Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Interstate '76


Nearly 10 years ago, Activision released a computer game called Interstate '76 that featured muscle car mayhem, afroed sidekicks, and a protagonist named Groove Champion. I remember it being fun (but barely running on our computer) and it was followed by a dismal sequel Interstate '82.

The key ingredient that made the original game so good was the wicked funk soundtrack that accompanied the vehicular combat. Heavy on the wah-wah pedal, lots of fuzz, and sexy sax. You can totally imagine this groovy music overlaying a 70's police car chase or possibly porn.

This was one of the first games (that I remember) with professionally recorded soundtrack where the game CD could actually double as an audio CD. As you raced around blowing up other cars, this awesome music played on endless rotation off the CD , which made it easy to ignore the choppy, repetitive gameplay and mediocre graphics (hey, they were cool at the time).

The soundtrack was performed by the one-off band Bullmark headed by Arion Salazar (bassist of Third Eye Blind) and made up of Brian "Brain" Mantia (drummer for Primus), Santana's keyboardist, and other session musicians. Some of these songs are among my most played iTunes tracks, which goes to show how these have long outlasted the novelty of the game.

Here for your listening pleasure is the soundtrack from Interstate '76, which I snagged off Arion Salazar's now-defunct official website (my own game CD long gone).

Interstate '76 soundtrack by Bullmark [via MegaUpload; you usually have to click to close an ad that appears over the download link... SaveFile was acting up]

NOTE: these are the 16 tracks that came off the actual game CD. In fact, I only know these songs by track number. Activision actually released an official soundtrack with even more tracks (with real names), which you can read a review of here. I would kill for this soundtrack, though it may be lost for eternity. [EDIT: Found it!]

My fav tracks: #4, #7, and #16 (which was the wicked opening title music).

Also: #10, #5, #9, #2, #3
. . . . basically, check them all out.

8 comments:

ZUBA said...

I totally agree with your write up about the Interstate76 soundtrack, I really enjoyed the game originally and would also like to get a hold of the soundtrack.
Was there a link in that post that doesn't work anymore?

Fongolia said...

Well, first off this post is over a year old and the links usually only last a couple weeks. But my motto is share the I76, so here's a new link:

i76 soundtrack

Anonymous said...

hey, I also tried to get a hold of it, found it on the web here ...

http://www.interstate76.com/download/i76audio.htm

... and here ...

http://gh.ffshrine.org/soundtracks/6986

Both seem to work!

Fongolia said...

Thanks, I did find the soundtrack on Galbadia Hotel last year. Since this original post, I actually posted several follow-ups (click here), which even include some I76 cover songs.

Anonymous said...

go to
http://www.chauthanh.info/animeOST/?type=album&id=interstate-76-game-version
Soundtrack Game Version

Man said...

I dont know if you are going to read this because the post is very old, but I tell you that I've got the official soundtrack CD, it has 31 GREAT songs

Fongolia said...

Thanks, I do see all the comments no matter how old the post. It is a great soundtrack isn't it? :)

Unknown said...

Amazing post here...Discovered this amazing jem computer game CD played in my moms old cars CD player and I was in funk heaven!