Interview with p-rat
Session Start: Tue Nov 17 20:42:53 1998
<p-rat> Jo!
<Adok> Hi p-rat!
<p-rat> But you place the questions, haha! :) Hi Adok!
<Adok> Yeah, of course. :)
<Adok> So, who are you? Introduce yourself to the readers!
<p-rat> Let's go... OK, I'm Sascha von Dages aka p-rat. 21 years old, scener
since 4.58 years. I come from Germany, Karlsruhe (near Stuttgart)... and I
work as a domain coordinator for a big bank here in Germany.
<Adok> What did you do in the scene?
<p-rat> I write some music from time to time. And I idle sometimes on that
shitty IRC... And I try to talk to those elite-sceners...
<Adok> Do you program, too? As you said that you are a coordinator in a bank.
<p-rat> No, I'm only a kind of coordinator. Well, I have a lot of functions in
the firm I work. But I can't program or code any tools or stuff.
<Adok> I see... so a type of manager I guess.
<p-rat> A type of, yes... Well, I work in a team, and I'm one of those
part-project-leaders for my group.
<Adok> What kind of music do you compose?
<p-rat> I compose everything, but mostly ambient/trance/esoteric stuff. :)
<Adok> On what computers have you been active, and in what groups?
<p-rat> I began with the scene in 1994 with a nice local PC Group called "The
Cross". It was very funny, because we were really newbies. Then I started to
create my own group on Amiga. The name was "Phase Distortion - PHD". It was a
Music-Only-Group, and we released a lot of 4-channel MODS. We had ca. 10-15
members, and yes, the group is still alive, but without me, because I left the
group in feb. 1998. I joined another musicgroup called "Tokyo Dawn Rec." and
at the same time i joined first one group, Embassy, which is still one of the
leading Amiga demogroups nowadays. The other one was RAMJAM. It is a legendary
group with PC/AMIGA/JAVA sections. In oct. 1998 I left all groups and yes, I
quit the scene.
<Adok> Why did you quit the scene?
<p-rat> Short and easy: too busy with my real life - no interest in the scene
anymore.
<Adok> Can you tell us more what it was like in the old days, when you were
active in the scene?
<p-rat> Well, that's a hard question... (brain-storming)... Huh, ok... When I
was active, all the ppl weren't on Internet. I had my own BBS, and all my
scenefriends called my bbs, and we chatted and phoned together. All the
file-archives were filled with new great scene-releases. And everything was
like a familiy in the scene.
<Adok> Can you tell us more details? Try to remember!
<p-rat> When I was new to the scene there was no Internet in this style. We
were still at the time of the Bulletin Boards Systems. In those days everybody
knew everyone and it was easier to make up and execute plans. The releases had
a better quality then nowadays. The number of true scene-releases then was
much higher than today, too. At that time there were much more active sceners
and it was much more fun. The lack of graphicians and coders of today hardly
existed. Nowadays 60-70% of the sceners are musicians.
<Adok> Try to remember more details: Everything is interesting. Who was there?
What events did happen? What programming languages, tracking programs, utils
etc. were used? Any chitchat?
<p-rat> OK, no problem. When I started with THE CROSS as a musician,
everything was completely new for me. I can exactly remember when two of us
visited a third member. That was Eunice/TheCross. I visisted him together with
Raytrayza. The three of us then used FastTracker2 for composing, which we
still use today. We also met the graphician of our group because we lived
closely together. We developed the funniest plans. If we had realized
everything we would have become as popular as Future Crew (well, actually we
would be much, much more popular). Unfortunately we didn't realize nearly as
much, since we already had the problem of the unproductive members. So there
were only about 2-3 intros but that disturbed nobody because it was enormous
FUN to us, and that is what counts.
Well, my handicap was actually that I composed on the AMIGA and hence was the
only Amiga user in THE CROSS (PC GROUP). Well, in 1995 I got the idea to set
up a group on the Amiga. So I searched for some people to support my plan. I
checked many BBSes and searched through the AmiNet for good musicians. Then I
found a tune by JUICE (Nikola Fox), whom I immediately mailed and asked if he
wants to join me. He said "YES" at once, and so "PHASE DISTORTION" was
founded, also known as "PHD". We searched for various sceners from various
countries, and so the group became super-international. Our concept was
simple: We wanted to help rather unknown musicians to get KNOWN in the scene,
and we just wanted to get our music "PUBLIC", which we managed to do pretty
well. It developed quite well, and we had a rather good reputation in the
scene. Unfortunately I left the group at the beginning of 1998 because I
wasn't in the right mood any more. My urge to get active in other groups as
well grew.
Shortly I became a member of EMBASSY (AMIGA DEMOGROUP) and TOKYO DAWN REC. (at
that time a newly bred PC MUSICGROUP). I was only half-active in both groups,
for the reason that I had realized meanwhile that it was not just the urge for
a new group but simply the basic motivation and inspiration was missing. In
the meantime my real life had changed a lot, too (new job, new and other
hobbies etc.).
My last try was RAMJAM. I became member because of Surfing's wish (Surfing is
the organizer of RamJam). Here we had enough plans for demos, intros etc.,
too. Unfortunately they never realized anything with me since I've also
blocked often and just had no motivation. The work with my real-life job
steadily increased, so that after some time I did not have enough time to
compose some special music for intros etc. My interest as regards SCENE
diminished to ZERO, and so I quit all groups and officiall quit the scene in
October 1998.
<Adok> Now that was interesting! And what are your plans for the future?
<p-rat> First of all I want to climb up my professional career. However, I'll
remain true to music, too (it's simply an addiction) and will get attention in
the scene from time to time. I also thought of professional music but somehow
I am lacking time, and since it is meant to be fun, I stay with FastTracker at
the moment. Soon I'll post all my tunes on a homepage and might found some
kind of "music label" (non-commercial). I'll release my tunes time from time
under that label. Apart from that, destiny leads me.
Session Close: Tue Nov 17 21:54:55 1998
- adok^hugi