TW #30 — Faces in the Crowd: Interview with Ender (Master of Darkness)
Master of Darkness ("Mdark", Aim Higher) talks to ender, the sole musician of the small Albany demo group Foundation, in the Faces in the Crowd interview printed as "#7" and conducted on 1995-10-07. Half of it is a discussion of how newcomers are treated on #trax.
Key claims#
- Andrew Burke is the musician of Foundation, "a small and unknown demo group" in Albany, upstate New York: two coders, one musician, "a budding artist". The group is new to the scene; he had been on #trax only a short while.
- Composing for about nine months (since early 1995); he started after hearing music one of the group's coders had written — the reverse of the usual musician-turns-coder path, as Mdark notes. He had never heard anything from the MC3 compo.
- Style: "a mix of classical music (comes from playing violin for 9 years) and techno or ambient". Nearly all his theory comes from the violin: "I think it must be almost impossible to track without any theory background. It would take you forever, and prolly not sound that great either."
- Writes for himself, not to inspire others: "If it's meant to inspire anyone at all, it's me."
- Reception on #trax has been good — "most people treat you with respect as long as you give them the same"; those who complain are "jerks, and expect to be treated like gods". He has had small arguments with Floss and basehead, whose work nevertheless influenced his.
- Mdark relays Basehead's side of the hero-worship problem: newcomers greet the "biggies", get no reply, then complain; Basehead does not understand the "can I shine your shoes" treatment. Mdark's own history: he came onto #trax, bugged necros and Basehead, "lashed out against everyone in anger", and learned — "RESPECT IS EARNED, NOT GIVEN." His examples of the elite "warping the norm": what skaven and jase did for Assembly and MC3.
- Foundation hoped to release a demo at NAID 96 and enter most of its compos.
- Releases (all S3M) on the hornet archive, ftp.cdrom.com:
fdn-val.zip(incoming),fdn-innr.zip,fdn-simx.zip,fdn-strs.zipunder/pub/demos/music/songs/1995/s3m/f/.
Practical takeaways#
- Theory learned on a real instrument transfers directly to the tracker; Ender's nine years of violin are his whole theory background (see tracking-workflow).
- The 1995 #trax etiquette, from both sides: give respect to get it, and do not expect the well-known names to answer compliments.
Notable quotes#
- "I think it must be almost impossible to track without any theory background." — Ender.
- "RESPECT IS EARNED, NOT GIVEN." — Master of Darkness.
Relevance#
A newcomer's 1995 experience of the scene, and the FITC series' recurring theme (hero-worship and elitism) stated from the interviewer's own past. Ender placed 13th in 20mc #6 the same month (source: s-tw032-20-minute-chip-compo).
Pages touched#
ender, basehead, necros, skaven, traxweekly, tracking-workflow, hornet, master-of-darkness, jase.