Retroactive 

Original Release Date: 1995

Cameron Hawkins

Nash The Slash

Martin Deller

PRODUCED BY TERRY BROWN

Recorded Live In Concert at RPM, Toronto, Canada November 19,1994

CDROM Track contains the following:

The tracks on the cdrom are all played through QuickTime from Apple. There is a version on the cd which is more than enough to play the music and clips. Most of the clips are slow frame by frame movies that unfortunately do not contain full motion.

There are full videos of the songs from the concert.

Hideaway 4:53 (Frame by Frame)
Journey 4:56 (Frame by Frame)
Phasors on Stun 4:12 (Frame by Frame)
Seventh Heaven 5:51 (Frame by Frame)
Surface to Air 5:29 (Frame by Frame)

Cameron solo (full video) performing One O'Clock Tomorrow

Marty solo drum solo clip (full video) 1:18

Nash solo performing various Nash music (In a Glass Eye), solo (full video) 1:33

A 19 second clip advertising Black Noise being available on CD. 

A 29 second clip advertising the RetroActive CD.

"Live Long" - a 25 second clip of the band at the end of the concert, waving goodbye to the crowd (full video, no audio)

"Night Music" - a 56 second clip of Cam Hawkins and Nash the Slash performing the song Black Noise on TVO on November 3, 1976. (Nash is without bandages but you can't see much of his face..(full motion video).

The Original Press Release from MCA Records

A Whole New World
The following is a press release from MCA Records Canada: 

November 1995 

"Sometimes technology can be a blessing; sometimes a curse. Other times it can be a gateway to a new wave of artistic expression, a challenge to explore and expand. It is in this spirit that the new disc, FM RetroActive, makes its debut, containing over 52 minutes of CD Audio and 30 minutes of CD-Rom Interactive Digital Video, on one exciting disc. 

The journey began on November 19, 1994, at the RPM concert club in Toronto, with a much anticipated reunion performance of the original members of FM. Celebrating the re-release of their first album Black Noise (1978) on compact disc (1994), the bank rocked a sold-out crowd in what must be one of the first live concerts ever recorded for multimedia presentation. 

And why not? This is a group that debuted in 1976 with an award winning performance on TVO's Nightmusic series that combined music, spoken word, and visuals. Cameron Hawkins (synthesizers, vocals) and Nash the Slash (violin, mandolin and vocals), joined shortly afterward by Martin Deller (drums, percussion) launched a career which continually pushed at the boundaries of popular music both on radio and in concert. From film scores to radio series; from direct-to-disc vinyl to records playable at any speed (you can't do that on CD's....yet!) FM's creativity ranged from top-20 hits to freeform electronic jazz. 

With the successful restoration and release of Black Noise by Now See Hear, Cameron's Desktop Record Company came the opportunity to play a live show. "Gareth Brown, RPM's promoter, and I had talked about doing a live FM recording for years," relates Hawkins. "And the club's layout was excellent for capturing the excitement of a live performance before a thousand FM fanatics, on both audio and video tape. It had been seven years since we played live together, and we felt that this would be a very special night." 

And a very special disc. The music featured is from the earlier part of the band's career, from the albums Black Noise, Surveillance, City of Fear (the latter two are not available on CD), plus two new songs: "This Lonely World" which evolved spontaneously when the musicians got back together; and "Hideaway" the first single from RetroActive, a song from the archives which had never been recorded. Included as well is a rousing version of The Who's "Baba O'Riley" a song which has been part of FM's live show since its first gig in 1976. 

"When we decided to make this a multimedia release, our first challenge was to put on one hell of a good show, and record it. Fortunately our fans were there to help make it happen." says Cameron of the efforts to put a live concert on CD/CD-ROM. A team of experts assembled including music producer Terry Brown (Rush, Blue Rodeo, Moist), video director Michael Lennick who is a special effects producer (David Cronenberg's Videodrome, War Of The Worlds) and a writer/producer/director of award winning film and video (TVO, the Discovery Channel). 

Then began the long and often frustrating process of techno-wrestling these elements onto one CD. The ability to place information that could be played by a regular CD Audio player (music), and on a Macintosh or Windows PC (music and video) was not widely developed in 1994. But the passed year has seen more and more of these mixed-mode discs. A group of multimedia marines, including Chris Wardman, Rob Yale, Brett Miraldo, Thomas Mills, as well as Cameron Hawkins, succeeded in taking the techno-beach. The CD-ROM portion contains live video's from nine songs in the concert, some of which do not appear on the audio portion, and interactive history of the band, and a special surprise from the FM archives. "

If anyone was at this show or knows more about it, please email me.