TnC House Classics presents : Beachball from Nalin & Kane

Until now the serie of TnC House Classics contains mostly techno orientated housemusic, but TnC likes also ambient, mellow or deep house ( as its called nowadays ). 

So here is Beachball from Nalin & Kane, a very simple even monotone track, but it has such a hypnotic bassline a ritme I couldnt get it out of my head for days. 

Of course there are a lot of remixes or remakes made that were superior to the original, but I like the original too. Ideal for humming while cruising in a cabrio along the seashore.

Remix 1  

Remix 2

Remix 3

Remix 4

Remix 5

Remix 5,5

Remix 6

Remix 7

Remix 8

I could go searching forever, it's time to stop here...

My music memories: The Can Can by Bad Manners

In this serie there were a lot of uptempo songs and some ballads, but recently I discovered a new category in my music memories, fun songs or a better description singa-a-long songs.

It all started with my son humming the famous Can Can tune, while he was fooling around with Garry's Mod an other sandbox game like Minecraft.

And all at once I remember the best Can Can version, yes from Bad Manners.
Most of the video's on YouTube are live performances and it's clear to see the big frontman "Doug Buster Bloodvessel Trendle." knows how to party hard.

I liked their version so much I search for more songs of the ska-band, song like
"Walking in the Sunshine", "Nenehuhu...." and "Lip Up Fatty" remembered me of the fun times I had when ska-band were hot, like The Specials, Madness and many more.

I think I soon will search for ska mixes on mix.dj to remember the good times
and listen to songs I never heard before.

There are some interviews with older frontman "Buster" on YouTube and his recent live performances, but is that interesting nowadays ?

The comeback of Madness was acc. to me just a waste of my time,
so am I waiting for Bad Manners anno 2016 with "Can Can" ?
No way.

Some YouTuber created sort of Bad Manners archive, I guess he's still a huge fan.
Just not for me.

TnC House Classics presents : Sunstroke of Chicane

Another mellow dream deep house track favorite by TnC. Chicane made very mellow mostly instrumental housemusic and all songs had that summerfeeling, ideal for beachparties.

I found an DJ who made 2 megamixes as a tribute to Chicane,  but personaly I liked 

DJ Rivers other ambient mixes, these aremore interesting. Too much Chicane can kill your good mood. Check them out as long as the website of DJ River is hosted, cause it's not updated since 2014.

Here is the Sunstroke video

His first hit Offshore

I tried hard to find a real good remix, but the only good remix is from the master himself, check out the longer version.

It seems remixers couldnt improve the original.

My favorite remixes I Side B - Compiled by MSX -

On Favorite Remixes I Side B you will find:

*  Utah Saints - Something Good
* Young Disciples - Parently Nothing
* U2 - Mysterious Ways
* Kristy MacColl - Walking Down Madison
* Neneh Cherry - Buffalo Stance
* East Side Beat - Ride Like The Wind
* EMF - Unbelievable
* U2 - Mysterious Ways
* DNA featuring Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner

Mixcloud link.

Now the songs itself. 
I heard Something Good on MTV and I knew I should had it, 
see my post about TnC House Classics earlier.
The song Parently Nothing is a lttle strange for my taste, but the slow beat in combi 
with that amazing female voice was just irresistible.
Walking Down Madison was another song ftom MTV, just a pleasant female voice, a singalong song with a dancebeat.
The other songs are only on Side A, but with different remixes of course.

Hey I let MSX to compile it, not me !
Last words: the ferro TDK tapes I used are still in good condition, which ( I think ) is amazing
in 2016.
 

My favorite remixes: Favorite Remixes I Side A - Compiled by MSX -

Oke here it is. I explained already a lot about how these tapes were compiled and made. 
I had to sell most of them to get fast some cash ( 50 Eurocent per single, bad deal). 
Still I have the converted tape as mp3-file to listen to and share them with you at mixcloud.

Because Mixcloud forbid to use music from the same artists more than .. times so I rather have no tracklist then to be banned and removed.
 
On Favorite Remixes I Side A you will find:

* Eton Crop - Noizy Town
* EMF - Unbelievable
* East Side Beat - Ride Like The Wind
* Neneh Cherry - Buffalo Stance
* U2 - Mysterious Ways
* DNA featuring Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner
* Tony Scott - Greenhouse Effect
* Bomb The Bass - Winter In July

Link to mixcloud. 






Something about the songs itself. Noizy Town was the only song I liked from Dutch group Eton Crop, the rest of the album was really shitty, I guess they had only the money to produce 1 good song.
Do I have to say anything about Unbelievable ? No I dont.
Ride Like The Wind was of course originally by Christopher Cross, but I like these modern East Side Beat versions.
Buffalo Stance is still a perfect crossover between hiphop, electro, pop, dance and the remixes proof that once more.
I never understood why Mysterious Ways wasnt a big hit in the Netherlands, I liked the dirty guitargroove very much.
You love or hate Tom's Diner, after all these years it's still amazing putting a slow beat under a accoustic song can make such a difference and became a hit.
The Greenhouse Effect was the last thing I ever heard of Tony Scott (Dutch), but earlier he had more hits, I just like this combo of rock with dance.
Bomb The Bass created songs like Snap part 2, mellow housemusic with great melodies.

My favorite remixes: Short Introduction

It has been a long time since I post something here. I was preparing post, start compling a new MSX Toolx & Demoz Disk, cames accross an unfinished demo, too good the throw away, too bad to publish. So I started changing parts, try to create new ones. But also I was so stressed in my work I didnt want to touch any keyboard during my free time. Then I catched a cold but contined working so after work I was too tired to post anything. And now my head is not into posting, but I do. I need to do something to set my mind on something else.

So here is a post I was preparing months ago. I uploaded some old tapes to mixcloud with remixes, best ofs and collected comp[lications. This is the first serie of these tapes.
In the first years of the ninties I listen to the radio, watched MTV and other TV programs with music clips and bought maxi-singles of artists I liked to get exclusive remixes of the original song.

After a while I had so much maxi-singles with great remixes I started to record these on tape. In the end I had 3 tapes full of artists and groups, mostly faded away in time, some still known.

I recorded more than 1 remix of the same song on these tapes if the remix was totally different from the others and still sounding great, hope you dont mind...

BYT All these 3 tapes were compiled with a special program called CASFIL of MCCM (check out theToolz & DemoZ part B post) included the printing of the cover for the cassette !!!

Sadly these are the only tapes I used CASFIL for the printed cover and instead of the title
I typed only the name of the remixes itself. Very original, but after so many years I had to search on YouTube to find the right artist or group...

112 MSX Basic Games : KLEIDUIF.GAM (88)

I know KLEIDUIF a Dutch word, but I don't want to change the nice intro screen just for translation purposes.This is an almost perfect MSX Basic game, it has all the features that any commercial game could have. It look good, it plays very well and all I did was translate.
I think I like this game just as much as the clay pigeon shooting in that Konami sportsgame 
I forgot the name of. Lucky for me the name of the maker was in the intro screen. 

Hail to Carsten Ludemann !!!

Look at the right at the shadows of the trees ad flags, it look almost like 3D !
I am just speechless about this game, it's the best I could find until now.
So if you don't play it, YOU BE SORRY !!!

Not to forget the download links: Gavitex / Mediafire

I think I release the next issue of the 112 MSX Basic Games disk, when the counter is at 80.
Until then you have to download one by one.

112 MSX Basic games presents : KARATE.GAM (89)

The last Courbois Software game for now is a 2 player only game, called KARATE.

Yes ,you cannot play against your MSX  ( and I didn't want to program an IQ for it). 

I choose this game, cause the sprites are huge, comparing to most MSX Basic games. 

You can do a lot of moves, the intro and game over screen are simple, however it fits the 

black & white style of the game. 

Not much changes with the original game, just more controls and other intro / game over screens.  

It's not another International Karate, still it's very playable and that is al that matters. 

So drag your roommate to your MSX and battle !!

Gavitex / Mediafire are waiting for you.

And because it's the last Courbois game (I think) I search for traces of Courbois Software 

at Beuningen. 

It seems they were a bit famous on Commodore Amiga with hard- and software and they made

a lot of websites before they stopped in 2012. 

But I never found any evidence they made some software for MSX.

While I was browsing for Courbois Software I found an old MSX website with the game Karate to download, if you like to compare both versions...

112 MSX Basic games presents : THELIFT.GAM (90)

Yes, another piece of Courbois Software, called The Lift. 

You are in a sort of maze with lifts  to get to the vase (exit). But there are security webcams and when they spot you, you lose energy. Moving around costs energie too, so it's game over if you are out of it. I add more difficulties to the original game, cause for me it was even impossible to get to the 2nd level ! 

Also some kind of intro/introduction screen, more controls and some other things I forgot. 

I like the game, cause it's very original, looks nice and plays just right. I recommend, 

you try first the easy level to see how the game works. 

It seems that the best MSX Basic games were made in SCREEN 1, it has sprites and easy
 to change the characterset for fast screen layouts. SCREEN 2 has sprites too, but is slow 
in screen layouts. 

Download and play it Mediafire / Gavitex

Bit Trip Complete (Mad Mix)

Finally the return of Mixmeister TnC. This time not another MSX Moonblaster Housemix, but a mix of music from the game Bit Trip Complete (Wii version). Or to be exact a mix made from the Bit Trip Soundtrack Sampler Audio CD that was included with the (2nd hand) Wii game. For those who don't  know Bit Trip Complete are a collection of 6 games you have to play following the rhythm of the music. The games itself are variations of classics like Pong, but there is also a nice platformer (Bit Trip Runner), dot eating game like agar.io (Bit Trip Void) and an oldschool rail shooter (Bit Trip Fate).

I played a free demo of Bit Trip Beat once via Wii Store Channel, but the game seems a little boring so I never bought the whole game. But recently I found the game and 5 others in a store Game Mania. It was called Bit Trip Complete and had also an Audio CD, so I bought it without any doubt .

After playing the games I listen to the Audio CD and was a bit disappointed by the music, yes, it was amazing sometimes and sometimes incredibly boring. I decided to put the best parts together in 1 mix so I didn't have to listen to the Audio CD again.

Why it's called Mad Mix ?
My son told me he played all his favorite music on YouTube at 1.25x speed even the newest ones from Monstercat. I thought it was a good idea so I speed up all Bit Trip tracks of the Audio CD to 1.25 and the results were better than I expected.
I didn't know the tracks that well and I decided to let Mixmeister mix on BPM, start slow, speed up the BPM to the max and cooling down to the end of the mix.
These are the 2 reasons I called this one Mad Mix.

I finished the mix in maybe 8 hours (including converting/cutting/speedup audio tracks and smoothing the mix output) and it was quite a long mix of more than 23 minutes.
I had some bad experiences with creating playlists on Mixcloud (it doesn't allow you to use more than 3 or 4 tracks of the same Artist) and this mix was Bit Trip material only !!!
I decided to upload it to YouTube instead, cause tracklist is not necessary and I couldn't find any good Bit Trip (re) mix.

Well I hate to watch more than 5 minutes of the same picture and 23 minutes of my mix should be a torture. I got the idea of creating a video with random clips of the games from Bit Trip Complete during the playing of the Mad Mix.

That was a real bad idea, after I recorded plenty of videos with gameplay I let the video editor split the videos into scenes and speed up every scene to 1.3, cause 1.25 was not available. It took an enormous amount of time to generate it. Then I tried to choose no duplicate scenes during the 23 min, tough job cause I had more Mad Mix than the total duration of all the used scenes. On top of that the video editor cutted  he music off when it was out of scenes. But it got worse when during producing the video the editor stopped working and when it was produced had the wrong video format to add the music to it.

I almost gave up the idea of putting it on YouTube, but after I moved my project to a bigger and faster computer I finally could save the whole thing and upload it.

There is another story to tell about how I recorded the gameplay videos, maybe another time. I can tell you one thing: Dolphin emulator, an Xbox controller and a screencapture running from a USB external harddisk is not the best way to create gameplay videos...

Here is the YouTube link for the Mad Mix

My Music Memories: Heroes of David Bowie

I am bit to late to post a David Bowie tribute, who died in January this year. But that was not why I made this post.

In the weekend I red a Dutch book called "Wie heeft dat gedaan?" ("Who did that ?") about all kinds of heroes, like super heroes, heroes from books, people like you and me who became heroes, heroes at war, gods and the grandmother of the 2 writers.

Today I looked at the cover and a song starts playing in my head; "Heroes" of David Bowie (boring clip) by the way...)
But is the song lyrics about heroes ? I checked and found out
it was about 2 lovers at the Berlin wall.
And there is more, the song is inspired by the song "Hero" of Neu!
If you listen very carefully you hear some similiarity, the lyrics are about something else.

I never knew David Bowie live performed with Queen "Heroes" and Peter Gabriel sang live an orchestral masterpiece of the song.

Final notes: I was a sort of Best Of David Bowie fan from the period until 1991, I bought his ChangesBowie only.

After Fame '90 I never hear him on the Dutch radio ever,
his fame went to other countries I guess...
He was a very busy man, check out the wiki page

He was an amazing talented man.

Three MSX playlists you don't wanna miss

Sometimes I'm just tired of creating, modifing things I want to do with my MSX stuff, on YouTube, this blog, Mixcloud and Soundcloud. And start browsing in my YouTube account, my Twitter and Google+ account. Amazing how many people still like to share some info about MSX games, some more than 30 years old. Here are 3 playlists I found about MSX games you don't wanna miss...


01) A-Z Of My MSX Collection from electricadventures

This guy has a complete room full of games for all sorts of computers and lucky for us
an MSX collection too. His list is not completed (the last video was for a game called Uridium) but a guy who choses F1-Spirit as favorite game instead of Flappy can't go wrong with his list of MSX games.
I had the same idea, but I think his videos are better than mine ever.

02) Especial MSX (the ones with "Ano" in the title) from Juanje Juega

It's in Spanish so I cannot understand a lot of the fun of each video, but it's a great idea to show a lot of MSX games that came out in (for example) 1985. A lot of these MSX games are completely in Spanish, maybe that's the reason most of these games were never available in the Netherlands. If all these Spanish MSX games were translated in English and sold elsewhere who knows what had happened.

03) MSX: The full Konami Collection from WikiMSX.org

I always wanted to know which games Konami made for the MSX system, before they moved on. This playlist shows all the games with year of release,  the mistakes Konami made (Green Beret, Wec Le Mans and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles) and some games I never seen before. My favorite Konami games were mostly the sports- and racegames, like F1-Spirit, Golf, Tennis, Yie ar Kungfu, Antarctic Adventure, Hyper Olympics, Hyper Rally and Athletic Land, to name a few...


About Konami MSX games there lots and lots of YouTube videos to be found.
Like this very professional made video or this very basic one
Have a lot of fun browsing into the YouTube archives...

My Music Memories : Supergirl of Reamonn

Simple lyrics on a pop-rock song about a relation with a Supermodel going not too good. 

It's how singer of Rea Garvey puts these emotions in the song so well. Like a rollercoaster of emotions that never stops until "Supergirl" is finished, leaving you with a sad feeling. 

At first the song almost let you put to sleep and wakes you up the hard way in the refrein. 

I like songs that take risks. I checked out other songs of Raemonn. 

Mostly rockballads, the song "Sometimes" hit me the most, I guess because of the lyrics and the home-made clip itself, sooo sad.

2 clicks and I found already a cover of Anna Naklab, which changes the song into something different as the original. Good or bad, it's up to you !

TnC House Classics presents : Swamp Thing by The Grid

When housemusic became populair, everybody tried to find a next gimmick to make easy money . So for a short period of time country music with a housebeat was the top, with hits like  "Cotton Eye Joe" and "Swamp Thing". But The Grid had already several hits on its list and this was just one ot them.

 When I listen to it now, it seams too repeat itself too often and the duration should be half of what it is now. 

Still the banjo riff is catchy and thats the best part of the song, the rest of it is more filling , like the bridge part in "Acid Folk". 

"Swamp Thing"is an exellent song to mashup I would say (for maybe an hour ???)

PS: The followup of "Swamp Thing" was a re-release of "Texas Cowboys", a piece of crap. The country theme is there, it  "Swap Thing" with the banjo replaced by a mouth-organ and the DJ replaced by a bad singer, argh !!!

Instrumental Highlights : Underwater of Harry Thumann

I waited very long to start with this post, cause it's the start 
of a serie of posts I don't know where it will stop. 

"Underwater" is a soundscape in disco style with a complete orchestra . When I listen to it, I feel like I'm watching a movie about dolfins, who race against eachother, a bit like 
"Where is the Walrus" of the Alan Parsons Project. 

The track "Underwater " was part of a serie of Italian Dance Classics complation of a company called Arcade 
(once very famous by Dutchies). 
There were only 4 CDs made and number 1 was of course the best of the serie (featuring Underwater). 

Well, I try to found more of Harry Thumann, but he seems more a sound engineer than a dance producer, check out Ruff Mix if you don't believe me)

My music memories : Speak To Me of Galactic Cowboys

I liked King's X sometimes, but I liked Galactic Cowboys more. At least their first album.
"Galactic Cowboys" go where KIng's X stopped, it's something like The Eagles goes Metal or the Beach Boys meet Hard Rock. I think you know what I mean by now. 

Their album was full of great songs, some more uptempo, some fun, some ballads. "Speak To Me" is the last track of the album and the longest. It presents the style of Galactic Cowboys at it's best, it started as a acoustic ballad, then a heavy metal jam, then a power ballad. The crazy ending is typical for the group. You can hear the band had great fun while recording it. 

After such a strong debut, it's hard to make it sound better. 
I bought "Space In Your Face" blindly and they tried to copy the debut, without the fun, catchy refreins it was a waste of my money and time to listen to it. 

So let's talk about more songs on the debut, I found a videoclip of "I'm  Not Amused", one of the heavier songs and of course someone put almost every song on YouTube, listen to power ballads like "My School" and "Why Can't You Believe In Me". 

They even played as "Sons of Thunder" in the 1994 movie "Airheads"  but couldn't find any videoproof of it on the net. The Galactic Cowboys did also some covers, like "Junior's Farm" of Wings (Paul McCartney) but like the Steve Miller cover, the original is better and seems for Galactic Cowboys just a way to get more airplay and be famous. Well, that didn't work out and they split. 

I leave you with an old live concert where they perform some songs of the debut album. If I look back they were just another group with one good album. And yes, bandmembers were religious, but not a Christian rockband.

My music memories : Power Of Love of King's X

I listened to some Alternative Rocktapes I made in the 90s from some cheap CD complication of unknown rockbands, like Cheap Shots and Big Buzz series and then 
I remembered some so called religious rockbands like King's X and Galactic Cowboys. 

I stubbled into a nice Top 10 KIng's X favs, listen to them all, 
great stuff but I agreed with last comment , there was no 
"Power Of Love" in the list. "Power of Love" came from their first album "Out of The Silent Planet" and is one of the easiest songs 
to remember by the catchy refrein. 

The soulfull voice of Doug Pinnick, together with the metal riffs of Ty Tabor together with the solid rhythms of Jerry Gaskill give King's X 
a remarkable sound. And despite the name of the band (invented by their manager Sam Taylor), they were nor Christian rock band or something like that. The wiki is very clear on this point.

Does it matter ? I like music that sounds as an crossover between pop-rock and heavy metal. 

Looking back I bought their first album on vinyl, the 2nd "Gretchen Goes to Nebraska" on tape and the 3rd "Faith Hope Love" on a discount CD, with some holes in the CD-case. When I played the CD for the first time, there was no song that I liked. Second time ditto. So I looked for other groups that sounded like King's X, like Galactic Cowboys...

But that something for another post.

My Music Memories : How You Gonna See Me Now - Alice Cooper

I had catched a cold last week, no fever but my mind was full of strange ideas, images and music. 

And suddenly came from all that chaos a beautiful song from ages ago. "How You Gonna See Me Now" from Alice Cooper. 
I don't really liked that guy with his black make-up and I never bought any record, I just saw the song on our TV at TopPop and I loved it. 

The video, the lyrics the way Alice sings it. Perfect. The wiki said that Alice never performed the song after 1980. Was it too commercial for him ? I guess I never know. 

Of course there artists covering the song, I just like the emotion in the voice Alice Cooper more.

Except in the live version, I smell some antipathy from Alice against the song, the way he performed it.

TnC Instrumental Highlights presents: just Introduction

There are some instrumental tracks, that not can be called House or Game Music. 

They don't seem to fit in my Music Memories serie, cause those are most of the time, hits from the past.




So this serie will have tracks that never hit the charts, some maybe a little famous, some not.

I was never was a Jean Michel Jarre or Vangelis fan and liked all the hits of them, listening to a whole album was a bit too much for me.

Instrumental tracks I still like are more than just tracks from Synthesizer Greatest Volume 1-10...

So in the years I start listening to the radio and later to other sources, like at friend places or TV, there are tracks that I never get tired listening too.

I think that's weakest link in a instrumental track, to repeat itself too many times and get the listener bored.


In these serie I present tracks without vocals, maybe even without human voices. 
See ya in the next episode....

My Music Memories : Brother Where You Bound of Supertramp

These are the kind of songs, you like when you heard it, you forgot all about it and...snap...you know part of the song again and don't know what it is.
I had this with "Brother Where You Bound", I just knew 2 lines of the lyrics and remember the saxofoon and the great guitarsolo at the end. I search on "You gotta move, You gotta hide", but Google send me to "Fred McDowel" and "The Rolling Stones"  

I was pretty sure that none of these 2 used a saxofoon, so I changed the lines into
"You better move, you better hide" and found the right lyrics at flashlyrics.
The song was from Supertramp and more than 16 minutes long, titled: "Brother Where You Bound". There was a 19 minutes mini movie made by Rene Daalder (yeah another Dutch !) for the song, which was never released as single, so why this movie, I can't tell...
The best part of the song is at the end, the part where I just remember the 2 lines of lyrics from and it was also the title of the album
The movie itself is very unpleasant, violent en despressing and let you wonder why it all happened with the hero and his family. There is even an other video made from the song with scenes from Brasil that is even more depressing and weird.

BTW Rene Daalder has done some impressive stuff, see his website