. _| : _____ ______________ |___| _ _______/ 6 /\___________________________ / ____________/ /\__\ _ _______/____/_____________________________ / / _________ \/__/ ______\ 6 \_____________________________ / / / `_ . .~ \____\/ _ __ ___ / / / _____ . _ \ __ ___ _/__/\ / / / / /\ _ __ __\__\/ _/__/ / ____/ /__\_________________________________ _____ ___ _ / 6 /\/ /___ __________ _ ______ _ ___ \/ /\ / 6 / /____/6 \ \ / /\ / __/\ / /\ \ \ / \ /____/ / / \ / \/ /_ \___/___/ \ \_/___/ / \_/ / / \ ___\ / /_/ /______/\/ \ /______/\/ \ /_____/ // \ \ / / / \ / / \ \ \ \_\ \ \ \_\ \ //____/\____\/ / / / / / \______\/ \______\/ \_____\/ \ \ \ \ / / / / \____\/\____\ / / / / _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ / / / /__/ w /\___/ /\___/ e /\___/ /\__ / l /\___/ /\____/ / / __/____/____/____/____/____/____/____/____/____/____/____/________/ / __\ \____\ e \____\ \____\ k \ ___\ \____\ y \__________/ \____\/ \____\/ \____\/ \____\/ \____\/ \____\/WW ps: woa, a rendered askee! - TraxWeekly Issue #6 - 04/20/95 Release NAID Special --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ Introduction ]---------------------------------------------------------- It was NAID that knocked down our doors recently. This issue is pretty much dedicated to the demo-party. Of course we cover mostly the music aspect of it all. I noticed that GraveDigger and Psibelius did all the work this week, but I can't do much these days due to time problems. I wrote my first real article for this mag, and GraveDigger hopped from Demonews to give us a kick. Psibelius as always gave an extra effort to help me cover NAID. TraxWeekly is on the World Wide Web! Officially, the site is: http://www.partek.fi/traxweek The page is maintained by Dragunov, now one of our staff. Check it out with the newest version of Netscape. Might be the best way to check out the mag. Maelcum of Kosmic helped me out by doing some pics for the page. Claim, Sophisto and TheHacker contributed background tiles. To all of them, I thank you. As soon as Maelcum sets-up the other site in North America, use Jak's site in finland (specified above). TraxWeekly has an internet address to contact Popcorn or myself. It is: t-weekly@direktor.voima.jkl.fi .. Subscriptions are available now, and can be done in this matter: If you want to subscribe to TraxWeekly mail to: listserver@oliver.sun.ac.za And put in the message body: subscribe trax-weekly [your real name] If you want to unsubscribe to the list mail to the same address and write: unsubscribe trax-weekly TraxWeekly is also available on ftp.cdrom.com/demos/incoming/ or /demos/diskmags/tw/ Let's get started and get brain washed by this dangerous reading material. - Populus populus@llc.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ Contents ]-------------------------------------------------------------- 1. The Demo-Party, NAID - Populus 2. Social Tendencies of PC Musicians - GraveDigger 3. NAID: From a distance - GraveDigger 4. Epinicion: "Timeline" Musicdisk Review - GraveDigger 5. TraxWeekly's Spring Break - Psibelius 6. Interviews - The NAID Music Compo: Opinion Interviews + Island of Reil and Mosaic - Normal Interviews + TekLord and Blackwolf 7. Epinicion Column 8. Advertisements 9. Distribution Sites --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ x. The Demo-Party, NAID ]----------------------------------------------- Writer: Populus I thought about writing my first article actually. I never thought of myself as someone that has anything to say (maybe true), but heck! I got a newsletter! I went to NAID (North American International Demofest). I went by my own means: I drove to Montreal. I invited my friend The Specialist on the ride. I also brought Blue Angel Dream (hey the trunk is pretty big!). After packing up we hit the road and drove off to NAID. I finally arrived at the party place. There, I wanted to meet most of the people who I knew were coming. I recognized Mosaic (from his mugshot ;) and went to say hello. CCCatch was there and he almost hugged me ;). I remember this cuz they were the first people I met over there. I caught up with our ascii maker, White Wizard, and met all the local guys. I met in general most of the people I wanted to. Zapper, Snowman, Necros, Basehead, Mosaic, CCCatch, Maelcum, Diablo, Mental Floss x 2, Dragunov, Laserlore and others. I must have forgotten someone, but hey, I'm human. Then, after doing all the handshakes, I handed my tune to the guy on the console. I know I did more than that, but I really don't remember. The music compo started and I was really dissapointed with the sound system. Every tune sounded simply bad. And it was long, there were 72 tunes or so. I left after like 30 ;). The Specialist heard the intro deadline was extended to midnight, so he join with Razmaid (a local demo group) to complete a boschted up intro. He worked with them for 3 hours, and they worked for 6 hours in all. They finished 3rd place ;). Not bad at all. Meanwhile, I watch Dragunov work with the TraxWeekly Web Home Page. It's great BTW. I hatched up on #trax also to check out my friends who didn't make it over there also to say hello. After The Specialist finished his intensive work with the other coders, we dragged Dragunov (funny expression) to the car and drove to Draggy's appartement. I was funny how Drag had a way with piles. Everything was a pile. He needs a metal detector to find his keys ;). Also, Drag's brother broke his bed and was really mad ;). We went to a closet and got a matrisse. We could deduct after removing the large mass that Drag's collection of empty beer bottles was hidden ;). We installed it on the floor and The Specialist immediatly reserve the thing (grrr). I won a night with Drag's sofa! It was okay, but I forgot a my cervical column on it. But, I don't blame Drag. He's in the army, and they are thought to sleep on rocks ;). Fear Dragunov. I got up (The next day!) and realized that we overslept and could be late to see our sucky intro. So I woke up everybody and they rush to my car. I did a bit of speeding, or some would say : a normal montrealer's driving. We got there on time. We watched the intro and were ashamed (keep in mind we didn't know our standing then). I did stuff, but I really don't remember. But, I know I watched the demo compo which was very impressive. I didn't know we could do demos on this side of the ocean, I was wrong. Then after lot's of waiting, the final ceremonies arrived. The NAID people talked to everybody. I really respect them. This kind of party is pretty hard to have. And it was probably hard to convince the school it was a good idea. Then they introduced Snow (Christopher G Mann) to all so he could do his speech. He talked about being proud of what we accomplished in North America by competing here at NAID. He was right. We are good enough to take on the world. They began to tell the results. They told everybody that since there was few people who listened to all the songs, they took away the public voting. So they was a forth place who had a prize like the others. Mosaic of Renaissance was called as forth place. He looks like a pretty mean guy. But, I talked to him before and he's great. Then, Basehead was called up for 3rd place. He looks kinda goofy and sleepy (maybe the ride to montreal), but he's also a great dude. Second place was taken by Maelcum of Kosmic. Everybody was surprised with this for the good reason of Maelcum's music is destined to a minority. He doesn't do popular songs, and his song was 2nd. I was very happy for Maelcum who never got real musical recognition. First place was givin to Necros. Some were surprised, since his song sounded really shitty on site. It seemed very ordinary and typical of him. I learned that I was wrong by relistening it at home. To all I congradulate for their extra effort which was rewarded. I was really tired after that. I was time to leave. I picked up Dragunov and The Specialist to drive Drag to his appartement in Montreal. TS and me drove back to NAID to pick up Blue Angel Dream, White Wizard and Kermit. I stopped at Tim Horton's for WW who wanted to eat. He shared the donuts with us, but kept one all the way back home to Quebec. The three new passengers sat in the back of the car. It was wild, we were all tired as hell, and kept doing bad jokes. I had fun, but Kermit and WW still owe me gas money ;). That's it, I guess. As you could see, I don't have a great ability for remembering things. I got the essential, that's the important part. - Populus populus@llc.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 2. Social Tendencies of PC Musicians ]---------------------------------- Written by: GraveDigger gd@ftp.cdrom.com With help from: Phoenix vossa@rpi.edu White Wizard wwizard@biko.llc.org Being at NAID, the three of us observed several unique and characteristic tendencies of those who compose music on a PC. We would like to share our interpretation of these events with the TraxWeekly readers. First, you could find just about everything you'd need to know about composer's culture by hanging out in the Kosmic/Renaissance room for 10 minutes. You might witness people stumbling in the door, drunk out of their mind, and passing out on the floor in front of you. You might see a well-known composer sitting at Scream Tracker, loading "ST3.SET" into the instrument list. You might see C.C.Catch arranging a row of desks and falling asleep on top of them. Ms. Saigon was the only one who had a cot in the room, and Basehead took no fear to the pink sheets and pillowcase, and claimed the spot for a short time until the bed's owner returned. Soon after, a pillow fight emerged, involving Necros, Basehead, and Ms. Saigon. (Who won? They may all tell a different side to that. =) Then, you could stroll out into the hallway and go to the park-bench setting. You will find a few people lying on the benches, getting some sleep away from the noise of the late-night Kosmic folks who happen to be blasting their music. Among these park-bench'ers you will find Daredevil, who is quite upset at the fact that Kosmic people were up late playing music, preventing him from getting any sleep. Walking down the hall towards the main party room, you will walk past various people; walking, running, or crawling in all directions. You will pass the "high-tech" payphones that have a neat text scroller "en francais." And there you are, at the main party spot. You will see CPU's and keyboards on the tables in the side room, with musicians storming around the keyboards to produce lovely sounds, or in some cases, thunderous percussive rhythms. Musicians are seen tracking and editing music, and playing it for others. And all throughout the weekend, musicians are seen eating the food provided (read: sold) by Subway, drinking high-caffeine beverages, and getting a sugar fix to last them "just a little while longer." The composers seemed to be a neat bunch, in living and in composing. Aside from throwing away their garbage after eating, their carefully-placed notes on multiple channels of an S3M or MTM show their strive for excellence. All notes must be lined up, and fall at the correct place. And collectively, a certain kind of magic tells these notes to express the emotions of its creator; to re-live a moment in time that has since passed. These are the people you see on IRC. In real life, most of them actually seem quite normal. They dress normal, talk normal, and act normal. Really, you ask? NO, NOT REALLY! :) Ok, enough of the Tostitos commercial. These people are all pretty much down-to earth. And it's the actual event of meeting these people that allows one to see what it means to be different but still normal. Nobody there was on a high cloud, nobody seemed like a crazed maniac. Well, ok, maybe Maelcum did seem to lose it at times. :) The crowd was very mature yet very fun-loving. This should assure everyone that it should be fairly easy to find a place to hold NAID 1996, assuming that it does become a reality. There will be no memos sent out saying "Those demo people were awful! Make sure they do not come back!" Over fifty composers contributed music to the competition, and the organizers decided that none would be left out. This meant six and a half hours of music. Unfortunately, by the last song, the only people left were those at the console and the judges. But, it's only fair to let people do as they choose. A great weekend has passed, and history has been made. Some great music was written and released as a result of this event. At the end of it all, the winners were announced and they were well received by the audience. And though it might have seemed a bit predictible, you can talk to _all four_ of the winners on IRC. :) So dial up your Unix system, log on, check your mail, and hop on IRC. And there is where you can witness the social tendencies of PC musicians for the time being, for NAID 1996 is at least a year away. -- (do not reply to this email address, reply to above-mentioned only. thanks =) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 3. NAID: From a distance ]---------------------------------------------- Writer: GraveDigger Well, here we all are, back home again. Sitting behind our computers. Experiencing the aftershock of NAID. For those who went, it was a truly great experience. For those who could not make it, they will soon see the NAID report (or reports) which will hopefully capture a small piece of the event which will let them see and feel what it was like. And they will download the entries in the compos to see all of the fine talent that was present this weekend in Montreal. Hunderds, if not thousands of pictures were taken by various people and several hours of video were shot. This also includes the TV coverage that was present for most of the two-day event. Several things were completed on-site as well; demos completed, songs finished, intros fine-tuned, and graphics beautified. "Pisstro" started out as just a routine of the man urinating, and was soon accompanied by music and completed in time for the intro compo. Three musicians, two of who were Necros and Basehead, wrote a tune in the back of the Kosmic room. The Surrounders locked themselves in their room in order to complete their compo contributions. People played their musical instruments. Floss had brought his bass guitar, and there definately was not a shortage of synths. There was also live music at various times during the weekend, including "Public Enema," a funk/jazz band. People slept in classrooms on hard floors, they ate Subway food, drank high-caffeine beverages, consumed alcohol, took Advil to cure their hangovers, and repeated the process the next day. What an event! It was amazing. For me, meeting everyone that I have known for however long I've known them was a rewarding experience. Matching faces and personalities with names is a very significant and solidifying thing for this scene. I do hope that this party has influenced others as it has me, to further get involved with the scene, to stay in contact with everyone, and to hopefully attend an equally enjoyable event next year. I would like to also admit that I did not shower all weekend, and I really hope I did not offend anyone as a result of this. :) The North American demo scene has so much talent, as we were able to all witness this past weekend, and I hope to see more and more fine productions from the many participants in the compos. I would like to also tell anyone who was in the Kosmic room this weekend that I found a gold-plated phono plug adapter in the room on Monday morning. If it is yours, please email me with your address and I will mail it to you. .. GraveDigger .. Hornet .. gd@ftp.cdrom.com .. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 4. Epinicion: "Timeline" Musicdisk Review ]----------------------------- by GraveDigger [defiance.hornet.colaholic] digger@freeside.scsd.k12.ny.us A little over a year ago, Psibelius set out to create a music group that would stray from the elitish attitude of other groups. He wanted to escape the atmosphere of arrogance offered by others in the scene, and create his own "cloud nine" in the skies of the demo scene. There is no royal throne atop this cloud, for it is a kingdom of equals. This group would be a place where musicians would focus on one thing and one thing only: quality music. Of course, as with any group of persons, a certain camaraderie would emerge from this union; an alliance spread across a common ground for all of the group's members. This group was to be called Epinicion. And now, to commemorate their one-year existence and influence in the demo scene, Epinicion presents to us their anniversary musicdisk titled "Timeline" - a very fitting name. The disk fills up three files and has a mass of some 3.6 megabytes of disk space. There are 31 songs, mostly in S3M format, but also some in MTM and MOD formats. There is more than an hour and a half of music on this disk; the product of 17 Epinicion musicians. With 31 different songs in one week's time (especially right before NAID), :) I will not be able to mention every tune on the disk, but here are a few highlights that should provide plenty of insight into the musicdisk. "Android" was the first to be fed to my soundcard, and it started off as a gentle ambient piece, soon mutating into a fast trance bit with a res-bass line holding up the low end. This tune seems repetitive at first, but then it kicks into a heart-racing thriller. "Bagota" is a short but tasteful piano piece of Bluebeard's creation. Very melodic and memorable; unfortunate it wasn't more lengthy. The piano is at times overpowered by the other instruments, and could have been doubled in another channel, or for lack of spare channels, the other instruments could have been hushed as to let the lead instrument shine through more. The greatest number of contributions to the musicdisk came from Beaner. Five of his songs appear on this musicdisk. "Burn" is one of them. It is a four-channel MOD that races along at 153bpm. It is a nice techno/rave piece that uses octave jumping on the guitar which provides a groovy effect. "Carbonated Subroutines" is another tune from Beaner. It provides a fast-paced delight that would fit nicely in a racing-type arcade game. Don't play this in your car; you'll be pulled over for speeding. Clef's "Chip" tune reminds me of something out of a C64 demo. Now those were the days. :) Simplistic and small, but effective. Nice use of portamento for the melody line. The percussion fits in nicely as well. "Odd" is a trancey tune from Epeius, with a nice percussion arrangement and a well done piano line. Definately one of the high points of the disk. It is a very well-arranged tune. "Off-beat Groove" is an ambient-ish tune by Arsenic. The soft beep effect reminds me of Orbital. This is a nice tune but the sample looping is noisy enough to notice. The song is just over two minutes, and perhaps would be more effective at a slower tempo. Perisoft brings us an ambient demo tune, which, typical of his style, is not short in the number of channels used nor the use of porta effects. "Paranoia" has many different sections which seemingly slide into each other without too many uncomfortable bumps. Its intro reminds me of "Panic", and continues on to include such Perisoft-isms such as "How many notes will fit in this pattern?" and "How far up (or down) can I porta this sample?" :) Though he uses these techniques nicely. Maelcum takes command of the better part of ten minutes with his song titled "Path of the Righteous Man." The head man of the Kosmic Free Music Foundation puts his best foot forward with a very original piece. Even with its length, the tune does not feel repetitive. Another high point of the musicdisk. Simul's "Winter" is a fine first-effort. It's a danceable techno tune with a nice melody line and well-done percussion accompaniment. Also, it has three original samples that probably haven't been ripped yet. :D Populus also finds a place on "Timeline" with his tune "Walk of Life." It has a very melodic lead with a thumping rhythm behind it. The main melody is perhaps a bit oblique in nature, but drops to a nice trancey synth harmony. A very well-constructed tune. Below is a file listing with the song title, composer, and playing time. This musicdisk can be found on ftp.cdrom.com under /pub/demos/music/disks/a-f with the filespec "epi-tml*.zip". Also, ftp.luth.se is a European mirror of the cdrom site. Epinicion also has a directory on ftp.wit.com, courtesy of Kosmic. FILENAME.EXT Size Time Title Composer ------------ ---- ---- ------------------------- ---------------- android s3m 144k 4.49 Android Utopia KXmode bagota mtm 178k 1.01 Bagota Bluebeard burn mod 62k 3.42 Burn Beaner cadencia mtm 94k 1.40 Cadencia Island of Reil cl-mdisk s3m 11k 1.55 Chip Clef dac95 mtm 220k 2.39 DAC '95 Island of Reil despair s3m 80k 4.24 Despair of Mine Clef devotion s3m 148k 2.33 Devotion Epeius epi-evid s3m 104k 2.27 Evidence Charlatan epi-gohm s3m 130k 2.33 Going Home Charlatan epi-groo s3m 117k 3.10 Off Beat Groove Arsenic mastillu s3m 278k 4.51 Masters of Illusions KXmode mercury s3m 156k 2.17 760 Degrees of Mercury Beaner newbegin s3m 210k 3.35 A New Beginning Daedalus odd s3m 187k 3.18 Odd Epeius paranoia s3m 337k 3.50 Paranoia PeriSoft patricia s3m 115k 4.00 Patricia El Pachucho potrm mtm 604k 10.47 Path of the Righteous Man Maelcum rainfrst s3m 67k 2.40 Rainforest Charlatan remember s3m 352k 3.49 Remember Psibelius resist s3m 135k 2.13 Resist Conformity Beaner riderang s3m 348k 3.35 Riding the Range KXmode silenti mtm 35k 1.48 Silent Ill Quarex skies s3m 281k 5.22 Darkening Skies v2.00 Beaner subroute s3m 71k 2.33 Carbonated Subroutines Beaner unmit s3m 116k 3.10 Unmitigated Blackwolf viola2 s3m 270k 2.46 Viola Concerto #2 Psibelius vrgbeast mtm 344k 2.51 Vorg the Doom-Beast Quarex walklife s3m 158k 3.31 Walk of Life Populus winter s3m 189k 3.23 Blue Winter SiMuL ------------ ----- ------- 31 songs 5541k 1:41.12 ---+-------- |-> 24 S3M's |--> 6 MTM's |---> 1 MOD .. GraveDigger .. Hornet .. gd@ftp.cdrom.com .. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 5. TraxWeekly's Spring Break ]----------------------------------------- article by psibelius [acid.epinicion.lotsagroups] I'm pretty sure by now that most of you are sick and tired of the "motivational" stuff I usually write, and are going to puke if you read another Epinicion promo again =). So this week, I'm going to spare you, and address a much more enlightening topic: Spring Break! For those of us lucky enough to still be in school (and not struggling in the economic work force), Spring Break has given us a time to not only relax, but also to meditate on our troubled lives and seek solutions. Also, it provides us ample time to cram for all the work we missed being lazy after xmas. For example, I'm here typing this article instead of working on forty pages of physics I was supposed to have finished two months ago. Spring Break has also given us TraxWeekly columnists to write lots and lots of articles and engage in head-spinning research to being you the full story behind the scene. =) In this week's large issue of TraxWeekly, we're proud to bring you a slew of interviews, some concerning new arrivals, as well as opinions from the NAID (blah) music compo...congratulations to all those who competed and those who won! -psibelius [tw] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 6. Interviews ]--------------------------------------------------------- . . . .. ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ___ ___.___________ ________ . _______ / \ _______ :___| ___\__.___ _ /________\_____ | _. _\______/_ \ /______ __\ . / \ / ____/ __ ____/ |__:___. _ _ _____/ \ /_______ . | . / \/ _/ \ | /. |/ __/ (- -) /__ \WW : | ./ \ \ . \ : / . | \ oO / \ | | \ ._________\ \ : \ . / . | O \ / |___|____\ /. /__________\ |______\ /___._|_______/_/\__/________\/ \/ . /______| \ / . . \/ . =============.=================================.======================== . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... .. . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -[ The NAID Music Compo: Opinion Interviews ] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Here are a few opinions on the North American International Democompetiton's Music Competition: Island of Reil, who attended, and Mosaic, who placed 4th with his song 'Tears.' Interviewer . Psibelius [TraxWeekly Columnist] . gwie@coyote.csusm.edu Interviewee . Island of Reil [Epinicion] . jroth@coyote.csusm.edu Interviewee . Mosaic [Renaissance] . cccatch@escape.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Okay, please start by teling our studio audience your name, age, groups, personal, info, naid status, etc... Okay... I'm Jesse Rothenberg, AKA Island of Reil, or ior on IRC eeyore? That related to winnie the pooh in any way? I'm 16 years young, I'm in Epinicion. No... That's "eye-oh-are." personal info, naid status? Hmmm... I went to NAID... A lot of people saw me there.... Bet they noticed you needed a haircut eh? =) It was fun, although I didn't go for the party. ahahahaha... Well... Actually, most people didn't mind... It seemed to me that nearly everyone there needed a haircut as much or more than I did. :) Okay, spew the info about naid will ya? What exactly would you like to know about NAID? There is a lot to tell... Organization, Compos, People there... Well, why don't you tell us about the oh-so-popular scene peoples. And what they really look like outside of IRC. =) hahahaha... Okay. There were a lot of American scene people there, which is the reason I went. Let's see: Necros, CCCatch, Mosaic, Snowman, Basehead, Maelcum, DareDevil...BTW, that was in no particular order. :) Who made the biggest impression on you? The biggest impression... Hmmm... That's a tough one. A lot of people there completely amazed me, not at all like I expected, but then again, a lot of people looked like I thought they would... But the biggest impression came from someone that was different. who? I guess... I would have to say... Necros. why? When he was called for the first place music compo award... (oh... and he didn't like his song too much) ... he accepted, it, and then gave a little speech to the audience. Don't get me wrong..."little speech?" "little speech?" Not a speech like "Thank you so much, you like me, you really like me!"... No... Nothing like that. It was actually a very good thing to say, especially from someone who is as popular as he is... So what did he actually say? It seemed heartfelt ... the basic idea that it carried was that he respected all the people that competed, becuase they actually DID compete. No matter if their song was good or bad, they went up there, and had the guts to submit it, and then even have it listened to by the entire audience! okay, the usual stuff then. =) Did anything neat or unusual happen you'd like to share with our studh our studio audience? =) I guess you could say that. But I don't think anyone expected him to say that... Which is why it made such an impression (and not just on me :) cool...=) Neat or unusual. Well... The entire party was a little unusual. There were some strange things to pass the time away, like an "American Gladiators contest. AHAHAHAHAHA. Needless to say, I didn't go. I don't go to a demoparty to go swimming. Any computers get tossed into the olympic sized pool? hahahaha... No... I don't think so... IT was a long walk from where the computers were. :) The entire music compo was strange. A bit long? The fact that they actually played all 65 songs (or however many there were) ... ugh... Was it that bad? Did a lot of the entries suck or something? Sitting there for 7 and a half hours listening to tracked music... Can get a little ... uhhh ... repetitive. :) There were a lot of Spartacus (Basehead) rips ... With the drum solo at the end ... Except they were nowhere near as good as Spartacus. A lot of attempted Purple Motion (still) ... and even more techno... So basically, a lot of the competiton music was unoriginal? Yes. I quote Mosaic (Renaissnace), who won 4th place in the music compo: "I can't believe they squashed me between 2 techno toons!" Mosaic's song was very good... And different. IT did stand out from the lot. Kind sucks eh? Mosaic's tune rocks...as I've heard. =) Yeah... Another amazing thing was that CCCatch actually tracked a song for the competition! The Sloth Tracker himself! (No offense, Ken! =) "The Sloth Tracker." Is this Kenny's new nick or what? =) hahaha... Well... Just a little something that seems appropriate. :) But, then again, I think he tracks a little more than I do... soooooo Yes, well, I understand tracking one song every six months is kinda slow. =) Bah. Go away. I track more than that. I did a whole 5 last year. :) That brings me to another complaint. They actually announced who tracked the song during the compo. Bad move. So you think it came out to be a popularity contest? Yes. It was a popularity contest. "And the next song is by Necros" organizee organizers had played each without announcing the composer's name? Do you still think the top 4 would still be the top 4 if the organizers had played each without announcing the composer's name? Yes. The actual placement didn't have to do with the votes by the audience. But it was a mistake anyway. But the way they announced CCCatch's song was funny. :) "And the next song is Modern Society, by Kenny Choo (that's how they pronounced it)" ... . It was strange... So you think some of the unknown people that wrote good songs may have been discouraged? Yes. Definitely. People did cheer for the good songs when they were over... But considering that some songs were cheered for before they even started... Last question: Do you think the organization at NAID was better than that at assembly'94? No. Far from it. The people at Assembly '94 knew what they were doing. They had experience. In a way, you can't blame the organizers of NAID, becuase it IS their first time...But there were a lot of people there that had experince they could have asked. There were about 3 or 4 people that had gone to Assembly '94 (me being one of them) that they could have asked... And there were even people that had been STAFF at Asm '94...There were also 1 or 2 people that had gone to The Party 4. And one of the people that went to TP4, and one of the people that went to Asm '94 were supposed to be NAID staff... But weren't. :-/ Well, thanks for your time....do you have any greets or anything you'd like to say? Like hi to your mom, your cat, or someone/something? Final Comment: More is more. Less is less. More is better. Twice as much is good too. Too much is not enough, unless it's just right. that's it? And for greets? Hmmm... I don't really want to greet anyone, becuase then I'll leave people out... But I just want to thank Epeius for letting me stay at his place before NAID, and all the people that have given me the chance to show that just because you start small, doesn't mean that you aren't good at something or another. ohh, epinicion philosophy here. =) And that's about it. :) ahahaha.. you noticed. :) :) okay, well, thanks for the interview...now pHEAR mE and get outta here. =) hahaha... Nah. You're the one to be doing the phearing around here. :) And thank YOU for the interview. :) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - And now, we skip to a brief chat with Mosaic of Renaissance. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - What is your opinion of the music compo? Hmmmmmmm. I felt the compo was cool, except that i don't think the names of the authors should be released. A tune should be judged on the technical (effort it takes to make it) and how it sounds to the public...its hard enough to compete against the best, without being stereotyped before even starting. Like people cheering before the songs even started? Yeah.. like a standing ovation before the song even started. =) That does not RULE. =) I did however like the judges and the way they handled things, and not falling into that category of general demo music, but also choosing originality. Did you enjoy the music compo? Yes, the music compo was cool, except that I had like a hangover from the day before, when me and Necros went out drinking, had like 11 shots and 5-7 pitchers of 32 ounce beer. =) I was actually just hoping to hear CC's tune, since he was the only one left after a while, cuz my head was pounding so bad... So I heard. =) Did ior come with you guys? And you guys didn't let a 16 year old kid get blasted did you? =) ahaha nope...just me and necros. =) And this guy ALEX actually, but he didn't drink much. =) NAID was so tiring...and I had to sleep on the ground...and CC slept on 3 desks put together. =) Imagine his back now. =) You guys didn't bring sleeping bags or anything? - [We are briefly interrupted]- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - No Amtracker, No Mosaic song, No Maelcum song, No Kenny Song. Man, F--- DAT! I"M OUTTA HERE! -Ryan Cramer [Renaissance] - [We resume] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - But the damn canadian hotels...sh--...$75 for holiday inn and you have to check out by 12:00p.m. no matter what time you checked in. That blows my NAIDS. Can I quote you on that? =) sure. =) "THAT BLOWS MY NAIDS." Aahhaah... NAID RULES. EXCEPT, I WISH THE CHECK WAS ACTUALLY $100 IN THE U.S. =) -[ Interview with Teklord of DV ] - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Thursday night on IRC I had the opportunity to interview one of the music scene's newer members and his new group. Everyone please welcome Teklord, now a regular on #trax... Interviewer . Psibelius [TraxWeekly Columnist] . gwie@coyote.csusm.edu Interviewee . Teklord [Digital Vision] . teklord@eleet.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ----[The lag on IRC finally clears and we get down to business.]------------ Okay, tell us your name, age, and any personal information you'd like to reveal to the world. My name is jay tracy. My age is 18, personal stuff? *laugh* I like to travel a lot and get to know people. I goto soil which is a gothic/industrial club every thursday night and dance. Okay, now tell us about your group. =) well.. at first it was going to be started as a joke.. because there are so many damned groups out there right now (ie. future crew, sonic etc..) I decided to start my own. And then? It is a tough job to keep with things specially if you never ran a group before. I decided to make it official so, I talked with another group for got the name becuase it's been like a month now, and it turned out to be a great start. A ld group which obsidian was the president of decided to merge w/ us and that is where it all began. It used to be called Digital Demo Tracks. We couldn't think of a name before we merged so we asked a few people on #trax for ideas. What is the group called now? The group is now called Digital Visions you can thank gravedigger excuse me GraveDigger he's picky about his name...er...nick. No need to explain, I understand that perfectly. =) So how long has the group been around? hmm.. I would say about.... a month and one week now. Who are the members? members.. I can not think of all the members we have off hand becuase i'm not at home i'm in rochester, new york right now.. but members.. niq, mr_manson,obsidian,me,sirquarex..let me think... GraveDigger,Lowrider...spangle...I can't think of the others.. I'll get back to you on that question when I get home tomorrow :) ----[TOMORROW? You want me to stretch out this interview? Forget it =]---- What effect do you think DV is going to have on the scene? effects.. well I am currently trying to get some of the original composers of our time.. u4ia, purple motion, skaven.. but they don't or already are in groups or don't want to be. I am trying to get the media scene for the pc moving...sorry I've had no sleep for the past 48 hours... ----[I came to interview you, not hear stories about your useless life =]--- ----[I swear, someone interviews ya and now you wanna rave about your]------ ----[life problems??? Geeze, like we care... =]---------------------------- Do you think DV is going to keep going, or die out as interest in it wanes? I think it will pick up once i get home and settled and calmed down. I've been partying everynight sence i've bene here so no time really to do anything. We have 3 releases already which is amazing for agroup starting out they are not demos they are just music... What is your opinion on the trend of most U.S. groups centering on music only, instead of primarily demos? Well, I kind of like the idea of music. I mean, digital music think about it, technology has grown from the past years. And now we are listening to digitaly composed music. I wish the scene would go back to demos.. have more people code and all because demos are the sh$t. special demos like second reality by future crew and amnesia by .. . renaissance? I think it was.. demos show the capability of what a cpu can do. Do you think that the U.S. people are lazy? no.. us people aren't lazy. We have had some good demos, it seems that the foreign demo groups have it made becuase they have excellent coders, muscians such as purple motion, and artists. It just takes tallent, and time. and most of us don't have the quality time. Finally, what do you think the future of the scene holds? future scene.. well. the way things are going I think we are going to have groups like Digital Visions that does all catagories music,demos,vga's,ansi's etc.. I thik that is what a group should be. Not focus on just one thing, but to focus on all parts of the cpu. yea sound cards are cool but explore the pc damnit :) If people have any questions for you or questions about your group, where should they ask? where should they ask? you can usually find me on #trax or e-mail teklord@eleet.org yes that is a real e-mail address :) You're kidding right? nope, not kidding. I was surprised too when my inet provider had the motd that said you can be emailed at user@eleet.org. :) awright...last thing: Have any greets, or plugs for your group, or any well rehearsed witty remark(s) you'd like to make? ehehhehe. greets greets would like to go out to you psibelius for doing this interview, purple motion for talking to me, heh, gravedigger, all of future crew, cardiac, all of cia ansi group, #phreak, #trax, #nin and #ansi...don't wanna ferget them lamahz :) Awrighty...thanks for the interview man. =) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - And another interview closes...just a reminder to you all, these are the opinions of an individual, so if you disagree with them, please don't take any offense. The purpose of these interviews is to give you an in depth viewpoint on personal perspectives without censorship. =) -psibelius [tw] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -[ Interview with Blackwolf ]- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - With us this week is a rather popular musician on #trax. It's another opportunity to get a glimpse into the viewpoints of various individuals and see what their opinions are. Anyways, on with the interview...and what a relief: no lag. =) Interviewer . Psibelius [TraxWeekly Columnist] . gwie@coyote.csusm.edu Interviewee . Blackwolf [Defiance.Epinicion] . bobbyt@netcom.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - First off, please tell us your name/age/handle/personal info? Ok. Bobby Tamburrino/17/Blackwolf/Hmm...I live in Atlanta and am a senior in high school and I will be attending the University of Georgia beginning in the fall. You're 17 and you're already going into college? I'll be 18 in may :> Oh, okay. =) Wanna tell us about your group(s)? Like, what groups are you in and what do you do? Ok...I'm in Epinicion and Defiance, and I do songs for both of them. I've had several releases under each. But now I've joined up with a local coder (his name is Radix) and we're probably gonna start doing some stuff like "storytelling musicdisks." "storytelling musicdisks?" Care to elaborate? Basically I've been working on a set of songs from a short story I did a while ago. We'd code in with vectors or something the story so you're not just "listening" to the music, you're watching a mini-movie. Sort of like a demo, but not...:> Cool. =) (we won't have all the nifty effects of demos - the primary purpose is to tell a story) So, what do you think of yourself and your progress as a musician? I've gone from just being a player to a writer sometimes, and I feel like I've evolved a lot as a player and writer. I started playing just drums and stuff and now I can play some decent piano. Writing, I look back at the old songs I wrote and the ones I just finished and I think..."Wow, this is really cool." How long exactly have you been composing? I started just writing things down for fun in middle school. I grabbed an old copy of MODEdit 2.00 in Feb. '92 and wrote a few songs, and then stopped cuz I hated MODedit. I got ST3 2 years l ater and started seriously writing again in November of '94. And now you're a big 3r33t stud right? =) Uhhh...no. :> Well, in your own opinion, how to you stack up against the other musicians? Remember, this interview is for viewpoints only. We're not gonna Rodney King ya if you say something wrong. =) Well, I try not to judge myself. Listening to what others have said, I think I could fit in with most of the tracking crowd. :> (I might still go into the rookie division of MC3 though). What a modest guy.... I try :> Okay, what do you think of the music scene in general? I think it's really neat. The PC Music scene is the only place where you can get new music almost daily and most of it is really good. (I tried explaining that to the classes at school when I did a presentation on PC Music - they didn't get it) :> And your opinion on the future? It can only go up from here. What a great attitude! =) w00w00 If people want to contact you about your music, where should the send their email? bobbyt@netcom.com Okay, finally, do you have any greets or stuff? Yah. I have about a 50 line greet list let me up it to you... DOH! I lost it. :> Awrighty...that all you want to say? Uhmm...Basically, just everybody I know that haven't totally bashed me cuz of my previous attempts :> Awrighty, thanks for the interview. Cya. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- We hope you've enjoyed this interview. =) If you think you have something important to say, please contact us here at TraxWeekly for an interview or submit an article. -psibelius [tw] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 7. Epinicion Column ]--------------------------------------------------- ___ _______ _____________ ______ ______ _______ ______ _______ ___________ | // \\ \\_____) \\_____) \\_____) \\ \\ | : / o \ o \ \ \ \ \ \ o \ \: // _____// / \ : / \ _____/ \ / : \. \\_______/ _//______\\_|__//______\\_____//______\\_____//____| /: : \\____\\ ______________________________ oT /___//| |________________________// e p i n i c i o n \\________________| New songs this week: None, but keep reading. =) Epinicion releases as well as new work from numerous other groups can be found at ftp.cdrom.com /.6/demos/incoming/music. Our musicdisk can be found at kosmic.wit.com /kosmic/epinicion. But as always, it as always easiest to DCC this week's new files from us on IRC. In the interest of keeping Epinicion up with it's competition (which is now producing at full sprint), another musicdisk is coming your way in May, as of yet untitled. Be sure to watch for more great variety from the musicians of Epinicion! To those thinking of joining Epinicion, or wanting to know more about our philosophy: You need not be great to join Epinicion. You need only to aspire to be great. I quote from "Synners," a novel by P. Cadigan: "We do what we do and we do it because we can." Damn straight. If you are a dedicated person striving to become better, then email us. And join us. We're here for YOU, the musician. So if you think you have what it takes, don't bother waiting. Join Epinicion NOW. Psibelius (Gene Wie) Epinicion Founder gwie@coyote.csusm.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 8. 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Phone Today! <=- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ 9. Distribution Sites ]------------------------------------------------- | Beats per Minute | Canada | (418)660-8137 | Populus | | MultiMedia GS | Singapore | (65)252-1220 | Lee Teck Chee | | Velvet Demosite | Belgium | +32-3-3851594 | Sleeping Dog | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -[ End ]------------------------------------------------------------------- /\___________ /(___________ = \ \_ \ \_ = ==========\ \================\________ \========= = \ _____) / | \ = = / ___/ N / : \_ = = / \ / ... / = =======__/ \==============__/ /===== = /_________________\ /__________________/WW =