Computer L.O.V.E. pt.4

RE-BOOT RE-BOOT…
IT’S MORE FUN TO COMPUTE

Well, that’s what Kraftwerk would have us believe. Mind you, that was 1981, and back then people didn’t waste hour-upon-hour staring slack-jawed at a VDU until their eyes popped out on stalks and their fingers cramped up into RSI-locked claws.

Kraftwerk - It’s More Fun To Compute
[buy Kraftwerk: iTunes | Amazon]

No, back then in the brave new world of the early-80’s you’d have to hang around waiting for 2 hours for yr cassette to hit the payload. Imagine all that pent-up youthful anticipation finally unleashed as you got your hands on the controls to help Horace Go Skiing

Yes! Computing was indeed much more fun than sitting round twiddling your thumbs waiting for your game to load. Though some of those epilepsy-inducing visuals you used to get on the telly were often worth the entry money alone.

Here’s another 8-bit hit of ZX Spectrum madness (with thanks to Feline1). This one has some sweet shuffling Casio-tone beats, and an eerie underwater vibrato melody which helps set the scene for the gameplay:
“Pirates have raided the storage depots of the Federation and stolen valuable minerals, jewels, ammunition and the latest battle weaponry. The Cybernoid ship has been depatched with instructions to retrieve the stolen booty and to return it to storage within a specified time limit. The pirates have activated planetary defence systems and the Cybernoid will have to battle with these as well as the pirates themselves in order to retrieve the stolen booty."

Dave Rogers - Theme from Cybernoid (ZX Spectrum 128K)

*********GAME OVER*********

Now put your computer to sleep before you get an unhealthy vector addiction.

Q: Do computers dream of pixelated sheep?
A: It depends what sort of mood you put them in when you send them to sleep…

Every night Polnareff sings a sinister lullaby to his computer and sends it off into a wailing 70’s cowbell wonderland.

Michel Polnareff – Computer’s Dream

[buy Polnareff: iTunes | Amazon]

When silence descends Polnareff’s computer opens his camera eye to check the coast is clear.

It is not.

Polnareff’s computer regresses to his happy place, where he sings a simple song to himself:

“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do…”

Computer L.O.V.E. pt.2

Oh My! Has it really been 6 months since the first Computer L.O.V.E. post?

Last time we geeked out to Devo’s –link- remix of Datarock’s ‘Computer Camp Love’, there’s more Datarock fun to be had by downloading their computer game.

Let’s make up for lost time with some more ZX Spectrum madness. Again, this was on a CD gifted to me by our good friend Feline1. He set his old Sinclair Spectrum up and ran it into his soundcard and recorded the in-game soundtrack as he played. This one is locked in on a gritty Moroder-style arpeggiator, and you can almost hear the 8-bit chips melting!

When we were driving across Germany it made for very effective Autobahn music, though we also had to suffer a terrible remix that was completely over-egged with 80’s hair-metal guitar licks every second bar. Nicht Gut!

David Whittaker - Theme from The Tube (ZX Spectrum 128K)


I once excitedly sent a link to Feline1 for the ‘C64: Back In Time’ series – it had tracks by Rob Hubbard (another Spectrum soundtracker) on it, so I thought he might be interested. A reply came back:
“/Splutters/
Dom, that's a COMMODORE 64 album!!”

Oops, I s’pose I was always more of a Commodore kid myself, the Spectrum merely evoked memories of sitting for hours in I.T. lessons, typing up line after line of script, only to be rewarded by a tiny pixel-y spider descending the screen on a dotted-line web. Heady days...

The year is 1989, I had my first ‘proper’ computer (not counting the Atari 2600 gathering dust in the loft) – The Amiga 500 - and I was into Bomb The Bass big time. It didn’t take long for me to get addicted to the Bitmap Brothers' subterranean shoot ‘em up Xenon 2: Megablast. It had it all: You captained a heavily augmentable submarine-craft and shot giant crustaceans and sea-beasties, then collected the bubbles they left in their wake. Bubbles = money credits, which you spent at the end of each level in a shop run by an ugly crab-faced bloke called Crispin. Did I sell it to you? Here’s the intro sequence:

Xenon 2: Megablast – intro (Commodore Amiga 500)

And someone has gone to the trouble of filming themselves completing level 1 (albeit, not in a spectacularly accomplished way!)
Xenon 2: Megablast – level 1 (Commodore Amiga 500)

Bomb The Bass – Megablast
[buy Bomb The Bass: Amazon]


And finally, Ladytron’s ode to the Commodore PET…

…latterday analogue synthcore at its finest, with a Bulgarian spoken-word vocal which apparently evokes images of the topography of Bulgaria.

Ladytron – Commodore Rock
[buy Ladytron: iTunes | Amazon]

Computer L.O.V.E. pt.1

This Devo mix of Datarock’s Computer Camp Love surfaced a little while ago. It seems like the ideal marriage: what are Datarock, if not the present day Devo?

The mix: it’s not really a huge departure from the original – but they’ve added some vicious Whip It-esque percussion hits (though I hear “She’s not that kind of a girl”) there’s also a nice little twist when Judy (“that’s a nice name”) gets a cameo appearance, and tells her side of the story, apparently she faked the big ‘O’ (and we’re not talking about her Roy Orbison impression)…

Datarock - Computer Camp (DEVO Mutato Mix)

Talking of the big ‘O’:

YMO Anecdote 1: One morning about half a year ago, We had to get up at some really stupidly early hour to do something really stupidly important. So we set the radio to come on at stupid-o’clock on Radio 2. I have this strange half-dream/half-awake recollection of hearing Yellow Magic Orchestra playing in the background whilst some montone DJ, who’d presumably been moved to the graveyard shift as a punishment, waffled endlessly to himself and the 2 insomniacs who were still tuned in. Thankfully my mind’s eye was picturing 8-bit colour explosions and pixelated mayhem, rather than DJ Monotone, in his grey shirt, whispering down his grey windshield...

Yellow Magic Orchestra – Computer Games

YMO Anecdote 2: Our reporter on the frontline who goes under the alias Feline1, relayed to us news of a small-scale synth-geek uprising when Yellow Magic Orchestra played the Royal Festival Hall in London on 15 June. It seems that even though they were billed as YMO, they only actually played about 3 YMO songs. Naughty. Feline1 wasn’t best pleased and felt like demanding his money back…

Yellow Magic Orchestra – Computer Games


Talking of Feline 1: On my birthday last year he gave me a CD-R of ZX Spectrum Madness. It seems he sat down on his trusty old ZX Spectrum 128K and played some of his favourite games and simultaneously recorded the soundtracks to some of them. So I get to hear some ace 8-bit anthems from the likes of David Whittaker, Dave Rogers and Rob Hubbard. And now you do too.

This one’s quite a jaunty little number, just perfect for going out for a spin in yr hydrofoil (or yr hydrofool) on a Sunday afternoon.

Rob Hubbard – Theme from Hydrofool (ZX Spectrum 128K)
[nb. watch out for the abrupt ending]

........................................................

addendum:

Thanks Lew for pointing out the ZX Spectrum game is actually called 'Hydrofool'. I'll be the first to admit my knowledge of ZX Spectrums starts and ends with playing Horace Goes Skiing during the last Computer Science lesson of the school term when I was about 10...

If anyone goes out for a spin in their hydrofool this week, be careful, they handle a lot differently from the old hydrofoil pictured.