Skyhigh 17 About TDJ/Focus part 2
THE BIG INTERVIEW PART 2...
Welcome back to a HUGE interview with TDJ/FOCUS!!!
MAD: In my opinion (and some people will agree, some will say I'm a creep) FOCUS are a very cool group indeed. I guess I'd like to see more by you all but EVERYTHING is in place - EXCELLENT coders, artists and composers...I was a little bit disappointed with VD2, as I'd seen a very cool preview at Herning '93 (I was one of the judges!) and after a whole year, I expected at least 2 sides. I hope the scene will see some parts soon from ANORGANIC and ADAM at least! I guess you have a 'close' group. Would you (or any other members) ever leave FOCUS to join another C64 group?
TDJ: I can't ofcourse speak for the others but as we have been discussing this subject in the past I think it's safe to say most members would leave the scene as well. In fact, in the past 5 years only one (1) ex- member of our group joined another c64 group and was active for them too, being Jayce (now R!B of Amnesia). The others all stopped their activities. Compyx, who some may think is the most interesting member in Focus as he 'can do it all' would probably form a small group together with Anorganic but having to miss my leadership they would never be able to ac- tually finish something, hehe .. Damn, there I go, all arrogant again :). I myself would become a 'full time member' of Marvel by the way, just like Mirage I guess ..
MAD: Who would be in your ideal group, and why!?
TDJ: Hmm, a very hard question. In the past years I have been fortunate enough to work with so many different talented people that the list with their names would almost be as long as my personal scene history.Suffice it to say that a lot of Focus members would be in, especially if 'ideal' also would mean 'active' .. Furthermore I would probably pick a lot of people I've personally known such as Charon/WWE, Bagder of Horizon, Deek of Crest, Metal ofcourse, Trap, too bloody many. It's just that there have been so many talented and nice people in the c64 scene throughout the years, I wouldn't know where to begin recruiting!
MAD: Have you ever skydived, parachute jumped, bungie jumped or anything extremely stupid which seemed a bitchin' thing to do at the time?
TDJ: The most dangerous things I did involved illegal activities, a fact of which I'm not too proud but seemed very logical at that time. I won't go into de- tails about it as I still could be busted for it but it has happened, I can never change it anymore. Hope that people in the scene won't start looking down on me now !! :)As for not having done these otherthings, I just never had the chance to, never tried my best either. I would like some parachute jumping sometime though, seems fun to me. Have you done that and if so, did you survive ??
MAD: No, I would like to though! The only near exciting thing I've done recently (besides passing my Driving Test, and racing around in my Mum's car) has been two trips on the tallest and fastest rollercoaster in the world (at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, here in the U.K.), but that wasn't that thrilling... But I guess I'm not being interviewed here, so I'll shut up. Onto the next question! What part of the world would you most like to live, and why?
TDJ: (Be prepared for a very original answer): The United States of America. Just because life is so 'big' there and the country itself is so fucking beautiful.Could you imagine living near the Rocky Mountains ?? Man, must be heaven !! Beats the dutch lowlands every time .. Unfortunately my girlfriend is not too crazy about the USA (or the people living there) and she seems to favour either England or Italy. A fact is that I do not want to spend the rest of my life living here for sure, but then again, I guess most people feel that way and still do just that. Scene-wise I'd rather live in Scandinavia by the way as the scene was always the strongest up there, even though Holland has had its fair share of good groups as well (can I hear a "Yoooooo 1001 crew" ??)
MAD: Where was the best place you have ever been, and what made it so fucking cool???
TDJ: Scene-wise: Sweden (Horizon party 1990) and Herning, Denmark in 1993 (because of the snow, bjoo-ti-fool!) (I remember it well - MAD) . In normal life: Surinam, where I spend a 4 weeks holiday in 1982 That country is so fantastic, you must have been there to believe it. Like for example, there was this lake where you could swim until 18:00. After that, alligators took over the water. Now that's funky !!
MAD: Cool! That made you happy. But are you/were you/have you ever been a manic depressive?
TDJ: I guess if one is a manic depressive, one has al- ways been and one will always be. I'm not, but I do get depressed at certain times. Last year me and my girlfriend experienced a lot of problems (not between us, thank God, but with other people) and it certainly had an effect on me. Then again, I also got depressed when I didn't hear from anybody after we released the VD2 demo .. Maybe I'm a manic depressive after all ?? :)
MAD: What are your views on fascists, rascists, sexists, homophobes, and people of this type???
TDJ: They're not my favourite people, that's for sure. As a matter of fact, I am mulatto (black father, white mother) so I had to deal with some rascist shit myself, although not too much as I'm rather 'light'. In the past I even had a 'dream' of forming some armed team that went around and killed ra- scists, hehe .. That was when I was much younger ofcourse but I still think that severe actions should be taken against such people, talking to them just won't do any good. The same goes for these other people although I think that being rascist is worse than being homophobic. Probably not wise of me to say, but since I've grown up seeing my father being discriminated against on several occasions, my feel- ings on that subject are somewhat stronger. Anyway I deal with gay people all the time since for some unknown reason most guys at my girlfriend's school are gays . I must admit that they piss me off some- times with their behaviour (being open is okay, but wanting to make sure everybody notices is something else) but that's a far cry from being homophobic I think. Also I think it's rather wrong that when some- body is gay he or she should automatically be liked, otherwise you're discriminating them ..
MAD: If you were a cake, what cake would you be, and would you eat yourself if you had the opportunity?
TDJ: I can't really determine on the flavor but it had to be a cake with style & class, that's for sure, one which would be remembered by those who ate it. As for eating myself, that would be autocannabalism right?Isn't that forbidden?
MAD: I'm not sure of the legislations about that... Answers on a Postcard please! Anyway back onto interview type questions... Where did the name THE DARK JUDGE come from?
TDJ: From the JUDGE DREDD comic book. His main enemies were a group of 'bad' judges with names as 'Mortis, Fire, Death' and one more (I'm using my memo- ry here, please forgive me for not being accurate) calling themselves The Dark Judges .. I've picked it from a long list of handles I was considering then. One of them, 'Pariah', I gave to another Focus mem- ber later on (a swapper) ..
MAD: It's that REALLY ORIGINAL FAVOURITE bit now... Tell me, what are your favourite...
TDJ:Scene: C64, ofcourse !! Nothing comes near ..
Country: Holland (past), Scandinavia (past & present. Sorry, I have much respect for the scene in Poland but I just don't rank it as high as the original scenecountries).
Group: Horizon, Finnish Gold, Triton Technologies, BUDS (past) Byterapers, Censor, Camelot (present)
Coder: Maduplec, Cycleburner (yes Even, you ARE a coder and if you ever would move your lazy ass back into the c64 world you would upgrade to a present fave coder), FCS (past) Mr.Sex, Unifier (hehe. I'm not gonna let you go Ulf!), Adam, Anorganic (present)
Artist: Ehm, a hard one. No past ones as I can't remember of anyone being as outstanding as my present favourites: Mirage, Hein, Sander, Compyx (I know it's not nice to mention 4 of my own group but I just feel that way). Also Electric and Cruise are very good, just not as good as Mirage & Hein (who are the BEST c64 graphicians ever, no matter what anybody says!! Just like Compyx is the best logo graphician ever, and the most copied one).
Musician: Martin Galway, Tim Follin, Reyn Ouwehand (past) Drax, Metal, Jeroen Tel (past, hopefully present soon as well) MCA (present, he's a genius)
Person: Cycleburner without any doubt. I have a liking for a lot of people in the scene but Even is the best 'scene friend' I ever had, and I guess that if we would have lived near eachother (not like Holland vs Norway now) we might have become real good friends in real life as well. I've known him for over 7 years now and he never ever pissed me off in some way or another. He's in fact the most un-arrogant (is that a word?) guy one can imagine and a damn fine coder to boot (he was the FIRST ever to make a sideborder dycp so eat that, all you "he can do samples only" fake ass mothafunkers!)
Cake: Strawberry, but I can't eat too much of it or I'll be sick :)
Computer: Uhh .. atari ?? Spectrum ?? Nah, let's roll with the big C= !!
Song: My Way (Elvis version, no joke), Welcome to the terrordome (P.E.)
Group (Commercial music): Public Enemy, Elvis Presley
Animal: my dog Zorro, even if he's a pain in the ass, I love him.
Other thing: 'real life person' perhaps? Who would that be but Petra, my girlfriend, meaning more to me then any- thing else ..Okay, hope I haven't missed out on too many groups,it's just that I have so many favourites !!
MAD: When was the last time you hit anybody, who was it, and why?
TDJ: A few years ago, some drunk punk who tried to make a pass at my girl friend and didn't want to stop harassing her when asked to. It was more a push than a hit by the way, I'm not the kind to go around just hitting people (even though I would want to sometimes).
MAD: Do you believe in a God?
TDJ: I believe in a God yes, and even the one in the bible although I had no real christian upbringing ex- cept for my grammar school where we had to pray and say grace twice a day. I just don't believe in churches and stuff like that ..
MAD: Put your hands together for:
TDJ/FOCUS!!!(Cue applause!)
Thanks Marco, hope that wasn't too painful!
TDJ: Thanks to you also MAD!
MAD: Next month: ANOTHER MAJOR CELEBRITY will be given a damn good grilling!
Until then - Live fast, score high and don't die!
