T H E E __ ____ ____ .' '. |----\ | | |----\ ____ / \ || \ | | || \ ||---| ( D ) || / || || || / || | | i | |____/ |' '===- |____/ |'___' ' l | | d | ____ | F o ' |.--- _ --''-- _ : a | ||__ /_\ || \\ // /_\ | t | || // \ || \\ ^ // // \ | w ' | || | | |/ \| || | | a | _ | : __ ___ __ _ | | '-._ _.-' | ___ --''-- /-- |---\ | /-- // || | '' | || |---\ || //__ ||__/ \\ ' || //__ \\ // \_ | | | || || | || \\ || \ \\ / || \\ \\ ^ // \\ '_ _' || |' ' | \_ | \ \/ || \__ |/ \| \\__// * --__-- You will remember the surprise smash hit of the Error in Line party third edition. Not the reappearance of Defjam, but something completely new and different, the newly risen fake demo crew known as 'Dildo Fatwa'! Now you've seen their first demo, read about the epic struggle, in their own words, to make the thing in the first place. Now it's time to find out a little bit more about them, as Alive! magazine is proud to present the first exclusive interviews with the members of Dildo Fatwa! ..... .::''':::'''::. Scene Nick: Charcoal .::' ''' '::. Real Name: Clive Diamond-Geezer :: :: Group Role: Coder (\( \__ __/ )/) Occupation: Rogue trader! ) ) (_a) (a_) ( ( Hobbies: Restraining Ferlease! \{ \ }/ Fav Colour: Cyan ( (__) ) Hardware: Arati Faclon 030, soon to be 060! __ ' <_______> ' __ __.--' \ / '--.__ '---___---' Alive: Nice to see you Charcoal, it's cool of you to give us a moment of your time to tell us a bit about yourself, can you start off with some details of your origins on this planet, and how you came to be involved with the Atari scene? Charcoal: Yeah, grate to be hear actually! Right, yu want to kno how I started off. Wel I wasn't acktually born, but was created orijinally as the dodgy market trader karacter in the late eighties Fedderation against Softwarez Theft adverts. These varioussly invited juvenilez to shop a teecher or dodjy market trader like myself for koppying or selling pirat softwarez. The kid would be looking on my market stal for some computer game or other, he wuld sai "These look like koppies, and this DEFFINITELY is!" at wich point, I would say back "Either buy somthing, or NAFF OFF!" the kid wuld retort "Your seling pirate koppies of software and I DON'T LIKE THAT!" Then the kid wuld report me to the authoritees and pocket a big wodge of reward cash, justise being seen to be done and all that. In manny ways, the rest of my lifestory has folowed in that tedious trak, trie to make a livving selling the fruit of the warez tree, get busted etc! How i gott into the Atari scene, was thankz to Ferlease, who got me into reselling Arati computors that had been 'liberated' from their former homes by Bill Mckracken, aka "The Cat", along with jewelery etc. Some of the arati computors stuck with me, and I starrted to see posibilities uther than making hard cash from them. I got in tuch with other Atari sceners, such as Mr Punk, who starrted me off koding, than in the last year, things realy took of! Alive: Why 'Dildo Fatwa' as a name? Even in a scene used to the odd and off- centred, this goes quite a bit further than normal? Charcoal: We pikced it up off some sex advise page where the authore was teling someon to chill out with regards to a sexaul stimulant devise. As in "Don't hav a Fatwa over yur Dildo!" It realy suggests to us, a 21st century replacment for Bart Simpsun saying "Dont hav a Cowe man!" So Dildo Fatwa it was! Alive: What inspired you to code for 'Bud teh Chud'? Was this a tiny bit ambitious for a first demo? Charcoal: The reasons for making Bud teh Chud ar ansered pretty well in the Demo diary that I wrote in realtime on a day by day bassist! Stil, if I must repete myself, it was inspirred by a combinnation of a long-lost demmo that Ferlease made a long tim ago, and also the awfulnes of the Meka Simposium party that we atended last year. We vowwed "Never agane!" And resolved to do somthing good for this years Eror in Line! At the tiem, Ferlease was talking about trying to find the long-lost disk with the orijinal Bud the Chud on it, but couldnt, so i thort, "Why not do an ascii tribute to it!" Alive: Why Ascii? Surely this is somewhat off the mainstream for a demo? Charcoal: Asci is what Ferlease culd do besst! I saw som of what he had done, and thort this was the best way of doingg the demo! The otehr factor is, that, you havvent seen our atempts at koventional artworks! It is best that you dont see these, otterwise arests and psykiatrik reports would follow! Alive: Doing a demo from scratch would not be the easiest task in the world. Did you encounter any major problems when coding for it? Charcoal: Mainely with the music replay, which did not want to wurk as a modphile, wich kaused the sad loss of Pongo's orijinal and wikkedly funny soundtrak for the demo. Maybee we can bring this bak in laters? The musics in Bud teh Chud that yu heard at EIL werr a bit of a last minit bodge. Ther was also somthing of a speed drop as we went along, but we reoptimized soem speed back in, so the releese version of the demo shuld be quikcer than the one that was shewn at the parrty. Maybee even okay to run on an STe? We'l hav to trie that soon. Alive: You said in the end text of Bud teh Chud, that you would be back. Can you tell us a bit more about your future plans? Charcoal: Yeh, certanly we're going on as a group. Ther wil be futuer releases from us, but no firm ideaz yet. We did promise soemthing for the next Alternativ party in Finnland, whic we'll keep to. Our demo engine wil gain further featurs and capabilitys, and future releases mai nott be purely ascii-based. We wil be thinking of beter support for the lower end, such as the STe, but also some special stuffs for higer end machines such as the Faclon. Also, bear in mind I hav a CT60 on order, and the temtation to do a Dildo Fatwa release using that, would be tooo mych to resist! Alive: It's been cool you sharing some thoughts with us, thanks for your time, and do you have any final words for our readers? Charcoal: Yeah, we're verry much deddicated to doing some good stuffs for the futur of the Atari scene! We will be back, and you guys stai cool! .,,,,,. \/////\\\\\\\' Scene Nick: Ferlease '//// \\\\\\\ Real Name: Ricardo Aloevera /|' ''' ||. Group Role: Graphist (Ascii) (\/ ____ ____\/) Occupation: We're not sure? ) / ._ \__/ _. \( Hobbies: Shopping until dropping! (=l(_@)l l(@_)l=) Fav Colour: Greeny-blue : \____/ \\____/ : Hardware: Atari Falcon and STeem Emu on PC \ \ / '. (__) ' _. [ \______/ ] ._ .-' \ / '_ ' '(_____)' ' Alive: Hiya Ferlease, great to meet you here, and we'd like to get the lowdown on your life to date, and how you got mixed up with the Atari scene? Ferlease: I was born in Brazil, or perhaps it was Canada? My memory changes from week to week. You can catch details of my life history on one of the satellite channels FerleaseTV-Live! Anyway, I started off with a casual interest in Atari, when I was hanging around with some Amiga lamers. I stopped hanging around with them after one sexually based torture session too many! It is unfortunately true what they say about a lot of Amiga people being well, "that way inclined" BTW. I met loads of nice Atari people who didn't give me any more problematic self-esteem issues, and it is a pleasure to work with them. Charcoal got keen on doing a demo, and chose my unseen megahit (according to Time magazine USA) 'Bud The Chud' to pay tribute to. Charcoal is one of the best scene mates that you could have! Alive: Could you tell us a bit more about the original 'Bud the Chud'? Ferlease: Erm, not really, it came on a disk with 'Bud the Chud' on the label, it was all a long time ago! Alive: Really? Ferlease; Yes, really! Can I have another question now! Alive: Okay then, what got you interested in Ascii art? Ferlease: I was down as the graphist for the new version of 'Bud the Chud' but nothing I did on Degas Elite ever came out quite right. I was tapping on a plain text editor when a bunch of characters came together to form a picture of a little doggy thus: /\/\ )@ @( /` \ o /`````\ (") ___/ / |/|/ \|\ Carbon and Pongo were dead impressed, and told me if I carried on like that, they would do the demo as an ascii tribute. So I did! Alive: The video diary mentioned a brush that you had with some computer pornography during the making of the demo, how did you overcome that, and are you likely to encounter any more computer porno in the future? Ferlease: It was the others that snapped me out of the porno trance, curse them! I was perfectly happy in there, and I'm going back in, as soon as I can locate the website for asci-dirtygirl-com again. Charcoal and Pongo keep deleting it off my internet favourites list, although Pongo took an initial interest, but got bored when he realised it was the wrong sort of 'dirty', as not in unwashed bra and pants! Alive: Assuming you're not lost in a porno-frenzy, can we expect more great ascii artworks from you in the future? Ferlease: Sure, I'm up for an appearance in the next demo that we do, soon to be featured on the Discovery Channel in Romania! Alive: Thank you for your replies Ferlease, and any final messages for the rest of the scene out there? Ferlease: Where Dildo Fatwa goes, I will follow, as long as it isn't into the front entrance of a male brothel! _ / \ _/ / \ / / \ .::::::::::. Scene Nick: Pongo Snodgrass \.::' \ Real Name: Lord Smellington III .::: \____ __/ Group Role: Musician and smells '::: {__@)(@_} Occupation: Gas tester in coalmine! \ :| _ '--.__., Hobbies: Auld Reekie! )\': (o._______/ Fav Colour: Brown trouser (e . .; o Hardware: Atari STe (Nicotine stained!) \( <_______> `\ |\/\/\/; ' <______> ,)___________>, (._ __ ._ _.__) _.-'(_________________)'-._ Alive: Nice to see you Pongo, especially from behind this odour-proof screen. Can you tell us a bit about your origins, and then how you came to join the Atari scene? Pongo: Like Charcoal, I wasn't born either. I was created as a comic character in 1976, you can find out the gory details on here; www.toonhound.com/pongalongapongo.htm I had a few good years, both taking a supporting role in other peoples inane adventures, and also running my own comic strip. After the decline in Fleetway Publications activities, I lay dormant for quite a few years. **Credpong pic here!** You can see what I looked like back then in a non-ascii form! Revival came recently when the other two group members of Dildo Fatwa were seeking a musician, and for some unknown reason lurking deep in the psyche of the Dildo Fatwa collective, decided to reactivate me! The 'Lord Smellington' bit is a later conceit. Alive: So how did you end up being the group musician? Pongo: Very simply, the coding and graphics were already covered by the other two group members, so only the music needed doing after that! A total lack of talent proved to be no handicap, either when doing the modfile, or the ziktune later on! Alive: Ah yes, we were going to ask about that, how do the two different forms of musicmaking compare in your view? Pongo: With the modfile, it was fun using the weird samples, especially the speech-synth generated ones. I was disappointed that Charcoal was unable to get it to work with the main part of the demo engine, and the soundchip tune was done in a hurry. I think you can tell that! Alive: I'm not quite sure how we can put this tactfully, your nick refers to something of a personal hygiene problem! Can you tell us more about this? Pongo: I'm Pongo and proud of it! The whole point of my persona is a glorious celebration of Fetidness, right from the earliest days in Krazy Comic! Where there are clothes that have been worn for too long, there's Pongo Snodgrass! Where there is a cartoon cliched dustbin overflowing with fishheads, there's Pongo! And where there is a bottom to be burped, once more, there I am! If you can't deal with it, get noseplugs I say! Alive: We guess that we'll see more smelly musical wizardry for future Dildo Fatwa productions then? Pongo: Yeah, I'm hoping to get more modfile based stuff in, maybe scratch and sniff versions of the demos and all! Alive: Thanks for your odiforous input, and do you have any final message for the rest of the scene? Pongo: We will be back soon, and guys, keep on smelling! Interviews collected by CiH for Alive! Mag, May 2003.