BETALEVEL


Swap Meet

Piracy – Karaoke – Conviviality

The chance meeting of Swap Meet and the jungle on an operating table (or photoshop)

Saturday, March 31
9pm until late
Free

At one Swap Meet, the narc comes up and asks us “Where is the piracy aspect to this event?” At first, we were all like: “Whatever, narc.” But upon consideration, we realized that swapping should be easy enough that even a narc without a hard drive could do it. After all, even a blind pig deserves to find an acorn…

So for this Swap Meet — the Blossoming Springtime Swap Meet (aka “Welcome to the Jungle”) — we’re instituting some hot new swap action. Behold, the Swap Pack! a small collection of music optimized for easy gift exchange.

How does it work?

  • Pick out 128 Mb of music (roughly 30-40 MP3s)
  • Put the music into a folder
  • Put the folder onto portable media (flash drives are handy)
  • Take your portable media to Swap Meet
  • Swap
  • And then we sing!

For more details, see the Swap Pack FAQ.

Each month, there will be a suggested theme for Swap Packs which you can interpret, tangent, or ignore entirely. The theme for March is: “Death of a Cowboy

We also have a bonus springtime “Jungle” theme for Swap Meet this month. Do with that what you will…


About Swap Meet

Swap Meet is a monthly gathering where you can come with your favorite music files and trade them with other physical human people. Then, holler along with the dulcet tones of handcrafted MIDI karaoke. It’s like the Internet, but with people and beer.

What to Bring:

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

Here’s the (outdated and incomplete) house karaoke list, so you can prepare yourself. If something you’d like to sing is not on the list, you are welcome — nay, encouraged! — to bring your own hand-crafted .KAR files. They’re MIDI-tastic!

Some questions you might have and some answers we might have:
Do I need to have an iPod to come?
No. Many people come with hard drives, flash drives, or other alternate file storage devices/media.

Must I swap files at all?
No. You don’t have to swap to sing.

Wait — must I sing?
No. You don’t have to sing to swap. Indeed, you don’t have to sing or swap and you can still be powerfully entertained by the singing and the whatnot. (But beware the power of MIDI karaoke. Maybe you didn’t intend to sing Phil Collins…)


Swap Meet is presented by Superbunker and The Royal Academy of Nuts + Bolts.
For more information and helpful links, please see the Superbunker Swap Meet project page.

Please note:
According to recent legal decisions, inducing anyone to use physical space for the purpose of sharing music may render the space-time continuum illegal. Use the space-time continuum at your own risk.


Make Swap Meet your friend.