About PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE is a Commodore 64 revival band, (almost) exclusively playing tunes from the 80's home computer Commodore 64 as rock on real instruments. We are six guys from Copenhagen: Jesper Holm Olsen and Martin Koch on guitars, André Ticher and Theo Engell-Nielsen on keyboards, Søren Trautner Madsen on drums, and Uffe Friss Lichtenberg on bass. PRESS PLAY ON TAPE was formed at the department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen in 2001 and has been playing ever since.
If you need a fun retro-style show for an event (In Denmark or abroad), don't hesitate to get in touch. If you want to write an article about retro music or retro computer gaming, we are more than happy to share our hard earned expertise in this field :)
To get started with PRESS PLAY ON TAPE we recommend getting our studio album HOME COMPUTER. You can also check out the Music / Video section of this website.
For more background information, check out these previous interviews we have done.
How to write the name...
This band's name is
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
Not Press Play On Tape, Press Play on Tape, Press play on tape, or any other. It should always be written with ALL CAPS - just as on the Commodore64. If it messes up your typography or estethics please use PRESS PLAY ON TAPE for first use, PPOT thereafter.
Photos
The photos below can be used at own preference as long as they are unaltered and properly credited with photografer name as listed below. Click image to download full-scale version.
PPOT at Roskilde 2008 (from left to right): Søren Trautner Madsen, Theo Engell-Nielsen, André Tischer Poulsen, Uffe Friis Lichtenberg and Jesper Holm Olsen. Press photo (380KB). Photo: Mette Kirstine Bie
PPOT (clockwise from top): Søren Trautner Madsen, Theo Engell-Nielsen, Martin Koch, Jesper Holm Olsen, André Tischer Poulsen, and Uffe Friis Lichtenberg. Press photo (499KB). Photo: Ditte Valente
PPOT (left to right): Jesper Holm Olsen, Søren Trautner Madsen, Theo Engell-Nielsen, Martin Koch, André Tischer Poulsen, and Uffe Friis Lichtenberg. Press photo (513KB). Photo: Ditte Valente
Logos
We have two logos that we use depending on the context. Click the links below for downloading full-res PDF files:
Small FAQ
Why "PRESS PLAY ON TAPE"?
On the Commodore 64, the user would write "LOAD" to initiate the program loading sequence. Then the Commodore 64 would respond "PRESS PLAY ON TAPE".
Why "LOADING READY RUN" (first album's title)?
The user should then press the PLAY button on the casette player that would start sending data to the computer. Usually the computer would print "LOADING" and then "READY" when done loading. The user would the write "RUN" to start the program.
Why "RUN/STOP RESTORE" (second album's title)?
The Commodore 64 had two buttons which used together could stop the computer and reset some of its settings. One button was called "RUN/STOP", the other one "RESTORE".
Why "HOME COMPUTER" (the third album's title)?
We just liked this word from the early days of computing. It has a really nice ring to it and is not used anymore, so the name itself it retro - just like the music we play.
Why rock music?
When we heard the music we usually heard it as ordinary music with its ordinary sounds which the composer tried to mimic. We did not hear it as techno music or as the bleeps and bip-bip-bips our parents heard it. So trying to recreate what we believed was rock music is pretty straightforward.