-ColuMN-
San Jose's only Live Electronic Art Monthly at Good Karma, 37 S 1st St., SJ
Started by Peter Nyboer and Andrew Blanton, Column has emerged as a focal point for electronic music, projection, and appreciation. Fostering community and throwing down jams, we manifest live audio and visual sets on synthesizers and computers.
July 8, 2026
From the depth of San Jose's Gameshop Downstairs, two basement dwellers emit waves of sonic intensity inspired by the mountains of technology and media surrounding them
Strength through collaboration
Self improvement through live performance
Insanity through maximalism
QT + MM are hardcore hardware heads who make techno by any means, and think you should too!
June 10, 2026
With harmonic precision, melodic minimalism, and smooth percussive textures, Warren Lain never stopped scoring his personal soundtrack for his own calm. Holding space for an inward journey, with guitars and electronics, The Bei Area is a new means of integration for his musical schisms.
May 13, 2026
Beat DJ is the software creation and business of SF programmer Nes Croft. Driven by a commandline, Beat DJ is a platform for improvising music and visuals. Live coding is possibly one of the purest ways to play computer music, as it requires the same gestures and syntactical brevity required of getting these damn things working in the first place. You could draw the analogy of the acoustic vs. electric guitar, where the "electric" version of computer music requires additional controllers metaphors of older physical processes to create its output. Live coding is closer to the bone, and results in a different form of music, despite using the same materials. We're excited to let a group of Beat DJ artists take over the sound system and see what new directions we all discover! Performing are goopster, ox k, and ntim.
https://oxkk.bandcamp.com/album/sunday-basement
https://ntim.bandcamp.com/
April 11, 2026
Saturday 4.11 brings the 40th anniversary of the SJSU CADRE program. An early adopter of “computational arts”, CADRE has been part of the fabric of @column_sj since its founding. Column co-founder @andr3wblanton has been spearheading much of the organization for this event. Other co-founder @nborus will be joining him on stage for the 7pm portion where they will perform on a vintage Buchla system, an instrument that was foundational to making electronic music happen in the Bay and beyond.
April 8, 2026
This month @column_sj welcomes back M31 Transport @m31transport and The Rhythmist @piqsel. M31 Transport performs live techno as a duo. Sharing a single modular synthesizer, they weave their way through a hypnophonic set of texture and rhythm. A process that may gradually replace your organic tissues with electromagnetic photons, you will, at the very least, carry a new appreciation of the energies carried by sound. The Rhythmist is Derek Scott, one third of the legendary Haptic Synapses, a totality of inventive music making. True to his moniker, rhythms and percussion come forward to enlighten, movement and attention are focused.
Join us @goodkarmasj this coming Wednesday for a showcase of some amazing artists and live electronics
March 11, 2026
We are excited to present D!SHA @dishamusicdisha this week at @column_sj! Her variety and musical curiosity displayed on her IG feed made me reach out to D!SHA to see if she wanted to come play at our downtown San Jose monthly. We have had live acts, we have had DJs, but D!SHA blends the two with her own imaginative take on performance. A Turkish-born resident of San Francisco, D!SHA has grown with a varied musical life: children’s choir, manager for the Turkish Opera and Ballet, radio DJ, electronic music producer, festival organizer. We can’t wait to see what she cooks up with her original tracks, DJ tracks, and her own stunning voice. Join us Wednesday March 11 @goodkarmasj 8-11.
March 11, 2026
As part of Column stalwart and Gameshop Downstairs owner Anthony Guarino's new radio program, Peter Nyboer will have a full hour set on San Jose State radio station KSJS 90.5 FM. We look forward to future collaboration with the Bugzapper program as it falls perfectly on Wednesdays before Column!
Feb 11, 2026
I recently met Snoww (Xiao Xue Wang) through a common friend who had lent her a synthesizer. As one mission of Column is to draw out the hidden electronic music producers of San Jose, I was really happy to find that she’s visiting here in San Jose from China, and was looking for the scene here! She’ll be presenting a live set on Wednesday and I hope you can make it out!
As a producer, DJ, singer, and writer, Snoww founded the influential Chinese all-female bands "FakeGentle" and "The Hormones." She also directs cutting-edge music and education projects such as E-Motion, E-School, and "Siwen Electric Field."
Snoww’s music is a profound intersection of East and West. She masterfully intertwines the cool rhythms of Deep House and the granular textures of Chillwave with the aesthetic of traditional Eastern tonalities. By deconstructing melodic logic, she seeks to awaken deep emotional flows within a rational electronic framework. https://www.snowwmusic.com/
Jan 14, 2026
Usually, @column_sj , you’ll find the raw wires of synthesizers squeezing voltage to the speakers. We kick off the new year with another facet of technoculture: the seamless journey of a well-crafted DJ set. Oakland’s Kerri LeBon @kerrilebon has taken her as far afield as Athens, Bogota, Kyiv, London, Milan, Medellin, Moscow and St Petersburg, as well as lauded festival Berlin Atonal. After Wed Jan 14, she can add San Jose to that list! Her uncommon selections of top-class electro, deep Detroit-styled techno, and sophisticated dub techno will energize your month. Come join us as we get down to some deep sounds.
Dec 10, 2025
We’ve got dual guests this month for ultrasonic delights! First is Astron8. Unlike many of our guests, he did not appear from our existing network of artists and friends. In fact, he represents what we have aimed for with Column in the first place: create a place that brings out the artists we don’t know, the people that San Jose hasn’t featured, the strangers doing cool stuff. No longer a stranger, @djastron8te will be bringing strange tones to our lovely salon. Next is Weird Unit, who organizes electronic music in Santa Cruz for @emom.sc. He’s bringing his modular over Hwy 17 to help us better understand our place in the universe. As always, we’re @goodkarmasj on Wednesday 8-11 - come have fun in the middle of the week: it’s allowed!
Nov 12, 2025
One of the driving motiviations behind Column is to experience technology in an artistic context. San Jose and the Silicon Valley at large is oversaturated with technology as “work” - saving it, ruining it, creating it, blah blah. This week’s sounds will be different because they are the direct result of research - aka, the hard work of discovery - namely a colloaboration with David Zicarelli and the @aaltoacousticslab in Finland, led by Vesa Välimäki. Enjoy the cutting edge as you hear “a novel method for transforming long audio recordings by removing phase information, resulting in a surreal, echoic sound that retains the original timbre while blurring temporal details.”
October 8, 2025
Spend time with the residents Peter and Andrew as they bring their latest audio and video realizations to life.
Wednesday September 10, 2025
In less than one week, you can start a third year! For our anniversary event, we’re excited to have our first guest artist from the top of our Bay’s peninsula (aka SF), @all.thats.gone - All That’s Gone stirs up a heady dose of live techno from modular and a sampler. Slowly evolving sonic mentalities will creep into your brain, making room for more productive thoughts and living. Also of note: he is that he is the organizer of @futureperfect_sf, a live electronic monthly in the Lower Haight. We are looking forward to some great cross-pollination and synthetic sound.
Wednesday August 13, 2025
Some are pressed for time, but we here @column_sj are pressed to play. We’re looking forward to a set from @piqsel with his hybrid iPad+modular setup! If there is ever look back at a Silicon Valley techno sound, he’ll be solidly in the sights.
Wednesday July 9, 2025
Excited to welcome @m31transport to @column_sj this coming Wednesday! Curving their way on Hwy 17 from Santa Cruz, this modular synth duo brings a heady minimal techno sound. Come out to @goodkarmasj, indulge in the best beer selection in downtown, and reword your brain with synthetic music!
Wednesday June 11, 2025
Tomorrow night, being June’s esteemed second Wednesday, we have a special guest who will depart from our usual hardware jams. Charles Johnson aka Woven, has been producing so damn much techno in our South Bay for so many years, he can DJ himself. Come delight in his catalog, interspersed with the intermissions of synthesizers from the residents!
Friday June 06, 2025
Column collectively organized hours of sets for the annual Subzero street fair featuring some of the valley and coast's finest electronic musicians.
Wednesday May 21, 2025
A special session celebrating the graduation of San Jose State's finest!
Wednesday May 14, 2025
Spring brings new life and new sounds from residents Peter and Andrew.
Wednesday April 09, 2025
Santa Cruz Electronic Music Open Mic (EMOM) orgnizer Matt Moore treats us with a fat set of modular techno.
Wednesday March 12, 2025
It's more than just sound, it's a culture. Electrify your aesthetic at Column.
Wednesday February 12, 2025
Residents Andrew and Peter find new uses for technical artifacts.
Wednesday January 8, 2025
The new years will require manipulation and fast thinking. We put that to the test with improvised electronic music.
Wednesday December 11, 2024
San Jose's Anthony Guarino emerges from his Gameshop Downstairs and resets your notions of reality with his retro punk electronic sounds.
Wednesday November 13, 2024
This month promises a new era of unreliability and instability. We try out new structures for new coping mechanisms.
Wednesday October 9, 2024
The heart of electronic music is texture and rhythm.
Wednesday September 11, 2024
One year anniversary! Special guest Woven.
Wednesday August 14, 2024
Emerge from summer with new methods of madness!
Wednesday June 12, 2024
Andrew and Peter take a hard left and go on an ambient journey. Andrew works in the present live coding in Max, Peter dreams of the past on his Buchla. Together, the sound of the future emerges!
Wednesday May 8, 2024
A dose of technology-assisted aural overdrive with guest Derek Scott. Derek has been producing, performing, and perfecting his techno sound in the unlikely environs of our sprawling city. The Art and Promise of technology is alive and pulsing!
Wednesday April 10, 2024
Andrew and Peter bring some new jams for an expedition through sound and time.
Wednesday March 13, 2024
Steve Cooley is one of the SJ techno legends from Haptic Synapses. He’ll be gracing our tiny table with some large sounds.
Wednesday February 14, 2024
Column residents post up on the tiny table with (mostly) battery powered synths in recognition of the power outages many suffered in the recent storms.
Wednesday January 10, 2024
Peter and Andrew team up on the window seat to deliver a mind bending set of synthetic beats. Drew paints the walls with light.
Wednesday December 13, 2023
Peter keeps it simple and interactive with a set on the Elektron. Andrew generates music with code for unexpected aural delights. Drew examines the fitness of walls for light.
Wednesday November 1, 2023
Strange sounds will emanate from the transducers at Good Karma. Enjoy a performance from Peter Nyboer on a Buchla synthesizer and a set from Andrew Blanton on his Moog.
Wednesday September 27, 2023
If it's mostly synthesizers or pre-synthesizer electronic music, it's fair game. Bring a record or text us a link!