No Super Mario Bros Level 1-1 allowed!

Theirspace / Tetris Hold'em

Effin' aye! We got ourselves a chip music band! My first experience with Gameboy made chip music came in the form of two furries going by the name of Teamtendo, and since then I've had some hard luck finding cool new chip artists, particularly locals.

Now's your chance to send me all the chip bands I've been missing in the comments section.

None the less, Tetris Hold'em earned this week's Theirspace spot partially by default (not much going on that's cheap this weekend), but mainly because they are da shitendo. Besides, Pay What You Can really is the right price on a Sunday.

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Tetris Hold'em's MySpace page

How does one "make" music with a Gameboy? There are a number of ways. The big thing to remember is that music on original Gameboy games isn't made like they are on your fancy pants X360s and Wiis; the cartridges have instructions to trigger a few oscillators that are stored in the Gameboy systems themselves. If memory serves, there's a square wave, a sine wave, a general noise channel, and one or two other channels.

In other words, you ain't workin' with much.There are a few cartridges sold on the net, like Nanoloop (which Tetris Hold'em uses) and LSDJ (Little Sound DJ) that make Gameboy music composition a breeze. If you're a musician already, that is. Add in a drum machine and you're good to go blippity bloppity bloop.

Tetris Hold'em's music is all about noisy looping beats. Not the kind of stuff you can bust a move to on the dance floor, but the kind of stuff that makes your illicit substance addiction all the more entertaining. Oddly enough, the live jam they have on their Myspace page is arguably their most dynamic track available, which leads me to believe that these guys will give you a lot of bang for relatively little buck this Sunday.

WAVELENGTH 364 w/ Woodhands, Peter Project, Windom Earle, Tetris Hold 'Em
Sunday, May 20
Sneaky Dees
431 College St.
416 603 3090
Cost: Pay What You Can


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