This is the music video for Herbie Hancock’s monster electronic dance classic, Rockit. It was released as a single from his 1983 album Future Shock.

The song was written by Hancock, bass guitarist Bill Laswell and synthesizer/drum machine programmer Michael Beinhorn.

via limahl81:

Constructed and composed during the recording process at various studios, including Martin Bisi’s in Brooklyn NY, “Rockit” was perhaps the first popular single to feature scratching and other turntablist techniques, performed by GrandMixer D.ST – an influential DJ in the early years of turntablism – using turntables as a musical instrument. Later turntablists, such as DJ Qbert and Mix Master Mike, cited Rockit as revelatory in the documentary film Scratch, inspiring their interest in the instrument.

The record GrandMixer D.ST. used for scratching in Rockit was Change The Beat by B-Side, released in 1982 on Celluloid Records.

Simian Mobile Disco’s video for the retronica Audacity of Huge.

Credits:

Directed by Kate Moross & Jo Apps
Art Director / Kate Moross
Editor / Jo Apps
Produced by Kate Moross & Jo Apps for ISO Films
First Assistant Director / Hans Lo
Director of Photography / David Procter
Camera Assist + Gaffer / Ryan Hopkinson
Tom Turley / Red Tech
Art Department / Jack Featherstone
Animation / Rob Jones
Stylist / Donna Rooney
Make Up / Gina Blondelle
Grade / Urban Ström

This video demonstrates the Philips PMC 100 Portable Synthesizer – a Dutch microcomposer/walkman made in the year 1988.

Nightwaves describes the Philips PMC 100 Portable Synthesizer like this:

It has some very thin, laughable beats. There are 100 voices, but to my ears they all sound the same. It’s FM synthesis, which I was never a big fan of, and to my ears many of the sounds are the same.

There is a built in tape deck so you can record your compositions. There are no actual keys, just pressure sensitive “pads”. There are different accompaniment styles, much like those offered by many of the Casio home keyboards of the time. You can also do different things to your compositions such as pitch shift. It runs on 9V DC power, either through adapter or AA batteries.

From what I understand, this thing was a flop in terms of sales, and after listening to it I can understand why. Even by mid 80s standards, this thing is comical. However, it is still a great curio to add to the collection if you are the least bit interested in archaic synth technology. Plus, I’ve used it as a “sling on” keyboard at some of my live gigs, which has gotten some very surprised looks.

via fuckingharpsichord

This video looks at the Casio SK-1: Everyman’s Sampling Keyboard.

The SK-1 is a small sampling keyboard that was made by Casio in 1985. It has 32 mini keys, four-note polyphony, with a sampling bit depth of 8 bit PCM and a sample rate of 9.38 kHz, a built-in microphone and line level input for sampling, and an internal speaker. It also features a small number of four-note polyphonic preset analog and digital instrument voices, and a simple additive voice.

In the video, one man band Willis P. Jenkins demos the SK-1 and explains how he uses it in his music.

via gearwire

Ultravox on Beeb schools prog 1983

This has been edited from the Schools program Science Topics, broadcast in 1983. This episode was title Electronics In Action and contains footage of the band performing on the Oxford Road Show in 1982, tinkering with Lament in the studio and Midge demoing an antique synth.

Great stuff – but what’s up with those sweaters?

via lieutenant030

This is a vintage 1989 Yamaha V50 keyboard synthesizer demo video. See part 2 below for the Jan Hammer-esque jamathon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

via jafafah0ts

Me And My Rhythmbox, from the low-budget movie Liquid Sky.

Me … me and my … me and my … me and my rhythm box … me and my rhythm box … are you jealous fox? (folks?) are you jealous fox? … my rhythm box is sweet … never forgets the beat … it never eats … it never shits … it never sleeps … it only beats … it’s always high … so am I … do you wanna know why? … it … it is … preprogrammed … so what … so what … so what … who of your friends is not? … who of your friends is not? who’s not?

Liquid Sky is a strange movie about intergalactic sex aliens and coked out people in the 80’s.

It’s an interesting cult film and it features a unique synth-heavy soundtrack!

via poisondoor:

My favourite scene from my favourite movie – Liquid Sky. Adrian Sings in the club while Jimmy’s looking for the Drugs in Margaret’s room.

[Both roles played by Anne Carlisle!]

——————————

The producer of the film took full credit for everything they really did not do anything but put up the money. He and his wife ( who got the credit for the costumes) needed green cards and that was the way for them to get them.

Anne Carlisle ( wrote the entire script ) and Julia Morton were responsible for almost everything. Iit was Jjulia that brought in marcel and nanxy from cinandre, who did the hair and make up.

The star of this bizarre and violent film is Anne Carlisle, a fomer LaRocka model who has a screenwriting credit and plays the dual roles of New Wave fashion plates Margaret and Jimmy. ´ I had already experimented with changing gender,´ says Carlisle, perhaps the only woman in film annals to give herself a blow job, ´ dressing as a guy just as a provocative thing. Slava Tsukerman saw me going out in these costumes and thought that a UFO would find them attractive.´ To cinch the role, Carlisle dressed up as a boy and escorted Tsukerman to the New York club Danceteria – where she then proceeded toland a female date.

Anne Carlisle went onto minor parts in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) and Crocodile Dundee (1986) and played the lead in Larry Cohen’s Blind Alley/Perfect Strangers (1987), but has since vanished from sight, although she did apparently write a novelization for Liquid Sky. It is a genuine shame that Carlisle has never gone onto any other parts of any note as she certainly has talent. The idea of aliens coming to harvest humanity for the opiates in the brain was also borrowed for the entertaining action film Dark Angel/I Come in Peace (1990)..

Emulator II demonstration by Alan Wilder

via Turrican101:

Alan Wilder (Depeche Mode 1982-1995 Keyboarder) demonstrates the use of the Emulator II (French TV, around 1986)

Seeing this video from 1983 of the Jonzun Crew, doing Pack Jam, is a bit of Deja Vu.

Anyone else see hints of the future Daft Punk?

via Onomano

This vintage video, with Jay Levy, is the introduction to a series of videos that show you how to play your Casio keyboard!

Best quote: “That bass player really knows how to lay down a groove down! That’s really a big hot smokin’ band we’re listening to!”

via teenageengineering, via Axehole

Skinny ties, drum machines, 1-finger synth string melodies and bad haircuts – looks like the 80’s are cool again.

This is the first video from Los Angeles alternative electro band Celebutante, from the upcoming Nightlife full-length release.

What 80’s band does Celebutante remind you of the most?

via celebutante

This video may get my vote for the best electronic keyboard training video ever.

First, it’s over-the-top 80’s-tastic. Then it stops before Bruce Lowe has a chance to get his training on, StarLicks style. 

Let me know what you think!

Hithouse – Jack To The Sound Of The Underground (1988)

Check this out – this old-school track may make your ears bleed – while you bob your head.

via DeeJayPT:

This video clip is for a classic oldskool acid house track, Jack to the Sound of the Underground, from 1988.

The producer of this song, Peter Slaghuis (that’s why “hithouse”), was a very well-known DJ/producer in the era 1985-1991. In the early ’90’s he had his own record company “Hithouse Records” on which came out early Dutch hardcore releases. Himself was involved in such groups like “Holy Noise” and “Epilepsia”.

He worked together with persons like Paul Elstak and Rob Fabrie, who both became popular (happy) hardcore producers in the ’90’s.

Sadly enough, Peter Slaghuis would have never seen their success and the success of the genre hardcore because he passed away in a car accident in sept. 1991, just before “his” genre became more & more popular.

Thanks to Matrix for digging this one up!

Casio Keyboard CZ-101 (1986)

Description:

This commercial, from 1986, introduced the Casio CZ-101 polyphonic digital synthesizer.

via XippVid

plastique is a new freeware software synth for Windows from de la mancha.

It’s a 2 oscillator subtractive synth, using the 31 waveforms from the Casio HT-700 synth and some enhancements to the originals feature set. It does lofi 80’s sounds but also so much more, with a configurable filter (up to 16 poles), a pitch envelope for percussion, an arp, tempo sync delay & LFO, chorus and some lofi instability.

Features:

• 31 Waveforms from the Casio HT-700
• 2 Oscs with sync and octave / semitone detune
• Configurable Resonant Low Pass filter (2-16 poles with cut-off spread)
• Volume and Pitch envelopes
• Tempo sync LFO with 10 waveforms and note-on sync to modulate filter and pitch
• Tempo sync Arp with 6 modes and adjustable octave range, note length
• Tempo sync Delay
• Adjustable Chorus
• Lo fi options include reduction in quality, distortion and pitch drift
• 64 presets from Tim Conrardy, Ouroboros & Sink

These video clips are not so fresh feeling – coming from the 1980’s, but if you haven’t seen them yet, they offer a fun look at electropop synth guru Vince Clark and his synth programming style.

Enjoy the eighties hairstyles!

Dead or Alive, originally part of the package tour, have bowed out due to health reasons.

No way does this compare to Zeppelin in London – but tell me that Flock of Seagulls has the hair back, and I’m there.

Dates below.

Regeneration Tour:

08-14 Guadalajara, Mexico – Auditorio Telmex *#^%
08-15 Puebla, Mexico – Complejo Siglo *#^%
08-16 Mexico City, Mexico – Teatro Metropolitan *#^%
08-19 Hyannis, MA – Cape Cod Melody Tent *#^%$
08-20 Boston, MA – Bank of America Pavilion *#^%$
08-21 Trenton, NJ – Sovereign Bank Arena *#^%$
08-22 Wantagh, NY – Jones Beach Amphitheater *#^%$
08-24 Detroit, MI – DTE Music Amphitheater *#^%$
08-25 Cincinnati, OH – National City Pavilion *#^%$
08-26 Vienna, VA – Wolf Trap Amphitheater *#^%$
08-27 Raleigh, NC – Koka Booth Amphitheater *#^%$
08-28 Portsmouth, VA – nTelos Wireless Pavilion *#^%$
08-29 Atlanta, GA – Chastain Park Amphitheater *#^%$
08-30 Clearwater, FL – Ruth Eckerd Hall #%$+~
08-31 West Palm Beach, FL – Kravis Center #$+=!

* with the Human League
# with ABC
^ with Belinda Carlisle
% with A Flock of Seagulls
$ with Naked Eyes
+ with Missing Persons
~ with the Romantics
= with 10,000 Maniacs
! with Tommy Tutone

Looks like there’s going to be a Falco movie:

If you know anything more about this, let me know in the comments!

There’s a lot of interesting 8-bit style synth work on Robot Goes Here’s The Byte Is In My Blood, including chip-noise drums and arpeggios. It sounds like Rand is trying to bring the attitude of punk to retro-electro.

The Achilles’ heel of the CD, though, is the songs, which fail to deliver the hooks and impact of great punk songs. The highlight of the CD is a cover of AC/DC’s Back In Black, which is “sung” by a voice synthesizer. The result is a bit like Stephen Hawking trying to rock out.

There’s a lot of unrealized potential on The Byte is in My Blood. We liked the chip sound synthwork and punk vocal approach. Rand’s talent might be better served, though, if he had bandmates to bounce his songs of.

8-Bit music is a fairly obscure genre of electronica. The 8-Bit operators, though, made a smart move, organizing many of the most influential 8-bit musicians together to create this compliation of Kraftwerk cover versions. The result sounds like Kraftwerk was hired in the 80’s to create soundtracks for early video games.

Several of the musicians on this CD have been pioneers of the genre. Johan Kotlinsk (Role Model) created the LittleSoundDJ tracking cartridge; Oliver Wittchow created Nanoloop, a cartridge for Gameboy sound creation.

The CD is a great introduction to 8-bit music. The music is very accessible, staying fairly true to the original Kraftwerk versions. Each artist approaches 8-bit music differently, though. Some use strictly 8-bit gear, so that you only have 3 or 4 voices, with no effects, while others add reverb and effect, and guitars and other instruments.

Though the different musicians bring a lot of stylistic approaches to the music, it also holds together well as a CD because of the source material and the common use of 8-bit gear.

Here’s a partial rundown of the gear the artists use:

• VARIOUS GAMEBOYS(GB Classic,Pocket,Color,Advance,SP, micro and DS)
• NAN0LOOP 1 & 2 for Gameboy
• COMMODORE 64
• SNES & NES
• SYNTHCART for ATARI 2600
• CYNTHCART for COMMODORE 64
• ELEKTRON SIDSTATION
• LSDJ (LittleSound DJ) for Gameboy
• midiNES for NES
• POCKET MUSIC for GB COLOR, GBA & MusicGenerator for PS1
• ELECTROPLANKTON for Gameboy DS
• GAMEBOY CAMERAS including secret synth
• STYLOVOX Vocoder setup
• VARIOUS circuit-bends ( furbies, speak & spell…)

The music is a lot of fun – not only does it bring back memories of playing ancient video games, but it’s fun as an alternate-universe take on Kraftwerk.

At its best, the music also reveals hidden depths to some of Kraftwerk’s music. For example, the lyrics of Showroom Dummies, which seem to tell the tale of mannequins that come to life in the original, have a fatalistic sense in Role Model’s cover, as if all of us are nothing more than showroom dummies.

All in all – it’s a smart project. By bringing together a group of 8-bit artists and taking on some electronica classics, they’re likely to get more attention than they would have otherwise. But even more important, the music is just a lot of fun.

You can preview the 8-Bit Operators at their label site.
Tracks:

• The Robots (Die Roboter) – Bacalao
• Pocket Calculator – Glomag
• Computer Love – Covox
• Showroom Dummies – Role Model
• The Model – Nullsleep
• Radioactivity – David E. Sugar
• Kristallo – Oliver Wittchow
• Spacelab – 8-Bit Weapon
• Computer World (Computerwelt) – FirestARTer
• Electric Cafe – Neotericz
• Trans-Europe Express – Receptors
• Tanzmuzik – Herbert Weixelbaum
• It’s More Fun To Compute – Bubblyfish
• Antenna – Bit Shifter
• The Man-Machine (Die Mensch-Maschine) – GwEm And Counter Reset