THE AWARDS - VANDALISM NEWS GOLD
St LCP 2008 & X2008 demos 
Hosted by Jonatan Forsberg "Macx", 
David Simmons "Jazzcat" 
and Tobias Svensson "ZZAP69"


After the demise of "The Charts" there was going to always be something 
missing in this magazine. Can there be another system that can capture 
who is doing what and how good it is? The traditional chart system was a 
good and memorable routine for most magazines, but became redundant due 
to lack of user participation. THE AWARDS has taken stakes higher, by 
providing the thoughts of those participating and debating which single 
person, group, production, event etc. should receive the token award on 
behalf of this magazine. Can we merge the The Awards and Charts together 
creating a quality list that gives chart based discussion and debate?

We want to bring back the chart, bring back the mountain that people 
climbed to reach the summit, where they were victorious and bathed in 
glory, dominating the competition and inspiring motivation to produce art 
on a machine with extreme limitation. 

Currently we're setting up a simple webpage that will receive your votes, 
of which we will debate and present in the traditional fashion, we believe 
it is needed. Next edition will feature the debut of this hybrid, a mixture 
of modern approach and ancient tradition. For now, some excitement is upon 
us, two exciting events took place in autumn - St LCP 2008 and X2008.

How did the releases unfold and what made an impact?

We start out with a discussion where we present the opted releases. This is 
followed by the conclusion, in which we discuss our impression. After some 
sort of consensus or majority decision the award is handed out at the end 
of the chapter.


(Macx)
X2008 was a C64 demo scene show-off. It appears all the clever-brained 
programmers suddenly turned into magicians. I know I speak for many when I 
argue that the explosions that occurred on the big screen that October night 
are some of the best hitherto produced. 

Hungarian Chorus presented "Every DYCP Counts in Large Amounts", which is 
some sort of record breaking of which I'm too lame to grasp. However, it is 
hardcore coderpr0n, of that I'm sure. It's smoothly executed by Clarence, 
with graphics from Leon and an audial score by GRG I really appreciate. At X 
it was awarded sixth place in the demo competition.

The Swedish scene poet Hollowman of Fairlight released a thought provoking 
piece of concept art. This one runs deep, all the way back to (re)birth. The 
music by Goto80, one of his better tunes I think, is excellently suited for 
the tale. "My Beauty" is as elegant as only Hollowman can achieve. It came 
fifth at X.

Raiders Of the Lost Empire released a little comic narration of how to hike 
all the way to the far away party place. If petrol prices keep going up this 
might be the future. Stirf coded, JSL pixelled and Factor6 composed. In "Flip 
on a Trip" the C64 troll makes it through forests full of bears; he crosses 
scary waters and flies a balloon over mountains. It would've been a perfect 
intro for a RPG. Eighth place at X.


(ZZAP69)
I've been visiting parties since 1993, and the demo compo of X2008 was without 
doubt the best one I've ever witnessed. Maybe the improvement of individual 
groups doesn't seem as stunning to me as it does to Macx. However, an 
improvement of so many groups at one compo is a pure (yes): MAGIC. One of 
the most pleasant surprises at the compo was the demo "Pearls For Pigs" by Xenon. 
I reckon Dalezy of Triad made a tune with a similar name some time ago, but that 
one has nothing to do with this demo I think. Anyway, the demo features rotating 
chessboard zoomer, scroll text with Commodore charset in 3D (!), wobbling 
interference and a lovely skewed bitmap (Or is it FLI?) scroller with The King of 
Rock. What I like most about this demo however is the design/graphics interaction 
with Valsary's graphics. Seeing that pigs eye wink was pure bliss! Valsary, where 
have you been all my life? The music by A-Man holds a high standard of quality in 
an objective or professional sense, although I don't feel it's very appealing 
myself. The last tune is however really interesting and makes me melt into the 
end screen with the fetus and that Panoramic design-ish bitmap scroller. This 
demo ended up 3rd. 

The number four on the X achievement list is made by the front figures of the 
last X' winners. The Larsson brothers do it again! "Amplifire" is a short modern 
classic with lovely tricks I've never seen before, a tune that only could be 
made by RaveGuru and a handful of lovely graphics by Archmage. Watching this demo 
live at the X-party was indeed a privilege. The horizontal twister-routine looked 
so nice it almost made me think I'd been using something stronger than Jupiler to 
intoxicate myself. 

The demo Macx mentions, "Every DYCP Counts in large amounts" is a milestone for 
old-school programming and features a screen with no less than 17 mega DYCPS. I 
assume that the music GRG made for this screen doesn't use very much rastertime! 
As far as I'm concerned, mastering only two DYCPs requires a lot of timing and 
hard work with switching between sprite- and charset mode. The reason why this 
record hasn't been beaten earlier might be that coders have felt that the costs 
are larger than the benefits; does 17 DYCPs look nice? 


(Jazzcat)
Yeah... "Every DYCP counts..." is a fun trip down memory lane, hard to forget those 
old battles for the record. ZZAP69 makes an interesting point on does it look nice? I 
guess depending on how you present the scrollers, from coderpr0n-perspective, it 
lifts the bar again (respect). Would have been nice if they presented them, one 
after another in succession (for counting purposes). It wasn't the only milestone 
broken at X; not placing in the demo compo was "Vicious Sid" by Mixer, SounDemon 
and THCM. This production loads up with the stylish "That's Entertainment" intro 
used famously by MDG. Unsuspecting, I hit the long one and feel assaulted by the 
most advanced SID stuff ever (to use their words); full 8 bit waveform digis (with 
screen/scroll at same time). Memories of old Cycleburner and 801DC work blasted my 
mind and I was thrown into the modern madness of pushing this machine to it's limit 
further than ever before. The demo is best appreciated on the real machine, as here 
we can see SounDemon showing us some tricks via the VIC chip. I wonder what placing 
the demo would've made if it had entered the compo?

The gods from the Scanian Provinces give us "Amplifire". A beautiful demo that left 
me wanting more. I really appreciate the work by RaveGuru, I especially love his 
bass sound... great SID dancing material! Anyway, the balance of code and design 
(love that intro) is great and I think the most recent addition of Archmage just 
completes the team so well. Not really a complaint; it was too short; it's just so 
great that I was left wanting more and more! Another one at this demo compo that 
hit me was the new instalment in the Natural Wonders series by Oxyron. Great 
effects and excellent music sync with the effects and pixels. I've got to say it's 
nice to hear from Peace again (an old swap-buddy also), a fave of mine (now under 
the handle Kasmo). Anyway, this flower-power experience also had a nice disk cover 
from legendary Elegance (hi pal), I enjoyed this demo but somehow enjoyed the 
shorter work from the Larsson brothers even more - but really: how to complain? 
They were both top notch.


(Macx)
If we're to compare bass sounds this autumn, I believe Goto80 must be the winner 
over RaveGuru. Pump it up in that tunnel of birth in "My Beauty" and the windows in 
your house will sing along. Nevertheless, "Amplifire" rocks and RaveGuru plays a 
tune that makes one joggle the muscles in tune with the rhythm. Check out the 
smoothness of those twisting crazy coloured bars! The posse of InstinctHorizon is a 
rising star on the skies of the C64 demo scene, powered by the hazardous fuel of 
Pernod and JackAsser. And "The Larsson Brothers" is also the fitting name of a demo 
they released earlier this year, at St LCP. A most worthy competitor in the booming 
Swedish scene. "Amplifire" was awarded fourth place at X, and "The Larsson Brothers" 
second at St LCP.

Jazzcat mentions the wicked production with the inverted pun-name of "Vicious Sid". 
Oi! old punks. Having read the ultra-nerdy discussions on producing weird music 
between SounDemon and Frantic at Antidote I expected some odd sounds, but I must 
say that this is a mind blaster. When the speech in the final screen appeared at X 
I almost jizzed my pants. Not that it was the most awesome tune ever, but the way 
it was executed - I have a dream - good lord! It was first at home, with the volume 
on the TV-set maxed that I got to appreciate the sounds produced by the VIC (i.e. 
the graphic-chip). For some reason "Vicious Sid" didn't compete at X and was released 
outside of the compo. Too bad.

At St LCP in Lund, Triad released the dirty industrial waste of Tristate. Iopop and 
CMP managed to fetch the emotional state appearing it all the engineering workshops 
in Sweden fearing closure because of the economical crash. The workers are given 
notice at Volvo Cars, downturn in repetitive cycles. It could be, perhaps, that the 
entire feeling is owed to Ne7's downbeat monotone post rock. Anyhow, it works for me, 
and for the other Swedes. First place at St LCP.


(ZZAP69)
Tristate from ST LCP had indeed a very nice interaction of rhythm and design. I first 
thought the demo disk had some really nasty bug on it, but when I fell into Ne7's 
rhythm I was really pleased to see the unordinary design. This demo is nice, but 
naturally I had another favourite in the competition. 

Being an ex-member of the Swedish demo group Noice, knowing the stories about what 
people thought would be their last demo-struggle, the choice of pointing out one 
favourite is not difficult. Shadow of Noice was constantly on the group’s inactive-
list during my time. He surprised us with a beautiful DTV-demo in 2007, but his real 
comeback to the C64 scene came in 2008. PseudoCode by Noice is a small but lovely 
collaboration with Archmage of Instinct, Dane of Booze Design and Shadow of Noice. 
The demo holds a (nerdy?) concept I can't really grasp, but there's a lot of nice 
plasmas a "cyber vector" and the best tunnel routine I've seen since Censor Design's 
last demo, "Bla Bla". Someone I talked to said the plasmas looked too 1995-ish, but 
don't tell me this isn't compensated with the nice graphics by Archmage. The tune by 
Dane is really nice too. We mentioned Pernod earlier; Shadow is the second 
Scanian/Swedish comeback in a rather short time. 

Another demo from ST LCP is Velocipede by Fairlight. This is a collaboration with 
Oxidy, Puterman and Avalon (who was once in FLT with Oxidy). V3locip3d3 is a quite 
minimalistic demo, which is something we're quite used to seeing from Puterman. 
Some parts look like something one would've been able to do in BASIC combined with 
line-vectors and glenz-vectors. Quite a few effects are linked with graphics by 
Oxidy. At first I thought the style of the graphics didn't fit in, but after seeing 
this demo more than twice I see the advantages of contrasts being used here. The 
only thing that really spoils it is that it's too short. I feel sooooo unsatisfied 
(to use a movie quote from John Malkovich). Something positive to mention is the 
tune by Avalon. I've always been a sucker for Jonas' work, and this tune is no 
exception. It sounds like a combination of Rob Hubbard's "Thanatos" and a creamy 
interpretation of Puterman's earlier audial work. At the party, there were some 
rumours about Avalon releasing a music collection. Maybe a third proper 
Scanian/Swedish comeback will see the day soon?


(Jazzcat)
I don't think, personally, Tristate should've made first place at St LCP, it's a 
nice demo with a real industrial style to it, but I found I got more from "PseudoCode", 
the comeback of Noice. It has a nice balance of everything (code, music, graphics) 
with the graphics from Archmage and music by Dane particularly dominating. The only 
quirk I have with this and with all demos these days is the amount of plasmas. It 
seems we need to fill up the blanks rather than doing something out of the ordinary, 
no more plasmas please! :) That aside, Tristate is dirty yet nice and I agree with 
Macx's point that Ne7's downbeat adds to the feeling. My favourite part of the demo is 
the balls part, bouncing around and being shaken at the same time, that's totally out 
there and far from normal (where every scener likes to be ;)) Maybe the originality 
of the demo is what won the audience over but I still favour the Noice work due to 
reasons already mentioned. 

"The Super Larsson Bros" is very nice and well deserves it's position at number two. 
Mirage was the perfect choice for pixels here as he enhances that "game"-feeling that 
we are hinted on through the title name (only 2 days worth of pixelling). I feel the 
demo, like Tristate, is a bit short but considering it was put together so quickly it 
shows what a few guys dedicated to a goal can achieve it. As Macx said, the Larsson-
phenomenon is a rising force in the scene engulfing us in anticipation of their next 
demo. 

ZZAP69 mentioned "V3locip3d3", by the guys in Fairlight... this demo seems so weird, 
for Fairlight at least, as it's not like anything I've seen them release. I think some 
other guys felt it was more like something from Wrath. Regardless of this and the 
weirdness I felt, I liked the minimal approach to the demo. I'm a sucker for glenz 
vectors (more than plasmas!) and enjoyed the track from Avalon (although not as much 
as ZZAP69 did it). 

I would have loved to have attended the Lund party before venturing to X2008, it 
would've really given me the best experience that the C64 demo world has to offer, the 
Swedes have their own at the moment and X2008 is evolving from local to global. The 
best of both types. What can we expect next time?


(Macx)
There has been quite a few of smaller demos and one-pagers emanating from the blue 
screen the past half year(s). Many of these will have a hard time in the competition 
for The Award in this renowned magazine and other fora, despite of perhaps containing 
much more scene spirit and C64 love than the releases we chose to mention in this 
chapter. 

In this aspect the C64 scene is very similar with the real world. It's my strong 
belief however that the average scener is much more of a free thinker than the 
ordinary guy, making sure to get a glimpse of the smaller and often much more odd 
and sometimes revolutionary executables out there. When such files are released at 
parties the distribution follows at the cost of drowning in bigger productions, the 
opposite is when only released at the 3AD+[O] bulletin board Antidote - like those 
fab music collections from CMP.

Anyhow, the autumn has passed and in the northern hemisphere the winter is at large. 
No sight of global warming, at least not at the time of writing in south eastern Scania. 
More wood to be carried in for the stove and a new award to be handed out, with 
international attention and great glory for the receiver. Whom should have it, what 
will the hosts conclude?

Should I argue the case for Xenon's marvellous "Pearls for Pigs" with all those 
flirting eyes? Or are only Booze Design worthy, having gone from archangels to 
seraphims through releases such as "Tsunami", "Cycle" and then this autumn: "Edge of 
Disgrace"? JackAsser and Pernod, or perhaps their parents and upbringing in Lund? 
Right now I lean towards handing The Award for issue 50 to the organisers of X2008: 
Burglar, CBA, Mr. Ammo, Oxbow, Scout, Spectator, TiM, and WVL. If it weren't for them, 
THE demo competition would not have occurred in the first place.


(ZZAP69) 
I think that Macx is swimming on pretty deep existential waters here. Would we not 
have had our beloved Swedish demo coders without their mutual parents? Would we not 
have had the demos from X2008 without X2008? It's said that there would've been no 
World War II without Hitler, but it's also said that if there were no Hitler, someone 
else would just have taken his place. I believe that the demos from X2008 would have 
been released, more or less, without the X-party. Without Mr and Mrs Larsson, there 
would have been no Larsson brothers, but maybe the disturbed balance in Universe would 
have emanated a Mr and Mrs Olsson hence generating the Olsson brothers instead. 
However, being one of the many attendees at the X2008-party, I still think the 
organisers effort might be worth an award in Vandalism News. Being indirectly 
responsible for the best demo compo in the scene ever, or not. A party like this, so 
strategically located and with such a good atmosphere might motivate old talents to 
come back or, maybe new talents to rise. As I see it, we have the organisers of demo 
parties from this decade to thank for Pernod, JackAsser and many others.

When it comes to the demos released at X, I realise I haven't commented on the 
winning demo yet. "Edge of disgrace" by Booze Design is a worthy winner to me, having 
an idea of how much effort that was put in this production. It feeds us with several 
excellent screens stapled a little too swiftly on each other, not leaving us time to 
catch our breath between them. On the other hand a little shorter demo like "Pearls 
for pigs" has made a clearer mark on my data-soul. Last time we gave the awards to 
the Game Over(view) Freestyle Jam. Maybe this time we should give the awards to the 
x2008-demo compo? Or maybe to the organisers, for encouraging every enthusiast 
affected carrying the C64 scene further into it's fourth decade?


(Jazzcat)
I can see what Macx is saying and to their credit, the X organisers performed a 
miracle, but I think it's more those attending and releasing that make the party 
and the fact that the proceeding reputation of a C64-only event helps send shivers 
of excitement down everyone's backs... The organising team do deserve praise but I 
don't feel it should be within this award segment, the content of this mag, 
heavily based on X2008, is testimony itself to what happened there. I agree fully 
with Macx's point on smaller productions being consumed by bigger ones at parties. 
I've fallen victim to that before and it's not fun when something containing more 
"spirit" is lost to something that has less C64 love (but more "big screen"-factor). 

Whilst I agree that the organisers and the compo itself are MASSIVE factors for our 
scene, that deserve our attention, I simply can't go past the greatness of "Edge of 
Disgrace". Whether you're new/old in the scene or know nothing about C64 - it 
doesn't matter - when anyone sits down and take it all in, they can easily see that 
a lot of work went into it. This demo fist fucked me (to borrow Hollowman's words) 
in so many ways, the timing of the music with the effects and the perfect transition 
of effects. WOW! In a demo party full of kings, this was the overlord, the governing 
factor, the peak of 8bit glory in the countryside of Holland... (whoooahhh, I better 
come back to Earth before I fly into the distant stars)

Now, I have to make some suggestions also; less plasmas! NO PLASMAS!! PLEASE! and 
The Terminator graphics/theme. Well executed (music changing to match theme) but 
something more original would've been superior! The work by Dane impressed me the 
most, the mammoth soundtrack and the multi-picture-eye-zoomer, Stellan sent me these 
as previews to tease me but witnessing them in the context of the completed demo - oh 
my!

EoD is the choice for me, the event is the vessel but the fluid that fills it is what 
matters.


(Macx)
I assume I will have to discuss free will and what is, if anything, predestined with 
ZZAP69 elsewhere. There are some truths in what he says about the matter that I will 
have to agree with, but if it's regarding sentience or physics I agree, I will leave 
to that very debate (of which I'm looking forward to).

Dane has a way with sounds of the Commodore 64 that few will master and he is well 
aware of how much I adore his music talents. I cannot but agree with Jazzcat on the 
mammoth soundtrack. However, I must try and keep in mind that the dancing away of my 
brains to his tunes must not hinder me in trying to capture the faults and failures 
of the demo. The only problem is that there doesn't seem to be any. Killing the sound 
makes the demo a bit dull, but only for a short while, until the visual cortex takes 
over. A bit like when having had a good chat of great topics with Stellan over a few 
beers at a party. When he vanishes into the main hall it takes a few moments to realise 
that there are other party people in there to mingle with. Edge of Disgrace as pure 
visual works, the psyche bounces anyway. HCL has achieved beyond belief in this demo, 
through hard work over many years. Even the transitions between the parts are great 
pieces of art. These guys, Jailbird, Dane and HCL own.

Another demo wasted on the scene, as a clever programmer said not too long ago. Like 
throwing pearls to pigs. If this demo, Pearls for Pigs, would have been consistent with 
the emotions it triggered in me in the part where the tune is all different and a few 
chosen of all those visual organs in the eye patterned background behind the flirty pig 
blinks, this demo would, no doubt, have been beyond words. The logo with the lines 
emulating fluorescent lamps is part of that demo of my dreams as well. However, many of 
the other parts, although good ones, seem to come from another demo. They use another 
modality of my mind. The demo kind of begins again in the silence opening the ending 
fetus part. Mysterious sounds achieved by A-Man. Please follow that thread: Fluorescent 
lamp - blinking eyes - beautiful patterns - fetus and lunar craters from a comic book. 
And please make it repeat until I decide to shut the Commodore off. I love being carried 
away by the very depths of my subconsciousness, when the rational cognition is set aside 
the creativity comes crawling.

By coincidence the other day, I stumbled upon the fact that there are quite a few c64 
demos at YouTube. As it happened I watched Edge of Disgrace with a few non scene friends, 
and when I told them the original ran on a dead slow machine with 64k of RAM from 1982 
they were in awe. Why their PC were’s running absolutely non smoothly if this could be 
achieved with next to nothing. I guess this is where I start arguing for the product 
rather than the event, at least in this time around. This product will be there in ten 
years, as proof of a living scene breaking the utmost frontiers. Unless ZZAP69 strongly 
disagrees and present reasons why I should cast my final vote on the organisers of X2008, 
I concur with Jazzcat.


(ZZAP69)
Open as I am, I'm also a large admirer of Dane's talent. Technically spoken, he's one 
of the best musicians around still. I have however always thought his tunes are a little 
too much conventional pop for my taste. In Edge of Disgrace, Dane shows us a new setup 
of lovely weird metallic sounds. We also hear some Future Composer-like glides, with 
much distortion and vibrato, combined with the perfectly clear instruments we're used 
to hearing from Dane. All this in a thematically quilted tune of almost 20 minutes. I 
believe that here, just like with Chorus demo, the music doesn't take a lot of raster 
time. However, the demo is pure coderpr0n, looking marvellous, compared to the 17 DYCPS 
just looking fine. I don't think I've seen a more jaw-dropping demo since Mathematica 
from 1995. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. As I see it: X had nothing to do with 
the demo compo itself, it was just a very nice arena for the magic to take place. 
I really liked Pearls for Pigs and all the other demos released there, but Edge of 
Disgrace by Booze Design is the crown of the competition and a worthy one. Since this 
awards chapter is focused on the St LCP and X08 parties, I see no obstacles at all for 
giving EoD the award. I'm trying to find one simple reason not to give this production 
a 10 on CSDb, but haven't found one yet. This is the most shocking (in a positive sense) 
demo in years.


(Jazzcat)
I'm now in the position of wrapping up the awards for this prestigious issue of 
Vandalism News.

The demo or the event? Who should we place higher?

I know EoD has been in the making for quite a long time and there is a really 
strong chance it was scheduled to be released at the X party in particular, thus 
making the event significant in it's own right. Out of all the events in C64 data-town, 
the one that was chosen was in the countryside of Holland. Was it because of the farmer 
there? maybe the farmer's wife? Or something else...

Regardless, it would be hard for us to knock this demo back from receiving the award, 
we all have positive thoughts on it and the event that hosted it... The demo deserves 
the attention and therefore showcases the event that hosted it. Well done guys, as MDG 
would say: that's entertainment! Therefore it gives us great pleasure for Vandalism 
Gold to give it's honourable award to...


* EDGE OF DISGRACE by BOOZE DESIGN *


Concluding the 4th instalment of the C64 Awards published to date, expect some small 
changes in our methods for the next edition of Vandalism News. Before signing off, 
please keep us informed, give us some feedback. Should someone else have received the 
award? Are we interpreting things wrongly? Any ideas on how we can improve?


Signing off,

Jonatan 'Macx' Forsberg
Tobias 'ZZAP69' Svensson
David 'Jazzcat' Simmons