(This is an english translation of this article from Danish online magazine Geiger.)

Saturday November 5 Café Park in Copenhagen hosted a party and a number of concerts celebrating the classic home computer Commodore 64 and the music associated with this very machine. At the party I also spoke to the two guest stars, musicians Jeroen Tel and Rob Hubbard.

Every now and then, typically in commercials, they speak about the happy eighties --- a phrase that conjures up mental images of yuppies with neutral smiles and pretty pastel colours, but also a phrase that seems slightly odd to those of us who actually remember the decade, mass unemployment, cold war and punk desperation. It was a decade that lead an uncertain existence in the shadow of old men with nuclear missiles, one more grim than the other, and as if that wasn’t enough people caught AIDS and died horribly just from having sex. It was a decade that really longed for escapism and perhaps that is why the Commodore 64 was such a huge success in the eighties. The machine which was originally intended for boring tasks such as home budget and calculation soon ended up in the kids’ rooms instead and beat both TV and video as main source of entertainment, boasting such classic games as Pac Man, Space Invaders, Zork, Winter Games, Last Ninja and Maniac Mansion. It became the technological never-never land of a generation, a digital Shangri-La, in reality the door to cyberspace, and today, many years later the faithful disciples still haven’t forgotten their good old digital childhood buddy. There are numerous sites on the net dedicated to the Commodore 64, the old games and their music and for some years now there have been Commodore 64 theme parties in England, parties that have attracted an audience from all over Europe. And now this trend has reached Denmark.

Press Play On Tape, a Danish rock band specialising in Commodore 64 covers, hosted the event in Copenhagen, but other musical guests relating to the old wonder machine had been invited; Swedish Visa Röster, Finnish Axes Denied, multinational SID80s and the original Commodore 64 composers Jeroen Tel and Rob Hubbard. For the uninitiated I should probably say that the latter is nothing short of a living legend in certain circles, loved for his music for games like Commando, Arcade Classics and Monty On The Run, even twenty years after those games initially saw the light of day.

All 300 tickets had sold out in but a few days so the venue quickly filled up. Many guests were, not surprisingly, men somewhere around 25-35 but there were younger people too, even girls. The atmosphere was one of a strange kind of belonging, of a shared past and of course of an absolute love of Commodore 64 music and so it seemed not only like a good joke but also somehow very fitting when a toastmaster appeared on stage, opening the ball with a long and winding story of dark and esoteric conspiracies relating to the Free Masons, reincarnation and Commodore 64.

The evening’s first band was the Swedish a capella group Visa Röster, and if there are a couple of readers out there wondering what on Earth an a capella group were doing at a concert celebrating instrumental digital music, that’s no surprise. However, the group went about their business doing human beatbox, choral harmony and lots of humour, and the Swedes presented vocal covers, no less, of various Commodore 64 tunes such as M. U. L. E, Bomb Jack and International Karate. The very idea, of course, was totally and absolutely silly, so ridiculous and bizarre that it was actually interesting and great fun. The group sported lots of humour which seemed to work out fine, especially when they carried the acoustic concept to its full extreme doing ‘unplugged scrolltext’ --- we’re talking paper letters --- a nice parody on the main communication tool of Commodore 64 underground culture, the horizontal scrolltext, flashy and pulsating as used by crackers and hackers. Even though humour was the main ingredient Visa Röster still did very well vocally, intonating nicely whether their voices were acting out beatbox rhythms, synthesizer themes or electronic bleeps. On a few songs there were backing tracks courtesy of DHS and that went down well too. Visa Röster might have been a strange choice for opening act but they succeeded in getting the audience going.

Next act was Axes Denied, in many ways a Finnish version of Press Play On Tape in that they’re a rock band doing covers of old computer game music. The band’s repertoire were mainly Commodore 64 tunes but also a couple of tracks from other platforms. The line up consisted of drums, bass, guitar and synthesizer so it was no surprise that most of the interpretations had more of a rock sound. Personally I’m not the greatest fan of rock interpretations of Commodore 64 music because the original versions rely so heavily on electronic soundscapes and the sounds are so much part of the deal, however, having said that the Finns did very well, simply because they played very well. They were clearly an experienced band and they were very tight both rhythmically and melodically which was a good thing since, after all, they were performing music that was originally programmed. Whether it be fast arpeggio melodies such as Delta or Giana Sisters, heavy rhythm as in Bruce Lee or pure silliness as in the ever jovial Bubble Bobble, Axes Denied delivered skilfully. The band wasn’t really as humorous as most of the other acts, however, they were more tight than most and that left an impression of professionalism.

Axes Denied left stage and were replaced by Rob Hubbard and violinist Mark Knight. It took a few minutes before the crowd realised that the man with the dark glasses, getting his synthesizer ready, was in fact Rob Hubbard and then there was a roar worthy of a legend. A couple of minimalist Hubbard-covers followed, despite the fact that part of the scores had mysteriously disappeared. With a good portion of improvisation Hubbard and Knight made it through tracks such as Synth Sample, International Karate and a brand new Hubbard song for solo piano and there was an atmosphere a bit like a church throughout the performance. To most people Hubbard was a name, perhaps an old picture, the immaterial soundtrack from computer childhood, and here he was, flesh and blood, the man behind classics such as Commando, Crazy Comets, Sanxion, Thrust and Monty On The Run. Although Hubbard was not covered in smoke, laser and giant projections but just standing there, humbly playing his synthesizer, it was a big moment nonetheless.

Then followed a brief humoristic intermission with Press Play On Tape performing Cannon Fodder together with Jon Hare of SID80s. All instruments were various game controllers and after the song Hare traded in his Arcade joystick for electric guitar and was joined by the rest of SID80s on stage. Apart from guitar the line up consisted of bass, drums, synthesizer and violin. Originally it had been the idea for Commodore 64 composer Ben Daglish to perform with the band but sadly he was unable to make it to Copenhagen. The overall sound of the band was rock orientated, but with Mark Knight’s violin as lead instrument which added another dimension to the music. Knight was obviously fond of long improvised solos and not surprisingly the band did best with not short and precise tunes but rather the longer compositions, those that called for a certain display of virtuosity. Best perhaps was the final track, a hectic cover of Rob Hubbard’s Rasputin, a tune that increases the tempo gradually to eventually race along at a mad pace. Knight’s violin skills were really tested but he actually pulled it off quite well.

Now it was time for Danish Press Play On Tape who not only hosted the event but also took a round on stage. Not surprisingly the local boys received a warm welcome which made for a good atmosphere right from the opening track. It was a concert that called for smiles; Press Play On Tape’s instruments were drum, bass, guitars and synthesizers and most of all humour and irony. A few tracks featured vocals, mostly as a joke, and as such it was probably the band’s Das Gamer, a creative reworking of Kraftwerk’s Das Modell, complete with robotic gestures and heavy German accent, that went down best. The repertoire consisted mostly of rock versions of Commodore 64 hits like Commando, Ghosts’n’Goblins, Wizball and Last Ninja, all popular tunes with the crowd. Truth be said the band could be tighter on a number of songs, however the good vibes created on stage made up for the odd technical shortcomings here and there, and when Mark Knight and Rob Hubbard were called on stage for three encores, Hubbard classics Nemesis The Warlock, Thrust and Monty On The Run, the latter sporting impressive violin solo by Mark Knight, the crowd went wild with the atmosphere.

The concerts were over and now it was time for lounge DJ music the rest of the night, courtesy of Dutch Commodore 64 composer Jeroen Tel. However, it was not lounge music booming out from Tel’s laptop but old Commodore 64 classics and it was nice and very fitting indeed to finally hear original Commodore 64 sound as well this night. After a while the music drifted towards dance beats but still with lots of Commodore 64 sound --- several Tel traits were recognisable; funky electro bass, staccato arpeggio filters and wild, whining solos, and it dawned on people this must be new material from the experienced Commodore 64 shark. The music went from house through rave to electroclash but always keeping the Commodore 64 as dominant sound source and Tel really made a point proving even if there are of course feelings of nostalgia linked to the Commodore 64 and the classic tunes of the eighties era, the wonder machine is not just a dead dinosaur from the past but still full of creativity.

A number of Commodore 64 composers were popular in the eighties but there is one name that reeks of something like cult respect and that is of course Rob Hubbard, the English musician behind classics such as Commando, One Man And His Droid, Kentilla and Monty On The Run. Classics that not only defined some of the greatest moments in computer games but also ended up playing a part in the history of electronic music. I met the legend behind the dark glasses.

Ras: Rob Hubbard --- legendary hero of computer game music --- when the word was out on the net you’d be here in Copenhagen for this Commodore 64 party the tickets sold out in but a few days --- are you surprised?

Rob: Yeah, pretty much.

Ras: You rose to fame in the eighties, composing music for Commodore 64 games, but what is your musical background, what bands and artists influenced you and got you started?

Rob: I’ve played piano since I was about six years old and I’ve always kind of written music ever since I was young. I took piano lessons and went to all the exams until I was about sixteen and I dropped out of university because I wanted to play music rather than study. Then later on I went to music college to study music and I was always working as a musician, arranger or writer. As for my influences they’re basically pretty wide, I like a lot of really diverse music, but in the eighties I was still influenced by what was happening at the time which was the New Romantics, Jean Michel Jarre and all that stuff.

Ras: Yeah, because on the Commodore 64 you did covers of synth artists such as Jean Michel Jarre, Synergy, Cabaret Voltaire --- you even did a technopop version of Philip Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi --- but what do you think of modern electronic music; are there any acts of today you’d want to cover?

Rob: I don’t know because I really don’t know what’s going on with the electronic music scene today. Back then it was really, really exciting because every year a new synthesizer would come out which had some brand new features and brand new sounds. I bought Synergy albums, I bought Jean Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Human League --- I thought it was great, it sounded fantastic. Every year there were new things coming out that added to that sound. But today there’s so much technology available that people seem to be pretty much lost with it, they’ve lost focus of what they should be doing, really. There are people today doing music who are much more interested in the sound design aspect rather than the music aspect and I think that’s different to what it was back then because back then people were using synthesizers and technology but there was still a very strong music background to what people were doing.

Ras: And still I think there seems to be a bit of a Commodore 64 craze within electronic music these years; in Britain electroclash outfit Ladytron did a song called Commodore Rock and in Germany electronica artist Patric Catani recorded an entire album on Amiga and Commodore 64 while another old Commodore 64 is actually a registered band member of the technopop act Welle: Erdball --- why do you think the sound of the Commodore 64 is suddenly getting popular again?

Rob: I’ve no idea. I think it’s the whole retro scene and the aspect of going back to old technology. And maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that some of these people grew up with the Commodore 64 and they get a bit older and suddenly relate back to what they were listening to when they were fourteen or fifteen years old.

Ras: It’s funny you say that because when I DJ to goth and industrial crowds I often sneak in some of your old hits and that’s always popular; some people are old enough to remember those tunes and you see that instantly while many of the younger ones dancing about happily were hardly even born when those tracks were originally composed --- this makes me think you still have an appeal; why not try and do a tour, bring a couple of Commodore 64s, maybe some synthesizers, do some concerts?

Rob: Hahaha, that’s the most bizarre thing…I don’t know how to answer that because I did that stuff back then and then for many years it was lost and buried. It’s not until the last few years that people have suddenly started bringing up all that stuff again, people playing the music, so I had to dig it all out to relearn some of it for this concert tonight.

Ras: I think maybe one reason why people are suddenly listening to your music again is this; when I listen to your music today I hear many proto-techno, electronica and industrial elements in it --- it seems to me, maybe without knowing it, you were pushing certain borders in electronic music back then; do you agree?

Rob: To a certain extent, yeah. A lot of the stuff was still, in some respects, derivative of what was going on --- you can hear elements of, you know, New Order, bands like that which were very influential at the time. Maybe some of the stuff was also a precursor to techno because it was so restricted, dealing with what we actually had. Part of the way that the thing worked and the way that we used to program the music with assembly language went towards doing stuff that was like that. Also, another thing did happen later on in the mid to late eighties; the music became more than the soundtrack to these cassette games, it developed into a culture across Europe. In some ways I found myself trying to write music for games but stuff that would also appeal to what this culture grew into.

Ras: Actually friends and I would sometimes buy those rather dubious Mastertronic games just to get your soundtrack.

Rob: Yeah? That was part of it as well. To me originally it was just a way to earn some money to try and pay the rent and buy food, but it did grow into this other culture across Europe and I found myself trying to write to develop that. It became a self-fulfilling type of movement, if you like.

Ras: Are you aware of the fact that there are techno and electronica acts today who cite you as an influence and also did you know that German music television VIVA used some of your tunes as jingles?

Rob: No, I’d no idea. I wasn’t aware of that at all.

Ras: So you weren’t paid anything from them?

Rob: No, not a penny.

Ras: Shame on them!

Rob: Haha.

Ras: Totally honest, Rob, when you listen to your Commodore 64 music of the eighties, do you sometimes get nostalgic?

Rob: To me it’s pretty strange because I do get nostalgic about it. To be honest I had an absolute ball, I had a really good time when I was doing all that stuff. I was working like an idiot but I had a great time because it was a very, very creative period and I think that is something that maybe not many musicians would go through. On the other hand it’s also been very negative as well because people used to ask me what did I do and I’d tell them I did a lot of music and sounds for computer games and they’d say I was responsible for all those horrible beeps that come out of computer games. Then I’d say that was not me but other people --- I’d make all kinds of excuses because I was embarrassed about it.

Ras: And look how things turned out in the end --- it’s like a fairy tale, there’s a happy end. You were talking about making the rent; were you actually able to make a living from composing computer game music in the eighties?

Rob: Oh yeah. I really wasn’t making much money from playing or doing any other kind of writing or arranging. Then I did start making some money from the games and when somebody called up I’d just say yes no matter how busy I was because I really wanted the money. It was basically the first time I’d actually had anything in my life, so I was willing to accept any job writing music for games --- the fact is you don’t want to turn anyone down because if you do they’ll go somewhere else.

Ras: True. When I listen to modern day computer music I find much of it nice enough but also a bit anonymous, really --- much of it ends up sounding like a dull movie soundtrack and frankly I don’t think many people will listen to it twenty years from now the way people still listen to your music today --- what are your feelings about that?

Rob: Why does it all sound like B or C class Hollywood type scores? It’s part of the way the game business is these days. People don’t want to take any risks because the big games are spending millions of dollars and with a team of 200 people. They always look towards what they call Hollywood standard content, in terms of graphics, music and sound --- that’s the way they want to go. The gameplay these days is very much middle of the road --- there’s nothing really cutting edge going on and in a lot of ways the game industries betrayed the public.

Ras: Legendary Commodore 64 programmer Jeff Minter said something like that too --- today of course games look much nicer and they cost a million, but the gameplay as you say, the originality of ideas, often go the other direction.

Rob: Absolutely. Jeff Minter was my hero when I was working on games. He did all that stuff on the Commodore 64 and we used to look forward to every Jeff Minter game that came out because he was one of the guys who was truly original. He tried to do a lot of other stuff after the Commodore 64 with a lot of other strange machines, but if you had somebody like that who was a big executive of a game company you might get a lot more interesting stuff being done. But the game companies these days don’t want to take any of those kind of risks because it takes such a lot of money to bring products to market; sales, distribution, shelf space.

Ras: We would be happy if the game industry had more Jeff Minters. I think all his strange, flashy games --- psychedelic overkill from the eighties --- kept me off drugs.

Rob: Yeah? They didn’t keep me off drugs. Hahaha.

Ras: What are your plans for the future, musically and otherwise?

Rob: I don’t know. These days it’s really hard --- there’s not much work in games anymore and what work there is goes to the Hollywood guys. I’m still doing odd gigs and jobs, but we’ll see what happens. But I certainly didn’t think about that thing you mentioned earlier, doing a tour, doing clubs --- that is completely bizarre, but maybe something to think about.

Ras: I think you definitely should --- go for the bizarre!

The brain behind the computer team Maniacs Of Noise, Dutch Jeroen Tel did game music on the Commodore 64 for such titles as Cybernoid 1 and 2, Turbo Outrun and Alloyrun. Today he’s a DJ and working as sound designer and composer in a multimedia company. I met him for an interview.

Ras: How did you originally get into Commodore 64 music --- when and how did you start?

Jeroen: My musical background or Commodore 64 only?

Ras: Both.

Jeroen: My musical background goes back to age zero, I’ve been unconsciously listening to music since age zero. My father used to have a choir and they used to practise every week from nine to twelve in our house and I automatically picked up all the harmonies. Without knowing it you just absorb it like a sponge, like every kid actually does. When do you start composing? I started humming melodies and that’s a way of composing. Most people do it with whistling or humming and they don’t take notice of that. Then you go into more vivid forms and structure. In 1984, when I was twelve, I started experimenting with music on the Commodore 64. I was programming in BASIC because I didn’t know machine code at the time. I made small melodies but also huge lists of data, doing sounds, a bit like a sequencer or a tracker. And that’s how it started.

Ras: When I think of some of your best tracks such as Cybernoid Parts 1 and 2, Alloyrun, Noisy Pillars or Supremacy, it seems to me these all boast a very fat and impressive sound, even today --- how did you manage to get that much out of the three tracks of the Commodore 64?

Jeroen: I was moving from this BASIC thing to Sound Monitor, this music program by Commodore 64 composer Chris Huelsbeck. There was nothing else you could actually write music in, I think, that was available to anyone and when I got that I started composing, composing, composing and I got experience with sounds. When I was fourteen I founded Maniacs Of Noise and we were working on music routines and demos, a little bit based on how Rob Hubbard wrote his routine. It offered me the ability to use filters, pulse runs, space effects, oscillator tones, you know it from Rob Hubbard. Wavetables were very important for making drums, alternating between noises, pulses, sawtooth, sine waves --- and with fixed pitches, but in the end it’s not just a question of having the routine to make those drums, you had to go by trial and error and also imagine the sounds in your head. It takes a lot of time --- I spent thousands of hours just trying to program the sound in BASIC before I became good enough to do those tunes you remember today. I experimented wildly with the SID-chip the way only a kid could do it.

Ras: Did you typically compose your Commodore 64 music on regular instruments first and then program everything or was composition and programming really inseparable?

Jeroen: With most of the tunes I just sat down and started programming. That’s what I prefer.

Ras: When you were hired to do music for this or that game, did the software house tell you what kind of music they wanted, how they wanted it to sound and so on, or were you mostly free to do whatever you wanted?

Jeroen: Mostly free to do whatever I wanted- That’s a good thing.

Ras: Oh yes, definitely, and it’s probably not really like that anymore in the game industry?

Jeroen: It kind of isn’t, but for quite a bit of projects people actually trust my instincts and just let me do my thing. Sometimes, however, they have very specific ideas.

Ras: Like most big Commodore 64 composers you did a couple of Jean Michel Jarre covers --- were you inspired by the electronic music scene of the eighties?

Jeroen: Actually, my mother bought Jean Michel Jarre’s first album...Equinoxe?

Ras: That’s his second one.

Jeroen: Ok, the second one, but really famous. I was a really young kid but when I heard it, it really blew me away --- it was so magical. I heard sounds that I could never imagine in any music and so I heard from my mother that he kind of built his own synthesizers while studying music and combined these things to make his own music and it was so magical. And yes, it inspired me, of course!

Ras: Then what are your opinions on the electronic music scene of today? Your DJ set earlier tonight had elements that dated back to Commodore 64 music but also bits that related to techno, rave, electroclash and so on.

Jeroen: I prefer the best from both worlds. The DJ set that you heard is a lot of new stuff that I composed especially for this set. I used to perform with only game tunes but that music was written mainly for games and not for the club, so I started writing music that actually matched the clubs too. Some of the game tunes still work and I keep using that. Electronic music and Commodore 64 music is inseparable, it definitely is. I noticed in the late eighties how the Commodore 64 sound came into electronic music and I’m not just talking about house. But the inspiration also worked the other way round. But on the Commodore 64 there were a lot of things happening that would, in the end, become dance and house --- there was a community not defined by egos but by sound.

Ras: Indeed. And there actually seems to be a bit of an eight-bit underground scene within electronic music today; even certain more famous acts have used the Commodore 64 in recent years --- what do you think about that?

Jeroen: It’s great. It’s just great that people are still trying to explore the machine even if it already has been explored a lot. Experimentation is the only way to improve and develop music, of course. And then you take in inspiration from everything you heard before. If you strip all music knowledge from humanity and we’d have to start over, where’d we start? Would it be boom-boom-boom or something? No, we draw on the whole of humanity’s musical knowledge to come up with something new.

Ras: Part of the reason why the Commodore 64 sound is so popular these days is probably because people grew up with it in the eighties but I think it’s also because it has a very distinct sound, just like some Moog, Fairlight and Korg synthesizers.

Jeroen: I agree, of course. It’s such a specific sound, even though you can find some of the same features on certain synthesizers, such as pulsewidth modulation. When I first heard that with a synthesizer I thought it would be really complex because I remembered it from the SID-chip. The SID really was defined by ring modulation, by being able to filter three voices, it has such a recognisable sound. I can hear it in any song that uses a Commodore 64 sound. Of course now you also have emulators and plugins. It really is a magic sound, it was a magic sound for me when I first heard a Commodore 64 arpeggio with a pulse run. It’s because of its bass bit and still it has this high end timbre to it, like a soprano, and I love that.

Ras: Have you ever performed your Commodore 64 music live, one way or the other, or even considered doing something like that, a concert?

Jeroen: I’m actually giving concerts with a group of other micro musicians, a scene of chip music enthusiasts. So we fill up a whole evening with micro music. There’s Commodore 64 music, Gameboy music, etc.

Ras: The music group Maniacs Of Noise which you founded back on the Commodore 64 in the eighties is now a multimedia company specialising in audio productions --- can you tell me a bit about that briefly?

Jeoren: The main activity is still composing music and designing sound effects for games. I spend a lot of time converting between various formats and mostly I have to do it by ear. Only rarely I can translate directly, so converting is harder, actually, because you have to make sounds and patches that match the original music. It’s more fun to make entirely new music. I sometimes get pretty good budgets for interactive productions which is a bit like doing games because there is typically both music and sound effects. I’ve made music for animated movies, I did a cartoon once, basically anything that needs music. What haven’t I done? Let me see.

Ras: A full scale opera?

Jeroen: No, I haven’t done one.

Ras: I got you there.

Jeroen: Oh yeah, definitely. I don’t think I have an ambition there yet. I’ve written classical music for myself, but not a full scale opera.

Ras: Maybe it’ll happen sometime. My final question was actually if you still make music with the Commodore 64, but I heard your DJ set earlier tonight so I know that you do --- instead I think I’m going to ask you if you have any plans of releasing that music or putting it on the net?

Jeroen: There have been a lot of questions about it. There’s no cd yet but I plan to release it when I’m done with the music. I’ve been evolving it over a year, really, to have an hour of Commodore 64 music, remixing it so it’s danceable. Once I’m content with it I’ll release it. But it should be all new music, no game music. And I’m not slagging the game music, but it doesn’t all work as well on the dance floor, depending on the tunes of course. I’m planning to release it, but when? That’s very hard for me to say because I’m always in production and then I have deadlines all over the place all the time. Then when you also have a computer crash it’s not going to help. So I had to work all night --- I didn’t get much sleep before this event.

Ras: But somehow that all makes sense because staying up all night, programming, working on music is pretty much the good old Commodore 64 style, isn’t it?

Jeroen: Yeah, in a way it is. But one reason is also most of my clients are people in America or Canada, so we are in different time zones. Another reason is that I’m a perfectionist so I work like crazy until I’m happy with what I do.

The event was the first of its kind in Denmark and it was definitely a pleasurable night. The fact that 300 tickets were sold in but few days shows there is a real interest, especially since it would have been possible to sell even more tickets had the venue been larger. That kind of success calls for more and hopefully there will be another party next year as well, with just as many enthusiasts, just as many special celebrity guests and, who knows, maybe a bit of Pac Man live roleplay?

Ras Bolding