Interview with Miss Saigon / Threesome

Cremax/Nothing

1. Can you tell us about you and your group?

I'm Miss Saigon, the musician for my group, Threesome. The other two members are Kneebiter and Moby Disk. The group was formed sometime in 1994, while we were trying to make up our minds about making a production for the NAID 95 demoparty. So far we've made 2 productions as a group, Expression (NAID 95 demo) and Dyslexia (1st place NAID 96 intro). We've also had many individual projects.

2. What do you think about the progress nowadays in the demoscene?

Well, I think the demoscene is certainly changing. A lot of people say it's getting too commercial and losing its spirit, but I think comercial sponsorship is a necessary evil if the demoscene is going to keep going. As for progress with effects and innovations in demos, I think the best demos are leaning more toward design and less toward spectacular new effects, although I have seen some amazing things in recent demos.

3. Do you think 3D is making a better scene or boring one?

I'm still not sure how I feel about the new 3D cards. On the one hand, they let a person make some pretty impressive stuff. On the other hand, I think they take a lot of the skill and talent out of the process and the end result doesn't have as much impact. I don't know, it will be interesting to see what happens.

4. What do you think about making demos under windows?

Anybody who knows me knows I am vehemently anti-windows. I refuse to run it. Unfortunately almost the entire rest of the world is running windows, and it's only natural that they would start making demos under windows. While it's not something I would be actively involved in, I think it's good that demos are expanding to windows, and from what I saw of the windows demos at Assembly 97 and other parties, I was impressed.

5. What platform you think supports the demoscene better? Do you think DOS will survive?

Well, I certainly hope DOS will survive, because otherwise I'll be left out of the scene. I think in a few more years, sceners who still make DOS demos will be looked at as oldskoolers, the way a lot of people look at the amiga and C64 sceners now. I'm kind of excited about the possibility of java demos, because that way anybody can run them regardless of their OS, but I think they still have a long way to go.

6. What you think about hardware "support" on demos?

In the old days, amiga coders used the copper chip to enhance their effects, and I think it's about time hardware tricks became part of the PC scene.

7. Which is/was your favourite party (if you attended one)?

Well, NAID 95 will always hold a special place in my heart, since it was my first party. I think Assembly 97 was the best party I ever had, and The Party 97 was a lot of fun because it was just SO awful.

8. What is your favourite demo?

Well, as unpopular as this is going to make me, I would have to say that my favorite demo of all time is still Second Reality. Lately though, I think my favorite group has to be TPOLM because they're just so weird.

9. Would you want to contribute to the demoscene with anything?

Umm... I'm not exactly sure what this question is asking, but I hope I remain active in the demoscene for a long time to come.

10. What do you think about diskmags?

I think diskmags are beginning to lose the popularity they used to have. Now that everybody and their brother's cat is on the internet, they would rather look at a web page than download a diskmag. It's really too bad, cuz I think diskmags are kind of cool.

11. Are diskmags still necessary?

Hehe... I guess I answered that in the previous question. As long as people keep downloading them and reading them, I think diskmags will survive.

12. What do you think about other media like irc, newsgroups, online-mags?

IRC is not really a source of information, other than gossip. For me, irc is just a fun recreational thing I do to chat with the sceners I know. From experience, very little relevant talk goes on in the scene channels on irc anyway. Newsgroups can be good as long as there's not too much spam, and I think online mags have definite potential, especially because they're easy to update frequently.

13. What groups do you consider "well-known" and in some way contributed to the scene?

Oh boy, I'm kind of out of the loop these days. But I have to give TPOLM some more free publicity here, because I really love their crazy demos.

14. When do you think to release a new demo from your group? (we would like to know :)

Funny you should ask, I just got off the phone with Kneebiter. We had been planning to make a demo for Assembly 98 since the whole group would be there, but it seems there's just not enough enthusiasm to get it done, so I don't know when we'll release something.

15. One last question, what are your favourite music bands? ;)

Tori Amos, Underworld, Orbital, Jewel, Erasure... way too many to name here.