2006 ATL Laptop Battle Finals - Wrap Up

Thanks to everyone who came out to support the Atlanta Laptop Battle Finals last night. This was by far the most successful Laptop music event the city has ever seen. A huge thanks is owed to Bean and Lenny's for believing in us, to our panel of expert judges (Richard Devine, Omar Torres, and Craig Dongoski) and to all of the contestants who put it on the line to make the event what it was.



The judges didn't have an easy job picking from the eight finalists from our last two battles. Every contestant stepped up his/her game, and while the judges didn't always agree with the popular vote of the audience, it's hard to fault the kind of expertise we had on our judging panel.





The double elimination format allowed each contestant ample opportunity to move forward. I enjoyed the drama that resulted from brackets collapsing and rematches becoming inevitable.



Once again, we had about as diverse a group of sounds as one could hope for with a pool of only eight competitors. From Reaktor to Fruity Loops, Live to Pluggo, and some crazy shit that Graham Coleman was using that flipped everyone out, it was fun to see that everyone had his or her own approach. While there are different techniques to playing most instruments, the laptop has got to be the single most versatile and powerful performance tool for a battle.





I was particularly impressed with Minidestroy's approach of calling out his opponents with samples of their names--drawing out the true nature of the BATTLE. Likewise, it was great to see Graham Coleman find a balance between out-geeking everyone and making people dance at the same time. Merkatroid summed up the dirty south better than just about anyone else I've seen with a vicious mashup of crunk hip hop and country and noise that far out-stepped anything he did in the previous battle.



Somehow though, the night belonged to the two former Secret Life guys. After an earlier defeat at Threv's hands, Tricil managed to work his way through the Losers' bracket to meet his former band-mate again in a rematach for the title. Having navigated through the top bracket without a loss, Threv needed to be beaten twice to lose the night to Tricil. Utimately, the judges spoke, and the only man to perform in every one of the Atlanta Laptop Battles, Threv, proved a fitting victor.



Now, Threv is making plans for Seattle as he no doubt wonders what he should do with all of the new software he's won. The Atlanta Laptop Battle series for 2006 is over. Will it be back in '07? Probably, in some form or other. Stay tuned.

Below are audio clips of the performances. The first few battles didn't make it to the hard drive (apologies to those contestants' whose tracks I did not capture,) but everything else is here for those who missed out or for those who want to relive the madness.

Laptop Battle Audio
Tricil
Battle 2 v. Threv (L)
Battle 3 v. Recompas (W)
Battle 4 v. Minidestroy (W)
Battle 5 v. Merkatroid (W)
Final Battle v. Threv (L)

PH
Battle 2 vs Recompas (L)

Recompas
Battle 2 v. PH (W)
Battle 3 v. Tricil (L)

Threv
Battle 2 v. Tricil (W)
Battle 3 v. Merkatroid (W)
Final Battle v. Tricil (W)

Minky Boodle
Battle 2 v. Graham Coleman (L)

Minidestroy
Battle 1 v. Minky Boodle (W)
Battle 2 v. Merkatroid (L)
Battle 3 v. Graham Coleman (W)
Battle 4 v. Tricil (L)

Graham Coleman
Battle 1 v. Merkatroid (L)
Battle 2 v. Minky Boodle (W)
Battle 3 v. Minidestroy (L)

Merkatroid
Battle 1 v. Graham Coleman (W)
Battle 2 v. Minidestroy (W)
Battle 3 v. Threv (L)
Battle 4 v. Tricil (L)