Goto80

Anders Erik Carlsson, Swedish chip musician and researcher, founder of the demoscene group Hack n' Trade — and defMON's first user (2008) and live-improvisation champion: "I mostly improvise by typing on a keyboard. It's similar to live coding but where they use programming languages, I use a dedicated music software on Commodore 64 called defMON" (sources: s-wikipedia-goto80, s-goto80-site-defmon-posts).

Facts#

• Biography (per Wikipedia, a secondary source): born 1981-02-09 in Varberg, Sweden; released his first demoscene music in 1993 at 12 (the infobox says active from 1992); founded Hack n' Trade, later worked with Fairlight and Triad; in 2001 "one of the first Gameboy live performances with LSDj together with Role Model" (lsdj); debut album Commodore Grooves (2005), the same year artist of the year at the Microdisko Chipmusic Awards and one of three nominees for all-time C64 composer at Commodore's official 25-year celebration; in 2007 one release every month, in 2008 an attempt at one song every day (internet2008.se, with Dan Brännvall); Breakfast (2009) "has been listed as one of the top-10 chip songs of all time"; after 2009 darker, "often improvised completely on Commodore 64" work (source: s-wikipedia-goto80).
• Researcher: MA thesis at Lund University (2010), Power Users and Retro Puppets — a Critical Study of the Methods and Motivations in Chipmusic; textmode/PETSCII collaborations with Raquel Meyers since 2011 — in 2012 "they claimed to be the first to make a performance using only PETSCII-based graphics and music software" (source: s-wikipedia-goto80).
• Tools, first-hand (Remix64 interview, 2002-09-18): started C64 music in the mid-1990s in K12's Groovy Beat, "settled with JCH's editor" — the jch-editor, with NewPlayer 20.G4 — on a real C64 with a new SID (8580), 1541/1581 and an Action Replay 6; came from composing chip modules on the Amiga but "wanted the real deal with the SID-chip" (source: s-remix64-goto80-interview).
• On the SID (2002): dislikes the envelope bug — "the attack, fucks up now and then (which hardrestarts kinda solves)" (hard-restart, adsr-envelope) — and 6581/8580 variance ("listening to my tunes on an old SID is not a good idea at all"); loves "ringmodulation, knee-deep pulsemodulating bass sounds and the freedom of the SID" (ring-modulation-and-sync, pulse-width-modulation); sign-off: "Don't imitate, innovate - fuck emulators" (source: s-remix64-goto80-interview).
• defMON's first user and co-shaper: on trying it in 2008 he exclaimed "Man.. I gotta quit my job!"; "Every week I met with the author, and we jammed with two C64:s running defMON. These jam sessions fed back into the development of the program, which become a very powerful live instrument. Some of these jams were later edited and released under the name Kommando Knorr"; in 2020 he credits frantic plainly: "My computer compadre Mad Frantic made it, and I've helped him out with a few suggestions and ideas over the years"; frantic brainstormed defMON II's live features with him (sources: s-defmon-wiki-releases, s-goto80-site-defmon-posts, s-chipmusic-defmon-thread).
• Improvisation practice (live-tracking): started jamming in 2007 (a Game Boy-only set at a raided open-air party; a museum show sequencing his JCH-editor song live to Raquel Meyers' visuals); by the defMON era he performs "completely from scratch, in front of an audience. No instruments prepared, no sequences, no concepts. I booted defMON and started to type"; the Dataslav project let the audience hand in requests mid-improv; on the design he values most: "the possibility to not even have any fixed instruments at all, is what gives defMON its spiritual power" (2018-08-01) (sources: s-goto80-site-defmon-posts, s-chipmusic-defmon-thread).
• defMON in his rig: synced defMON to a TR-808 via DIN sync (he reported sync delay $05 as optimal); had a robot arm play defMON; his demo tunes ship on the release .d64s; the DUBCRT cartridge album (Datadoor) was made with defMON, and his music disk ＿|￣|○ and Hollowman's demo In Memory of carry defMON tunes (sync; sources: s-defmon-wiki-sync-and-stereo, s-defmon-wiki-releases, s-chipmusic-defmon-thread).
• Distribution: following demoscene practice most of his music is free (~1000 songs online by 2007); "His early C64-songs were distributed as executable files and not recordings, and they sounded different every time they looped" (source: s-wikipedia-goto80).
• A named habit inside the editor: defmon's hard-restart chapter lists four ways to absorb the two-frame delay a restart costs, and one of them is his — set the sound up on the line before and trigger the note later ("goto80 does this") (hard-restart; source: s-defmon-wiki-defmoning-102).
• What his recordings recruit: the 2019 electro·pizza guide to running defMON under vice exists because its author heard him — "The sounds he is able to tease out of the Commodore's SID chip are unlike most C64 music I have heard, making me very curious about this esoteric application" — and it ends where he stands: the emulator is for practice and sound design, the real machine for playing (source: s-electropizza-defmon-vice-chip).

Related#

defmon · frantic · lsdj · live-tracking · hard-restart · sync · sid · chiptune · tracker-scene-history

Sources#

s-wikipedia-goto80 · s-remix64-goto80-interview · s-goto80-site-defmon-posts · s-chipmusic-defmon-thread · s-defmon-wiki-releases · s-defmon-wiki-sync-and-stereo · s-defmon-wiki-defmoning-102 · s-electropizza-defmon-vice-chip