Blame It On The Boogie

In 1990 a Media Studies assignment, the music industry, resulted in the brief formation of my Pop/R&B band - Def Track - when I co-wrote "Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover". The band members were Shane Johnson (lead vocals), Jamie Smith (backing vocals and bass) and myself (backing vocals and keyboard).

Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover (MP3), inspired by a verse from Bros’ Life’s A Heartbeat (The Time album), was recorded at Exeter College’s Bishop Blackall annexe to the chagrin of the music department! How dare media studies students display creative versatility and ungraciously use the main studio to produce commercial material! At the time Paula Abdul, Bros and New Kids On The Block dominated the transatlantic airwaves.

At this point it wouldn’t be churlish to reveal that, aside from a few minor ad-libs from the lead vocalist, I single-handedly wrote the lyrics and take the blame myself.

The song was exclusively recorded using electronic keyboards, bass and drums (mixed using a Commodore Amiga A500) in homage to Michael Jackson’s Bad album, which was clearly influenced by synthpop producers Trevor Horn and Giorgio Moroder.

The arrival of Savage Garden, in the late 1990’s, sparked a resurgence in the synthpop genre and the track's production stands up to comparison with their debut. Darren Hayes are you listening?

Originally the group (self-managed to avoid pitfalls) wanted to submit a 4 song demo EP entitled Facade to radio stations such as Atlantic 252. However, it never came to pass. So, via the magic of the internet here's Def Track's breakthrough single that never was.

How The Leopard Got His Spots

With Intel inside of course! To perpetuate my ordained role of Devil's Advocate, I'm excited by the news and will now wait until next year before upgrading (could be as soon as January 2006).



This really makes sense, just think about it. IBM has failed to deliver G5 chips that break the 3GHz barrier and don't think that the proprietary custom chips, produced for PS3, Xbox 360 and Revolution, will power a Mac Mini before the legal contracts end. Once the dust settles the specifics of the Apple/Intel strategic alliance will become clear as the first bespoke hardware emerges.

A decade ago Mac Users were braced for the transition from 68K to PowerPC. If you think we've had it bad, just speak to Amiga owners! I'm off to download Xcode 2.1 and start compiling PowerPC and Intel universal binaries. 'Rosetta' is the pathway from one paradigm to the next.

[As a footnote. How long can CodeWarrior survive with Xcode snapping at its heels?]

Requiem for a Dream

Growing up my aspirations diverged from "learning the ways of the force" and time traveling to video game author and Grammy-winning performances. Yet the desire to act and perform overarched everything.

In 1983 I was selected to audition (along with other hopefuls from around the South West region) for a place at a prestigious acting school. Due to very poor planning, on the part of my school, the day turned into an unmitigated disaster and the schedule went askew. Our audition piece, performed at Exeter's Northcott Theatre, would have been savaged by Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul! I had prepared a solo set reciting HG Wells' The War of the Worlds and instead was instructed to mimic a tree. A conciliatory weekend placement was offered to selected students who showed promise - one of whom had the propensity to burst into tears when they'd forgotten their lines. I felt slighted, but nothing that a new Star Wars Return of the Jedi action figure couldn't fix! Biker Scout, I salute you.

During High School, under the aegis of Mr Burton (no relation of Richard or Tim), my passion for drama class flourished. Regrettably, he decided to change schools and his successor drove out any sense of enjoyment and I dropped out. A few years later my Dad would meet Mr Burton, in Torbay, who had assumed that I had continued with acting. And learnt that this was not the case.

In 1990 whilst at College I formed a Pop/R&B band - Def Track - as part of a Media Studies project concerning the music industry. During the coach ride to and from London's V&A (I was also studying A-Level Fine Art) I co-wrote "Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover". We recorded the song, promo video and prepared marketing materials (using MacDraw) ourselves. At the suggestion of our Media Studies tutor I wrote further songs for a possible EP (for submission to local radio stations). However, during the summer my work was stolen or mislaid and there was no backup other than a skeletal arrangement stored on an Amiga A500.

I acted in a University studio project (1993) and was required to show a complete lack of interest in the main protagonist. This wasn't too difficult a leap as I found the person, in question, unpalateable at best. It was noted that my performance was very effective and made ingenious use of a newspaper (a metaphor for the barriers in our relationship)!

My claim to fame is as a background extra on BBC Radio Four's The Gemini Apes (1998). However, acting has not lost any of its allure and one day I'm hoping for a reprise.

Maniac Mansion

It's very rare to stumble across an application that is a revelation. Earlier this year MacMAME earned such a distinction - authentic arcade action delivered directly to your desktop - and now ScummVM joins the pantheon!

ScummVM derives its name from 'Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion' and is a 'virtual machine' for several notable graphical point-and-click adventure games. For example LucasArts' The Dig, Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle. Loading Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis rekindled halcyon memories of my Amiga adventures and the often delayed fourth installment in the movie franchise. Incidentally, the Maniac Mansion property was licensed as a family sitcom (in the US) and ran for several seasons in the early 90's. Did it ever show in the UK?

Both MAME and ScummVM are a Work-In-Progress and available for the majority of popular computer platforms. MacMAME now sports an improved OpenGL driver that fixes VBL sync and aspect ratio correction. Checking anti-aliasing (AKA smoothing) in MacMAME's front-end evokes graphical comparison with Sega's underrated and poorly marketed Dreamcast (NAOMI-based console). Playtime.

Google continues to rollout updates to their email service. Gmail POP3 set-up is a breeze in Entourage 2004 and the added benefits of SSL shouldn't be overlooked. As an avid user of Gmail, I hope that the final release retains this feature. Hotmail announced that support for offline reading and composing would be withdrawn sans subscription. If this happens, then Gmail more than meets my needs.

Time to read the latest developments concerning the Mac OS X 10.3.7 update.

Energize!

In 1990 The Best of Both Worlds Part 1 witnessed Star Trek reach its zenith! Any promise of The Next Generation "metamorphosing" into a darker series was "air brushed" out during the opening episodes of season 4! After-which my enjoyment of the franchise diminished. This was accelerated by attending a USS Excalibur Unicon at Bournemouth University (1994). My excuse was that I was on official business recording an audio documentary for my Media Production degree. There aren't words in my vocabulary, which could distil the horrors witnessed! Hearing fans address each other as "Ensign" or "Captain"...

Fast forward a decade and Enterprise series 3 is enjoyable, if not appointment, television! The Xindi super weapon story arc, whilst derivative of Star Wars' Death Star, is quite compelling. This Trek is not afraid to wear battle damaged fatigues and Scott Bakula's performance harks back to William Shatner albeit with edge! The lavish nebula backdrops owe a debt to Babylon 5 and Amiga Toaster wizardry.

Apple has formed a new iPod division in the wake of the platform's success.

American Idol

The Sun keeps on shining in the South West of England!

Aspiring Mac-based musos using iLife '04 should update GarageBand! Version 1.1 “addresses isolated performance and stability issues, allows per-track Echo settings similar to other effects, supports loop libraries in other disk locations, supports importing unprotected AAC audio files in addition to AIF and MP3 files, and addresses issues with ReWire support, moving GarageBand songs between different computers, Help support, fixing the timing of individual notes (as well as entire regions), and dragging entire tracks in the timeline.”

So, grab a bite from SUBWAY®, launch GarageBand 1.1, record, mix and export (in AAC format) your opus and send to Simon Cowell and the AI team! If only Apple's audio application had been available when I formed Def Track at Exeter College! The "joy" of 8-track and an Amiga A500.

At Inside Mac Games we've extended our subscription service IMG Pro to include further "value-added" features. For more details on IMG Pro, please visit here. IMG Pro costs just $19.95 for one year. A two year subscription costs $39.90.