First of all, go to our homepage http://www.PRESSPLAYONTAPE.com to download mp3s, videos or stream them. Or read all the datails about our two albums and see photos of all our concerts.
Sometimes, somehow, somewhere, somebody gets a crazy idea and against all odds actually does something about it. This is what happened with the Danish band PRESS PLAY ON TAPE. Instead of just playing cover-tunes by other bands, they exclusively play tunes from the old Commodore 64 home computer (on real instruments that is) which had its prime in the mid-eighties.
Even though the Commodore 64 was only capable of playing three sounds simultaneously with itsby today's standardsvery simple sound chip, the music written for the games was of high quality. Computer music is often associated with techno but PRESS PLAY ON TAPE has chosen another approach as they mainly play the tunes as rock music which gives the old tunes a brand new feeling.
There have been other CD releases of Commodore 64 music but PRESS PLAYONTAPE is the only band that plays this kind of music live. They have just released a CD called LOADING READY RUN which they have produced themselves. The CD can be purchased from the band's website.
The CD LOADING READY RUN features tracks from the following games: Rambo: First Blood part II, Ghosts'n Goblins, Warhawk, Monty on the Run, Beyond the Ice Palace, Wizardry, Commando, Thing on a Spring, Aztec Challenge, AufWiedersehen Monty, Paperboy feat. Game Over, Krakout, Thrust, and Master of Magic. The theme from Out Run can be downloaded for free from the band's website in mp3 format.
For the second CD, RUN/STOP RESTORE, the tunes were chosen based on the band members fond memories of certain games as well as the desire to experiment with many different genres in order to find the most suitable interpretation of a certain game tune. This makes it quite a diverse CD spanning genres from rock, heavy metal, vocal harmonies, easy listening, funk, and calypso as well as songs clearly inspired by boy bands, Green Day, and Madonna. The CD contains tunes from many famous games, like Arkanoid, Comic Bakery, The Way of the Exploding Fist, Defender of the Crown and Wizball. Through extensive use of the Internet, fans all over the world now know the band and use the music to ride a wave of nostalgia and relive the past. During the past two years the band has played several concerts of which two have been in England together with some of the original composers of the computer game tunes.
The members of PRESS PLAY ON TAPE are Theo Engell-Nielsen and Andr´e Tischer Poulsen on keyboards, Martin Koch and Jesper Holm Olsen on guitars, Uffe Friis Lichtenberg on bass and Søren Trautner Madsen on drums. They got together at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen in the fall of 2000 after they had leaked their idea of putting together this kind of a band to the organizers of the Danish computer party The Party who hired them right awayeven before the band had been put together. So far the band has played various select places like The Party, the Danish National Radio and local venues in Copenhagen. This summer they will play a gig in London together with some of the original composers. This will be in London at the Back in Time- event, which is a club event dedicated to Commodore 64 music fans. It turns out that a lot of old fans make remixes of these old tunes and exchange these on the Internet on various dedicated sitesthis way the old music lives on even today and the PRESS PLAY ON TAPE CD is another contribution to this great wave of nostalgia.
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE can be contacted via their website is http://www.PRESSPLAYONTAPE.com where photos, links, and more information are available.