TW #18 — Interview with Lord Pegasus (Psibelius)

psibelius interviews "Sammich Man" lord-pegasus of kosmic and ACiD on IRC, with private messages from blackwolf printed in between; Psibelius's capture failed before the end. (Lord Pegasus's earlier flame at perisoft, appended to the pinion interview in #14, is not summarised — see s-tw014-interview-pinion.)

Key claims#

• Zack Smith, from Georgia, USA; groups Kosmic and ACiD (the pHluid musicdisk). Plays no instrument "save for some PHAT chords bh taught me over the phone on piano".
• Origin story: heard mods such as control77 and die.mod through the PC speaker, begged his parents for a Sound Blaster 1.0, later got an SB16 — "Why no gus? I dunno" (see gravis-ultrasound). Found ModEdit 1.0; first song distorsion: one guitar sample, one pattern, seven seconds. "Then I got st3 and I got better … I started writing MUSIC when I got st3"; he still has his first S3M (see scream-tracker-3).
• basehead as mentor: "he has definitely helped school me", "he says I track like him sometimes", "I use like 50% bh samples"; Basehead's poet!klf is "a remix of one of my own". He is beginning to learn theory from the necros and Basehead articles ("thanks nec / bh").
• Workflow: "no set way" — sometimes the bassline first, sometimes "a neat chord pattern", sometimes a song built around certain samples, sometimes banging on keys. Knows little theory: "I just keep changing notes until I find what sounds 'good'" and admits "some music theory would help". Made two samples from "my pSR" for his latest tune. Some songs are finished in hours, others pulled off the hard disk from years ago; he can sit at the tracker all day on caffeine (Jolt "when I can find it").
• On Necros's "drinking while tracking does NOT get good results": "full of shit" — he loses ideas when he gets up for a drink, so a litre of cola next to the keyboard is good; alcohol leads to "odd songs", like his funky version of the Dragon Warrior (NES) theme.
• Ripping: "rippers suck … they have like no musical talent"; a whole S3M of his was ripped — "it was funny how bad the song was". Immortal Software Productions (Vortex/Muzikman) get an expletive. Irritation: people on the channel asking for .MODs of Green Day.
• The scene "is not well known enough to really impact the 'real world'"; the article on the demoscene in Wired is "a start"; "KOSMIC WERLD DOMINATION".

Practical takeaways#

• A by-ear tracker's loop — change notes until it sounds right — works, but its owner says theory would shorten it.
• Sample sharing with credit: half of his instrument set is Basehead's; the influence is audible and acknowledged.

Notable quotes#

• "Most of my songs sounded like camels flatulating… Then I got st3 and I got better." — Lord Pegasus.
• "I just keep changing notes until I find what sounds 'good.'" — Lord Pegasus.

Relevance#

A second-generation Kosmic tracker's origin (PC speaker → Sound Blaster → ModEdit → ST3), how Basehead's samples and phone lessons propagated a style, the other side of the drink-and-track argument, and one more hearing on sample-ripping.

Pages touched#

lord-pegasus, basehead, kosmic, necros, scream-tracker-3, gravis-ultrasound, sample-ripping, tracking-workflow, psibelius, pinion, perisoft, blackwolf, tracker-scene-history.