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BitJam Podcast
 Hardread and BitFellas present BitJam podcast #42! Next episode: We are on vacation - check back soon 
 Next episode: BitJam Episode #42 - Synth classics Logo #42 by KF ___________________________________________________________________________________________________  BitJam Episode #41 Episode #41 - Barry's scene favourites Compiled by Barry Leitch, mixing by Vincenzo, logo #41 by KF Few people acknowledge how much the scene influenced the games of the era, and thus in turn the games influenced the scene. I've selected several pieces that over the years influenced me, pieces that I still have in my playlist and much to my wife and kids dissapointment play in the car. With such a wealth of material to pick from, a bank so much richer than the mainstream, please consider omissions merely due to my lack of space. 01. Scrambled mind by Heatbeat Such a solid piece. "Something.. A sight goes thru my mind - a promise of a better life.. is it a dream or is it my wife. A walk with her towards the sight, it gives me nothing but a scrambled mind". The synth brass solo's meandering like a scrambled thought.. Brilliant.. 02. Pimpom by Duke So many demoscene and game pieces suffered from being "the same old same old"..it was always a breath of fresh air to hear something written in a blues or jazz key. also its 11kb. 03. Forests by 4-mat Matthew Simmonds - One of his less famous pieces, but particularly strong IMHO, very "Tull". It's been on my list of pieces I should remix for years along with many of these. again amazing work considering its only 4 channels. 04. Beery by nula It only has 2 samples ! its 4 kb ! How creative can you get ? Excellent. 05. 70's repr by Audiomonster Much MUCH respect for this man, producing any guitar piece in 4 channels is tough. let alone a piece as groundbreaking as this was. we were gobsmacked hearing it, and then went straight to rip the samples 06. Eighties pop by Boo When I think of demo music, this is what I hear, cute, fun, and to the point.. I remember hearing an interview with a south african musician once, who couldnt stand western music, he asked "but how is it supposed to make you happy ?". To him, we'd all completely missed the point and I think this piece hits it right on the head. It makes you happy. 07. Stranglehold by Jeroen Tel JT with his competition entry from 1995.. great mellow piece. 08. Street jungle by HeatBeat Where did this man get his samples from ? I worked for a software company and we didnt even have a sampler let along anything to sample to get all these great sounds he created. It's very possible the lead on this ended up in Pegasus. 09. Zarathustra by Drax Epic demo music. Gotta love theme pieces, and such a good strong melody. 10. Bim bam bom by Loonie Who doesnt love that bontempi organ groove ? 11. Funky stars by Quazar Cracktro's and intro's are still a big part of the sceene. Think of the hundreds of thousands of people who hear them. Most recording artists would kill for an audience that large. 12. Atomic playboys by Screamager And in 13k, if I had a buck for every time i've heard this... 13. Malinka by Rts Thus drawing my selection of scene music to a close. You can almost see the credits scrolling 14. Tetris Remix (MT-32) by Wally Beben This piece stands on its own by far. When I first heard tetris playing on the c64, we didnt realise it had music due to its quiet start. I remember a few of us sitting there being blown away wondering when, if ever it was going to loop.. A few years later, and the Roland MT32 / LAPC1 sound card had become the in house musicians favourite. It gave us the ability to create the sounds we'd always dreamed of. Sadly not many gamers bought them, So it felt like we were only writing the music so other game musicians would hear it. I'd talked to wally beben on the phone while I was at Ocean, and he was excited to hear someone else had an mt32 and while he hadn't had the opportunity to work on it commercially at the time, he had "knocked up" a demo of his c64 tetris music. I've made a point over the years of keeping this safe, which given the bi-annual machine formats, system crashes etc, it's a miracle it survived. I'm very glad it did tho as it's an absolutely beautiful piece, and still can bring a tear to my eye listening to it all these years later. This is the first time this piece has been broadcast to the public. Sit back, turn the lights out, light up and enjoy.. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________  |
