Ben Daglish, one of the UK's greatest video game musicians died earlier this week at the age of just 52. Ben was one of the now legendary Commodore 64 Sid Chip musicians of the 1980's where the technical challenges of making any kind of meaningful sound, let alone music, were not just met, but surpassed by the likes of Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, David Whittaker, Fred Gray and others, but also of course Ben Daglish.
Ben was the very first ever interview filmed for 'From Bedrooms to Billions', and he gave up his time back in the summer of 2012 without a clue (at that time) as to who we were, but he understood completely what we were doing. Ben had a true passion for the era we were hoping to document, he embraced this passion by regularly performing his music around the world and was loved by many many people. His death has been very hard for Nicola and I to take, not just because he was the first person we filmed, but because Ben gave so much more to everyone through his music and his love and respect for the era.
If you are not that familiar with the works of Ben Daglish then we urge you to look up his games and start listening!
This film was shot during 30 minutes of complete spontaneity in July 2013 in Max Hall's recording studio in England. Ben had been writing and recording music for the 'From Bedrooms to Billions' film soundtrack for two long days and before going home was just having a cup of tea, when suddenly we all started talking about 1980's Commodore 64 music. As I knew Ben was going to be leaving soon had no time to setup any shooting lights, I just grabbed my stills camera (which I'd brought along only to test out as it allowed me to attach film lenses), placed a light on top, plugged in a nearby shotgun mic and started rolling and had to rely on doing everything as a single shot.
None of this material has ever been seen before, it was never used for either 'From Bedrooms to Billions' or the 'Making the Music Documentary' and we only looked at it because we wanted to give something to his fans that may be unseen.Having watched this unseen footage back we knew that it should be shared for everyone because it shows so much of what Ben was all about. This film also gives some wonderful insight into the challenges of composing for the Commodore 64's SID chip.
In the film we have Ben Daglish on the left, Max Hall on the right and Anthony Caulfield (me) operating camera and asking the occasional question behind camera. You will notice that this entire shoot takes place while Ben is having the aforementioned cup of tea. As well as talking about working with Rob Hubbard and some of his early Gremlin Graphics games, Ben also performs guitar to the legendary C64 demo TRAP which he created with the equally legendary Tony Crowther in the early 1980's. I feel it needs to be said that as this was a really spontaneous moment Ben went from playing along with TRAP for a laugh to doing a full blown performance...all after a very long day recording!
If one person watches this film and learns something, smiles, or even laughs, then it was all worth it. And for those of you who did not know Ben, well hopefully this film will give you a little bit of insight!
Big thanks need to go out to Rob Hubbard for encouraging us to upload this and also Max Hall for helping to make this film work thanks to his wonderful (and red coloured) Commodore 64 playing all the music. Special thanks also need to go to Jackie Mason who provided support to me with the camera and setup across that weekend...as well as making a great cup of tea, that tea must have been good as it kept Ben going just long enough to get this wonderful material in the can!
I will also from now on be calling Rob Hubbard 'Rubbard' from this moment on thanks to Ben in this film...I'm sure Rob will be delighted!
Thank you Ben for your support in getting our film made, your friendship along the way, your great humour and of course your wonderful music!
RIP Ben Daglish
1966 - 2018
Anthony & Nicola Caulfield
October 6th 2018