Rough start for January, right? Bowie, Otis Clay, Vilmos Zsigmond, that crazy looking dude from Phantasm, to name a few. So much to honor. For my part though I feel compelled to pay a little tribute to a couple of artists who're likely not at the top of any current lexicon. Yet they each respectively brought into this world peculiar brands of musicality, sound invention or just straight-up 'good times' style.
First up, video game composer during the heyday of Atari, Brad Fuller further aided in dramatizing 8-bit gameplay with some pretty funky electronic jams including Marble Madness, Donkey Kong and Blaseroids. But none perhaps more memorable than the Russian folk dance inspired Tetris. We've all heard it. We all know it. That shit has been permanently filed in the back warehouse of our pop-culture brains, whether we approve or not.
Second, Nicholas Caldwell. Cofounder of the R&B group The Whispers. And you know what? I'm just gonna let the man himself do the talking, along with his crew. Here they are with their video 'Keep On Lovin' Me', strutting the sunny streets of downtown Los Angeles circa 1983. Button your motherfuckin' blazers, because you're about to be tutored in the ways of cool.
Brad Allen Fuller was an American video game composer known for his work for Atari, Inc. and Atari Games. Fuller composed the soundtracks for Marble Madness, released by Atari Games in 1984, Blasteroids, released in 1987, and Tengen Tetris, which was originally released in 1988. He also served as the Director of Audio of Atari, in which he oversaw all of the companys soundtracks and music for its video games. Fuller was promoted to Director of Engineering in 1993. He remained at Atari until his departure in 1996. Fuller was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on November 5, 1953. He studied jazz at both the Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts and Indiana University Bloomington. Fuller had originally began his career at Atari as an audio engineer in 1982. He engineered the audio for a number of Atari, Inc.s titles, including the Atari 8-bit family ports of Donkey Kong and Robotron: 2084. In 1996, Fuller left Atari to become to join Matter to Magic Studios as a partner. He then worked at OpenTV, a software technology company focusing on digital television, for three years. Fuller departed OpenTV to establish Sonaural Audio Studios, a video game audio development firm. In 2002, Fuller received a Master of Science in technology management from Pepperdine University. In later life, worked to advance 3D capture. He also taught at Cogswell Polytechnical College in Sunnyvale, California.
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