January 16, 2009

• MAGFest 2009

  Quick holiday recap: Work was light, I took a lot of days off, and now I’m rested again.

  But the best part was January 1st – 4th, since that was MAGFest – technically the “Music and Gaming Festival”, but really one of the most fun conventions I’ve ever been to.

  For starters, it’s pretty small. Maybe 1,200 or so people came out this year–compare that to the ~9,000 at Katsucon, or the 30,000+ at Otakon. Yet, it was run far better than most larger conventions. In fact, never have I seen such extensive support for a convention come from not just staff but the average attendee, and never have I seen folks come from clear across the country for what’s essentially a small convention. That should be evidence of how, well, great it is on all counts.

  As a result, the atmosphere was one of just a lot of folks with a common interest–video games, old video games, and music related to games–getting together without anything all too formal. Considering that I grew up playing video games, and always loved the music as part of that experience, this was basically my ideal con–I’m just surprised that this is only the first time I went. Anyway, I went in all four days (Thursday-Sunday), though one of my friends, AI, came with on Friday-Saturday. Here are some of the highlights:

  Concerts

  There was a great lineup of video game-themed bands there, and a lot of folks I’d heard about before. The chief of which was The Megas, a Mega Man-themed band from California. Now, I’d first heard of them when I listened to The Annihilation of Monsteropolis, a song based on Airman’s theme from Mega Man 2. After listening to it repeatedly for two days straight, I went and ordered their album. So, I was excited to see them.

  I know it might sound a bit odd for a band to be based entirely on a game series. But, the reason I’m a fan is both because their music in-and-of-itself is great, and because their lyrics are really brilliant. Each robot and character has some added depth and distinct personality through the lyrics. Take these lines from their Bonus track, The Message from Dr. Light:
      Latex and steel, zeroes and ones make up my son.
      This world gave me no child, so I built one.
      Now I will cry, for fear that he may lose this fight…
      I made you in my image!
      I built your heart, I gave you eyes, I gave you power!
      A sense of justice beyond any compare!
      I gave you hands, a child’s face, I gave you hair!
      But the burning in your heart, I did not put there.

  They played on Thursday night, playing most of their songs off the album, plus the bonus track, and one from an upcoming album based on Mega Man 3. I also got the chance to talk with them outside of the concert (and got my album signed), and saw them again at the JamSpace room on Saturday night. In both venues (the concert room and JamSpace), the sound quality made any recordings sound a bit lousy, and the vocals weren’t as clear, but otherwise they put on a great show.

  Besides The Megas, there were some other bands that weekend I liked: Smash Brothers, Entertainment System, and Rare Candy in particular.

  JamSpace

  I mentioned a JamSpace room set up. As the name implies, it’s a place where anyone can sign up and play–improv or rehearsed, scripted or unscripted. It turned out to be a great thing–lots of improvised concerts and other things went on there.

  One thing on Saturday night was a chiptunes DJ concert. I’m no good at descriptions, so I’ll make do with a few photos:

     DJ Blind throwing down.
    
     Dancefloor
    
     Q-Pa and the graphics
    

  As an aside, those NES-style visuals were really awesome. Brings back memories of days struggling with NES carts to get the damn things to work.

  Speaking of JamSpace, and the relaxed nature of the whole convention, this also ended up being a huge gathering of folks from OverClocked ReMix.

  OC ReMix

  I’ve mentioned OCR many times before (a video game music/rearrangement community, but check their site and “about” page for more), so I’ll skip the usual explanation. But, it was good being able to see people I’ve met before at Otakon–like Pixietricks, Zircon, Jose the Bronx Rican, DrumUltima, and q-pa–and meeting a ton of other people for the first time. I mean:

  

  (And this isn’t even half!)

  

  The OCR panel itself was fun, too. Since their major news on being called on for the soundtrack of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo – HD Remix (X-Box 360 and PS3) is still recent, there was a little HDR tournament going on.

  

  Other Stuff

  Besides that, there were also other panels–like the industry one with several VG music composers (including someone from Microprose/Firaxis who worked on the Civilization series’ soundtracks–can’t remember who, though, sorry). Angry Video Game Nerd was also there.

  Oh! And if you’ve seen King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters… The ref from Twin Galaxies Arcade was there, on official business, since there were two guys competing for a new world record in Nibbler (the precursor to Snake). Apparently some folks from Paramount were also shooting video of it all.

  For the rest of us, there were plenty of old and semi-new arcade games set up (free play), and a huge console room, too. I was like a kid in a free candy store, really.

  In the End

  In the end, I was pretty wiped. I took the following Monday off, and it’s taken a while for me to get back into full working mode. But now, the next few days should be exciting as the Inauguration and all its related events are taking over Washington. I’ll be back for that. ‘Til then. KF

  • 7:16 pm
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