Hey everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic holiday season and a spectacular New Year's Eve. I spent mine semi-seasick but still having fun in the middle of the ocean a few nautical miles north, west, or northwest of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The entire cruise was a blast, and it was a truly inspiring and exciting experience seeing so much unique life and culture first-hand. (We stopped in about 10 different countries in 25 days!) But I'm pretty excited to be home so I can continue working on music and playing some shows for all y'all.

Speaking of those things, stay tuned for announcements over the next few weeks about upcoming jawns. It's too early to announce and confirm, but I 100% wholeheartedly promise you there will be releases and opportunities to see me live — and sooner than you think. Until then, I can leave you with an awesome wrap-up from this year's MAGFest.

Initially, I was really just there to hold down the low end for Cheap Dinosaurs (video of our set can be found here), but the weekend rapidly turned into much more on several accounts! First, I am thrilled to announce that MAGFest 11 featured the first public showing of Dragon Runner, a game currently in development by my good friends at Cleaversoft. The game — for which I am composing the soundtrack — is a "one-runner" in which you fight epic battles against flying dragons. The game went over INCREDIBLY well, and it was seriously exciting to see the enjoyment people got out of it, even in its very early stages. If you didn't get a chance to see the game at the convention or haven't heard about it, here's a great video that talks more about the development process and all the amazing artists involved. More news on DR as it develops!

And finally, I've been posting all over Facebook about how I had an amazing, entirely impromptu opportunity to play a mini-set on the MAGFest main stage. As if that wasn't cool enough on its own, I was joined by the absolutely mindblowingly talented Rekcahdam on drums. Considering we had never played together before, I wasn't even sure what songs I was going to play, and he had certainly not even HEARD any of the songs in advance, I think we pulled off a kind of magical feat.

Sure, it's a little rough at times, but given the circumstances, the stuff that sounds good (which is most of it) is pheNOMENAL. I'm hoping we can collaborate again soon... In the meantime, I'm looking forward to announcing other news as soon as it's announceable!

It feels like I've been all over the map lately — not physically perhaps, but in terms of multimedia outreach, I guess — so I wanted to post some highlights here. First, if you will, please check out this video of me performing my song "Henceforth" during the Alumni Showcase at 8static's four-year-anniversary show earlier this month. This is the first time I ever performed live with a Game Boy and six-string electric guitar (and since I'm such a guitar performance n00b, I apologize for the slightly out-of-tune accompaniment... I hope you can deal with it):

Pretty fun stuff. The plan is to incorporate even more electric guitar into my songs and live show, so who knows where this will take us...

In other news, I wrote a post on my friend Steve Lakawicz's blog, Classical Gaming. My contribution, a kind of absurdly negative critical analysis of the soundtrack to the game 720° for the NES, is part of the blog's "Game Music Hell" series, so you know it's gonna be fun to read. As I said in the comments section of the post, I offer my sincerest apologies to the composers, if they happen to stumble across the post, but some of that stuff just had to be said. Read it here!

Thirdly, I've once again extended my reach into the podcastosphere by providing some theme music for an exciting new show. Check out The World Exists, a unique podcast in which some of Philly's finest storytellers recount the quirky anecdotes that shaped their lives. Listen for the abridged versions of "Mr. Knight" that start and end each episode!

Finally, note that you'll have a few chances to see me in real life (perhaps the finest medium of all) next month at both Anime USA in Washington, DC, and the H&H 8bit Invasion in Fredericksburg, VA. That oughta be enough for now, but you never know when I might have more announcements, so check back often, y'hear?

Well, it sure has been hectic in Chipoland over the past several weeks. I suppose the biggest news is that I've relocated to Charlottesville, Virginia! I'm still settling in here but things are going well. I expect to have my own monthly chip showcase up and running any day now.. The tentative plan is to call it 9static.

(On a side note, yes, I am aware there is a lot of internet info out there that says I'm still Philly-based. Well, you can take the chip out of Philly but you can't take the Philly out of the chip, so I'm gonna keep it that way for a while at least.)

But just in case you were wondering if I'll still be able to play shows up north, I'm already booked for an exciting show in NYC this weekend! Babycastles is hosting a weekend-long summit in honor of Keita Takahashi and several other video game rock stars, and they're closing the entire event with an epic chip music concert featuring me, Radlib, Bubblyfish, NO CARRIER and CHiKA. The show is this Sunday, August 26, from 5pm to 10pm; it's located at the Museum of Art and Design, and it's ALL AGES! Check out the full calendar of events — there are some truly inspiring and intriguing things scheduled for this weekend. If you have any interest in video game culture, don't miss it.

And in other news, if you haven't seen it yet, I was featured as the musical guest on this month's episode of "On The Verge." And let me tell you, they made me look very cool. Here are the two clips, embedded for your convenience:

As promised, Chipocrite shirts are now available for purchase online. Designed by good friend and art mastermind Sean Egan, these shirts feature a charming visual representation of the Chipocrite universe. Only $15 plus shipping, which ain't much by shirt standards nowadays, and they come in several sizes. Check it out yourself and pick up one or two or seven on the Media page!

Also, see you at TooManyGames this weekend! I'm playing on Sunday as both a solo Chipocrite set and an Autoscroll set... what more could you ask for?!