For those who aren’t in the know, Blip Festival is a three day long face-melting chipmusic event in Brooklyn, NY. And, I’ve got tickets! If you’re so inclined, hit the jump for a rundown of all the highlights. I’ll be updating this post at the end of each day, so be sure to check back.

Day 1

Alright, so honestly, it’s really goddamn late. HPizzle and I had some troubles getting home. This was pretty much par for the course given how inept I am at travelling anywhere further than the kitchen. Regardless, I’m not planning on going in to detail as my bed is looking oh so inviting.

As far as the venue is concerned, I really like The Bell House. It’s small enough that you get a good view of the stage from anywhere, but big enough to give you some breathing room. I guess that means it’s medium-sized? Let’s not dwell on it. It’s got a cozy little lounge area up front by the bar, too.

Anywhere, in the interest of brevity, here’s who played the first night:

Silent Requiem

Sort of a wall of sound, industrial, fuzzy kind of buzzing. (How the fuck do you describe some of this? A music critic, I ain’t.) Well, I liked it.

Failotron

He was fun! Failotron threw in some guitar action over his soaring chippy epics. His LSDJ cart crashed in the middle of his set and corrupted his song. We were pretty broken up over it, but cooler heads prevailed and a laptop later he was up and running again. All in all, pretty triumphant stuff.

Leeni

Somehow, a girl got on stage. I was kind of thinking there wouldn’t be a lot of these, but I guess I was wrong. I really enjoyed Leeni’s set a lot. It had sort of a new-wave meets Castlevania thing going on. At one point, Leeni managed to channel the spirits of like 20 Gauntlet cartridges. Seriously, does anyone know the track I’m talking about? Wizard needed food, BADLY.

Minusbaby

Alright, I need to start out by saying the visual effects for Minusbaby’s set were in 3-D. But for me they were in regular D because I didn’t get a pair of 3-D glasses. Favorite part, though? The sweet Minusbaby sprite flying through space! Sound wise, Minusbaby is BIG. There’s a lot more going on than my novice ears can detect.

Chromix

Of course, I’m always biased towards the more video-game inspired stuff. Luckily, Chromix gave me what I was looking for: Mother Fucking Chemical Plant Zone. Very dancy. Very ravey. Very fun.

Je Deviens DJ En 3 Jours

Talk about high energy! These French guys blew the goddamn roof off the place. They hit a lot of different genres as well. Some hardcore, some dance, and some rap (IN FRENCH). As a bonus, I’ll use these jokes again, since nobody laughed at them when I said them out loud: “Now they’re playing with Eiffel Power!” and “These guys are Verscientists.” Seriously, that’s funny. Please laugh.

Albino Ghost Monkey

Loved his sound, very poppy and game-inspired. Yes, AGM had some great music, but he should definitely get some kind of award for flipping out the most. He was loving every minute. He was down in the crowd dancing and even did some kind of reverse stage dive. (IE: He started in the crowd, got lifted up and thrown back on stage.) It was, in a word, awesome.

Eat Rabbit

I can’t remember much other than fear. He came out in a rabbit mask and the visuals were 3-D models of heads being viewed from the inside-out. Really, the only reason I’m not asleep right now is because I’m afraid Eat Rabbit is going to bust in and swallow my soul. It was all very Residential.

Day 2

It’s very late again, so I’ll make it brief.

Disasterpeace

Really digged his set. He started with this incredible build up and just rocked it hard. Little guitar action keeping it fresh too. (It’s also at this point that I realized that visual artist Enso is one of my all-time favorites. Skeleton Cosmonaut? Please and thank you.)

Starscream

And the awesome continues. Is space-rock a music genre, if it is, Starscream is leading the charge. (Also, it’s sort of a pun. You know, like rocks in space. Space rocks. Those robots we send up to the Moon collect space rocks. Look it up.) Anyway, another great set. It’s really amazing how much actual drums can completely change the vibe of a track and get your blood pumping.

Fighter X

Holy shit, this stage is FAST. Definitely one of those one-off vehicle stages that come out of nowhere. Really though, this was some pulse-pounding laser-blasting face melt. After seeing them, I’d be interested to know how they work together to make a track. Like, do they each take a Game Boy, go nuts, and then meet somewhere in the middle? Curious.

Little-Scale

I feel like maybe I need to go through his catalog to really appreciate Little-Scale. I knew there was a lot going on here, and certainly a lot to love, I’m just not sure if it was my cup of tea…YET.

I, Cactus

I’m not entirely sure what happened here. Honestly. I need to preface this next statement by saying that whatever happened, I think I enjoyed it. Regardless, the whole set sounded like an entire iTunes-worth of corrupted MP3s. I heard Papa Roach digital-car-crashing in to Eminem and Britney Spears. I don’t know. Sounds like a hard-drive failure. Sounds like angry robot sex. I’m having a hard time describing this.

Nullsleep

Oh boy. Nullsleep was the first chipmusic artist I ever heard and this was the first time I’ve seen him live. It was downright impressive, of course, although I wish I had heard some of his more simple game sounding stuff. (I routinely listen to The Gameboy Singles 2002 when I’m ARTing.) Regardless, he got the crowd moving!

RainbowDragonEyes

This guy was a fucking character. I loved him. He’s like the Andrew W. K. of chipmusic. (I absolutely mean that as a compliment.) Lots of super fast blippy dance with these outrageous pitched up vocals. The urge to party was impossible to resist. On top of it, he had some awesome stage banter: “Everybody shut the fuck up!” or “How many people here like being alive?” He also did that head banging move where you swing your long hair around like a windmill.

Patric C

We had to leave early to get back to the stupid parking garage before it closed, so I only got to hear a little bit of Patric’s set. I will look him up and give him a fair listen, I swear.