The Moog

The Moog synthesizer wasn’t the first electronic instrument to work its way into the context of post-War pop music. There was the theremin, for example – that white swan of electronic instruments, heard for a few spectral bars on certain space-themed exotica and soundtrack albums of the 1950’s & 1960’s. The Moog, on the other hand, jostled and squawked, calling attention to itself with loops and shrill blasts like some complicated, hyperactive kid. It was, unlike the theremin, a distinctly Pop art creature. I’ve found consequently that Moog synthesizers – or, at least, Moog synthesizer records – tend to alienate people. To be fair, the problem lay not so much with the technology but rather with the use of it; Moog pop records carried with them a heavy novelty factor. When they weren’t dishing up classical standards or making corny pop hits like “Aquarius” even cornier, they often wound up as vehicles for their own gadgetry, as if wacky electronic effects alone could sell records. Well, actually, wacky electronic effects did sell a lot of records.

Either way, below are three of the more listenable exceptions.

1. The Hip Sound, Far Out (Limelight)
It sprang from the mind of Pierre Henry, the French 20th century electronic composer and artist known to the serious music community for his role in the development of musique concrète. As with his similar and much-loved (and sampled) “Psyché Rock,” “Far Out” is a demonstration of Henry’s penchant for pop. Bending Moog and French go-go brio to the will of his own collagist aesthetic, “Far Out” finally became – clanking and buzzing and squelching – something akin to Pop art. Or it became at least its own futuristic form of discotheque music.

Recorded in the late 1960’s in France, this was released domestically on Limelight records, a subsidiary of Mercury which, in addition to its jazz releases, was home to some of the more experimental music of the 60’s.

2.
The Time Zone, Space Walker (White Whale)
Mort Garson was an arranger/composer type with a long track record in the Los Angeles studio world, and the mastermind behind some truly grandiose synthesizer albums of the late 60’s/early 70’s: kitschy concept albums with paranormal and astrological themes, and titles like The Unexplained: Ataraxia. Whatever increasingly occult shape his personal obsessions assumed in the 70’s, Garson’s most memorable recordings remained his (earlier) productions of the late 60’s, however. The psychedelic “Space Walker,” for example: a genuinely inventive construction forged from go-go drums, fuzz tone distortion, squawks, glissandos, finally zapped into life and sent hurtling towards the American record buying public in 1967 – where, promptly, it did nothing.

“Space Walker” also bears a passing resemblance to Garson’s equally wonderful Zodiac Cosmic Sounds LP (see Richie Unterberger’s feature on Zodiac Cosmic Sounds, a true Aquarian relic).

3.
Dick Hyman, Strobo (Command)
One of the names synonomous with the Moog, Dick Hyman – unlike other popular Moog advocates such as Jean-Jacques Perrey or Walter Carlos – came to the instrument not through a background in “serious” academic music but, rather, from many reliable years as a session pop and jazz musician. With a few exceptions (like his eight minute long “Minotaur”), Hyman’s late 60’s Moog records tend to give the sub-genre a bad name in my book, as they can come across a little too consciously wacky sometimes. “Strobo,” however – with its dense patter of mechanized rhythms (courtesy of the Maestro Rhythm Unit) and a series of shrill keyboard runs that could have been picked up on the moon – has its own futuristic charm. Easily the moogiest of this week’s bunch, its title in fact describes it perfectly.

This song only appeared on 45.

This entry was posted in Now Sound. Bookmark the permalink.

14 Responses to The Moog

  1. Anonymous says:

    interesting batch this week..

    “strobo” sort of puts me in a rollerball mood – or blade runner if ford’s character was a hairdresser doing the happy dance with rutger hauer’s character

    i mean that as a compliment

    serioulsy strobo is ripe ripe ripe for some studio wizardy – isolate that dark moog line and put a bone crunching beat underneath it.. could be a clubber for the squelch crowd

    spanky & our gang

  2. Hey Spanky, someone else on ye olde Exotica list (which I used to occasionally contribute to, like, a million years ago) made a similar comparison too of “Strobo”:

    “It has a rhythm machine doing this skittering beat that is so remarkably Drum n’ Bass, that I still feel the genre was cribbed from it!”

    Maybe a bit o’ hyperbole, but “Strobo” is definitely still pretty ahead of its time – and might now be ready for the “squelch crowd.”

  3. A Finn says:

    What a great site you have here!Found it today and had to download every track.Your love for the music and records really shines through.

  4. Anonymous says:

    Loving the moog madness! good stuff

  5. Larry Grogan says:

    Another great post. I’m loving your format (once a week, in depth, themed etc.). Very cool!

  6. BK says:

    i just discovered your site. GREAT!!!! thank you so much.

    i just started a 45rpm blog myself, but more cross-genre, just no comparison to your fantastic thing.

    congrats,

    bill

    http://45th-street.blogspot.com/
    (there is one post about hungarian guitarist andor kovacs, who covers the exotica standard “tabu”, which might interest yiz)

  7. Taylor says:

    I actually took two classes taught by Herbert Deutsch, the man who collaborated with Bob Moog to make the first Moog synthesier.

  8. That is awesome; there was some great footage of Deustch from the Moog documentary of a few years ago. All those guys seemed super cool. It was NOT a documentary I’d otherwise particularly recommend, alas.

  9. Taylor says:

    He’s a really cool guy — he had a lot of great stories to tell. He was also an amazing teacher. I took “History of Electronic Music” with him, and when we got to the Moog, he brought in his and played along with the demo track. It was awesome!

  10. a swede says:

    A Record Collector-ish note: I have an LP by Pierre Henry/Michel Colombier called Mass For Today/The Green Queen (Limelight LS-86065) where “Too Fortiche(Far Out)” is listed as 2:42 and has different drums, better in my opinion. Nevertheless,
    very interesting to hear this version.
    Thanks O.W., for pushing me to this site!

  11. a swede with egg on face says:

    Actually, it´s “Teen Tonic (Far Out)” on the LP. “Too Fortiche (Too Much)” is another great number, though.

  12. Hello A Swede, thanks for the correction. My man Jeff in Houston has a copy of that LP, too; I’ve been buggin’ him to hear it again. We’ll do the side-by-side comparison of “Far Out.”

    Ah, when record collectors get
    together…

  13. Ron Wolpa says:

    What a gift it was to find Office Naps , as a rarities chaser of 60s & 1970´s, I got realized.
    “Strobo” and the use of Moog pitch bend microtonalities in some moments brings me in mind Joe Zawinul´s Weather report style with distant echoes of Keith Emerson ;

Leave a Reply to DJ Little Danny Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *