Interview: Talking Boston Bitdown and chiptune with Battlemode and geekbeatradio
Inaugural digital fusion music festival goes down March 6 to 8 and features more than 50 performers and artists across five venues in Greater Boston
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
HOMEPAGE . ARTISTS . VENUES . TICKETS . INSTAGRAM . BATTLEMODE . GEEKBEATRADIO
Art Credit: Neil Williams @brickbrker
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 50-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).
Check out the full performer lineup below.
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.
To get properly amped – and educated – we chatted with Biff and Rob to talk about all things chiptune, the origins of Boston Bitdown, and why everyone needs to attend the fest this weekend – and bring all their friends. (Interview conducted and edited by Knyvet’s Michael O’Connor Marotta.)
Knyvet: Ok, the first question is the hardest – how excited are you to launch Boston Bitdown?
Rob Carballo: Extremely excited! There was a time when there were not so many geek/nerd and gaming music events. 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 had yet to surface. We take inspiration from notable chiptune events of the past such as BlipFest (2006 to 2012) and Square Sounds (2013 to 2020).
We realized, as successful as these events were, the community was still very underground back then. To be clear, it's still a lot underground, but with way more mainstream acceptance than ever before.
For example, Boston's own Battlemode – and fellow Boston Bitdown organizers – will be playing Boston Calling in May, an achievement none could have thought possible, maybe even five years ago for a local band playing our beloved chiptune music.
Biff: OMFG! Have you ever seen that clip of an interviewer asking Charles Manson to tell them in a sentence who he really is? And Charles Manson responds with a series of goofy and dramatic faces, like he can’t figure out which face to land on, or which emotion to feel. Sometimes, when there’s such a multi-layered concept ahead of me, and I’m feeling so many different emotions, that Manson clip comes to mind. I’m feeling excited, I’m feeling nervous, I’m feeling proud, I’m feeling neurotic. Boston Bitdown is a culmination of almost everything chiptune that’s ever happened to me in my entire life – all in 3 days. So it has to be perfect.
Stepping back a bit, how did this festival idea come together?
Biff: We’ve been working on this festival everyday for almost an entire year. It feels like it has grown into the heavens high beanstalk Jack climbs, but the idea itself (as most ideas are) was so small - seed sized even! I often look to my bandmate, Astro, for ideas when I’m feeling like Battlemode needs something cool to do. I remember the conversation well. It went almost verbatim like this:
Biff: “We need something cool to do. What’s something cool we could do?”
Astro: “We should have our own chiptune festival.”
Biff: “Hmmm… that sounds interesting. Ok – let me see what I can do.”
Rob: It's something we have all wanted to do for quite some time. Years of experience throwing our own smaller events as well as helping book and organize larger events like MAGFest and PAX East’s Jamspace helped us get here. I myself have 20-plus years as a stagehand currently working with IATSE Local 11 here in Boston and helped book both those events I mentioned above for quite some time.
Biff has been working booking his own events for about a decade and more recently booking for a few of the venues where Boston Bitdown will be held. There's way more team of course contributing in so many other ways, BrkBRKer’s an incredible artist and designer and chiptune composer responsible for everything you see that is the Boston Bitdown brand; Sam Mulligan, MC facepalm, and DonutShoes are creators and well respected chiptune musicians themselves, helping us make the best decisions and pretty much ready for anything else; Matt from Break Bleeps has vast experience in tech and music and has been extremely supportive and generous with his knowledge; Sylvan is forever a positive force and creator of all things merch since the early days of Boston8bit and everyone is lucky to have her.
I think the various skill sets just finally reached a point where we were all ready to really make it happen and I’m so pleased with everything our team has put together as a result of lots of hard work. I'm thrilled to be part of this team!
Why does Boston need a three-day chiptune festival?
Biff: Every city needs their own three-day chiptune festival! We hope Boston Bitdown encourages other chiptune promoters and like-minded people to host chiptune shows/festivals in their cities! We need to build the chiptune network. When chiptune is doing well, Battlemode is doing well. BUT! Boston has a wonderful, special chiptune scene -- unlike any other scene. 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.
Rob: Boston has decades of history in the chiptune community between Boston8bit and geekbeatradio but in the early days it was more underground. Now the music of gaming has become the soundtrack of a generation.
Charlie Rosen of 8bitBigBand said this in Forbes Magazine in 2020: “In the past, people created these collections of music. For example, we refer to the Great American Songbook, which originated in American culture in the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s. There are Broadway show tunes. Movie scores. Today, there’s a whole new generation of people that grew up with a new kind of songbook – the Video Game Songbook: a collection of themes and melodies and music that we associate with the experience of playing video games. It’s a touchstone for a generation of people that grew up with digital media and interactive media, a big focal point of their upbringing.”
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.
Plus we really wanted to do it!
What can attendees expect from this fest and how does it differ from other fests?
Biff: Boston Bitdown is showcasing 100% chiptune/digital fusion -- but one should not expect a solid sound for all 72 hours. Boston Bitdown sets the stage for chiptune pop, chiptune EDM, chiptune indie, chiptune punk, modern chiptune, and classic chiptune. Boston Bitdown presents a wide variety with a common denominator: Chiptune.
Rob: Attendees can absolutely expect bands making music from various genres like punk, dance, metal, emo and more. People who make chiptunes are very passionate. It's very likely your favorite chiptune artist playing at Boston Bitdown will be dancing along with you in the audience before and after their set. We even have a few non chip acts scheduled. The VGM community has so many talented artists who you shouldn't be surprised are also chiptune fans!
The spirit of the diy scene flows through chiptune but make no mistake these artists are talented composers who often make their living through performance as well as music contributions to gaming and even through films or television soundtrack work. We will have a few of these films featured at Boston Bitdown along with the composers present for Q&A and in one case a full live band performance of the score alongside the film itself.
This lineup rolls super deep. How did the lineup come together and how were bands and artists selected?
Biff: This first Boston Bitdown is a compilation of almost everything chiptune that’s ever happened to us. We also had the goal of showcasing a wide selection of chiptune expressions.
Much of our lineup is our Boston talent. All our Boston chiptune talent were guaranteed a spot (with exception of some special friends we wanted to save for 2026). Some slots are artists we admire include Roboctopus, Don’tBlinkOrYou’llDie, The Civil War In France, Nullsleep, and Freezepop. And some slots are the beautiful chiptune friendships we’ve made across the US (and even a little bit of Canada), like Decaying Tigers, Ultra Deluxe, R41nb0w Tr4$h.
Rob: 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. 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.
What’s also cool is that Boston Bitdown takes places across five venues in Arlington and Somerville. How did you select the venues for this?
Biff: These are venues close to our hearts (and also ones we have access to). Astro works at The Jungle Music Community Club, and has strong ties to Warehouse XI. I work at the Capitol Theatre and The Crystal Ballroom, and have ties to The Rockwell. We want to throw a sick chiptune fest, but we also want to monetarily support our places of business!
Rob: “We are fortunate to have existing relationships from previous shows and events with the different venues. Originally we only had three locations but as things blossomed into what the event has become the expansion to five venues was necessary. Luckily there were convenient spots next to both the Day 1 venue The Jungle, at nearby Warehouse XI in Somerville’s Union Square, and across from the Day 3 venue Crystal Ballroom, at The Rockwell Theater in Davis Square.
This enables attendees to go back and forth rather conveniently between venues and allows us to fill each day with the most music possible really making this a true music festival
On Day 2 we are blessed to have multiple venues within the same venue. We will be hosting the festivities that day at The Capitol Theatre in Arlington.
Getting into the music again, how would you explain chiptune to a person who has never heard of it?
Biff: Elevator pitch: It’s video game music! Chiptune is music made with a Game Boy. But here’s a little more: Chiptune is an electronic timbre – traditionally made via Game Boys, but also made through an array of other trackers. Chiptune is a genre, but also a means to express any other genre (rock, hip-hop, Broadway, etc).
Rob: I once got to explain chiptune music to the great Dr. Demento when he took one of my music requests of a chiptune song to play on his show and wasn't familiar with what chiptune was. He not only played my request but quoted me on air, which I was thrilled about, and I feel my answer to him is as complete an answer as I could ever give so I’ll quote myself as my answer here below –
“Chiptune music or chiptunes describes music created on vintage gaming and computer hardware using either original software or third party tracking software. This software allows a user to create music in very much the same way the original video game music composers did back when these electronic devices were first released. Little Sound DJ or ‘LSDJ’ is a tracker that seems to be the main choice for chiptune artists and the gameboy the instrument of choice.
It's important to mention though that Amigia & Commodore 64 computers and a slew of other platforms are also very popular, including modern day hardware and software that allow you to emulate these vintage sounds. People sometimes think chiptunes are always going to sound like Super Mario but this is far from true. Using this style of creation people can make music of any genre from jazz to rock to even Celtic music. The chiptune music scene resembles the punk scene in that it is raw, underground and run by the fans and artists themselves.
Boston chiptune artists actively sought each other out prior to the days of social media and banded together to form the collective Boston8bit. Other similar communities exist in major cities worldwide. People who make this music are super passionate and would probably continue if nobody was listening (sometimes they aren't haha). When I started geekbeatradio in 2010 (currently on hiatus because our radio workstation broke some time ago) I wanted to include all things geek and nerd and as a result I’ve had the opportunity to meet and interview many wonderful people and truly some of the best geeks who make chiptune. The chiptune community has been so supportive and inspiring to me personally. I can proudly say I have friends worldwide as a result of being a part of this community.”
The Boston Bitdown lineup really features some notable names from the world of chiptune, and many have likely heard of their influences possibly without even realizing it. What are some of the cooler accolades and/or accomplishments of just some of the performing artists?
Biff: Great question. Just to name a few –
Trash80 invented the M8 tracker, a portable tracker sequencer and synthesizer. It’s an evolution of the gameboy and LSDJ tracker. Glomag scored some of the original Toxic Avenger film, and all of Splatter University. Button Masher is a Grammy award winning artist! Freezepop had a track in the original Guitar Hero video game. Disasterpeace wrote the scores to It Follows, Marcel The Shell, and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, and we’ll be screening those last two films during the festival.
What else? Nullsleep is co-organizer of Blip Fest, a chiptune fest that ran 11 times on four continents between 2006 and 2012. Visual artist Zebbler is a regular contributor of multimedia installations at Defcon as well as teaching visuals at Berklee College (and he was one of the artists behind the 2007 Boston Mooninite panic). Active Knowledge is one of the founders of Boston8bit. And Brick BRKer, an incredible chiptune artist, is the designer for all Boston Bitdown art!
What’s the best thing about Boston Bitdown?
Biff: It’s embarrassing, but I’ve chosen to dedicate my life to chiptune. For me, chiptune creates the most expressive sounds that perfectly reflect the 21st century. The purity of the perfect sine wave, the crunch of the saw wave, the buzz of the square wave.
I’ve also built the most incredible friendships and relationships through chiptune. My bandmates (a relationship that feels more like brotherhood than friendship) were forged in chiptune. I owe chiptune everything. BUT, I definitely have my own critiques of chiptune culture.
Chiptune can have a very exclusive, “gatekeep-y” side to it -- going all the way back to “fake bit” controversies: Divides created between artists that wrote music on Game Boys vs. artists that wrote music music on 8-bit sounding synthesizers. Or the rat race of getting on a “Chiptune = Win” compilation: An annual chiptune compilation where artists would submit tracks, and a special chiptune judging committee (WTF?) would select the “best” 30 tracks. I want to model a festival that smashes exclusivity. Obviously we still need headlining artists that will sell tickets, and we can’t book everyone – but we want to.
The best thing about Boston Bitdown is: 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.
Rob: 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 BostonBitdown.com: “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”
Boston Bitdown is billed as a chiptune festival but also a digital fusion festival – what does that mean, exactly?
Rob: We stand tall with all the die-hard purist chiptune fans craving ancient hardware and challenging techniques but there's no denying that it's also part of a greater whole. The term “digital fusion” allows composers to draw inspiration from all sorts of digital spaces including gaming and computers 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.
