INFOCUS: JESTER
by s7ing of Alcatraz

Once again an oldschooler you will say and you are right. But what a talent
we had in the Amiga days with Jester of Sanity. With no doubt we can say
that Sanity was one of the top groups in the 90´s on Amiga. Members like
Chaos, Cougar (see infocus article in Mudia Art #03) and this Jester ruled
the scene. The combination of Chaos, Cougar and Jester was always a name
for quality.

I still remember first demos I saw on Amiga and that World of Commodore
demo where I said: "Wow, this is awesome!". And most of that feeling of that demo was
of this great track called Stardust Memories. One track which I also have
as ringtone on my mobile phone 18 years later. For me still one of the
greatest tracks. Taste can be different so I just could tell you from
my point of view, but I bet many will agree. This track also inspired
others to do a remix of it like Sturdust Memories (extended Dub Mix) or
Stardust Memories - Too much ANAPAD which you could find here! (link: http://www.amigaremix.com/remixes/search/stardust%20memories)

Many great tracks followed by him like Flower Power which was used in the
self named demo by Anarchy in 1992 (Winner of the Digital Symposium 1992 demo competition)
or tracks like Terminal Fuckup, Optimum Fuckup and Elysium hit the scene.

Middle of the 90`s it got more silent around him. He did some further tracks 
for Pygmy Projects and then he disappeard. But where did it all started and 
what happens after Pygmy Projects ?

We try to let you know more about Volker Tripp the man behind the pseudo: Jester, who is 37 years old now, living in Berlin/Germany.
The man who used to write Amiga mod music from 1988 to 1994.

Let´s go back to the eighties and to the very early begining of Jester.
In 1981 with a age of 9 years he started out as a musician with recorder (flute) lessons, which he really didn't like as Jester
says. Four years later, something around 1985, he got his C64 - his first computer, like for the most oldschooler of us.
It was mainly used for games, later he did some rather unspectacular demos. 

In 1988 with the age of 16 and with the change for the Amiga he was bored of only playing video games and was interested to do something creative with his computer. He tried different ways, as he was bad in graphics and only had little interest in coding he tried hisslelf in music.
Music seemed like a good alternative, particularly since he found the Soundtracker to be a really handy tool.
One more reason probably was that he found it to be profoundly more fun than graphics or code. 
"...I must say, though, that I envy coders and graphics-artists for the fact that they can listen to whatever music they like while they're
working..." Jester says.

For the first steps in making music he used Sonix and later on switched to the Ultimate Soundtracker, then other trackers and ended up with Protracker.  "...I loved music as a child already but I really got into creating it myself with Karsten Obarski's Ultimate Soundtracker on the Amiga in 1988..." Jester says. He continued using this type of grid-edit program when Noisetracker and later Protracker came out. For some reason he never liked Octalyzer, Startrekker, TFMX, Jamcracker and all the other tools that there used to be. Protracker definitely was the most handy and easy one to use for him. For MIDI sequencing he was and is still very much into OctaMED because it's the same type of editor as Protracker. He cannot stand Cubase, Notator etc. because he find the classical notation to be of little use for electronic music.
"...Someone who has been using Cubase all his 'musical life' will be just as comfortable with it as other people with grid-edit-programs..."
Jester adds.

Early results of his music were horrible but he just kept going because music seemed to be so much fun with the computer. After a while he understood more and more of what he was doing there and ended up writing quite agreeable music.

It fairly much continued with the Amiga and the PC from there. 
He got into the demoscene via his pal Diddle who used to be a demo-swapper at these days and who is also known by many of us.
At least I was also swapping with him as far as I remmeber ;)
 
Jester only knew demos from watching them at the time. He was really into demos and so he was excited to join his first Amiga
group called Treacl, they invited him to join after Diddl sent some of Jester´t mods to them. He contribute to their demos (even though they were pretty bad as Jester says). Later on he left them for Proton, then stayed (inactively) with Red Sector for a short while to then joins Sanity in November 1990, that group which most of us connect with him.

Beside the join to Sanity he also started building up a homestudio with synthes, mixer, effects and other gear. Some nice releases followed aswell as Jester´s first musicdisk called "Fool's Gold" in March 1991. 

Something which many may not know - most of the Sanity membres build a section of Rebels for a while before they rebuild Sanity in 1992, so Jester did it it too. Back in Sanity in 1992 Jester was the name for synth music in the scene and THE musician of the group, his music was used in the most important and well known productions of his group.

What makes music that important in demos ? "...I think it makes a demo watchable for non-coders. Try looking at a nice demo with the music turned
off - it's not half as cool as it is with the music blasting away through the speakers. Music can add dynamics to a demo, it can support certain effects in a very subtle way, it can fill spaces left by lousy effects. Probably one of the best examples for the function of music is, in my opinion, the old 'Substance' demo by Quartex - without Moby's 'Knulla Kuk' mod the demo would be a pile of boring crap but the tune really does make it entertaining to watch..." Jester said.

Seperateley to his scene activities he produced synth-pop music in the vein of New Order and Pet Shop Boys together with a singer under the handle "Minimal Art" from 1990 to 1993. Till then his favourite musicians of the scene at that time was Heatbeat for his individual style and his fine craft, Romeo Knight for his production skills and for breaking new ground, Bruno for his funkiness and humour and Moby for his rock and his roll.

Surprisingly he left Sanity for the primarily Finnish group Pygmy Projects in 1995, whom he had contributed the tune Cyberride for their Assembly 93-winning demo Extension. What did the Amiga scene gives him by lloking back after all that years ?
"... The Amiga scene gave me the chance to develop my musical skills, to contribute to productions, to meet a lot of interesting people and to learn about the fact that too many people are just sad fucks with a definite ego-problem. I was taught not to trust people's enthusiasm if I haven't known these people for at least a few years. Apart from that, it was a great time..." Jester remebers.

What happend to his privte life between ? Well, he started studying law in Münster from 1993 to 1997 and did my practical law education in Münster from 1999 to 2002. Began working as a lawyer in the same year, then switched to Berlin in 2004 and started his own law-business in 2005 (educating law students and practitioners). But he never lost his creative vein as he also did music for image-films, presentations and theatre plays from 1994 to 1996.

It got silent around him in demoscene. Years later rumours appear in the net that good old Jester is back under the name Oddjob and is
doing Ambient/Electro music. And yes it´s him :) Since 2003 he is working for and running the netlabel iD.EOLOGY, which you should try a look here! (Link: http://www.ideology.de) whis responsible for A&R, concept and legal issues. 
He run iD.EOLOGY together with Rackler who used to be a swapper and musician for Lego in the past. On the netlabel, they have published stuff by Sire and Kosmonaut who both have a strong demoscene background aswell.

Furthermore Jester held many talks and lectures on the netlabel-biz and legal questions concerning copyright, music licensing and Creative Commons, for example at the Popakademie Mannheim, the Zukunftsmusik music-fair in Berlin, radio-programmes like Deutschlandradio Kultur, various netaudio festivals (for example Netaudioberlin 2007 and 2009, Cologne Commons 2009) and some other occasions.

We wonder if his demoscene skills helped him for his new job ? It did not help him in his daytime job but for the netlabel. A lot of "scene-spirit" goes into running a netlabel, there's a lot of the good old creative atmosphere there that made the demoscene so exciting Jester
said.

He released several CD-R albums as Oddjob. With iD.EOLOGY he have released the album "Melonious Thonk" as well as some tracks on label-compilations. An overview of his latest released CD´s you could find at Björn Lynne site (another great musician of the past btw) like Oddeology and Heautoscope, sadly both sold out (link:http://www.lynnemusic.com/oddjob-heautoscope.html and http://www.lynnemusic.com/oddjob-oddeology.html) For his ambient music released under the Oddjob handle on iD.EOLOGY he fell back upon OctaMED hooked up to a MIDI interface and some hardware gear to create this music. "... I know this is a really unorthodox method of working with
MIDI but I feel that I do get along with it very well..." Jester said.

We asked him if he is missing the old times composing music as 4 channel mods only, but he did not miss it really. It was a cool and inspiring time but life does go on, bringing on a lot of new exciting experiences and challenges as Jester says.

Currently he is working hard on out ways for Creative Commons musicians to earn money with their music. With iD.EOLOGY he already license a good deal of music for commercial purposes such as the use in films, videogames and such. But there's a far bigger commercial potential in CC music, the only thing missing right now is a powerful and effective infrastructure to make it unfold. This, in particular, what he is working on at the moment.

He also founded the club "netaudio e.V." , which you could check out herr (Link: www.netaudioberlin.de), together with Raimund Reintjes, Don Ludwig, Antina Michels and others in 2008 to proliferate the networking of netlabels within Berlin and to form a base for the organisation of netaudio festivals. In October 2009 the festival Netaudioberlin was held at the famous Maria club in Berlin, featuring lectures, discussions and workshops on netaudio-related themes, CC films, dance-performances, the Berlin Wall of Sound project and an extensive night-programme with live appearances by about 100 acts. To my mind, this was the biggest demonstration of the creative potential of the netaudio-scene to this day as Jester say.

He picked and booked the artists for three of the floors (DnB, Hiphop, Triphop/Pop), held two lectures, took part in two discussion-panels and gave a lot of radio-interviews at the festival.

What music do he like in "real" life yo may ask ? Many :) 
"... I listen to all sorts of music, from disco to noise, from classical to electro and whatever else there is around. These days it's a lot of netaudio. My favourite producer must be Comfort Fit and I'm a completely devoted fan of the stuff published by Upitup, like Tracky Birthday, Discoghosts and Drone. Monokel have released one of the finest netaudio albums I know on iD.EOLOGY. And there are too many more to even start mentioning them ..." 

So his first steps on Amiga till now always connect him with his love to music. What is he doing in his freetime yoo may think. By all
this work and projects he seems to be a very busy man. Nevertheless he takes his time and in his spare time he like to cook, to watch movies and theatre plays, attend concerts or go to some weird cultural events. 

Musicwise, he is busy with the netlabel, doing concept and A&R work as well as legal stuff. He just have finished working as a booker and speaker for the Netaudio Festival Berlin 2009. The festival took place from October 8th to 11th at the Maria club in Berlin and featured a massive daytime-programme as well as musical performances by about 100 acts from the international netaudio-scene.

But his demoscene days seems to be over "I'm not a computer lover, really, to me it's just a tool. And I prefer to meet people "offline" over chatting or mailing with them. I don't go clubbing anymore because I find it pretty boring most of the time. Besides, I cannot stand minimal club music for more than three tracks. I don't really do any music these days, simply because I do not have the time for that. I share a place with my girlfriend but we're not married and I do not have any kids yet."

But also family status can change quickly as many of us know ;) Nowadays many of us also have the father role and still have a look to their scene friends and follow the demoscene. Sadly new blood is seldom for a creative hobby for kids these days. Nevertheless we hope that the demoscene will still continue a while and who knows maybe someday a "ittle" Jester could enter the demoscene again.

And in the Future ? What are your plans there Jester ?

"Well, the only thing I'm certain about is that it will be utterly fantastic (<- this was a demoscene-reference, you noticed?)"
