A new documentary about Robert Moog , who invented his eponymous synthesizer in 1963, has reignited a fascination with the electronic box of tricks. Brian Boyd on the machine that changed music
ROBERT MOOG didn't invent the synthesiser (that, as you know, was Thaddeus Cahill in 1990), but he did invent something that wasn't the size of a football pitch and could only be used by people wearing lab coats and goggles. When he unveiled his eponymous music machine in 1963, Moog thought of it as just another electronic curiousity. Within a few years though, the Moog (which rhymes with rogue not fugue) had appeared on Beatles and Beach Boys records, it had memorably featured in the score to Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and was largely responsible for Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express and Donna Summer's I Feel Love.
It's been in and out of fashion as much as the drum solo over the years; currently the Moog synth is enjoying an upswing in its fortunes. Bands such as Underworld and Leftfield re-introduced it in the 1990s and today's electroclash (yes, they're still around) artistes simply won't countenance anything else when it comes to the creation of squelchy synthesised sounds.
With a new documentary film about Robert Moog (Moog) doing the rounds complete with an enthralling soundtrack (featuring Stereolab, Money Mark and Tortoise), we're back in a Moog mood again.
If your only knowledge of the instrument is how Keith Emerson (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) used to transform his Moog to make it shoot flames into the audience, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the film/soundtrack.
Robert Moog, born in 1934, grew up in New York, where as a graduate of physics he used to build his own theremins (more difficult than it sounds). A fan of avant-garde electronic music, he wanted to move synthesisers away from being cumbersome computers to musical instruments that could be found in any music shop.
Moog's invention pushed the keyboard-based synth to the forefront of electronic music-making. But it needed a bit of a push from a classical composer. The experimental musician Walter (now Wendy) Carlos recorded an album in 1968 called Switched On Bach in which he re-arranged the German composer's work for the Moog. A surprise left-field hit which went on to sell millions, the album switched a lot of mainstream acts onto the (then) space-age feel of the instrument. "In the early days, people thought the Moog was just for making weird electronic music," says Robert Moog in the documentary. "But Switched On Bach meant that people realised that you could produce real music on the Moog".
The joy of this new instrument for many was that, unlike traditional instruments, you didn't have to spend years practising it - most anyone could plink-plonk away at it, to differing levels of success. The Moog's sound helped push musical boundaries as albums of the time such as the wonderfully titled Music To Moog By and Moog Power attest. There was even a Moog-obsessed duo who went under the name of Thelonious Moog.
"For a long time, the sound it made just wasn't accepted outside of those specialist Moog acts," says Moog. "It was only when the rock musicians started using it that it became popular - and that was about 10 years after I invented it. There was talk at the time about these synthesisers replacing the role of the musician, but you had to be a musician to play the Moog properly. Also, I never thought that the analogue synth would ever be mistaken for a traditional musical instrument sound. It was only ever supposed to be a source of new sounds, thereby expanding the range of possibilities for making music."
The original Moog was never exactly compact as any old concert footage of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, dwarfed by towering boxes of electronics, will show you. The new Minimoog, though, soon solved the size problem and allowed people such as Rick Wakeman to construct a whole career out of the instrument.
In Germany, the Krautrockers and Giorgio Moroder brought the Moog sound to an entirely new audience but soon, with other more cheaper and more portable synthesisers coming on to the market, the moog fell out of favour.
In the 1980s however, Gary Numan found an old Moog abandoned in a recording studio he was working in. It had been set to a heavy bass programme and when he pressed the keyboard, he suddenly found the musical inspiration for Are Friends Electric? and Cars. The Human League and Depeche Mode also discovered "Moog power", but the sound was soon to fall away in the face of ever changing electronic trends before today's electroclash devotees - Fischerspooner and Felix Da Housecat - rediscovered the synth squelch.
In Hans Fjellestad's documentary, Moog talks about how his instrument has travelled from the avant-garde to the mainstream and the differing impacts it has had over the years. With testimonials from many of the musicians who have used his instrument, the documentary is not as arid as you might think.
And we still have music to Moog by. For reasons too complicated to go into here, Moog lost the right a few years ago to use the recognised brand names "Moog" or "Minimoog", however, there is a brand new Robert Moog invention - called "The Voyager by Bob Moog", it's a new take on his famous synth and when it was launched in the US last year, Herbie Hancock and Bill Clinton were in attendance to pay tribute to its creator.
To celebrate the launch, Robert Moog was invited to a number of "Moogfests" to talk about his new machine. Bands play, old original Moogs are wheeled out and drooled over and phrases such as "dual-oscillator analogue monosynth" spark heated debates. Sounds like a synth Ozzfest.
Moog - Original Film Soundtrack is on Hollywood Records.
