Tag Archives: Music

Building the MP3mobile

Apart from hoarding driver CDs and diskettes in 1999 I also printed out a huge number of pro-Linux news articles. One of those was this page on building an MP3 player for a car called The MP3mobile.

Over the years I had grappled with the idea of adding an MP3 player to whatever my current car was but never really got anywhere but the MP3mobile was the initial source of inspiration for this idea.

The furthest I ever got with the idea was using a portable MP3 CD player but that didn’t work too well:

  1. Bumps in the road caused skips.
  2. Irish roads are bumpy.
  3. More skips.

It’s funny now to see what the MP3mobile can do, but back then this was highly impressive.

The final result is immensely wonderful, and impresses the hell out of most hackerish people (like me). Non-computer people just wonder why you havn’t got a CD player. But, with my setup (based on RedHat Linux 5.0) I can do these things:

* NFS mount my car from my laptop (there’s a loose 10-base-T cable behind the drivers seat) and squirt new tunes into it.

* Hook up my GSM-modem to the car (so you can telnet into it and run emacs at 60mph 🙂 ).

* Hook up a GPS unit, so you could finger the car and find out exactly where a car full of computer equipment suitable for stealing is located.

* Compile as I go round bends.

* Coredump as I change gear 🙂

None of these things can be done with an autochanger. Sorry, but you lose 🙂

Future plans include:

* 418Mhz low-power radio link to allow me to upgrade the software when the car is in the garage 30m or so from the flat.
* Link into the car’s engine management to monitor boost pressure, etc
* Voice-command of the music functions.

The machine ran off a Pentium 166MMX CPU, and had a 2.5″ laptop drive with a massive 2.1GB of storage space.

It all seems so quaint and obsolete now doesn’t it? That may well be how your current state of the art tech appears in another twenty years!

In the time since then the rise of smart phones led to miniaturisation, better screens and power efficient computers. A few years later a Raspberry Pi or Android phone would have been a suitable replacement for the device. And later still Android Auto or Car Play would make the job of playing your own media even easier.

If you use an Android phone, then your car stereo could run Linux, at least through Android Auto as your phone has a Linux kernel!

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons played by London Concertante

London Concertante in St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork. March 2022

We haven’t been to a concert in a long time. Last night I went to St. Fin Barre’s Cathedral in the heart of Cork City to listen to London Concertante.

My son has shown a huge interest in music over the course of lockdown. He started with an electronic keyboard, and then on to other instruments. I know Matt would be delighted to hear he has expressed an interest in learning the saxophone too.

Anyway, we heard that there would be a classical concert in the Cathedral so we had to go. It was an amazing night. I’ll admit I don’t know much about classical music. I recognise the most popular compositions everyone else recognises. But despite that it was a feast for the ears.

In the video above they play Vivaldi‘s Four Seasons. I can’t imagine there’s anyone reading this who won’t recognise this fabulous piece of music.

PS. I shared this video on Facebook too and received a copyright strike. Luckily, I could dispute it without penalty and it was not muted “in 74 territories”.

Keep Yourself Alive (Long Lost Re-Take)

I just heard this edit of Queen’s Keep Yourself Alive for the first time and I love it. It’s longer than the original and definitely worth listening to if you know the original.

Apparently it was recorded in 1975 as a possible radio edit according to this post but it was finally released in 1991 by Hollywood Records.

This acetate first was thought to be from circa 1972. But some years ago in an interview Brian confirmed that in 1975 it was re-recorded as new version for a possibly new release. Interestingly, the “long” track is refered to as a “long lost retake” on the hollywood version.

I’d love to know what other material is in the Queen vaults waiting to be heard..

Retrograde Music

This tweet reminded me that Retrograde had great loading music.

I don’t think I’ve ever listened to the whole tune and the odd stops are jarring, but it’s worth it. Steve Rowlands was a master on the C64.

Andy Roberts left two interesting comments on that video.

Some of the tunes that Steve did were certainly very inspired by music they were listening to at the time (the Creatures Shop music is based on Izit/Stories.They also did a version of The 45 King/The 900 Number for one of their demos.

Generally speaking, Steve was usually inspired by a riff or beat or bassline; when we went clubbing, you would occasionally see him staring off into space trying to pick apart a tune and memorize it.

The disk version was the original version of this tune. While mastering the game, the cassette loader would always hang at the “pause” in the music (the point where everything stops for a moment – listen for this at 1:31). They tracked this down to the pause in the music and thus the cassette loader uses a slightly different tune which doesn’t stop.

And in response to someone asking if they can update the HSVC entry for this song with his information, he replied,

Sure, feel free to add to the list. I also forgot to add that the Level Complete music from Retrograde is based on “Jack your Body” by Steve “Silk” Hurley. 🙂

Someone recorded the Retrograde title music with two SIDs creating a stereo effect the original C64 lacked. It sounds pretty good to me!

Fabulous looking game. It got a bit boring after a while but there were great power ups and the amazing visuals and sound were stunning.

Prodigy in Wonderland XIII

The death yesterday of Keith Flint left many shocked and reaching for their CD collections but I remembered that one of their songs was featured in a Commodore 64 demo.

Censor Design sampled Prodigy’s “Smack my Bitch Up” and used it as the sound track to the final part of their excellent demo Wonderland XIII. Click play on the video above to see it in action. It’s really amazing!

It’s worth watching the whole video but if the embedded version above doesn’t load at 7:33 then load it from here instead or here’s another video of the music played back by two SID chips which IMO sounds even better!

For those at the back who don’t know, the C64 was released in the early 80s but developers made it work magic and do things thought impossible, such as in this case playing sampled sound!

Edit (2019-03-22): Here’s a version of Voodoo People from Bad Boy by Samar Productions. Amazing what the SID can do!


From Rio to Waterfalls

Follow along from “I Go To Rio” to “Ritmo De La Noche” to “Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall” by Coldplay. I had no idea Ritmo De La Noche had such a history!

Of course there’s a C64 version! Maduplec of BUDS/NATO/Crest fame created a SID version of Ritmo De La Noche for his 1992 Glober demo. Every time I hear that song I think of that demo. I couldn’t find it on Youtube so you’ll just have to fire up an emulator to watch the spinning globe but here’s the SID tune!

The Firm: Serious Fun

The FIrm are “a novelty band” according to their Wikipedia page. They released fun, mostly silly songs in the eighties.

In the late eighties they released an album called “Serious Fun” which included a song most people who grew up in the eighties will recognise, Star Trekkin’.

My parents bought that album and I remember dancing around to that song so long ago. 🙂

There’s a bunch of other songs on the album too but unfortunately the album itself appears to be very rare and only a few of the following songs can be found online:

  • Star Trekkin’
  • Girls Got Feelings Too
  • Arthur Daley (E’s Alright)
  • Snookered
  • Heavy Metal Robot
  • Start Wrekkin’
  • Superheroes
  • Strawberry Ice Cream, Jelly and Cake
  • Monster Rap
  • Cash in Hand
  • Summertime on 42nd Street
  • Pop Stars

Lucky you, I tracked down most of them!

Your life is now complete.