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Press Play On Tape

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Press Play On Tape

Press Play on Tape, often written as PRESS PLAY ON TAPE, is a revival and tribute rock band to the music used in games on the 1980s' Commodore 64 home computer. The six-member band, hailing from Copenhagen, Denmark, has released two albums and has done several concerts in Britain, Norway, Germany and their home country Denmark. Fans are found all over the globe and some fans have even traveled from far away to attend the band's concerts. Pirated versions of their albums can even be found in some Asian countries[1].

The band's name comes from the message "Press Play on Tape" that the Commodore 64 displayed when the user issued a command to load a program from the tape drive. Upon pressing the play button on the tape drive, the program would then load. Sometimes Press Play on Tape is referenced as PPOT, pronounced 'pE'pät.

Press Play on Tape have performed live with some of the original composers, namely Rob Hubbard, Ben Daglish, Jon Hare, and Reyn Ouwehand[2].

History

Press Play on Tape was formed in the fall of 2000. The game tunes from the C64 had for a few years prior to the band's existence been interpreted by numerous remixers as dance club music or techno music. PPOT was the first band to perform C64 game themes live and as rock. PPOT's first public concert was in December 1999 at the demo competition event The Party in Aars, Denmark. Since then they have performed on national TV and radio and been featured on DVDs[3][4][5][6][7][8].

The members met at the Department of Computer Science at The University of Copenhagen. They have now all graduated and work with computer games at Deadline Games, IO Interactive and NDS Group.

After the band formed video game music's sound has grown more and more popular being widely used in contemporary popmusic, and too awareness of video game theme bands has grown in Europe and the US. Specifically this has reached many of the people in Europe that had a C64 in their early youth (the number of C64s is unknown but lies somewhere between 16 and 20 million units sold) making existence possible for a band that plays music from a home computer that had its prime in the mid 80ies.

  • In 2000 the band formed.
  • In 2001 their first album, Loading Ready Run, was released.
  • In 2002 the band released their first music video which was a spoof boy band video based on the C64 classic Comic Bakery by Martin Galway.
  • In 2002 the band performs together with composer Ben Daglish for the first time[9].
  • In 2003 the band performs together with composers Ben Daglish and Rob Hubbard for the first time[10].
  • In 2004 their second album, Run/Stop Restore, was released.
  • In October 2005 Press Play on Tape performed as warm up band to Danish band Mew, playing at two of Denmark's largest concert venues[11].
  • In November 2005 the band hosted the concert Copenhagen Retro Concert (CRC 2005) in Copenhagen, Denmark. This event featured the bands Visa Röster, Stuck in d'Eighties, Axes Denied and Rob Hubbard. It was at this event PPOT introduced their performance of Cannon Fodder played solely on game controllers using proprietary software. They performed this with composer Jon Hare. They also performed together with Rob Hubbard for the second time[12].
  • Press Play on Tape performed at the 2008 Roskilde Festival[13]
  • In 2009 the band performs together with composer Reyn Ouwehand for the first time[14].
  • In 2010 PPOT will celebrate their 10th year anniversary[15].
  • ... Press Play on Tape is currently working on their third album, rumour says. [16]

Discography

Loading Ready Run

Press Play on Tape's first album title comes from the text sequence in the Commodore 64's loading sequence: Loading Ready Run. After pressing the tape drive's play button, the computer would display "Loading" while transferring the program into the computer memory. At completion, the prompt "Ready." would appear, and the user could then "Run" the program. Loading Ready Run was released in December, 2001, at C64Audio.com[17]. Loading Ready Run received generally favorable reviews. The Remix64.com editorial and independent reviews gave it an 8/10, respectively 9/10 rating, awarding it one Silver and one Gold Seal of Approval. [18]

Track list:

Run/Stop Restore

The second album's title, Run/Stop Restore, refers to two specific keys on the C64 keyboard. Run/Stop was the button to stop a Basic program's execution. Restore was used in combination with Run/Stop to break ongoing interrupt loops, restore the corresponding interrupt vectors, and reenter the operating system at a known program location (all this constituting a "warm start"), thus (hopefully) bringing the C64 back to a responsive state. Run/Stop Restore was released in January, 2004. Run/Stop Restore received generally positive reviews[19]. It was awarded the Remix64.com Gold Seal of Approval, given a 9.5/10 score.[20]

Track list:

Webography

Members

Covered tunes

The list of tunes covered by PPOT can be seen below. The list is supposed to be complete[21].

Samples

Trivia

  • An easter egg reference to Press Play on Tape can be found in the computer game Hitman: Blood Money, where an in-game newspaper reads the headline "PPOT Rocks! The Commodore 64 revival band gets major breakthru in the U.S." [22]
  • Their remake of "Outrun: Magical Sound Shower" has been downloaded 59.000 times since its release in 2001 (as of August 2010) [23]
  • Their remake of the [Monkey Island] has been viewed by more than 700,000 on Youtube[24].
  • For the 25th anniversary for the Commodore 64 PPOT was interviewed by numerous media, including CNN[25].

See also

  • The Minibosses, one of the very first game-music cover bands, focusing mainly on NES tunes.
  • The Black Mages, a metal band founded by Nobuo Uematsu to play Final Fantasy arrangements.
  • The Advantage, another band which plays covers of Nintendo theme music.
  • The OneUps, another band which plays covers of video game music (although with a more jazz-inspired sound).
  • The NESkimos, another band which plays covers of Nintendo music, but adds a very heavy style to it.
  • MegaDriver, another band which plays covers of video game music, mostly of the Sega Genesis (or "Mega Drive" outside North America) but also plays Nintendo covers, with a heavy metal style.
  • The Megas, a band which covers Mega Man songs, adding lyrics to expand on the game's story.
  • Powerglove, an American heavy metal band, exclusively cover classic video game themes.
  • The EX Box Boys, an XBox fan band with video game themed music.

References

  1. ^ Press Play on Tape, tagwall page, Press Play on Tape.
  2. ^ PRESS PLAY ON TAPE, concerts page
  3. ^ Harddisken, Radio Show
  4. ^ National Radio Broadcast
  5. ^ National TV show
  6. ^ Notional TV broadcast
  7. ^ Back in Time DVD, concert
  8. ^ 8Bit Philosophy (as aired on German TV, also out on DVD)
  9. ^ Back in Time concert, Soho
  10. ^ Back In Time concert, Brighton
  11. ^ Gaffa, review
  12. ^ Copenhagen Retro Concert 2005
  13. ^ Roskilde Festival: Press Play on Tape - 2008
  14. ^ Concert w/Reyn Ouwehand
  15. ^ Anniversary concert
  16. ^ Berlingske Tidende, 2 October 2007: Commodore 64 - nu som band, Langhoff, Rune.
  17. ^ Loading Ready Run at C64Audio.com (label)
  18. ^ Review of Loading Ready Run at Remix64.com
  19. ^ Review of Run/Stop Resotre at Lemon64
  20. ^ Review of Run/Stop Resotre at Remix64.com
  21. ^ Press Play on Tape, concert page, Press Play on Tape.
  22. ^ PPOT featured in Hitman: Blood Money, Remix64.com
  23. ^ Press Play on Tape at remix.kwed.org
  24. ^ Monkey Island, youtube video
  25. ^ CNN interview
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