Ganja Man (Sam Bashton)

aliases Ganja Man, Ganja_Man, Sam Bashton

created 2026-08-30 · updated 2026-08-30

Teenage founder of the UK group lok, a handbag-house and jungle tracker in fasttracker-2, and the author of traxweekly's "Potted Tracking History". Sources: his March 1996 interview by zinc (source: s-tw052-interview-ganja-man), the July 1996 history (source: s-tw064-potted-tracking-history) and the December 1996 mass interview (source: s-tw080-trax-mass-interview).

Facts#

Sam Bashton, 15 in March 1996, 16 in December 1996, East London; was writing the music for a game in 1996 (sources: s-tw052-interview-ganja-man, s-tw080-trax-mass-interview).
Founded LoK because "in the UK … there weren't really any demo/music groups (at least not that I knew of)" and to educate #trax about jungle; on IRC since spring 1995 (source: s-tw052-interview-ganja-man).
Tracks UK club styles: loves happy hardcore and jungle, tracks handbag house best because of the pianos. Influences: maelcum, Sonic Ecstasy, the Happy Clappers, LTJ Bukem, Goldie, Photek. Starts a tune from a sample heard on a CD (source: s-tw052-interview-ganja-man).
Tools: XM, "because I can't stand the text interface of ST3" — he began on TCB Tracker on the Atari ST and needs a mouse; files at dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/ad021/ and ftp://tillbm.rpi.stu.edu/LoK/ (source: s-tw052-interview-ganja-man).
On hornet's reviewers: good for demo-style music, useless for club styles; keep the ratings but sort by style (source: s-tw052-interview-ganja-man).
Wrote "Potted Tracking History" (TW #64, 18 July 1996): the C64 → cracktro → demo lineage, chip tunes as the C64 habit carried to Amiga sample channels — summarised on tracker-scene-history and chiptune (source: s-tw064-potted-tracking-history).

source file wiki/entities/ganja-man.md · graph