Obscure stuff

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Jhaen
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Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2003 4:57 pm
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Obscure stuff

Post by Jhaen »

Howdy,

Does anyone here know anything about Mr.Man/Andromeda and Dizzy/CNCD? It seems that the net doesn't have any interviews or articles about the guys - its a shame, really. All I've been able to find about Dizzy is like, a small textfile on the Mods Anthology CD.. :) Considering Mr.Man its even worse - it seems that only his real name is known.

So uh.. anyone? Please? :)

zeg
Posts: 150
Joined: Wed Jun 19, 2002 6:13 pm
Location: germany

Post by zeg »

Balance; Upstream at the gathering 2nd of april 1994
------------------
THE NORWEGIAN ANSWER TO RICHARD MARX?

Mr. Man / Andromeda in FOCUS


The Norwegian musician in Andromeda is
famous for his ballads in Mirror and
various diskmags. Is he really that soft
guy you might expect him to be?

By Cesium

NAME: Ronny Nordeide
HANDLE: Mr. Man
GROUP: Andromeda
FORMER GROUPS: Absence
FUNCTION: Musician
AGE: 23
IN THE SCENE SINCE: 1985
OCCUPATION: None, at the moment.
RESIDENT: Sandefjord, Norway
INSTRUMENTS: Roland JV-80,
Roland D-70, Boss DR-550, Casio CZ5000,
Yamaha QY-10, (The Amiga), and an old
acoustic guitar.

The man behind the mister.
You have probably never read any inside
stories or scandalous articles about
this shy Norwegian musician which
happen to be a member of the famous
Andromeda. D'Fence says he knows "As
little as it can possible be" about
him. Neither do I, so I'll try to lift
a bit on this mystic mask of his.

In his so-called "real-life", Mr. Man
attends the TBK school of telematics,
which focuses mostly on
telecommunications, though he hasn't
moved the step to buy a modem yet.


Mr. Man is the name of a brand of
men's socks. A lot of people might
think that this handle is highly
unoriginal and childish. But he says


that he actually didn't know about the
brand of socks at the time he picked
the name.
- There was a C64-fellow at high school
which constantly addressed me with that
name. When I came walking by and he
saw me, he bursted out; "Oh, Mr. Man!"
I haven't got any comments on the name
in particular, but the guys in
Andromeda often calls me Mr. Boy,
Herman, etc.
The latter is a joke which probably
only Scandinavians will understand.

Other musicians change groups from time
to time, but Mr.Man says he feel a
strong relationship to Andromeda and
its members.
- I've only been in Absence and
Andromeda during my scene life.
Abscence was started together with some


of my best friends who live in the same
area as I. We've been knowing each
other for a long time, and when we
joined Andromeda we got a good inside
contact between all of us.

Concerning leaving Andromeda, Mr.
Man's opinion is clear.
- I have no plans whatsoever to leave
Andromeda. I haven't received any
serious offers about joining other
groups either.


The man and the music
- The most sucessful, or popular module
I've made, must either be "Restricted"
or "Distant Call". Though the one I'm
most satisfied with myself is "Time's
the Remedy". It came as far up as the
4th place in the music compettion at


The Party 2 in competition with raw
techno and heavy.

Though he has entered more music compos
than most others, Mr. Man has never
reached the no. 1 spot.
- I think there are many reasons for
that. My modules are not quite
"commercial mainstream"-stuff, you
know, which the general Amiga-freak is
addicted to from the first pattern.
Besides, I've mostly competed with slow
tunes which I feel I master best at the
moment. Another reason is that there
are many talented musicians who make
good tunes which sometimes deserve to
beat me.

Eventhough all the best musicians in
the scene at that moment competed in
the music competition at The Party 3,


Mr. Man says he didn't think the music
was that good.
- There were quite a lot of really
strange techno sounds, which is not
exactly my style of music. A huge
amount of modules were handed in to the
jury and it must've been a hard job to
pick out the 30 modules for the final.
Anyway, I think the jury consisted of
people with a too narrow music taste
and I think they could have listened
more carefully to the modules they were
to choose.

During the competition, the only thing
which was shown on the big screen, was
the number of the module which was
played. The names were published on a
sheet of paper after the competition
was finished. This was perfectly
allright and only positive, according
to him. It's evident that many only vote for
the names. This gives all musicians an
equal opportunity to win. But one
thing that bothers me is that during
the parties, when the music competition
is running, there are a lot of people
who don't listen much to the music at
all.
This basically goes for the rest of the
compos as well. I think that during
this short period of time which the
competitions are going on, people
should free themselves from the machine
(read "Sensible Soccer") and turn down
or off the huge loudspeakers and
amplifiers which some tend to bring.
It'd be nice if they would pay a little
attention to what many have worked on
for weeks or even months.

Most people remember Mr.Man for his
ballads, like "Distant Call" and "Time
is the Remedy". But actually Mr. Man
has been in touch with techno.
- Yes, I have made techno; A tune which
is called "Heavy Industrial Toxic Waste
(!) It's not totally raw hardcore
stuff, as the name might indicate, but
at least something which sounds like
techno. But this tune is made in a
combination of synths and
Amiga-samples.
I used OctaMed and Bars & Pipes Pro to
make it. I've got an 8-channel mixer
with a 6 track cassette recorder which
I used to record several tracks "live",
so to say. It sounds pretty good, to
be an experiment which only took 2
evenings to finish.
Another techno tune is my contribution
to the "Worst module competition" at
The Gathering '92, "Der Buut", . I won a ST-01 sample disk
signed by Peter/PMC. Really something.
Some refer to Mr. Man as a
"diskmag-musician", other as boring,
but he isn't bothered by that.
- To be referred to as a
diskmag-musician is not something which
I look upon as negative. The fact that
I often get requests about contributing
with music for mags, must be a proof
that a lot of people likes the modules
I've composed in that style.
Boring? Yes, I can understand that
some think so. At least the ones who
likes techno, rave and the such. But
then again, that is the music I find
dull and less varied, so... Taste
differs.
The biggest events in his scene career
has a lot to do with the reaction from
his audience.
- Talking about releases, it must be
that "Mirror" got such a high
appreciation by the public. The
biggest thing to happen to me
personally so far, was when "Time's the
Remedy" came 4th at The Party 2.
Other people's
favorites among Mr.Man's tunes:
Cesiums own favorite is definately
"Distant Call". It's the clear and
beautiful piano sample which does this
song. Mr. Man didn't create the
melody himself, but anyway it's truly a
great conversion. Mmmm... Mr.Man!
Lizard / Spaceballs likes "Sequestrial"
and "Beneight Dignity" best. -
"Sequestrial" for the way he arranges
the instruments and the orchestra in
this song. Though there are some
small, stupid mistakes which could've
been avoided", Lizard says.

- The module I like best from Mr.Man is
without doubt the pianotune "Distant
Call", Jason of Razor 1911 reveals to
us.
- Why, I can't tell, but it sounds very
professional, and he is really showing
off his strong musical abilities here.
Besides, I believe it is not a
conversion, and that is something I
respect and admire.
Just to teeze you, Ronny, I must say
that "Broken Joysticks" is the one I
like the least. (so NOW you know that!
:-)
I like quite a lot of his older ones
too, but I can't remember any specific
titles right now, Jason ends.

About other musicians¢
- In the scene, I look most up to my
colleague in Noiseless, Jogeir
Liljedahl. Many of his calm and
atmospherical tunes are superb. I
would've liked to hear a synth-version
of one of these. (Jogeir, contact BLC
NHQ to respond) Besides, he's
productive as hell, quite different
from myself, though I'm trying to
improve on that point.
Other musicians I like very much is
Heatbeat for his originality and
experimenting which actually turns out
good.

Dizzy makes good music as well, and
Chromag has some good slow tunes.


Mr. Man isn't so negative towards
Jester as many others.
- It's good commercial computer disco.
But not all of his work keeps the same
standard, I think. My favorite is "My
Glamorous Life". That one is good.

The usual tricky FOCUS question is
which other scene musician Mr. Man
would prefer to compose a module
together with.
- I think I'd wanted to compose a tune
together with HeadX, actually. He's
not only a skilled coder, but also a
musician on the side. He made some
good ones during the time we were in
Absence.
We've been talking for a long time
about making some music together, but
it never turned out to anything more
than talks.


Charts
Mr. Man reached his best position ever
in the latest issue of The Charts! He
was ranked as no. 13 but he doesn't
support charts himself.
- Usually I don't vote since I'm not
really a scene freak who have any
knowledge in who coded what in which
intro, who drew the font in part 3 of
3D Demo X, etc.

Music taste
Mr. Man listens to Amiga modules from
time to time, but not that often. He
mostly listen to all kind of music
except speed, death metal and hardcore
techno.
- Some of my favorites are Michael
Cretu/Enigma/Sandra, Jarre, Enya and
John Williams.
My favorite "performer" is Celine Dion

- she's got a fantastic voice and sings
songs created by a.o Diane Warren and
David Foster.

He has indeed let people from the
outside listen to his music. Two guys
who worked in a music store together
with him for a year were playing in
bands themselves, one of them had even
a background in music production,
recording and mixing.
- They thought that a lot of my music
was good, that it didn't sound like
computer music. They meant that the
sound quality itself was poor, but they
were quite impressed when I told them
what one has got to work with to make
modules. 8-bit sampler, only 4 tracks,
without the possibility to record
properly from a MIDI-keyboard.
One of them then commented: "I see,


it's the level right above Nintendo,
isn't it?"

MIDI could according to Mr. Man mean
quite a lot to the music.
- I think there would be a big
difference. I do have MIDI-equipment,
a small studio you might say, and I've
made music with MIDI.
I'm in fact working on a MIDI-version
of "Distant Call", with a different
arrangement than the Protrackerversion.
I think that common people could have
bought my music and not only guys from
the scene - at least I hope so. I
don't think it'd been something for
scene people only, because I try to
make my music sound "real" by using
acoustic instruments like piano, sax,
strings, etc. OK, this is my words and
others might disagree.


1994 featuring Mr. Man
There should be something to look
forward to in the months to follow if
you're a fan of Mr. Man of Andromeda
and his music.
- The next half year, you can see new
modules in the demo "Sequestral" coded
by my good friend, HeadX. The whole
"soundtrack" is made by me.
I will compete in the music competition
at The Gathering 1994 and there will
most probably be a module in a coming
slideshow.
I've been asked by Nick / Offence to
compose a tune for them if they can
manage to release a demo in the near
future, but...
That's all I can say at the moment. I
have a small hope of releasing a
musicdisk by time as well.. But
somebody has got to code it.
Mr. Man is not going for a
professional music career, like a.o
Bjørn A.Lynne and Rune Svendsen (Ex.
Travolta / Spaceballs) in the near
future.
- Well, we'll see. It wouldn't be bad.
Several still active musicians in the
scene are releasing their own CD in
these days. I'm thinking of
Lizardking, Vain, Vortex & Trixal.
That musicians release their own CD is
something which is only positive. They
get their music released in a
professional format which might lead to
more attention and which also hopefully
gives some bucks in their pockets.

But the dream is there....
- To release one's music on CD is
something which most musicians want.
When I worked in that music store I got
to know people who run sound studios
downtown and the boss in the store,
whom I know very well, has a lot of
good contacts all over. So if the time
comes when I feel ready to release a
CD, it should work out well.

Jhaen
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2003 4:57 pm
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Post by Jhaen »

zeq: Yay! Thanks! :P

Now it would be great if someone knew anything about dizzy.. :)

And I encourage others to ask for information on other musicians, in this topic.. :)

Riley
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2002 12:20 pm
Location: finn-land

Post by Riley »

Dizzy, aka Juha Kujanpää studied music theory at University of Jyväskylä (I happen to go to the same university, never met the man though). Whilst there, he formed a band with some co-students. They play acoustic music with only vocals, piano, contrabass and oboe as instruments. Listen to Dizzy's Assembly02 vocal compo entry ("Tyttö tuli herättämään minut") for an idea of what their music is like. Dizzy plays the piano in the band and also composes their music. I think he's also played keyboard in several jazz groups.

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reed
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon Aug 26, 2002 3:55 pm
Location: fairlight
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Post by reed »

Well, I know Dizzy personally, originally through his kid brother Andy (of Banal Projects) - we all grew up in the same village (Nurmo) with a population count of 10,000. Deck/Scoopex is from Nurmo as well.

These days I'm in Jyväskylä, Andy is just about to move from Jyväskylä to Helsinki, and Dizzy is studying in Helsinki, in the Oulunkylä Pop/Jazz Conservatory.

Unfortunately I'm a tad too lazy to start writing his biography or anything, so you might just as well ask some specific questions :D

Jhaen
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2003 4:57 pm
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Post by Jhaen »

Woop.. thanks both of you :)

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