animated gif of Boaconstructor taken from the crowd; he's holding a gameboy advance and bobbing along to the music as the crowd dances Black and white photo of Boaconstructor holding a gameboy advance in one hand and turning knobs on his mixer with the other Animated gif of Boaconstructor on stage - again taken from the crowd and they are dancing along. A person on the left side is wearing a rather prominent Sonic the Hedgehog hat shaped like the character's blue hair. Animated gif of glitch art on the display screeen that shows the word BOACONSTRUCTOR in a stylized blocky font Black and white photo of the person in the sonic hat in the crowd; Boaconstructor is performing in the background this sonic hat was giving me so much joy throughout Animated gif of Boaconstructor dancing on stage with his gameboy advance Black and white photo of Boaconstructor performing on stage

- Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett -

🗺: Berkely, California Black and white photo of Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett performing, taken from the left side of the stage. Darren has an acoustic guitar and ashley is singing into a microphone. They're both seated.
- click or tap to expand full gallery - The voice of Zagreus himself! It's wild to think of a time before Hades, but this first MAGWest took place about one month after the release of Pyre so Darren and Ashley's set focused on that. I was totally blown away by their set and didn't take nearly as many pictures as I'd meant to and didn't get a single gif. Afterward I remember hanging out with Darren at our merch booths and bonding over being parents in music, and realizing we were born exactlty a month apart in the same city. Black and white photo of Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett performing, taken from the right side of the stage. Ashley is smiling and laughing at Darren. Black and white photo of the packed crowd; photo is taken from about 40 feet back and it's standing room only. Black and white photo of Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett performing on stage Black and white photo of Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett performing on stage Black and white photo of Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett performing on stage

- Myrone -

🗺: Los Angeles, California Animated gif of a person with long hair, a white shirt and black pants (Myrone) holding a black electric guitar covered in stickers. The crowd is applauding fiercely as he walks back and forth on the stage
- click or tap to expand full gallery - I'd never heard of Myrone prior to this and his set made me fan. Absoloute shred and vibe city. Black and white photo of Myrone shredding on stage, taken from further back in the crowd. Animated gif of Myrone on stage, face down, focusing on notes while the stage lights cycle behind him. Black and white photo of Myrone leaning back into a serious shred, hair going everywhere. It's metal as fuck. Animated gif of Myrone doing a strange but adoarable little dance between guitar parts.

- crashfaster -

🗺: San Francisco, California | Live visuals by Dæmon Core animated gif of four people on stage performing; on the left, a woman (Keiko) singing, in the middle at the back, a drummer (Devin) wearing a 'PROTECT TRANS YOUTH' shirt, up front, a bald man (Morgan) singing, and at the right side a bald bearded man (Ryan) shredding on an SG style guitar.
- click or tap to expand full gallery - I didn't plan it this way, but MAGWest 2023 is happening this weekend and not only is crashfaster playing again, but so is Keiko's side project Alice Knows Karate. You should go if you're in the bay area! Black and white close-up photo of Morgan singing and holding his hand out to the crowd. animated gif of Keiko singing and dancing while stars are projected behind her black and white photo of Morgan singing tensely with Ryan in the background animated gif of Morgan and Keiko clapping and the crowd clapping along black and white photo of crashfaster from the crowd; Morgan is singing towards the sky, Ryan is shredding, and the projection behind them shows glitch art featyuring the words 'Crashfaster COLOR' in the style of the Gameboy Color logo animated gif of morgan singing with colored lights changing his skin tone every flash photo of Keiko singing with hands extended. Devin is behind her drumming and the projection art shows what looks like a syringe emoji animated gif of Devin drumming intensely; the projection behind shows some sort of film grain landscape video black and white photo of a spaceship logo from one of crashfaster's music videos, projected on the screen behind them animated gif of devin drumming from the right side of the stage; starts are being projected behind him photo of Keiko and Morgan singing their hearts out animated gif a large light installation on the side of the stage that's glowing green in time with the music

- Kirby's Dream Band -

🗺: San Diego, California animated gif six people on stage performing music, all wearing pink shirts with Kirby's face on them. The gif is taken from the crowd which is packed and baloons are flying by in the foreground. The band consists of one bass player (center), two guitarists flanking him, two keyboardists flanking them, and a drummer in the back.
- click or tap to expand full gallery - The pure joy of seeing them change hats to let you know what franchise's music they're gonne do next is unmatched, tbh. They're still super active by the wyay, they're playing a festival in September down in southern California! Photo of a drummer with a kirby tanktop absolutely smashing some drums animated gif taken from the crowd as pink balloons descend from the sky and cover the hall black and white photo of the stage left keyboardist and guitarist; they're wearing (respectively) an M. Bison hat and a Ryu red headband, as they've entered the Street Fighter portion of their set. A kirby doll is perched on the keyboardist's Yamaha M08. animated gif of the stage right guitarist having a ballon float near his head as he headbutts it back to the crowd mid-song black and white photo of the stage lights shining so bright, the band is invisible from the crowd. Only baloons and crowd silhouettes are visible. animated gif of the stage left guitarist and keyboardist shredding, taken from stage right. The stage right keybaordist setup blocks the other members from view. black and white photo of the stage right keyboardist rocking out in a power stance at his keyboards and wearing a Vega (street fighter) mask. animated gif of the drummer doing an intense fill - he's wearing a chun-li headbamd. black and white photo of the band taken from the crowd. Balloons are EVERYWHERE close up animated gif of the stage left keyboardist going to town, still wearing the M. Bison hat black and white photo of the band photographed from stage left; the crowd is playing with the balloons animated the bassist and two guitarists rocking out and smiling to each other. The stage right guitairst has a large yellow wig, the bassit has a Guile flat-top wig, and the stage left guitarist is still wearing the Ryu headband.

- Backstage / Behind the Scenes -

Photo of a merch booth set up with CDs, shirts and more for sale, as well as two CRT TVs with a Nintendo and Super Nintendo connected to them. We didn't skimp on the merch booth.
- click or tap to expand full gallery - Black and white photo of the backstage area; amps, TVs, guitar and drum cases and more are all lined up into sections. There's a large sign with a quail and the words 'CURIOUS QUAIL' on it. In the goreground is a keyboard stand, a suitcase and a mario style question block with a $ sign. Black and white photo of the backstage area from a different angle. There are about 5 pelican-style flight cases for equpment, a folding table and all sorts of other gear lining the wall. Black and white photo of our drummer Joey weaing a tanktop and shorts - he's resting on the floor using a drum bag as a pillow and his hands on his chest. Our drummer Joey'd been a MAG volunteer for a few years and was one of the stage managers for the event. He had a very tiring week. Photo of me photographing myself in my hotel batrhroom mirror. I'm holding an iPad in myu other hand with the quail logo on it, and I have a MAGWEst badge around my neck Clip-art style design of a person with a headset holding a game controller and the words EAT SLEEP GAME! REPEAT An Event Map for MAGWest - it has additional text written on it to show the disatance between the entrance and the concert halls, plus the closeness of the neighboring event (crunchyroll expo) to the concert hall, but with no entrance This is what I'm talking about. The 'Main Concerts' at the bottom right was right at the entrance to Crunchyroll's Expo at the Convention Center portion of the Hyatt, but the Hotel Entrance was in the middle left portion of this map. It was a mess. View from the hotel; mostly of a parking lot but in the distance is the Santa Clara stadium, home to the San Francisco 49ers. black and white photo of people playing games at our merch booth. One of them is in sayajin cosplay from Dragoball Z, another is in a detailed Venom costume. animated gif of a person in Winter Soldier cosplay choking out the person in Venom cosplay I'm photographing myself in a mirror in our band's studio; the walls have several mirrors on them, as well as some cable hangs and a painting of a tree with jack-lanterns. I'm wearing a purple shirt, black pants and green shoes. Our violinist Alan is wearing a red shirt and jeans. Joey (drums) is sitting at his kit checking his phone and awearing a black andf white tanktop. Josh (bass) hasn't arrived yet Nearly identical framing to previous photo, but now Josh is here and holding his bass. At this point I'd moved to the desert, so this was my first time rehearsing in person with the band in our bay area studio in months. Grainy gif of us performing on stage; Alan is holding his violin to his side and swaying to the music, I'm playing guitar and singing, Josh is holding his hands up in the air in a heart shape, and Joey is sadly not visible. The crowd is swaing hands back and forth We don't have any photos from our set that I'm aware of, but we did catch this gif from the live stream. Unrelated, but probably one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend was that I met someone in the hall wearing Asriel cosplay from Undertale about an hour before our set - I knew we were going to be covering 'Hopes and Dreams' so I asked this (then) absolute stranger if when that happened, they'd be willing to run back and forth in front of the stage like he does in the final battle AND THEY DID IT, like an absolute champion. They're a super cool person and we've internet-wise stayed in touch.
Some of the gifs may have flashing lights and this post is tagged as such as a precaution.