A K7 Full Of Wonders

DSC08636I’ve recorded two cassettes that had most of the best music made on Amiga in early 1989 that I appropriately named ‘The Wonders Of Amiga’.
One was for games and as I did not know the real names of the tunes of the games (besides the obvious title) I invented new ones considering the feeling I had from listening to the music at the time. The other one was for the greats of ST-00 on the Soundtracker. SLL music and covers of Depeche Mode, PopCorn, Pump Up the Volume, and Technotronic themes made a blast on those tapes.

As the house hifi tape deck was in the living room and the Amiga in my bedroom, so not to have to dismantle the setup every time I needed to record music, I bought a graded 5 meter music cable that plugged from the RCA jacks of the Amiga to the line in of the hifi mixer. I knew that such a long cable would degrade a little the sound quality but I would compensate it with the 7 band EQ of the mighty Pioneer.
piooneer_eqI really liked those tapes and listened to them very often. So, since I always had my Walkman with me and my precious tapes, I headed to a friend’s house one day, just to become aware that a party was going on when his mum opened the door. It was my friend’s sister’s birthday and at the time I was not aware of this. I said to his mum that I would return another day, but she insisted that I entered. So to the party I went a little bit wary because I didn’t know my friend’s sister very well and wasn’t invited to the birthday party.

Everyone cheered and welcomed me. I soon had a sandwich and a soda in my hand, so all was good. But as soon I entered the party I noticed one thing: the music was totally appalling. I recall very well that the only cool record they had was Samantha Fox’s single ‘Touch Me’. Most of the music was ball music and well, not very fitting for a 15 years’ old birthday party, and everyone noticed she was embarrassed by this.
BisthdayMixTape_21I talked to my friend to ask his mother if we could change the play list and choose something different, and she nodded, as long it wasn’t noisy music and preferably music that any Christian would approve of. Hell yeah! It was a God that made the Amiga. So any music coming from it was Church music! :D

So then my Amiga’s K7’s for the rescue!!!!!! To the tape deck it went, press play.
Pump, pump, pump, boom, boom, boom… everyone was shaking it! The only complaint I received by the mother was the loud “US GOLD PRESENTS BY SEGA: orchestra music (and even louder) OUTRUN!!!!!!” blasting through the speakers.
OutRun1It was ecstatic: 120 minutes of great music. My friend’s sister gave me an enthusiastic hug at the end the party for me being able to convert a dull party into a big success.

Once again my Amiga was the card under my sleeve: now it even saved a girl’s birthday party. I left from there with a real sense of satisfaction on having a great machine (now you can picture me with the sun setting in the dawn and my big shadow covering meters of asphalt – ala Lucky Luke minus the horse and the dust).

But the best part of this story is that she remained a close friend to this day and I am the godfather of her son.
In portuguese/spanish Amiga means friend. In this case, my Amiga, was able to be true to it’s name and turn something into reality. Friendship.