In this episode we speak to Kevy Martinez, an LA-based musician, promoter and organizer whose musical project Wizwars was well known throughout the SoCal chiptune scene. Kevy and I have had a long history together in chiptune, as I often traveled up to LA from SD and they traveled from LA to SD to play in shows together, and we've known each other for more than a decade. While Kevy initially made their name as a musician and performer, they eventually became best known for the organization 8BitLA and the Freq.Fest chiptune festival series that 8BitLA put on. This is part 1 of a 2 part series, and in this episode we dive into Kevy's history with music and chiptune, their first forays into performing, and eventually putting on the first Freq.Fest event.
In this episode we mistakenly refer to the artist Lo-bat as Italian - Lo-bat is a Belgian artist. Apologies for the mistake!
Music in order of appearance:
Space Town - What Happened to Chiptune Theme
Wizwars - Game Boy Rock!! (performed at Shizzfest 2 at the Trunk Space)
Wizwars - The Violator
Wizwars - I Am Wizwars (Real Los Angeles Chipthrash)
Wizwars - Requiem For A Broken Heart
Wizwars - Right Back To You
Reference:
Reformat The Planet, a documentary about chiptune and the Blip Festival in particular: https://reformattheplanet.vhx.tv/
LittleSoundDJ(LSDJ), a piece of music software written specifically for the Nintendo Gameboy: https://www.littlesounddj.com/lsd/index.php
ObsoleteFM, an event series and collective based in LA that was active during 2011: https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/pop-hiss/story/2011-07-01/saturday-obsolete-collectives-monthly-chiptune-showcase-in-downtown-l-a
Blip Festival, formerly an annual festival centered around chiptune held in NYC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blip_Festival
Survey of the LA Chiptune scene and 8BitLA/Freq.Fest in particular: https://www.vice.com/en/article/gvqwk7/las-chiptune-scene-is-more-than-just-nerds-with-game-boys