C64 SID/chiptune music podcasts
Aside from the irregular (but entertaining) Retronauts podcast from 1up, I’ve been getting into some C64-themed podcasts over the last couple of months. The one I’ve been listening to the most would be the C64 Take-away (http://c64takeaway.com/), a great podcast hosted by the very enthusiastic Jan (and occasional host Makke). Based in Copenhagen, the boys do a brill job hosting the show, which features original and classic SID tunes as well as plenty of awesome remixes of classic SID tunes from the C64. I first got into the whole C64 remixing stuff when the first “Back in time” C64 remix soundtrack hit the internet. Gotta love the C64 love out there 🙂 Funnily enough, the latest episode I think had some feedback from another fellow Aussie, which was really cool — glad to know I’m not the only one down here following their show!
After listening to a couple of episodes, I started wandering around looking for some similar stuff, though I was leaning more towards just the SID chiptunes side of things, regardless of whether they were from games or original SID compositions. I haven’t had a stack of luck finding good podcasts (though because I’m an idiot, I didn’t bother looking around the links posted on the C64 Take-away blog, which I only looked at while I was preparing this post!), but I thought I’d share some of the nerd love I’ve found out there… all two of them 😛
I snagged a random episode off the 8bit Mayhem website (http://8bitmayhem.untergrund.net/), and I was hooked!! Ended up grabbing their entire back-catalogue of episodes 😀 😀 😀 There’s no hosting or talking between episodes here, nothing but pure SID goodness. Unfortunately it hasn’t been updated in nearly 12 months, but the back-catalogue is extensive and worthwhile looking into. I’ve got the whole lot sitting on my PC and have really enjoyed them.
Since then, haven’t stumbled onto too much, but I found an excellent SID-related episode over at Hardread’s website (http://hdpodcast.blogspot.com/) – episode 36 was a C64 SID-only special, and it is absolutely amazing (I’m listening to it as I’m typing this post up). If you’re keen to checkout that episode in particular, their page is here. The rest of their gear is chiptunes and demoscene music – if I got into the Amiga when I was younger I’d probably be all over it, but we never upgraded from the C64 until we got our first PC, a 386DX-40, so the C64 was our all-purpose PC until then 🙂
I don’t know what it is about C64 music made on the SID audio chip – it’s just so awesome. It of course helps that the C64 was absolutely massive in Europe during the 80s and 90s, and Europe being the epicenter of dance music in all its various flavours, has meant it wasn’t just blips and blaps coming out of that chip, it was crazy melodies and awesome synth brilliance. My love of chiptunes, game music and dance music on the whole can probably be linked all the way back to all the brilliant music on the C64, whether it be in-game stuff or the awesome demoscene music that cropped up everywhere.
… might have to go and play the C64 after I’ve finished these posts up – I’ve got one more to go before I finish up!
