Subdudes: 2118- A Rock and Roll Sci-Fi Fantasy

by Tee Van Ess

Anytime, night or day, that travelers pass through the Fort Collins Hoverport, they are greeted by the Subdudes. The Subdudes are the house holo-band for Earth Sector’s most vibrant music center and their holos are on proud display 25-7 at the Gateway Stage in the Fort Collins station, playing their spicy, savory hits from over the last 130 years. And at just about anytime, day or night, you will also find travelers dancing to the Subdudes’ infectious music.
The Gateway Stage is located in the exact spot where the whole holo-band movement got started 100 years ago. On May 12, 2018, the Subdudes were the band and Washington’s was the Fort Collins night club where the first Musi-AI data files were captured. From that one momentous gig forward, the band that became the holo-band that has been around longer than any other only got bigger and bigger.

“It was a real surprise to us when things took off like that,” keyboardist John Magnie’s avatar said in a recent program interview. “We’d been playing so long already in the flesh and blood and we had no idea that we could become holograms.”

Magnie and his Subdudes band mates Steve Amedee, Tommy Malone and Tim Cook didn’t just become holograms, but became Musi-AI responsive. Every track of data from each musician created a performance field the controlling AI could use to predict musical responses when overlapped with the performance fields of the other musicians. The Subdudes holograms weren’t just recordings, but programs that could actually play the music together “live.”

“The unique energy of the live performance was always the Subdudes’ strong point, so we’re glad it started there,” Cook’s avatar said. “But who knew where it would go?”

Who knew was the reclusive creator of the Musi-AI system, known simply as Code Future, and it all happened in Fort Collins because of a perfect storm of coincidence. In 2017, Code Future happened to be in the same hotel elevator as Fort Collins quadrillionaire Angel Terra while in New Orleans for the Jazz and Heritage Fest. The two exchanged greetings, then discovered that they were both fans of the earthy, soulful music of the Subdudes. Terra had already booked the Subdudes for a gig in 2018 at her new night club in Fort Collins and invited Code Future to be her guest.

What Terra didn’t know was that not only would Code Future come to the much-anticipated gig in Colorado, but he would bring his new Musi-AI technology with him- and start a whole new era in popular music.

“The music from that show in Washington’s was only the very start,” Malone’s avatar remembered. “Code Future recorded every show we played after that in the flesh and blood and each track was added to the other captured material to continually increase the size of the Musi-AI’s performance fields.”

In 2028, after ten years in the making, Terra kicked off her campaign to make Fort Collins the live music center of North America with a special event. The Subdudes played a special flesh and blood concert with a very special opening group- the Subdudes. That’s right, the holo-band appeared on the same stage as the original musicians, debuting songs from the first ever Musi-AI produced album, “Digi-Stew for You.”

“We had captured enough Musi-AI tracks and the performance fields were so full that the controlling AI could combine our playing in new ways- it could actually write new music and that’s where our holo-band began to diverge from our flesh and blood efforts,” Amedee’s avatar explained.

From that point on, the Subdudes holo-band began the first-ever holo-tour, while the flesh and blood musicians stayed home. That first tour heralded in the era of entertainment that Terra was more than willing to encourage by building holo-stages all over the globe.

Since then, the Subdudes have released 47 digi-albums and have scored almost as many hits on the holo-band charts. Their sold-out tours as a holo-band prove that the Subdudes music was meant to survive. Many more holo-bands followed, but no one could keep up with the first and, perhaps, the best of them all.

“It’s been quite a ride for us, even as holo-grams,” Magnie’s avatar laughed.

But the ride isn’t over yet. As the music world prepares for the start of another International FOCOMX Music Festival- an event that turns Fort Collins into the most important music place in the galaxy for at least one month- there is a special surprise in store.

That is, that this year’s Subdudes holo-concert in the Big Hall will be opened by a brand new holo-musician- Liz Barnez. Barnez was a storied friend of the flesh and blood Subdudes, one who garnered as much love in Fort Collins’ original music scene as the band itself. Barnez was the opening act 100 years ago at Washington’s when Code Future began capturing the Subdudes’ Musi-AI tracks.

What no one knows is that Code Future also captured tracks from Barnez’s opening set in 2018 and those tracks have now been processed with others to create a fresh holo-artist with some of the same savory music made popular by the Subdudes. It’s an intriguing and pleasing effort aimed at celebrating the 100th anniversary of Musi-AI technology.

Of course, the Subdudes and Liz Barnez aren’t the only stand-out names on the 2118 FOCOMX schedule, but they are going to be the most exciting. Get a FOCOMX cornea tattoo for only 1000 credits until May 12 by going to zzz.fortcollinsmusicrules.nebula.