Sweat, Chiptunes & Robot Bears: Anamanaguchi & Friends At Silent Barn (Photos)
Posted by Joshua_Kopstein on Monday, Feb 07, 2011
Photos by Emi Spicer and Marjorie Becker
Layers of rock-hard ice continued to freeze over the cold pavement of Wyckoff Avenue in Queens last Saturday night. But unbeknownst to many of the sleepy street’s residents, an environment entirely opposite had briefly come into being at Silent Barn, the borough’s premiere DIY music hideaway. The air was visibly thick as a rowdy all-ages crowd piled into the graffiti-filled concert/living space which also serves as the permanent home of NYC indie arcade Babycastles.
Glasses fogged up, a window shattered and a giant cyborg teddy bear crowd-surfed as local chiptune rockers Anamanaguchi, along with an unprecedented lineup that included Nullsleep, Starscream, George & Jonathan and the J. Arthur Keenes Band turned the Ridgewood venue into a sweat-slicked bedlam of unrestrained, microprocessor-powered hysteria.
Downstairs, the Babycastles arcade made its triumphant return to Silent Barn, emerging victorious from its momentary takeover of midtown Manhattan. The four games on display, all made in 48 hours during last weekend’s Global Game Jam, provided the perspiration-drenched crowd with a few moments of respite in the venue’s noticeably cooler basement area between sets.
Back upstairs, two members of the cast of MTV’s American remake of SKINS (which surprisingly wasn’t as horrible as I thought it’d be) appeared amongst the sweaty masses. Just then, a giant laptop-stuffed teddy bear loaded with Foddy’s QWOP was thrust upward alongside a half dozen crowdsurfers as Anamanaguchi exploded into one of their 8-bit anthems, covered in glitched-out live visuals from NES hackers NO CARRIER and noteNdo. From the looks of it, neither the laptop nor the bear survived.
Check below for more photos from the chiptune show that nearly brought Ridgewood’s #1 underground music venue crumbling to the ground.
(Photo by Falsebit)
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Electronic musician and computer culture journalist. Contact: josh ◢at◣ motherboard ◐dot◑ tv
