If you've ever heard trippy, space-age synthesizer sounds, chances are, you were listening to a Moog -- a system of knobs and keyboards first built by Dr. Robert Moog more than thirty-five years ago. While the instrument's popularity rose and fell during the late 1960s and early 1970s, hipster musicians like the Beastie Boys and Fatboy Slim helped revive the Moog in the 1990s. Today, Moog has spread all over map, largely into electronica (Aphex Twin, Guru Josh) and exotica CDs (Moog Cookbook and complete reissues of works from Perrey and Kingsley). For a taste of the originals, check out the brand new nineteen-song compilation, Best of Moog (Loud Records) -- with liner notes from Dr. Moog himself. RollingStone.com spoke with Moog (rhymes with "Vogue") about how his unique instrument has shaped modern music.
When was your first Moog synthesizer sold?
The first ones were made up of modules. We showed a few people some experimental modules in the summer and fall of 1964. One of the venues where we showed these was the Audio Engineering Society Convention in New York City in October 1964. And from that exhibition, I took my first order.
What kind of music were you listening to at the time?
A little jazz. I used to like to listen to Jazzbo Collins on WNEW. The guy's name was Al Collins, a disc jockey, and his program was called the Purple Grotto. WNEW back then was a cool jazzy radio station. This was right about when I first heard my first experimental and electronic music and it really opened my ears for a long time. Those were the kinds of people we [first] served.
Who were your first customers?
The very first guy was Herbert Deutsch. He was -- and still is -- on the faculty of Hofstra University in Long Island. The first synthesizer I sold for money was to Alwin Nikolais, who at that time was a choreographer and modern experimental dance composer. He did his own music on tape for his dancing. The second customer I had was a guy who was doing radio commercials. But he was on the cutting edge. His name was Eric Siday. I can think of two other people who were well known in the experimental music community. One was Vladimir Ussachevsky, who was head of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. And there was Lejaren Hiller, head of experimental music at the University of Illinois. These are the kinds of people who shaped what I did from 1964 to 1965.
Was there a slow buildup of interest or an explosion?
Up until the end of 1968, it was, pardon the expression, progressing in shits and farts. We'd equip some experimental music [at universities] and then someone else, at a nearby school, had to keep up so they'd order one. It lurched along like that. The really big thrust out into the mainstream came after [Wendy Carlos'] Switched on Bach.
Weren't you also building theremins at this time?
I built theremins on a small scale up to '64, and in '64 I began with synthesizers, and that took off after a few years and people completely forgot about theremins. I mean we had no theremin business at all from 1965 through maybe 1990. Because what happened is that analog synthesizers were big stuff and then digital synthesizers were big stuff and then sample-playing instruments were big stuff and then MIDI was big stuff and then computers were big stuff and so it got to be around the late Eighties/early Nineties and musicians woke up and said, 'Hey, all that great stuff that we had in the Sixties and Seventies, we can't do that stuff anymore. You can't reach up and turn a knob, you can't get those sounds anymore.' That's when the wheel began to turn the other direction. That's what Incredibly Strange Music was reporting on. A lot of dance music and electronic music of the last ten years is really going back to the late Sixties and early Sevnties and revisiting that.
How do you describe the Moog sound?
There are a couple of things that are characteristic of analog synthesizer sounds, which people have come to associate with the "Moog sound." Probably the most well-known is our low-pass filter circuit that I patented in 1968. That's sort of the heart of that sound, it's a "woooow." [He makes the noise.] Another characteristic feature of the sound is a lot of gliding from one pitch to another. Whereas if you play an organ or piano and can stand on your head, you still can't glide. It sounds like "woooow, did-el-did-el bump, woooo." As far as the musicians are concerned, it was a new way of looking at sound. It was the beginning of sound design.
Today, to get an authentic Moog Synthesizer, you would have to go to the used market. There happens to be one guy in Wales who is selling knockoffs of the Mini-Moogs. [Legal issues are pending.] There is a huge interest now and we will introduce a new keyboard synthesizer next year. There were twenty or thirty models between 1964 and 1983. But this will be another model.
Can you name any recent customers?
There are so many people buying our instruments right now that I have a hard time remembering them all. One of the members of Prince's band just bought one, we built one for Fishbone, the group Phish, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Geggy Tah -- Pamelia Kurstin plays theremin and bass in that group and she's one of the best Theremin players in the world. Sun Ra got one of the first Mini-Moogs, one of the prototypes. Chick Corea was very good at one point, [as was] Herbie Hancock.
Do you listen to modern Moog musicians?
I have to mention the [band] Moog Cookbook -- I know both of those guys well. Roger Manning is out on tour with Beck. And Brian Kehew does a lot of studio work. Both of those guys are very skilled musicians. They're really good. They come out in funny silver space-suits and prance around like they did in the Sixties. It's a real put-on. But they do it so well that it's listenable too.
Do you have any favorite tracks that didn't make it to the CD?
All these records except maybe Dick Hyman's cuts were made after Switched on Bach came out. By and large, the big surge of Moog records was responding to Carlos' Switched on Bach. That's a very high-class, high-quality piece of music production. Now, Carlos declined to have any of his music associated with this Best of Moog, so if you asked me if there is any other music that's high-quality and worth mentioning, I'd have to mention that. There's one record that Gershon Kingsley did that I thought was awfully good that was called Gershwin: Alive and Well and Underground. I know a lot of his stuff did end up on the CD. But he had one track, "Rhapsody in Blue" with a real pianist, and Kingsley did the orchestral part on tape with a Moog synthesizer, and I think it's pretty damn good. There was a musician by the name of Larry Taylor, and he made an album called Taylor Made Moog. Larry Taylor was a very good trombone player and arranger. His album was mostly big band type stuff and he did a couple of trombone-like tracks that would make the hair on your back shiver. They were so unbelievably convincing.
Will you offer software emulation of the theremin or Moog sound?
Right now they're sold as plug-ins, into DigiDesign ProTools. And I'm working now with a couple of guys on software emulation of Big Briar MoogerFooger. [But] you can't really emulate a theremin. The most important thing about it is how you play it: You move your hands through space and the antennas respond over a 5-octave range with complete smoothness and immediacy. That's very different from moving a mouse around and having the pitch jump.
Dr. Moog continues to design, build and sell Theremins and Moog systems atwww.bigbriar.com.
JAMES OLIVER CURY
(October 18, 1999)