Blip Festival 2009 > Blog

Isaac Asimov shares my birthday. He was born in Petrovichi, BSSR and I was born in Brooklyn, NY. I have a show on Brooklyn Community Access Television called AMOSTV. It started as a series of comedic free form short films, roughly fifteen minutes in length that were screened locally around Brooklyn in basements, backyards and at house parties. AMOSTV first aired at midnight on saturday April 2, 2005, and continues to run to this day.

I work/play as an art director/designer in Manhattan. My copy writing coworker Bryan Johnson and I have been performing 8bit/live drum music under the name HI HAT + LO REZ (hihatlorez.tumblr.com).

“Bright Lights” is almost an instructional video for a do-it-yourself Blip Fest. It strips Blip Fest down to the essentials of enthusiasm for the genre and immersion of the curious.

[ED: As Blip Festival approaches, we are adding additional voices to the blog, detailing the festival from all possible angles. First up is TCTD writer and musician Lazerbeat. Enjoy!]

When I was a kid, maybe 8 or 9 years old, my father traveled to NY. He stayed a few days, did the tourist thing and returned with a back pack filled with candy and those little medals you could get stamped out of coins at the Statue of Liberty. Always been most curious about the city and Blip seemed like the perfect reason to visit. In 2008 I was best man at a wedding in Seattle and a year earlier a deranged landlord had foiled my plans. 2009 is my first Blip festival, my first trip to NY and with any luck my first trip through US customs without getting “special treatment” in one of those nasty little rooms.

Before the festival begins, just pause for a moment, think about what is happening. People are converging on New York for the 4th year running, motivated purely by a love of our kind of music. How wonderful is that? Nobody is getting rich off this, no major label is strip mining the “Next Big Thing” for profit. Its us, we did it, music fans writing and performing for other music fans.

I fly out on the 14th and shall begin reporting in earnest on open mic night. With luck I will have a slightly unique perspective being new to the festival but with a little background knowledge of the scene. Hopefully I can report on proceedings without falling back on “epic” or “destroy” but we shall have to wait and see.

One final word, my thanks to Nullsleep, Bit-Shifter and Mike Rosenthal their team for putting Blip 2009 together.

See you all in a few days!

Tomorrow is the last day to submit your video in our “Blip Your Own Adventure” Fan Video Contest.

Read all about it HERE

See what you are up against HERE

AND GET CRACKIN!