PRESS PLAY ON TAPE

PRESS PLAY ON TAPE, is a revival and tribute rock band to the music used in games on the 1980s' Commodore 64 home computer. The six-member band, hailing from Copenhagen, Denmark, has released three albums and has done several concerts in Britain, Norway, Germany and their home country Denmark. Fans are found all over the globe and some fans have even travelled from far away to attend the band's concerts. Pirated versions of their albums can even be found in some Asian countries.

The band's name comes from the message "PRESS PLAY ON TAPE" that the Commodore 64 displayed when the user issued a command to load a program from the tape drive. Upon pressing the play button on the tape drive, the program would then load. Sometimes PRESS PLAY ON TAPE is referenced as PPOT, pronounced 'pE'pät.

PRESS PLAY ON TAPE have performed live with some of the original composers, namely Rob Hubbard, Ben Daglish, Jon Hare, and Reyn Ouwehand.

History
Press Play on Tape was formed in the fall of 2000. At first regarded as a mere prank by themselves but soon it became obvious that they had hit a soft spot in quite many people. The game tunes from the C64 had for a few years prior to the band's existence been interpreted by numerous remixers as dance club music or techno music. PPOT was the first band to perform C64 game themes live and as rock. PPOT's first public concert was in December 1999 at the demo competition event The Party in Aars, Denmark. Since then they have performed on national TV and radio and been featured on DVDs and interviewed for several media. The band has been said to be one of the most prolific within the genre The members met at the Department of Computer Science at The University of Copenhagen. They have now all graduated and work with computer games at Deadline Games, IO Interactive and NDS Group.

After the band formed video game music's sound has grown more and more popular being widely used in contemporary popmusic, and too awareness of video game theme bands has grown in Europe and the US. Specifically this has reached many of the people in Europe that had a C64 in their early youth (the number of C64s is unknown but lies somewhere between 16 and 20 million units sold) making existence possible for a band that plays music from a home computer that had its prime in the mid 80s.


 * In 2000 the band formed.
 * In 2001 their first album, Loading Ready Run, was released.
 * In 2002 the band released their first music video which was a spoof boy band video based on the C64 classic Comic Bakery by Martin Galway.
 * In 2002 the band performs together with composer Ben Daglish for the first time.
 * In 2003 the band performs together with composers Ben Daglish and Rob Hubbard for the first time.
 * In 2004 their second album, RUN/STOP RESTORE, was released. This year also saw a live performance at St.Luke's Cathedral, London, where the band was again joined on stage by Ben Daglish on flute, as well as Mark 'Madfiddler' Knight on violin.
 * In October 2005 PRESS PLAY ON TAPE performed as warm up band to Danish band Mew, playing at two of Denmark's largest concert venues.
 * In November 2005 the band hosted the concert Copenhagen Retro Concert (CRC 2005) in Copenhagen, Denmark. This event featured the bands Visa Röster, Stuck in d'Eighties, Axes Denied and Rob Hubbard. It was at this event PPOT introduced their performance of Cannon Fodder played solely on game controllers using proprietary software . They performed this with composer Jon Hare. They also performed together with Rob Hubbard for the second time.
 * PRESS PLAY ON TAPE performed at the 2008 Roskilde Festival
 * In 2009 the band performs together with composer Reyn Ouwehand for the first time.
 * In 2010 PPOT celebrated their 10th year anniversary.
 * In 2012 their third album, HOME COMPUTER, was released.

Loading Ready Run
Press Play on Tape's first album title comes from the text sequence in the Commodore 64's loading sequence: Loading Ready Run. After pressing the tape drive's play button, the computer would display "Loading" while transferring the program into the computer memory. At completion, the prompt "Ready." would appear, and the user could then "Run" the program. Loading Ready Run was released in December, 2001, at C64Audio.com. Loading Ready Run received generally favourable reviews. The Remix64.com editorial and independent reviews gave it an 8/10, respectively 9/10 rating, awarding it one Silver and one Gold Seal of Approval.

Track list:
 * 1) Rambo: First Blood Part II - Martin Galway
 * 2) Ghosts'n Goblins - Mark Cooksey
 * 3) Warhawk - Rob Hubbard
 * 4) Monty on the Run - Rob Hubbard
 * 5) Beyond the Ice Palace - David Whittaker
 * 6) Wizardry - Mike Alsop
 * 7) Commando - Rob Hubbard
 * 8) Thing on a Spring - Rob Hubbard
 * 9) Aztec Challenge - Paul Norman
 * 10) Auf Wiedersehen Monty - Rob Hubbard and Ben Daglish
 * 11) Paperboy/Game Over - Mark Cooksey/Martin Galway
 * 12) Krakout - Ben Daglish
 * 13) Thrust - Rob Hubbard
 * 14) Master of Magic - Rob Hubbard/Larry Fast

RUN/STOP RESTORE
The second album's title, RUN/STOP RESTORE, refers to two specific keys on the C64 keyboard. Run/Stop was the button to stop a Basic program's execution. Restore was used in combination with RUN/STOP to break ongoing interrupt loops, restore the corresponding interrupt vectors, and reenter the operating system at a known program location (all this constituting a "warm start"), thus (hopefully) bringing the C64 back to a responsive state. Run/Stop Restore was released in January, 2004. RUN/STOP RESTORE received generally positive reviews. It was awarded the Remix64.com Gold Seal of Approval, given a 9.5/10 score.

Track list:
 * 1) Hypa-ball vs Mission AD - Keith Tinman/Fred Gray
 * 2) Arkanoid - Martin Galway
 * 3) Tiger Mission - Johannes Bjerregaard
 * 4) Phantom (of the Asteroid) - Rob Hubbard
 * 5) Kettle - Ben Daglish
 * 6) Bionic Commando - Tim Follin
 * 7) Comic Bakery (PPOT remix remix) - Martin Galway
 * 8) Nemesis the Warlock - Rob Hubbard
 * 9) The Way of the Exploding Fist - Neil Brennan
 * 10) Fairlight - Mike Alsop
 * 11) Star Paws - Rob Hubbard
 * 12) Flimbo's Quest - Reyn Ouwehand
 * 13) Defender of the Crown - Jim Cuomo/Richard Joseph
 * 14) Roland's Rat Race - Martin Galway
 * 15) Wizball Game Over - Martin Galway
 * 16) Wizball High Score - Martin Galway
 * 17) Sacred Armour of Antiriad - Richard Joseph
 * 18) Crazy Comets - Rob Hubbard

Webography

 * Warhawk (live) - Rob Hubbard
 * Warhawk (PSB mix) - Rob Hubbard
 * Pumpkin Man - Richard Joseph
 * Cannon Fodder (live video) - Jon Hare
 * Tiger Mission (live) - Johannes Bjerregaard
 * Crazy Comets (live) - Rob Hubbard
 * Crazy Comets (live video) - Rob Hubbard
 * Ark Pandora - Ben Daglish
 * Comic Bakery - Martin Galway
 * Comic Bakery (video) - Martin Galway
 * Comic Bakery (DHS remix) - Martin Galway
 * Man with the Gun - PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
 * Monkey Island (live) - Michael Land
 * Monkey Island (live, video) - Michael Land
 * Out Run - Hiroshi Kawaguchi
 * Space Tanks (Dezecrator) - Markus Meriläinen/Linus Walleij


 * PPOT made a music video for Comic Bakery as a boy band spoof music video . The main idea was to make fun of the boy band genre which the video clearly shows. Released in 2001 before YouTube this became a internet download craze but now the video can be seen on YouTube as well . Later in 2007 this music video has been subject for pop culture and media analysis by professor Jaakko Suominen, University of Turku.

Members

 * Theo Engell-Nielsen, Synthesizer
 * André Tischer Poulsen, Synthesizer
 * Søren Trautner Madsen, Drums
 * Uffe Friis Lichtenberg, Bass
 * Jesper Holm Olsen, Guitar
 * Martin Koch, Guitar

Covered tunes
The list of tunes covered by PPOT can be seen below. The list is supposed to be complete.


 * Antiriad - Richard Joseph
 * Ark Pandora - Ben Daglish
 * Arkanoid - Martin Galway
 * Auf Wiedersehen Monty - Rob Hubbard
 * Aztec Challenge - Paul Norman
 * Beyond the Ice Palace - David Whittaker
 * Bionic Commando - Tim Follin
 * Bubble Bobble
 * Cannon Fodder - Jon Hare
 * Comic Bakery - Martin Galway
 * Commando - Rob Hubbard
 * Commodore - Sash
 * Crazy Comets - Rob Hubbard
 * Das Gamer (Das Model) - Kraftwerk
 * Dezecrator (Space Tanks) - Markus Meriläinen/Linus Walleij
 * Delta - Rob Hubbard
 * Exploding Fist - Neil Brennan
 * Flimbo's Quest - Reyn Ouwehand
 * Ghosts'n Goblins - Mark Cooksey
 * Giana Sisters - Chris Hülsbeck
 * Human Race - Rob Hubbard
 * Hypa-ball/Mission AD - Keith Tinman/Fred Gray
 * Karl Koder - Eminem
 * Krakout - Ben Daglish
 * Last Ninja - Ben Daglish
 * Lightforce - Rob Hubbard
 * Master of Magic (Mastertronic) - Rob Hubbard
 * Monkey Island - Michael Land
 * Monty on the Run - Rob Hubbard
 * Nemesis the Warlock - Rob Hubbard
 * Non Terraquous - Ben Daglish
 * One Man And His Droid - Rob Hubbard
 * Out Run - Hiroshi Kawaguchi
 * Pacman - Toshio Kai
 * Parappa the Rapper - Beard Burger Song
 * Phantom of the Asteroids - Rob Hubbard
 * Piece of Noise - Søren "Donovan" Trautner Madsen
 * Pumpkin Man - Richard Joseph
 * Rambo Loader - Martin Galway
 * Roland's Rat Race - Martin Galway
 * Sanxion - Rob Hubbard
 * Still Alive - Jonathan Coulton
 * Spy vs Spy - Nick Scarim
 * The Product - Tammo Hinrichs
 * Thing on a Spring - Rob Hubbard
 * Thrust - Rob Hubbard
 * Tiger Mission - Johannes Bjerregaard
 * Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny - Lemon Demon
 * Warhawk - Rob Hubbard
 * Wizardry - Mike Alsop
 * Wizball - Martin Galway
 * 80's TV Medley - Knight Rider / Miami Vice / Ghostbusters / The A-Team / Dallas / Dempsey and Makepeace / MacGyver / BraveStarr / Transformers / V / Dick Turpin / Airwolf

Samples

 * Samples and videos are available at the band's website.

Trivia

 * An easter egg reference to PRESS PLAY ON TAPE can be found in the computer game Hitman: Blood Money, where an in-game newspaper reads the headline "PPOT Rocks! The Commodore 64 revival band gets major breakthru in the U.S."
 * Their remake of "Outrun: Magical Sound Shower" has been downloaded 59.000 times since its release in 2001 (as of August 2010)
 * Their remake of the Monkey Island has been viewed by more than 700,000 on YouTube.
 * For the 25th anniversary for the Commodore 64 PPOT was interviewed by numerous media, including CNN.