ELECTRIK RAVE @ VCF WEST 2025
August 5th 2025
Whoo-hoo! I launched my first Commodore Amiga project ever over the weekend, ELECTRIK RAVE Amiga DiskMag / Scala ScriptZine!
ELECTRIK RAVE is a “virtual-rave" Floppy Disk magazine in honor of the 40th Anniversary of Commodore Amiga Computer, I made in conjunction with AMIGA/040th, a huge celebration + mind-blowing display at VCF WEST 2025 held at the gorgeous Computer History Museum. Inspired by Amiga Video Toaster VJs I saw making psychotronic visuals in techno clubs in the 1990s, I have always wanted to make art on one of those machines, and decades later I finally have...
I envisioned this zine as a kind of 880k hand-stamp at the door to my own personal "Club Amiga" - a way to share that vibe - and invited the zine's readers to "hit the virtual dance floor" alongside the special guest stars I intervioewed for the issue - world-famous Amiga musicians, old school underground video jockies, and the next generation of Amiga Computer artists. And with our club's very own booze-forward signature cocktail recipe by Kirsten Baldock, the so-tasty and so-toasty, "Video Toaster" cocktail!
Working with the Amiga for the first time (a beautiful Amiga A1200 from 1992) was certainly fairly obtuse and challenging for someone like myself who comes at this whole retro computing world from an art-centric as opposed to a tech-centric background. There were many tears and frustrations during those 155 days since I first got my hands on one of these legendary and kind of obscure computers. But man, I *wanted* to succeed at this project *so much* I kept sitting my ass down at the keyboard and refused to give up.
There was a white-knuckle race to the finish line for sure & I had to bring my Amiga to work with me and work on the pixel-art cover drawn dot-by-painful-dot as I sat behind the counter of my comic shop. That was particularly arduous. But... Somehow I got it finished in time. And also got to do interviews for the zine with everyone I asked. Amazing!
I had an incredible time (and made some really cool new friends) at AMIGA/040th and VCF WEST vinatge computer fest and got to put 880k Floppies in the hands of several Amiga legends, including Bob "Kodiak" Burns (I hope he likes the words I wrote in all those original Amiga fonts he designed)! As VCF WEST is a full-on retro computing convention, I also met a bunch of folks who were fans of my NEUROBLAST HyperCard DiskZines. Really cool to see how enthusiastic people are about these silly DiskMags I've made.
So yeah, a great weekend, and ELECTRIK RAVE was a real dream come true project!
ELECTRIK RAVE is available today as a PDF for everyone. I'll be patching and uploading my SCALA file later this week for those folks who want to enjoy it the way it was intended. Check it out here:
HOLOGLAM's "Atomic Funhouse" Arrives This November
July 28th, 2025
You're hearing it here first: The debut single and music video for my synth-glam band HOLOGLAM, fronted by the amazing MEDIA MELTDOWN magistrate Piranha Psychotronica, is arriving on the San Francisco scene in high style... at the resurrection of SF's legendary San Francisco Underground Film Fest! So later this summer I'll be locked away in my studio putting the final synth-y and glam-y touches on this song. And you can expect to see HOLOGLAM's own Cherry Cosmic, Kae Ray, and Jimmi Nova out filming at all your favorite late-night "Funhouses" in September and October. Awesome to get this project up and rocking again!
Time For Some Foxy 8-Track Tape Shit
July 20th, 2025
As evidenced by earlier posts on here - I am deep down a creative hole working to get an Amiga DiskMag finished in time for the AMIGA/040th anniversary convention at VCF WEST 2025 vintage computer fest. To keep myself sane during the frustrating and demoralizing journey of making an Amiga DiskMag, I've been tinkering around with a new NeoCities website devoted to the analog goodness of old 8-track tapes to give my brain a much-needed mental palete cleanser. I didn't get very far, and it's rough looking, but it is getting a riduculous number of views for a barely-there site. I guess I'm not the only one on the Neo' who likes 8-tracks.
Don't go look now. But eventually it'll be here:
Broke The Weblog Again
July 19th, 2025
Well it appears my rough HTML broke my weblog again (laugh) so instead of ruining my life trying to figure out what the heck I did - it's time to just reboot again-again and start over from scratch again. My previous entries can be found right here.
