Andrew Chaikin, better known by his stage name Kid Beyond, is an American singer, beatboxer, live looper and voice actor, based in the

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

area.

Early career

Chaikin attended

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

and was a leader in the co-ed fraternity Zeta Delta Xi. He sang in the

Jabberwocks The Jabberwocks is the oldest a cappella group at Brown University. History The group began in 1949 as an offshoot of the traditional Men's Glee Club when four members decided to start their own independent singing group. In 1956, Brown Music D ...

, a student

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

group. He graduated in 1991 and moved to San Francisco to join the House Jacks with Deke Sharon, recording "Naked Noise" and "Funkwich" with the band (the latter for

Tommy Boy Records Tommy Boy Entertainment is an American independent record label and multimedia brand founded in 1981 by Tom Silverman. The label is credited with helping and launching the music careers of Queen Latifah, Afrika Bambaataa, Stetsasonic, Digital ...

). He left the House Jacks in 1997. In 2004, Kid Beyond made a cameo appearance as an actor in the music video Maximum Wage, which featured music he co-created with Andrew Bancroft. He released his first solo EP, ''Amplivate'', in 2006.

Performances

Kid Beyond has toured nationally with

Imogen Heap Imogen Jennifer Heap (born 9 December 1977) is a British musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. Her work has been considered pioneering in pop and electropop music. Heap classically trained in piano, cello and clarinet starting at a ...

. He has also performed at major

music festival A music festival is a community event with performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre (e.g., rock, blues, folk, jazz, classical music), nationality, locality of musicians, or ho ...

s, including sets at

Burning Man Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...

atop a

Unimog The Unimog (, ) is a range of multi-purpose tractors, trucks and lorries that has been produced by Boehringer from 1948 until 1951, and by Daimler Truck (formerly Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler AG) since 1951. In the United States and ...

, the

Langerado Langerado Music Festival was an annual music festival, taking place in early spring in South Florida, first organized in 2003 by Ethan Schwartz. In 2008, the festival was held at the Seminole Big Cypress Indian Reservation in the Everglades. Th ...

festival, the 2007

Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival was a four-day music festival held annually in early June from 2004 to 2015 at Mulberry Mountain near Ozark, Arkansas. Named for the Wakarusa River, the festival was first held at Clinton State Park immediat ...

, and

Coachella Coachella may refer to: * Coachella, California * Coachella Canal, in California * Coachella (festival), an annual music and arts festival in California * "Coachella – Woodstock in My Mind", a 2017 song by Lana del Rey See also

* Coachell ...

. His song "Mothership" from ''Amplivate'' was used in '' NBA Live 08'' by

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network ...

. While opening for

Buckethead Brian Patrick Carroll (born May 13, 1969), known professionally as Buckethead, is an American guitarist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has received critical acclaim for his innovative electric guitar playing. His music spans severa ...

in San Francisco on February 15, 2008, Kid Beyond mentioned recording vocals for "

Free Bird "Free Bird", also spelled "Freebird", is a song written by Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant and performed by American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. The song featured on the band's debut album in 1973. Released as a single in November 1974, "Fr ...

" and other songs for ''

Guitar Hero II ''Guitar Hero II'' is a music rhythm video game developed by Harmonix and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 and Activision for the Xbox 360. It is the second main installment in the ''Guitar Hero'' series and is the sequel to 2005 ...

''. Kid Beyond performed at the inaugural w00tstock shows at the Swedish American Hall, San Francisco, California on October 19 and 20, 2009. He appeared on the game show

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given gene ...

on November 6 & 9, 2020, winning $21,600.

Techniques

Kid Beyond's performances often include some traditional

beatboxing Beatboxing (also beat boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines (typically a TR-808), using one's mouth, lips, tongue, and voice.

as well as

live looping Live looping is the recording and playback of a piece of music in real-time using either dedicated hardware devices, called loopers or phrase samplers, or software running on a computer with an audio interface. Musicians can loop with either loo ...

. The looped pieces make heavy use of

Ableton Ableton AG is a German music software company that produces and distributes the production and performance program Ableton Live and a collection of related instruments and sample libraries, as well as their own hardware controller Ableton Push. ...

's Live software on a laptop to layer and loop vocal and

vocal percussion Vocal percussion is the art of creating sounds with one's mouth that approximate, imitate, or otherwise serve the same purpose as a percussion instrument, whether in a group of singers, an instrumental ensemble, or solo. In Western music Recent ...

tracks together to create full songs. Prior to concerts, the software is configured with the tracks that will be used in each piece, including any necessary effects and levels, but lacking any audio. A set of

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

controller foot pedals allow Kid Beyond to control the software during performance, enabling him to record, play, and manipulate the audio tracks with a set of predefined macros. In some cases, a single press of a pedal performs multiple actions, such as muting one track while initializing recording on another. In recognition of his innovative techniques,

made him a featured artist on their website and presented him at a series of clinics in Germany. The associated footage was shown on a number of

viral video A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhong Lan, Alexander Haupt ...

sites.

Voice work

As Andrew Chaikin, he has performed as a voice-over artist for a number of video games and advertisements, prominently in ''

American McGee's Alice ''American McGee's Alice'' is a 2000 virtual camera system, third-person Action-adventure game, action-adventure video game developed by Rogue Entertainment under the direction of designer American McGee and published by Electronic Arts under th ...

'' as The Mad Hatter/

The White Rabbit The White Rabbit is a fictional and anthropomorphic character in Lewis Carroll's 1865 book ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''. He appears at the very beginning of the book, in chapter one, wearing a waistcoat, and muttering "Oh dear! Oh dear! ...

/ The March Hare, and in the 2005 game '' Star Wars: Republic Commando'', where he does the voices of Clone Advisor and Delta 40 "Fixer". He also provided several voices in graphic adventure titles by

Telltale Games Telltale Incorporated (trade name: Telltale Games) was an American video game developer based in San Rafael, California. The company was founded in July 2004 by former LucasArts developers Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, following ...

, including Phoney Bone and Ted the bug in the ''

Bone A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, ...

'' adaptations, a pair of suspects in '' CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder'', and most notably Max for the first episode "Culture Shock" of '' Sam & Max Season One'' before being replaced by William Kasten for the rest of the series due to health reasons. The Telltale Games characters include a few pirates in ''

Tales of Monkey Island ''Tales of Monkey Island'' is a 2009 graphic adventure video game developed by Telltale Games under license from LucasArts. It is the fifth game in the ''Monkey Island'' series, released nearly a decade after the previous installment, '' Escape ...

'' and Narrator, Papierwaite, and a Moleman in '' Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse''. He also voiced

Biff Tannen Biff Howard Tannen is a fictional character and a major antagonist in the ''Back to the Future'' trilogy. Thomas F. Wilson plays Biff in all three films as well as the Universal Studios ride, and voiced the character in the animated series. Biff ...

in '' Back to the Future: The Game'', Grendel in ''

The Wolf Among Us ''The Wolf Among Us'' is an episodic graphic mystery-drama adventure game developed by Telltale Games, based on Bill Willingham's ''Fables'' comic book series, to which it serves as a prequel. The game consists of five episodes that were re ...

'', Roman in '' The Walking Dead: 400 Days'' and Carlos in the second season of '' The Walking Dead''. He has also provided his vocal talents for the cover versions of the songs from Konami's ''

Karaoke Revolution ''Karaoke Revolution'' and its sequels are video games for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, GameCube, Wii, Xbox, and Xbox 360, developed by Harmonix and Blitz Games and published by Konami in its Bemani line of music games. The Original Conce ...

'' video game series starting with ''

Karaoke Revolution Volume 2 ''Karaoke Revolution'' and its sequels are video games for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, GameCube, Wii, Xbox, and Xbox 360, developed by Harmonix and Blitz Games and published by Konami in its Bemani line of music games. The Original Conce ...

''. His song "Mothership" is on Tap Tap Revenge 2. He has appeared in the official video game adaptation of ''Iron Man 2'' as the villain Ultimo and JARVIS. He has done multiple covers for the ''

Guitar Hero ''Guitar Hero'' is a series of music rhythm game video games first released in November 2005, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing primarily lead, bass guitar, and rhythm guitar across numerous songs ...

'' series of video games, including "No One Knows" by Queens of the Stone Age and "Girlfriend" by

Matthew Sweet Sidney Matthew Sweet (born October 6, 1964) is an American alternative rock/power pop singer-songwriter and musician who was part of the burgeoning music scene in Athens, Georgia, during the 1980s before gaining commercial success in the 1990 ...

. He appears as Penny Arcade's

Tycho Brahe Tycho Brahe ( ; born Tyge Ottesen Brahe; generally called Tycho (14 December 154624 October 1601) was a Danish astronomer, known for his comprehensive astronomical observations, generally considered to be the most accurate of his time. He was ...

in '' Poker Night at the Inventory'', making him the first actor to ever portray the character. He voiced

Dio Brando is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the Japanese manga series ''JoJo's Bizarre Adventure'' written and illustrated by Hirohiko Araki. He is featured primarily as the main antagonist of the series' first part, '' Phantom Blood'', ...

in the 2004 English dub of the ''JoJo's Bizarre Adventure'' OVA.

Awards

*Best of the Bay 2006: Best Oral in the Bay *Best of San Francisco: Best Beatboxer

Filmography

Anime dubbing

Video games

References

External links

* * which includes information on his voiceover work *
Audio of story

Video of story.
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kid Beyond Living people Ableton Live users American beatboxers American male songwriters American male video game actors American male voice actors Place of birth missing (living people) Songwriters from California The House Jacks members 21st-century American male actors 20th-century American male singers 21st-century American male singers 20th-century American singers 21st-century American singers Year of birth missing (living people)