<p>I was going to post this news, but I thought Mike Teacher would be the only one interested.</p><p>=</p><p>Precisely my thoughts when I read the news.</p><p>I met Mr. Moog at an industry show way back when they were getting ready to re-release the Minimoog, which was the biggest selling of the Moogs. The one shown on the album above is the Modular Moog, a very early one, Keith Emerson continues to haul one around, when he plays it, the damn thing stands about three feet above him.</p><p>The moog's were terrible, horrible beasts. Terrible and horrible in that they were very finicky and fickle instruments, the small Moog I owned, like many, drifted in it's tuning depending on temperature, they hadnt figured out how to stabilize the Oscillators from this, so you could hit a key and be in for a big surprise as to where the note landed. </p><p>Beasts in that they could spuuter out pure waves of synth energy that ccontinue to sending speaking cones exploding out of their housings and across the room. It could produce bass sounds that are so sampled and stolen who knows what groove line Doesn't contain some Moog in it somewhere. </p><p>And it was either really cool sounding, or it made you want to run, depending on user, and what they were doing with them. All of this, like most new techology back then, was seen as a toy, a nice little bleepy drony thing, which is what it was. It took people like Walter/Wendy Carlos [yes, she was once a he], and the Beach Boys, Beatles, and then Keith Emerson took the thing as far as anyone could; making ELP amongst the top of the 'Love Them' or 'They sound like Shit' bands. I land squarely in both camps.</p><p>It even freaks me out that ELP were once, far and away, drawing the biggest crowds in rock, most famously filling Montreal's Olympic Stadium for a concert. Let's face it, and this is from a synth player who goes to open mics all the time to bleep and drone, keyboards are easily the most uncool instrument in rock. Hey a Hammond B-3, a huge Supersynth, whatever, it already still ends up the keyboard player is the guy who just stands or sits there and plays, not a whole lot of things you can do.</p><p>That strap on keyboard thingy? Anyone wearing that, it should be justifiable homicide to hang said keyboardist from the nearest pole with the strap.</p><p>Cool thread; he deserved a mention for sure, his contributions are still contributing, his new line of Moogs and MoogerFooger filters and effects are a constant in many bands rigs. His sounds are a constant in prog-rock, and hiphop/rap owes a shitload to this guy for all the huge bass and those squealy high legato portamento lines that every damn other hip hop/rap artist copies.</p>
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