"Switched On"-Type Moog Novelty Records, S/D

i love how derbyshire and vorhaus took two tracks to island hoping to get it out as a single, got talked into doing a whole album, spent a year doing four tracks, then did 'the black mass' in one day after island said there wasn't enough material!

wendy walter really made it sound easy but it was hard to master those patchbays, moogs were expensive to rent and so many of these records just sound rudimentary.

my favorite three have already come up on the thread, but

Andrew Kazdin & Thomas Z. Shepard's 'Everything You Always Wanted To Hear On The Moog' is the only other classical one that really ranks with Carlos, and it's even goonier / crazier than anything she did. Kazdin was Glenn Gould's recording collaborator / producer at Columbia in the 60's.

Electric Latin Love Machine -- pretty much the best album of pop covers overall, weirdest, most psychedelic, oh yeah 'The Peanut Vendor' & 'Windmills' but pretty much every track keeps you going

The Gil Trythall Country Moog records are sentimental favorites, and Rick Powell's 'Switched-On Country' has its moments too, Moogs were just great at doing twangy sounds

Favorite Moog-lead instrument of all time doesn't really fit in the 'Switched-On' category because it's not covers, but if you like those and haven't heard Emil Richards' 'Stones: New Sound Element', money in the bank. Very early 1967 record with Paul Beaver on Moog soloing over Richards' vibes & percussion, and the Mono mix is much, much better than the Stereo mix which has the Moog sitting lower in the balance.

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/emil_richards/new_sound_element__stones_f1/

http://www.richieunterberger.com/zodiac.html

"I turned him onto Paul Beaver, who at that time was one of the only guys into electronics. Paul and I had a group going at that time called AHA, the Aesthetic Harmony Assemblage. Paul was the first guy to use the Moog out here; he introduced the synthesizer to the West Coast." The Zodiac, according to Richards, was not the first album to use the Moog synthesizer: "I think we preceded it with an album I did for Uni called Stones. We took everybody's birth stone, and I wrote twelve songs. I was actually, I think, the first one to use the Moog on the West Coast. The Zodiac was closely behind this."

several other people say that 'Stones' was recorded later than 'Zodiac' and some of the anecdotes from that 'Analog Days' book describing how Beaver brought his modular right over to a recording studio later the same night to do some quick vooshing overdubs on a record definitely make it sound like 'Zodiac' might have been first, because the Moog lines on 'Stones' were obviously too complicated to learn & bang out in one night, but I hope Richards is right and his was the very first Moog appearance, because 'Stones' is an incomparably more awesome record than 'Zodiac'

> Peter Zinovieff

whilst not directly in White Noise, went on to found EMS who created the VCS3 etc. in fact, wikipedia says one was used in that first White Noise album (it's the same year, so not inconceivable):

"In 1969 White Noise released the groundbreaking album An Electric Storm on Island Records. The album was created using a variety of tape manipulation techniques, and is notable for its early use of the first British synthesizer, the EMS Synthi VCS3."

(the Synthi was a different thing to the VCS3, i thought, the Synthi being the suitcase version of the bigger VCS3 (ok, not that simple. Synthi 100 was 3 VCS3s, Synthi A was the suitcase version))

we can't forget Gershon Kingsley, another moog master and composer of 'Popcorn'. His Music to Moog By def. transcends the genre. Jean-Jacques Perrey's moog albums are great too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_rwb9NgHR8

Does anyone have the second White Noise btw? I've read about it in places but I guess it is super rare and a kind of a holy grail to me...

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/a77eeb2eae6a0c1447cecedb476971e5/323644.jpg
I have this record. It's terrible. But there's something poignant and hilarious about the cover- it's like he's thinking "get me outta here".

http://www.wiels.nl/blog/images/Rick_Powell_-_Switched-On-Country_front_sm.jpg
my band took some pretty big samples from this here record (on "The West")

http://slowpencil.net/menutron/inventory/vinyl/random/images/dick_hyman_moog.jpg
didn't Beck bite this for one of his songs?

OOH that's one's awesome! Yes for the intro to "Sissyneck". The actual song is some really awesome cheesy 60s go-go dance music.

we can't forget Gershon Kingsley, another moog master and composer of 'Popcorn'

Hot Butter version is better than Kingsley's original though.

rong

Current 93 start their live shows with a loop of Hot Butter that never modulates, just the opening riff over and over, it's really maddening and funny.

Robbie Fulks has a bit in one of his songs where the other players play some outside solos and then he basically plays the melody of "Popcorn."

Here's a fun Finnish vocal version of "Popcorn" by the vocal group Seidat:

http://open.spotify.com/track/5iZNea6hUjh0B1nIrBjSa7

http://bp0.blogger.com/_ORjFf0-b4k4/R-j_vuZcWsI/AAAAAAAABig/6g-9mCe-JO8/s1600-h/Folder.jpg

This is a good later UK entry with more of a glam leaning and a good original in Jungle Juice.

Balls. Get it here anyway: http://36-15-moog.blogspot.com/2008/03/elektrik-cokernut-go-moog-1973.html