What happens when you combine three musically gifted nerds, some shopping money and a full play day? If the nerds are Oliver Hindle, Steve Brunton, and Jaylyn Coffin of Superpowerless, you get an 8-bit cover of Poker Face.

Oliver emailed me Sunday afternoon with a link to this video. I had no idea what to expect but was immediately thrilled that he’d finally provided me with a nerd-approved way to justify enjoying a Lady Gaga song.

I first heard about Superpowerless back in March when Oliver won the MTV Fast Track contest and was flown to London to work with Luc Janin, who previously directed promos for Stereophonics, The Fratellis, Boy Kill Boy and Lethal Bizzle, on the video for “Wasted My Time.”

Based in Leeds, England, the live band now includes Oliver Hindle (the curly haired dude/lead), Steve Brunton (the dude in the beard), Tom Hunter, Jaylyn Coffin (who directed the Poker Face video) and Stevey Gilkes.

The first time I played the Superpowerless Lady Gaga cover, I laughed my ass off, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing some deeper meaning to the video. Did the bearded man represent the dark side of Oliver’s personality? Did the lightsaber battle represent a daily struggle? I asked Oliver. Turns out, the only big message they wanted to convey was how much fun it can be when you’re part of Superpowerless, “The beard was a spur of the moment thing,” he said. “We decided to shoot a video… went in to town… had no plans at all and just went shopping to see what we could find that would make an entertaining video… Found the lightsabers and the beard and the rest is history! [laughs]”

The entire video was shot in one day in Leeds. Some scenes didn’t make it to the final cut, like the one where Oliver and Steve managed to lightsaber their way into the cinema and in front of the screen where they battled for an epic 10 seconds before getting kicked out. Sadly, the footage was too dark to make it to the video, so you’ll just have to use your imagination to picture the audience’s reaction to that one.

It seems that, above all, Superpowerless just wants to have fun. Last time I chatted with Oliver, he was in the process of setting it up a PlayStation dance mat to trigger samples from a laptop and he’s getting closer to the finished product, “Tom Hunter took apart a Guitar Hero controller and a really expensive Japanese guitar and then put all of the guitar hero controls in to the real guitar,” Oliver said, “One of his friends has it at the moment to cover it in LED’s which will interact with which buttons are pressed and the music that it makes! Tom’s also got a mohawk which the LED guy has created a headband for which lets Tom fill his mohawk with LEDs which change color along with the guitar…. pretty mental stuff!” Sweeet. I’ve always got mad respect for creatives who come up with fun ideas and actually have enough focus and dedication to make them happen.

You can expect to see more videos from Superpowerless over the next few months. In fact, here’s one that just went live yesterday for one of Oliver’s original songs “Press Start and Jump Around.” Shot by band member Tom Hunter, this is the result of a drunken promise and a £0 budget. “It was filmed entirely in a tiny shed, with us wearing suits in the space of 3 hours. We decided it’d be funny to shoot a video in a shed the night before while drunk and then he couldn’t back out of it so we made him do it the day after. [laughs]“The “Press Start and Jump Around” video features Oliver Hindle, Steve Brunton, Jaylyn Coffin and Tom Hunter (who also directed.)

If you’d like to get your hands on some Superpowerless tracks, you can download them for free from his page on TheSixtyOne.com. If you’re ready make your own Game Boy-fueled adventure-core music, Oliver uses a program called Little Sound DJ for the Game Boy and digital synths to create those retro, video-gamey sounds.

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Matthew C. Applegate, known as Pixelh8 when he’s rocking the chip tunes, just released his third studio album, “And The Revolution.”

Somehow between performing, teaching people how to use his new “SUPER CHIP TUNE SAMBA BAND” app, winning art contests and giving various lectures, Matthew still found enough energy to create a brand new 11-track album.

“And the Revolution” still contains the head-nodding, leg-bouncing sounds we’re used to from “Videogames Ruined My Life” and “The Boy With A Digital Heart,” but there’s also a calm composure in this track list. Whether it’s the haunting orchestral echoes in “You Were Born To Save The World” or a fast-paced dance-worthy track like “IED”, sounds are less about competing with one another and more about coexisting and evolving. This makes sense considering “And The Revolution” was initially intended as a collaborative piece.

“Some of the songs weren’t written from my perspective,” Matthew explains, “The album was meant to feature several special guests, but schedules kinda got in the way, which was fair enough. It just meant I had to revolutionise it.”

In “Out On The Floor”, for instance, Pixelh8 knew he needed vocals, but didn’t have anyone to do it. “I can’t sing a note to save my life,” he laughed, “and I wasn’t about to go all T-Pain, so I vocoded it.” The result? A funkified robot dance party that wins my vote for favorite album track. And even though “Out On The Floor” dabbles in the pop/dance arena, you can rest assured that Pixelh8 will always bend the circuits just enough to add his signature spin. “I purposely did it at 119bpm. Most dance tracks are at 120bpm and I wanted it to be slightly off.”

Those who enjoy the slightly off can purchase “And The Revolution” via iTunes and keep up with the latest Pixelh8 news on his site: www.pixelh8.co.uk

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New Pixelh8 Album: The Boy With The Digital Heart»
Interview with Pixelh8 – Chiptune Guru»

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What started out as a nice relaxing evening at home with my fat, snoring dog and a fresh watermelon quickly turned into a nightmare. I was surfing the internets, listening to the song in the intro movie for Fallout 3 that I have fallen completely in love with for some reason and decided I was going to post it on my site. But when I went to log in, I got a nasty message: “Error establishing database connection.”

I called GoDaddy to figure out WTF was going on. They told me there was nothing wrong on their end. That WordPress was calling a database and that database didn’t exist. Apparently, it got bored and decided to take off. I have no idea how that could’ve happened and neither did the guy I talked to.

I spent the next hour freaking the hell out that I’d lost every post on my site and would never be able to get things working again. I was trying to get help from the first tech support guy. He said that because I’d installed WordPress manually and not through them, he couldn’t help me. I was about to lose it. I asked the guy if he knew of any good resources online where I could figure out how to fix this mess. The dude actually said “Why don’t you try Google?” REALLY, ASSHOLE?!?! Thanks. I wouldn’t have thought of that. Fucking jerk.

I set up a new WordPress account through my GoDaddy hosting account with the help of another tech support dude named Chad who was NOT an asshole and prevented me from writing the totally nasty “I hate GoDaddy” rant I had totally intended on posting as soon as I got everything switched over to another company. So, thanks Chad. Way to represent your company. I don’t remember the other guy’s name, which is probably good for him, but whoever you were – you should take customer service lessons from Chad. When someone who has supported your company for about 10 years and has purchased around over 50 items from you has a crises, don’t be a jerk. There’s this thing called the internet, and we will tell EVERYONE about it.

Then I called my friend Mike. And through him coaching me on the phone, I was able to retrieve everything except the last two months of posts – which most of you know there weren’t a lot of. He was even helping me find the last two months of posts through cached Google pages, but I’m so worn out that I decided I’m good with losing those. Mike also designed my layout. Mike is a genius. And I love him. I owe you a solid, bro We need to plan our WTFBBQ soon.

SO – I’m back. I lost a few posts, but I regained my sanity, so I think that’s a fair trade.

Now that my heart rate has slowed, I will leave you with this (the song I originally wanted to post over 3 hours ago) and go back to enjoying my night:

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Oliver Hindle is Superpowerless – Winner of the MTV Fast Track Competition [Photo by Alistair Darley]

Back in January, MTV and Vodafone launched Fast Track, a contest designed to find and break a new musical act. Solo artists and bands from all over the world submitted their entries and the polls were opened up to the public. Once the voting stopped, the top 20 entrants were put in front of a panel of 5 judges – industry professionals who spent the next week picking the one act they felt captured the originality, individuality and something special that would really grab people’s attention. The winning track was Wasted My Time by Oliver Hindle – the 20-year-old electro-artist behind Superpowerless.

As part of the Fast Track prize, Oliver and Steve Brunton — Oliver’s live gig partner — re-recorded Wasted My Time with renowned producer and DJ, Andy Chatterley. Andy has been Grammy nominated as part of The Buick Project, and played keyboard and synths on Kanye West’s Graduation album, most notably on the hit single Stronger.

Superpowerless were also sent to London to shoot a music video for the winning track with director Luc Janin, who has previously directed promos for Stereophonics, The Fratellis, Boy Kill Boy and Lethal Bizzle. Oliver found out about his big win through a phone call while riding the bus, “I don’t think the rest of the passengers shared my excitement … I rang nearly everyone in my phone book and had the same conversation over and over until I ran out of credit.”

The video will debut on MTV on the 23rd of March in 29 countries, but you get to see it here early because I love you and MTV was nice enough to let me post it in all of its radtastic glory:

Oliver started off as a drummer in a punk-pop band, learned guitar and played some acoustic sets at college. He was then introduced to electronic music which would influence his musical direction. “After hearing the Postal Service, I started listening to electronic bands like Depeche Mode, Adult, and Motion City Soundtrack. I decided it was something I wanted to have a go at, so I bought a synth off eBay and started putting some songs together.”

Oliver dubs Superpowerless “Game Boy-fueled adventure-core” music, and his winning song Wasted My Time is a perfect example of this catchy electro-pop. As intense as it is, the entire video was shot in one day. “There were weeks of preparation behind it,” said Oliver, “I was amazed at how many people were working on it on the shooting day. It was crazy to think that they were all there to work on something for a song I’d written at home for something fun to do. The most memorable part of the shoot was the guy in the monster costume having a serious conversation with me (while wearing full costume) about what his acting influences were and me trying to keep a straight face [laughs]. I’m really grateful to Vodafone and MTV for everything, it’s been an amazing experience!”

Superpowerless can be seen at live events near Leeds, their hometown, literally tearing it up on stage. At a recent show at Gasworks in Bradford – a metal venue – Oliver and Steve played in true rock star style, “I managed to pull the mixer off of the table we’d put it on during a gig but it was still working so we carried on playing regardless,” Oliver said. “In the same gig I threw my Game Boy at the drum kit and the cartridge and batteries and everything all went off in different directions which was a bit of hassle to sort out ready for the next song, but there’s a picture out there of a Game Boy that survived a bomb, so damaging them is a pretty hard task!”

Superpowerless is not a one-hit wonder. As soon as they got back from shooting Wasted My Time in London, they came back and shot a video for Robots Need Love Too sans fancy director. Oliver gave me the scoop. “Some of my friends are really in to filming silly videos so we thought we’d have a go at doing one ourselves so we could get something online fast. Talked to a few friends and we decided it’d be a good idea to run around the city wearing cardboard boxes. We discuss things like this all the time but then everyone pulls out or forgets and nothing comes of it, but everything went ahead and we managed to get some really good footage! We got an equal amount of abuse from people that don’t like to see other people having fun and also people that were really in to it and thought it was genius. I think this comes across in the video from peoples expressions, I’m really happy with it!

“There’s some scenes that we didn’t manage to fit in, like lots of fight scenes between us robots and the scientist. We ran in to places like Sainburys and just started rugby tackling each other and rolling around wrestling. It was really fun but the footage didn’t work as there were too many people stood in the way of the camera. We got kicked out of Gamestation and a shopping center too. We had no permission to film anywhere but we managed to blag to some council people to let us carry on. Also the bit where we’re dancing, we payed a busker to let us play the track using an iPod through his amp so we could actually dance to the proper track which was fun!”

Superpowerless is currently working on a new album. “I have all the tracks written and rough versions recorded, I’m just in the process of getting them all to the same standard,” Oliver says. “We’re filming another music video to a song I wrote a long time ago called ‘Zombie Survival Plan.’ The idea for the video at the moment is that we’re going to get as many people as possible dressed as zombies in Leeds’ train station. I’m not sure what we’ll do once we’re there … but I imagine it’ll be a decent video!”

Most of Oliver’s free time is spent working on his music. “I don’t really have time to play games anymore, which is pretty depressing!” he says. “To be fair though, I like it this way as you end up having something you created at the end of it and it’s not like dead time. Don’t get me wrong, I love video games!”

So what does Oliver think of music-based video games like the Guitar Hero/Rock Band series? “I think they’re a pretty cool idea and if I had more time and money I’d probably get in to them. To be fair, I’m really bad at them and it’s quite gutting!” But that won’t stop Oliver from tweaking it to work for his shows, “I’m in the process of setting it up so we can use a PlayStation dance mat to trigger samples from a laptop. The same is possible with a Guitar Hero controller, so I might end up finding myself on stage with one [laughs].”

For any of you budding chip tune artists out there, Oliver wanted to share some words of wisdom with you: “Stay away from forums!!! [laughs] Seriously!”

Wasted My Time is available to download from Vodafone Live! on 23rd of March. Superpowerless play The Old Blue Last in Shoreditch, London on the 24th of March.

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Check out the face-off interview featuring me and MMORPG blogger Tobold published yesterday on the Sweet Flag blog. Good times.

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I recently had a chance to interview Kenn Hoekstra, Producer and Level Designer at Pi Studios, LLC – an independent game developer located in Houston, Texas. These guys have really taken off over the past few years and – according to Kenn – are currently one of the fastest growing independent game developers in the world.

The Game Dame: How did you guys decide on the company name?

Kenn Hoekstra: Pi’s president, Robert Erwin came up with the name. He has an affinity for mathematics and economic theory stemming from working a derivative trading desk for many years. Of particular interest is the Monte Carlo Algorithm Method. If I’m not mistaken, that’s what started it all.

Pi was originally called ‚ÄúPi Ware,‚Äù but the name didn’t stick. One of the partners rescued http://www.pistudios.com from a cyber squatter and the rest is history.

GD: What was your first official release?

KH: Pi’s first commercial work appeared in Call of Duty: United Offensive. The company worked alongside Gray Matter to provide both single and multiplayer content for the game.

GD: What’s your drive or goal in the industry?
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In the late 80s and early 90s, using sound chips found in video game consoles was the easiest way to create music on a computer. These days, there are all sorts of fancy schmanzy programs to help you create and mix flawless sounds. But some people don’t want perfection. Some still find comfort in those old-school bleeps and bloops. And these 8-bit loving joystick junkies have created a new genre of music now referred to as chiptunes.

I had a chance to chat with UK musician Matthew Applegate who – in addition to several other bands – performs as Pixelh8, a chiptune-lover’s dream. Pixelh8’s specialty? Serving up fat helpings of totally original beats created from the 8-bit consoles and old-school handhelds we all know and love so well. He’s taken his Franken-bot synths on stage to open for Imogen Heap and just released an amazing new album – Video games ruined my life – now available on iTunes.

GD: How do you define chiptune music?

MA: Chiptune is exactly that. It relies on utilizing the sound chips from computers of yesteryear to make new music. For me, I had to go back and learn how to program the NES, the Gameboy, the Commodore 64, etc. to make them play the notes I wanted. Some people sample other people’s game music but I think that’s really shortsighted and pretty lame. If I get one more kid claiming he wrote the theme to Tetris, I am going to scream. Read the rest of this entry »

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ECA President, Hal Halpin
Gamers represent nearly fifty percent of the US population and spend $10 billion annually on gaming, yet they’re constantly misunderstood or even overlooked by politicians and the mainstream press. Formed in 2006, the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) is a 501(c)(4) non-profit membership-based advocacy organization for consumers of interactive entertainment. The ECA is here to give gaming consumers a voice and to keep us in-the-know about our rights, the anti-games legislation and other concerns.

In order to learn a little more about the history of the ECA and the organization’s future plans, I interviewed Hal Halpin, President of the ECA. Read the rest of this entry »

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Buy The Lost Levels EP

When the last shift of winter finally ends and the sun starts showing up for work again, there‚Äôs nothing I enjoy more than driving around on a warm afternoon with my windows down listening to good music. This year was different, though. I was sick of all of my music and I needed something new. Enter Norwich-based band: The Lost Levels. Read the rest of this entry »

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