Boston Bitdown presses play on inaugural chiptune + digital fusion music festival

The March 6 to 8 video game music fest features more than 50 performers and digital artists across five venues in Greater Boston

Organized by Battlemode and geekbeatradio, the festival welcomes Nullsleep, Freezepop, Ultra Deluxe, Aethernaut, Glomag, Trash80, Button Masher, Disasterpeace, exciting!!excellent!!, (T-T)b, DonutShoes, Math The Band, Zebbler, v.kash, and more

BostonBitdown.com has tickets, news, lineups, and info

Taking over Crystal Ballroom, The Jungle, The Rockwell, and Warehouse XI in Somerville and The Capitol Theatre in Arlington over three vibrant nights

Art Credit: Neil Williams @brickbrker

Media Contact: Michael O’Connor Marotta, Knyvet PR, at michael@knyvet.com
Festival Contact: David “Biff” Jubinsky, at david.jubinsky002@gmail.com

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BOSTON, Mass. [March 6, 2025] – Most brand-new music festivals usually hope to be a little more than a blip on the cultural radar. Boston Bitdown hopes to not just be a blip – but a beep, a bloop, and a zap.

The inaugural chiptune and digital fusion festival, a three-day, multi-venue, and 40-plus-performer celebration of all things video game music and beyond, presses play with the 8-bit community from March 6 to 8, merging the underground and the mainstream for one of the most colorful, animated, and ambitious celebrations the Boston music scene has experienced in years.

Boston Bitdown, organized by Battlemode’s David “Biff” Jubinsky and geekbeatradio’s Rob Carballo (alongside a wealth of contributing talent from the worlds of art, design, music, tech, and merch), takes over five venues over one weekend across Somerville and Arlington, MA: The Jungle Music & Community Club and Warehouse XI on Thursday (March 6); The Capitol Theatre (March 7), and The Crystal Ballroom and The Rockwell (March 8).

“Every city needs their own three-day chiptune festival!” exclaims Jubinsky, a lifelong supporter of chiptune, video game music and electronic compositions traditionally created from a Gameboy or vintage sound emulators. “Boston has a wonderful, special chiptune scene – unlike any other, honestly. We might be biased, but Boston chiptune, collectively, is the best chiptune in the world. Prove us wrong. We want to showcase our chiptune talent, which is why most of our featured artists are from Boston or have Boston ties.”

The performer slate for Boston Bitdown, an inspired mix of musical and visual artists, runs particularly deep (see the current lineup below). In addition to live scores, film screenings, artist Q&As, and other attractions, the performer lineup for the first-year fest features Trash80 (inventor of the M8 portable tracker sequencer and synthesizer); Glomag (who scored some of the original Toxic Avenger and all of Splatter University); Button Masher (2021 Grammy Award winner for Best Arrangement: Instrumental or A Cappella for his arrangement of “Meta Knight's Revenge” with Charlie Rosen); Freezepop (of Guitar Hero video game fame and longtime Boston synth-pop band); Disasterpeace (writer of scores for It Follows, Marcel The Shell, and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies); Nullsleep (co-organizer of 2006 to 2012 global chiptune fest Blip Fest); Zebbler (acclaimed visual artist who helped spark the 2007 Boston Mooninite Panic); Active Knowledge (a co-founder of Boston based chiptune collective Boston8Bit), and Jubinsky’s Battlemode (who play Boston Calling in the spring).

Other performers include Ultra Deluxe, Aethernaut, exciting!!excellent!!, DonutShoes, Graz, Maxo, R41nb0w Tr4$h, (T-T)b, amateurLSDJ, Saoirse Dream, Don'tblinkoryou'lldie, D&D Sluggers, Active Knowledge, Blueberry, Koji Kompote Band, MC facepalm, Corset Lore, robotsexmusic, Math The Band, Minusworld, Game Genie Sokolov, Fucking Machines, Magnificent Danger, Lame Genie, Decaying Tigers, Diamond Machine, Nmlstyl, FLOOR BABA, Indiana Joe, Roboctopus, The Civil War In France, Agave Maria, Storm Blooper, The Apsychalypse, Sam Mulligan (also of Battlemode), and Brick BRKer, who designed all the official Boston Bitdown art and graphics, with others to be announced. Visual artists include V.Kash, Datacats, coolpics.biz, DiyDestruction, BADWARE, MS Paint, Vivizection, and more.

“All of us involved in booking and planning Boston Bitdown have been super active in the chiptune music and VGM music communities for a really really long time,” Carballo says. “Most of these artists are people we know quite well. Some were recommendations by artists we booked. Ultimately it was very important for us to book a festival rich in diversity and culture and also to make sure those super active locally, always the backbone of any community, were not overlooked. I'm super proud of the lineup as both an organizer and a fan.”

Three-day passes, which includes the only entry point to Thursday night’s festivities, are priced $120. Tickets to Friday’s party are $50; Saturday’s events are priced at $50; and admission to the chiptune rave is a cool $20. Tickets can be purchased through the festival’s homepage, bostonbitdown.com. And the nightly lineups can be found down below.

Carballo, who describes chiptune as music created on vintage gaming and computer hardware using either original software or third party tracking software, says the festival is inspired by past events that helped lay the groundwork for chiptune music to be accepted around the world, like New York City’s BlipFest (2006 to 2012) and Australia’s Square Sounds (2013 to 2020). It also pays respect to homegrown outlets who have supported the genre in the early years of the emerging video game songbook wave, like Boston8Bit, Carballo’s Geekbeatradio, and the array of electronic music projects that have swam against the tide in a rock and roll town.

But even in the four years since a fest like Square Sounds ended its run, the landscape for chiptune music has shifted dramatically – here in Boston and around the world.

“There was a time when there were not so many geek/nerd and gaming music events,” Carballo says. “The geeks won the culture wars, though, and now you can go cosplay and game and hit up a different con every month, yet somehow a large-scale, dedicated chiptune music event [in Boston] had yet to surface. As successful as BlipFest and Square Sounds were, the community was still very underground back then. A lot of it is still underground, but with way more mainstream acceptance than ever before.”

Jubinsky jokes that the seeds for Boston Bitdown were planted a year ago, when Battlemode’s Astro Logic playfully suggested launching a music fest simply to have something fun to do. Carballo’s experience in helping book and organize larger events like MAGFest and PAX East’s Jamspace helped solidify the vision. From their efforts to the network of collaborators and contributors – Brick BRKer’s art and design; street cred from veteran composers Sam Mulligan, MC facepalm and DonutShoes; and Sylvan’s merch knowledge, to others lending their smarts and experience – Boston Bitdown is a community-minded affair. The talent exists here within the city, and has for a long time.

“Boston has decades of history in the chiptune community, but in the early days it was more underground,” Carballo says. “Now the music of gaming has become the soundtrack of a generation. Boston and its surrounding area is filled with youth in hundreds of colleges and universities who no longer see this music as obscure. They listen to this stuff right alongside mainstream music.”

And while chiptune and digital fusion are the driving beat behind the fest, the sound of Boston Bitdown is one that flows through several shades of electronic and video game music, all in the spirit of the DIY scene. Jubinsky says attendees “should not expect a solid sound for all 72 hours,” instead a spectrum of chiptune pop, chiptune EDM, chiptune indie, chiptune punk, modern chiptune, and classic chiptune. “Boston Bitdown presents a wide variety with a common denominator: chiptune,” he notes.

And the digital fusion aspect allows for the fest to branch out into new and exciting territories.

“The term ‘digital fusion’ allows composers to draw inspiration from all sorts of digital spaces including gaming and computers,” Carballo points out, “but there are limitless possibilities because music, and the ways to create it, should always be embraced. It's never not amazing for me to see the trillion different ways people make music. Endless techniques are used, sometimes deliberately, sometimes out of necessity, and at the best times both, digital fusion is as enjoyable as it is hard to define. Boston Bitdown is honored to provide a place for a few days for everyone to come together and celebrate chiptune and digital fusion music.”

Boston Bitdown also hopes to erode the gatekeeper aspect of the genre, welcoming both its most ardent and long-term supporters but also the curiosity seekers who are interested in becoming a part of the community, learning more about the genre, or simply looking to expand the idea of what a music festival could be.

“I want to model a festival that smashes exclusivity,” Jubinsky says. “Obviously we still need headlining artists that will sell tickets, and we can’t book everyone – but we want to. If you’re a chiptune artist who is actively trying to create sick chiptune, and you want a showcase slot at an upcoming Boston Bitdown -- we intend to book you. It might take a couple showcase cycles, but we intend to book you and provide you with a stage and chiptune loving audience. Fuck exclusivity, and long live chiptune.”

It’s a sentiment shared by Carballo: “The best thing about Boston Bitdown is that we, the organizers ourselves, are fans of this music so it is the real deal. No corporate entity or sponsorship is driving our decisions. As it says on the homepage: ‘The goal of this event is to promote, listen to and enjoy some great music with friends from far and near’. So please come join us in March and make some new friends who share love of the chiptune music community.”

Contact Michael Marotta at michael@knyvet.com for media, press, television, and radio inquiries and opportunities.

What is Boston Bitdown?

Boston Bitdown is a new artist-driven music festival celebrating chiptune and digital fusion music, taking place over three days, March 6 to 8, across multiple venues (Crystal Ballroom, The Jungle, Warehouse XI, and The Rockwell in Somerville and The Capitol Theatre in Arlington), with 40-plus live performances and digital art installations. Tickets are on sale now.

Performing live at Boston Bitdown 2025:
Active Knowledge
Aethernaut
Agave Maria
amateurLSDJ
The Apsychalypse
Battlemode
Blueberry
Brick BRKer
Button Masher
The Civil War In France
Corset Lore
D&D Sluggers
Decaying Tigers
Diamond Machine
Disasterpeace
don'tblinkoryou'lldie
DonutShoes
Exciting!!excellent!!
FLOOR BABA
Freezepop
Fucking Machines
Game Genie Sokolov
Graz
Glomag
Indiana Joe
Koji Kompote Band
Lame Genie
MC facepalm
Magnificent Danger
Math The Band
Maxo
Minusworld
Nmlstyl
Nullsleep
R41nb0w Tr4$h
Roboctopus
robotsexmusic
Sam Mulligan
Saoirse Dream
Storm Blooper
(T-T)b
Trash80
Ultra Deluxe

With visuals by:
V.Kash
Datacats
coolpics.biz
DiyDestruction
BADWARE
MS Paint
Vivizection
Zebbler

Venue locations:

Warehouse XI: 11 Sanborn Ct, Somerville, MA 02143
Jungle Community Music Club: 6 Sanborn Ct, Somerville, MA 02143
Capitol Theatre: 204 Mass Ave. Arlington, MA 02474
Crystal Ballroom: 55 Davis Sq, Somerville, MA 02144
The Rockwell: 255 Elm Street, Somerville, MA 02144

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Media contact: Michael O’Connor Marotta at michael@knyvet.com
Festival Contact: David “Biff” Jubinsky at david.jubinsky002@gmail.com

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