Symphony 2001
14.-16. September, Trzcianka/Poland

A party-report in form of an interview with MacGyver of Dmagic

RELEASES

CreaMD: So what was your first impression when you came to the place?
MacGyver: I was very happy when we reached it after a long train-trip and a long walk through the town where the party took place. The party-place seemed very cool to me. An athmospheric disco with quite some people there.
CreaMD: It seems quite spooky from the photos. How did it look inside? Was it some sort of disco-bar?
MacGyver: It was a disco with bar, yes.

A nice girl at the disco-bar… (yes, she was there!)

CreaMD: Who else came from abroad except you and your pal Svan?
MacGyver: Noone I think. As far as I know, we were the only foreigners.
CreaMD: Scary. How did you feel? Were you able to communicate with the Polish guys? Did they bring you bread and salt? (We do in Slovakia, when foreign visitors come to visit us.)
MacGyver: Hehe. I felt I was welcome. Not all but quite some Polish people could speak English, too. And if they couldn't although we WANTED to talk, we still could communicate „by hand & feet“, as we say :)
CreaMD: Have you met some so-to-speak elite of the Polish C64-scene?
MacGyver: Well, I met some famous guys like Wacek, Kordiaukis, Sebaloz, El Banditos, Feniks, Jakobe and Browar.
CreaMD: It must have been quite a session. How big was the partyplace?
MacGyver: Well, it wasn't as big as the SymMek-hall, but quite bigger than e.g. the Forever-partyplace.
CreaMD: Did you sleep in your own „cottage“? I recall the invitation promised something like that.
MacGyver: Maybe we could have, but it's 1) traditional and 2) more easy to sleep at the party-place ;) We slept in a seperate sleeping-room which was warm, just it was next to the party-hall, so not too silent :). But it was still quite comfatable as there were mattresses to lie on.

Outside the partyplace

CreaMD: Good. What was happening before the compos? Any funny situations?
MacGyver: Before the compos we walked around to meet people. In the late afternoon a C64 got connected to the beamer. First, people only typed lotsa basic-crap, but then some famous C64-demos were shown on the bigscreen. That was very cool actually, just the beamer-picture had some annoying stripes and in between Feniks had to search quite long. Also, some demos crashed. After that, there was some live- and not-live-music played, so Svan and me partied (means danced here) „a bit“ ;)
CreaMD: With whom of the C=64-dudes did you talk personally? Any secret projects running in the Polish scene?
MacGyver: I talked with most of the ones I mentioned. I got to known Katon/Lepsi De is going to release a GFX-collection (as stated in his compo-pic). Sebaloz says it should be out at X2001.
CreaMD: Great! Any other?
MacGyver: Sebaloz is planning a demo, he said. That's all I can recall.
CreaMD: Ook. So those terrible compos…: What do you think about them? How were the compos? The atmosphere, the stuff shown etc.
MacGyver: Well.. First there were some 2 GFX-compos which were quite nice. Well, the stuff said via microphone was all in Polish ofcourse. What sucked was that for some reason they forgot to show the C64 GFX. Then there was CHIP-music, compo. Two of the chip-compo-entries were in fact SIDs (including the winning one by Bzyk). There also was an mp3 winner by Wacek/Arise which was a C64 tune recorded with a PC-soundcard and later converted to an mp3. (This info I've got from the C64-mailinglist). 

Picture by Bzyk/Samar taken from http://www.emu64.pl

CreaMD: „Too few people, too few stuff… in such a situation it's questionable if it's a good idea to organize parties for the C64… So widely advertised and so low frequency…“ (Quote from http://c64.nostalgia.pl). Why did the Polish C64 scene produce so few releases? I thought and expected it would be more productive than this.
MacGyver: Well, it was more a PC- and Amiga- than a C64-party. Still it was a PARTY :) It's really strange the Polish C64-scene's activity is so decreasing lately. I don't really have a clue why. Less releases, and less people even at Polish parties.
CreaMD: Really crazy. They are growing up it seems.
MacGyver: That's why it's not so cool anymore :-) (-:
CreaMD: Okay, how was the party later after compos? Any picant? situations? Any more experiences with Polish weirdos? Maybe you could tell us about other compos too.
MacGyver: Well, I went to sleep after CHIP-compo. And when I woke up it was Sunday morning and the party began to be over :)
CreaMD: Hey, we cannot finish the interview like this.
MacGyver: Hm, maybe I should ask SVAN about that then?
 

Svan's commentary: The PC- and Amiga-Demo-Compos were nice indeed. Still, there often were long breaks in between the compos and even during them (ca. 30 min.) because of different problems, probably with the beamer. The C64-compos took place AFTER the organizers announced people could return their votesheets. So the C64-contributions were shown very late on the bigscreen (time-wise and as last), so the interest of the audience was rather small. The music-compos were very nice, especially the 4-channel- and CHIP-music-compos. All in all it was a nice party. Simply there were too less c64-people there. I hope it will be better visited next time. 

CreaMD: Anyway, would you like to greet someone, thank someone?
MacGyver: I would like to greet Silentriot/Prototype (main-organiser, from PC), the other main-organiser (see photo below) who was really friendly and helpful. He was really really nice you know! Bringing us to supermarket, helping us shopping, brought us to the train-station, all almost without understanding the other's language. Well, I'd like to great all people I met! Maybe except Jakobe as he was way stupid and worked on my nerves.

One of the main organisers (evidently satisfied ;-) & Svan

CreaMD: Yeah, Silentriot has my respect. That's what I call hospitality. Anyway. Why Jakobe was getting on your nerves?
MacGyver: Jakobe… he just sucked :) Telling me how dead the C64 was, and that some time back the Polish scene was critisied for releasing stuff in Polish, but also the Germans release German mags (as if I could help it).
CreaMD: Ah I see. Well, I've run out of questions. Thank you for interview mate.
MacGyver: np :)

IRC Session Start: Mon Sep 24 21:37:59 2001 – Close: Mon Sep 24 22:26:14 2001
 

CREDITS:
Reporter: MacGyver/Dmagic, + some comments by Svan
Correctures: MacGyver & Wotnau/Dmagic
Edited by: CreaMD/Dmagic
All photos by MacGyver/Dmagic (unless credited otherwise)

Other Photo Sources:
http://www.emu64.pl/menu.php?…
http://home.t-online.de/home/TePe_/

Official Party page: http://www.symphony.w.pl