You can find Aeuk's 'Selected raw sewage works' from streaming medias worldwide. Just checked for example Youtube Music and Spotify and yeah, it's there as supposed, freshly squeezed out.
Check out the cover artwork below.
I crafted another lyric video for one tune on that forthcoming 'Raw sewage works' release. Video has a tracker view rolling for the song. Check it out <here> in Youtube or check out the video embedded below. Enjoy! :)
You might wonder what's up with a topic like that? Don't worry, I'm not writing about anything recent in this post. ^_^
I learned this certain lesson (for how important backups are) the hardest possible way back in the day, 25+ years ago. Before this incident I was carefree computer hippie who thought backup is something only others need while I don't. D'oh. Well, I can only blame myself for the end result ... and the best thing in this brutal lesson was that ever since this incident I've had multiple backups for especially my creative works & hobbies crafted on or through computers of any kind.
This incident, a fatal hard drive crash, happened around May 14th 1999. I wouldn't have the exact date unless ... I didn't unleash my rage about the incident musically, by tracking an extreme metal mod which got finished just some days after the disaster. The music piece is rather average death/thrash metal mod, but its' name tells something about my feelings then; "Struck into ground". Yeah. Somethin more about this tracked metal mod bit later.
What made the eternal data loss so painful, was that I lost so much ... beginning from the things which were less painful but still certainly painful enough - I lost all my computer graphics, writings, early digital camera pictures from mid1990s to late 1990s and so on ... but especially painful was in this case music, because I lost about 90% of all my tracked metal music creations from 1989 into 1999. 90% of mods from 1989 to 1999 forever gone, ouch! This happened because back then I had my mod archive nowhere else but on the hard drive which crashed (I had two hard drives in my back then PC - yes two, and still I was so carefree that I didn't have copy of mods archive on second hard drive). The 10% I was able to retrieve back to me, well it happened and was possible because 1) I had some mods online (I had been part of "tracked metalscene" since late summer 1998 or so) so I just downloaded all that I could and 2) one really good local friend & classmate of mine had a kind of "best of" compilation of my tracks from 1989 into 1999.
Of course the tracked mods I lost forever weren't exactly "musical gems" but they were mainly rather primitive, Amiga style creations done when the amount of channels (four) limited severely tracking extreme metal anyway. But it was crushing disaster and it's still kind of a pity as you know, the passing of time, from years into tens of years only emphasizes this: Especially the very early years, 1989-1991, I was tracking rather extreme metal mods and personally I knew no one else doing that back then. What I did, was really primitive and rough, and for example the case of 1989 what I wrote about in earlier post - visiting a musician relative of back then Amiga friend who analysed some of my extreme metal mods (and shocked my friend by saying that it's not crap but it has some genuinely interesting musical patterns going on) ... it would be so neat to be able to revisit tracks from that tracking era tens of years later and analyse them, perhaps even do some sick compilation about them, but ... it will never happen of course, because I lost everything from the early years except some occasional tunes my friend happened to have. Like this only (!) remaining example from 1989 <here>.
It is also kind of weird, that back in 1989-1990 especially (when bands like Napalm Death were my ultimate favorite) I tracked literally extreme metal - and from 1991 onwards up until later 1990s (around 1998) I kind of felt that I simply can't track extreme enough metal in a believable or enjoyable way. Of course I could as years passed, but it was curious time from tracking point of view, 1989-1990, with only 4 channels in use - naively trying to track as extreme metal as I could. Then I kind of went towards Amiga style heavy rock / metal for years until like said, late 1990s I started to go towards the kind of extremity I enjoyed (and the rest is 'Aeuk' history). :)
Well, what can you say? Backups, never underestimate their value nor meaning. It can mean a world as my case very clearly tells. Ever since that 1999 May hard drive crash I've had multiple backups for anything computer based creative stuff I've done. As for ending of this post, I'll put a picture below - which is a screen capture from the forementioned song "Struck into ground" from 17th May 1999. As was common in tracking mods (no matter the genre) I used to write stories into the mods. Sometimes short comments, sometimes longer story - and it's a longer story in this case, because ... of that hard drive crash, how else. Check it out below (click it to see it bigger).
PS: Checking out the short greetings list, there are two names "Violator" and "Shukri" (later Forhekset) which went further from just metal tracking since around these times (1999-2000) I joined Shukri's band Cauterized (which was located in South Africa back then) as drums programmer, back then Violator (Richard) was vocalist in the band. Cauterized was another twist to 'Aeuk' story for sure, and quite a long one too, but more about that in some other future post ...
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| Background story from 'Struck into ground' metalmod by Aeuk |
As 'Aeuk' was always about metal tracking, and usually went towards the more extreme metal, I tracked also lots of tunes that weren't metal at some point, mainly during the latter half of 1990s when it felt that extreme metal music was at its' all time low. And it went from low ... to dead, for some time. At least I experienced that era very much like this. Suddenly it was the exact opposite to early 1990s - no great death metal (not to mention grindcore) releases coming out ... hardly at all. And the bands which used to be great, went in most cases downhill. It felt that each band had to make their own flop(py disk) albums, no matter the metal genre.
I mean, I never lost my fire for extreme metal, but it felt that suddenly there is no good new extreme metal coming out anymore. Death metal felt like it was dead in the mid1990s, especially around year 1996 I'd say. Bands splitting and/or doing poor albums. Even that some very enjoyable albums did get released too, not many but I'd say for example Morbid Angel's "domination" and Malevolent Creation's "eternal" (even that Brett Hoffman wasn't in the band anymore) or of course Deicide's "once upon the cross". Funnily I had all these three as original cassettes (not LPs, nor CDs) ... Still, it was musically very frustrating era for many reasons I guess, and thinking afterwards it makes sense that it was exactly then when I tracked most of these early "non metal" tunes of mine. Frustration music, ehh? Perhaps it's not coincidence either that I started my polytechnic studies in Autumn 1996 and those studies took about 3,5 years altogether.
Around 1997-1998 I clearly remember how certain releases started to make me feel like awww yeah death metal and grindcore didn't die after all, hooray ... Releases like (not in any special order) Incantation's "diabolical conquest", Malevolent Creation's "the fine art of murder", Suffocation's "despise the sun", Mortician's "hacked up for the barbecue" or for example Nasum's "inhale/exhale" felt to me like this kind of music has been resurrected "back from the dead". Then even my all time favorite bands like Napalm Death started coming back towards their roots (I mean, I liked the mid1990s Napalm Death in some ways, sure, but even in those ND releases the "death of death/grind" was very much present, it was so different from where they came from). Not to mention that in the early 2000s even bands like Celtic Frost got reformed and I spent like 5 years following it all closely at CF official message board (anyone still remembers such things; message board!) how they crafted their final album "monotheist". But yeah ...
Back to the topic of me doing some music which was not metal to begin with: It was music that was more often hard to categorize, so I simply called it "non metal" during those tracking days. It was not metal, so it was ... "non metal". That side of my tracked music was inspired by bands like The Orb, Aphex Twin, Orbital ... electronic and experimental music in that vein. If I had to name just three big sources of inspiration & influence for my at times rather maniac "non metal" experiments, it would have to be exactly those three artists.
I started the so-called non metal experiments in Summer of 1995. I used the nickname Quetzalcoatl for the non metal tunes from 1995 into 1998. I took the name Quetzalcoatl from certain books I was reading back in those times, ancient civilizations etc. One local friend took name Viracocha the same way, for his tracked music stuff. Well, this nick which I used from late Summer 1995 into late Summer 1998 - it is just three years, but I created about 60 tunes with that nickname, quite crazy. Around these times the non metal experiments were at their craziest so to speak; I remember I had like closer to sixty channels in use in Impulse Tracker software. You have to remember the PC displays weren't like they are these days and the resolution was something totally different as well (1024 pixels at widest). Display was also physically small, from 14" into 17" ... I think I had 15" display back then. You could see four channels simultaneuously in tracking software, so being in control of closer to sixty channels was ... crazy. :)
It was mainly some local music / computer hobbyist friends of mine who heard that music back then (and I naturally heard their tracked compositions, musical interaction). It's crazy to think that I only made one or two non metal tunes in 1995, then perhaps few songs more in 1996, ... and a freakin' big mass of tunes in 1997 especially, tens of tunes. Then again I crafted notably smaller amount of non metal songs in 1998. In 1999 I changed the nickname for these experiments into Aztec Toll Qua (at the same time started using notably better samples) which used the exact same letters than "Quetzalcoatl" and did perhaps 20-30 tunes under that name from 1999 into late 2000 (some of which I released in online sites like Trax In Space back then). But in late 2000 it stopped, I simply didn't have any passion for continuing this side of my music experiments. One problem of it was that it felt quite ... directionless in a way. That I never set boundaries for it became the limitation ironically in itself, in a way. Not too surprising that at the same time I started believing I could craft "believable" extreme metal stuff so while these non metal creations stopped, it was exactly the opposite with 'Aeuk' extreme metal tracked releases.
Years later on three separate sessions I returned to all these non metal tunes, first time around 2007, then around 2013 and final session in 2019, ... and during those three sessions I crafted three "best of" compilations simply under name ATQ. These three compilations of rather primitive and at times quite weird experiments can be found via streaming services and you can check it out for example at Youtube's ATQ topic page right <here>.
There is also a videoclip I made years ago for ATQ song from 1996 ... <here>.
While it's mostly "non metal" you can occasionally hear hints of 'Aeuk' metal elements pushing through ... be it aggressive beats or some guitarworks here and there (this is most evident on last compilation "Final toll of 1990s" which actually has also some last 'Aeuk' Amiga style heavy rock tunes mixed in, too, just because they fit more to this "non metal" style anyway).
While I never continued this 'Quetzalcoatl' music, it kind of lead into some projects in the future or if not that, but at least some kind of inheritance can be seen in some music projects of mine ... like for example <Focus Minus> (space / dark ambientish experimental music project where I only used guitar and bass to create the sounds) or perhaps <Chipfusion> (combination of chiptune tracked music and retro synth kind of electro music, with metal style drumworks).
I remember later stumbling across the guy who was in the music store as part time clerk when I was trying that bass, stumbled across him at high school and he asked me if I'd gotten into playing slap bass / funk style yet ... I was like "ummmm ... nope, I don't think that's my style" ... and at the same time some tune from Pungent Stench's "for god your soul, for me your flesh" was playing in my head ... :)
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| Around 1991 with Ibanez bass jammin' some deathy metal |
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| Around 1992 with Charvel guitar jammin' some death again I guess |
Unlike with Ibanez bass, I don't remember any special events happening after dad bought the guitar to me. But there is a special event related to it, and it only happened when I sold this guitar away. I sold it to a guy who was a pretty good instrument builder / fixer. He phoned me after he had started to purge the guitar into pieces (as he was going to rebuild it from scratch). He went like "you can never guess what happened!?" ... I was baffled and couldn't guess at all. He was like I don't know if I should laugh or cry, but can you believe that this guitar of yours isn't actually a Charvel genuinely, but it's a guitar which has its' all parts from different brands of guitars, it's like a gigantic, sick puzzle put together! Wait, what ... !? Yeah! Not a single part was from the same guitar, but everything in it was taken and pieced together from different instruments. Really a freakin' weird case. Headstock, neck, body, tremolo system, pickups, knobs and pots, tuning pegs ... what a weird thing. And the guy who bought it wasn't pissed off at all, but he was like "I should go and hang this on a wall as a frankenstein of all guitars!" ... how fitting considering the sewer metal stuff I used it for in 1999-2000 or so. :)
<Here> you find a teaser track for the forthcoming 'Selected raw sewage works' release and also a visual lyric video at the same time. The images were created with AI with each pic based on one lyric line. Some tweaking and tuning, video editing and the end result is very descriptive for both the lyrics and the music which sounds like coming from the very deepest pits of ... fictional underground itself. :)
Below is the same visual lyric video embedded, too.
I've been working on the forthcoming 'Aeuk' release for about a month now, almost on a daily basis when I've had free time. It's been a really fun project, looking back at these ancient releases. The idea is not to "rework everything from the scratch" or anything, but more the opposite ... the songs (in this case dating to 1999-2000) remain musically speaking very much the same, respecting the very rough & dirty soundscapes. I haven't re'recorded any guitars nor bass, and I won't be doing anything like that. Instead I've emphasized the very lofi / garage soundscapes the way I like it - and as the idea was from the start to make this a very zombie & ghoul themed package. It will be totally that, 100%. :) What makes this even more ugly package (fitting to the theme of it all) is that around this time, back in 1999-2000, I was having a phase of trying to downtune guitars as low as humanly possible. It was bordering on something very ... zombie?
So, as it's about the so-called "sewer metal" (as I myself named it in the turn of the century already) and songs which led to Scumfusion - the zombie etc theme is more than natural here. The first sewer metal tracks I did were especially about stuff like this, tracks like "eternal souls below" or of course "zombies" (which ultimately led me to form Scumfusion). The thing is that only handful of these sewer metal tracks originally had vocals in them. Some had, I calculated that five of the songs originally had full vocals - and there will be 14 songs in this album. Some other songs had just some occasional growls and grunts but no lyrics, nor full vocals. What that means then?
Well, the biggest change in these songs is that now all of them have vocals. And I've re'recorded all the vocals for all of the songs. 3 songs out of the 14 songs have original lyrics (about ... zombies!) and as the original lyrics are very much over the top / tongue-in-cheek style, I wrote new lyrics for 11 songs in the very same style. :)
There is also one other change musically speaking: Originally these songs had nothing else but guitars, bass, drums (and in some cases vocals). Now I've worked and mixed in some horror / weird sound effects backing up the crazy little horror tales.
Some of the song titles have changed, too - mainly because
* The song titles go like "Title (short desciptive tale that progresses)" where the song title is the original song title and the rest is about the brief storyline inside parentheses. Actually the song titles are let's say about 85% in their original form. It's just I think 2-3 titles with slight alterations fitting better to the theme of zombies and stuff. For example one original title was just "stormed" - it's now "storm of the zombies (storyline blabla)".
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| One song title as turned into visuals with generative AI |
My first guitar in the 1980s was acoustic guitar. Even that was keen on expressing how it's not acoustic but half acoustic guitar. Well it was acoustic. :) But as child with growing passion for heavy metal stuff it was important that it wasn't "just" acoustic guitar which every family had lying around (my family, too) and which wasn't "metal". Well to my defence it wasn't your most typical Landola out there, but it was a nod more "exciting" model. Which was certainly enough for me as a kid at that point.
My dad bought the guitar from one older cousin of mine, who was back in the 1980s into playing all kinds of instruments from what I remember - this guitar was actually broken to some extent so dad bought it cheap. Really cheap. But the guitar wasn't broken as I got it, because dad had it repaired as good as it was possible (without breaking the bank with repairs) and I received the guitar as christmas present in 1985. There was one serious problem in the guitar though; I wasn't a tall kid, more the opposite - and the guitar was really large one for my size. It killed a lot of my interest for playing it after initial interest, but nevertheless I played that guitar quite some, after all. The playability wasn't good though, mainly because of one severe fault ... action was really high, partially because of that fault. And this was a fault which could not be repaired unfortunately - the guitar always had neck somewhat twisted / tilted (large crack in the root of the neck, put together with glue) so ... well, apart from that, it was ok and I was happy about it initially. Check out a picture below from the moment when I've just received the guitar for present.
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| Me in 1985 with my first guitar :) |
As a little sidenote to composing music: For me music is ... very much a feeling, energy, certainly not theory, nor really planned either. People are different of course; while some musicians might plan and then compose according to the plans - I am not like that, not at all. I don't and can't plan anything when it's about music, that's what I've learned about myself during the years. If I try going the planning way, my musical plans get trashed when inspiration hits me. The best music I've done is definitely music I've not planned at all, but simply let the inspiration flow ... and back in the past when I've sometimes genuinely planned some music and then strictly tried following the plan, I've ended up with music I really disliked myself. Funny but true. So yeah, people are different. Luckily so, would be a boring world indeed if everyone was the same.
.. and there it was, nothing but collecting dust until I returned to the summer cottage in 2010 summer and "rescued" the guitar from there. I cleaned it myself completely, restringed it, and played it during the early summer just for nostalgy trip itself. But I had decided that I'll get rid of it - just not in the shape it was. So then I did lots of surface work for it, removed the components, got rid of the tens of years old lacquer, grinding ... garage stuff you know ... and then I repainted it myself into mat black. Restringed it again and so on ... the problem with neck remained. I played the thing some weeks more and was like oh yeah, what if this was like this when I got it as a child, feels so much better now (I don't mean just the black color but all in all, I guess I made it more "mine" than it ever was) ... and then I sold the guitar. I am not pro at all in reworking guitars like this, just a hobbyist, but I think I did pretty good job. My dad still lived back in those days, and so I asked how the price I got compared to price he paid and the repairs - I got some more money from selling the guitar if compared to how much dad paid for it plus the repairs about 25 years earlier. Not bad. :) And the guitar got a new life, which felt really good, too. Below pair of pictures from summer 2010; taken soon after I rescued the guitar and then soon after I had reworked the guitar into its' final condition with me.
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| Me with the very first guitar in 2010 Summer |
Few words (or a bit more) about the demogroups I was part of during my Amiga years.
I was forming the finnish / local group I first belong and as with some other things (like childhood band experiments) it was again my idea which ended up being the group's name. The group was called Starline and it was formed in sometimes during 1989 I think. I even remember that in the end the final battle between name for the group was phenomena vs. starline. Both of them were pretty good, but in the end my idea won because of it's straighforwardness mainly - and perhaps because there was connection with space / scifi stuff (which interested me since elementary school years already). But yeah, the group was formed by me who became at first musician, later simply swapper as my mod music was "too extreme" for demo usage (which I was as narrowmindedness, it would had been completely different vibe within all the usual Amiga demos with the usual - good though - Amiga style music) and my Amiga friend who ended up being the team leader. Even that I think he wasn't labelled as team leader in the demos, but something about writing as he wrote the greetings list and "what's going on in the group" texts into the demos that were created around 1989-1991.
If you guessed my nickname in this group was 'Aeuk' you guessed wrong. :) Nope. Though it was something taken directly from my music taste ... as it was Ventor. Yeah, if you know your metal, you know where I took it from. Of course from Kreator's drummer. My friend's nick was Shade. At very first our "group" was just us two, but it soon started growing. The way how we got first coder (who knew his codes too), graphic artist (good enough) etc joining our group surprised us, that's something I remember from those times. And suddenly friend Shade had to actually lead the group, too. He did pretty good job, and soon we had Starline's first demo at our hands. I remember how I was at Shade's place around late 1989 probably and we both were looking at "our" first demo, stunned, and occasionally taking look at each others' eyes - and as we talked, we had the same feeling: How did we even achieve this, this demo is actually quite good, can you believe it? It gave us both a boost of confidence in a way, that we CAN achieve things we begin to dream about. It felt good, sure. And of course, you know, as we had our demo out, our "reputation" started to grow automatically.
We had contact details there, usual post address and stuff - as I was swapper, I started getting letters from people wanting to ... swap, of course. Swapping meant (in case if you don't know / didn't guess) "exchanging Amiga games and software" = there were lists of games and software, you wrote what you wanted, the other end sent you 3,5" disks via snail mail, and requested some games and software from you, and you copied some 3,5" disks and snail mailed the package to other side. Sometimes if hunting for something special, it was written into group's demo. You can bet my amount of 3,5" disks started to grow rapidly - and suddenly I wasn't asking parents to buy me C-tapes for taping music anymore but ... I was asking them to buy 3,5" floppy disks. Piles of disks. At first buying them in package of 10 disks, at some point even buying bulk of 100 disks (mainly for swapping usage). Actually I remember buying bulk of 100 disks quite often - it was cheaper and we did it as group, each paid for his share of disks. In the end of my rather short but intensive Amiga days I had at least 300-400 disks overall (rough estimate based on how many big 3,5" boxes I had filled with disks) and I can only guess the amount of disks I snail mailed here and there. I think we did several demos and the group did some demos after I left it in 1991 - but for some reason or another (which I don't know), my connection with Shade guy gradually ceased to exist around 1992-1993 and by the time I went to army (and came out from there) I had no connection with him anymore. Though I've chatted with the guy in last few years on some occasions and we've funnily both ended up living in the capital area of Finland. Even more funnily as he was team leader in that Starline group - he's high level leader in his adult career life, too. I was kind of "multitalented expert" in the group - and that's what I've been in my adult career life too. Kind of funny to think about that.
Actually one classmate of mine moved from Rovaniemi into Kuopio around 1989/90 or so, we shared extreme metal taste as well as Amiga hobby - and for following years (up until I sold away my Amiga) I swapped a lot with this guy too. Via snail mail, but not just that, ... this is funny memoir; his dad used to come to Rovaniemi at times, work trips and always when this happened, we made arrangements that I went to "fetch a package" from his dad at the office where he visited at Rovaniemi. Sometimes it felt like the office people were thinking that "what packages is this guy fetching from here, this sounds suspicious?" ... and it added to humor that we used to wrap the packages with thick layers of cardboard box and tape, draw some skulls and add "handle with care", "dangerous" etc texts into the packages. Heading to his dad's office place, "do you have a package for me?" ... "yeah, here you go, son sends greetings that it's good stuff inside!" ... his dad of course knew our jokes but the other people's looks at times in that office were sight to see. :)
Well, still something else about swapping - as snail mail letters started pouring and later 3,5" disks (and putting invisible tape into packages containing disks, over the postage stamps - receiver erased post markings and used same package for sending new contents ahead - for free) I came up with few extra connections so to speak. One such case was a guy from capital area of Finland, notably older dude than me, but he had ridiculously long list of software printed on paper (it was tens of pages long and the letter was bulging out because of it!). Shade guy was like "old software! old games! booo! you swap with him if you want, I don't want old shit!" and so I connected with this dude. Little did I know how special connection it was ... this happened in the early days of Starline and it meant more than few things for me, because we had good connection with this guy.
He ended up joining Starline too (yeah!) as simply swapper I think, but more importantly and this tells how trustworthy he was - I sent my Amiga 500 for him in early 1990 (big and expensive package) and he installed extra memory for me, for free. Yeah! Considering that I was teenager with no cash really, it was quite special case. He did it mainly as thanks for swapping so much with him and because we connected so good. And he really did what he promised, suddenly I had "super Amiga" ... then as I got second disk drive for my Amiga, the swapping game really rose to new level. :) But our connection went even further; not only did we swap Amiga software, but I ended up swapping also massive amounts of horror films with him.
When I say massive amounts of horror films, I mean that literally. And especially things which weren't available in Finland (or were forbidden) back in those days. I ended up doing finnish language presentation show at high school about horror/splatter films and I even showed the class short clips of films like Reanimator, Bad Taste, Texas Chainsaw Massacre etc ... ha! Class were watching my "show" in silence and some of them paled noticeably when I showed the selected short clips ... and I thought it was crossing the teacher's borders of what is accepted and what not, but actually I got a good grade for that presentation (and boy was I nervous about it too, holy cow I was ... having to not just speak in front of class but handle VHS equipment, my own edited tape, along with the presentation) ... I don't know if I had necessarily done this kind of presentation if I didn't have connection with this one guy who served me endlessly horror films as I requested.
And the story with this one guy does not end even there, our shared interest for "splatter and gore horror films" but as I went into PC (in Autumn 1991) you can guess who was the one guiding me patiently through the early weeks and months, via landline phone ... yeah, this same guy. As I got into PC world, we continued swapping software - all my other "Amiga contacts" died out, but this one connection remained. And it was a sweet connection too. There were certain thing in our swapping which I hold dear after all these years - our mutual love for Sierra adventure games. Back in the Amiga years I naturally had the latest Sierra's quest games through swapping, but this guy had them all, the very first Sierra adventures and I got all of them from him - and I pretty much played through all the Sierra adventures back then, from late 1980s into mid 1990s or so. You know; Space Quest, King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, Codename Iceman, Quest For Glory, Gold Rush ... and if you know these Sierra classics, you know that some of these series had like close to ten games under the name. The amount of these adventures was massive and it took time and patience to play them through. Don't forget that there was no internet and you couldn't just head into Youtube and search for "game title playthrough" and that's it. Finishing a Sierra game felt like winning some trophy, it meant hard brainwork at times. :)
Words don't tell enough what kind of connection this one dude was to me, I actually met him few times (while he was on work trips to North Finland in 1990-1991) and he was as great dude live as he was before I hadn't met him. There is one perfect example what describes my connection with this guy, I mean all the "swapping" etc we did together within some 5 years period or so. Can you imagine that even that our active connection stopped quite exactly 30 years ago, I still remember this guy's postal address like my own name, from early 1990s. It's ridiculous but it is true! And I've even went pass his postal address / house from tens of years ago (he no longer lives there) just thinking that this is the place this guy lived during those golden software swapping years ... it's crazy. It's not love, dont get me wrong (I'm 100% straight guy) but funnily I could quote Kraftwerk describing what our shared connection was with 2 words: Computer love.
About this Amiga demo group Starline I was forming and part of ... actually I managed to find some infobits about it from the deepest pits of interwebs. :) Kind of funny, but yeah, there it is. Some evidence that I'm not just talkin' shit here but it was real. Click <here> so see some details. I am listed there (as Ventor), team leader too (Shade) and even that special connection I had, the guy who helped me with much more than just swapping some oldschool software - he's there too (Ss-data). You can also witness that I did't make music for any of those demos listed, even that I am listed as member in the demos' details. :) Too extreme ... :D
EDIT: Did some more research and awww shit! I even found at least one Starline demo from youtube. <Here> you go. :) Though I think that's from the time when I had already left the group, but anyway. At least you get the idea listening to that usual Amiga tune playing in that demo, why my extreme metal experiments never ended into the demos by Starline. :) If I find some other clips from youtube, I'll edit this part and throw in more links.
Well, enough about Starline, there is something else about demogroups I can tell:
The swapping in Amiga years didn't just mean exchanging games and software, but it also meant as you can guess from above; getting connected. In one case I got connected with german swapper guy (who was into extreme metal too) so well, that ... as he learned that I track extreme metal, he lured me into joining their team. I was supposed to track some extreme metal mods for their demos. It all seemed good, and I actually even started to track something for those guys in Spring 1991, and I was mentioned (as Ventor) in their few smaller demos and promise of "some different Amiga music coming" into their future demos - but what unfortunately happened was bad timing for this whole thing. I was dropping out of Amiga world when I was supposed to work for this thing. How can you work when you no longer have Amiga? When you no longer have no machine at all ... yeah. Of course I expressed how sorry I was about the situation and that there's nothing I can do about it - so that story ended there. This germanese Amiga demo group was called Trace. Unlike Starline, I haven't managed to track down any info about this Trace group. I think they didn't have good enough coders, the demo or two I saw back in 1991 was very small intro like thing with big promises. Perhaps they never got into crafting proper, bigger demos? Did it have something to do with me dropping out after a good start? I don't know. It was a pity in any case.
But yeah, my Amiga years had these two demogroup experiences. Out of these two, Starline of course was "the big thing" because I was forming the group and the name idea came from me, some of the graphics (like logo in the first demo, which I drew on paper - even that I was not mentioned as graphics guy) and because it was simply a great experience all in all. Even that my music was "too extreme". On the other hand, what sucked in Starline (I couldn't get music into demos) could have been different, all the opposite in Trace - unfortunately it was bad timing and Trace disappeared literally without a trace. So, there. :)
Finally something visual in the end - I don't have much at all pictures about me from the Amiga years really, I guess it was the teenager years and me not wanting to be pictured that much ... but I found this one picture (and hey I didn't even swap the face this time! only dull background ha!) which is from around 1990 so from the time when Starline had really taken off. Probably 1990 was my best Amiga year if I think about it. :) I remember this jacket in picture; shame that no one ever captured it from backside, because I had hand painted massive band logos there; Napalm Death, Deicide and Death if my memory serves me right.
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| Me in 1990 or so |
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
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| Me in front of Vic-20 during Christmas 1986 |
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| Me and bro with Vic-20 during Christmas 1986 |
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| Me in front of Amiga 500 in 1987-1988 |
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| Me in front of Amiga 500 in 1987-1988 |
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| Me and bro in front of Amiga 500 in 1987-1988 |
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| My first PC just set up for 1st time in Autumn 1991 |
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| Scream Tracker running with my first PC around 1991-1992 |
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| I had to sell my cool car (BMW 1502) to get money for PC |
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| The first ever PC I bought myself and paid it 100% in 1996 |
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.
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| Me on left, bro on right, about to start some early 1980s christmas lunch :) |
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| Me in 1985, heavy metal band posters on wall was a big thing already :) |
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| Me in early 1991 or so, tracking metal (band posters gone into death metal) :) |
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| Me in early 1990s & my rather small collection of tapes :) |
Without further blabbing, here are them visuals this time. front cover back cover visual lyrics package which I crafted for this package (t...
