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Where are they now? Part 2: NEW TREND
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Hello together, to moondog's second excurs in the Atari scene history, trying to
dig out some old sceners, not to reanimate them, but to check out what they're
doing nowadays, and ofcourse also to present you some people that some of you
maybe only know from hear'n'say or maybe even never heard of at all since they
vanished from the screen before you even didn't started computing at all...
After I digged out the band CRUOR last time, that was thought to start with this
series since it wasn't a big band without too big history, I started some bigger
project this time, since I took the german band NEW TREND this time, and here
there is much more to say and write about.
So don't wonder about a lot of crosslinks in this article that will guide you to
parts of this article since it would be senseless to mix up all in one article.
If you wonder why you didn't found the linked articles in the main menu so the
reason is quite simple. Since all those articles have to be seen in connection
with this one it would be dull to present them as stand alone ones since you
maybe don't see the connection to the other ones then.
Ok... enough of this crap... let's start the things!
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Maybe some of you that are active on Atari machines since more than only a few
years remember the band NEW TREND that was one of the leading german bands on
Falcon in the beginning of the Falcon scene back in 1993.
But NEW TRENDs roots are laying a lot more back since NEW TREND as label only
exists since 1992, but was just a new name for an old band, that was called
THE SILVERBULLET FORCE, short SBF.
The Beginning...
----------------
This band, SBF, was founded somewhen in the late eighties, early nineties but
never matched it to make some breakthrough. It consisted of the two brothers
Florian and Justus Becker, aka Mr.Bond and Ice Cube and The Muffin Man. The 1st
was responsible for the code, the second took over the job of the grafician and
the third one, TMM, was doing sample works and module musix. Later on another
coder joined their lines, somewhen in 199o or 1991, he even doesn't remember
right today itself. His name was Juergen Baeckmann, aka Dragon.
The band released a bunch of smaller and even larger demos and intros, such as a
compilation together with another german underground team called FORNIZ (or so?)
featuring small demos they've done. Another bigger release was the SBF Partydemo
that was released in 1991. All those releases had one thing in common: the band
didn't matched it to reach a bigger community since the productions always had
the style of a, let me say, third class coding team. Sorry to say so, but in
comparison with other demos and compiles released in 1991 it wasn't astonishing.
The only reasonable releases were some intro's for other groups, such as AURA
(intro for Celtik's 2nd Tekkno compile) and VECTRONIX (intro for Trex Warrior),
as well as some intro's that matched it to be packed to the ANIMAL MINE's GSC's,
a legendary compact disk series.
Maybe this problem, that the band was moving around in the german underground
only, was the reason for them, to change something...
But before we start the things, here some (incomplete) discography...
1991 - SBF Compile 1 (containing the SBF Sound demo)
1991 - SBF Partydemo
1991 - Crack Intro for Vectronix' "Trex Warrior", coded by Mr. Bond
1992 - Intro for "AURA Tekkno Compile 2", coded by Mr. Bond
The rise of NEW TREND...
------------------------
This very unpleasant situation, to stuck in the underground, maybe was the
driving force for them to change something on that situation and since not many
people knew the band SBF maybe the best way to try again, was to took a new name
as well as some slogan... And to change the memberstatus a bit, since TMM was
vanished as the band changed it's name.
So NEW TREND was born, coming along with the slogan "No ripped code, grafix and
musix". This was in 1992 and they underlined this slogan with the release of the
"TRAGEDY FOR YOU" megademo, an unusual megademo, since it didn't had the usual
main menu but shows one screen after another. I wouldn't say that this megademo
was a killer demo, but it was far beyond the things they have released under the
SBF label. With the help of Celtik of AURA they also matched it to give the demo
a completely original soundtrack.
Another reasonable release in 1992 was the "EASY WRITER" compile, featuring some
programs and demos written under NEW TREND as well as the SBF label. It featured
the "EASY WRITER" (an intro maker by Dragon), "BLODDY RUN" (a small game, also
by Dragon) and the never released screen for the ANIMAL MINE megademo.
But as you remember maybe, the time was already changing, esp. since DELTA FORCE
claimed in MAGGIE that the ST scene was dying. Over night the whole consisting
scene mixed up completely. Many groups disappeared, esp. as the Falcon appeared
on the horizon. So NEW TREND seemed to be a bit late to install some remarkable
style in the already dying scene... and they were able to do so, since with the
drawing style of Ice Cube, who was one of the first graffity pixel artists on
the ST scene, the NEW TREND releases had some own and origin touch.
But they matched it to survive anyway...
Here we have some pixels by ICE CUBE...
The Falcon years...
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After the FRIED BITS 1993, the break down of the german ST scene was giving a
lot of coders free and so also NEW TREND matched it to catch one. It was Mr. Pee
of THE CYCLEMASTERS, another german underground band, that matched it to reach
at least the second row of the german ST scene, esp. since they joined the short
living ELECTRICITY alliance.
Together with Mr. Pee who took a new nick, Lig Lury, they went to the Falcon
since there seemed not much to rescue on the ST scene and the Falcon was some
virgin system without hard scene structures and without any standards set. And
so NEW TREND, after they stucked in the underground for several years, finally
matched it to make it's breakthrough, in a new scene, while others disappeared
and didn't matched it to jump onto the train that was going faster and faster.
Their first big success was the 2nd place at the 68oXo Convention, held in the
summer of 1993. There they have released their "When Dreams Become Reality" demo
that took the second place after LAZER's "Warum" in the Falcon competition. Even
if the demo wasn't a real breaker, it was going on with the same style that they
had invented for their last ST productions. After all this demo was one of the
first multipart demos done on the Falcon.
It doesn't took too long untill their second Falcon demo saw the light of day,
but in some way it seemed already to show the end of NEW TREND. Its name was
"Strange Circumstances" and it was given in 2 demo competitions. Yes, you've red
right here... It was given into the competition of the Dresden Coding Convention
1994, held in February, and had won the first place, a JAGUAR console.
A slightly improved version was given 2 months later into the Fried Bits 2 demo
competition. There it made only the 4th place.
There are several reasons for this, so at one surely the fact, that this demo
was shown to several people already in Dresden and at second Mr.Bond announced
in the endpart of the demo, that he want's to leave the Atari scene to join the
PC scene. This forced the people to give the demo not the best ratings...
Anyway, you can also red some small reviews of both demos if you're following
the link below...
>---> NEW TREND Falcon productions <---<
The beginning of the ending...
------------------------------
Yes... That it was... Mr.Bond left the Falcon scene and NEW TREND right after
the FRIED BITS 2 and suddenly the whole band disappeared and while LIG LURY was
appearing here and there on several Atari meetings, the band was falling asleep
for longer time. This is very strange since LIG LURY was the driving force
behind the two Falcon demos.
Only one thing brought back the name NEW TREND, but only for short time, 2 years
later. It was Dragon, who had created the marvellous game engine for the Falcon
shot'em'up project "X-Moon". Unfortunately this project died because several
other involved people lost their interest or had no time to support it more and
so in late 1996 the project was already dead.
Since this was the last project of NEW TREND members on Atari we can call them
dead already at this time.
The end...
----------
Since 1997 the band is dead as Atari team and the single members lost contact to
each other. Lig Lury joined forces with LoST of Inter, to bring a game project
on OS/2 on the way, called "Semtex" that is a Dynabusters clone. It was released
in late 1998 as shareware.
Dragon was going its own way, creating some big scheduler on Windows system that
he's still developing.
Lig Lury created lately the NEW TREND web page in the year 2ooo, unfortunately
he seems to have lost the interest in completing this web presence since it is
still missing some features and wasn't updated since it was installed.
Ice Cube surely left the Atari and computing scene at all already after the last
NEW TREND demo. I didn't found any email adress of him, but since he was member
of a grafitti posse I matched it to find some artwork made by him in the net,
since he created a big artwork for a local shop in his hometown.
To find out more about the current destination of NEW TREND I tried to contact
the members, esp. the coders, but I didn't got responses of all of them. So I
just have two interviews to follow... Check the links below...
>---> Interview with Dragon of NEW TREND <---<
>---> Interview with Lig Lury of NEW TREND <---<
Mr.Bond didn't replied to my email so far. If I will get something by him later
I will release it with the next issue of UCM. But since it was already 3 weeks
ago that I mailed him and I didn't got even a reply that he has got the mail, I
really doubt that he will answer all the questions there... Unfortunately he is
the only one who can tell us more about Ice Cube's destination since they're
brothers...
Before the final words, let's bring the (incomplete as well) softographie...
1992 - Tragedy For You - megademo for ST
1992 - Bloody Run - game for ST
1992 - New Trend Easywriter - intro maker for ST
1992 - Animal Mine Megademo Guestscreen - screen for ST
1993 - When Dreams Become Reality - demo for Falcon
1993 - DSP Documentations - docs for Falcon
1994 - Strange Circumstances - demo for Falcon
1996 - game engine for XMoon - shot'em'up game on Falcon
Final words...
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NEW TREND's history didn't got much highlights. On ST the band didn't matched it
to make a real break through since the ST scene was already catched by the hand
of death as NEW TREND started their fight for a better position in the scene.
They have brought us a bunch of demos, intros and stuff for the ST but only die
hard freaks will remember them nowadays since there never was a real breaker
released by them.
On Falcon they belonged to the pioneers, creating some of the first Falcon demos
ever, but unfortunately the split of the band and the following inactivities of
the rest of the members, had hold them back before they were able to install a
longer lasting presence in the young Falcon scene.
Unfortunately the most promising project which included the works of a member of
NEW TREND, the game project "X-Moon" died before it's final release. Today this
game preview is surely the most known release where a member of NEW TREND was
involved at all. Only die hard Falcon freaks will remember their two Falcon
demos since they weren't state of the art for longer time and overruled already
short time after they were released.
Some positive statement has to be made about the quitting of NEW TREND since the
band vanished without announcing some projects and stuff. The most other bands
took a lot of rumours with into their graves, but not NEW TREND. They just have
released their second demo and disappeared, also giving hints about their future
(so all members that were staying active on computers went to the PC) and so
all people were informed and the rumours kitchen closed down.
Finally, all I wanted to do with this article is to bring some light into the
history of a band that vanished many years ago and to remember to some guys that
supported the scene many times before us. I also wanted to bring it closer to
the younger sceners of the nowadays scene, to show them of some roots of our
scene. I hope you enjoyed reading this article and maybe you're interested to
find out some more about NEW TREND. So download their old demos and see what was
done in the first years of the Atari Falcon scene...
.tSCc. moondog . o3/2k2
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UCM22
