View source for Skyhigh 15 About TAKI of Natural Beat

__NOTOC__
The victim in this issue is a composer whos work has
been displayed in a previous issue of this magazine!

let me introduce to you : Taki!!

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'''SKYHIGH'''<br/>
Taki/Natural Beat

Yo Taki.......<br/>
First of all thanx for sharing your personality with the rest of us.<br/>
- But let's get started the boring way!


'''Please tell us your handle and group.'''

Hi my pal! as you might have guessed, my handle is Taki, and I'm a member of a music label called:<br/>
Natural Beat.


'''And your real name?'''

Unfortunately my parents were cruel enough to
give me an irritating name which looks like this:
Balazs Takacs.<br/>
(I'd prefer something cooler like"thomas mogensen"
instead...)


'''When were you delivered to the earth? (day,month,year)'''

That terrible event has happened at 06/05/1976, on a foggy thursday.


'''Ok they're the most important things.  But pleez give us a small introduction of yourself. (Personal facts : hight - hair colour eye colour - glasses - sparetime, other interests, job/school hobbies and so on!!)'''

My coordinates are just pretty usual, but maybe you're interested to look through a few numbers, so here we go:<br/>
I'm 175 cms high, my hair and both my eyes are brown.  Yes, I wear glasses with -3 dioptre lens. Since I study at a college I don't have too much sparetime. Of course, I love the ruling sixtyfour and its cool scene!  I'm a fan of electronics as well I'm also interested in most kinds of music. (but honestly, what did you mean by OTHER interests?)


'''For how long have you been in the c64 scene, or in other words: please tell us when you entered the World of the commodore 64 - and its scene?'''

I managed to get a c64 and a 1541-ii in 1990. no, I didn't start playing "wizard of wor" or so, but I tried to learn programming instead. Of course, I had games as well, but coding was always the most important and the most fascinating activity for me. After I got bored of basic, I started coding in assembly. But until the summer of 1993 I had absolutely no knowledge about the scene, so I couldn't improve my skills for more.  And, with a big luck, in july 1993 I met a scener in our little town. He let me have a few Hungarian and foreign addresses, so I started swapping with some people.

In the beginning I was an allrounder, I was foolish
enough even to do some gfx (the ugliest ones ever
in the long history of this machine). Later I met
quite a lot of talented graphicians, and it became
clear to me that I must specialize myself. finally I
combined computer activities with music, in which I'm
also interested very much. So I decided to work as
a composer, or when I turn back to coding, I'll code
mainly music related tools. The rest of my story
follows just that quite usual way...


'''In which groups have you been before?'''

first, together with a few local guys, we formed
STUNTS. we introduced with a mag. In the fall of
1993 I left this local crew and joined CRAFTMEN as
a musician. (yo old dudes!) We managed to produce a
demo and a few issues of Craftmen's mag. Later, in
january of 1994 I got an offer to join a music group
called natural beat. It wasn't easy to leave Craftmen, but I agreed, as I had many friends in Natural Beat.
This event angered some people in Craftmen, although I honestly didn't mean it as any kind of an
offence. Since then I haven't changed my group.
We ain't the best composers ever, but surely cool
friends, and that counts!!


'''Your handle Taki... Is there a special story of it? Please tell how you took it!'''

Taki is just the abbreviation of my surname.
Some of my friends have been using it since ages...
So I took this nickname as a handle. I tried to find
something else which sounds better, but none of
them were so close to me as this one is. Yes, I know
it might sound a bit ugly for foreigners, but I think
I'll keep it.


'''For those who didn't know then 'Taki' is a very well-known handle for true graffity-freaks.
The story says that the guy who more or less started graffity by tagging (writing his handle in special letter all over the city) was known as taki 183. So every time I see your handle I start thinking back in the good old graf-days!!!  (Biz..)'''

'''- Well I guess you didn't know that!!! - BIZ KID...'''


'''What is your memberstatus and job in your current group?'''

As I've mentioned it before, Natural Beat is a music
label, and I'm one of their musicians. I don't call my
self a coder, coz I'm not a professional and skilled
programmer.  My products are just simple utilities
and a few versions of my musicplayer.

Our memberstatus looks like this:
<pre>
DEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . CODER 
MERCURY . . . . . . . . .GRAPHICIAN
CHUBROCK. . . . . . . . . .COMPOSER
DECOY . . . . . . . . . . .COMPOSER
PEET. . . . . . . . . . . .COMPOSER
SILC. . . . . . . . . . . .COMPOSER
TAKI. . . . . . . . . . . .COMPOSER
</pre>


===TELL US ABOUT YOUR FAVE..===

'''What do you prefer to eat?'''

I eat nearly all kinds of food, but I like potato very much (f.ex. chips).


'''And what do you like to drink?'''

My fav drink is sprite. If I had to choose an alcoholic one, that would be wine, but I don't quite like alcohol.


'''What kind of music do you listen to?'''

I like most of today's disco hits. My fav group is: ACE OF BASE, but I've got a list of cool numbers which includes more than 120 titles. Among these ones you can find the Shamen, Roxette, U2, Mariah Carey, Emf, Madness, Bon Jovi, or Metallica as well. So it really is a wide range of styles I like.


'''Your favourite girl(s)?'''

She isn't a scener, so...


'''Which movie was the coolest you ever saw?'''

The last countdown rules!


'''And your c64 favourites:'''

<pre>
Demogroup : Crest, Camelot, Censor
Crackergr.: Success
Coder     : Crossbow, Glasnost
Magazine  : Skyhigh, Ing.Brain
Composer  : Drax, Syndrom, Danko, J.Tel, Dos, Jeff, Link
Grafixer  : Hein Holt, Joe, Creeper
Cover des.: Electric, Cop
Sceneland : Germany, Denmark
Demo      : Four years crest
Game      : Impossible Mission
            (Yeah that's cool - ed!)
</pre>

'''And last: your 'favourite' friend(s) in the scene'''

Handshakez to: Syndrom, Dec, Mercury, Microshark,
and last but certainly not least, to all members of
Natural Beat, and to all my contacts! Sorry for not
greeting all of you personally.


'''Yeah a whole lot of things you liked. But how about things you dislike!'''<br/>
'''Is there any particulary phenomena or mayby even dudes you do not like in the scene? Give us the story!!'''

As friendship is what makes the scene live, I condemn all acts against it. All of us should live in
peace with each other and act honestly!  I mean it
isn't enough not to spread lies about other sceners, but we must avoid every single quarrel. For
example when you rip something, you open the gate for a possible war.  It's a sin, even if no one recognizes the ripping!!
I know sometimes it isn't quite easy to be fair, but it's the only way to keep this cool scene alive forever!


'''What are your plans for the future? both in the scene and in private!'''

Actually I'm in a sticky situation. Since there's no
way to get a c64 in the college where I study, I
have to suspend my computer activities until summer. It makes me worry a lot, bu I've got no choice!
But I promise you I definitely will not leave the
scene, and in the summer I'll recontact all the 
people I've been swapping with. So I'm planning to
keep the work and the friendship on with everyone.


'''The c64 scene unfortunately can't live forever! When it dies (long time from now!) what will you then do? - Jump to the (l)amiga or pc, or simply quit the entire compy-scene?'''

In my opinion the dying of our scene depends only
on us!!  You're right of course, the illegal scene
seems to have difficulties caused by the lack of
hot'n'cool originals or sometimes even the police.
But the legal scene will NEVER die if we learn to be more
friendly and active!

But let's suppose that I'm wrong and the scene will
die. What would I do then? I think I'd leave completely.


'''People often talk about a lamer. But what is a lamer? please give me your definition!'''

Who's a lamer? I think a lamer is a person who calls someone else a lamer!
Everyone has weak points, none of us is perfect.
But I'm sure you wouldn't call yourself a lamer,
would you? Instead of criticizing others, think
about your own mistakes.


===About your contacts===

'''Do ya have a lot of contacts? (how many - name a few.'''

No, I don't have too much of them, just about 20,
but sometimes even this small amount can be too
much for me...
Sorry, but I think it's better not to mention any
than to list some and   forget  about  the rest of them.


'''Do you prefer legal stuff or cracks from your contacts?'''

I prefer legal!! I don't quite want to enter the
cracking business. I think it's much cooler to produce something own than to remove protections,
link intros and get caught by cops...


'''Do you use cheated stamps?'''

No, I don't.


'''Why not?'''

Well... I do have money problems, but I really want
you to receive my pack. Even if the postage isn't
quite cheap, I think it's worth it for both of us.


'''Magazines! some people say there's too many - some say there's not!!  -What do you think?'''

In my opinion there surely are far too much of  them.
Many of the magazines released today consist of a
couple of usual articles like editorial, news, charts
addresses, mixed chapter and maybe no more.
It's pretty boring to read such a mag. I think a cool
mag needs to have articles with much more originality! Why not having chapters like cd-review,
coders' corner, demos, serial stories, more interviews with a big amount of questions, "spread the
word" (a cool idea, Jesper!!), etc.     (thanx!!! ed!)
Do you cry that it makes editing and releasing mags
much more difficult? You're right, but who said it's
easy to produce quality!!!

On the other hand, building up and running a magazine is a practical way for smaller groups to get
more known, more popular. I think this is the main reason for the large number of mags.
But many of these magazines can't hold their standard for a longer period of time. If even the editor
himself feels the quality getting worse, he really
should stop his mag and offer a co-op to some
other magazine. I think most people prefer quality
to quantity.


'''They for one thing sure keep the scene alive, but what about demos? What do you think about the quality of the demos produced nowadays?'''

Most of the legendary demogroups of the past
seem to be unactive, so this situation is a great
opportunity for younger groups to go up in the
world of demos. Unfortunately this effect makes
the standard decrease slowly.


'''What  is your advice to all  the demoproducing groups concerning their future productions?'''

I'd like to give them two pieces of it. One of them is
perfection. a cool demo mustn't contain bugs, its
loader must run error free (irq loader is highly
recommended!), when finishing a part, the music
mustn't be switched off immediately, etc. 
These little things can make an average demo look
almost professional. The other point is originality.
most of the demofreaks are fed up with all those
stretchers and tricky slers..... please don't use
these old and usual effects, try to invent new instead. For example, how about some animations?
They aren't hard to code at all. You need only a
good graphician and some imagination!


'''If you had the opportunity to build up a new group - which persons would you like to join?'''

<pre>
Coders           : Cruzer, Glasnost, TTS
Musicians        : Drax, Syndrom, Dos
Gfx'ers          : Electric, Creeper
Swappers         : Nightshade
Modemtraders     : %
Others           : %
</pre>


===Brainstorm!===


'''What do you say when i say:'''

<pre>
   Group      : Paramount

   Coca Cola  : Not my favourite

   Friendship : The most important

   C-64       : Rules forever!

   Amiga      : What's that?

   Girls      : Love and jealousy

   Beers      : ...Aber immer oefter!

   Magazines  : I like 2 read it, read it

   Groupwars  : Wanna destroy our scene?

   Sex        : Aids

   Parties    : FUN!!!

   Interviews : My first one

   And last 'Skyhigh' : Honestly cool!
</pre>

'''Yo we are getting closer to the end now. I'll hereby give you the word to say what's on your mind. The word is free!'''

Please keep the scene alive dudes! stop those
senseless wars and try to help each other.
Believe me, this is the only way to survive...


'''If there're some guys you wanna greet or give a special message then why not use the opportunity right here?'''

A big yo! must go to all my contacts and friends worldwide!! I am really sorry that I've been forced
to take a break in our swaptime, but I will return
as soon as possible! (please check out my answer
about future plans for details)


'''Yeah that's it... We reached the end of this interview. So I better let you of the hook for now!'''

I'll end by thanking you for taking the time to help
me with this. I hope you'll stick to this beautiful
scene for a   long time! have a cool  time  in  the future.
 
Thanx homeboy!!


'''Many thanx to you as well Jesper, for this great possibility. keep the good work up with this magazine and stay cool my friend!'''

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That's it for now! - so better load another chapter now!!

BIZ KID