ARTIST SPOTLIGHTS
Artist Spotlight: Doomsberry
“How Doomsberry saved my sanity”
It had been a pretty rough week. Finals were coming up and studying Real Analysis was edging pretty damn close to hurtling me into a math induced psychotic episode which could have included, but would not have be limited to:
- Continuous gentle weeping over the course of 12 hours.
- Delusions of my professor as a 12ft Hitler-spider launching acid-soaked textbook pages while huge speakers blast math-propaganda at an unreasonably loud volume.
- Flipping my entire house over with my bare hands.
I said “screw it”, left whatever theorem I was almost in a blinding rage over and powered up my laptop to go on my daily (read: hourly, minutely, second…ly, fucking never ending) peruse of a couple Chipmusic websites. I had either 8bc.org or my preferred site chipmusic.org to continue my search for leads on talented, original and inspiring chipartists.
This day’s browsing lead me straight to the good stuff. Doomsberry. A month or two earlier I had heard his stuff and thought “hmm… this dude seems promising. I’ll keep an eye out for his future tracks”
This time, his newest track left me sitting on my bed with an expression comparable to this baby crocodile.
Right at that moment I once again remembered that even with all the subpar Chipmusic found each and every day on the upload communities, there still exist unrecognized artists that make all the sifting worth it. Each one is a diamond buried in the desert sand. A cereal box with two toys inside.
Doomsberry is one of those fucking awesome boxes of cereal.
That, my friends, is the song that save my sanity that terrible day.
Doomsberry (Chase Goostree) is a 25 year old, Northern Illinois University graduate from
“a small…painfully small town in southern Illinois.”
That pain is shared by many of us in the chip-community. It is one of the reasons our community is so open and helpful to those just entering the scene. I for example know of ONE other chipartist from Rhode Island. Its population density is the second largest in the country…and even with searching…I know ONE other dude. Illinois is ranked number 12. Doomsberry has got it pretty rough.
For artist like him, 8bc and chipmusic.org can provide exactly the motivation many artists need to seriously continue their obscure hobby.
“I’ve basically been making this music in my room since I started and have only ventured out with it for a couple of open mics. Everyone always wanted to see what the screen looked like when I was playing, you know the’how the heck is he making all those sounds’ type of look. I think the real challenge will be if I start playing live shows, being in front of more people and having to be the fron man for my music. I’m not all that good with crowds yet haha.”
That challenge is made even more daunting for artists who have gotten less than favorable feedback from the people around them. This happens all the time, even to well known chipartists like IAYD and Anamanaguchi as well as incredible unknown artists like Doomsberry.
“My family seems to enjoy my music genuinely, but friends and other people I’ve shown don’t think anything about it haha. I have had a couple people tell me that it hurt their ears and I needed to make the sounds less harsh…haha.”
That’s a pretty huge downer for 99% of…well…anyone, which is why these artists more often than not seek the online chipmusic communities. Here they will get the praise they genuinely deserve.
“I was really nervous when I put my first song up on 8bc. I was expecting the worst, but people were actually really nice and I even got some great critiques.”
With the nature of chipmusic, even a musical genius could have a go and receive a ton of negative opinions from those only hearing “Mario at a rave.” or “Stupid game music.” It’s the same as any other type of music in the sense that most people are generally biased towards respecting different types of music regardless of talent. These people (and it’s hard to blame them really) have no knowledge of the time, effort and skill required to create a chiptune. Composing on a gameboy is very unique and even trained musicians would have to spend some time figuring out how to use LSDJ or Famitracker to its full potential just. Where it wouldn’t require as much time and dedication as learning a “real” instrument, learning one of the previously mentioned programs definitely doesn’t fall under the “pick up and play” category of programs.
“I’ve been making music for a little while before I got into chipmusic, but it was never full songs or anything. Once I saw some Blipfest videos, it got me going to compose full songs. I learned by getting LSDJ, a cart and a DMG, reading tutorials, getting a few books with scales and modes and just practicing all the time. Still practicing in fact :)”
“I started with Famitracker, but didn’t get serious until I got LSDJ. I found I could never make anything that sounded good in Famitracker, even though I love the sounds. So I focused on LSDJ and now that I know it pretty well I’m starting to go back to Famitracker some and finding it a lot easier now. It seemed just to click when I first heard it. The sounds and possibilities of the hardware just got me excited to make music. As far as my set up I just have a couple of DMGs, usb mixer and a laptop to record onto. Pretty basic stuff.”
It’s pretty obvious to see the connection between, say, a guitar player who loves video games and his interest in making music with a gameboy (me). This is definitely very common among chipartists, though not all of them.
“The earliest memory of it [chipmusic] was playing Battletoads on my gameboy pocket and killing the enemies on screen so I could listen to the music unbothered haha. But as far as finding out about 8bc and stuff it only happened in 2010. I kinda knew about it all before then…but really didn’t take notice until I starting seeing what level of craftsmanship people were bringing to the table. Once I saw Blipfest, Fighter X, Albino Ghost Monkey and many other artists, I knew what kind of music I wanted to make and what I wanted to make it with.”
One on the best things about chipmusic is the fact that it isn’t a genre. It’s a means of genre creation. This means you can hear everything from happy summer music to a cover of your favorite death metal song. Doomsberry also makes a good point that comes to my mind every time I listen to a chiptune that’s normally out of my genre interest:
“As far as chipmusic styles I listen to, I try to be really open. I find that I really enjoy the sounds of chip and catch myself listening to things I wouldn’t normally think about listening to.”
With regards to his own music, Doomsberry told me that his favorite is The Realization (A song with an uplifting melody and some great fills and panning) and he is particularly proud proud of Space Assault.
“I managed to get the full sound I’d been looking for.”
And I for one completely agree.
His songs have their own little style that sets them apart from the huge amount of music on the upload sites. It all reminds me of the NES game “Crash n’ the Boys” which I played a lot with friends when I was a kid. Sounding like that game is definitely a complement since it has great music and is FUN AS HELL to play. Plus it can be describe with 90% accuracy by the following picture I threw together:
By x8bitrex at 2011-06-12
Doomsberry’s Space Assault is a dancey, uncey tune with an incredible transition to a beautiful ambient bit halfway through. He’s also written some small suspenseful epics like Call Forth the Beast. One of my personal favorites is the track Cool Cat Strut. It fits perfectly into a scene where some stray cat routinely hangs outside a suave jazz nightclub. Much like this:
By x8bitrex at 2011-06-12
In closing, expect some great things from this up-and-coming artist. I know I’ll be scouring 8bc and chipmusic.org for Doomsberry’s new releases and you should definitely follow suit.
Until next time…8-Bit-Rex over and out.
