DaZ: Hi Spoony, can you introduce yourself.
Spoony: I'm Spoon Wizard - known these days as Spoony - but was once Amiga mod musician Echo of LSD. I'm 30, live in Exeter and work in the ICT industry as an engineer.

DaZ: How did you first get into the scene?
Spoony: I was first drawn to the scene after I'd bought an Atari ST and found the delights of The Big Demo, Whattaheck demos, Inner Circle and all that lot. Got an Amiga a few years later, met some guys from LSD, got a modem, large phone bill and it all kind of accelerated from there.

DaZ: What do you like doing in your spare-time when not computing/composing?
Spoony: When I'm not computing or composing I'm either asleep, watching TV/films, having sex or performing some form of household chore. It's a fulfilling existence.

DaZ: Tell us about your current projects.
Spoony: The recent completion of my new web site (www.spoonwizard.com) has given me some incentive to get back into the studio after some 9 months of doing no music. I'm currently progressing my style and compiling tracks for our record label (www.fun-1.com) with the possibilty of a new album in the next year or so.

DaZ: Lots of ex-amiga musicans have released CD's and done quite well from it, ever thought of releasing one?
Spoony: Well, I did release an album a few years ago called, "Believe or Suffer" which didn't do too badly for an unknown artist's first album. As far as doing some CD's of older stuff goes then I may well rewrite some of my older, classic tracks if I thought people would be interested, As always, available time and real life get in the way but I'd still love to re-visit some older mods and rewrite them using todays equipment and software. [We'd def. be interested in seeing your classic stuff revamped! - DaZZaBoY]

DaZ: Do you follow the retro Amiga "scene" at all?
Spoony: Not really - apart from watching a few demo mpegs and avi's from scene.org, I don't follow it at all.

DaZ: Do you get eternally bored of talking about Jesus on E's?
Spoony: Not at all! I still get the occasional email saying thanks for putting the DivX online on my site, how cool it was etc etc. Never get tired of hearing that stuff. :) Apart from that, noone mentions Jesus On E's at all...

DaZ: Do you feel JOE's could have been better? It's great music with some 'dodgy' visuals.
Spoony: It went like this. I wrote all the music for the demo, then I had to describe to the coder (Shagrat) the kind of effects I'd like to see. He went away and added some more effects to the list and gave me a big list of what the demo engine would do. Then I went through all the mods again and added all the on-screen effects throughout the mods using unused control commands within the tracker software. His coded mod player then called each effect based on the values I'd scripted into the mods. All very well and good I'm sure you'll agree, except for the fact that I never saw a lot of these effects before I'd started scripting the mods, and as a result what I had in my head never actually appeared as I imagined when the demo was finally compiled. Then because of time constraints, being bothered to tweak it all again and being stoned, I never went back through it to compensate for the variety of effects.

The music was great fun to write and actually only took a couple of weeks to do. I also had to stick to a select amount of samples (often using the same ones over again) so that the overall disk space used by samples stayed low (nicked the idea from the Mahoney and Kaktus music disk). That's why it needed two disks simultaneously to run - the samples and graphics for the demo would have meant it could have been a 4+ floppy disk swapmo fest.

So in short, yes it *could* have been better, but it was good enough for us at the time. Thankfully, we weren't the only ones who thought so and Jesus On E's went on to be the most ordered demo from the popular Public Domain libraries at that time.

DaZ: Are you still in contact with any ex-LSD members?
Spoony: Yes, I'm still in regular contact with quite a few ex-LSD members, such as mUb, Maximan, Truck, Fish and probably quite a few others who will be outraged that I have not mentioned them even though I only spoke to them at great length half an hour ago.

DaZ: Could you tell us some of your all times favourite demos/coders/musicians/etc?
Spoony: Oh christ - so many demos, so little time to list them all. For demos on the ST I'd have to quote the classics - Big Demo, Cuddly Demos, Inner Circle Decade Demo, So Watt demo, Swedish New Year demos and of course The Union Demo. When I think of Amiga demos I think of titles like 9 Fingers, Flower Power, Dark Room, Pugs in Space, Love, Full Moon, Guardian Dragon 2, Drool This, State of the Art - these were the demo's that really hooked me in from the ST scene.

I was an avid collector of mods in the Amiga days and racked up quite a collection. I'd have to say my favourite mod musicians would be the ones from my years with the Amiga, such as Romeo Knight/TRSI, Mantronix, Firefox & Tip/Phenomena, Spin & mUb/LSD, Jester/Sanity, Laxity/Kefrens, Lizardking/Alcatraz, Dr Awesome & Fleshbrain/Crusaders, Heatbeat/Rebels, Mahoney & Kaktus/Northstar and of course 4-Mat/Anarchy.

DaZ: Are there moments when you feel nostalgic thinking back to the past years of the scene?
Spoony: I'll occasionally wander through my mods collection, even fire up the Amiga emulator or play one of my DivX's from time to time, but I'm not one to live in the past. Plus, trying to enthuse your fiancee with such stuff doesn't normally come off too well either.

Still, I'd like to think that someone could listen to my old mods and my new stuff and still tell it was me at the wheel.

DaZ: What the hell are the monkey references about at the Glastonbury 2000 gig? ;o)
Spoony: Like a monkey, swingin' up there on the vine. Take a listen to one of my older tracks "Shoe Monkey" - it should explain all.

DaZ: Thanks for the interview my friend, any last message to people?
Spoony: Erm, thanks for reading if you got this far, visit my website, buy my tunes and never ever, ever swerve to avoid someone cutting you up on the motorway - just brake!

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