S1:E6 - How The Atari ST and MIDI Might Have Ruined Our Favorite 80's Rock Band

The only thing from the 80's that could rival our love for Atari was our love for punk rock and new wave, and especially, our favorite band: The Alarm.  In 1987 those two things combined in an unexpected way. So unexpected in fact, that we were only able to fully understand impact of those two world's clashing more than 30 years later.  This episode documents that journey to understanding.

In 1987 we gave up the "Little Blue Desktop " of Atari 800 DOS for the Little Green Desktop of the Atari 520 ST.  At that exact moment in time, the music industry was changing dramatically from one that used mostly analog recording practices to adding digital instruments and recording methods into the Studio. The ATARI (ubiquitously known without the ST) mostly in studios was the cheapest, most accurate sequencer on the market.

The list of bands that used an Atari ST for recording was compiled from the following sources: Atari Age,com forums, Sounds On Sounds Forum, https://www.musictech.net/, Matt Aniss and http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/,  stuff.tv, Wikipedia and Google.
Matt Aniss has written the definitive exploration of the Atari ST an MIDI “Instumental Instruments- The Atari ST” http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/10/atari-st-instrumental-instruments
The Snippets of Alarm, songs played were used under fair use guidelines for the purposes of criticism.  They were as follows:

Rain In The Summertime from the Album Eye Of The Hurricane, 1987
Declaration - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
Marching On - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
Across The Border - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke?  - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
Unsafe Building - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
The Stand  - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
Rain In The Summertime (Live) from the album Electric Folklore Live, 1988
Rescue Me, live at the Tower In Philadelphia, April 16th, 1988
Sold Me Down The River

The only thing from the 80's that could rival our love for Atari was our love for punk rock and new wave, and especially, our favorite band: The Alarm.  In 1987 those two things combined in an unexpected way. So unexpected in fact, that we were only able to fully understand impact of those two world's clashing more than 30 years later.  This episode documents that journey to understanding.

In 1987 we gave up the "Little Blue Desktop " of Atari 800 DOS for the Little Green Desktop of the Atari 520 ST.  At that exact moment in time, the music industry was changing dramatically from one that used mostly analog recording practices to adding digital instruments and recording methods into the Studio. The ATARI (ubiquitously known without the ST) mostly in studios was the cheapest, most accurate sequencer on the market.

The list of bands that used an Atari ST for recording was compiled from the following sources: Atari Age,com forums, Sounds On Sounds Forum, https://www.musictech.net/, Matt Aniss and http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/,  stuff.tv, Wikipedia and Google.
Matt Aniss has written the definitive exploration of the Atari ST an MIDI “Instumental Instruments- The Atari ST” http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/10/atari-st-instrumental-instruments
The Snippets of Alarm, songs played were used under fair use guidelines for the purposes of criticism.  They were as follows:

Rain In The Summertime from the Album Eye Of The Hurricane, 1987
Declaration - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
Marching On - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
Across The Border - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke?  - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
Unsafe Building - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
The Stand  - live At The Hammersmith Palais, December 1984
Rain In The Summertime (Live) from the album Electric Folklore Live, 1988
Rescue Me, live at the Tower In Philadelphia, April 16th, 1988
Sold Me Down The River, from the album Change, 1989
Hardland, , from the album Change, 1989
Change 2, from the album Change, 1989
Prison Without Prison Bars , from the album Change, 1989
Rivers To Cross, from the album Change, 1989
Change 1, b-side of Raw singe, 1991
Two Rivers, from the album Equals, 2018
13 Dead Reindeer , from the album Equals, 2018
Tomorrow, from the album Equals, 2018

Atari Dos 2.X - Inside Atari DOS Byby Bill Wilkinson, published 1982 https://www.atariarchives.org/iad/

Atari ST TOS 1.0 Information, pictures, more
http://toastytech.com/guis/tos.html

BAAL - Atari ST - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=baal+atari+st

Better Dead than Alien - Atari ST -
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=better+dead+than+alien+atari+st

A selection of Atari ST game videos featuring music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_JcYTI-HT4&list=PLvf41E1k8S56HHewILZJ07qDZdRJP-UcO

The History of Midi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHmshRb5HQs

1986 Discussion of Midi Computers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-UtxKEXAAk

PODCAST ROLL:

Atari ST and 400/800/XL/XE Podcasts

Antic - https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/

XE Game By Game - http://xegs8bit.com/

XL/XE - https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/xlxe-xlxe-uvPGcxAZnHD/

Player / Missile - https://playermissile.com/

Inverse ATASCII - https://inverseatascii.info/

Atari Game Podcasts

Ferg’s amazing Atari 2600 Game By Game Podcast - https://player.fm/series/the-atari-2600-game-by-game-podcast

Atari Bytes - https://player.fm/series/atari-bytes

The Atari 7800 Game by Game Podcast (classic episodes) - https://player.fm/series/the-atari-7800-game-by-game-podcast

Shinto’s Jaguar game by game Podcast - https://player.fm/series/the-atari-jaguar-game-by-game-podcast

The Atari 5200 Podcast - https://player.fm/series/the-atari-5200-podcast

The Atari 7800 Homebrew Podcast - https://player.fm/series/the-atari-7800-homebrew-podcast

The Atari Lynx Handy Cast - https://player.fm/series/the-atari-lynx-handycast

The Atari 5200 Super Community Podcast - https://player.fm/series/the-atari-5200-super-community

The Best of the rest (if you are not listed an want to be , please contact us)

The Amazing Intellivisionaries Podcast - https://player.fm/series/the-intellivisionaries-podcast

The Essential Growing up 80’s Podcast - https://player.fm/series/growing-up-80s

Intarivisions - Atari, Intellivision and Coleco common games - https://player.fm/series/intarivisions

The Pie Factory Podcast - https://piefactorypodcast.wordpress.com/

The Floppy Days Podcast -  https://player.fm/series/floppydays-vintage-computing-podcast

Essential Podcasts that might be of interest to this community

Reply-All - https://player.fm/series/reply-all

The Moth - https://themoth.org/podcast

Story Corps - https://storycorps.org/podcast/

Never let the fires die The official Alarm Podcast - http://thealarm.com/feed/podcast/

Comfortable Place on the Couch The Midnight Oil Podcast - http://darrenfoulds.com/podcasts/index.html

More 80’s podcasts on Player FM - https://player.fm/en/podcasts/80's-podcasts