Inteview with Chromag
found in | Type | Author | Year |
Diskmagazine interviews | Talent Boo - Cindy - D-orb - ... | a5/94 |
Chromag/Polka Bros. by Boo/Talent Chromag is the guy behind the music disk, "Chromagic", which has climbed very high in several charts lately. He is also known for being an active composer for several diskmags in the scene. Maybe you listen to his tune right now? What do you think people out there wants to know about you? Just introduce yourself with som real facts. And please behave! I'm currently 19 years old and I'm still attending school, in fact I've just finished my final exams, the "Abitur" as we say it or "le bac" for our french readers, and "gøbelhoden" in norwegian. After having finished school, I'll start my civil service at a local kindergarten, which lasts for 15 months and after that I'll become a professional composer of gameshow-scores. Up to now, my tunes can be heard in several famous german shows such as "Der Preis ist heiss", "Gluecksrad" and "Wuerfelhusten und Darmverschluss". Now for the real facts you wanted to know... I'm a swapper (da kewlest elita, wid hunderd doods! Plenty ruller!) and technomusician and sometimes I also give interviews, but they are rare because noone's actually interested in me at all, which is a fact that keeps on depressing me all the time, so I'm glad to be here. Furthermore, I'm playing the keyboards in a local rock-band and I sometimes go out to buy a new joystick and stamps, and I love diskmags, especially 42! Thanks, I feel flattered! Well, now you can tell us what groups you have been a member of through your time in the scene, and when you made your first modules? Everytime I join a group, I immediately get kicked out, because I want to be a full-time swapper, not doing music at all, I've therefore been in quite a few groups, ea sunt: Megaforce, Ecstasy, Exult Proton Ltd., Royal Amiga Force, End of Century 1999, Cult, Addonic, Platin, Dual Crew, Essence, Dual Crew-Shining, Polka Brothers. My first tune was made in 1989 and fortunately didn't get used, as it sounded pretty horrible and was sort of the worst Walkman rip-off ever, but noone starts as a pro, right? If you want to get the first ever released piece of music by me you should grap your nostalgy-box and search for the Exult megademo II, boot it and... Surprise! A "Chromac" module (they didn't even know how to spell Chromag at that time...) from 1990(?). I entered the "scene" in 1988, one year after I got my first A500 and joined the mighty (fake-)Ecstasy (not the one from Havok/SNT, though) as a swapper, organizer and code-ripper (haha!). Anyone seen our unbeaten Cli-packs and sounddisks? Gosh, we knew how to use the type command in ultimate perfection... Everybody knows that Dual Crew is in a co-op with Shining. How did these two groups smash together, and how is the friendship in DCS? I don't want to cause any anger, as I've just left the team but objectively I'd say that the friend- ship in DCS is very good, as all the members I know are very friendly, especially Red Devil. On a Shining and Dual Crew meeting it was decided to merge together, also because Mutant, Stookie/DC and Iridon/Shining had been together on the good old 64 back in 1985 and both groups had always been in close relationship so it wasn't such a big step for the fusion. Referring to the high amount of members though, it's almost impossible to get to know every member, but I have been in contact with some of my fellow-musicians and I live in the same city as the former german organizer. DCS has got an enormous potential of brilliant graphicians and musicians, but some coders tend to be a little bit too lazy. >> Continued next page << >> Continued from last page << You left DCS to become a pure Polkabrother, so what can you tell us about them? Accidently this is my only group at the moment and it was built years ago by Airwalk/Kefrens and Easley/Parasite. Its aim is not to rule the scene or something even more boring but to see things from the point of fun and friendship. First it seemed to be a sort of joke group with double-members only but then almost all of PB joined as full-timers. Here's a short memberlist: - Airwalk/ex Kefrens - Chromag/ex Dual Crew-Shining - Devilstar/Virtual Dreams - Dice/ex Kefrens - Easley/ex Parasite - Gargoyle/ex Parasite - Julius/ex Lemon. - Mount/ex Parasite - Pixie/ex Parasite - Slide/ex Parasite - Twilight/Desire - Vention/ex Kefrens - Zinko/Kefrens Do you your group have any coming productions you want to inform us with? I have heard that "Chromagic II" will be out in 1994, is that so? All of the tunes for another musicdisk have already been finished by me, I just have to force someone to code and pixel... As you see, nothing's really firm up to now, but there will certainly be a musicdisk by me this year. I've also done a LOT of tunes for various disk- mags and I still don't get sick of composing. DCS Germany will soon release "Mel o'dee's for Millions", a musicdisk by err... (no need to tell you, eh?) and I heard that Polka will release a megademo, but I don't know.. Just wait and be surprised. What is your favourite demo, group, coder, musician, graphician, and game? (If you feel like mention more than just one coder etc, please do!) My favourite demo is Spaceballs' "Nine Fingers", believe it or not I voted for it at The Party III, unfortunately it didn't win, though Spaceballs is not my favourite demogroup, as I prefer Virtual Dreams, CnCd & Movement. I'm not a coder, but I think Dr. Skull & Tsunami are both skilled AND active, which is very important as far as I'm concerned. Graphicians say that Hof is the best, so he probably is, but my favourite one is of course Fade One! The best musician is without any doubt Dizzy/CnCd and MANY musicians will agree with me that his music is out of this world, Dizzy has done brilliant tunes when most of us were sorry lamers, playing Winter games etc. Heatbeat, Groo, Dean, Strobo and Jogeir are names that should be mentioned here as well. My favourite game is still Super Mario Kart and Zelda on Super Nintendo, I don't have any Amiga games though, my brother's Snes is better anyway. And if I wanted to play games worth playing I'd buy a Pc with all its cards etc.. >> Continued next page << >> Continued from last page << I have heard that you also make music for games. Can you confirm this? Where did you get this rumour from, did I tell you? It's partly true as I've done the music for a detective game called Humphy, done by the world famous Cultural Productions (Cybersonik, Mount, Estrup, Chromag) which was published as free-ware and I'm not sure if I'm doing the title- track for a game by some french friends of mine (I'd like to, but they are not sure yet, actually). If anyone wants a game-/demo- or diskmag tune don't hesitate to contact me, I'll try to send back a tune to everyone... Write to: Timm Albers Sauerlandstr.49 48527 Nordhorn Germany Please tell us something about the "Fair Charts" you are doing. Don't you think that today's charts are fair at all? The "Fair Charts" is just an idea to see who really deserves to be in the charts. Musicians vote for the musicians they want to see on top, as most musicians complain about e.g. Jester's position. I don't generally think that charts are unfair as you always vote for the most popular, not neccessarily the best one. Despite this fact I think it is quite inter- esting to see the result, as musicians judge musicians from another point of view, other than swappers, who mostly seem to be the ones who regularly vote in the charts. All I can say up to now is that Jester didn't receive a single vote by other musicians yet.. You just mentioned the position of Jester, do you think he deserves to be on top of every charts? If so many people complain about his position, why do they vote for him? Obviously there are more people who like his music than people who hate it, so I don't really care as long as I've got other favours. All I can say is that this C-min-A#-maj synthpop stuff is very easy to do, but only Jester is able to catch the audience perfectly it seems... Thank you for taking your time doing this interview, Chromag! Do you have any last words for our dear readers? Greets to everyone at The Gathering, especially the Talent-ed ones (hoho) and the following persons: Fester, Funky, Homicide, Cybersonik, Interphace, Hollywood, Groo, Clawz, Twilight, Slam, Dascon, P$, Touchstone, C.A.T., Howie, Wotw, Skull, Kris, Daze, Schmoovy Schmoov, Polka Brothers, Dual Crew-Shining, Trasher, Oxide, Estrup, Mount, Liquid, Zinkfloid, Virgill, Adder, Rackler, Melvin, Chorus, Colorbird, Cartoon, Laxical, Uga Software, Cultural Prod- uctions and last not least thanks to Boo/Talent for his patience. And always remember, never to believe me and my crappy answers... Why stand on a silent platform - fight the war, fuck the norm!