MTAC? Sounds like something you’d sit on! What is it, exactly?

MTAC stands for the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention. It is a convention for fans of Japanese Animation and Manga (comics) and related popular media – which can include video games, American movies and series, Japanese cultural subjects and a variety of music.

And what’s the deal with all these people dressing up?

Think of a convention of this sort as almost a geek mardi gras. People dress as characters they are interested in and mingle about for photos, or they compete with the costumes in the cosplay contest. It’s a great escape into a character for many people, and a great way to show off some amazing costuming skills in many cases.

So I take it you really like anime?

Most people are shocked that I am not a huge anime fan, in general. I am a fan of many geeky things, and anime is one of them. I have latched onto the occasional series, but the story is usually not my thing. Being a designer by profession, I am attracted to the visuals. And anime is probably the most visually amazing medium in entertainment.

Why Nashville?

Nashville was sortof the default for us when we tried this out the first time. It is our home. It’s where I am from. I love my city and I love doing something culturally diverse in my city. However, Music City has a lot of very marketable traits, and we have made the best of all that, too.

Let’s say I didn’t know about anime, would I still have fun at your convention?

You don’t have to be into Anime to have a blast at MTAC. Sometimes we have people who just come to see a certain band or DJ. Many people like video games, and we have a huge game room, round the clock. We also have a lot of events and activities designed to introduce the genre to people who are new. It’s pretty all-inclusive. You don’t even need to be a geek, really. The spectacle of people in costume or some of the wackier events might just be fun to see.

You’ve been doing this for a while now, right? What has changed over the years?

Over time, you learn a lot. The number of people attending MTAC has changed drastically… ten fold. We started out in the 400′s and now we’re looking toward 4000. With that increase comes a ton of unforeseen bumps in the road, and new things to consider.

What does it take to put all this together? Sounds like a huge undertaking.

Producing MTAC takes a lot of cash, for one thing. We put every dollar spent by our attendees into the convention, since our staff is all volunteer… even me. But there is a ton of planning, contract-signing, equipment renting, staffing, and media creating that makes up the show. We have 7 people whose “other job” is sitting on the MTAC Board of Directors and another 30 or so who are year-round staff. We then team with a large number of event volunteers to get the people-power we need.

Where do you see MTAC heading in the next ten years?

Over the next decade, MTAC will no-doubt remain, as many cons have. Will anime always be this hot? I don’t know. But we’ve diversified the convention enough to adapt more toward all that “related popular media” I mentioned before. We’ve even got something special to announce at this year’s con that will figure into the next ten years, but it’s a big secret right now so I can’t tell you!

Will I always be at the top of MTAC? I don’t know. But I’ve managed to craft something that will live on it’s own with good people in charge who know what’s up. So between the evolution of the industry, the popularity of “geek media” and the leadership we rely on, we’re set to hang onto this roller-coaster for a while.

If there’s one thing you’d change about MTAC, what would it be?

Sometimes I wonder if I should have held MTAC back in it’s numbers to keep it a small con, but I don’t think I would. I think one of the noble things we do is give “geek kids” a great event to get together, and we expose an art-form that’s very unique to the general public. Doing that on the largest scale possible seems all-too-logical. To that end, if I could change anything, it might be to wish a larger hotel that we can afford into existence faster.

I’ve been to MTAC quite a few times, and I have plenty of fun. You run the thing; do you ever get to sit back and just enjoy the convention?

When I first started doing MTAC, I was not in charge. I was working in promoting it. I did get more sleep and have more fun just hanging out back then. Once I took over in 2003, the sleep was very scarce and the constant work was pretty solid. I have gradually gained more and more excellent people who do their own work, and I have more time to drift about the con. I can’t say I get to go to a lot of thing, but I get a lot of reward from seeing other people enjoy their time. I will say, though, that bring in charge has a lot of benefits and does it’s own good for the ego in many ways, so it’s a different thing than just going to the show. It’s really a combo for me between seeing people have fun and having fun myself by feeding off that crowd. I suppose if I was more built I’d be a pro wrestler… I think those guys are just nutty enough in a similar way.

Where is it? When is it? How much will it cost me to get in? Where can I buy my tickets? I want to go really bad!

To go to MTAC, and to be sure you get in, you probably want to pre-register this week (since we will cut that off at the end of this month). You can pick how many days to attend, but all three is running $35. At the door, it will be $45. The event is April 3-5, and runs all night those days. We hold it at the Sheraton Music City, and I think those rooms are all sold out. But just a block down the street are some great other hotels. It’s a lot of fun, and we can’t wait to see everyone.

All MTAC photos by raywen.org

1) So, this is a brand new game for the Sega Genesis? What brought this on?

Tulio: Yes, this is a brand new game – new story, music, graphics and engine, etc. Four years ago, we decided to create something new for the Sega Genesis for the retro game fans like us. Overtime, other members joined the team and the rest is history.

2) How many people are working on the project?

Tulio: There are 8 of us in the core team; and there are 4 more supporting us. So about 12 people.

3) Seems like a small amount of people to be making a game, does the nature of the hardware make it a little easier?

Tulio: Nope, it’s the opposite. Because of the nature of the hardware, we have a lot of limitations that we would not have had with a newer technology. So actually, it’s quite challenging. But I’m glad to say that we have a great team to work on this game.

Tiido: You can never get enough of GFX artists, but the hardware itself is very easy to manage albeit there are quite a few limitations that force you to be creative

4) About how long have you been working on Pier Solar?

Tulio: I’m on the project since the beginning, so that makes about 4½ years. 2 of those were purely background development on which not much has been seen, like the main engine and the supporting tools. Starting in 2007 we finally started to add content, and that’s when the game became more visible.

Tiido: A little bit over a year now, writing tools and other things to create music and sound effects for MD.

Daniel: We have all been joining the team one by one over the last 5 or so years; in my case I have been around for about 2 years.

Zebbe: I’ve been working on Pier Solar for about a year. I got the request to join the team because the tools for making maps where done then, and the other team members needed their precious time for other parts of the game. Fonzie taught me on how to use the tools and we cooperated well to make maps that fit the game.

5) What are some of your influences for Pier Solar?

Tulio: A lot of things, I must say. Everyone in the team are big fans of RPGs, so our work has a lot of inspirations from great RPGs such as Phantasy Star IV, Shining Force II and Chrono Trigger. At the same time, creativity is the core values of our team. So the story, graphics and music are all brand new creations of the team.

Zebbe: 16-bit RPGs, mostly. My favourite game is Phantasy Star IV, and its influence on my early works didn’t suit Fonzie too well because he imagined the Pier Solar world as more chaotic, unstructured and unplanned. Phantasy Star IV had maps that are pretty much the opposite of that. But as work progressed, our cooperation went smoothly and thanks to lots of brainstorming and planning Pier Solar now has very varied, fun and good looking maps inspired by other game genres and movies, even.

6) What kind of things does Pier Solar have that I can’t find in any other RPG?

Tulio: First of all is the fact it was made by the people from the retrogaming community. But technically we tried to bring innovative content and playability, also we’re trying to avoid many of the RPGs clichés and bring new ideas to the battle mechanics.

7) Being that this is a music site, I’m kinda curious about the music. I’ve heard that if you have a Sega CD, it will play the music from the game?

Tulio: Yes, that’s correct. We were able to detect and use the Sega CD hardware if present. That’s why we’re shipping the game with a enhanced soundtrack CD. If you have the Sega CD attached you just have to place this CD in the drive and you’ll have streamed PCM music playing from the Sega CD instead of the traditional FM from Genesis/Mega Drive.

8 ) Was it hard to find a bunch of people interested in creating a full-scale game like this?

Tulio: Yes, it was. It is hard to have a team with the skill sets necessary to complete Pier Solar, especially when they’re all volunteers. I have to be honest – it is quite an extensive game. Although we need a complete team to create Pier Solar, we’ve been trying to recruit people since the beginning but almost nobody had interest on the game since we didn’t have much to show on the first 2 years… But still, people started showing up and joined the team out of passion for RPGs and now we have a really hardworking and talented team for this game.

Daniel: Actually, it was. We have been searching help for ages, but only very few people ever volunteered to help out; but that is okay. After all, it is quite a lot of work, and it would be worse if people offered to help, but did not deliver in the end.

9) Do you plan on selling lots and lots of copies, are you aiming at a particular audience?

Tulio: Well, you can say we are aiming for the RPGs fans and retro gamers, but honestly I have no specific audience targeted. Our goal is to revive the passion for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games and to bring something new for the gamers to play and enjoy. Genny was our platform of choice because the project was born for Sega CD following the steps of Lunar, but our game is here for anyone who wants a new game to play! Who knows some day it will make to a modern console?

Zebbe: The first aim is to give all fans of the Mega Drive, Sega and retro gaming a great new game incomparable to anything since the era its console was supported. But the more copies that are sold, the better, because that will surely inspire more people to follow the way this team has walked and do something similar. That would be wonderful.

10) What kind of modern games do you enjoy?

Tulio: I like games with deep story that get you hooked into. I’ve been playing Naruto for PS3 and XBox lately, and I’ve been playing Zelda Twilight Princess for Wii. I really enjoy Wii a lot, especially Wii Sports. Guitar Hero/Rock Band also provides lots of fun. I enjoyed the remake of

Tiido: Mainly single player first person shooters. Games were better 5…15 years ago

Daniel: I play mainly RPGs; some action or fighting games are welcome too. As opposed to Tiido, I believe that games have constantly been improving since Pong to this very day. So for me, games are generally better than ever. However, the late trend of Wii and Nintendo DS, focusing gameplay more on gimmicks like motion-control, touchscreen and mic is not my kind of thing personally.

Zebbe: None. The PlayStation 2 was the last new console I got, but I didn’t have as much fun with it as the original one or the 2D era consoles, maybe because I don’t enjoy 3D graphics very much. I’m all into retro gaming and development now.

11) What makes this game worth it? There’s a lot of retro gaming going on these days with emulators, and the Wii’s Virtual Console. You can pick up a Sega Genesis for pretty cheap these days, but what makes this game worth owning?

Tulio: First of all it’s because it’s a new game. You can have much fun re-playing your favorite classic RPG but it will not be the same as when you played it for the first time. With Pier Solar that feeling is back, a new RPG which was made inspired on all those classics all of us love so much. I also think that this is the first step to get more people developing and releasing serious commercial grade games for retro platforms. Ten years ago we got people making technical demos now it’s time to have this knowledge put to work. That’s what we’re doing with Pier Solar and we hope that much more will come after we finish this project.

Daniel: I hope it is a game of an overall quality that RPG-players on the Genesis have always been missing; the Genny and Sega CD both had a comparably small and visually unimpressive library of Japanese style RPGs in it´s original lifetime, especially when compared to the best the SNES had to offer; Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean, and quite a few more. Visuals are a big part of that; even the most popular JRPGs on the system like Phantasy Star or the Lunar-games do not make full use of what the hardware can do. We are trying hard to get the most out of the system; five characters in the party at once, fully animated monsters, huge magic effects….and we even have scenes that break the Genesis´ limit of 64 colors at once. The limit is our own skills. And using the Sega CD as optional sound playback enables us to make up for the Genesis inferior sound capabilities. As for gameplay and story….we just hope that having played many RPGs from the 8-bit-generation until today gives us a good idea of what a great RPG should be like. This game is worth owning because it is the Genesis-RPG players have been waiting for since 1988.

12) When do you expect this to be finished? Where can people pick it up at?

Tulio: The project is very near to completion and will be released up to spring of this year. Anyone can check the game at http://www.piersolar.com. There’s a beta for download and pre-ordering is available.

When can we expect to see Linger in the Shadows available?

It’s already available. It was released on 9th of October both in Europe,
US and Australia. Currently we are finishing Japanese version.

What exactly is a demoscene?

That’s a good question. Normally I was always redirecting to the web based
knowledge bases like wikipedia or pasting my friend’s explanation to demoscene.
This time I’ll make an exception and will describe it in my own words.
Demoscene is an art community that creates real time production known as
demos or intros. Demoscene consists of groups. Plastic is one of them.
The history of the Demoscene is as long as the history of home computers is.
In the beginning it was mostly a sort of rivalry between groups to show
which one was better in exploiting the limits of specific hardware (Amiga C64, Amstrad,
Spectrum etc.). Currently the the digital art aspect is more important.

What was your inspiration? Games or otherwise.

I’ve got lot of inspirations which in this case are not games. I’m glad that
a lot of people compare “LiS” to “Shadow Of Colossus” which obviously was
something special. I’ve seen couple of screens from it, and I’ll have to
get my hands on it someday. My main inspirations are some books
and movies are other demoscene productions. I think that’s fair enough .

Your upcoming title “Linger in Shadows” is going to use the PS3. How will this work? Do you watch it, or can you interact with it?

You can watch it and you can also interact with it.
We call the interactivity mode “Linger” instead of “Watch”.
In this mode you have to use your controller to progress from
one part of our demo to another. The other interaction involves
finding hidden greetings to other Demoscene groups. For each
greeting you can earn a Trophy.

Do you ever see yourself working on something outside of the demoscene? What would it be like?

I was thinking about couple of different jobs. One of them was writting benchmarks for
GPUs. The other was writing tools for realtime graphics editing. But I must say
that I like to bring my ideas to life. In my future work I would like to continue
my experiments based on mixing animation with interactivity or generative
content. I would like to find a new form which something between a movie and a game.

Do you feel that games these days don’t have enough expression?

They have! But let’s say the whole industry is getting completely repetitive
and no one except couple of developers is trying to invest into the new
which is not tested and safe. So we basically have bunch of new fps games
which are going to nowhere. I believe that this year has brought us 3 good games
which are somehow very expressive. I’m talking about GTA4, MGS4 and LBP.
Except those, there are mostly soulless clones!

What kind of things do you expect to accomplish with your demos?

Like I said before, I’m still looking for a new form. A form that you could experience
each time you run it. I know that there’s still a lot to be done in this direction
and it will be extremely hard to find someone willing to release it. But we will
try to do it. Except the form I like to show open ended stories where
time and place does not matter too much. Maybe that’s too much
influence from David Lynch movies.

How responsive is the rest of the demoscene towards your work with high-end technology?

I must admit that I’m very suprised how well demoscene has reacted
when we had shown “LiS” for the first time. I’m also really happy that
lot of demosceners has helped me with this long journey. It only means
that this community is more that competition. It’s a big family that
wants to be on top of digital culture again.

After Linger in the Shadows, do you have any plans for future endeavors?

Well there are a lot of plans in my head. I don’t know thou which road I’ll take
this time. I’m glad that when I was near the same crossroad two years ago I’ve
chosen the right path.

You can currently download Plastic’s “Linger in the Shadows” from the Playstation Store on your Playstation 3 for $2.99. If you’d like to read further about Plastic, Linger in the Shadows, or their other work we encourage you to visit: http://www.plastic-demo.org

Tell me, where do you hail from?

I am from Montreal, it’s a city in Quebec, Canada.

What are your influences for your music?

I’ve always been listening to a mix of acid jazz, hardcore, idm, ebm and new wave. I suppose it’s reflected in the aliceffekt music.

If you were a woman, would you do things differently? Do you want to be a woman? Why or why not?

Wow, that’s one of the coolest interview question ever. There’s some aspects of a woman life I would like to try out, and there’s also this manipulator side of mine which believes woman as more power over man. I wouldn’t do things differently. I don’t have many woman in my network of friends who does or even is interested in music, sadly.

Do you have shows? If so, what kind of atmosphere do they have? Whose fault? Yours or the audience?

I haven’t had that many shows, I have been djing under a different name for a couple of years. I have shows this year in a couple of places, I will totally try to give it a fresh style from visuals and interactive setups that reacts to music. I would like the atmosphere to be creepy and dark, yet welcoming.

For those of us unfamiliar with your music, what does it sound like?

It would probably be egocentric to say it has it own genre, so I will say it’s cacophony country disco core ?

Give us some links to hear your music, read about your music, or buy your music.

You can visit my messy music website at www.m0oo.com and my sketchblog at www.isopharmacy.com . I also have some music videos to http://www.last.fm/music/Aliceffekt .

Who would you love to collaborate with?

I would like to collaborate with Eiji of D E N T A K U in some chiptune core music project at one point : ) . I like his minimal electro gameboy sounds a lot. Hopefully one day he’ll make remix kits.

If you were a duck, which ocean would you sit in?

Pacific, because it’s the only one I know >_> .. I would probably chill on the shores of Japan from time to time .

Besides music, what other forms of entertainment do you enjoy?

I like circuit bending and interactive arts, I like traveling too ( if it counts as a souce of entertainment ) . I don’t like video games that much..

How many fingers am I holding up?

11.

Where do you get ideas for your awesome fashion getup?

fashion getup.. mhmm.. Put Blame! and Hamtaro in a blender. wait, what was the question again ?

If you weren’t making sounds in your spare time, what else would you imagine yourself doing?

I would be drawing all the time, the time I m not making sounds I m playing with broken gameboys or drawing already haha.

For Final Question: How do you feel about subliminal messages in music?

I think it’s awesome, listen to my music you ll see how much you want to drink Coca-Cola

Also: Please send me a picture of some sort

WHAT IS THE NAME OF YOUR PROJECT NAME?
My project has a name. That name doesn’t have a name. Though, ロリータ・バイブ責め, or rather, Lolita: Vibrator Torture. The ’77 pinku-eiga, you know? From Hisayasu Sato. The one with dildo raped acid melted schoolgirls!

What kind of music is it?
It isn’t music! It is noise.

HOW MANY YEARS HAVE YOU BEEN DOING MUSIC? WHAT ARE YOUR ORIGINS? INFLUENCES?
Noise.
Two years, maybe?, No wait, a little more. I started making raw black-death metal with a trash vein with some friends, lost them, rehersed with a grindcore band, splitted that, recorded a noisecore cdr, found out that girl was a bitch, decided to go on a solo.
Influences? ’77 Hardcore-Punk, Idol Pop, ’80s Trash Pop, Junk shit; Yamatsuka Eye, Alberto Camerini, Juntaro Yamanouchi, Diana Est, Nerorgasmo, Minamino Yoko – to name a few.

Are there any foods that stimulate your creativity?
Popsicles.

Do you have any sort of mission statement for making music?
“spraying the drug LSD from the sky”. No “”seriously”", never thought about a ‘mission statement’. It sounds quite lame. Sure i know every “”"”artist”"”" needs a ‘clear and succinct representation of the enterprise’s purpose for existence’, yet mine isn’t art. It’s shit. Thus, if i had to find a proposition to sell my stuff [ that's fairly impossible, because no-one ever wanted to release something i created because of my attitude and because there's no creative process what i make. ], i would go for that AxNxBx quote. It wouldn’t work as fine as most of the other’s reasons, ye, but then again ART IS OVER [ GxGxGxGxGx ], and if i had to choose between that and a “noise means uncomfortable sound, then pop music is noise to me” i would not befool myself so openly. The “music” is already hilarious enough.
Fuck you Merzbow.

Any “dream collaborations” that makes you weak in the knees to think about?
Junko Hiroshige is the only one i would like to make music, i mean, sleep, i mean, play a concert with. I tried to contact Guilty Connector in the past because he’s kind of cool, but japanese dudes seem to believe they can skip over questions only because of their Yamato pureness. But, you know what?, once a portuguese guy told me Yamato is the 13th tribe of Sion, the lost one, and i found out there’s been a rush on jewish affiliations during the 60-70-80s there, and that stupid Marxy jew blames his brothers only because he’s an outcast amongst outcasts, and even if i do believe, like one of the many Murakami said, that “Japan doesn’t have high culture, only subculture. Or rather, the high culture we do have is floating on a cloud, as invisible as the emperor. Apart from that there is just subculture, from Beat Takeshi to erotic mangas, and then the outgroup of the otaku, or hobbyists. I think we won’t need art and artists some day. That’s why Japan is the future[...]“, which makes Japan one of the two coolest places in this stupid world, i hate people who doesn’t answer to your questions. That’s highly unpolite.

On the subject of live concerts, what is your setup? Explain how your concerts usually go? Do you works yourself up, and the climax? Or keep a steady pace?
I only played four live shows, because no-one is interested in what i do, as i previously explained. I’ve also never had a brilliant setup, because i’m always broke even though i work, i feel the urge of buying shit and many many many books and hard drives, i get too pissed on burning dvds to store data and i’m sure i will regret this laziness of mine, but wait, the question wasn’t about informatical piracy.

Usually, i use a chain of random pedals through a mic, mostly distortion FXs, a delay, a compressor, a phaser, effects like these, and some junk stuff to destroy. I turn the knobs to the highest and lousiest volume i can, and i start to destroy what i have found here and there. Once i had nothing, so i smashed my pedals. The last time i smashed some beer bottles, but it seemed to me no-one liked that performance. Perhaps, it was because of the skirt. I will never know why. I cut my right hand but the venue owner wanted me to clean the space from the glasses that flew all around, luckily there was my wife to help me.

Oh, no climax or steady pace shit. The rare times i play, everything ends in 15 minutes at max. There’s no need to stretch it for half hours and on. They’re noise performances, harsh noise performances, you don’t have to prove you’re a good improviser/creator to anybody. The more harm and damages you can inflict to yourself as well as to people who carelessly came to give a look and a smile at you, the better. There’s nothing to laugh about. I hate people. I wish they all could be dead, except for my wife, my north dakota nihilist and cold friend, my chinese canadian friend, my fake cousin, and a bunch of musicians or whatever we should call them.

What instrumentation would you use?
Everything. From flutes to pitch shifting balloons [ NWW quote needed! ], AIDS life threatening bloody objects, sacks of menstrual mycosis, turntables, IKEA cheap stuff.
As long as what i pick can be destroyed, the show can go on.

Why the hell did you agree to this interview?
“The women of Thailand are so beautiful that they have become the hostesses of the Western World, sought after and desired everywhere for their grace, which is that of a submissive and affectionate femininity of nubile slaves – now dressed by Dior – an astounding sexual come on in a gaze which looks you straight in the eye and a potential acquiescence to your every whim. In short, the fulfillment of Western man’s dreams. Thai women seem spontaneously to embody the sexuality of the Arabian Nights, like the Nubian slaves in the ancient Rome. Thai men, on the other hand, seem sad and forlorn; their physiques are not in tune with world chic, while their women’s are privileged to be currently fashionable form of ethnic beauty. What is left for these men but to assist in the universal promotion of their women for high-class prostitution”.
Because you use a Hanna Montana picture. [ED: On the forum, the avatar of the author]

If you could drastically change your style of music, what would you change it to and why?
Idol pop tunes maker. Oh, i could work with so many cute pre-teen asian girls!

Where can we find some samples of your music? Are there any avenues in which we can purchase your music?
You can find more about my aesthetic here – http://chat-lolita.blogspot.com/
As for the music, you can find it at Turgid Animal record shop.