This Sat/25, San Francisco will serve as host to an event that will have Guitar Hero extremists falling off their couches. Fresh off its success from its two year anniversary show in January, a group dedicated to showcasing live electronic musicianship is taking over Public Works, this time for the West Coast Championship Controller Battle, where electronic controllerists will battle it out in hopes of achieving a piece of controller glory.
“It’s not a typical show,” says Rich “Rich DDT” Trapani, a producer of the event and co-founder of LoveTechSF. Trapani hopes that the controller battle will “bring the community [of electronic musicians] together and serve as a place to inspire each other.”
For those not familiar with controllers: think completely digitalized turntables that mash up music with the help of computer hardware. They come in all shapes and sizes, each one fitted out with different types of knobs, switches, keys – some even have multicolored arcade game buttons that wouldn’t be out of place on an old Pacman or Frogger game system.
With a controller, you can have the force of a drum kit at the mercy of your fingertips. A kick drum at your index finger, a snare at the ring finger, a hi-hat at the middle finger, and a snare at the pinky. It’s a heady sight, controllerists going at their machines – but don’t worry if you get stuck at the back of the club on Saturday. Trapani says there will be a video crew all over the clashing digitalists covering the action and projecting it on large screens for all to see.
“People are learning a lot from the creative innovation and musicianship in this small period of time to really gain an understanding of what it means to be an electronic musician,” says Trapani. The controller battle will be a one-on-one throw down, tournament style elimination. Known and new electronic musicians from up and down the West Coast will be given two and a half minutes to electrify the audience — and judges panel — with their new and inimitable sets.
LoveTech is working collaboratively with Controllerism.com and the Slayers Club DJ collective to produce this controller battle royale.
“It’s going to be something that drives home the point that San Francisco is at the vanguard of music culture,” says Matt Haze, a Slayers Club DJ who will be spinning at the controller battle Saturday night.
Also scheduled to perform at the battle are popular controllerists Ean Golden, and the electronic musician dubbed “the godfather of controllerism”, Moldover (co-founder of Love Tech and founder of Controllerism.com). The celebrity judges panel includes Zach Huntting Akazappan (Laptop Battle), J.Tonal (The Flying Skulls), and Laura Escude (Electronic Creatives).
West Coast Championship Controller Battle
Sat/25 9 p.m., $6 presale/$10 at the door
Public Works
161 Erie Street, SF
Facebook: West Coast Championship Controller Battle