Interview with Bacter of Quasars

Makke/Visuale/Hugi/Trebel

Okay, let's start.

My real name is Itzik Sarel and I live in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Right now I'm 15 years and 9 months old, I'll be 16 in October. My position in the scene is a musician which I started a year and a half ago, with Impulse Tracker, I compose music just for fun, because I don't have any place to publish them (the Israeli scene is quite dead). Well, about my handle, Bacter, it's a short of Bacterium, I don't really remember how I got to Bacterium. (smiles)

How was your trip to the USA?

Well, I'm really breathing America (smiles). It's REALLY different from all Europe, because it isn't as noisy as Europe is, people have a different attitude here and the music is TOTALLY different! You'll never hear the "bassdrum-hihat" beat which you hear in all the house/dance/trance songs which are in Europe. Well, maybe a bit of dance, but ALL the music here includes words in it and they think Europe doesn't know a jack shit about music. All the songs here are mostly rock/rap, and a bit pop and jazz (smiles), but NEVER trance OR house.

How did you become involved in the scene?

I started up from the WaReZ scene in 1996, which my friend got me into. I had a BBS in my house, and I used to trade new progs/apps with Israeli warez guys who called my board. In the end of 1996 I closed the board and quit the scene because I got tired of it. When I started tracking, at the beginning of 1998, I joined the Israeli demo scene, by a friend of mine (Trashey - he is a coder) and made friends with the Israeli trackers, I realized that the style I like the most is oldskool/pop/dance, and I'm doing what I can to keep away from trance (smiles).

Are you in any group at the moment? If so, which (and tell us a little history about it), if not, how come?

Yeah, I'm in the group called Quasars. My friend Trashey was a year before me in this group and he was a friend of all the coders there and he introduced me the musician of the group, then me and the musician started working on a music for a demo (which we thought we would finish in time to present it in an Israeli party in the mid 1998 - which was cancelled), and a few months after they grabbed me in. They have a demo that won 3rd or 4th place (I don't remember) at a party called Movement '97, the demo's called Funky Mechanizm, and the group itself exists since 1997 or before.

The Israeli scene seems to be quite dead. In fact I haven't heard anything since Movement '98, and according to you the Israeli scene is TOTALLY dead. So what's going on?

Well, the Israeli scene is unfortunately dead, Movement '98 seemed to keep it alive because it was quite 'active' party and there were a lot of products BUT the sad thing in the Israeli scene was the fact that an Israeli board had to keep it alive. Once it has been closed, all the Israeli scene is dead. That was kind of the only way that MOST of the Israeli sceners could be in touch, maybe some of them are still... I'm still in touch with some of the musicians, but except from that, there's no connection going between Israeli scene guys to other Israeli scene guys and there are no Israeli parties around. So if I can't be in the Israeli scene, I join the world scene (smiles).

Would you consider moving to a more "scene-active" country? (grins)

Hmm... MOVING just because of the scene?? (smiles) I'd never do that even though the scene means a lot to me, I can't move from my home country and leave everything for the scene, but I thought of taking part in world scene parties in the future, maybe in a year from now.

Do you have any scene-"idols" of any kind?

Hmm there are lots of them (grins) but they're not really idols, they're just my favourite scene guys (smiles), and because that I'm a musician, I have favourite musicians (smiles again), the world scene musicians that I like to hear the most are Necros, Purple Motion, Radix, Lizardking and there are more that I haven't thought of right now. Israeli musicians are DNA-Groove (I'm still in touch with the guy even though the Israeli scene is dead, some of you might know him... anyway if you wanna hear his music then go to his web-site: http://members.xoom.com/dnagroove), Mental Trip, Paso and Artemis. Maybe there are more here too which I forgot (smiles broadly).

Some people claim that diskmags are "not necessary", or no fun. Do you think diskmags are "not necessary"?

Of course not!! I think they are really necessary in the scene because they help keeping the scene alive! And it's the best way for sceners to open their mouths to the world scene and say what they think.

How about all this fuzz about MP3s in demos, and MP3'd modules in general. What's your opinion on this?

Well... I think that it's not the right way to make a demo because it's not appropriate to a scene demo. Usually in a scene demo you can listen to the XM/IT that is attached to it, and see the notes by yourself (that's what musicians like to do), when you have an MP3 attached to a demo (usually it's not even original - it was taken from somewhere) you cannot listen to it like you want, you cannot analyze it or make the changes you want in order to hear it well. An MP3 is recorded as it is. I like the way of the good old XM in a demo.

If Steve Jobs called you up, and threatened you, would you consider buying an iMAC?

NEVER! I never liked Mac in my entire life!

What's your favourite food and drink?

Favourite food: Pizza or Hamburger, and sometimes chinese (smiles), and favourite drink is Coke of course (smiles again).

Do you read? In that case what is your favourite book/author?

The only books that I read are English school books which I have to do book reports on for school, so I don't really have a favourite (smiles).

Are you planning to get a job that has something to do with computers in the future? (Or do you work with anything computer related?)

Hmm... I always wanted to learn coding and I learned really a bit, three years ago. I know I wanna work with something that is computer-related or 100% computers but I'm not sure what it is.

What's your favourite demo, diskmag (you don't have to say Hugi, grin), and scene-related homepage?

Gateways/Trauma, Hugi (smiles), www.scene.org & www.error-404.com.

Anyone you'd like to greet or kick in the arse?

Trashey - love you man!
DNA-Groove - same as above (smiles)
Makke - also same as above
Adok - same as all above

- Makke/Visuale/Hugi/Trebel