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<pre>X96 Party report by Shuze



PARTY TIME!!

Wahey, it's the report from Shuze/Afl'70 about the
X96 party, held in Utrecht in Holland for the second
year running! Phew, I am typing this on the 10th of
April, which is the deadline for the text for this mag,
so I had better rush it a bit! I meant to type this
report at the party itself, but, as you will see, that
was not quite possible!!!

OK, this is a highly personal account of the party,
starting from my arrival in Holland.....

It all began on one (cold, grey) day in the (cold,grey)
city of Rotterdam. It was Saturday the 6th of April,
the day of what was hailed as to be the most looked
forward event in the C64 calendar.

I was stood at Centraal Station in Rotterdam, as I
was waiting for a bus to take me to the home of
Nastiness Inc/Angry. I guess it was probably a bad
omen when the first thing I really saw in Holland was
a drug junkie getting beaten up by the Police, but,
I survived that. That little story has no relevance
whatsoever to the X96, but, I thought I'd tell you
anyway.

I arrived at Nastiness Inc's place, where I met up
with him, Wile Coyote/Angry/Equinoxe and Lord
Superior/Angry. We set of pretty quickly to the
party, and got a bus at 11:10am to get us to the
station for a train. Myself and Wile Coyote were
fighting hangovers, as he had been out the night
before with Naz and Lord Superior, whilst I had got
pretty hammered on the ferry the night before.
It didn't help that we were carrying a ton of stereo
equipment, a C64, a monitor, and my bag.

Anyway, we arrived at Utrecht Station, where we
were going to meet Crusher/Angry. We waited a while,
but he did not show up, so we left anyway. At the
bus stop we were meeting Crusher, Naz saw an
ex-C64 guy, also heading to the party. At least the
party was still on, anyway!

After waiting a while, Crusher failed to show up, so
the 4 of us got on the bus, with all our equipment.

We soon arrived at the party place, to find Crusher
there, curly hair and all. Crusher then broke us
some bad news. C64 sceners were not allowed in
until 13:00, whereas PC sceners were allowed in at
12:00! This being vastly unfair, we just forced our
way in all the same, and had a look around the place
for a while.

We found ourselves a small room upstairs, and set
up all the stuff. At this time, I went a got a beer,
as did Wile Coyote, and we wandered around the
party place for a while. Already at the place were
Danzig and Mustain of X-Rated, and I chatted to
Mustaine for a while. We were stood by a table where
a new C64 demo was playing. It looked fantastic, and
after a small time, a logo appeared. It said one word,
one important, sacred, word. It said:

C R E S T

At this point, a lot of people panicked, thinking that
one of the guys sitting at the table might just be
Crossbow. Everyone stood and watched the demo
for some time. Some of the effected were truly
amazing. Still no-one would dare speak to the group
of guys sitting at the table, in case one of the guys
was Crossbow.

Giving my excuses, I left for a while to see how Naz
and the Angry mob were getting on. While up there,
the organisors came up and told us we would have to
move, as there was a designated C64 room. This we
did not mind too much, except we had already had to
move our equipment once around the room to get to
a power socket. So, we upped and moved all the
stuff to the C64 room. In the room already were
quite a few C64 guys.

The major problem was that many of the tables were
already reserved, so eventually we just decided to
get rid of some of the reserved stickers, which were
reserving a table for Bordeaux/Acrise+Excess. He
never turned up though, so it didn't matter. In the
end, we actually got the biggest table of all the
guys at the party place!

By this time, myself and Wile Coyote had cut through
several beers. There were more to come.

Probably the most amazing thing about the party
place was the prices. The price list at the bar was
as follows:

A bottle of Coke: 1.25g
A cup of tea: 0.50g
A cup of coffee: 1g
A bottle of beer: 1.75g!

1.75g is only about 0.70 English pounds! I usually pay
about 1.75 English pounds for a beer! Sure, the stuff
they were selling tasted like it had come through a
cat on it's way to the bottle, but it got you drunk!

By about 15:00, the place was filling a little, but the
Avantgarde bus, carrying Intruder, Cupid, Jack Alien
and some more had not turned up. People were
beginning to worry. By now, it was easily noticable
where Lord Superior/Angry was sitting, as the
stereo equipment was being put to full use, as he
did a lot of live mixing with DMC Quaddro, which was
pretty cool, but VERY loud!!!

Basically, the party progressed very nicely, and
all the sceners got very drunk. The biggest problem
for me was when Syco, Torture and Garth turned up.
I had bought some Super Skunk from Spectator, and
the 4 of us went outside to smoke some of it. I am
not used to strong stuff, as in the UK, weed is
usually just crap. So, outside we smoked a couple
of joints.

I then fell inside the party place, and promptly
passed out.

I don't know how long it was for, but considering the
amount of photo's people say they got, it was maybe
a little while. I went outside for some fresh air, and
then just about fell asleep until Torture, Garth and
Syco (the Troublesome Three!) came out and nudged
me.

I then went inside, and fell asleep again.

The best thing was probably the great advice people
were giving me:

"Hey Paul, don't drink+smoke together!"

was the common phrase. Sadly, everyone told me this
AFTER I had committed the crime. Thanks guys.

Anway, I then just went around, and had a lot of
fun. One of the best things was that I spread a lot
of Skyhigh sheets. They were megaspread. All over
the floor. 50 sheets, and not one was filled. Some
other guys had more luck, like Simple/Fairlight got
a lot of Rock 'n' Role sheets spread, Einstein/WOW
did a lot for Internal, and Happymaker got a lot of
sheets done for Insider. By the way, I have been
wondering why Happymaker failed to see the funny
side of a votesheet that myself and Nastiness Inc
filled. We put a load of fake groups in there, pop
groups, unknown Polish groups, and other stuff.

One of the lowlights of the party was that Intruder
seemed to be in a bit of bad mood. He fell asleep on
on the Angry tables (by choice) and slept from about
midnight to 8am. That same Angry table was also my
bed, as Intruder slept under it, and I slept on top
of it!

However, as with all things C64 related, there were
a lot of disasters.

So far I have made the party sound pretty perfect,
with cheap beer, and a lot of sceners. Well, there
were many problems. The major one had to be the
sleeping halls.

Apparantly last year everyone complained about
there being no sleeping room. Well, this time they
solved it. The organisors put up 2 tents. Outside.
In the cold. In the VERY cold. Needless to say,
no-one used them.

That really destroyed the image of the party for
many guys, as it meant they had to stay inside the
party place for a very long time with no break from
it.

Other small disasters occurred to individual sceners
such as Naz, who forgot his disks with The Tribune 55
on it, I forgot my camera, and some other bits and
pieces.

I guess, however, that all this has been of no
interest to you, and you want to here the compo
results. There was only a demo compo on the C64,
but the graphics were shown on the big screen also.

The C64 demo compo looked like this:

1: Krestology, by Crest
2: Cucumber Juice, by Hitmen
3: NOFX, by Chalice

As some notes, the Crest demo was ALWAYS going to
win, and although it was pretty boring, and crashed
first time they showed it, it still won. The demo from
Hitmen was surprisingly good, but they did not pick
up their prize. The demo from Chalice was actually a
demo by Rayden/Alphaflight, and that demo is
officially an Alphaflight demo, and not by Chalice.
There were demo entries from Cosine and Animals
as well. F4CG were said to release a demo, but they
did not, and neither did Chromance, although Syco
told me at the party that they would.

There were some entries in the GFX compo, but they
were not judged. They came from Deekay/Crest,
Wile Coyote/Angry, Cupid/Avantgarde, Hi-Lite,
Angeldust/U-Turn, and Celtic/NoName. The first 4
were damned brilliant, whereas Celtic's was done at
the party, and I can't remember Angeldust's.

If I was to rank them, I would have placed Hi-Lite
first, then Deekay, then Wile Coyote, and then
Cupid.

As far as the PC compo's were concerned, I can not
remember a lot of it, but in the demo compo, a group
called Logik Designs came first, with a truly superb
demo. The graphics compo was won by Mirage (as in
ex-Focus) and Metal came second in the music
compo.

To conclude, I really enjoyed the party, as it was
really relaxed, and was only my first party. I met
a lot of sceners, and as one scener and myself
decided, it was an elite party. There were next to no
lamers there, and everyone had a hell of a lot of
fun. I can't give you a list of all of the sceners
there, so I will send some greets, in no order, to
the guys I met/chatted with/saw in the distance:

Styx, Marc, Chotaire, Ream, Ignorance, Rayden, Max,
Danzig, Mustaine, Deekay, The Syndrom, Simple,
Nastiness Inc, Lord Superior, Wile Coyote, Crusher,
Duke, Heavyhead, Shocker, Kingfisher, Mr Ammo,
Einstein, Newscopy, $ixx, Neotec, Seal, Gizmo, Syco,
Garth, Torture, Cupid, Intruder, Jack Alien, the guys
from the game lable "Digital Excess", Angeldust,
Carnage, Tranziie, Spermbird, Splatterhead,
Spectator, Bacillus, Celtic, Donar, Stormlord,
Maestro, B-Wyze (I think!!!), a friend of Mustaine's
who is reforming the old group Crime (I never got
his name!), Didi, Count Zero, CBA, Nightshade,
Happymaker, TDJ.

I know there were many more sceners, and I guess I
maybe spoke to some more, but I was not really in
a great state at the time.....

There were constant rumours that Jeroen Tel was
there, yet I don't think anyone actually saw him! And
as an answer to an earlier part of this article,
Crossbow wasn't there.....

There were no Polish guys at the party, although
Bacillus/SCS+TRC and a friend of his (who wore some
really funky turquoise trousers!) came all the way
from Slovakia!

And that is all I have to say about the X96, it was
a lot of fun, but other than shooting elastic bands
at Einstein/WOW's butt, there was not a lot to do,
and the lack of anywhere to sleep was a bit nasty.

Maybe I will see you all at the X97?




Shuze/AFL'70</pre>