The Big "We Just Got Back From Tour & It Was Awesome" Post

Hey all,

I just wanted to post quickly that the tour was awesome! People were interested and excited to see us play. Thanks to everyone who knew about the tour beforehand and came along. Thanks to those that didn't know about it and took the time to look at this blog after! An even bigger thanks goes to those who helped us out by organising the gigs!

In the coming days we will put together some of the footage we shot and get it on the web for you to see, I will also upload all my Game Boy Camera photos (EDIT: This has just been done. Check out the last four and a half rows of the "shows" section in my Gallery). In the meantime there are some "normal" photos of the gigs on little-scale's blog and some more on ninjaspew's flickr. I think little-scale also recorded the last show, hopefully that surfaces soon too.

Cheers,
Tom

The "Game Boy Australia Tour"

Well, Dot.AY and myself decided that we should go on tour. We both run this wonderful blog, so we went went with the blog title for the tour title... You know what I mean.


DATES:

• 23 Apr 2008, 08:00 PM - Club Consolador De Dos Caras - Sydney. This show sadly does not feature Dot.AY, but Tom (10kfreemen) will be playing it along with "Divide By Zero", "Przewalski's Horse" and "Abortifacient". For more details about this gig, click here.
• 24 Apr 2008, 06:00 PM - Horse Bazaar - 8bit Movie After Party - Melbourne. The first leg of what I will call the "official tour". Dot.AY and Ten Thousand Free Men & Their Families will be playing along side "Maddest Kings Alive" and "DJ TR!P" among many others. More on this here.
• 25 Apr 2008, 05:00 PM - Imbibe - Melbourne. This is going to be off the hook! I am not even going to list the other acts... there are so many that are playing with us. For a full list, click here.
• 26 Apr 2008, 08:00 PM - The House Party - Adelaide. This is actually an invite only gig, but if you are heaps keen to come... leave us a comment and we might work something out.
• 27 Apr 2008, 07:30 PM - Gallery de la Catessen - Adelaide. Tom and Alex are playing along side HIDDEN VILLAGE! Who are so amazing it is not funny. Again, more on this here.
  

Just as a side note. Alex and I will be selling the DIY split EP "Friends" as well as button pins and promotional floppies. So come check it out. A whole pack or our stuff will cost you about ten bucks! So be awesome and show us some support! I look forward to meeting you at a show!

Many Thanks,
Tom

STOP CHIPTUNE THEFT!

I am a huge fan of music sharing and the creative commons culture that is seemingly beginning to dominate the music industry. With fashionable hipsters like Radiohead and Nine Inch Niles all but giving their music away for free on the internet as a way to expand their fanbase and then make money from live shows. This is seeming more and more the way the music industry will overcome many of the problems of piracy. However, a very strange and completely unseen consequence is occurring from this, particularly in regard to the creative consumer. Most media-savvy people are now not content with just consuming music and art but wanting to participate and create themselves hence the rise of the creative consumers who share and participate in culture through the internet, where it seems now everybody has their own attempted individuality on display. The consequence of this is some people for whatever reason have begun uploading other peoples music and claiming they created it.

Some of the more extreme examples of this are Laromlab and Fitts for Fights. These artists built their entire reputations and musical career from performing and releasing other peoples materials as their own. What makes these examples extreme is the popularity these artists reached off the backs of other artists hard work before being found out. Fitts for Fights are now releasing actual original material and Laromlabs musical future is still unknown. The theft often doesn't progress to these extremes but on a smaller scale seems to be very widespread. The following is a roll call of the lesser known theivery that has taken place:

• DJ Chiento - Uploaded Bitshifter's tracks on Youtube as his own
• LFNT - Uploaded Covox's tracks to 8bit Collective as his own
• Vespertine (Brian Green) - stole Sabrepulses and Unicorn Kids music and created more drama on 8bc than an episode of Home and Away
• Eltronovox - uploaded 2 tracks from Grand Theft Andrew's kittenrock released EP to his own myspace
• Callum!Ate-bit - A bunch of stolen tracks apparently uploaded by his friend jack
• Ricky Romance - stole zepsi's track and possibly others
• Chav Murder Fetish (Ben Sullivan) - stole a track by ElectronicMess and ironically a remix by Fuckcopyright
• Franklin and Gorgo - Released only variations of covox's tunes (ie sped up reversed etc) one track released on a squish squash squad compilation

And I am sure there is and has been alot more what is important is all of these listed were found out and shut down before they actually built a sizable reputation or fanbase. So it seems that a combination of the sharing nature of Chiptunes being generally released for free mixed with lots of idiots without talent trying to become famous on myspace has led to a whole host of intellectual property thieves. The best thing that we can do as Chiptune enthusiasts is listen to lots of Chiptunes from reputable netlabels and when "generic 8bit artist" adds you on myspace just have a little listen to their tracks and make sure that you don't recognize it as belonging to someone else.

Alex
Chiptune Fraud Officer

"Friends"

Game Boy Australia is proud to present "Friends", a totally DIY Mini CD EP featuring a live ten minute set from both Dot.AY and Ten Thousand Free Men & Their Families (aka the guys who run this blog).

This release will be available at both 10kfreemen and Dot.AY gigs, as well as on their upcoming tour together (dates to be released very soon, just making some last minute confirmations) for a very reasonable price - only $5.00. Thanks to Ben for the cover art.

Coming soon: Game Boy Australia buttons/pins, promotional floppy diskettes and more...

Much love,
T&A.