Monthly Archives: October 2016

Music et al, Music of the 60s, Today in history

Robert Moog Herbert Deutsch

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Robert Moog Herbert Deutsch

Introduced their synthesizer on October 12, 1964.
Herbert Deutsch speaking about its development:
“The Minotaur” from Moog: The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman
Robert Moog Herbert Deutsch

Sound effects

special effects when radio was theater of the mind | Old time radio, Radio play, Vintage radio

Born in 1950, I just missed the excitement of radio shows and how their sound effects made the stories “real.”  Early TV shows and movies occasionally showed those radio station sets and revealed how clever sound technicians recreated the real world with “fake” noise. Need the sound of a door closing? Close a door. Need the sound of thunder?  Move a large, thin sheet of copper suspended from a frame by wires.

Robert Moog Herbert Deutsch

Electronic Music

 

The mixture of electricity and sound effects created new possibilities.  Around 1896, Thaddeus Cahill developed the Telharmonium. Much like later electric organs, it used wire to transmit sound to horn speakers.

Leon Theremin developed a much simpler instrument. Below you can watch him demonstrate it. He used it much like a violin. Unfortunately for him, I suppose, most Boomers hear a Theremin (aka, the aetherphone) and think of space invasion movies.

Robert Moog Herbert Deutsch

Laurens Hammond

Laurens Hammond established his company in 1929 for the manufacture of electronic instruments. His Hammond organ used the same principals that the Telharmonium had used.

As electronics got more sophisticated, so did technicians’ ability to create more sophisticated instruments.

“Moeg“

In 1963 Robert Moog (pronounced “Moeg” like Moe of the Three Stooges not “Moooog” like Daisy the Cow) and Herbert Deutsch met. Deutsch was a musician; Moog a technician. Together they came up with the idea of making a user-friendly electronic keyboard that had a huge range of sound. Much wider than even a Hammond organ.

And on October 12,  1964, Moog and Deutsch introduced and demonstrated their music synthesizer at the convention of the Audio Engineering Society in NYC.

Beatles and Moog

Robert Moog Herbert Deutsch

While the instrument and its later refinements did not catch on immediately, it gradually became a huge part of rock music. The Beatles (of course) via George Harrison (of course) used a Moog on their last recordings together:

  • the wind at the end of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”? Moog.
  • that lovely counterpoint to the acoustic guitar that gently slides in at the beginning of “Here Comes the Sun” ? Moog.
  • “Because” uses the Moog as well.

Reaction

What was the reaction to the Moog? Ed Ward of Rolling Stone magazine reviewed Abbey Road and though that the Moog “disembodies and artificializes” the band’s sound. He added that they “create a sound that could not possibly exist outside the studio.”

Since the Beatles weren’t touring or performing live, that wasn’t a problem. Having said that, if anyone has ever experienced the Fab Faux in concert and their eerie ability to play Beatles music of any era, then Ward’s comment is untrue.

What do you think?

Robert Moog Herbert Deutsch

EDM

In any case, it was was nice that Mr Moog and Mr Deutsche met and gave us a whole world of sound to add to our library.

A reader of this blog added an interesting comment: …and don’t forget Dick Hyman’s album of Moog music, which included the song, The Minitaur, which found its way into the Emerson, Lake, and Palmer playlist.

That album is: Moog – The Electric Eclectics Of Dick Hyman

Herbert Deutsch is a Professor Emeritus of Music at Hofstra University and is a visiting professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.

Bob Moog died in 2005, but his legacy lives on.

Robert Moog Herbert Deutsch
Peace Love Art and Activism, Religion, Today in history

Pope John XXIII Vatican II

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Pope John XXIII Vatican II

October 11, 1962

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli

Pope John XXIII Vatican II Ecumenical Council

Pope John XXIII Vatican II

The Times They Are a-Changin‘

When any long-established institution announces that it will convene to discuss its present and future, it is news. If there has not been such a meeting for nearly a century, the news is bigger. And if the long-established institution is nearly 2000 years old and has had only one of these convocations before, the news is huge.

Such is what happened on January 25, 1959 when Pope John XXIII announced that there would be a Concilium Oecumenicum Vaticanum Secundum, or what is commonly known as Vatican II.

The Church’s College of Cardinals had only elected John three months earlier on October 28, 1958 and deliberately elected an older person (76) more as a “caretaker” leader than one who would set the stage for change.

John

When Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli selected the name John for himself, a name, while common to previous popes, had not been selected for over 500 years, few realized the signal he sent. And when the “caretaker” of a 2000-year-old household announces that he will allow the discussion of major renovations, many within the Church’s leadership worried.

Keep in mind that Americans elected John F Kennedy president just shortly after and both these Johns, while very different in ages, presented a vision of innovation. JFK had his “New Frontier” and John Vatican II.

The Pope opened the Council on October 11, 1962 with the following words, “What is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith, without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in its presentation ...” (NYT article)

Catholic Boomers

When we think of the United States in the 1960s, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, black nationalism, drug use, hippies, assassinations, feminism, LGBTQ awareness, and other cultural changes dominate that historic landscape.

For Catholic Americans, those changes included what Vatican II brought about. In 1965, there were 46 million Catholics in the United States–23% of the total population and 71% of them attended Mass every week. When a part of any nation’s population is told that there will be changes in what they grew up thinking was unchangeable, the impact is great.

Pope John XXIII Vatican II

Ecumenical Council

In other words, for young Catholics, for those Catholic baby boomers, the notion that “the times they are ‘a changin'” was not unusual but normal, expected and acceptable.

  • Sing during the Mass? Why not.
  • Accept the Eucharist in one’s hand (after being told NEVER to touch it)?  Fine.
  • Receive wine as well during Communion? Better.
  • The priest will face the congregation at a much simpler alter?  Nice.
  • The Mass will be in English, no more Latin?  Great.
  • Face the priest during confession? Scary.
  • Extreme Unction is now called the Sacrament of the Sick.
  • Nuns not wear such extreme habits? They have hair?

The changes and discussion that the Council created and Church members continued after its close on December 8, 1965 continue to echo. Neither John XXIII nor JFK lived to see the effects of their visions. Pope John died on June 3, 1963 and President John 173 days later.

Legacy

Writer Michael Novak wrote what he sees of the genie that Vatican II let out of the bottle, much to the chagrin of many Church leaders since: … sometimes soared far beyond the actual, hard-won documents and decisions of Vatican II. … It was as though the world (or at least the history of the Church) were now to be divided into only two periods, pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II. Everything ‘pre’ was then pretty much dismissed, so far as its authority mattered. For the most extreme, to be a Catholic now meant to believe more or less anything one wished to believe, or at least in the sense in which one personally interpreted it. One could be a Catholic ‘in spirit’. One could take Catholic to mean the ‘culture’ in which one was born, rather than to mean a creed making objective and rigorous demands. One could imagine Rome as a distant and irrelevant anachronism, embarrassment, even adversary. Rome as ‘them.’ “

Pope John XXIII Vatican II
Music et al, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

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David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

Social media have revised the old notion that we are all only 6 degrees of separation apart to three or four perhaps.

My September 13 blog entry was on the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival. The festival was not selling many tickets until the organizers announced that they’d booked John Lennon to play. Then there weren’t enough tickets.

Through that blog entry, a David Marks and I have exchanged messages.

Miner

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

David Marks is from South Africa. In the beginning, he worked in a gold mine and wrote songs there. One of them, “Master Jack” became a hit in 1968 for the Four Jacks and a Jill. They also had a hit with “Mr Nico”

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

Bill Hanley roadie

In 1969, David worked for Bill Hanley Soundman Extraordinaire. Of course 1969 will ring the Woodstock bell for many who read this blog regularly and Marks was there with Hanley.  And on September 13, Hanley and crew were in Toronto.

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

His remarks

David recently shared a picture he took during that concert:

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

He added the following comment:

September 1969 – Live Peace in Toronto…. How time flies when you’re in the rocking chair. 2 S Africans were involved for Bill Hanley sound. It was my first real full festival mixing gig. Just before lunch time – in the stadium packed with over 50,000 – Bill walked away from the desk… I said hey Bill where’re you going… gonna find some Southern fried chicken in Toronto he said. (His favourite food back then). Who’s mixing I cried, above the polite applause as Tony Joe White took the stage… you are, Bill screamed back over the din. And from then on it was me and every rock band that I was brought up on in Africa; that is until the Doors engineer took over. But not before I’d finished with John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band. Truth is… I wouldn’t budge or let anybody near the desk for that entire afternoon. And Bill graciously let me handle it. Even the famous ‘feed back’ incident with Yoko Ono did not deter me from hogging the mix.

Let me name drop BIG TIME. Jerry Lee Lewis, Lord Sutch, Bo Diddley, Alice Cooper, etc… from where I shot countless pictures with my Pentax Spot Matix. (No flash – 400 ASA & a telephoto lens… such as they were back then.) Also shot a few slides from a borrowed roll of film… that I bummed off a passing journalist. I mention all this, because these notches on my sound belt eventually led to a 40 year sound career back in Southern Africa.

Oh… and the other S African? From Malmesbury in the Western Cape…Jimi Hendrix’s recording & sound engineer & one time manager: Eddie H. Kramer. As with Woodstock, Eddie & his partner Lee Osborne, recorded the film sound track back stage, from a split feed from out of our stage box onto 2 linked Ampex 4 track decks, if I recall. And no, I did not mix sound at Woodstock, as urban myth (and the University overview) claim. I was a Hanley Sound roadie. Thanks again Bill Hanley… the Father of Festival Sound. Hail Hail Rock ‘n Roll.

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

And…

Forgot to mention the mix for… Alice Cooper, Louisiana Zydeco fiddler Doug Kershaw & the Queen of Rock ‘n Roll… Little Richard. All three show stoppers. (Standing on the grand piano that Jerry Lee Lewis had kicked out of tune, Little Richard declared: Elvis may be the King of Rock ‘n Roll honey, but I’m The Queen.)

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

Plastic Ono Band…

Yoko got under a sheet & I didn’t know she had a mic… but I heard this turkey warble & when the feedback started I couldn’t ID the source… suddenly someone shouted at me “… it’s under the sheet…. it’s under the sheet.”

30 years later when 3rd Ear Music brought Crosby, Stills & Nash to South Africa, Bill Siddons was their manager… he was the Doors’ manager back in ’69 and they were about to follow John & Yoko. Bill came out front to check the mixer / desk when the feedback thing happened. Sitting around a breakfast table in Sandton in 1996 I’m bragging about this infamous incident… Bill starts laughing. Don’t tell me that you were the sound guy I shouted at? Blush! Go figure.

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

John Yoko South Africa

One reply to the post asked about John & Yoko in South Africa in the 1970s?

Too true. They spent most if the time in Cape Town… so we believe. In fact the taxi driver that John booked wrote about it a few years later. They became friends. John visited Cape Town a few times if the urban myths are to be believed. No I didn’t meet John or Yoko… not even when I mixed for the Plastic Ono Band in ’69.

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

More Bill Hanley

David Marks also added a couple other pictures to the thread:

1969-toronto-2

Bill Hanley … a better view of the ‘home made’ Hanley mixer. Setting up in the morning, Toronto 1969, and sound checking with a local band of student rockers. Can’t recall who they were. But you can see the speakers stacks a bit more clearly. And today the kids want 48 channell splitboard mixers with on-stage monitoring for 100 clubbers… and there Bill Hanley was… some 12 channels for 50,000, with an aux-mix stage feed for monitors? Go figure.

And…

Bill Hanley early morning setting up the mix at Live Peace in Toronto.

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist
3rd Ear Music and the Hidden Years Music Archives

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist

In a future posts I’ll try to cover some of David Marks’ current musical involvement particularly with 3rd Ear Music and the Hidden Years Music Archives.

David Marks Music Director Producer Archivist