The Ghostly Green Pulse of the Cursor
Nov 2nd, 2007 by Donagh
I put this up here, Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground) from Grandaddy’s album “The Sophtware Slump” (2000) for no other reason than I like it so much. I came across it while having a peak at iprefertheobscureremix blog - and very nice music blog it is too.
Although I had never seen this before I know the song well, and I probably heard Grandaddy playing it when I went to see them in the Olympia or was it the Temple Bar Music Centre (or whatever its called now) back there at the beginning of the 21st century (Jim would know). Oh, how things were so undifferent then.
I also liked these factoids attached to the clip in the info section on YouTube:
“Programmed entirely in Applesoft BASIC on a vintage 1979 Apple ][+ with 48K of RAM — a computer so old it has no hard drive, mouse up/down arrow keys, and only types in capitals. First open-source music video, code available on website.”
The post that iprefertheobscureremix wrote linking to the vid is all about nostalgia and watching it I had a bout of it myself, especially when at the end, the camera pulls back just as the code runs down the screen and you can see the shape of the old Apple machine. When I was in fifth year I used to try to write programs in Applesoft BASIC on one of the only two computers the school had at the time. Both were Apple II c as far as I can remember.
Then, a year later, the school got into computers in a big way and installed a whole rake of BBC Master, Acorns. Probably donated by some aging benefactor with bad breath and a gammy leg who read in Time magazine about how personal computers are going to BE THE FUTURE.
I know it’s wrong to get nostalgic about old crappy computers. But fuck it, if Grandaddy can write a sentimental song about a humanoid robot called Jeddy-3, who wrote poems before crashing completely then I can get a little teary-eyed looking back at old machines that took up so much of my spare time as a teenager laboriously programming the fecking thing in order to play a rudimentary version of pong.
And NO, in case you’re wondering, I am not a nerd.
Postscript: I don’t know if my imaginary benefactor existed. I doubt it. But I like to think that he did. Because then I would have someone to blame for the fact that I’m sitting here now and not out ‘there’ enjoying myself, using all the leisure time that modern machinery was supposed to provide. What a pup this ‘future is technology’ thing was, what an indefatigable lie.
Very good. My first computer was an amstrad 6128, again no hard drive but it did have a floppy drive which really impressed my friend who had a spectrum 48k and needed a tape drive to load games. I too spent hours programming things in BASIC. I was into astronomy at the time and used to program it to draw a planet like sphere with rings around it like saturn! We used to play games like manic miner but eventually the games got better - there was Operation Wolf and the likes, which wasn’t bad for its time. In the end I grew tired of the games, and the moronic programming. And, after a couple of years, I sold the machine (at half price which was an unreal rip off given how computers were depreciating then as now) and spent the money on booze. The tragedy was that I ended up choosing a career in electronic engineering - which I took mainly because I excelled at maths, loved physics and had a vague but real intereset in electronics. From there I ‘drifted’ into a flavour of embedded software, where I still am today. I don’t do all that much programming now, but like everyone else, I spend all day looking into these screens. I once thought about writing a short satirical essay about a man trapped ‘inside the machine’, forever surging around the circuits, from hard drive to the innards of the processor. Looking out upon the world but forever trapped within the technology. But I failed to make a compelling case for the story. Looking at it now, and meditating on your post about computers and technology it feels that I’m not trapped inside the machine by trapped outside the machine. No trapped within the technology but by. Like you I feel the pain of the lie that technology liberates. Instead we need to be liberated from it. Aaah. At least it’s Friday, and I will enjoy a temporary release from the indomitable pull of this wretched machine. Perhaps I should be careful and use kinder words lest it drag me in… and ..wait a minute..what the ….a aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Tomaltach? Are you there, Tomaltach?
The irony of all this is that we have to communicate with machines, typing stuff in, hitting return, waiting for a reaction. Little has changed, except they’re now faster, snazzier, smaller and (maybe) less expensive.
But, oh God, its all coming back now. The Vic 20 connected up to the TV I used, the tapes. The dreary slowness of it all. Then the super-duper Commodore 64 (groan). The horrible spongy buttons of the Spectrum.
Part of the reason we’re so tied to technology now is its very mobility. Our permanent connectedness means that we’re always in work or glued to some electonic mobile device that effectively becomes a distraction from the changing colour of the leaves and the autumn sunshine… But Andrew O’Hagan tackles this subject better than I : http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n19/ohag01_.html
Now I really should get away from this damn lump of silicon and plastic and enjoy the sunshine. Tar-ah!
Nostalgia is a weird and wonderful thing Donagh, and thanks for the kind words. I hadn’t noticed the techie blurb when pilfering the Grandaddy video, but your post brought back alot of memories too. I remember having an old Sinclair ZX Spektrum 48k (everyone else had a C64 I seem to remember), playing games like Manic Miner and Jetpack. The ordeal involved in loading a game! Sometimes you’d have to play the tape 10-15 times, and hold the tape recorder at a certain angle for it to load! Ridiculous, but for it’s time, revolutionary. I also recall spending 2-3 days programming the bloody thing, so my brother and I could play hangman on it. God, the hassle!! And once we finished programming it, we realised we already knew the 3 words compatible with the game, as we had to input these also. Jeez, what an anti-climax! I didn’t even know what a meringue was at the time, I was only 10, but after that game I sure knew how to spell it.
You’re welcome and you’ve reminded me to update our music blogroll. This thread is becoming a real memory vault. I remember the ordeal with the tape recorder. Maddening. But it was all very exciting at the time. Or so I thought.
Miner from the dial-a-view… genius. Grandaddy are a fabulous band.
As for the Apples? Hmmm, my first was an LC. But I never learned programming. Left that to Mr. Jobs…
Hmmm, my first was an LC
Very annoying the way there was a splitting off between PCs and Apples. For example I’m not familiar with the LC at all. I’ve only used a Mac on the odd occasion and then only when I couldn’t find the can opener
On that topic this amused me
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html
Many thanks for including me in the blogroll!
I’m still pretty new to this, so it’s nice get the mention, you guys are in mine since day 1. I never managed to program anything except that bloody hangman game, so this is an education. Although, I did just gave away my very first sampler to a friend last week. The old Akai s950, which I bought in London in 1997. It had a whopping 12 second sampling capability! Ridiculous when I think of it now, but at the time it was considering a great machine. When I got back from London that year, one 1/2 of Dublin electronic act, Decal, drove me to Carlow and back in a blizzard of snow, to buy an Amiga 500. This was how I got into making electronic music. I think the program for the A500 was Music X, a midi compatible sequencer. It’s bizarre to think that Decal made their first album with this computer, the album is still a classic. I never really achieved any work of quailty with it. In 10 years i’ve gone from an A500, Music X, and an Akai s950, to a fancy laptop, Ableton, soft synths, etc. How times have changed, and progressed. But a good workman should never blame his tools, so they say, and Decal were proof that a little could go a long way.
I should have noticed sooner, but it’s there now and that’s the main thing and thanks for linking us in from the beginning. I’ve always loved electronic music but aside from doing repeated bleep effects with my kids fisher-price toys I’ve never played with anything, so this is an education for me. Nice to find out about the progression of technology in music, something I’ve always been curious about but never so much that I would dabble. A friend, who as far as I know, doesn’t play an instrument got into music software a while ago, with fairly positive results by his own account. He’s a software boffin, but also a big Fall fan and considering that bands experiments with electronica it doesn’t necessarily bode well. I once worked with Donnacha Costello and in the studio one time he showed me how you can apply these different sound filters to a track much like you would to picture in photoshop.
I was listening to a lot of Pole and To Rococo Rot at the time, so was amazed to see just how easy it was to add the dub effect and the scratchy vinyl effect onto a piece of music (superficially easy). I saw Decal support To Rococo Rot in Whelan’s (the Germans complained bitterly about the complete disinterest of the audience at the Trinity Ball where they played the night before). I wasn’t too gone on Decal after that performance, as live they did the scratch and glitch a bit too heavily while I preferred the mellower click n cut stuff. Have to say I haven’t tracked down much Decal after that, though I’m lead to believe that they’re stuff is great.
I mess around with Logic on an Apple. Various softsynths including V-Station, Albino, Vanguard and so on. It’s great fun. Extremely relaxing. And - shameless self promotion time - believe it or not a friend of mine used a couple of pieces for corporate presentations and - er - the backgrond music for the opening of Cromcastle Shopping Centre (I used to know it as Northside SC). Donagh, hand the Fishcher Price back to those as need it and go for it…
World - I moved onto Logic for the PC after Music X. Then swaped to FL Studio when Logic was bought by Apple. The last year or so I’ve used Ableton, and various soft synths. Mainly Native Instruments synths, like the Moog, Minimoog, Arp, and B4. Yep, it’s great fun! I’ve managed to release a small bit of stuff over the last few years. My current band are just putting the finishing touches to our second album, out early next year, so I’m quite excited. We’ve managed to integrate the laptop and Ableton into the band and live set-up, along woth loads of live instrumentation. That’s my shameless bit of self promotion over with also, I’ll hold off on naming the project as it’s not fair to plug it here. But best of luck with the composing and sequencing, it is a blast! I was a big fan of Logic and was gutted when it became Mac only.
Donagh - I was into that dubby sound you spoke of, and a big fan of Pole, especially the Red album. Donnacha is an excellent producer, and his Minimise releases are generally fabulous. You’re right about the ease with which some of these effects can be produced. In Ableton, there are effects named Berlin, Cologne, Tresor, etc. It’s quite simple to recreate various styles and genre’s at the touch of a button. It’s the people that really dig deep within a program, and utilise it’s full capabilities that produce something lasting and memorable. I still remember the first time I applied the Beat Repeat effect to a beat I’d been working on. It sounded great, but I was gutted because I’d just discovered Four Tet had based much of his career and output around this one trick. I’m getting super nerdy now! I believe there’s a new To Rococco Rot album on the way, and I’ve heard it’s rather fine.
WorldbyStorm: Maybe I should dabble, but I think I prefer to listen for the moment. At least you got your stuff out to an audience but I’m horrified to be reminded that the Northside Shopping Centre still exists, never mind that its now called Cromcastle. What’s all that about? Something vaguely colonial about that name. That it should exist on a road named after Oscar Traynor surely must be an insult to our nationalist heritage. I think I’d better venture no further than fisher-price toys just in case my nearest and dearest insist on carrying firearms to protect their sanity.
Prefer, keep those details coming. This is facinating. It’s like flicking through a hybrid magazine, part sound equipment catalogue and part Wire. I like that ‘his Minimise releases are generally fabulous’. I liked his first album, but it was just a little too minimalist. As you can tell, I don’t see much of him these days. Thanks, you’ve complete destroyed any respect I had for Four Tet up to this point. There’s me thinking he judicious samples jazz records and skillfully mixes sounds until its just right. And to think that he just does it at the click of a button. I’ll have to keep an eye out for TRR.
Apologies for shattering the illusion of Four Tet Donagh. I was gutted myself! I’m pretty sure it’s this he is using, god help the poor chap if he has been splicing and dicing old jazz beats, he’ll be gutted to hear there’s a button that does it all in seconds! It’s the musical equivalent of wasting a day tunneling under a fence, only to find when you reach the other side there was a big hole in it you could’ve just walked through!
Donnacha is actually finally getting around to releasing his Colours Series on CD, a series of singles he did a few years ago, that put him on the map internationally. It’s a great introduction for anyone wishing to catch up with his work.
I’ll come back to you with some techie nuggets, a la Wire Donagh, but i’ll leave you with this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9SpobHVOTo
One of the guy’s in my band is a producer by day, and he recently bought an Omnichord off ebay. It arrived yesterday, and when we got to the studio we had so much fun! Nearly as much as this guy. It’s an awesome/bizarre machine, that’s played like a piano, kinda, but with buttons and a panel you strum rather than keys. Bizarre! Enjoy the clip.
Thanks. A truly strange instrument, what with the vague strumming/stroking, plucking and punching of keys. It was he was giving the Omnichord a Jujitsu massage.
I worked with Donnacha when he first signed to Mille Plateaux. He was wide eyed with joy and said it had been his dream since he was 12. To be a recording artist, not to sign with Mille Plateaux. Don’t think the German recording label was around when he was 12.
I’d be interested to hear those singles.
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