WF_INTEL | news bullets from Wonderfist HQ - we are currently on hiatus but please enjoy our archived adventures

Voek and Sabrepulse putting 2 in the air

Been a while right?  Since I left you I’ve been to the US twice to flex my new pro pass at SDCC and I flossed some quality time in Disney World and I have returned well rested.  Sadly jetlag has left me slightly too well rested as my frequent flying has left me with a very irregular sleep pattern which today almost ruined all my plans.

While Abby was pimping her comics self out at Birmingham Comic Show I was at home nursing the wounds left from a harsh debit card fraud that left me with no bank balance.  The evil deed actually happened almost a year to the day after I was gunned down in the street with paintballs ( true story ) so I’m thinking on this particular weekend of the year the world wants me to just stay indoors.  Still, if I had been stopped by that particular life trough I wouldn’t have experienced the peek that was stomping through the streets of Birmingham ‘07 with Marc Ellerby, or seeing the 8bit/chiptune legend Sabrepulse live at the Babycakes Chiptune Launch Party in Manchester.  So yeah, my almost ruined plans…

So I rocked out of bed at like midday, checked the myspack to see what time the gig was on tonight and realised  the gig was, in fact, a mid-day/afternoon affair. I CAN HAS PANIC ATTACK?   So I text my man Dan aka Daniel Brappington III aka Voek to check if he’s there yet and whether I can make it there in time to kotch with him and not miss Sabrepulse.  He assured me that Spectrum was green so after furious running and bussing I arrived at the Ruby Lounge sweaty,  a little over excited and with the only £10 I currently own, thanks to Mr Bank Fraud.

Frankly, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  I’m a big fan of the chip but I had no idea what it would be like live, I mean, the dude makes music with a Gameboy it’s a blates not gonna sound like a conventional set right?  What I ended up with was a truly huge sounding, layered electronic saturday morning dream of a sound, all mixed in with big hair, mid afternoon glowsticks and stomping positivity.  Highlights include the truly epic performance of ‘Horizons’, snychronised sequence foot tapping with the Captain and Mr Voek quite literally frolicking in delight out of the toilet and across the dancefloor to the sounds of Twin Chevron.

Thanks to the decidedly low average age of the Babycakes fandom there was a slight air of school disco.  A few girls needed to be constantly escorted everywhere and propped up by silently suffering bouncers, there was some terrible abuse of the ozone by some young male hairspray addicts and one kid there was blatantly 12, and unfortunately I think I witnessed his first kiss, but it all got lost in the bizarre haze that comes with partying in a basement with glowsticks at 2pm on a Sunday.  I have to thank Sabrepulse for knocking out such a broad range of genres in his quality set;  if you’ve never seen the looks of sheer horror and confusion on the faces of bright eyed teens witnessing Drum and Bass for the first time, well, you’ve never lived.  All jokes aside the dude clearly isn’t just a one trick pony, the man obviously is a talented musician and producer and everyone is very glad he made the trip here to perform.

After that we ended up in Fab Cafe watching a completely illegal showing of the new Death Race movie which is brilliant in ways you should neither admire nor emulate.

So the moral of the story here really is that if you’re willing to go against the hands of fate good things can happen when you step out  of your door… but you might get shot or robbed beforehand.

-2hands