Since 2005, No Sides Records CEO and ex-Skin Graft staffer Billy Sides has risen to prominence in the burgeoning video game music, or “chiptune,” scene with his enthralling, genre-transcending bursts of sonic nostalgia under the moniker WILLIAM SIDES ATARI PARTY. As a one-man-band utilizing the Atari Synthcart program and an array of modified synthesizers and electronic gadgets, Sides brings a low-tech approach to his top-of-the-minute tech-now/no wave/electrocrash jams.
As WILLIAM SIDES ATARI PARTY, Sides has brought his exciting and energetic live sets to many different scenes and settings around the U.S. He has shared the stage with the likes of AL-THAWRA, ALBINO GHOST MONKEY, ANIMAL STYLE, ARMADILLO TANK, ATARIMATT, BARON KNOXBURRY, BIG SPLASHES, BIT MUMMY, BUBBLYFISH, CARJACK!!!, CARPET OF SEXY, CHEAP DINOSAURS, CLIMAX DENIAL, CRYSTAL CASTLES, D.D. NEWMOLE, DEASTRO, DEATH FACTORY, DUAL CORE, 84001, ENVIRONMENTAL SOUND COLLAPSE, EYES, GIVEUPNEWYORK, GRAVITY PLAYS FAVORITES, THE HATE MOMS, HAWNAY TROOF, ILLUSION OF SAFETY, INSECT DELI, J+J+J, JENSEN SPORTAG, KENTUCKY PROPHET, LAZER CRYSTAL, LIL PRINCESS, LUNATIK, THE MACHINIST, MAD HAPPY, MAGIC IS KUNTMASTER, MAKEUP AND VANITY SET, MC ROUTER, MIKE BISON, NAUTICAL ALMANAC, NEW COLONY SIX, ODDIOBLENDER, ONE MILLION TINY TINY JESUSES, PLAYER TWO, PROTMAN, RADIO SHOCK, RIGHT-EYE RITA, SASKROTCH, SIR VIXX, SOFT SERVE, SOUNDS HAPPY, SPORTS, SPUNKY TOOFERS, SUPERFUN YEAH YEAH ROCKETSHIP, THIS IS MY CONDITION, TRIN TRAN, ULTRA PULVERIZE, VELVA, XRIN ARMS and many more.
WILLIAM SIDES ATARI PARTY has been featured in Baltimore City paper (Baltimore, MD), City Beat (Cincinnati, OH), Herald Times (Bloomington, IN), Illinois Entertainer (Chicago, IL), Louisville Eccentric Observer (Louisville, KY), Metro Pulse (Knoxville, TN), Nashville Scene (Nashville, TN), Omaha City Weekly (Omaha, NE), The Reader (Omaha, NE), Real Detroit Weekly (Detroit, MI), Riverfront Times (St. Louis, MO) and Tulsa World (Tulsa, OK).
WILLIAM SIDES ATARI PARTY on Chic-A-Go-Go 3/7/09
WILLIAM SIDES ATARI PARTY at the Metro in Chicago, IL 10/25/08
"William Sides Atari Party makes some of the most gleefully low-tech chiptune music this side of a Pong soundtrack. Where many, though not all, chiptune producers tend to work with the more bubbly and warm electronics of the Nintendo and Game Boy, Commodore 64, and even classic Atari 2600 gaming systems, Sides--the major domo behind No Sides/B.Sides Records, which has put out fine slabs by Chicago no wave super group Miss High Heel and Malade de Souci--favors the Atari 7800, the Betamax of late 1980s game consoles, padded with some Nintendo Entertainment System and Darth Vader voice-changer here. All Aboard is raw and calamitous, noisy and rhythmic, and elemental in an almost industrial sense. On this four-song release, WSAP sounds like the Atari 7800 invited the Intellivision and Odyssey2 over to Mrs. Rifkind's house for a night of popping over-the-counter bronchial dilator stimulants while listening to Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse, and the early Wax Trax! catalog. And then around dawn, when all their eyelids felt as heavy as garage doors, they decide to make techno.
Credit Sides' droll humor for that attitude. With song titles such as "Get Yer Ju-on!" and "Don't See the Movie Alien vs. Predator," WSAP injects a refreshing irreverence into the sometimes insular chiptune underground. But the tracks are choice, too. "Project Horizon" creates a jagged rhythm out of a buzzing percussive tone, over which Sides drapes background noises and bleeps until it accrues narrative drive. Best is the 16-minute-and-change "Alien vs. Predator" epic, in which strafing collisions of noises rise and fall into a car-chase beat that eventually stalls into an arrhythmic spitting of static bursts."
-- Bret McCabe, Baltimore City Paper 3/18/09
All Aboard For Mrs. Rifkind's House
CD-- No Sides Records, 2005
LP Reissue-- Placenta Recordings, 2010
Southern Cross 3" CD EP
Give Daddy The Knife, 2007
Herne The Hunter CD EP
No Sides Records, 2009
