Chip Hop

By Andrea Appleton
POSTED JUNE 29, 2007

It was the first day of summer and oddly joyful music filled the air on a block of White Street, near Church. Gathered in the middle of the street before a makeshift stage, some people danced and others nodded to the beat of electronic beeps and blips reminiscent of a Pac Man game.

“The sky is raining marshmallows and you can eat it like cereal!” musician Mark DeNardo sang to one trilling, bleeping composition. But soon after, the sky rained water instead, and audience and performer ran for cover.

DeNardo was the first of three “chiptune” artists to perform on June 21 in a concert sponsored by The Tank, a performing arts space at 279 Church Street. (The show was part of Make Music New York, a free citywide music celebration.) 

Chiptune music is a fairly new genre in which musicians use old hardware like Game Boys and Nintendo Entertainment Systems to synthesize original compositions. The songs are composed on sound chips, and though related to other types of electronica, have the squeaky bright tones of classic video games like Tetris.  

When the skies cleared, Joshua Davis, a.k.a. “Bitshifter,” arrived, carrying two Game Boys. Raising one arm dramatically, he began playing a song with a slow orchestral beginning, which, at the press of a few buttons, broke into a jubilant bleeping arpeggio. If the Super Mario Brothers had shimmied down a water pipe and joined the ecstatic crowd at that moment, it might not have seemed so very strange. Instead a steady stream of pedestrians paused to listen.

“It’s a very infectious sound,” said Al Pfaet, who was on his way to dinner with friends. “I think it’s great. I’m from the generation when we called these ‘happenings.’”

“It reminds me of nerdy 80s kids,” said Ani Sevag. “The sound is very Atari.”

Residents peered down from their lofts to see what was going on. Children passing by with their parents wriggled happily to the beat. Diners in the two restaurants on the corner swiveled in their chairs to stare out the window.

George Conde, manager of Petrarca, stood at the door of his restaurant with arms folded, sternly contemplating the crowd. But he had no complaints, since the music wasn’t audible inside the restaurant.

“It’s a nice sound,” he said, shrugging. “Nice people. Young, but nice.”

Two of those young chiptune afficionados spoke to a Trib reporter while taking a breather from dancing. “We’re very big fans,” said David Ertel, 20. “What I like is the limitations it places on the musician.”

“When I first heard it, I wasn’t that into it,” said his friend, Henry Baum, 21. “But now it’s pretty much my favorite music.”

With that, Jeremiah Johnson, a.k.a. “Nullsleep,” the last of the three performers, began his set.

His hair flying, he rocked back and forth, pushing buttons with a rapid-fire thumb action, as if trying to jump a level in Donkey Kong. The music sped up, and the sweating, bouncing crowd went wild.

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