Chip Rock

Maniac Mansion, who supposedly released an album in 1999 (hm), were a chip rock act from Louisiana, USA that split up in 2005. After that the two members started to make videos and porn music, apparently. The Maniac Mansion songs are not easy to come by anymore, but there are some on the Myspace. I stumbled across some of their MP3s on a forgotten harddrive, and thought I’d write a little piece about chip rock. I’ve written about other chip-genres here.

Anamanaguchi are probably the most famous ‘chip rock’ act these days, tending more towards pop than punk I suppose. The Depreciation Guild even more so, and are also gaining recognition outside of the chip-bubble. Going more towards punk, there’s for example Superdöner (hello myself) and Go With Fourteen O.

There is plenty of metal-smelling 8-bit music without guitars. People like Virt and Heospheros and Norrin Radd make intricate beep “metal” that relate to the old Konami NES-style. Others do it a bit harder like Laconic Zero (related to the underground-famous Next Life) and use C64 and guitar/bass. Aleksi Eeben’s the Grand Rules is a true metal epos, made strictly on C64 (in his own tracker I guess). To get more grindy you should check out Unas, who I can’t seem to find a link for atm. If you prefer things more noisy, you can check out chip noise.

It seems that ‘nintendocore’ and ‘8-bit screamo’ is pretty popular at the moment, but I’m not really sure. I used to be quite into this stuff, and also did some stuff, but I’ve lost touch. Anyway – the most intense chip rock I’ve seen, is the French one-man band, Duracell. He plays a regular drum-set, but triggers old videogame music with it. Despite the 1980s game music, it is surprisingly refreshing since he is such a good and violent drummer and because he actually sequences the music by using different trigger-combinations. He still seems to be doing long tours around Europe, so try to catch him!

Okay, now time for the last dance! Check out Klisje Paa Klisje – the Amiga scene’s answer to November Rain. Feel the power of 15-minute mega-ballad! There’s plenty more MOD-rock to be found, like Bruno’s Valerian 777. But now let’s end with a funny youtube-clip.