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

Inspired by Wendy Carlos' seminal "Switched On Bach" (which was certainly NOT a novelty record), a glut of records followed that had Moog doing everything from inferior classical knockoffs to Bach...arach. And the of course, the Moog Cookbook arrived in the 90's to bring everything full circle.

They're probably all kitsch in one way or another, but which transcend kitsch and hold up today?

My vote goes to Gil Trythall's Country Moog (Switched on Nashville), which has all electronic arrangements (no acoustic jazz backbeats w synth leads) and a positively sublime version of "Gentle on My Mind"...

What say ILM of this idiom?

http://016.noblogs.org/gallery/381/moogpower.jpg

truth be told - not that much moog action - but a fine album nonetheless.

I've got that one

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y-Qon5Eq6DE/SeaaEGYGfBI/AAAAAAAAAPM/ZlxrKjeLie4/s320/stereolab-switched-on-328395.jpg

Got to give this another airing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3QBcrliFNk

imo switched on beatles is super kitschy but also pretty dope

Check out Joseph Byrd/The United States of America and the American Methaphyspical Circus. Also Mort Garson's The Wozard of Iz

Check out Joseph Byrd/The United States of America and the American Methaphyspical Circus

By all means, but no way are they Moog novelty records! No Moogs, for a start!

Moog is one of my record fetishes and i've collected this junk for years. Mort Garson rules - Black Mass by Lucifer and Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds are amazing. and for non-kitsch but mind-blowing moog, doesn't get much better than Bruce Haack and The Electric Lucifer.

For Switched-On moog cover records, the ones on Command are my favorites: Dick Hyman's Age of Electronicus is funky as shit, Enoch Light and the Light Brigade's Spaced Out mixes moog with every other trendy instrument of 1969, but the kookiest and prob best is the moog Tijuana Bossa nova of the Richard Hayman's Genuine Electric Latin Love Machine.

http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu92/damien_stone/Moog4Big.jpg

>>No Moogs, for a start!

That's right -- I forgot! They relied on something called a ring modulator that likely predates the Moog. Another group that offers Moogy-like goodness without Moogs is the Silver Apples, who used audio oscillators. Finally, a group similar to both these who did indeed use a Moog: The White Noise. Their 1969 lp "An Electric Storm" is a must-hear.

I thought Byrd used a Buchla synth but apparently he used the Durrett Electronic Music Synthesizer, whatever that was

some companion threads worth a gander:

Walter/Wendy Carlos: "Switched On Bach" C/D?
50s generic happy modern machine music
Albums that tend(ed) to be played in Hi-Fi-shops to impress the customers

Their 1969 lp "An Electric Storm" is a must-hear.

i'm not the hugest fan of these records. the sounds they get out of the moog are trite and corny. but i still end up buying them when i see them for cheap.

this claude denjean record has some cool tracks though. he also covers Big Yellow Taxi, I Can See Clearly Now, The Godfather Theme, and Let's Stay Together
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB4ArlvAvVA

switched on rock is ok. this is the only song i could find on youtube, but the versions of Jumpin Jack Flash and Yummy Yummy Yummy are pretty funky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0s4ea3aZeE

and this record is mostly pretty silly, but the imperial march is super heavy.
http://36-15-moog.blogspot.com/2008/05/electric-moog-orchestra-star-wars-1977.html

Richard Hayman's Genuine Electric Latin Love Machine

Yeah! I'd sold off/given away a bunch of these types of records i'd found in thrift stores years ago but always held onto this one. The drums on "Windmills of Your Mind" are pretty awesome for one of these types of records. Always curious who was on this besides Hayman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVebBrILgbU

Andrew Kazdin and Thomas Z. Shepard- Everything You Always Wanted to Hear on the Moog* (but were afraid to ask for)

is really awesome. There are so many wanna-be-Carlos novelty Moog albums but Kazdin's is really great.

My boyfriend and I collect these pretty intensively, and in addition to the gems mentioned upthread ("Age of Electronicus" and the Hayman especially), here's some more:

Walter Sear - The Copper Plated Integrated Circuit aka "Plugged In Pop"
Harry Breuer - The HAPPY MOOG!
The Sounds of Love - . . . A to Z, Sensuously SIN-thesized
Mike Hankinson - The Unusual Classical Synthesizer
Sonart Productions - The Moog Strikes Bach . . .
Sy Mann - Switched On Santa (Moog xmas duh)
Christopher Scott - Switched on Bacharach
Chris Stone - Turned On Joplin
Raymond Erickson - The Erickson Tapes (really good split btw moog and harpsichord, more "serious")

xpost. i remember years ago on some beat diggery site, they mentioned 'windmills' as being one of those songs they'd always check for. this version is by far the best i've heard of it.

is richard hayman an alter ego of dick hyman?

not a huge fan of this one. used to see it on record store walls for 50$, but i just tried to sell it on ebay and it wouldn't even go for 10$

mort garson's electronic hair pieces

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2613/3854603176_bd660a1f7b.jpg

I thought "Electric Storm" relied more on tape-editing than electronics? I'll have to re-read the liner notes when I get home...

I've been enjoying the irresistable Wozard of Iz a lot recently (Garson again)

I remember liking Bob James - Rameau, IIRC it's not 100% synthesized. Haven't heard it or thought about it in ages...

Youtube never ceases to amaze me...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4HxHX-mF4M

Andrew Kazdin and Thomas Z. Shepard- Everything You Always Wanted to Hear on the Moog* (but were afraid to ask for)

is really awesome. There are so many wanna-be-Carlos novelty Moog albums but Kazdin's is really great.

this is hands down one of my favorite albums, def the best in this category - the carmen is just fantastic

White Noise is WONDERFUL. But yeah I guess doesn't really belong in a "Moogsploitation" thread.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/40/80349953_1ff7d18ffe.jpg
This inspired me greatly during the arranging of the second Super Madrigal Bros. album. WONDERFUL stuff.

Recently got this at a thrift store, but haven't listened to it yet and forgot all about it til just now:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3392/3625995569_bb66b1c150_m.jpg

"semi-conducted .."

haha

Since I brought them up.... White Noise was in fact "moog" before the dawn of the synthesizer. Here's a liberal snippet from Chris Evans' good piece on them at allmusic:

The White Noise project had its origins in the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, whose previous claim to worldwide fame was the theme music to Doctor Who. The workshop was peopled by a small team of technical wizards and musicians whose principal function was to generate futuristic effects and music for BBC TV and radio programs. Among them was Delia Derbyshire, frequently championed by future generations as a pioneer of British techno. Derbyshire, Peter Zinovieff, and Brian Hodgson were also members of a group called Unit Delta Plus, formed in 1966 to promote the composition and performance of electronic music, and it was one of their lectures that inspired an American named David Vorhaus to start writing his own electronic music. The son of a blacklisted film director, Vorhaus had come to the U.K. to avoid the draft and earn an electronics degree, while also studying classical music and playing the double bass.Vorhaus persuaded Derbyshire and Hodgson to collaborate on a more pop-oriented project with him while maintaining their day jobs at the BBC. With two tracks in the can, recorded on a six-Revox setup synchronized by a single remote control, Vorhaus was introduced to Island Records' Chris Blackwell, who was so impressed that he commissioned a whole album. The team had been hoping to make a killing by selling the two tracks as a single, but Blackwell's advance of £3,000 prompted them to reconsider. They set about building their own studio-cum-science lab in Camden Town out of "borrowed" gear and improvised equipment. A number of friends were brought in to provide drums, lyrics, and vocals, but most of the team's time was expended on realizing the backing tracks. With no keyboard-based polyphonic synthesizers available to them, every last chord had to be assembled from numerous tape edits painstakingly stuck together. Much use was made of musique concrète techniques, whereby physically generated sounds would be subjected to all manner of electronic distortion and tape manipulation. Vorhaus later ventured his opinion that An Electric Storm contained more edits than any other album in the history of recording.

Unit Delta Plus was also responsible for putting on the happening that prompted the Beatles to record "Carnival of Light".

That Doctor Who Theme was hundreds/thousands of edits too, wasn't it?

Yeh, as I understand it, nearly every note/tone generated by each instrumental voice in the Dr. Who theme = a separate edit. All done (arranged, edited, played, etc.) by Delia Derbyshire @ the Radiophonic Workshop.

those moog cookbook albums are pretty fucking dope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQYNcZmbOEc

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