Also ... bandcamp

Oh well, ... I just now suddenly remembered something; I completely forgot to publish that "selected raw sewage works" album at Bandcamp. Well ... better late than never, so I just went and published the album there, too. You can find it <here>.

'Selected raw sewage works' is released

 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.

Also if clicking this rather big picture open, you'll be able to decipher the lyrics:

Another lyric video, this time with a with a tracker view (OpenMPT)

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! :)

Fatal crash = Them ultimate teacher

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 ...

Background story from 'Struck into ground' metalmod by Aeuk

Quetzalcoatl → Aztec Toll Qua → ATQ

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). 

About my first electric bass and guitar

So, ... I thought to write something about the first two "real" instruments (from metal music point of view) I received in the early 1990s as financed by my dad (RIP). I had both these instruments with me for close to 10 years overall and I crafted my first "more real sounding" Aeuk tracked metal tunes with the help of these two instruments. Only quite recently my main axe (Gibson SG Special) broke that time record as I've had it since March 2012.

I don't have many pictures about these two instruments but I found at least some. Without pictures I wouldn't had remembered that the first proper instrument I had, electric bass, was actually good brand as it was Ibanez, to be precise Ibanez "blazer bass". I might had remembered Ibanez, but certainly not that "blazer bass" without a picture showing it. I remember dad paid about 100 euros for the instrument, so it wasn't too expensive. But it gave me inspiration big time, for sure.

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 ... :)

Anyway, here's a pic of this first bass of mine:

Around 1991 with Ibanez bass jammin' some deathy metal

So, about the first electric guitar then. I don't actually remember what made me want to get electric bass first. It's quite weird, because I had always been playing guitar. I don't know, it could have been the explosion of death metal genre in 1990/91, the dark low soundscapes, which made me want to enter the world of bassguitar first. But it didn't take long before I wanted to finally get an electric guitar, too. I certainly didn't get "anything I wanted" from my parents, more like the opposite - but I think dad sensed how much music meant for me (bit the same with computers) and that's perhaps one reason how I won him at my side and he ended up buying me a guitar for my 18th birthday in 1992.

The guitar I tried in the store some weeks before my birthday and the one I ended up choosing, was ...  a wine red flying V type of guitar by Charvel with rather weird V shape (it wasn't too pricy either, converted to euros it was like 250 euros or so and I didn't suspect anything about the price). That was my choice back then, knowing really nothing about electric guitars to be honest (while on the opposite knowing a lot about metal music) and ... I could had chosen better. Or perhaps the store owner guy could have instructed a young fella like me a bit more? Because that guitar was pain in the ass to play while sitting - it was only playable when standing. V style looks good, it's a stage guitar for sure but for young fella at home, especially if you plan to sit and play ... well it plain sucks. That's how I experienced it anyway. So, at first I was playing around with it a lot, but gradually that guitar turned into ornament for me - sad but true. But here's a picture of this Charvel, and believe it or not, the body shape of that guitar was genuinely so weird, it's not optical illusion of any sorts in this picture below (and there's explanation to it, I'll write about it below the picture) :

Around 1992 with Charvel guitar jammin' some death again I guess

I sold both that Ibanez bass and Charvel guitar away around 2000/2001 or so. It is mainly this Charvel guitar you can hear downtuned to the underground itself on the forthcoming 'Selected raw sewage works' compilation, with tunes dating back to 1999-2000.

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. :)

Visual lyric video released

<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.

About the forthcoming 'Aeuk' release

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 

1. Originally there were just one word titles, at times too mellow and 
2. I also built up over the top "zombie tale" progressing along the song titles *

* 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)". 

Actually it was only yesterday evening that I got 14th tune I have been working on, pretty much ready. Now I'm in the process of listening the overall package and doing some finetunings where / if needed. I have a strong feeling that not much needs to be done for the actual music anymore. I have also the cover artwork ready (CD jewel case size), both front cover and back cover. I'm going to craft also a massive graphic lyrics image which I'm gonna put into for example bandcamp page (as I get into forming a page for Aeuk there). :) But yeah, there's still stuff to work for this release. 

I'm thinking about setting the release date for 30th November which happens to be name day for Antti, which would be perfectly fitting as my forename is Antti and also as this release's last song is going to be "Aeuk" (= first letter from all my names, forename, two middle names, surename) ... this track was back in the day inspired by certain era in metal music world, when bands used to have self titled song and it was usually something good, beginning with bands like Iron Maiden ... but as well perhaps something like Exodus ... Malevolent Creation ... Deicide, etc) ... and so this filthy zombie release literally ends with my name, ... you'll get what I mean when you hear it. Something truly ancient among the already old shit. ;-)

One song title as turned into visuals with generative AI

My first guitar

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.

Me in 1985 with my first guitar :)

So, yeah ... I played around with this guitar for the next few years. There were some events that carved my kind of path about playing guitar. Mainly the thing that I always strongly disliked "learning to play guitar the proper way" as a kid, don't ask me why but that's the way it was. Well, thinking afterwards one factor was that the guitar was really large and I was really small in comparison. Anyway, my big sister was trying to teach me chords and stuff but ... nope. I think partially it was just kids' hands are small, some chords are difficult to reach even with adults' hands so with kids' size hands it was really frustrating. There was something else boiling under the surface though; I remember how I had understood that "to be able to play metal you have to know how to play chords, learn music theory etc" ... yeah. Well, after some month or two of trying to learn chords and stuff I was like no thanks, I rather quit this "school" lead by my sister. So I did quit ... and instead I started just playing by myself and jamming without trying to learn chords or any stuff like that. No music theory, nothing. Instead just having fun ... and BAM! suddenly I was having fun with power chords, palm muting, tremolo picking ... yeah, very basic heavy metal things. And that's how it went ahead and I can't say I'd have technically speaking progressed quite far from those basics either. Basics work well for my music creations and my playing style has always been quite coarse indeed. But that's the way I like it. :)

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.

Well, I was having fun with that first guitar up until turn of the 1990s ... as in 1990/1991 dad bought me  a very cheap, entry level electric bassguitar as used one, from a music store. That brought me much more inspiration. No band stuff though, just entertaining myself. Then in rather short timeline, after lots of talk and beggin' he bought me also entry level electric guitar (V-shaped which was epic thing in my mind!) in 1992 as birthday gift as I turned 18 years old. Perhaps I'll write some more about those later, but for now since this is about that very first guitar I got as present ...

After I got those forementioned two instruments, entry level electric bass and guitar, this first acoustic guitar of mine soon went into our family's summer cottage. I used to play it there in the summertimes occasionally but as you can guess, very rarely. Then as time passed I stopped visiting the parents' summer cottage in around 1996 or so (studies, life, etc) and ... the guitar remained there, hanging on the wall and gathering dust for a long time ...

.. 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.

Me with the very first guitar in 2010 Summer

About my Amiga era demogroups 1989-1991

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.

Me in 1990 or so

PS: Actually as that picture has some extreme metal elements to it, I have to write still about something Amiga related, but something which also "connects the dots" with Amiga and extreme metal. The way I originally heard Napalm Death and Carcass for the first ever time ... it happened through Amiga demo. Really! I even remember vividly the demo's name, or actually it wasn't a demo, but it was a musicdisk or it was labelled as such. The name of that thing was "death rock". There were not yet terms like "extreme metal" or "grindcore" (well Mick Harris surely had invented it already, but information and stuff like this moved quite a lot more slowly in world back then, no internet, etc) ... It was just "death rock" and it had simple demo with possibility to choose what is playing. There were two sampled clips by Napalm Death (taken from "scum") and two sampled clips by Carcass (taken from "reek of putrefaction") and that's it. But as you can see, that thing sticked my my mind at least. Quite certainly if you asked any of the former Starline members (who weren't into metal at least in those days) they'd never remember a thing like this. But I do, since I've been enjoying my metal for over 40 years already and I see no changes coming to that. Only death will change this someday, naturally.

 

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