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




Into The Vertical Blank : Generation Atari show

Summary: 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