This week we sift through the brain of Tom from Handbaked Arcade. Any of you who have been to a Braindrop within the last 3 years will know about Handbaked. They provide the fantastic large screen old skool video games at all our parties. From large-scale projections onto canvas screens for epic multiplayer fun, right through to smaller arcade / handheld console installations, Tom provides events all over the UK with quality old skool gaming fun. Don’t miss the Handbaked Showcase at puregroove on Saturday 27 March – not only featuring his extensive collection of gaming installations, but also a banging roster of bass heavy tunage.
After a long and tiring chase, we finally found Tom, tied him up and played him Basshunter on loop until he talked . . .
BD – How did the Handbaked Arcade start?
HB – Well I was always known to have a Sega Megadrive at my house and often it became the star attraction at house parties and gatherings. I thought it would be great to combine the visual impact and playability of the Megadrive alongside some noisy breakcore. The birth of the Hand Baked Arcade was a midweek event at The Telegraph in Brixton… I can’t even remember how many years ago! 5 maybe? Turnout was low, but the idea of the event was great and the people that experienced it gave good feedback. From then onwards my collection of equipment and games has grown and grown.
BD – Where does your love for old skool games come from? Why choose old skool consoles over new flashy models like X-Box and PS3?
HB – When I was a kid I had a Sega Master System and then the Holy Grail… The Sega Megadrive. This was a joint Christmas present of mine and my brothers and it was played a hell of a lot. I do play the PS3 round a mate’s house and its good fun but games now a days are so in depth. Most games are completely orientated towards the hardcore gamers and focus largely on high resolution, life-like graphics. Although they look great, the ability to pick-up-and-play is completely lost. There are tons of buttons to worry about, and there is rarely such a thing as ‘a quick game’. Retro games are often big, bold colours and suitable for anyone to give a go, ideal for the likes of nightclub installations to attract people who would not be as excited if there was Medal of Honour or Gran Tourismo on show.
BD – SNES or Megadrive?
HB – You have probably guessed this answer already, Megadrive for me every time. The SNES is bloody good too but I guess childhood nostalgia wins for me.
BD – What’s the most popular game with the punters?
HB – Street Fighter 2 Turbo on the Super Nintendo (SNES) is a classic and always requested, quite often causing big queues of people waiting to show off their memory of the special moves.
BD – Where do you get the old consoles from?
HB – Friends passing them on to me as they know they will get more use than they will sitting in their loft or cupboard. EBay is also good for picking up the odd item, although not always particularly cheap. The vast majority of my consoles, games and accessories have been from Sunday morning dazed walks around boot fairs across the country, quite often the morning after a free party!
BD – Tell us about your Handbaked Showcase coming up at Puregroove on 27 March.
HB – Well where I start… I have wanted to organise a Hand Baked Event again for some time and finally I have found an awesome, intimate venue to host the evening. The event will be at Pure Groove records in East London, literally a 2 minute walk from Fabric. There will be a mass amount of equipment on display, many consoles and games, multiple sized screens and the 12v arcade enabling outside gaming for the smokers. Fingers crossed it will be the debut event for my new 2-player arcade machine to be featured. Anyone that saw the ‘ghetto arcade cab’ at earlier Braindrop events will know how popular it is. This machine will have hundreds of games from the 80s through to the late 90s. Along side the gaming haven there will be chiptunes and down-tempo wonk supplied by myself (E:LF), dubstep dubplates from DJ Planet Mu, DnB from The Virtue and an eclectic selection from Randomoidz. The event is from 7-11:30pm so is an ideal pre-night out for all you ravers 
BD – Any other exciting news? Any festival appearances / club nights etc etc
HB – I will be doing a set-up at Hidden on the 9th April for the A.L.A.N promoters. This is set to be a great event with friendly vibes (www.wearealan.com). In May I will be doing an installation at a massive event planned for Cable in London Bridge, keep an eye on www.handbakedarcade.co.uk for details on this one… Hopefully the Arcade will also be seen at some festivals this year again, once details are confirmed they will be up on the Arcade website. Other big news is the relaunch of the musical output from Hand Baked. www.handbakedrecords.co.uk is now live with major updates occurring very soon. We are running a digital download store covering exclusive titles as well as licensed tracks from the likes of Tech Itch, Current Value, Stenchman & Bong Ra. Exclusive Hand Baked releases are coming very soon from Mattykore, Meta & DJ Spazmo. Supplying a healthy dose of hardtek, gameboy dub/2step and breakcore respectively. Free mixes soon available to stream and download from Schemeboy, The Virtue, Mattykore, Meta and Jakub23 with many more to come!
BD – Finally can you tell us your 5 top ever old skool games?
HB – I can’t put these in order, it’s too difficult!
1. Metal Slug 1, 2 or 3 (all of them are amazing)
2. Street Fighter 2 Turbo
3. Mega Bomberman
4. Pitfall (Atari 2600 + Megadrive)
5. Pacman
Thanks Tom!
The lovely chap gave us a Handbaked EP to download for FREE. It’s by an artist called Squareway, and the EP is called “Bleep trip”. Ukranian chip tune bizniss! Download it HERE.
Follow this LINK to check the Facebook event for his Handbaked Showcase on the 27th.
Check the Handbaked website HERE
Check out their online MP3 store HERE
Go to their Myspace HERE
Follow dem pon Twitter HERE
And join their Facebook group HERE
Posted by doug in Featured, Interviews, News, Tunes.
There are no comments yet, add one below.
Leave a Comment