Camouflage (Chris Sievey song)

Last updated
"Camouflage"
Camouflage by Chris Sievey UK single.jpg
Single by Chris Sievey
B-side "Flying Train" (for 16K ZX81)", "Flying Train" (for 1K ZX81), [1] music video for "Camouflage"
Recorded1983
Genre New wave, pop
Length3:20
Label Random Records, EMI
Songwriter(s) Chris Sievey
Producer(s) Martin Hannett

"Camouflage" is a single released by the English musician and comedian Chris Sievey in 1983. The single is notable for its B-side, which rather than containing another song, contains the audio tones for three programs Sievey created for the Sinclair ZX81 computer. Two programs were for a video game Sievey created called Flying Train, and the other was the code for the music video to "Camouflage". The video claimed that this was "the world's first computer promo". [2]

Contents

Origin

The song was released during a hiatus with Sievey's band The Freshies. [3] The documentary film Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story features clips from interviews Sievey gave at the time of the song's release, stating that it came about when he went to pay a telephone bill and instead purchased a ZX81. [2] He then learned how to program and created the song, "which used the Cold War as a metaphor for love's frustrations." [3]

While the A-side was a conventional single, the B-side contained what sounds like random noise. This noise was actually a series of three programs for the ZX81. Two of these were the 16 kilobyte and 1 kilobyte versions of "Flying Train", a video game he created, which involved having to land a flying train onto a track while avoiding birds. [4] The third program was an animated music video for the song "Camouflage". In order to play the video, the user had to record the B-side onto cassette tape, load the data from the tape into the ZX81, and then run the program while playing the A-side at the same time, so that the music synchronised with the video. [1] [3]

Reception

"Camouflage" failed to chart when it was released, but retrospectively critics have praised the creation of the single for how forward-thinking it was at the time. Bob Sorokanich writing for Gizmodo said that: "It's a graphic style that artists and musicians find fascinating today, and Sievey's experiment foreshadowed the Enhanced CDs that offered up all kinds of easter eggs when you'd pop them in your computer's CD-ROM drive". [1]

Aftermath

In 1984, Sievey created the video game The Biz for the ZX Spectrum, a simulation set in the music industry. The B-side of The Biz featured eight songs by Sievey and the debut of his most famous creation, the comic character Frank Sidebottom. [3] Rhys James Jones wrote in The Conversation that: "It's possible to see Sievey's retreat into his Frank disguise as a reaction against "Camouflage"'s failure. But it's telling that the computer press, particularly the Spectrum magazine Crash , adored Frank. Home microcomputing, and the tools surrounding it, helped bring about one of the best-loved pop parodists of the past 30 years." [3]

Personnel

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ZX Spectrum</span> 1982 series of home computers

The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer developed by Sinclair Research. It was first released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982 and went on to become Britain's best-selling microcomputer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ZX81</span> Inexpensive home computer by Sinclair Research, 1981

The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public. It was hugely successful; more than 1.5 million units were sold. In the United States it was initially sold as the ZX-81 under licence by Timex. Timex later produced its own versions of the ZX81: the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Timex Sinclair 1500. Unauthorized ZX81 clones were produced in several countries.

<i>Manic Miner</i> 1983 video game

Manic Miner is a platform video game originally written for the ZX Spectrum by Matthew Smith and released by Bug-Byte in 1983. It is the first game in the Miner Willy series and among the early titles in the platform game genre. The game itself was inspired by the Atari 8-bit family game Miner 2049er. It is considered one of the most influential platform games of all time and has been ported to numerous home computers, video game consoles and mobile phones. Original artwork was created by Les Harvey. Later Software Projects artwork was supplied by Roger Tissyman.

<i>3D Monster Maze</i> 1981 video game

3D Monster Maze is a survival horror computer game developed from an idea by J.K. Greye and programmed by Malcolm Evans and released in 1981 for the Sinclair ZX81 platform with the 16 KB memory expansion. The game was initially released by J. K. Greye Software in December 1981 and re-released in 1982 by Evans' own startup, New Generation Software. Rendered using low-resolution character block "graphics", it was one of the first 3D games for a home computer, and one of the first games incorporating typical elements of the genre that would later be termed survival horror.

<i>Underwurlde</i> 1984 video game

Underwurlde is a 1984 action-adventure platform video game in the Sabreman series by Ultimate Play the Game for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. The player controls the adventurer Sabreman as he jumps between platforms in a castle and its caverns to find an escape past the exit guardians. Underwurlde features about 600 flip screen areas. Unlike other games of its time, Sabreman is not injured when touched by enemies and is instead knocked backwards. Underwurlde is the second game in the series, between Sabre Wulf and Knight Lore, and released alongside the latter for the ZX Spectrum during Christmas in 1984. Another developer, Firebird, ported the game to the Commodore 64 the next year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Sievey</span> English musician and comedian

Christopher Mark Sievey was an English musician and comedian known for fronting the band the Freshies in the late 1970s and early 1980s and for his comic persona Frank Sidebottom from 1984 onwards.

<i>Pimania</i> 1982 video game

Pimania is a text-and-graphics adventure game written by Mel Croucher and released by Automata UK in 1982 for the BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Dragon 32, and Sinclair ZX81. It was the first real life video game treasure hunt to be released. It was inspired by the 1979 Kit Williams book, Masquerade. Automata gave a prize of a golden sundial worth £6,000 for the first person to solve the various cryptic clues to its location that were hidden within Pimania.

Artic Computing Former software development company

Artic Computing was a software development company based in Brandesburton, England from 1980 to 1986. The company's first games were for the Sinclair ZX81 home computer, but they expanded and were also responsible for various ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron and Amstrad CPC computer games. The company was set up by Richard Turner and Chris Thornton. Charles Cecil, who later founded Revolution Software, joined the company shortly after it was founded, writing Adventures B through D. Developer Jon Ritman produced a number of ZX81 and Spectrum games for Artic before moving to Ocean Software.

<i>Tornado Low Level</i> 1984 video game

Tornado Low Level is a multidirectional flight game developed by Costa Panayi and published in 1984 by the company he co-founded, Vortex Software. The game was released for the ZX Spectrum in 1984, with ports for the Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64 in 1985.

<i>Cauldron</i> (video game) 1985 video game

Cauldron is a shoot 'em up platform game developed and published by British developer Palace Software. The game was released in 1985 for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC home computers. Players control a witch, who aims to become the "Witch Queen" by defeating an enemy called the "Pumpking".

The Freshies are an English punk rock band, formed in Manchester, England in 1978. The band was founded by singer-songwriter and comedian Chris Sievey, whose best-known creation – comedy character Frank Sidebottom – originated as a mascot for the group.

Crystal Computing, later renamed Design Design, was a British video game developer founded in 1982 by Chris Clarke and Ian Stamp while students at the University of Manchester. Graham Stafford, Neil Mottershead, Simon Brattel and Martin Horsley, joined the company as it expanded. The company's first software release was a compilation of games for the Sinclair ZX81, though it was with the ZX Spectrum that Crystal found its greatest success. A deal with the machine's manufacturer Sinclair to distribute Crystal's Zeus Assembler gave the company sufficient funds for a major marketing campaign for their next product, Halls of the Things, an arcade adventure game that became their most successful title.

The ZX Spectrum's software library was very diverse. While the majority of the software produced for the system was video games, others included programming language implementations, Sinclair BASIC extensions, databases, word processors, spread sheets, drawing and painting tools, and 3D modelling tools.

<i>Deactivators</i> 1986 action-puzzle video game

Deactivators is a 1986 puzzle video game designed by David Bishop and Chris Palmer, developed by Tigress Marketing and System Software, and published by Ariolasoft's action game imprint Reaktor. The player controls bomb disposal robots known as deactivators and must use them to deactivate bombs planted by terrorists in five research complexes. The concept for the game came from a brainstorming session between Bishop and Palmer; its design and development took five to six months to complete. It was released for the Amstrad CPC 464, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum platforms in October 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Singleton</span> British video game designer (1951–2012)

Mike Singleton was a British video game designer who wrote various well-regarded titles for the ZX Spectrum during the 1980s. His titles include The Lords of Midnight, Doomdark's Revenge, Dark Sceptre, War in Middle Earth and Midwinter. Before developing video games, Singleton was an English teacher in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, England.

<i>The Biz</i> (video game) 1984 video game

The Biz is a management simulation game published by Virgin Games for the ZX Spectrum in 1984. In The Biz, the player manages a rock band. The price of the game on release was £6.95, which is equivalent to £23.76 today. The tape cassette contained the program, an interview with Frank Sidebottom and Chris Sievey, and eight singles.

Richard Francis Altwasser is a British engineer and inventor, responsible for the hardware design of the ZX Spectrum.

<i>The Thompson Twins Adventure</i> 1984 video game

The Thompson Twins Adventure is a 1984 graphic adventure game that was distributed by Computer and Video Games magazine as a promotional 7" flexi disc "freebie" along with its October 1984 issue. The game is based on the Thompson Twins' single "Doctor! Doctor!", and features the Thompson Twins band members as the protagonists. The unusual storage format of the game showcases an experimental technique pioneered by the London-based Flexi Records label, and places the game alongside a small handful of other games distributed on grooved disks. This format never became established and The Thompson Twins Adventure is today valued more for its nostalgic and artifactual value than for its ludological aspects which have been uniformly panned by critics.

Puszka Pandory is a Polish computer text game created in 1986 by pl:Marcin Borkowski for the ZX Spectrum computer. The game achieved popularity after trading on the Grzybowska Commodity Exchange.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Sorokanich, Bob (21 June 2014). "The 1983 Punk Rock Record With a Digital Music Video For a B-Side". Gizmodo. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  2. 1 2 Sullivan, Steve (director) (29 March 2019). Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story (Motion picture). Altitude. Event occurs at 31:32-34:00. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Jones, Rhys James (19 April 2017). "How the ZX Spectrum helped bring about famed pop parody Frank Sidebottom". The Conversation . Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  4. ↑ Keeley, Matt (9 September 2016). "Video Games on Vinyl? Check Out the Video Game That Was a B-Side!". Hornet. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.