moon traveller herald

The Theremin Orgy WHRB May  2021  https://spinitron.com/WHRB/pl/13198103/Music-from-Thin-Air-The-Theremin-Orgy 10:44 PM Clara Rockmore 14 Songs, Op. 34, No. 14. Vocalise Sergei Rachmaninoff The Art of the Theremin 10:45 PM Clara Rockmore - Carnival of the Animals, XIII. Le Cygne (The Swan) Clara Rockmore Carnival of the Animals, XIII. Le Cygne (The Swan) Camille Saint-Saens The Art of the Theremin 10:45 PM Clara Rockmore - Hebrew Melody, Op. 33 Clara Rockmore Hebrew Melody, Op. 33 Joseph Achron The Art of the Theremin 10:46 PM Clara Rockmore - Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 22: II. Romance Clara Rockmore Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 22: II. Romance Henryk Wienawski The Art of the Theremin 10:50 PM Clara Rockmore - The Firebird: Berceuse Clara Rockmore The Firebird: Berceuse Igor Stravinsky The Art of the Theremin 10:54 PM Clara Rockmore - Piece en forme de habanera Clara Rockmore Piece en forme de habanera Maurice Ravel The Art of the Theremin 10:57 ...

  Like his 1960s compatriot Marshall McLuhan, who wrote of a dramatic "electric circuitry that has overthrown the regime of ‘time’ and ‘space’ and pours upon instantly and continuously the concerns of all other men,” Sanders similarly sees a global import in the glyph-like character of the new age circuit.  &^*+ The signals become the lyricist's medium, as Bradley Plunket and Lester Kushner would demonstrate in the cicuit they built and wired to a foot clutch to make the Wah-Wah Pedal, emblazoned on'60s consciousness by Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, the Fugs and others. With the Wah-Wah for Sanders, card carrying member of the East Side Gilbert Erector Set society of  sharing, creativity, love and buzz , the connection between the Wah-Wah, Hendrix, and was palpable. And was described in a 2011 sit-down with Interview Magazine. @#&% "No country that invented the wah-wah pedal can be totally evil. The Fugs’ equipment manager, a guy named Danny Green, showed an ear...

  Digging Our Way Through the Data Midden: On Ed Sanders’s Investigative Poetry and Broken Glory: The Final Years of Robert F. Kennedy by Ammiel Alcalay - @BOMBmagazine https://t.co/GuZ47vmoew — Jack Vaughan (@JackIVaughan) December 28, 2020

On American Routes radio , there was a very interesting vignette about Raymond Scott, and enthralling related conversation with Bob Moog – maker of the Moog synthesizer. Scott was a key composer behind some of the looniest Loony Tune music, and a force in electronic music. He had a stint as the orchestra leader for the Lucky Strike Hit Parade, but his very modern sounding music - he was entranced by the sound of the modern, much as one of his influences, Duke Ellington. What I did not know was how much he did in the domain of electronic music. Among other things, he invented the Clavivox. Hear it. Scott’s family had a radio store of some kind. His brother talked him into music school, because of his great prodigy, but his first interest was engineering. On the show, Moog described going to Scott’s house in one of the boroughs. It had an elaborate basement with rooms for woodworking, for metal work, for electronics work. All kinds of tools. Mad scientist stuff. Moog was young. H...

Origins of the motivation for the monograph It was a night of discovery. Wisconsin teenagers driving around full of the anticipation for the Friday night dance. On the way maybe to the CYO hop, we stopped in to see an intellectual recluse in any ranch house, U.S.A. An older guy, flattop, not going anywhere that night, living with his parents, and the owner of a Fugs record. The twin beacons of Henry Luce, Time and Life, had told us of the Fugs – the most downright Bohemian member in the burgeoning ranks of folk rockers. They graced here a brick-weary East Side alley in the star-turn LP cover, many long steps away from the likes of the Kingston Trio. To get one of their records you had to go to a store that handled jazz or one, like Soulville, that handled Red Foxx’s gamey comedy records, ones kept behind the counter. The Fugs first out on ESP was not something to find in the LP racks at Penny’s. Even where it was available, it was not readily available to 16 year-olds like us. ...

Ed Sanders lab notes on the Brain Lyre. Source: Edward Sanders The MRI- A bridge too far - working project By Jack Vaughan It is fair conjecture to say not too many among the East Side Poets subscribed in later years to The New Scientist, the highly readable British pub that flies into the headwinds of science and technology, but Sanders did. For my money, this is strong indication he was firmly in a realm known by the ancient Athenian citizen, or the Renaissance Man versed in science and art. He stood ready to inspect the world at first principle. And, if electronics were in reign, he would learn it first hand. He'd been doing such a much, mucking with diodes, soldering circuits,  in the Woodstock winter lab. However,  as time went by, it was became clear the total EBS might be a bridge too far. Would he back up MRI equipment borne in a semi to his Woodstock cottage, to extend the laboratory portfolio for exploring the next phase? Maybe not. ...

La Monte Young came to New York by way of Los Angeles where he played with Wayne Marsh and Ornette Coleman, and by way of the plains of Idaho where he was born. He was influenced by Gregorian chant, Asian Indian classical music and gamelan- hearty drone lineage, all - and, to hear tell, by the hum of power generators and transformer on utility poles. "It's the drone of the city," he said – and he heard it, and he followed it by way of L.A. to New York.  He was totally dedicated to experimental art that still puts him outside the mainstream. He formed a group, Dream Syndicate, that included future Velvet Underground members John Cale and Angus MacLeis (and Billy Name). For Cale undoubtedly the experience was formative. The long sustained sound that Young favored was intrinsic to the Velvet Undergrounds re-interpretation of basic rocknroll. Something like SunRa, Young formed a "Dream House" music collective that played a lot of monotonous music for many year...

I came to know Sunnyland Slim through Harry Duncan and Paul DeMark. It was through Harry as well that I came to know John Sinclair. John was doing a radio show in New Orleans, and writing and performing what I called “Blues Poetry.” He heard of my book, “Sunnyland Blues” through Harry, and was very generous in compliments. Years later we were able to hook up, and to converse for magnetic media. The idea I had was to take John’s commentary on the art of blues poetry, and scribe that into a screed or broadside that he might add to the folio he would peddle as he conveyed his messages in the States and the world beyond. We met up multiple times, but usually briefly, and never quite pulled that type of thing together. But I talked to him via email just before he moved to Europe, and he was cool with the idea of me posting whatever it was I’d compiled anytime anyplace anyhow. Thinking way back - I described my work with Sunnyland as Blues Poetry. I thought, with John, there might be ...

The February 17, 1967 issue of Life. In which Ed Sanders appears along with Yevgeny Yevtushencko, F. Lee Bailey, Lauren Hutton and Lou Alcindor. The cover story concerns Happenings, the experimental art of the emerging "Other Culture" as writer Barry Farrell discovers it in London, Tokyo and New York.  In Clearly, there is something happening - as the blue borders of Life slurp down in Pollack slashes across the insert foto. With trade-mark good humor, Sanders is awaiting trial on obscenity charges related to the Peace Eye Bookstore and Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts.  The magazine is not mentioned by name, nor is Sanders' group, The Fugs. Sanders was a central figure in the 1960s Avant-garde scene of New York City for activity in music, poetry, publishing, film and performance poetry (perf-po). (Thanks to Jeff Hull.)

Judith Charles Gallery is pleased to present  Odd Harmonics , a collaborative exhibition with Butterscotch Records and Moog Music featuring work by Fran ç ois Chambard, Cassandra C. Jones and Tomory Dodge. Odd Harmonics is a month-long contemporary art show and performance series curated by label head Allen Farmelo. Meanwhile, CBS :Sunday morning had a nice piece on Theremins. Their tale of Leon was different than the one I'd known..having him as a more complicit KBGer and not necessarily kidnapped back to the USSR. Web site had some good links (below) robschwimmer.com The New York Theremin Society "Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage"  by Albert Glinsky (University of Illinois Press) albertglinsky.com moogmusic.com Joe's Pub , New York City thereminworld.com

I would posit that this begins with Roland playing a Stylophone ,  an early portable electronic synthesizer. Here he puts the backbeat in Bachrach. For wierd somewhat unbeknownst reasons Rashaan Roland Kirk appeared as the last artist on the last Ed Sullian show...THIS IS NOT THAT [above he plays I say a lil prayer].. On the Sullivan show he played a version of the recent hit: My Cherie Amour. “It was difficult to believe one’s eyes or ears when tuning in the show entirely by accident, not having heard of the booking. I caught Sullivan’s remark about staying tuned for Rahsaan Roland Kirk and his ‘classical jazz musicians,’” Leonard Feather wrote in Down Beat. It was sure a surprise to me. A couple of my friends had some of his records. Steve Allen or Jack Paar might have had him on before. So I knew who was. The fact that he could play a nose flute and a sax more or less at the same time probably partially the reason he got on some of those tv shows. Show biz was still i...

Google has a Doodle feature on Robert Moog worth a check out. You push record, hit all the dials, and you get back a url. Click here to encounter my composition. My Moog music pages.

Not long before his passing, Moog synthesizer co-inventor Robert Moog appeared in a documentary. ''Moog'' (2004) shows him as a really nice guy, sort of an old 60s guy in a way, who raises his own vegetables, lectures, and journeys the world to visit some of the illuminant exemplars ( Herb Deutsch , Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson and others) of the original synthesizer era he forged. A native New Yorker, Moog began building and selling Theremin kits in high school - the Theremin became ''a thread'' in his life story - before heading out for a degree in electrical engineering at Columbia. In the 60s he came up with the synthesizer, in the process creating a ton of phase-lock loops, voltage controlled oscillators and other groundbreaking musical circuits. The film doesn’t dwell on these parts, but there is a lot of good, gorpy and greasy feedback sound scattered in the plot. He recalls the fear of the electronic sound that was rampant in some circles back i...

On the eve of the Monarch's Marriage I watched a video. I cant recomend It Might Get Loud to any but the most in-the-wool electric guitar freak, but a few moments resonated for me. One: where Jimmy Page decribes his thrall and reacts listening to Shawnee Indian Link Wray's game changing Rumble. His eyes and movement [playing guitar on air along with Link] say most all of it. Describing Link and Rumble, Jimmy says, "Profound Attitude." The other: is Jack White making an electric diddley bow on a country cottage porch. Alsways fun to see good muscians interact, tho. Page for sure was the leader as he, White and U-2's The Edge met on the ground of the blues, is most of a handful of numbers. "Muddy had a soul with one string on the guitar." - Sunnyland Slim on Muddy Waters

At Moogfest, a North Carolina musical event honoring the work of analog electronic musical instrument pioneer Robert "Bob" Moog, there were many Korgs, Yamahas, and laptops loaded with Moog samples, writes able NY Times' critic Jon Pareles. One purpose of the event is to raise money for a Moogseum archiving the work of Moog, who died a few years ago. Neon Indian, Omar Souleyman, Van Dyke Parks and Devo were on hand. Pareles sets the scene. It is a glance at the reign of the once and future King d' Synthesizer Analogue: From their sometimes-unstable oscillators, filters and amplifiers, Moogs and other analog synthesizers produced sounds that more reliable digital synthesizers would not: buzzes, swoops, whooshes, scrapes, gurgles, screeches, burps, crackles and countless other onomatopoeia-worthy noises … Analog sounds are a funky corrective to sterile digital tones; colliding waveforms make a beautiful noise. New York born electrical engineer and physics PHd Bob Moog...

Labored this weekend on Electronic Bard System Monograph on work of Ed Sanders. Always encountering news stuff... the Ondes Marento , the Mellotone, Harry Parch. In conversation with Ed I was introduced to Parch. He is noted for a tuning system with 43 notes in an octave. Most especially, Parch created his own instruments (see Jelly fish-like glass bell example above), to get the sound he wanted. Friday's NYTimes discussed Parch: "In the Forest of Instruments, Signs of Evolution." Parch is in a pantheon with John Cage, Robert Moog, Leon Theremin, Raymond Scott. With Cage, I'd venture that Parch influenced the Performance Art movement in New York in the '60s - a formative mileu for Sanders. New York in those years was a mesh for sure. This mesh including Dylan, Tiny Tim, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Cage and Glass, Andy Warhol and Phillip Guston. Several times Sanders pointed out he did not go as far as Parch - Sanders used 31 notes - or 'cents' - on his M...

Got to Worcester for centenary tribute to poet Charles Olson. Was late to the late show – always get lost in Worcester - but saw the last part of Ed Sanders’ reading. Good stuff. With his Strum Stick. Doing Doggtown. Loose Peach Gown. How Sweet I Roamed. Transcendeary! There is a record out now: Be Free – The Fugs Final CD (Part 2) … gasp! Get it! Not because it is the last one. Get it because Ed does the Loose Peach Gown Song, and The Laughing Song. And Tuli (remember him selling little broadsides on the N.Y. street) does Greenwich Village of My Dreams (a great moment in 21st Century Surrealism)plus Backward Jewish Soldiers. New and in the tradition. You will need time to relax with this. So start with the paean to relaxation: Goofitude. Today NPR had a nice review of Be Free that included comments of college mate Larry Sloman. Audio and text.

[Note 2010-02-26-1] “I was carrying with me a little instrument from the ‘60s” – said Sanders in Experimenting with Sappho’s poetry . The device Sanders describes could well be a Dübreq Stylophone , an early portable electronic synthesizer. In ‘’1968: A History in Verse [ p.209 ] he recalls buying just such an instrument in Montreal on Sept 15, 1968. He indicates this as the beginning of the Electronic Bard System effort.

Extra Extra: Ed Sanders’ Investigative Poetry available again - [EBSAddendum 1] - Edward Sanders’ Investigative Poetry has had a slowly percolating influence since its publication by City Lights in 1976. Over the years, Sanders has taught poetry, and this book was a mainstay of his method. It certainly influenced blues poet John Sinclair, as he began to versify on the lives of the blues saints in Fattening Frogs for Snakes [Surregional Press, 2002] – a versified history of blues. Sanders work as a poet and teacher has continued to focus on using poetry to tell history, to tell of real events, to urge the poet to do the gumshoe investigators’ legwork to’ get that story.’ You may recognize that these traits put it outside the mainstream of currently dominant trends in poetry. Example is found everyday on Garrisson Keiller’s PBS poetry reading – it’s nice but there are always words about feelings but nothing ever happens. Sanders might admit to that the investigative style is out of the ...

Sanders: I had broken up the first version of the Fugs in 1969 - I did a couple of solo records for Warners – Sanders Truckstop and Beer Cans on the Moon - then I decided I was going to fade from music - and didn’t really pay any attention to anything musical for five years. I was at Naropa Institute in 1977 - and I was teaching a course in Investigative Poetry. I had been experimenting with Sappho’s poetry - I was carrying with me a little instrument from the ‘60s – a little electronic synthesizer that weighed about a couple of pounds. Just a small synthesizer with a stylus that you made the notes with - and I had it hooked up to the old Fugs’ warm-up amp - the VibraChamp amp - which is a beautiful 1966 Fender. And Allen Ginsberg came into the room, and I sang him a version of Sappho’s Hymn to Aphrodite. And he said it was really nice and ‘why didn’t I do it like that at my reading that night?’ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ And I had never ever-ever thought of ...