Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2010 > March > 17 > Entry
SXSW Scene Report: Datapop 3.0 at the Highball
Houston’s Sievert performs as part of Datapop 3.0 at the Highball Tuesday night.
Ary Warnaar, guitarist for the New York chiptunes band Anamanaguchi, famously described 8-bit music as “the punk of electronic music.”
It was hard to dispute that claim as Datapop 3.0 kicked off the first of its two nights Tuesday at the Highball. The third annual event celebrates 8-bit music — a distinct brand of electronic music that’s composed and performed through the use of old computer consoles from the 8-bit era of video games. Imagine techno performed entirely through samples culled from your dusty, trusty old Nintendo Entertainment System and you’ll be in the right ballpark.
8-bit music may not have the rage — or even the lyrics — of punk music, but it does share the same sense of youthful innovation and wild, giddy abandon. Also like punk, it’s the sort of thing that’s likely to be appreciated only by those of or below a certain age — if you’re not young enough to recall just how fiendishly addictive the melodies in, say, “Mega Man 2” were, there’s a solid chance 8-bit music might just sound like so many computerized bleeps and bloops to you.
But the crowd at the Highball clearly appreciated the music as Austin’s the Mysterious H kicked off the event at 8 p.m. with a high-energy set. Houston’s Sievert followed, pumping out jams on a series of heavily sliced and diced Game Boys, taking chugs of Pabst Blue Ribbon — seemingly the beer of choice for Datapop artists — between queuing up samples. The impressive laser light show and video projections added a needed dose of visual energy — without some multimedia accompaniment, the sight of even the most energetic 8-bit performers can grow a bit dull — particularly during the performance of Sweden’s Random, who apologized for his garbled English to a sweaty, constantly animated crowd who likely couldn’t have cared less. Crowd-surfing abounded.
This year represents a breakthrough for Datapop, a with a lineup featuring renowned 8-bit musicians drawn from all over the world, thanks to money raised through crowd-funding platform Kickstarter. Night two goes down Wednesday night and is free and open to the public — if the large-but-manageable crowd Tuesday is any indication, it might be one of SXSW’s easier-to-get-into free nighttime events. If you’ve ever found yourself absentmindedly humming the theme to “Super Mario Bros.,” you’d probably find it worth your time.
Follow Austin Music Source on Facebook and Twitter.
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW 2010
