Elmer Lynn Hauldren, aka “The Empire Carpet Guy” passed away this week, but he definitely left his mark on the advertising industry industry and affected generations of young people who had local-broadcast televisions running in their houses in the 80s / 90s. The ultimately-catchy jingle made Mr. Hauldren a celeb mainly because of his earnest delivery and the understated nature of them. “Empire” commercials weren’t cranked up beyond cheap speaker-potential for impact, for one, and it seemed like Hauldren was the owner, or at least a dedicated installer who loved his job.
Chicago gets a taste of the Montreal-based digital art and electronic music festival that showcases innovation in music and creativity on April 21-23 with Avant_Mutek: Chicago.
Founded in 2000, Mutek is an international festival organization dedicated to the promotion of electronic music and the digital arts. Its main event is an annual five-day event in Montreal, Canada that takes place in late May and early June. Many of electronic music’s most established figures have performed, as well as numerous new artists who have gone on to build sustainable careers. Along with performances, the festival also features workshops relating to gear and software showcases, and panel discussions concerning the issues that face electronic music and music production.
Reformat the Planet is a feature-length documentary that focuses on some of the personalities behind the 8-Bit / chiptune scene in New York City, featuring some of our favorite Game Boy artists, notably Bit Shifter.
Reformat the Planet (RTP) is a feature length documentary which delves into the movement known as chip music, a vibrant underground scene based around creating new, original music using obsolete video game hardware. Familiar devices such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System are pushed in new directions with startling results.
…After documenting several live chip music performances in New York City and being invited to film the first year of the now annual Blip Festival, it was clear that they stood before a rich cultural mine that few were tapping in any long-form projects. The decision to focus the film on the varied personalities of the NYC chip music scene was a quick and obvious one.
Here’s a nice article over at Memeshift with a lot of resources from all over the intertrons for getting started making electronic music. Even though it’s a bit old (2008), it focuses on basic principles and components, like oscillators, filters, synthesizer programming, and sampling. A nice resource for people just getting started.
