Andy Baio is an independent journalist and programmer who launched the popular Yahoo!-acquired online events calendar Upcoming.org in 2003. Currently working as the CTO of Kickstarter, a funding platform for artists, designers and musicians, his most recent project is an 8-bit jazz album set to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue."
"Kind of Bloop: An 8-Bit Tribute to Miles Davis" is an exercise in imagination, asking what the pioneers of jazz music might have sounded like if their medium of choice had been 8-bit game consoles. The concept struck a chord when it was casually announced on twitter, and backers who wanted a copy covered the music album's projected costs via Kickstarter within four hours.
The participating artists are chipmusic heavyweights Ast0r (Chris J. Hampton), Disasterpeace (Rich Vreeland), Sergeeo (Sergio de Prado), Shnabubula (Samuel Ascher-Weiss) and Virt (Jake Kaufman). In this interview on the subject of the album, the project organizer described the strengths of the Kickstarter funding method and the challenges of the album's unprecedented core concept.
