Communikey Festival turns electronic music into child's play

"Can you make me sound like Akon?"

Once again, the Boulder bubble will host the socially and musically progressive Communikey Festival of Electronic Arts. Now in its second year, the three-day event includes electronic musicians from the UK, Germany, Canada, Mexico, the US and Belgrade, as well as local freaks, like Denver's Cacheflowe and Boulder's Normal Ones. Best of all, the festival emphasizes the environment alongside electronics, powering its outdoor events with biofuel, encouraging attendees to use alternative transportation and even implementing a program to ensure that the festival generates zero waste. But none of that is what really caught my eye about this year's festival.

No, what got me excited was Communikids: This workshop, led by Belgrade-based experimentalist Lukatoyboy (a.k.a. Luka Ivanovic), exposes children to the joys of music-making by using somewhat rudimentary tools, like a Nintendo DS and a Korg Kaoss pad. That's right. No laptops involved! You can read more about the workshop on the Communikey website, and you can see a tiny video of Lukatoyboy working with kids here.

Lukatoyboy's plan - based on the Kids-patch workshop he's done previously at Belgrade's like-minded Dis-Patch Festival - is to give the kids a workout on the tools on Saturday - teaching them a few things about beats, performance and improvisation along the way - and then lead them in a live performance in Boulder's Civic Park on Sunday, thus unleashing upon Colorado a whole new generation of electronic musicians.

Move over, Raffi. The kids want more glitch!