New York, New York: A wonderful town. Declaring random days for music conferences and — wait, huh? Jailing Game Boy musicians?
Let’s deal with the weird news first. Remember how there’s a big 8-bit music concert tomorrow (Saturday) here in Manhattan? Our friends Nullsleep and Bit Shifter from the International Chiptune Resistance concert were arrested by plainclothes police officers and jailed for three hours for posting flyers. The NYPD apparently now has the Orwellian slogan “a cleaner New York is a safer New York.” Uh . . . okay. Guess leafletting is a gateway crime to murder? I’m not sure if the 8bitpeoples are leaving out key details, or if in fact NYPD has gotten that aggressive. Naturally, Music thing caught onto this sooner than I did, even though Tom is on the other side of the world. Guess I didn’t take it seriously when Bit Shifter posted an “I’m in jail” away message on AIM. Don’t miss their grinning mugs taken when the police forget to take their cell phone. Doh. I’ll try to dig more on what happened; stay tuned.
In . . . um . . . other news, Mayor Bloomberg has declared today Music Player Day in honor of the Music Player Live conference gearing up this weekend. What’s going on? Les Paul is keynoting, lots of people playing (sadly mostly guitarists, not synth gods), a huge lineup of presentations, exhibitors, seminars and the like including the folks from Keyboard. Oh, and Sunday yours truly demonstrating how to mix live visuals and VJ. Don’t be shy, come by and say hi.
Last week was Star Wars Day (for the launch of the new Star Wars console game launched at Digital Life Expo), this week is Music Player Day. Next week, I’m sure it will be Floor Title Day for the International Floor Tile Expo or something.
Now, we just need to make sure none of us get arrested. PS, I think these guys were arrested on Music Player Day Eve, not Music Player Day proper. That would be awkward.