Yes! C64 and weird people freaking out children on television! We’ve seen it before, but this is one is from 1998. The performer is Monotrona and the song is Cadillac Fantasy, from her album Hawkeye & Firebird. The C64-music is not made by her though, it is Hotrod and was made by Jeroen Tel in 1989.
Hailing from the Chicago noise scene, Monotrona was started in 1996 and she used self-built instruments, circuit bent toys, lo-fi keyboards, the Sidstation, MC-505, and of course other people’s C64-music. I also consider it more as “posthuman” than mere goofery: the lyrics are about mechanical beings and computer life, and she apparently had the girl from Fischerspooner replace her when she couldn’t attend her own gigs. A lot of the chip-styled stuff is found on Hawkeye & Firebird and The Might Mun, which you can download here. If anyone has a list of the original songs, please share it. Montrona was discontinued in 2003.
Although I suppose some people are disturbed by this (like the original composers), I think she makes is pretty obvious that she didn’t do the music herself. Also, she includes the original composers’ names in the CD, or so Peter at TCTD told me (who informed me about Monotrona, thanks!). So maybe not so posthuman after all. But maybe it is not much different from what Fitts for Fight did. It’s just that this won’t get the same attention, partly because it’s old, and partly because it is something very different than what FFF did, imho. But I’m biased because I like Monotrona and the music. Then again, I’m the kind of person who puts on Fitts for Fight in a DJ-set…
CHIPFLIP 
December 23, 2009 at 11:10 pm |
That was second hand information for me from the William sides Atari party playlist on wzrd a few weeks back. The only problem with the digital age is that no one includes liner notes anymore!
December 24, 2009 at 10:19 am |
Just awesome to see this surface in an unexpected context – and it seems to work!
January 3, 2010 at 5:15 am |
[…] Monotrona: SID, Freaks and Children Playlist is an exhibition featuring many of the more famous 8-bit artists. It’s curated by Domenico Quaranta, who was also responsible for the recent Pixxelpoint exhibition where several low-tech old-media works were shown (mentioned here). […]
January 4, 2010 at 8:54 am |
amazing! thanks for sharing
June 7, 2011 at 9:09 am |
[…] French radioshow This is Radioclash published a show with C64 music, featuring Ed, Monotrona, SounDemon, Toytone, AMJ, PDF Format, PRI, me and many others. Mixed by Glafouk, Sidabitball, […]
March 4, 2020 at 1:28 am |
[…] sold and promoted other people’s songs as his own. But there’s also artists like Monotrona who sampled old 8-bit songs, mangled it and added her own work to it. That’s not plagiarism […]