Look UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT at Blip Festival 2009 and you might be awestruck by the lights and sounds surrounding you. This isn’t a vintage video game…this is all real.

Blip Festival 2009 is a festival celebrating the 8bit movement. Every year, people from around the world flock to New York to hear exhilarating music from nostalgic video game consoles (NES, Game Boy, Atari, etc.) accompanied by stunning (although rather "grainy") visuals. This year’s festivities will feature great local 8bit acts as Starscream, Nullsleep and Bit Shifter. The Festival will take place at The Bell House from Thursday, December 17 to Saturday, December 19. Tickets are $15/day or $40 for a 3-day festival pass.

I recently sat down with NYC musical artist Chromix and visual artist Jean Y. Kim. We talked about what one might expect from this year’s festival. – Read Nicholas Palumbo’s inerview here.

Adam Green (currently topping out NYC songwriters "Web Buzz" chart) is playing a surprise full-band show tonight at Lit, $6 cover – do not miss! His new album Minor Love will be out 2/16 on Fat Possum.

"Less is more" is one of those sayings that’s good for all seasons. The Ropes stopped incorporating other musicians in their live show in early 2008, feeling that finding permanent members who reflect their ideals was unrealistic. They have described their past experience with band members "a living hell" (NYC musicians, does that ring a bell?). They started touring with an unusual two-piece live setup: while vocalist Sharon Shy plays bass, the bands’ other half, Toppy, plays guitar, drums, and keyboards more or less simultaneously. The show is done 100% live. No drum machines or loops are used.
The band has announced details of their upcoming EP “Love is a Chain Store”, first available on the bands’ website for download using a Radiohead style "pay what you want" model (beginning on December 15) and then released "properly" on January 12, 2010. Produced by Nic Hard (The Bravery, The Church) and The Ropes, “Love is a Chain Store” expands upon the bands’ previous musings on isolation, individualism, and anti-romance.

The community arts space Artists Television Access (ATA) will be celebrating their 25th Anniversary this weekend with two evenings of fantastic entertainment. Friday, December 11, 2009, 7:30 pm at a FREE film & video screening party that includes work by founders, staff and associates from early 80s to the present – 29 different artists in total.

Sunday, December 13, 2009 will be the 25th Anniversary Fundraiser Party. An all-day event with live music from a slew of Bay Area musicians, performances, installations, bbq and a raffle to win stuff from a bunch of local businesses. Bands lined up for the day The Lambs, Jeremy Dalmas and Friends, Young Prisms, Bare Wires, Ash Reiter, Kacey Johansing, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma & Paul Clipson, Eats Tapes, Psychic Reality and Rank/Xerox. 11am-10pm, $10. Visit their site for a full schedule.

-Nicole

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I have to admit that I haven’t watched a lot of the music based prime time TV shows that I hear people talking about. I’ve never seen an episode of Glee and I think I could name you 2 American Idols, but my ears perked up this week when I heard that a song from Oakland based Oona was featured on So You Think You Can Dance last week. The soulful pop ballad Tore My Heart provides the foundation for a very mysterious and haunting choreographed dance. Since the show aired, the song broke the Top 100 iTunes singles which is a pretty big deal for any independent musician.It’s good to know that the big media corporations are paying attention to independent artists in the Bay Area.

-Nicole

James & Evander Presents: Peter Stanley, The Waste Band, & Silian Rail at Book Zoo.

All bands will be playing acoustic sets and there will be a reading by Andrew Macy. The best part is that it’s free! Now that it’s the holiday time, free is a good thing.

Saturday, December 5th. Book Zoo [6395 Telegraph Avenue Oakland, California 94609]. Free!

Just in time for the holidays, Bay Area Girls Rock Camp will host its first ever silent auction featuring art, handmade crafts, and seasonal treasures donated by local artists and popular Bay Area institutions such as Pixar, Oaklandish, and more. All proceeds will go towards our programs that serve girls all over the Bay Area.

The night will be an exciting evening of art, music, and festivities and is open to the whole family. Do all of your holiday shopping while raising money for BAGRC! Camper alumni band Poison Apple Pie will play an enchanting set of original and cover songs and the female-owned and operated Local 123 Cafe will provide snacks and beverages.

Friday, December 4th, 7-10pm Local 123 Cafe [2049 San Pablo Ave, Oakland].

The Deli of course will also contribute to the pool of prizes for the Year End Best of LA Poll, for both the Overall and  Readers’ charts.

Here’s the list:

Overall Chart Prize (winner only)
Cover of The Deli’s Spring issue (out in Arpil 2010)

Overall Chart Prize for 2nd and 3rd place
Smaller Picture on The Deli’s Spring issue’s cover

Readers’ Chart Prize (winner only)
Interview on a Deli issue

The Deli’s Staff
www.thedelimagazine.com

Wakey!Wakey! released a single featuring an acoustic version of "Brooklyn" on Monday December 7th. That same day the song was played on the TV show One Tree Hill. The single contains "Clinton St. Girl" as a B-Side, which you can download here. The Digital 7" debuted Top 20 on Itunes Alternative Albums & Singles Charts. Lookout for a Wakey!Wakey! full album in 2010.

The Beatards are a rather over the top multi ethnic electro-hip hop NYC band comprised of 3 DJs of Indian, Jewish and Korean descent (how cosmopolitan of them!) The band, which already had over 20 of their songs licensed to multiple shows on MTV and HBO, is going to release their debut album in 2010. Their newest single "Don’t Step On My Sneakers" is due out January 12. The Beatards are scheduled to perform at the next Mixtape Riot! Party with Ninjasonic on December 16 at Sutra Lounge on 1st ave and 1st Street in Manhattan.

Steel Phantoms is a very new band from Brooklyn, their sound spans from noise to new wave to crisp, riff-heavy pop. They have two lead vocalists. Check them out live at Glasslands on Dec. 12 with Calypso, No Place, and The Chairs. Free Williamsburg says about them: "Billy Joel quits chasing Uptown Girls, moves in w/ Jonathan Richman" – Earfarm says "Actually Pretty Good." – (as posted in The Deli’s Open Blog – post your band’s entries, videos, and Mp3s here).

Musical peoples from Austin and beyond.

A few weeks are left before the end of 2009, and the time has come for our end of year musical "summary". Yes, you got that right: The Deli’s "Best of (emerging) Austin 2009" Poll is upon us!

This year we are going to try to involve everybody on different levels: the readers, our jury of selected scene makers, our writers and – of course – the emerging local artists. The process we have implemented to choose the Best emerging Austin Artist of 2009 is a little complicated – if you are interested in knowing how it works please go here.

We’ll just tell you that there will be prizes for the winners, such as: Deli promotion, free studio time, audio software + more!

But as we know most readers’ attention span is limited, so we prefer to keep things simple on the homepage: in the next two entries under here you’ll find what you can do if you want to be involved.

Have fun, and may the best music triumph!
[May also some people NOT get mad at us for some reason… it happens every year during the year end poll!!!]

The Deli Staff
www.thedelimagazine.com

P.S. Oh and if new posts here at The Deli Austin will be a little slow in the next few weeks, it’s because our Austin Editor Tom just had twin girls!!! Double congrats Tom from all the Deli staff!