Flashes from the past vol2: Computing stuff

So, ... about computers and stuff. 

Again I'll write first in length, and in the end you'll find some selected pics from these ancient years even that I don't have that many pictures from that era, especially about computers. Back then if someone took a picture (film picture, remember) about some hardware, like some computer in front of you, it seemed like a crazy thing to do. Like ... what, are you crazy? You are wasting film (and paying for it) shooting just some devices? Do you think you are some journalist working for some magazine? Get real! ... so the fact that I have some pictures, computer related, from almost 40 years ago - I'm thankful for that. I'm especially thankful for my sister who no longer walks the earth (RIP), because most of these pictures included were taken by my sister  ...

My computer era begun actually a nod later than my interest for music world. I'd say it begun around 1984/85 or so, not with getting my first computer but via friends: Visiting friends who had a computer. Typically either C64, MSX or Sinclair. In some cases also Vic20. But as you can guess, it was all about games and playing games in the early years. When it was about these machines it was nothing but gaming, I can't remember anything else. Well okay, one exception ... coding. What? Coding the games, with basic. This was especially or should I say only with Commedore machines, C64, C128 and Vic20. 

I got my own first computer as christmas present in late 1986 as my parents noticed how computers were getting big for me, so to speak. You'd think I was filled with joy when I got my first ever computer? Nope, it was probably my biggest christmas present disappointment case. Funny in itself, but also very true. How come, you ask? Well, I was 100% certainly looking forward to getting C64 and I even got few copied tapes from friends filled with C64 games of course. Parents promised to get me C64 as christmas present and I was so sure it would happen as a 12 year old kid eagerly expecting his first computer. There was no talk of Santa, since I got to know the truth about Santa when I was just 5 years old. I probably ripped the heavy computer package open faster (than the speed of light) than any package I had ever opened until then. This is it, this is my C64, the package is shaped like C64, oh yeah baby ... and it all looked like it for sure, until my eyes understood that there wasn't C64 in the familiar shaped box, it read Commodore though ... it was freakin' Vic-20! Boy was I disappointed. Af first I was like ... yeah, close this box for me, I couldn't care less. Or burn the machine, I don't care, it's completely useless for me!

The reason behind this epic "wrong machine" tale was that my dad's younger sibling (one out of about dozen of em) had unknowingly kind of cheated my dad (= not understanding a bit acout computers, coulnt't tell difference between different home computers), saying that she has C64 in a box, because her child is not interested in it anymore but grew out of it already, so it's useless for us and computers ain't future in any case (yeah), buy this junk from us as a present for your youngest kid if he wants C64. Yeah, C64 ... Vic-20 wasn't exactly C64. If we would have had videocam back then, I guess there could have been a legendary "kid's present reaction video" out of me, opening that cursed present. :)

Well, I no longer remember how exactly this "beautiful christmas tale" (ha!) went on, or what actually happened - or was it just that nothing happened ... but anyway, the end result was that after the initial heavy disappointment I was spending the rest of christmas with Vic-20. Of course the C64 taped games I had were completely useless. There were zero games with the machine, there was literally nothing but the machine (which did work). I think there was basic programming book with it, so yeah, the time spent that christmas with the poor Vic meant basic programming (with big bro helping out) ... and I remember we were playing some very basic missile game then. That's my only memory of that christmas time. Numbers sliding across the TV screen from left to right, hit space and missile is launched from bottom of space. It's a miss or it's a hit - there were even very simple sounds. Beeps and static noises. Black and white "graphics". That's how it always was with Vic-20 from beginning to end. It was so freakin' basic (pun intended) from beginning to end. No games to be found, I went through local bookstores (which sold computer games back then exclusively, too) - nothing really. It was all C64 and then some MSX/Sinclair. The only way to have games was to program them - and the only place I could find program lists was finnish computer magazine MikroBitti. I bought a lot of that magazine, also especially older mags where I could find - because they had Vic-20 program lists too. With list I mean "complete basic program printed in the magazine" = you wrote the program with your machine and you had a game. Such an "easy" way to play a game ... not. No wonder that I kept visiting friends with C64 and MSX.

The Vic-20 was quite a brief season for me personally, it was truly a small star already fast burning out when I got it. There is not much to tell about it really, other than that yeah, it was my first computer.

So, the tale goes on ... my parents clearly saw the scale of my disappointment with Vic-20 and I also told it out loud, also the fact that "dad please, in the future never go buying computer stuff from your female relatives because they don't know the difference between a calculator and a computer!" ... and my dad definitely listened to what I said about the matter, too. How come? Well, as that 1986 christmas computer present was a huge disappointment, the 1987 christmas present was the completely opposite, and I can (and have always said) only praise dad (RIP) for that. 

I was again expecting C64, or perhaps even C128? ... instead my jaw dropped when I opened the very heavy package(s), and I didn't at first really understand what I was watching. Yeah, Commodore ... what, this is not C64, but Amiga 500, what kind of computer is this!? The packaging was thought provoking, showcasing crystal clear pictures of Egypt, Tutankhamun's golden masks and stuff. Pictures of stereos, music etc ... it all gave a vision that this might be quite amazing computer to get into. But little did I know, how amazing it was in the end. And I got it so damn early, it cost my dad quite some (which he remembered to state here and there, and hey it didn't annoy me, I was always very thankful about that and I also said it out loud, too). It was so early, that I had zero friends who had Amiga, and it was like that for at least 1 year. It was only around late 1988 when I started knowing some other guys who had Amiga 500. During the first year the games were quite selected and hard to come by - but unlike with Vic, it wasn't a problem because all the games felt like gold and they were so fast to load, with 3,5" disk drive, and they often utilised not just your usual joystick or two, but a mouse which was essential in Amiga system. And it wasn't just games, but very soon I got into programs like Deluxe Paint (leading me to graphics' world and creating) and Sound Tracker (leading me to world of computer music and creating). It was completely new world all in all, it felt like ... going to space instead of going to school as pre'teenager, ehh!?

So, whereas the let's say half a year with Vic-20 was not much to remember and I feel it didn't shape anything in my life for me then or later (or if it did, instead it made to to despise programming languages in the forthcoming years!), the Amiga era started something much more massive and it pretty much shaped a lot of my hobbies too, even adult career life  to certain extent if I think about it. It wasn't just about gaming anymore, even that Amiga's games were amazing and I can't even begin to count the hundreds and hundreds (probably thousands) of hours I spent playing games with Amiga during the intensive 3-4 years I had Amiga 500. I had already been doing photography as kid, and music meant a lot to me from young kid as I've stated - but Amiga era gave these two a massive boost in a way. Like said, there were programs like Deluxe Paint (I had several versions of it and I drew & planned a lot with it), I'd say it was the Photoshop of Amiga and I certainly spent hundreds of hours with that too ... and then there were of course Sound Tracker (also Noise Tracker) which literally started my hobby of having music projects. It started in 1989 with Sound Tracker and revolutionary thing "I can  actually program music!" ... I had learned to almost hate programming as result of Vic-20's "games" (if you wanted to play, you had to write several hundreds lines of code first) but as years passed with sound tracker stuff, I developed a motto "I love programming drums". Or then something in the vein of "the only programming I like, is music programming" (which of course meant "tracking music with tracker software"). Amiga games had impressive graphics and more often also impressive music, the machine had groundbreaking music chip which made the beeps and blips of earlier Commodore machines a history and the music actually sounded like a real music. So, Amiga in itself was revolutionary computer and it was most certainly that for me personally, too. The era lasted for 3-4 years in my case, ending in late summer of 1991. It was time to make a massive leap into quite an unknown world ... 

The idea of abandoning the sweet world of Amiga and exchanging it into PC world came to me around Spring 1991. It was a bittersweet situation, kind of: I loved Amiga world and it felt like Amiga was on top of its' game just then, perhaps some signs of decline were there already but it was still pretty much a hot machine doing well. At the same time ... as the 16-17 years old computing fella I was then, I saw the potential of PC world. Somehow I felt like even that at that stage PC world was lightyears behing Amiga world technically speaking (graphics, sounds, even computing power) the things will be changing quite soon. It felt like the change was around the corner. Many friends of mine were like "are you crazy!?" when they realized I am not just thinking about it, but seriously going to sell away my Amiga and jump into PC world. It meant abandoning the Amiga demogroups I was part of, too (I was member of one local finnish demogroup as musician/swapper and also member of one germanese demogroup as musician/swapper as well). It all happened fast as the ball got rolling - I had made a deal with my dad about buying me my first PC in the Autumn of 1991; I'd do certain work for dad at summer cottage and stuff, and the work I did partially gained me money for the PC so that the cost of new computing equipment wouldn't be just dad's burden. And that's how things went, too - I made the decision of abandoning Amiga in summer of 1991 and worked hard during the summer, sold away my Amiga (to my sister's future husband) which also added to my "PC funds" ... and then came the Autumn when dad bought the kind of PC I had chosen for me. If Amiga 500 cost a lot in 1987, that PC cost overall about 2,5 times more than Amiga did (ouch) ... but it wasn't just the PC, it was also a monitor first ever time (no longer small TV) and also a printer. 

That first PC of mine was 386 / 40mhz with 120 mb hard drive, and 4 mb ram / internal memory. It was about the most powerful home PC on sale around that time, and that 120 mb hd was huge then. Display adapter had massive amount of 1mb memory (it was one of the best then, though). And hey! I had Sound Blaster sound card! It's just that at first it meant hardly anything (lack of software supporting SB). As funny as all these technical details might sound tens of years later, this PC changed everything for me personally speaking. And again, like with Amiga, the first "about a year" was a sweaty business, lack of software, games, beepy soundscapes too, poorer graphics ... I remember clearly how during first week or so I was going to sleep late some evening, and I was on the edge of tears (!) thinking just about how I am going to be such a disappointment for my dad who invested so much into this PC and I can't even get into it, it's all such a mess and I've ruined everything! ... I remember what made me think so and it makes me laugh these days: I had somehow thought about how I can "make the 120 mb hd even bigger and faster working!" and I had partitioned the hd into drives which each had some 5 mb space ... ha ha ha! Don't ask me, how and why I thought it would become bigger or faster ... the despair soon faded away as I got the system into shape where it was supposed to be. Perhaps those early hardcore experiments and failures teached me some good lessons as for next 20 years I always built my own PCs. This didn't happen right away though, because this very first PC of mine lasted heavy use for as long as 5 years. It was only Autumn 1996 when I abandoned it, having served me pretty much perfectly. And it didn't serve just me in ways I've told, but I remember how my big sister (RIP) crafted her thesis work for business school in around 1992-1993 or so and I helped her around with formatting the text. :)

Did you notice the word Sound Blaster above? Yeah, I had SB sound card already in the first PC, and it was something I especially wanted to have - the most important reason for this was ... tracking music. I had done my reasearch in the summer of 1991 and even before I got that first PC of mine, I contacted finnish guy Sami T. who had created tracking software Scream Tracker for PCs (check <here> for info) ... it was the only tracking software for PC I knew and so I bought the license / software directly from the guy and I even paid him for transferring my "best" Amiga tracked songs into Scream Tracker / PC format. All with 3,5" floppy disks of course. I think about the first year with my own PC the only thing I could fully use Sound Blaster for, was exactly Scream Tracker and yeah, that's what I did too ... tracking music continued, as you can guess. Of course games utilised SB already in 1991-1992 as well (and AdLib if not SB) but the soundscapes weren't even close to Amiga's music / soundworld back then.

There would be all kinds of tales, both from Amiga days as well as the early PC days ... If I think about games, with Amiga it's hard to pinpoint just one game which made the biggest impact, there were countless of amazing games (both content and music) but it would be impossible to choose just one which made the biggest impact. But I think with PC it could be possible to choose one game title, or at least easier anyway ... With PC, it was definitely Ultima Underworld which made a massive impact on me. The soundscapes aren't that amazing, but certain sounds from that game have sticked to my mind so well that I can immeditealy imagine them in my mind even after 30+ years of playing that game! :) But that game in itself, it felt then and it still feels like it was the first true slow 3D adventuring game. I don't mean games like Wolfensteing or Doom where you run around and kill - but emphasis on slow 3D adventuring game with a thick plot and storyline. Ultima Underworld truly sucked you in back in 1992.

If thinking about nerdy memoirs I have to write about the best "I made it!" type of memoir I had with this first PC of mine. It is about Doom. :) Wolfenstein 3D worked smoothly with my PC back in 1992 but as Doom came out in late 1993, it was soon clear that the limits of my PC were coming ahead. It wasn't so much about display adapter, nor about sound card, but it was about main memory of the PC. I had 4 mb ram, and I think Doom originally was like "recommended" (or was it even required?) 6 mb ram, internal PC memory. At first I couldn't get Doom working as you can guess. Back then and also still during late 1990s tweaking your PC's memory, optimizing it when starting MS-Dos was essential. I tweaked and booted, tweaked and booted (autoexec.bat, config.sys ... heck I remembered those even that I haven't touched to them in 20+ years!) ... sweating with tweaking the memory, I have to maximize it, I have to get Doom running ...! And I succeeded! I still remember the joy of success in the task that seemed impossible. I also remember it was extreme tweaking, because I only could play Doom with these certain tweaked system files, autoexec.bat and config.sys (I had multiple files of course for different uses) and nothing else. But that was enough for me and so I got the cultural experience of first Doom right when it happened. That first Doom worked smoothly enough from start to finish from what I remember and was of course a blast. But with Doom 2 things were already getting "out of hand" so to speak. I did manage get Doom 2 running on that first PC too, not too surprising since technically it wasn't that much different from first Doom ... but the problems came towards ending of that Doom 2. The last levels had lots of enemies and the game started going ... very slowly, FPS dropped noticeably. The worst part was the very last level, where if you came head to head with big bunch of those enemies, FPS dropped into something like 1-2 frames per second or so. It was "quite hard" to finish that game because of that but ... of course I did it! :)

So yeah, the first ever PC I bought myself, it cost almost exactly as much as my first PC which my dad paid - I bought my first own PC in Autumn of 1996. I think it lasted just as long as the first PC did; about 5 years. During 2000s I've had multiple PCs of course and there's no point going there (heaviest PC case I built myself weighed 25 kg and it had lights and 1:12 formula car inside of it, this was peak point of my "self built cases") but to my own surprise I managed to break that "how long PC lasted" record which was for a very long time with my first PC ... I bought one PC in Autumn 2015 and it lasted to end of 2021 so it lasted 6+ years of heavy usage. That's a record hard to break I guess.

I any case, here are some goofy computing pictures from distant past, below. The pictures are directly related to the stories described above. I've changed the faces again, but otherwise the pics are all 100% authentic events. The world sure looked different, just take a look at those hifi TV sets etc ... :D

Me in front of Vic-20 during Christmas 1986

Me and bro with Vic-20 during Christmas 1986

Me in front of Amiga 500 in 1987-1988

Me in front of Amiga 500 in 1987-1988

Me and bro in front of Amiga 500 in 1987-1988

My first PC just set up for 1st time in Autumn 1991

Scream Tracker running with my first PC around 1991-1992

I had to sell my cool car (BMW 1502) to get money for PC

The first ever PC I bought myself and paid it 100% in 1996

Flashes from the past vol1: Music stuff

So, while I'm working on 'Aeuk' sewer metal compilation I thought to write something about my past, childhood with two things especially; computers and music. I'll write in length, but I'll put some pictures here as well. Both those two things, computers and music, were big things for me but of course the music was (and is) the biggest thing - as long as I can remember, I enjoyed music, from the late 1970s already (I was born in 1974). My parents told that when I had just learned to draw bit more, I kept drawing  lots of music notes ♩♩♩ and kept saying "when I grow up I will be a composer or a loom knitter (=manufacturing mats by handcraft)" (hah!) ... child's mind ... but yeah, I guess that tells how music was there from the beginning, somehow even before I was consciously listening to it? The way it connects to myself as how much music means to me, well it simply connects the dots, so to speak. 

As music has always been number one for me, this post is about music - I'll write separately about computers (probably much shorter post, but we'll see).

I was listening to finnish children's music for my early years and whatever music parents played (and my mom used to sing all the time, too), and as I grew up a bit, I then went through the LPs my parents had (there were some funny things like ancient donald duck disney LPs etc) until in the early 1980s some electronic hit songs gave me some big vibes, about music other than just some childrens' songs. I can clearly remember one special case for example from 1982, song called 'puttin' on the ritz' by Taco (check it out <here> if you want). That song sticked to mind, I instantly loved its' vibe as 7-8 years old kid that I was then. And I'd say that song was the turning point, suddenly children's music no longer interested me while I had friends of my age who were like "childrens' music is the best! everything else, adults' music is so dull!" ... I was like OK yeah, go on, but I'm interested in something else for now. For a year or so I digged into electronic dance music, even pop music etc of that time, big sister gave me some good hints, then I found artits like Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen, sort of bridge towards what was coming ahead ... those went past me really fast though and ... I no longer remember what was the first real "heavy rock" artist that turned me into heavy metal. I'd bet it was AC/DC (since my big bro was a big fan) or it might have been Kiss, too. 

As a sidenote: Iron Maiden was there from the very early days too, as well as even Metallica from their debut album early on: I remember clearly how I was listening to the tape copy of it in late summer 1983, I think it was my sister's tape - I was listening to it and it felt like "there is something really magical here" ... but my speed metal boom didn't start yet then, not really even with "ride the lightning" but it was very much about heavy metal (perhaps Venom being the exception to rule) until 1986 or so. Even that I surely listened a lot to "ride the lightning" later as it came out, it pales totally to how much I listened to "master of puppets" from 1986 to 1987 ... yet still as magical as it felt first time hearing "kill em all", at least as magical moment was when "ride the lightning" had just been released, and I heard "fight fire with fire" played on radio. It felt like the world was exploding, ... the power and energy of that song was so unbelievable. Kind of funny but true - the reason why I never enjoyed "ride the lightning" so much as overall album, was simply because I expected it to be like "fight fire with fire" from beginning to end. But albums like that were still ahead in the future ... and not exactly done by bands like Metallica either. :)

In any case I went from dance and rock music of the time, in the early 1980s, pretty fast into discovering the world of heavy rock / heavy metal, first through my big brother (10 years older than me) who had hundreds of LPs already around mid1980s. Something sticked from early 1980s "dance music" (or whatever you want to call it) though, fast forward some 20 years into early 2000s and I "re-found" Depeche Mode. But back into heavy metal; I remember how I was proudly telling to my school mates that "my bro has 600+ heavy metal LPs". :) Discovering the world of heavy metal happened when I was about 8-9 years old, I guess, around 1982-1983. Which makes me think about certain piece of music hardware: I've always said that my best birthday present as kid was the double tape/deck portable stereo which I got when I turned 10 years old in 1984. Sure Amiga 500 was pretty damn amazing thing in 1987 christmas, but the importance of that portable double deck stereo / boom box can't be exaggerated. I remember the pure joy, being able to tape music from radio, being able to tape copy from tape to tape, and ... I also remember clearly how I asked my big sister to record certain songs by certain bands, like for example Iron Maiden's "revelations" and Kiss' "god of thunder" for me on a tape, I think also Judas Priest' "heavy duty / defenders of the faith" was on that list of requests (that JP album came out about half a year earlier) so that I could enjoy the songs with my very own "stereo system". :) Also my big sister (7 years older than me, RIP) was into heavy metal, even that she was into dance / pop etc music as well. AC/DC was a big thing for her back then, and especially first two Iron Maiden albums, I learned about Ozzy Osbourne from her, etc. 

As a sidenote: Where Iron Maiden's "powerslave" was a really big thing for me, sister kept saying that how it's just ok and pales if compared to first two albums with Paul Di'Anno. Thanks to my sister's talks I learned to love Paul era of Iron Maiden too, and as years passed I could see why she felt like that. I always enjoyed Bruce a lot, but Paul was special, unique voice and such a different style all in all. Songs  like "running free", "phantom of the opera", "iron maiden" (which felt like extreme metal then!) "killers", "purgatory" turned into favorites for me. 

But yeah, my tape collection started to grow in spring 1984 very fast ... and  boy did it grow! I wasn't anymore asking parents to buy me just toys, but instead I was more often asking to buy me C-tapes. 60 minutes tapes were okay, but 90 minutes tapes were the best, because I could tape 2 albums, one for both sides of tape. As time passed, in the early 1990s I had several hundreds of tapes, filled with all kinds of metal (mainly extreme metal). Okay, some tapes were filled with artists like Aphex Twin, The Orb, Laibach etc (ambient / electronic / experimental music side which I got into around 1992, when I was in high school). As I started having money of my own, I of course started buying lots of LPs and CDs as well (which I much later sold to my bro, whose compilation of albums is several thousands ... massive and respectable one). And actually I did have also brief rap music era in late 1980s through certain friends, it was mainly about Run DMC first, then Public Enemy. Quite certainly the rap album I've listened the most, is ... PE's "fear of a black planet" which was an amazing album back then. 

I have to mention also library, music library of Rovaniemi was truly amazing treasure cave back then, from late 1980s into late 1990s for me personally - and they used to even order albums people recommended. At some point later in the 1990s there were quite a massive bunch of extreme metal albums (and forementioned "experimental side" of music) which I had requested for them to order.

But back into early 1980s: Another thing was that while in our home we only had 2 TV channels visible (can you imagine that?), YLE1 and YLE2, there was a house on our street where they had also 3 kids, one of which was a girl about my age, 1 year older than me ... so I soon discovered while playing with those kids in the neighbourhood that they have cable channels which was rarity amongst people our family knew. So, ... soon I was seeing music videos in about 1982-1985 by bands like Kiss, Iron Maiden, Ratt,  AC/DC, W.A.S.P., Twisted Sister etc, early heavy rock / metal music videos there were back then. Not too many, but as you can guess, seeing the music videos rocketed my interest for heavy metal music into whole new levels. Around that time I used to draw nothing else than "bands playing on stage". 2D images, drummer, 1-2 guitarists, bassist, vocalist. It was the music videos' impact, for sure. I must have drawn hundreds and hundreds of pictures about this or that heavy metal band playing on stage. I also remember my mom at some point asking can't I draw anything else anymore? :) Music videos and especially bootlegs became a big thing for me too, it begun from certain bands' "home videos" (= video of full concert) as they were called that for a long time. Venom's live at hammersmith odeon was a lone matter of wonder for a long time, but as a teenager I bought "home videos", VHS, of bands like Kreator (live 1989), Sodom (mortal way of live, 1988), Napalm Death (live corruption, 1990, this was a huge, huge thing for me), Nuclear Assault (live at hammersmith odeon, 1989) and so on. From that I went into "VHS tape trading", instead of just C-tape trading in the early 1990s ... at best I had like 100-200 hours of bootleg live concerts on VHS around 1992-1993 or so. And of course I taped music videos from MTV's "headbangers' ball" for years, several VHS tapes of carefully crafted compilations. 

As another sidenote: What happened to my bootleg VHS tape collection and C-tapes? Well, in 2000 I threw all my C-tapes to recycling ... sister was like no you can't! I was like sure I can and that's what I did (haven't really regretted, except that I also trashed original tapes which was ... stupid, yeah, some of them might have value these days). CDRs had replaced tapes, several hundreds of tapes took a lot of space and I no longer listened tapes but CDs and mp3 things were replacing the way of listening fast ... VHS tape collection the same thing, with the exception that I made a crazy task of transferring lots of bootlegs to PC in 1998/99 or so (I bought a special "TV card" hardware for PC because of that) ... but the video / resolution, quality back then was  of course horrible if compared these days, quite a pixel blur, also sound quality ... yeah. Youtube appeared and started conquering the world in 2005 and at that point, very soon I understood that I no longer have any need for my lofi bootleg compilation I still had on CDRs. It was crystal clear. I did put some rare music video clips later to Youtube by myself, but most of what I had can be found from Youtube, even the death metal bootlegs from early 1990s ... of course as I certainly wasn't the only one hoarding bootlegs :) ... I can throw here one example of these music videos I put to Youtube which are still there to this day. Here's video of <B-thong's one song>.

Back to the stone age ... 1980s: Having big bro, from whom I got all kinds of heavy metal recommendations (and often albums too, I could tape LPs from him) made getting into heavy metal much easier of course. 

Wanna have an example? I remember cases where I went to my big bro with best friend back then, with a task in mind; give a little piece of paper to bro, ask him to list at least 10 heavy metal bands we didn't know yet, if that's not too much hassle? Bro smiled listening to AC/DC with very loud volume in his room and told us to come back bit later for the list. So as we went back, I got the piece of paper, and jaws dropped as there were no 10 bands listed but probably like 30 bands. It felt like kid in a candy store, you know! Look at this list, so many bands to do research and check out the music, wow thanks!!! This happened many times during those years. 

As I was just a kid, around 10 years old in 1984, I didn't do tape trading etc yet, that came few years later as my music pal circles grew. Naturally there was some "kids into heavy metal" type of bonding at school between us classmates. I was bringing in new bands and album recommendations from my big bro regularly and this happened especially with certain few pals. From very early school days it went already into "searching for heavier and / or faster bands". There was no word "extreme" but clearly it was a search for something that felt ... extreme. Early on bands like Raven (NWOBHM) were big thing, there were proto'thrash (or speed metal) moments in their music and it's funny to think that at first Raven felt "too noisy" for ears, especially the vocals ... Raven was big influence though, and I remember how I was excited about Metallica's and Raven's "kill em all for one" tour, even that I of course saw no bands live those days. But it was the thought alone which excited kid's mind so much, and that neat word play with tour's name ... and as I / we learned to really dig Raven (it was me who introduced schoolmates to Raven if you couldn't guess) it felt amazing that Metallica is touring with especially Raven. It also happens, that the first LP I bought as a kid ... was Raven's "life's a bitch ... and then you die" in 1986. :) Whoopsie, actually a correction here! I guess I got carried away with Raven, thus thinking & writing that first LP I bought comment ... it was not my first, I think it wasn't even second but perhaps 3rd or 4th. Because the first ever LP I bought, was "come out and play" by Twisted Sister, and I was so disappointed with that album. Not the best choice for first ever album to buy. :) (but nothing ever beats the disapppointment of buying one "cold lake" LP some 2-3 years later) ... 

You might guess where it went from discovering new metal bands and getting excited about it all ... soon there was the thought of "how could I / we create some music myself?" too. So, ... I was forming one band around those times with schoolmates, if I remember right I came up with the band name (or at least was heavily deciding about it, I think the name idea came from me, too) which was simply Hellion. My love of cats came through as well, ha! We rehearsed at one friend's garage, he played guitar (acoustic one) like me too (acoustic as well), bass dude played acoustic guitar which had the 2 highest strings torn away so that it was BASS (haha!), drummer was beating plastic buckets and metallic paint buckets. The only one who had more "real" equipment was vocalist who had microphone connected to portable stereo. We even recorded some demo songs like that, playing live in garage, and I remember one thing clearly: In one song the beat in the beginning was clearly faster than it was towards the end - because drummer guy got tired of playing (and perhaps even bit bored, he wasn't much into heavy metal). :) I also remember I kind of would have wanted him to play the drums faster, ... I also remember I planned / drew coverart for tape, crafted a bright yellow cardboard cover, Hellion logo on top and then drew a skeleton being electrocuted on cover (combine Iron Maiden's Eddie and certain 'Ride the lightning' coverart and what you get?) ... ha ... I had that tape with me for a many years before I taped over it. I don't remember if I made that cover artwork for just my own tape version, could very well be like that. The creativity and the need to create, it was there at very young age already, starting to take shape. There were few other cases too in childhood era, like one jamming project with other friend(s), no band name but "demotape" where it was me and friend playing (acoustic) guitars together, with totally zero musical theory / playing knowledge. Like said, the need to create was there early on even that nothing permanent was born in these childhood music experiments.

Though it's kind of interesting to think about "creativity" and the need to be able to create some music back then in the 1980s, as a young kid not knowing about anything really. We had an open mind as kids usually do, it felt natural, everything felt like possible etc, you know. But as I grew, some years passed, from late 1980s into early 1990s, when I was let's say from 13 to 17 years old - the general attitude / opinion / vibe about finnish metal music was really, really negative and disgusting to be honest. It was honestly unbelievable, until things started to slowly change around early 1990s.  Actually I think the general mood / attitude stopped lots of sparkle and thinking afterwards it probably affected me myself personally too, in the 1980s - because everyone in general was  more often than not like "what, finnish heavy metal band? grow up! no one gives a shit about your band! what, you think you'd go abroad with the band, LOL, I'M DYING OUT OF LAUGHTER, grow up  man! finnish heavy metal music!? Stuff like that can not make it anywhere at all, period! you'd be better off dead than trying! stop bothering me with this nonsense!" ... I mean, the general attitude / vibe was really as disgusting as that, it was I'd say even hostile at worst times, late 1980s perhaps I'd say, it was completely against anyone "making it" with his/her music. And especially if it was metal music, the more it was ridiculed. I felt things started to change gradually perhaps with bands like Stone, but even during their 1980s releases it was like "yeah it's nice, they can do it as hobby in Finland, but somewhere else? neva!" ... I'd personally say the general mood perhaps started changing around 1990/1991 when albums like Xysma's "yeah" came out (I bought it as LP from the first pressings, later sold to my bro).

But yeah, once again back to 1980s ... need for creativity slowly progressed with me diving deeper into the world of heavy metal. 1986 was clearly a divider, and I don't mean just Metallica's "master of puppets" even that it certainly was one huge factor too. What I mean by saying 1986 was a big divider and that I don't mean just "master of puppets" (which felt from the very first listen plain magical) but ... well, there was a one special release that shook me off from "plain heavy metal" type of bands instantly. Well, I remember my bro got this release as LP in 1986, but it seems it has been released in 1985 already? Anyway, here goes the info on this divider release for me as 11-12 years old kid back in 1986:

It was this one compilation album, namely 'Speed kills' (the very best in speed metal) which contained 12 bands which almost all if not all became more or less legendary (Metallica was already that, of course), the first wave of speed/thrash metal. If you need more info about this compilation, <check this out>. Even that it was especially the term speed metal which was used, no one was talking about thrash then, ... so a good example about how much that term defined the contents was that there was also Possessed on this compilation, I always saw them as "speed metal band" mainly because they were on this awesome speed kills compilation ... even that I soon got their "seven churches" album, there was song titled "death metal" - it was always speed metal for me. Because of that "speed kills" compilation album, ehh. Years and years later I realized how Possessed pretty much shared genre defining moment with Death, even that personally I always felt that "Death started death metal" (and not just because they were called Death). Chuck's growls were so much more in their own league, that it affected my view as much as the fact that Possessed happened to be on a speed metal compilation. Anyway, if you don't know this "speed kills 1" compilation, you ought to check it out and see how legendary it is overall. There were big bunch of "speed kills" compilations after that first one up to early 1990s I think, I of course checked them back in the day too - but none of the sequel compilations were match for that very first one. It's not surprising if you look at the bands who were on the original speed kills compilation, ... some bands which soon became big names, Metallica of course was it already, but also bands like Slayer, Megadeth, ... for me the "smaller" bands were the most important and for me some of them became totally legendary and some of them even cult. 

Think about bands like Celtic Frost (I bought "cold lake" as teenager after sinking deeply into "morbid tales", "to mega therion" and "into the pandemonium" and I still feel my biggest musical disappointment on album I've bought is "cold lake", but that aside CF has meant a world to me overall, a truly massive influence), or Destruction (huge impact on me with their 1980s releases), Bulldozer (Italy's should I say "proto Pungen Stench style band", massive impact on me especially "the final separation" album), Hallows Eve (massive impact, especially "tales of terror"), Exodus ("bonded by blood", aww yeah!), Possessed (even that I thought it was speed metal band, but pioneering band crossing to proto death metal genre too, all their 1980s releases impacted me), Voivod (another massive impact type of band for me, all their releases from 1980s but also ever since, legendary avantgarde metal band which is still going strong) ... there were few already familiar bands to me, like Venom and Exciter, but it's noteworthy that I also found Slayer via this compilation. It is certainly clear, looking back to when this compilation took hold to me, that there was no turning back - it was a path towards faster, heavier and then simply more extreme metal. As years passed, it was clear that I was especially shaped or should I say my heavy metal groundwork got "finetuned" by love of death metal and grindcore from late 1980s into early 1990s. 

I gotta write about this crystal clear memoir related to "speed kills" compilation LP in Spring 1986: I came home from school or something with my back then best friend, and my big bro saw us coming. He shouted from his corner of the house to us that "hey guys come here, I have something special, this is something all new!" ... and we ran to him of course curious what's it about. Bro was smiling widely, with LP case in his hands, having just put the album spinning. He started explaining that check this out, this is not heavy metal, this is speed metal! What, speed metal, what's that, wow cool cover art with that guitar swinging madly ... and then opening track starting playing out, "metal merchants" by Hallows Eve. It sounded right away good, even that I remember saying this isn't so fast, is it? (heh) ... but then came Exodus with "a lesson in violence" and we were blown away instantly. WOW SO THIS IS SPEED METAL!!! Next up was Destruction with their "bestial invasion" and another WOW moment; we were sold. Needless to say, track by track it felt like this compilation is pure gold, and the way it ended, the best possible way, with Celtic Frost's "into the crypts of rays" (I became massive CF fan, their early works impacted me big time). And it was exactly that, golden compilation, I hunted down all the bands which I didn't already know, and bro bought pretty much all the bands' albums one by one, the albums where the tracks were taken from into the compilation (Metallica's first two platters he already had, of course). 

There was another case with bro from 1986, with quite similar story and vibes than with that forementioned "speed kills" compilation LP. It was the case of Flotsam & Jetsam. I remember almost as well how I came from school some day autumn 1986 and bro yelled for me to come check out this new band out, this new LP he had just bought. Same story, holding the LP cover in hands, just hitting the needle on side A, track 1. What is this band then? What, such a weird name, but the song titles look quite promising. Bro had already listened the album somewhat, so he smiled and waited for my reaction as he put the opening track playing. 

I was instantly like WOOOOooooooOOOW this sounds pretty good right away, nasty guitarworks, this is speed metal all right!? I listened to that "doomsday for the deceiver" album quite a lot, and little did I know that some half a year later one Jason from this Flotsam & Jetsam band would join one Metallica after tragic death of Cliff Burton (RIP). Actually I wasn't happy about Jason joining Metallica, because I understood Jason was major songwriter for F&J and it felt evident that F&J could have difficulties continuing with as strong material and I'd still say after all these years that F&J's debut album is their best album, 2nd album somewhat good, then came downhill ... I respect and enjoy that they 1) have returned to their speed/thrash roots and 2) against all expectations they are actually going strong these days. But yeah.

So, as described, in the early and mid 1980's as a kid I was getting tips and guidance into heavy/speed metal from my big bro, ... then my metal passion grew so big towards the end of 1980s and especially with genres like death metal and grindcore (but especially death metal) - those genres were literally exploding ... which served me just fine. Year 1989 is definitely another year which is kind of divider, as it was then when I got certain albums through tape trading and other means (not via my brother); releases like for example Napalm Death's "scum" (after which I bought "FETO" as LP), Bolt Thrower's "realm of chaos", Death's "leprosy", Sepultura's "schizophrenia" and "beneath the remains", Morbid Angel's "altars of madness", Carcass with "reek of putrefaction" and "symphonies of sickness", etc etc etc ... suddenly my knowledge started bursting out as I was taking all the releases I could get. So, as a result of all that, with my bro our "roles" kind of changed to opposite in the early 1990s. Suddenly I was giving extreme metal release tips for him. :) He was working full time the grownup he was, and he had pretty good income so he gladly ordered massive piles of extreme metal LPs which I had recommended for him to buy. I wrote massive lists of recommended albums and also marked albums into record store catalogs he received via mail. And he wasn't disappointed with my tips - and I surely was happy about the situation too: It meant that I could get great quality tape copies of albums I myself wanted to get but which weren't necessarily easy to get via tape trading either. Happy times, indeed. 

Occasionally I had money to buy albums myself too, and it's funny to think these days how I could get to know if some album was worth buying: I lived far north in Rovaniemi (which had pretty poor record stores, mainly just one "okayish" store back then) and I phoned (with landline phone of course) to far south Helsinki certain record store distros, like for example one company I still remember was Diskeri - I chatted with clerk in phone briefly about if there are any new death metal releases worth buying. This one case I remember, it was Spring 1992, very close to my 18th birthday, clerk was excitedly telling about this new band and debut album which they just got (Monstrosity's "imperial doom") and he hyped it as it could be the next Death. I asked him to play some song, so the clerk, while in phone, threw LP into player and needle on the first track. I listened that opening track via landline phone as it was been played through stereos in the other end, and was like "yeah! that sounded so good, I will order that one please!" ... and so I did, having money for one LP right then. :) Imagine if you'd check out new music like that these days, and also the sound quality via landline phone for other than talking (like ermmm music!) wasn't that amazing ... simply funny to think how things were back then.

But I guess this was more than enough about music in general, at least for now ... I think I'll write separately about computers, brief personal history from where and how it all started, and how it connected with music (and especially 'Aeuk', tracked music) in my case, perhaps also some other nicknames too (I tracked music with several nicknames, not just metal).

About pictures

It's a shame that back in the day before the age of digital cameras (not to mention modern camera phones) you didn't take much pictures - as you had to pay for each picture you developed from a film roll, you had to be careful what you took pictures of. And on top of that, you could never be sure if the pic you took was a hit or miss, ... especially the cheaper pocket cameras which I had too as kid, and bro and sis as well - you could say it's a miracle you actually have any decent pictures worth sharing about matters like these. About just some common people in common family etc.

In any case, to wrap up this personal memoir, here are some pictures more or less related to the stories described above. I've changed the faces (bet you couldn't guess that), but otherwise the pics are all 100% authentic events. 

Me on left, bro on right, about to start some early 1980s christmas lunch :)

Me with my best childhood birthday gift in 1984; double tape deck :)

Me in 1985, heavy metal band posters on wall was a big thing already :)

Me in early 1991 or so, tracking metal (band posters gone into death metal) :)

Me in early 1990s & my rather small collection of tapes :)

'Aeuk', from the tracked metalscene years (and also years before)

For years I've thought I'd never have anything worth telling about my artist nickname 'Aeuk' which was a nick I used actively especially in the so-called tracked metalscene for countless metal tunes, from 1997 into 2005 or so. But hey, never say never ... as seems to be the case.

This will be a rather long intro into this blog.

Let's begin with a question: You might know what "tracked music" (or mod music) means / is? If you don't know, you could check out for example some wikipedia basic info from <here>. Well, I experienced mod music first time in the late 1980s, beginning from 1987-1988 with Amiga 500, first in Amiga games of course, then soon also in demoscene's demos, megademos etc. But I remember clearly what was the starting point of me myself getting into tracking music myself: I learned I could open games' music mods with Sound Tracker in early 1989, and an awesome breakout game Crystal Hammer had not just great game content, but also a music piece I really liked a lot (check it out <here>). 

So, it felt downright amazing to be suddenly able to open Crystal Hammer's title music / mod in Sound Tracker, to be able to play it there, and especially see the tracker view, how the view is rolling over notes and stuff. I had received Sound Tracker from some Amiga pal, and I also had bunch of sample disks, actually as much as perhaps 10-20 disks at some point. So for some reason seeing how the notes flew in tracker view, Crystal Hammer music, I went into checking the samples and another "wow!" effect being able to simply play the samples separately by keyboard. I had sample disks which I hadn't really used before and suddenly I understood I could swap some samples in the CH song from the disks I had ... that's what I did and it was like a game in itself. The next "game" effect was about ... going into pattern edit mode, and trying what happens if I "put a bunch of notes into the drums' channel" (word "editing" certainly wasn't in my known words list then!) ... 

... I had been into heavy rock / heavy metal since a kid from early 1980s already, and around 1989 my excitement for speed metal and thrash was about to go into more extreme, as I was on the edge of finding out bands like for example Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, Death ... so should I say "of course" in a twisted way I tried to "make Crystal Hammer's beats extreme". It happened easily and something clicked inside of me. It was like a light had been switched on. It's quite descriptive for the situation, that when I was first toying with Crystal Hammer mod I had big bro who was at first as interested about it - but where light went on with me, in his case that was the only experiment with tracking he ever had, period. Well, he is 10 years older than me, and I was about 13 years old when this Crystal Hammer case happened, so ... probably he had bit more interesting matters at hand back then, things which weren't interesting nor possible for pre'teenager. :)

But yeah, you might guess what I mean with "light went on" in my case. Crystal Hammer begun something that never truly ended. Tracking. I haven't been actively tracking full music pieces in years (well, if not counting chiptunes for Chipfusion) but I still track drums actively for bunch of music projects of my own. 

In my case it's just bit twisted, that even that it all started with Crystal Hammer, relaxed Amiga game music - I myself started tracking metal right away in 1989, I didn't even try to create anything like typical Amiga game music (don't ask me why, I loved lots of Amiga game music!) though not just some heavy metal mods but I went directly into something probably no one other did back then with mod music: Extreme metal. The heavy / rock mods in itself were somewhat common in Amiga scene, also in some games like take for example Super Cars 2 (check out the original music <here> and my cover of the piece done in 2002 <here>) but yeah ... it felt like I was completely on uncharted territory and tracking (or trying to!) extreme metal mods was literally extremely difficult and in some ways downright impossible, at least in a believable way. You gotta remember that back then the maximum amount of channels in mods were 4 channels, period. Think about extreme metal for a second, or just think about fast drumming: Doing music so that you have channel for guitars, bass, drums ... only 4 channels, and guitars took 1-2 channels, bass 1 channel, so you had 1-2 channels for drums. Bassdrum, snare, hihat, crash, toms ... all into one damn channel. Yeah! You can bet one had to be rather innovative with "how to do it" ... and stil the results didn't necessarily impress that much. And yet at the same time it felt so "great" that you could create such noise. :)

It showcases how alone I was in tracking extreme metal in around 1989-1990 as I was part of few demogroups too, and I was also part of forming few groups (and my name ideas remained even after I myself left the groups when I sold away my Amiga 500 in 1991 summer already) - I was originally part of the teams where I was, as a musician, guy who was tracking music for demos. Pretty soon my "job" turned into swapper, because the mod music I made (extreme metal experiments) was so extreme that the tunes I made, never got accepted into the demos our groups made. Ha! 

But already back in those early days in 1989-1990 I believed heavily into what I was doing with Sound Tracker anyway and there's one example how the other team mates in our demogroup got burned about it, so to speak: There was this one fella with whom I bonded pretty good for 2-3 years (Amiga days), he was our demogroup's leader and a good friend then, too. Nice fella. But he hated metal music, and the more extreme it was the more he hated it. He literally couldn't stand my tracked metal pieces, but thought it's complete garbage, with no musical idea in it whatsoever. So, ... this guy had a relative living few kilometers from his home, a guy about 10 years older than us, who was also a musican, he knew music theory and had bunch of instruments, home studio of his own (while I had pretty much nothing of this, and I knew nothing about music theory especially). We went to pay a visit to this musician fella, because my friend, this team leader guy wanted to showcase to me about how he is right that my music contains nothing "musical" in it, no musical ideas whatsover, it's as brainless as those zombies in your fave zombie movies. I was like okay, let's go - I wanna know too what you musician relative thinks about my tracked metal! So there we went, and at the guy's music studio loaded my tracked metal mods into his music system, proper stereos etc and he hit the play. My friend was smiling widely, expecting so much to beat me at it, that my music is "nothing". So, the musician guy listened the two of my songs through, not commenting yet anything but listening with concentrated face. When he started commenting, my friend's face was a sight to see. Musician went like ... "Well I have to say this is pretty interesting stuff. I don't like this type of music, but you know, you have some really interesting things going on here, you have used <add music theory terms here> and you change the tempo in exciting way, and the mood goes from this to that, really interesting artificial harmonics towards the really slow end of the song. I don't like this music, but I like how you have some crazy and exciting things going on here, musically speaking." ... Needless to say, my friend  who was going to prove that my music shouldn't exist at all ... he no longer went on with his "your music is just noise!" comments. But my tracked metal music never made its' way into our demogroups demos in any case. It was too extreme for that back in those days! :-)

I probably could write a book worth of stuff about those ancient tales and things happening, games and music and stuff, but I can actually cut the damn long story much shorter and at the same time continue it in an interactive way, kind of: Years ago I put up a brief collection of selected 'Aeuk' tunes in finnish online music service Mikseri. Beginning from 1989 and ending around 2007 - and I've written descriptions to the tunes there, also in english so ... if you want to read a bit more and listen the "sound experiments" you might want to check <this> out for now. 

I will write more later ... not about just past, but about how past is coming alive, in a way. I'm currently working on first remixes package of 'Aeuk' material. I have tons of Aeuk mods, but selected cuts means selected cuts. This first package of selected cuts I am working on is unsurprisingly extreme material (though not all Aeuk's tracked metal mods were extreme metal, there were shitload of Amiga style "heavy rock" tunes) - this forthcoming package is mainly about sewer metal experiments done in 1999/2000, which inspired me to begin music project called Scumfusion in 2000 summer. In reality Scumfusion started in 1999 with these so-called sewer metal releases, which pretty much carved a path towards project which became Scumfusion.