Piracy – Karaoke – Conviviality
Saturday, August 21, 2010
10pm until late
Free

Google made its surprising net neutrality “compromise” the same week that Max Headroom was released on DVD? At least megacorps still have a sense of humor.

But, seriously folks, you’re looking at this all wrong. What they’re really saying is that you, when you’re out in the world, mobile, should be with people, not the internet. Because, let’s face it, you want to be downloading and they want you to buy stuff or watch Justin Bieber videos or, you know, buy stuff. That’s what they’re going to prioritize. But that data you want to receive, that you want to give – the exchanges you want to make – should be done face-to-face, live, in person. Google isn’t making an argument against net neutrality but an argument for… SWAP MEET.

Thank you, Google. We appreciate your support. We’ll be toasting you this Saturday with a MexiCoke and a song.

Ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-catch the wave!

What Is It?

Swap Meet is an aperiodic celebration of the cultural commons organized by The Royal Academy of Nuts+Bolts and Superbunker. We have a poorly-organized music exchange, enthusiastically amateur karaoke, and an overall Betalevel open house with snacks and drinks for all.

What to Bring?

• bring: your singin’ voice and dancin’ shoes (optional)
• bring: some storage media and/or some music filez and/or your personal music device of choice (optional)
• bring: drinks, snacks, or a kindly donation (optional)
• bring: a defiant sense of joy in the face of our eroding cultural freedoms (required)

What to Sing?

Here’s the house karaoke list

FRIDAY, August 20thth
8:30pm (doors at 8)
Free

Ambient Electro-Acoustic INSANITY!!!

Featuring sets by Earn, Rale, Aures & Greg Davis

Greg Davis: Born in 1975, Greg Davis grew up in Crystal Lake, Illinois. He studied classical & jazz guitar and composition at DePaul University in Chicago where he received his bachelor’s degree in music in 1999. In 1997, he started his own independent record label, Autumn Records, to release his own music and the music of others. Davis moved to Boston to pursue a master’s degree in composition from the New England Conservatory of Music which he completed in 2001. During this time, he also immersed himself in an independent study of computer based electronic music and became an active live performer. February 2002 saw the release of Davis’ debut album Arbor on Carpark Records of New York City. This marked the beginnings of his career as a professional musician. He has collaborated with a wide range of musicians including Zach Wallace, Joe Grimm, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Jeph Jerman, Tim Barnes, Sebastien Roux, Steven Hess, Chris Weisman, Akron/Family, Megafaun, Ben Vida and many more. Davis is well known for his blend of acoustic instruments with computer / electronic sounds. He continues to explore the possibilities of sound using new technologies and a wide array of instruments from around the world.
MYSPACE: GREG DAVIS

AURES: Aures is a microtonal music group, from Portland, OR. The group consists of John Krausbauer (violin), Thomas Thorson (violin) and Taryn Tomasello (accordion). Aures play amplified acoustic instruments utilizing tuning systems derived directly from the harmonic series, to achieve their aims.
Their compositional-improvisations produce dense and dynamic fields of harmonic interference and reinforcement which are unavailable to conventionally even-tempered Western music. The effect is in equal parts both foreign and familiar, searching for a deep consonance amid a flux of microtonal variations, beating tones, difference tones, and psychoacoustic phenomena. Long durations of the music allows the listener to adapt the ear to these unusual sounds, placing the listener into an interactive sound-field where alternative harmonies begin to emerge.
MYSPACE: AURES

Featuring opening sets by LA artists EARN & RALE.

If you would like to be considered for future events: please send details of your work and/or samples of your project to akashicrecordings@gmail.com

FANTASTIC FREEDOM SWAP!

Piracy – Karaoke – Conviviality
Saturday, July 3, 2010
10pm until late
Free

Still bummed that the U.S. national team got eliminated from the World Cup? Well, what’s wrong with you? This is AMERICUH. And we don’t like football unless it’s OUR football — with the swine-skin ball and the tight pantalons and the beefy men wrestling each other to the ground — not that effete, European “soccer” stuff.

And this is the weekend that we celebrate all that is great about America. Like AMERICAN football and grilled meats and things exploding and songs by John Cougar Mellencamp and FREEDOM. You like freedom, don’t you? Okay, then let’s sing about it. Together. In a basement. The way the founding fathers intended it.

And don’t worry, you can Tivo the Tour de France. Sissy.

What Is It?

Swap Meet is an aperiodic celebration of the cultural commons organized by The Royal Academy of Nuts+Bolts and Superbunker. We have a poorly-organized music exchange, enthusiastically amateur karaoke, and an overall Betalevel open house with snacks and drinks for all.

What to Bring?

• bring: your singin’ voice and dancin’ shoes (optional)
• bring: some storage media and/or some music filez and/or your personal music device of choice (optional)
• bring: drinks, snacks, or a kindly donation (optional)
• bring: a defiant sense of joy in the face of our eroding cultural freedoms (required)

What to Sing?

Here’s the house karaoke list

Saturday, June 19th at 8:30pm (Doors open at 8)
Free

Featuring sets by OK Music, Zotalayer & Sublamp

OK Music: is a Los Angeles based band, made up by Yvette Holzwarth (voice/violin), Dan Corral (drums, synth), and Ryan Tanaka (keyboard). The group evokes moods and narratives through “themed” improvisations, using simple ideas and concepts as its departure point for musical inspiration. “OK” is a colloquial English word denoting approval, assent, or acknowledgment. Performances include elements of audience participation, where the listener may be able to suggest themes for the band to use as part of their improvisations.
http://musicisok.wordpress.com

Zotalayer: [Ssssssss!] Luthor: What are you doing! Superman: Melting your infernal machine into a puddle with my heat vision! Luthor: HAHAHA! But it’s too late, you caped fool! The damage has already been done! Superman: What was it, Luthor? The ionosphere? The ozone layer? Luthor: No no no no. It was something not even you have heard of, Superman. The ZOTA layer! But you’ll never see it for yourself. My machine has destroyed it. Superman: You! Deluded! Maniac! Luthor: But don’t be alarmed. No one on Earth will be harmed, at least not directly. The only person who was protected by the zota layer was YOU! Superman: You’ve got exactly three seconds to start making sense. Luthor: There’s a peculiar type of radiation out there that not even you are immune to, Superman. It effects your mind whenever you relax or go to sleep. Turns you into a wild man and makes you go absolutely berserk! Superman: Great Scott! The destruction tonight in Metroplolis… Luthor: That’s right, old foe, it was you! And with the zota layer gone, you can bet it will be happening a lot more often. [Punch!] Luthor: Ooof! [Woosh!]
layer.zota.org

Sublamp: Los Angeles based artist Ryan Connor uses a synesthetic blend of audio and video textures to explore pre-language emotional experience, an anti-symbolic direct sensory experience influenced by the closed-eye vision work of Stan Brakhage.
sublamp.com

If you would like to be considered for future events: please send details of your work and/or samples of your project to akashicrecordings@gmail.com

Betalevel 5th Anniversary! Robot Fighting! Dragon Slaying! Various Festivities!
Saturday May 15
8pm, games begin at 9

THIS MUCH WE KNOW:

There will be Dragon.
Most likely, you will get to attack it. It may not be mighty in size, but it will be mighty in Presence.

There will be Robot Wars.
Or rather, wind-up toy wars. Which are a kind of robot, right? I mean, right? Wind-up toys are pretty small… But we have a lot of them!

There will be Festivities.
We’ll commemorate Five Years of Betalevel, and the nearly ten years that we’ve used our exquisite basement redoubt as studio, clubhouse, stage, and screen. We probably commemorate all this in various time-honored ways. You know the kind.

Plannin’ Anotha for tha Brotha from Lydda!
Friday, April 23, 2010
8pm

Are you ready to DO SOME PLANNING???

This Friday is the Feast of St. George. It’s a recognized holiday in England! But unlike the wussy Brits, we realize that St. George Fest is TOO AWESOME to just have. So we’re going to use this feast day to prepare for our Mega Awesome Fest!

There is going to be some very serious St. George Fest Planning and Co-ordinating action all up in here!

HOT PLANNING ACTION MAY INCLUDE:

• English Beer!
• Dragon Blueprints!
• Windup Toy Battle Royale Rule Construction!

QUESTION: “Windup Toy Battle Royale Rule Construction?”

ANSWER: HELL YES!!!

Step One: Lots and Lots of Wind-Up Toys!

Step Two: Figure Out How to have a Battle Royale!

Step Three: St. George Profit!

Piracy – Karaoke – Conviviality
Saturday, April 3, 2010
10pm until late
Free

This month we celebrate not only the zombie (or, if you’re Mormon, werewolf) resurrection, but also the reappearance of Southpaw, a ghost from Swap Meets past. And we’ll do it in the traditional way: with gold fish and Lincoln Logs! L’chei-im!

Swap Meet is an aperiodic celebration of the cultural commons organized by The Royal Academy of Nuts+Bolts and Superbunker. We have a poorly-organized music exchange, enthusiastically amateur karaoke, and an overall Betalevel open house with snacks and drinks for all.

What to Bring?

• bring: your singin’ voice and dancin’ shoes (optional)
• bring: some storage media and/or some music filez and/or your personal music device of choice (optional)
• bring: drinks, snacks, or a kindly donation (optional)
• bring: a defiant sense of joy in the face of our eroding cultural freedoms (required)

What to Sing?

Here’s the house karaoke list

Can you handle the Blossoming… of NOTHINGNESS?!?

Saturday, March 27
Doors at 8pm.
Shows at 8:30pm & 10pm
Free

Have you seen AMBIENT FORCE 3000 perform live? Well you won’t see them this Saturday either, because they will be cloaked in Total Darkness!

Are they really playing live? Are they even human?? How would you know??? Prepare for the extraction of your pathetic certainties and brace yourself for the implantation of brutal obscurity… in the Dark!!

This live ambient performance will actually be in ACTUAL DARKNESS. If you are uncomfortable with light deprivation or if you fear the darkness in your own soul, you should prepare yourself accordingly.

NO LATE ARRIVALS!

If you arrive after the commencement of Darkness, please be aware that you will be confronted… with Darkness! There shall be no red-capped usher to guide your path into the Stygian void with a kindly flashlight. It will just be you and the void having a one-sided conversation about where to sit. It will be a one-sided conversation, because the all-consuming Stygian void does not care where you sit! You will not get to sit at all! YOU WILL NOT GET TO COME IN! IT WILL BE TOO DARK!!

BEHOLD THE TWO SHOWS!

Seating at 8:30.
Darkness at 9pm!

Seating at 10:00.
Darkness at 10:30!

EACH SHOW WILL BE ABOUT 30 MINUTES LONG!

NO LATE ARRIVALS — IT WILL BE TOTALLY DARK!!!

Flowers themselves, lost in this immense movement of sky to earth, are reduced to an episodic role, to a diversion, moreover, that is apparently misunderstood: they can only contribute, by breaking the monotony, to the inevitable seductiveness produced by the general thrust from low to high. And in order to destroy this favorable impression, nothing less is necessary than the impossible and fantastic vision of roots swarming under the surface of the soil, nauseating and naked like vermin.

- Georges Bataille, The Language of Flowers

[F]ree America — including all that we have known and cared for — will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
- Tony Blankley

Following the Darkness, we will witness AMAR… “After Dark!”

We will bring the Amar. Things you may want to bring:

• Pajamas
• Bathrobe
• Slippers
• Fainting couch
• Long-ass cigarette holder
• Dmitri From Paris: Night at the Playboy Mansion

Ooooooooohhhh Yeeeah!

With Singing and Drinking and Leprechaun 5: In da Hood
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
8pm
Free

It’s LepFest!!

With Leprechauns and Irish Stuff like singing and drinking and singing while drinking!

Also with an actual Leprechaun Movie!

Tá mé ólta!

Performances!

• Emily Lacy on the general theme of singing and drinking and Leprechauns!
• Colin Dickey with “The Lonesome Ballad of Leprechaun 4: In Space”!
• A sing-along Irish jig version of Ice-T’s orgiginal version of 99 Problems!
• Maybe some dirty limericks!

Leprechaun Cinematic Explosion!

And also in addition to the songs and gold coins and whiskey, we’ll have Leprechaun Cinema !
We’ll be watching LEPRECHAUN: IN THE HOOD in which three young rappers steal Ice-T’s magic flute which he has taken… from the Leprechaun! Set in the citaay of Compton, this 5th installment of the Leprechaun series is really bad!

Olann an cat cluin bainne leis!

All New Backchannel!

To help us with things like watching Leprechaun movies and knowing when to drink, we have all new twitter powered Backchannel! Tag your feelings with #LepFest for immediate live action cybernetic feedback!

All New Backchannel! Featuring drinking games and sing-alongs, and saying stuff about Ice-T and Leprechauns! It’s like grad school, but with better feedback and slightly less drinking!

Come to LepFest to sate your Leprechaun urges!

Leprechaun In the Hood Drinking Game Rules!

Take ONE drink from your booze of choice for each time the following happens:

• Limerick or rhyming couplet
• Death…by Leprechaun!
• Racial Stereotypes
• The Curious Effects of the Magic Flute
• “Hope in the Hood”
• Zombie Fly Girls (take TWO drinks if, in spite of yourself, you are aroused by zombie fly girls)

Drink TWO drinks for each time the following happens:

• References to black entertainers and/or sports figures
• References to civil rights leaders and/or famous quotes associated with the civil rights movement
• Theology disseminated through rap
• Trenchant Criticism of the Hip-Hop Industry

Drink THREE drinks for each time the following happens:

• Reefer Madness!
• Coolio!
• Twist Ending!

Note:

Impromptu rules can be added using our Twitter Backchannel feed, hasthtag: #LEPFEST

Thalla a chluiche le do deideagan!

Piracy – Karaoke – Conviviality
Saturday, February 27, 2010
10pm until late
Free

Rejoice! We’ve added some new songs to our karaoke library! Including some recent popular hits! Including some Lady Gaga! But, be warned, there is not enough Lady Gaga for everyone to perform there own Lady Gaga song. So, you know, maybe you want to show up on the early side, to make sure you get to sing the Lady Gaga? Or maybe everyone will just have to sing along together to Lady Gaga?! Yes, that’s better. The Swap Meet Gaga Chorus! Let it be so.

Swap Meet is an aperiodic celebration of the cultural commons organized by The Royal Academy of Nuts+Bolts and Superbunker. We have a poorly-organized music exchange, enthusiastically amateur karaoke, and an overall Betalevel open house with snacks and drinks for all.

What to Bring?

• bring: your singin’ voice and dancin’ shoes (optional)
• bring: some storage media and/or some music filez and/or your personal music device of choice (optional)
• bring: drinks, snacks, or a kindly donation (optional)
• bring: a defiant sense of joy in the face of our eroding cultural freedoms (required)

What to Sing?

Here’s the house karaoke list (note: new songs not yet added to list).