The Delight of Eternal Might: the history of Fairlight (part 3)
RECOLLECTION issue 3
Halfway through the year and the group had already ammassed six demos. The "Singles Collection Volume 2" was released in July containing a contribution from Hollowman. During this month, at a meeting in Finland, two Finns had a bit to drink and then made a call asking if they could join FairLight. The duo was Abaddon/Damage (musician) and Tempest/Damage (graphician/musician) they were already good friends with fellow Finn Reed/FairLight (who was also in FairLight's PC demo section).
The hype continued in the following month as the commie-killers released "Bigbud" at the North Party 8 in Warsaw, Poland. It won the 4K intro compo. Another little meetings inbetween the parties took place again, these meetings helped boost morale and keep the union tight. Vodka's home played host to such a gathering in August with a lot of sauna and alcohol involved. Some local people were also invited but generally it was a FairLight only event. During this month their Finnish member Reed conquered the Assembly music compo with his entry 'Cyberdragon' arriving at first place.
"Götta" was released in November and is a music Collection featuring the work of Maktone with code from Puterman and a lovely portrait of Maktone pixelled by Vodka in its main menu. The collection was a nice out-of-compo export and a suitable prelude to activites in the Christmas month and close of the year. At the very end of December there were two further events FairLight participated in that rounded off one of their most active years. The tUM 2003 party in Hemsbach, Germany, in which FairLight came 1st in the 4K Intro compo with "Blueberry" (Dwangi, Vodka, Maktone). Secondly, the group showed up at the Stockholm University to attend the Deadline Reloaded party. At the event their demo "Game Over" achieved first place. This demo was again in cooperation with their friends in Crest and contained the combined effort of Hollowman, Puterman and Dane.
2004 arrived and and just as in previous years the Floppy 2004 party took place in February. The group continued their activities with the same fervour as the previous year. At the party their new demo "Wok Zombie" was released (Hollowman and Puterman) and stole the second position. The demo has an interesting background, as the title is quite obscure. JUCKE gives us some detail on this obscurity: "One morning I went to work in my office and connected to the IRC. I was feeling real tired that morning and was going to write 'Zombie at work', which turned out ZOMBIE AT WOK on the screen. Then this little ball started rolling and together with Tranziie and Puterman we come up with this story about a new restaurant chain called WOK ZOMBIE who only serve a special wok with bodyparts from Zombies. I recently found this note I scribbled down at work the same day... "WOK ZOMBIE. Everyone knows zombies eat brain, and brain is good nutrient, so now we open Wok Zombie, first out in Skövde, then Tarnow and Ulan Bator. Just like DoubleHeadBurger have their double-head gimmick among the staff, Wok Zombie have the zombie theme. Wok Zombie is spreading like a Z-virus. Z-Food for a better future. Smart peoples eat brain-food, with extra green stuff." The next thing I know, I'm at the Floppy party and the demo compo and on the screen comes WOK ZOMBIE by FAIRLIGHT! I thought my brain was going to explode, but I had to hold it together, as I knew some visitors might have tried to eat it if it left my head". Also at the party Maktone took out the music compo with his entry called 'Harrier'.
Some new music collections arrived in May and July. Firstly "Re/struction" featuring the work of Puterman and followed some weeks later by "Re/store" containing further output by Puterman. At the end of July, FairLight proved their love for the Little Computer People party, this year submitting multiple entries in and out of the compos. "Postcards from Stockholm" (Hollowman, Puterman, Maktone, Goto80) wooed the crowd enough to gain 1st place in the demo compo. Their other demo "Ultragui" (Puterman, Vodka, Dane, Blackdroid) came in at number 4 out of 10 or so entries. They also released a mini-music collection called "We/knutby" outside of the compo also with work from Puterman. Later in the year the Finnish section of FairLight (Abaddon, Reed and Tempest) attended the Assembly 2004 party held in the Finnish capital Helsinki. They released their "We Control" demo which gained the fourth position. The demo could have easily ranked higher with some rather nice graphics and a smashing soundtrack by Reed.
In November, Vodka organised "Datahelg 5" - a meeting in his local town Västerås. At this meeting the group released "Göttart", a music and graphic collection featuring the creative output of Vodka and Maktone (with code by Puterman). Around 20 visitors arrived including Vengeance and myself who were on holiday from Australia visiting our old friends in FairLight for the first time in person. Coming down from Stockholm was Bacchus and Pantaloon which added a real variety of people at the event. The meeting gave us all an opportunity not only to be humbled by Vodka's hospitality but also to drink his vodka and large quantities of it too. I fondly remember the last men standing were Maktone and myself (although Vengeance may have stayed up later as he somehow had ended up at Pantaloon's place in Stockholm at some absurd hour in the morning).
In May 2010 the Puterman was on a train and to kill the mundane journey he answered some quick questions about these mysterious demos both Hollowman and he had been involved with and the even more mysterious internal meetings otherwise known as Datahelg...
J)
Both Hollowman and you are considered saviours of the legal section of FairLight C64; the spine of the demo section, particularly in the early part of the new millennium. You both worked closely together on several productions, how did the demos get made and what inspired the "fresh" themes and designs that many now regard as classics?
P)
How they got made varied a lot depending on how ambitious we were and who came up with the ideas. I consider a few of the demos that we made together to be "mine", as they started with my ideas, but Hollowman always has a very strong sense of direction and always seems to know where he wants to take a production, no matter if he came up with the original idea, or if he's joining someone else's project. Sometimes it can feel a bit like he's does a hostile takeover of my project, but that's just because he's so productive and always takes such an active role in the development. He's also really good at taking responsibility and has high standards, so whenever he's involved in anything, you know that it's going to be good. I'm sloppier. My emphasis is on saying something, rather than how I say it. I don't really get why you'd want to make a demo without any sort of narrative or why you'd want to make something that's just an improved version of something that's already been made thousands of times before. But I guess people are just different.
As for inspiration for the stuff we did, it varies too. But when I started producing for the C-64 in the late 90s, a huge majority of all the demos that were released were recycled crap and boringus maximus. All those Polish and German trackmos with black background, 8x8 plasmas and filled vectors, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I definitely didn't want to do that. There were some demos that that were inspirational though, like React's The Last Reactor, Refugee and Red Storm by Triad, everything by Panoramic and lots of weird old Compunet stuff. Especially the Compunet stuff is great, because back then, there was still no clear concept of what a demo was supposed to be. It could be anything. It was something that you put together for others to watch and interact with. That's it. You didn't have to break records, you didn't need scrollers or logos, you didn't need to make your own music or graphics, and everything was just open.
The traditional way of telling demo scene history is to say that it started with crack intros that developed into their own entities. I see that as the ugly father of the demo scene, while Compunet is the beautiful milf mother that I'd fuck all night if she'd want to, but I'd be just as content with cuddling with her. When demos started turning into a known concept in the late eighties, it started getting boring. People started to think of conventions as rules, and when you get stuck in that way of thinking, all you're ever going to do is shit. Of course, it's never been quite that bad, there have always been good productions among the conventional ones as well. But most people just copy each other's ideas, it's seems like such a waste to not try to say anything. Maybe it's just me who doesn't understand what it's all about. Or maybe it's just everyone else who thinks they know what it's about. Whatever. (And while I'm at it, this seems to be a great opportunity for me to commit scene suicide by telling the readers of this splendid mag what I think about Dutch Breeze: it sucks. There.)
But back to me talking about myself instead of me being insensitive and offensive to others. I can't really speak for Hollowman, but I think in most of his demos he's been trying to tell a story about himself, the same story, but different aspects of it. It's not always as obvious as in Pretending to See the Light. I guess that's how you can tell when he's being serious and doesn't get his vision soiled by my bad influences. With me it's more random. I tend to change preferences a lot. I couldn't possibly have made a demo like We/Banana back in 2000, because I was much more of a stupid asshole back then than I am now. I don't understand what I was thinking back then. How could I ever be that piss-serious and moralistic? I don't know... it might have been my Christian girlfriend who sabotaged my otherwise lovely personality.
I have a feeling that my rant here is drifting away into something that looks more like a scroll text than an answer to an interview question, so I'll move on to the next question, but first I'll throw some greetings: Hollowman (hey, let's drink some sportdryck and ragga brudar in Gothenburg sometime soon!), Twoflower (monsieur Cordon Bleu), Moh and his best friend Ulf, the legendary The Cracker of The Gang, Jucklo the cosmic DJ who is consistent in succeeding in breaking my legs, Zabutom the gruvfyllo and of course the freshest man alive: Maktone. Oh, and the forgotten ones. Hej svejs!
J)
The whole Scanda scene seemed to come alive with LCP, Floppy, Axis of Evil and more... you guys ruled those years of Swedish-renaissance!
P)
Well, at least Hollowman did, scene-wise I tend to see myself as his stupid hillbilly cousin.
J)
What are your favourite self-participated productions under the FLT-label and why?
P)
I'll break the rules completely here and mention some non-FLT productions first, because I think they're important as a background. The first thing I did that was good was Square, where I tried to make a demo without much of the regular demo-stuff. Straight lines and jerky movement instead of smooth sines, bleeps instead of music and a completely different sort of emptiness compared to the conventional demo emptiness, which is more of a muteness.
Then of course I have to mention Thief as well, similar in concept but different in details, with influences from Swedish educational material from the 70's and early computer games. And green instead of red.
I like quite a few of the things I've been involved with in Fairlight for different reasons. Like the first Fairlight demo I made, We/Laser, mostly because it's slightly weird, has the kickass smoke part which was my first and probably best attempt at doing something with particles, a great catchy tune by Maktone that Cadaver had to write a special conversion tool for me to fit into the limited amount of memory I had left, and awesome Burzum quotes in the end scroller. Burzum's first album really is the best thing ever. Maybe even better than some of my demos.
I like 1000000 Light Years from Earth, because it's the best thing I've been involved in that's a very regular demo. It was supposed to be completely different, much better of course, and lots of beautiful ideas had to be removed because my limited design skills just weren't good enough, and because I didn't have enough time. It's one of those demos that started with my concept, and that Hollowman managed to save with one of his super-productive periods. So while it's not at all what I wanted it to be, it's still quite good. Like the music by Jeff, which was really different from what I really wanted, much more bombastic than the nihilistic emptiness I had envisioned. This might have been a good thing, as people love the music.
Emanation Machine was pretty much the same thing. It started out with my concept, and with Hollowman's parts (first half of the demo) and Goto80's music it turned into something completely different. I really like some of my parts in that one, like the repelling balls and the slowly drifting balls. It seems I like balls. But I think I managed to capture the atmosphere I wanted here and there, a sense that time stops and that everything is safe. Come to think of it, it's a bit like being back in my mother's womb. Kind of like the My Beauty, which I wasn't involved in at all, but in a much less disturbing way.
First You Live and then You Die was good as well, although everyone seems to interpret it very differently from me. I think I pretty much nailed big history narrative style and told the whole history of the universe from the big bang to the big freeze or whatever the stillness that might come at the end is called. That might not be crystal clear though. Kind of like this thing with lids on coffee mugs. I like it, but I don't understand why. And that sort of thing is also in there. And the word "cocksucker", which is the most beautiful design decision I've ever made.
Finally I'd like to mention my We/5, which is the continuation of We/Banana. I know I did something right there, because Hollowman complimented me on the story-telling, and if he says so it has to be good. There's something I like in almost all of my releases, but none of them comes closer to being as true to its original concept as We/5. It was actually fun to work on, for once, I liked adding the references to my earlier demos, and horribly disharmonic colour scheme is something I'm really proud of. It might just be ugly in your eyes, but to me it means something.
J)
What are some funny things or memorable things that have happened for you since being a member of FairLight - surely those saunas at the Datahelg can't be too friendly right?
P)
Lots of stuff, and before going into specifics I should mention that I really like us as a group. It's a nice mix of people. We've only recruited people that we liked. I mean, take a guy like Dwangi. It feels like a privilege to me just to be allowed to exist in the same universe as him, a universe that he decorates with a sense of magic, mystery and wonder by just being the intensely weird person that he is.
The Datahelg's at Vodka's place have always been really fresh, it was after one of those meetings that I decided to join Fairlight in the first place. We'd sit in Vodka's basement and watch demos and drink beer and sometimes listen to Mr. Smirnoff complain about everything. I think the biggest one of these meetings, when you and Matt were on your European tour, might have been the best one, but that was more like a party than just a regular Datahelg meeting.
Quite a few of the parties have been great, including the less known ones, like Deadline and Backslash. You know it's a good party when the 16 year old organizer has already passed out when the party starts. I think it was probably Maktone who started the extremely annoying tradition of shouting Fairlight slogans all the time, or if you're too drunk to pronounce "Fairlight, Fairlight, looking for a fight", you'd just should "Fairlight" over and over. Great fun for those involved, really irritating to everyone else. There was this Floppy party when I went up at seven on Saturday morning to have some breakfast before going back to sleep, I was trying to eat my sandwich and drink my orange juice, and Maktone, who'd been up all night sat beside and just shouted "Fairlight" constantly the whole time. Great memory, but a horrible experience when it happened.
J)
You have been inactive for a little while now, some guys have asked where you have gone to etc. Gazing into the crystal ball with the all-seeing power of the future, what will Puterman being doing on the C64?
P)
I'd guess I'll never ever release a demo again, but it kind of has a false ring to it. So I don't know. I have some great ideas, but it's just too much work coding a demo. Unfortunately I'm too good at it to really be productive anymore. And I got fed up with the whole demo-coding thing a long time ago, but for some reason I kept doing it until I finally quit. I actually coded a "demo" for some party last year, kind of like First You Live and then You Die, but when it was finished it just felt empty, and not in a good way, so I threw it away. But we'll see what happens, I guess.
At the start of 2005 the group gained a new graphician in Sweden by the name of Oys. He contributed to the groups first production of the year at the sweaty databoy inferno, otherwise known as the Floppy 2005 event. FairLight placed 2nd with perhaps their best demo to date called "One Million Light Years From Earth" (Hollowman, Puterman, Oys, Vodka and Jeff). The demo produces an amazing outter space atmosphere that takes you beyond the exosphere and into a void - quite simply it is mind warpingly fantastic! The group also ranked second in the music (Puterman) and graphic (Vodka) competitions. The mini-meeting Birdie 15, held in early May in Uppsala, produced "Axis of Evil" (Hollowman, Puterman, Maktone). The demo/party-invitation placed 4th in the Mixed compo.
The tempo of the group was high and it was quite easy to see that the recruitment made by Vodka was paying off big time as the group was in top gear. In July they hit nitro and blasted to 1st place at the Assembly party in Finland with their demo "Boogie Factor". The demo stole the podium with a 70's style theme created by the Finnish section of the group; groovy disco entertainment lies herein! The accolades continued for the group at the LCP 2005 held in Linköping in early August with their "Hello:Friend" demo entry. It came in 3rd place and was another winning demo that could have easily stole the compo. The mind of Hollowman was behind this demo supported by a Goto80 soundtrack. The demo really tells a story, just like "Postcards from Stockholm". Hollowman demonstrates that demos are not just about how effects have been created (which most tech-heads seem to sweat about) but also a platform to involve the viewer on a more emotional level (what is art?). FairLight also came 6th with a smaller demo called "We/banana" (Puterman and Maktone). The party also yielded another release, which was Sledge's comeback to the scene as a graphician (rather than BBS sysop), he won first place in the graphics competition!
FairLight have been in a few cooperations over the years; most recently with Crest (Dane). Their next production brought them together with the guys in Instinct (Pernod/Horizon's brother JackAsser to be precise) and they brought forward a commemorative demo called "LCP Memories" (Hollowman, Puterman, JackAsser, Maktone, Oys, Zabutom). The production took the 1st place at Black Birdie II held in Vittinge in early October. It featured music from Zabutom, a new scener who later joined up with the group in November.
The party action continued into the following year with the group releasing "Axis of Evil 2006" (Hollowman and Zabutom) which came 1st at the demo compo at Deadline Harakiri which was held in the Swedish capital Stockholm. In July the group attended the Big Floppy People, which was a combination of the LCP and Floppy parties. The meeting was one of the biggest in recent years with over 70 visitors attending and around 10 demos in the main competition. You can guess who won? You bet. The guys in FairLight brought forth the winning demo called "WWIII" (Hollowman and Zabutom) which had some stunning effects and strong theme, it also had a bonus tune that Swedes would love called "Boten Anna" covered by Zabutom. Beware of this demo, it takes you to scary heights via parallax aeroplanes!
Later in the year the focus shifted to the Dutch event X'2006. Down in Gelderland the group finished off 2006 with two productions in and out of the compo. The X parties had gained a reputation for having quality releases and tight competition. This year was no exception with 12 productions in the demo compo, the top 6 or 7 were all good quality releases. FairLight finished 4th with their release "Romeo" (Hollowman, Puterman, Oxidy), which had vectorpeople and a touch of melancholy as the central theme. Outside of the compo the group (Puterman) released "X2006 Slideshow" in cooperation with Booze Design and Shape. The slideshow captures some of the moments from the party in digital 8-bit format.
FairLight welcomed in 2007 with a big birthday grin. The group was 20 years old this year and has arranged to hold a celebration birthday party in Copenhagen, Denmark. The 'FLT20' party was planned in 2006 to take place in June 2007, but was later cancelled due the death of group friend and the party's main organiser Turtle/Danish Gold. Despite this the group shaped up to be a good year for the group. Early in the year Oys left the group for the guys in Oxyron. Some months later in early April FairLight released "Axis of Evil 2007" (Hollowman/Vodka) at the Breakpoint 2007 party in Bingen, Germany. It ranked 4th which is quite high considering the demo is a party invitation for the upcoming Backslash mini-party. This party took place in Västerås in July and FairLight had two entries into the compos. The small meeting had two demos, both from FairLight, placing 1st was "Sharp" (in cooperation with Instinct) (Hollowman, JackAsser, Goto80). This demo was quite brilliant, with many well designed screens and not your usual Hollowman-style, but something completely different, possibly due to the influence from JackAsser? The group's second placing "WE/5" was totally put together by Puterman (code, graphics and music). HOLLOWMAN comments: "Puterman going back to the we/roots, filled with references to old masterpieces like theory of remote plane hijacking, we/banana and visitors. The demo is not perfect, but shows the power of combining sound and visuals, as well as telling new surrealistic stories where one sentence can be more intriguing and fascinating than the majority of scene releases for the last couple of years".
The month of July was a busy one for the group. Late in the month they attended the Helsingborg event Big Floppy People and released some more demos (which we were now expecting each time a party occurred). Placing 2nd with "First You Live and Then You Die" which is a strongly poetic demo made solely by Puterman, 3rd with "Copycat" (Hollowman and Oxidy) and 6th with their fun little one-file demo called "Mushroom Soup" (Oxidy, Vodka, Zabutom).
In October the group released version 1.1 of their demo "Boogie Factor". The demo was previously released two years ago at Assembly 2005. The new version contained bug fixes, better linking, remixed intro tune and improved music synchronization. The fixes were made shortly after the party, but various circumstances prevented it from being released earlier.
In the next year the group put the brakes on their fast moving vehicle. Is that really a bad thing? I do not think so, the year is 2008, the scene is no longer full of teenagers with all the time in the world. Despite the slow motion of the scene, the group continued to move forward. In early August, the group released "V3locip3d3" (Oxidy, Puterman, Avalon) which achieved 4th place at St LCP 2008 party in Lund, Sweden. Later in October their "My Beauty" (Hollowman and Goto80) demo placed 5th at the star-studded X'2008 party in Gelderland, Holland. The demo gives us another rich narrative by Hollowman, superb visuals and excellent music. Top scene poetry once again from Hollowman!
Hollowman agreed to be placed under interrogation by my intelligence agency to report on his membership.
J)
You left Triad and joined FairLight - a big move, from one Swedish giant to another back in 2001. What did you think of FairLight in your younger years? How did you join? How has the journey been for you through the group up until now?
H)
I think I was about 9 years old when I saw the classic FairLight intro on C64 (Pacland) and I was 11 when my family got an Amiga and I saw the intro on games like Loom. The little I knew about the scene was what I had read in the demo corner and readers letters in the computer magazine Datormagazin, so there was so much mystery surrounding the scene and especially the group FairLight. Did they really have a member in Abu Dhabi? Was Duck Tales really cracked by Allah in Kuwait? Bacchus was also a very important person with his presence on the scene and in magazines.
I have sometimes thought about the demos Puterman and I have made and if they have had any effect on the image of the group. On one the hand it’s perhaps like Puterman once said "FairLight used to be something unique, with their communist hating and all. Now we're just another group of weirdos", but then as one old C64 scener told me "I have always disliked FairLight, but now with your and Puterman's demos the group is actually cool."
When I was 14 years old I became friends with Wiggen who was in the same school as I. He had ordered some disks from Jerry/Triad who had been writing a column in the magazine Svenska Hemdator Nytt and offered disks with legal stuff like tools and demos. Wiggen was also active on fidonet. Wiggen and I started calling some of the remaining boards in Sweden like Warez Aquarium, Future Zone and The Studio and we tried to make our way into the scene. We struggled with coding and started drawing c/g, Wiggen who was quite good at petscii was soon taken into the group Accept. And we released some demos ourselves under the name Asgaard Designs. Wiggen went to the Ekerö meeting in Spring 1995 and met Logger who a few months later joined our group. I went to an Alter meeting in Stockholm a few weeks before the Remedy party and met Gum, Logger, Lynchbit, Brax, Sicking (later changed handle to Rooster), Zatt/Jam and Sailor/Triad. At one Alter meeting in Autumn 1995, Wiggen, Logger and I joined Alter.
Alter was one of the most active groups in Sweden at that time, and we did have some quite talented people in the group. Omed96 shows some of the potential that was in the group. But shortly after that demo was released there was some tension in the group and Lynchbit left and tried to take other members with him, but we all kept hanging out together occasionally anyway. By the end of 1997 we were getting more and more tired of not getting any recognition and as FLT seemed to be in a bit of crisis we thought that perhaps they would actually let us join, and with a big name people might actually bother to check our demos.
Wiggen hosted a small meeting where Logger, Gum, Bacchus and Vodka showed up, and we were let into the group on a sort of trial basis. After we had signed up on the FLT mailing list Bacchus sent out a mail with some information and rules. One thing was that we were not allowed to have any drug propaganda in our demos (see Meeting October, Omed96 and others by Alter to see what he was referring too). The email pissed off Brax enough so that he pulled out of the deal, writing a quite funny reply addressing the points in Bacchus' mail. One thing being the possibility of getting a fairlight.org email address if we did well (his response was something like "So what? Get a hotmail address instead, they are free and available for everyone.")
Logger went alone to The Party 97 (I bailed out for some dumb reason, despite that I had already bought a ticket to go with Spirous bus) and failed to finish the demo "Marabou Fantasies" (Bacchus tried to get us sponsored by a Swedish chocolate manufacturer, but it turned out that companies weren't as interested in C64 demo groups anymore). Duke and Sun Dancer joined FLT, and the trial members except for Loggger were kicked out. Taper didn't waste much time and quickly brought Wiggen and I into Triad. Logger followed along as he saw no point in being in FLT without us. I had some contact with Taper after calling his board and chatting with him on IRC. Getting kicked out of FLT seemed to be merit enough to be good enough for Triad.
We released "Spice Up Your Life" at LCP98 but after that Logger disappeared more and I had to take over the coding duties to get something done. 26 KG was probably my first demo I could feel sort of proud of. Being under the leadership of Jerry was a good thing, as the demos needed his approval before being released, and he accepted no bugs, which forced me to be very careful and always plan well ahead so I could snail mail the demo to him before the party to release at. Occasionally working on demos together with Iopop and Twoflower was a privilege as I adore their skills. I consider their demos Borderline, Over The Edge and The Throckmorton Device to be a few of the finest demos ever made on C64.
I left Triad in Autumn 2001 after some stupid arguments with people in and surrounding the group. Vodka noticed my bitching on IRC and offered me a membership in FLT. He was the only member of the group left then, but as I was mostly working on my own, at that time with graphical support from Bizk and Tempest of Damage I thought that it didn't matter. And FLT still had that tempting aura surrounding it.
J)
The Swedish scene seemed to be reborn with your activity at LCP, Floppy, Axis of Evil and more... your feelings?
H)
The first LCP and Floppy parties were quite depressing in a way. It was fun to meet other C64 sceners, but the releases were mostly awful (very much including the ones where I was involved). But something happened around 2000-2001, when a few groups had one or more active coders, so there was actually some competition and it was inspiring with the releases at each party. And we felt quite proud of what the Swedish part of the C64 scene contributed with during those most active years. We rented a mini bus which Wiggen drove to one of the floppy parties, my memory is quickly getting quite fuzzy, but I think we had members from WD, Triad, FLT and BD in the van and we joked about how Wiggen could kill off most of the active C64 demo scene if he didn't drive carefully. But he only bumped into a metal pole in a parking lot and kept forgetting to release the handbrake.
J)
What are your favourite self-participated productions under the FLT-label and why?
H)
I don't really like any of my demos one hundred percent, but some of the ones I feel good about in one way or another are: Pretending To See The Light. Jazzman's comment on pouet: "a rare example of GOOD scene poetry" makes me very happy.
hello:FRIEND. Probably my most personal and daring demo so far. As some scene.org awards jury members wrote: 'hello:FRIEND is to some members of the jury, the most significant demo released in the past eight years. It is important for showing how narratives, ambiguity and nuance can be weaved into a demo. A demo must show things. hello:FRIEND shows us things. But where it surpasses others is how it actually lies to its spectator. In that respect, it is the first literary demo.'.
Romeo, I like it especially since it only took 2 weeks to make. It has simple graphics, the text is stolen and all the scenes except Oxidy’s intro picture are copied from two music videos. But apparently few people except from evil paul/ate bit have tacky taste enough to notice the source, most other just label it as emo. My famous demo dictatorship was quite apparent during the stressed making of it. I hope I made up for some of Sander's hurt feelings by using his beautiful face in the demo.
Which leads to the question, from where I get inspiration. And the answer is anything I like. It might come from an old game like scarabaeus, from the illustrations of the Spanish edition of 20,000 leagues under the sea, or just a random google image search based on Puterman's description of an image he wants. If I see something I like, I will try to incorporate it into one of my projects and pass off the idea as my own.
J)
What are some funny things or memorable things that have happened for you since being a member of FairLight?
H)
You will always have fun with the people in FLT as we are a bit picky about who can join and if they fit in. We have people like Vodka - the mature leader who can start lecturing you at the restaurant, telling you "It's considered bad manners to start eating before everyone have gotten their food." and then fart loudly a few seconds later.
Dwangi - he's like an older mysterious relative. No one knows exactly where he lives, what he does for a living, or if there is any truth to the stories he tells: "So I arrive for my first day at work and these two guys are jerking off over my keyboard. That's not cool!", "No I can't come to the party, me and my dad are going out to smash speed cameras along the high way", "I have to quit IRC now, the plumber is here, I had to call him because I clogged the pipes after puking too much", "At every Bålsta party I always got pissed upon!"
Puterman - a well educated, shaved and dressed man who will get you thrown out of the sleeping hall at the party because he thinks the "no talking" rule is less important than sharing your most dirty sexual fantasies in a loud voice.
Maktone - the guy whose first thought after waking up at the party place with a bleeding wound in his face is "Oh, some guy must have landed a good punch on me yesterday. Sweet!" (Actually it was only a fight between Maktone and the bar desk)
Zabutom - he's not the last man standing. He's the last guy laying over the table, with his fist raised, shouting "Wööh!" or "FairLight! FairLight!"
Oxidy - to quote some of his former groupmates: "He has a wife, kids, a house and two jobs. He is so disgusting!", "He sold us Coca Cola at the meeting and made money off of it!". Definitely capitalistic FLT material.
Pantaloon - whose faith in the group's might is so strong that when the traffic lights on a heavily congested road in Stockholm shows red for pedestrians he simply stumbles straight out into traffic, puts his hand up against the cars and declares: "The traffic lights don't rule over FairLight!".
And then there is me, always well behaved and nice (and if I am not, I make a demo about it and get thumbs up on pouet). Except that one time at LCP when Morphfrog refused to take a bite out of chavez delicious water melon. If you have ever used an electric juice press to make your breakfast orange juice you might imagine the effect with the melon and Morphfrog's face when Mindflow and I refused to take "no" and heavy resistance for an answer. Sorry about that Morphfrog!
There were no releases in 2009 for the group at all. The first year since 1987 that the group had nothing to offer the scene. During the year FairLight had been working on their new demo for the upcoming mega party called Datastorm 2010. The party was held in Gothenburg in early February and it filled a large gap left by the Floppy party which was last held back in 2007. At the compo the group returned to form with their demo "One Little Wish" (Abaddon, Pantaloon, Zabutom, Louie64). The demo claimed first place in the compo with some nifty screens and awesome graphics. The graphics were provided by Louie64 who is in fact Louie 500/The Black Lotus (PC) who was later recruited as a new member to the FairLight payroll by Pantaloon. Another interesting point is that Bacchus made it to the party and did a bugfix on the demo whilst at the event. Not only did the group brandish the desire to conquer the demo battle at the party, but also the music department with Zabutom coming number one in C64 Music. Later at the Breakpoint party in April Finnish member Reed also arrived at number one in the Mixed Music category. Later in the year the mighty X-2010 event took place in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The October event brought people from all over the world to the rural countryside to wreak 8-bit havoc. FairLight entered their new demo called "We Are New". The demo placed number two in a tight race for the finish line. It includes FairLight's next generation on C64 rising to power, the work of Pantaloon, Louie64 and Abaddon. Also supporting the demo were Hollowman, Tempest and the return of an old musician to the scene - Danko. X-2010 provided one of the biggest graphic competitions in the modern world of C64. No less than 38 entries were present, Louie64 stole fifth place whilst Oxidy came in eighth.
...and that brings us to the current state of play. What will the future bring for the crew? Anything is possible, but what we do know is that the Datastorm 2011 party in Sweden looms and word is that the guys in FairLight are working on something for that event. We wait with anticipation.
12. SUMMARY
This article was made possible by exhaustive research and dedication over a long period of time. It is a living document and will continue to be refined and updated in accordance with the FairLight leadership council. In writing this huge article, my goal was to illustrate the achievements of one of the few remaining scene legends and provide an accurate account of the ever evolving FairLight profile.
The group continues not only to surprise the world of C64 but the much wider data-community with its releases and its mere legendary presence. The aura around the group and the power of its name is a testament to its achievements; and the fact that it has withstood the test of time, now in its third decade of dominance. Indeed, FairLight is built stronger to last longer. "FairLight" is bigger than one and even all of its platform-sections. FairLight is and you can rely on the fact that FairLight will continue to be!
Current active memberstatus: Abaddon, Bacchus, Hollowman, Louie64, Maktone, Oxidy, Pantaloon, Puterman, Reed, Sledge, Tempest, Vodka, zabutom.
13. DID YOU KNOW?
* Strider, Richard and Aaron are brothers.
* The origin of FairLight's anti-communist, Republican messages were inspired primarily by Strider's family history. Strider's family, immigrants from former communist Yugoslavia, were involved in a successful business in Sweden where he felt the country took more than their fair share in taxes. Hearing Ronald Reagan's message while growing up, a vocal message of anti-communism and pro-capitalism, it naturally resonated with Strider, and the US president became one of his top role models to this day.
* The "Censor Logo Destruct Editor" originally had another logo and had nothing to do with Censor originally.
* Hold "FLT" down in the Rubicon original to get unlimited lives.
* FairLight vs. FairLight... It is suspected that the 'L' was not originally capitalised, and at some point years later they started to capitalise it.
* At a party in Denmark in 1989 a lamer tried to climb up on the "POTBT" (Platform Of The Best Together) and Strider told him: "How dare you meet us!" and kicked the lamer's ass off the platform.
* In FairLight there is something called the "Hall of Fame". This is a special memberlist for the ones who have contributed to the glory of FairLight but who have now retired. No ordinary members will enter this section without some special talents, years of devoted work and a worldwide reputation.
* MWS knew some guy from his town and that guy's father was the local leader of the German Comminist party. MWS told Strider about that on a conference and they both decided to phone this guy up in the middle of the night. Strider shouted at him in German "DU DRECKIGER SCHWEINEHUND" (something like "you dirty pigdog")... MWS almost wet himself with laughter.
* Aaron was nicknamed "Doxie" because in the first two years of FairLight contributed the "Docs" (documentation) files for the group's cracks.
14. BULLETIN BOARDS
Aaron King (Aaron, Sweden)
Beyond (The Anarchist, USA)
Fish Bowl (Highlander, Australia)
Future Zone (Spirou, Sweden)
Cyberdome (Lexi, Germany)
Kingdom of Rats (Ratman, Germany)
Paradize (Sodapop, Sweden)
Shadowland (Duvel, Holland)
The Boardgazm (Seagull, Sweden)
The Pleasure Dome (Zike, Sweden)
The Dragon's Tower (Mendrake, Germany)
The Hidden (LA*Style, Germany)
The Intersection (Susieuzi, USA)
The Viking's Citadel (Valhalla, USA)
Warez Aquarium (Sledge, Sweden)
Wonderland (Flood, Sweden)
The Dungeon (The Alchemist, USA)
15. SLOGANS
- FairLight - The Delight of Eternal Might
- FairLight - Kill a Commie for Mummy
- You're not kewl b'cos you're a FairLighter - You're a FairLighter b'cos you're kewl!
- FairLight - The LegoLinkers
- FairLight - Home of the REAL crackers
- Built Stronger To Last Longer
- FairLight - When might is right
- The touch of a legend
- The choice of a republican generation!
- Quality, Tradition and Pride
