Overthink's Profile

Greetings!
I've been an active musician since the mid-1990's. I didn't know how to play an instrument, or do anything musical except think up ideas back then. But computers drew my interest and eventually, trackers found me thanks to my friend Pavel Hodek (aka Zovirax / R.A.F.). So despite living in the USA where trackers and the artistry of the demoscene in general are poorly understood and appreciated, I was fortunate to have a Czech email pen pal (whom I discovered through a mutual love of creating Doom .WAD files) who showed me the way.

The modules I created got me into Pavel's release group, R.A.F. (Radio Abandoned Frequency) under the name Maximus. There I released a few tracks (virtually as we were thousands of miles apart), and made hundreds more I didn't put up anywhere except copied to dozens of tapes for friends. This is where I placed all my teenage angst, my hidden views of life, uncomfortable passions and fears - it kept me sane and it was fun. Then I bought my first (of many to come) real synthesizer in 2000, met my future wife who was also to be my bandmate, made more albums, played nearly a couple hundred shows as a local duo called Polarized Mind. We didn't accomplish anything phenomenal but it was our time to be naive and free - spending most of our 20's as broke musicians living in the city's art district (aka the rougher but inexpensive part of town!).

Trackers have since faded from my toolset as an artist, disappearing entirely by the 2010's as I now use mainly hardware synths coupled with modern computers for recording and post production. But this earlier way of making music, being part of the first generation of bedroom-based computer music producers, it sticks with me. It happened on free software before there were an abundance of commercial DAWs and VST instruments a teenager would just pirate today... for a moment in time just a few years before the web exploded into everyone's lives. I feel fortunate to have been a part even without being well known in the scene, and I wish I'd been able to experience the sense of community my European friends were able to. That was simply not available in America for the most part, despite meeting two of my R.A.F. friends in person eventually. I also wish music was my full time job - but I'm fortunate to have a good day job, support a family, and I'm still married to my cute bandmate!

I could go on, considerably, in my music-laden story with its twists and turns that likely only really matter to me and a handful of others. The point however is: to express my gratitude to the tracker/demoscene community for shaping my life in ways I would never had guessed when I began. I have many unreleased tracks I think are better than what's here on the Mod Archive, perhaps in time I will package up a few to share. You can find me today on -
Soundcloud as Overthink: soundcloud.com/overthink
As one half of a more recent duo, Zeropoint: thezeropointfield.bandcamp.com
On a lovely DnB label, Droidsong: http://droidsong.com/artist/overthink
In fine video form: https://youtu.be/3qNkzYgqeS0
In remnants of the past: https://soundcloud.com/polarizedmind1017
If you live in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, USA: Come find me!
If you happen to be or know the Pavel Hodek I speak of: Let me know please! I lost track of him, regrettably.
And of course you can still find some ancient R.A.F. releases as Maximus, possibly even a few solo releases by Anodyne777... the internet remembers some of this longer than I have.

Cheers!
Owen G.