Published on 09/30/2006

I think its fair to say that there were not many musicians on the Commodore 64 music scene that could rival Rob Hubbard, who set a very high benchmark on the C64. But there was one notable exception, a young and talented computer musician, that could not only rival Hubbard, but at times even surpass him! It is of course Martin Galway (nephew of the famous flutist Sir James Galway).

Introduction

I think its fair to say that there were not many musicians on the Commodore 64 music scene that could rival Rob Hubbard, who set a very high benchmark on the C64. But there was one notable exception, a young and talented computer musician, which could not only rival Hubbard, but also at times even surpass him! It is of course Martin Galway (nephew of the famous flutist Sir James Galway). Galway’s first foray into computer music was on a BBC microcomputer at school. He did not use the C64 for music until a fateful visit, to the game software company Ocean (Manchester, UK), where he borrowed a Commodore 64 system for developing C64 music, from the Ocean programmer David Collier. Galway’s first game music on the C64 was for the Daley Thompson’s Decathlon loading sequence, which featured a rendition of the music Rydeen by the Yellow Magic Orchestra. Galway created the music on his C64 system, using some in-house music software – later Galway would use his own development tools as the in-house software was poorly implemented and limited. One of the criticisms of Galway’s music was that it could all sound a bit similar in that he found a unique sound and used it throughout his C64 music career. I suppose you could argue he was kind of like the C64 music equivalent of the famous pop music production team in the UK, Stock Aitken and Waterman! (aka the Hit Factory - that’s supposed to be a complement by the way!). The unique sound he created was a revelation; most importantly it was totally different to anything that other C64 musicians were producing, which ensured that Galway carved out his own niche in C64 music. It’s difficult to describe the ‘Galway sound’ but that it flowed beautifully, soared occasionally and was like a well-honed opera singer. It was distinct and memorable and became a trademark sound – when you heard C64 music you knew if it was a Galway.
HYPER SPORTS
The first time I was introduced to the amazing talent of Martin Galway was on the now infamous Ocean Loader tune that played while the game Hyper Sports was loading. The loader tune was astounding – using his unique sound it was an experience like no other, you simply could not believe this sound was coming out of your C64. It was that good. Just when you thought that could not be topped, after the loader tune finished and the Hyper Sports game loaded – you were hit with a stunning rendition of the Vangelis film theme Chariots of Fire! The whole sequence from beginning to end, is a musical masterpiece. If you were a Commodore 64 fan at the time and bought this game – your jaw dropped half way through the loading sequence! It certainly helped to earn the C64 a fearsome reputation as the best machine for game music - many other owners of competing machines like the Spectrum or Amstrad were not at all impressed by the superior sound coming out of the humble 64...	Hyper Sports by Ocean
YIE AR KUNG-FU	NEVER ENDING STORY
The karate-based game Yie Ar Kung-Fu was a licensed conversion of the arcade machine (similar in concept to the c64 games, Way of the Exploding Fist or International Karate). It had a classic piece of Galway music on the game title screen, which really showcased Galway’s talent. It was reasonably long, with some exquisite moments. This is one of my favourites, and various computer musicians have remixed the music over the years, some of the remixes are excellent and capture the quality of the original perfectly.	In 1985 Ocean developed an adventure game, based on the popular 1984 fantasy film Never Ending Story - featuring the young boy Bastian who escapes from some bullies in an old book shop by reading an ancient magic book, eventually he gets drawn into the story and instead of being the reader ends up as part of the story and enters the world of Fantasia. The game is an illustrated text adventure – so there are graphics throughout, which depict familiar characters and scenes from the film. The music is outstanding; the Never Ending Story soundtrack by Limahl has been reproduced by Galway on the C64.
Yie Ar Kung-Fu by Ocean	Never Ending Story by Ocean

Comic Bakery

Comic Bakery by Ocean	Other games like the arcade-licensed Comic Bakery soon followed and would now have the familiar Galway sound. Comic Bakery as the name suggests, is a game based in a Bakery. Your objective is to ensure that the machines in the factory are operating optimally and that the baked bread is transferred to a delivery truck. Your main obstacle to achieving this is raccoon’s, which invade the factory and try to eat the bread or interfere with the machinery. It's initially an interesting and quite bizarre game, but soon becomes rather boring and repetitive. Fortunately the game features one of Galway’s most popular tunes and other C64 musicians have covered/remixed this probably more than any other Galway music.
GREEN BERET
Green Beret (aka Rush’n Attack), was a licensed conversion of the popular arcade machine. The game was based in the Cold War period; with the objective of infiltrating enemy defense installations and rescuing captured soldiers.
It was a scrolling platform game and although the game was difficult to play it was worth persevering with. The C64 version was blessed with a smooth scrolling screen – other conversions, like the Amstrad suffered from a jerky scroll routine. The loading sequence had a wonderful ‘slow’ atmospheric tune that was well suited to the game. The title screen had another piece of music that although did not seem much at first, gradually built up to a crescendo. There is a short but effective sequence in this music that is just tremendous – it’s a kind of reverb effect and it sounds fantastic. I remember being so impressed with this section of the music that I actually sampled it at a later date to my Amiga and added an echo effect to it in Audio Engineer! It sounded amazing!	Green Beret by Ocean
HIGHLANDER
Galway produced a rendition of the popular Queen song It’s a Kind of Magic for the game Highlander based on the film of the same name, starring Christopher Lambert. A great piece of music, unfortunately saddled with an appalling game. This is actually one of the best renditions of a song recreated on a C64 and certainly saved this game from being the sales disaster that it otherwise would of been.
MIAMI VICE
Miami Vice starring Don Johnson was a popular, hit television show in the 80’s and was licensed by Ocean. Yet again the unique Galway sound was used to full effect. The in-game music was actually a rendition of the original television music - although some at the time did not rate it that highly – I disagree, I think it was a very good rendition and I don’t really see how it could have been done any better. The title music also had a pleasant and highly effective tune which became resonably popular – it also appeared on the Circlesque graphics demo that was distributed on a cover disk by Commodore Disk User magazine.
Miami Vice by Ocean	Circlesque by CDU
PARALLAX
The multi-level scrolling shoot-em-up Parallax has an extremely long piece of music, about 11 minutes in length. Its certainly a competent effort by Galway which has some magical moments – but I think this music has been overrated at times – its not as good as some of Galway’s other work.

Rambo

Due to the continued success of Ocean software and certainly in part due to Martin Galway’s game music contributions. Ocean was in an enviable position where they could financially afford to license the rights to hollywood movies and television shows. In 1984 they developed a game based on the $150 million dollar box office hit Rambo: First Blood Part II, starring Sylvester Stallone.
Martin Galway was the obvious choice to do the music for such an important game release. Just when you thought the Ocean Loader could not be beaten – along came this remarkable soundtrack. The loading sequence music is simply amazing! It is actually one of my favourite C64 soundtracks. It’s cinematic in every way, powerful, and one of those tunes you won’t easily forget. This had quite an impact on the C64 music scene at the time – in fact a C64 music tape was released called “Datahits”, by a company called “Mupados”, which had a special enhanced version of the Rambo loading music. The game itself had other great music. The familiar and popular Rambo music from the film played during your missions in the game – which certainly helped to heighten the atmosphere. When you finished your game and you managed to achieve a high enough score – you were greeted by the high score table and one of Galway’s best pieces of music ever! A treat for your ears, to say the least. I think the Rambo music was Martin Galway’s finest hour and one of those occasions where he excelled even the mighty Rob Hubbard.	Rambo by Ocean Flash video - press play button to start.
SHORT CIRCUIT Something wonderful has happened... Number Five is alive!
Short Circuit by Ocean	The game Short Circuit was another movie license, based on the film of the same name, released in 1986 starring Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy. The game features the SAINT (Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport) robot Johnny Five. Your objective is to keep number 5 alive by escaping from the NOVA factory. The music in the game is a rendition of the films 'Who’s Jonny' soundtrack by El DeBarge. According to Martin Galway this music took about four weeks to complete due to the elements of the music that needed to be included on the C64. This music was certainly underrated at the time, as it is implemented well and easily recognisable, especially for people who are familiar with the film.
THE STREET HAWK AND KNIGHT RIDER DEBACLE
In the mid eighties Ocean software bought the license rights for two television programs - Street Hawk (which unfortunately only lasted for one season) and the hugely successful Knight Rider starring David Hasselhoff and KITT the talking car. Galway was asked to do the music for Street Hawk. However, it would never see the light of day until recent times - due to what happened during the games production. Apparently the programmer(s) on the Street Hawk and Knight Rider projects made a real hash of programming these games - there were constant delays and the games were being advertised for ages in computer magazines, unfortunately the games never made it to a finished release state and were eventually shelved by Ocean, along with Martin Galway's Street Hawk music. Its only in recent times that the game music has surfaced on the internet and also on the superb Project Galway collection.
Street Hawk by Ocean	Knight Rider by Ocean
Ocean certainly paid a lot of money for these licenses and to this day it is extraordinary how completely mishandled these games were. Certainly the programmers messed up but where was the oversight by Ocean managers? Ocean really dropped the ball on this one - when you consider the subject matter, these games could of been amazing - remember that computer speech was really taking off around this time - can you imagine what they could of done with Knight Rider! See Speech Box for more information about the use of speech in Commodore 64 games.

Game Over

Game Over may have suffered from being a rather poor game, with difficult and frustrating game play. But this did not stop the game from becoming reasonably popular, for two main reasons, an excellent Galway soundtrack and some controversial advertising. The music was certainly highly rated by magazine reviewers, even if the game was not. In many ways it’s a shame that such quality music was associated with one of Ocean’s weaker efforts. The advertising became a focus of attention though, due to the depiction of the woman in the magazine adverts… Take a close look and all will be revealed! In fact this caused such a storm of protest from a few that the advert was actually censored by retouching the artwork. Although some may find this a bit over the top – it should be remembered that this game was aimed at under 16 gamers, some very young, so the reaction should not be all that surprising. It was obviously an intentional addition by the artist but should have been noticed and removed by Ocean’s PR people before publishing. There can be no doubt, that as with most controversies of this nature, it helped sell more copies of the game…
Game Over by Ocean (original advert)	Game Over by Ocean (retouched advert)
WIZBALL
Wizball was a highly original game by Sensible Software for Ocean, which involves collecting coloured paint to colour the level you are on, from monochrome. The music on the title screen of this game is reckoned to be one of Galway’s best. I have to be honest, although I do like and rate this music highly – I don’t believe it is as good as some of his other music in particular his Rambo masterpiece. It’s a strange and compelling piece of music that really does fit well with the game but I don’t think its as mesmerisingly brilliant as some seem to think! Apparently, on some of the C64 tape versions of this game sold in the UK - the game name was spelt incorrectly (with a double Z) and appeared on the cassette tape label as WIZZBALL!	Wizball by Ocean

Legacy

Martin Galway has a music legacy in Commodore 64 game history that is only surpassed by Rob Hubbard. Although its certainly fair to say that Hubbard’s music tended to be a lot more varied and Galway’s a bit too similar – this does not change the fact, that what Galway did with C64 music was to give a competitive alternative to Hubbard and certainly put C64 music way ahead of other home computers at the time. Also, Galway’s Rambo suite of music is simply amazing and it compares favourably with the very best of Hubbard’s work. Personally, I rate Rambo as one of the finest examples of home computer music ever produced.
Pure 6581 by Binary Zone	Back In Time 3 by c64audio.com
Chris Abbott of c64audio.com has released a number of 'Back in Time' music CDs - with new compositions/remixes of Commodore 64 music with CD quality sound that will allow you to experience C64 music in a whole new way. The TCZ Webmaster has purchased all the BIT CDs and highly recommends that you visit c64audio.com and check out the CDs available. 'Back In Time 1' includes Rambo, 'Back In Time 2' includes the tracks Wizball 2000 and Comic Bakery and Back In Time 3 includes a great track remix of Parallax. The CDs are reasonably priced and worth every penny. Also worth checking out is the two disc CD set called 'Project Galway' that has all the best Martin Galway music reproduced from an original Commodore machine - no remixes, the real Galway sound but in CD quality. Binary Zone also stock 'Pure 6581' with over 200 full-length Commodore 64 tracks recorded DIRECTLY from the C64. Featuring complete and unedited C64 tracks from Martin Galway and many more great C64 musicians.

Game Release Timeline


Swag	Yie Ar Kung-Fu	Mikie
Daley Thompson	Hyper Sports	Ping Pong
	Kong Strikes	Comic Bakery
	The Never Ending Story	Terra Cresta
	Rolands Rat Race	Green Beret
		Helikopter Jagd
		Highlander
		Hunchback II
		Matchday
		Miami Vice
		Parallax
		Rambo
		Short Circuit

Arkanoid	Microprose Soccer	Insects in Space
Athena	Times of Lore
Game Over
Rastan
Slap Fight
Yie Ar Kung Fu II
Combat School
Wizball

A number of articles about Martin Galway that appeared in Commodore 64 magazines are in the
Legends of the C64 - Martin Galway category:

Night Tripping on the Late Fantastic by Sean Masterson, which appeared in Zzap! 64.
Rambo – The Making of the Game by Mike Pattenden, which appeared in Commodore User
(and infamously, got Martin's name wrong, referring to him as Merton Gallway!)

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This article differs from the original article published on the old Commodore Zone website. It has been rewritten in parts and additional text has also been added.

Thank you to the following websites, which were used for sourcing some images, that appear in this article:
Binary Zone, c64audio.com, Remix 64.