An Interview with David Van Koevering on Astronauta Pinguim

via Fabricio Carvalho on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

"David was one of the main [people] responsible for the Mini Moog becoming a very popular instrument in the early seventies, when he decided to travel thru the USA demonstrating and selling the instrument. David Van Koevering was also the developer of the Orchestron, an instrument that was based on Mattel's Optigan, that became very famous when musicians like Patrick Moraz and Kraftwerk members used in their records!"

You'll find the interview on Astronauta Pinguim here.

Pictured:

Top: "On stage: David Van Koevering (2nd from left) and Robert Moog (seated)."

"ASTRONAUTA - How did you meet Robert Moog for the first time?

DAVID - I was traveling and doing musical educational programs in the public schools. There is a picture of my educational presentation in Trevor Pinch's book "Analog Days". I saw an ad in the Music Educators Journal that had a photo of the R. A. Moog Studio in Trumansburg, NY which said "Come Visit Our Backroom". I was performing in the area and decided to visit. Bob Moog was in Europe so I did not meet him then. Awhile later I was performing at a school in Long Island, NY and the principal said "I want you to meet Bob Moog". He had come from Trumansburg, NY to meet me and see and hear my show. Bob and I talked about the last song on my show where I performed on a "Theremin". I had made it from and article that Bob had published in an electronics magazine. After meeting Bob that day he asked if I would like to join him and his family at Carnegie Hall in New York City. It was the first ever live performance of the "Moog Quartet" with Gershon Kingsley. During that concert something switched on in my spirit, I knew I needed to be involved! I had a huge audience and showing the future of music to the younger generation became my goal."

Left: David Van Koevering with Moog theremin.

www.davidvankoevering.com

Astronauta Pinguim Pays Tribute to Bob Moog on Brazil's Radio Putzgrila

Those of you that follow MATRIXSYNTH on a regular basis should be more than familiar with Astonauta Pinguim, most notably for his interviews with the pioneers of electronic music. He just had an article published on the influence of Bob Moog on Brazil's Radio Putzgrila. The article is in Portuguese, however you can find a Googlish version here.

Pictured below: Fabricio Carvalho aka Astronauta Pinguim with Moog tattoo and MATRIXSYNTH T-Shirt from the article on Radio Putzgrila. He has great taste. :)

An Interview with Electronic Music Pioneer Richard Teitelbaum and the First Moog to Arrive in Europe

via Fabricio Carvalho aka Astronauta Pinguim on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge.

You'll find the full interview on Astronauta Pinguim here.

"In 1964, Richard received his Master's Degree in music theory and composition at Yale University, and then he went to Italy on a Fulbright. There he met composers Goffredo Petrasi and Luigi Nono, whom Richard has studied and worked with for some time. Also in the mid-sixties, he co-founded the live electronic music group Musica Elettronica Viva, in Rome. In 1967, interested in using brainwaves as controller of sounds, he became aware that american engineer Robert Moog had developed the Moog synthesizer some years earlier and was putting on market his new invention. Richard contacted him and soon became the first person to bring a Moog synthesizer to Europe, in 1967."

Halim El-Dabh - Pest Control, Tape Manipulation & The RCA Synthesizer

Astronauta Pinguim has published yet another interview with one of the pioneers of electronic music.  This time around we have an interview with Halim El-Dabh (Portuguese version here).  It is a fascinating read.  He was the first person to create a musical composition using tape manipulation, and the source of his inspiration came from his work in agriculture.

"'My first exposure to electronic sound devices was back in 1943. As an agriculturist studying pest control, I wanted to see if sound-emitting devices could control tiny beetles that attack wheat, corn, alfalfa and beans. I thought that rather than getting rid of the beetles, we could distract them. I used to experiment with clanging together iron rods like bells; then I tried scratching the rods together to see if it discouraged the bugs.'"

"In 1944 Halim decided to record the ceremony of the Zaar (a female religious ceremony), he then treated the recordings he made on the ceremony using studio techniques and electronic devices and voilà, the first piece of tape manipulation in the world was born! (Note that it happened four years before Pierre Schaeffer released his first published works in France). The Expression Of The Zaar was Halim's only piece to be published from this period, but he created another pieces of tape manipulation mostly of street vendors in Cairo."

In essence, this was the birth of musique concrete.

On The RCA Synthesizer: "'The synthesizer was an innovation that gave us a larger expansion of sound manipulation. We used punch cards to input and receive sound from the machine. It took up a whole wall, it was huge. We were able to get very clear sounds of whatever we synthesized whether it was trumpet, violin or any other sound. I especially liked to input my voice. Luening did an input of his piccolo to transform it. I did an input of my drum to transform it and then took the sounds back from the synthesizer.'"

Be sure to read the full interview on Astronauta Pinguim here.   You can find links to additional interviews on Astronauta Pinguim here.

via Fabricio Carvalho aka Astronauta Pinguim on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

An Interview with Rick Wakeman on Astronauta Pinguim

Full interview on Astronauta Pinguim

"How many Minimoog model D synthesizers did you have during all your career and how many of those Minimoogs do you still have? Can you tell us a little bit about the history of your Minimoogs?

RICK - I don't know the exact answer, but I think I have probably owned about 20 Minimoogs in my lifetime. I currently have 9. Finding good ones is extremely difficult. I have a very good man who repairs them for me and keeps them in good order. I cannot even imagine not having one. I have bought them for many different countries, and one from Switzerland which amazingly I used to own back in the early seventies!"

via Fabricio Carvalho aka Astronauta Pinguim on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

An Interview with Bruno Spoerri on Astronauta Pinguim

Update: in case you read this post when it first went up, be sure to give it another look for a few updates.  It's a bit convoluted with quite a few tangents, but that's how it goes sometimes.

Read the full interview on Astronauta Pinguim here.

The following are some excerpts and tie-ins to other bits of synth history.

-----

Initially a saxophone player, Bruno Spoerri explored electronic music in the 1960s on.

"In 1964 he was invited to a job in an advertising agency and began to work with electronic music using a Ondes Martenot and, after, using lots of synthesizers and also experimenting with electrified/synthesized saxophones..." "As a saxophonist and jazz improviser I always looked for ways to play without a keyboard."

Pictured above is Bruno with his EMS Synthi 100 (videos previously posted here and here).

On the Synthi 100: "I bought the Synthi 100 in 1971. In 1987 I gave it to Felix Visser (Synton) in exchange for a Fairlight CMI; some years he had to sell it at an auction, and I don't know where it is now (I would recognize the instrument, as I did some small changes on it)."  It was listed on Vemia back in 2009 posted here and here. Click though for pics.

In 1974, he recorded the album 'Iischalte (Switched-on Switzerland)'.

Bruno Spoerri - Le Ranz Des Vaches


Uploaded on Jul 25, 2011 Aura Archange Maudit·57 videos

"Bruno Spoerri - Iischalte (Switched-on Switzerland)
1974

Imágenes de la película La lunga notte di Veronique (1966)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183441/

Video made by Aura Archange Maudit"

-----

"On 'Voice Of Taurus' (1978), Bruno Spoerri experiments a lot with electrified wind instruments and also with jazz-rock and rock."

Bruno Spoerri - Hymn Of Taurus (Taurus Is Calling You!)

Uploaded on Nov 19, 2009 MrJJBonanza·29 videos
Re-Published on Sep 30, 2014 Bruno Spoerri - Topic

"First track of Bruno Spoerri's 'Voice Of Taurus'
1978 Gold Records, Switzerland
Cat# 11 061 (Vinyl, LP)

Bruno Spoerri on 'Hymn Of Taurus':
"The rhythm track was created with my very first primitive ring modulator (4 diodes and 2 transformers) that is why it is so dirty The voice went of course through the EMS vocoder, the choir was created through the VAKO Orchestron."

-----

Again, don't miss the full interview with Bruno Spoerri on Astronauta Pinguim here. There's some fascinating history there including Ginette Martenot and the Ondes Martenot, Oskar Sala with his Mixturtrautonium, and Joel Chadabe. Regarding his original gear, "most of my analog gear is sold (most of it to the remarkable Swiss Synthorama of Martin Hollinger), but I still have my first synthi, the EMS VCS-3 (from 1970), the ARP 2600 with sequencer and the Lyricon I and II. I use the lyricon quite often in performances, the other gear mostly for demonstrations to visitors."

I was fortunate enough to visit Synthorama back in 2008. You can find my pics and videos from the visit here. See the Synthorama label for other posts including a one of a kind modular, the Airböurne, created by the curator of the museum, Martin Hollinger.

For more posts featuring Bruno click here and scroll.  Check him out on the Synthophone and Gesture Based Synthesis here.

via Fabricio Carvalho aka Astronauta Pinguim on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

You can find links to additional interviews with synth history's early influentials by Astronauta Pinguim here.

An Interview with Joel Chadabe on Astronauta Pinguim

via Astronauta Pinguim where you'll find the full interview.

"Joel Chadabe, native of New York, studied with Elliott Carter at the Yale School of Music. Following three years in Europe, he returned to New York and established an electronic music studio at the State University of New York at Albany.

In 1967, he created the design for an analog-programmable Moog synthesizer and commissioned Robert Moog to build it. In 1977, Joel Chadabe and Roger Meyers developed the PLAY Program, the first software music sequencer. From 1983 to 1994, Joel Chadabe was the president of Intelligent Music, the first company to develop and distribute software and hardware for interactive composing, In 1994, he founded Electronic Music Foundation (EMF), a non-profit organization dedicated to the history and creative potential of electronic music. In 2006, he founded Ear To The Earth, a worldwide network for environmental sound..."

via Fabricio Carvalho aka Astronauta Pinguim on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

After checking out the interview with Joel Chadabe, click here and scroll for other interviews with synth legends on Astronauta Pinguim.

Interview with Udo Hanten on Astronauta Pinguim

via Astronauta Pinguim where you'll find the full interview and tons of pics.

"Udo Hanten was born in Krefeld (North Rhine Westfalia, Germany), in 1956. His first instrument was an acoustic guitar, but it was the electronic possibilities that Udo could achieve with that guitar plus a pickup, a tube radio, a spring reverb and a reel to reel recorder that led him choose his career as an electronic musician and producer later on. In the late '60s he started in music, in late '70s he started to work with audio performances and installations, in the early '80s he started to work with video and in the mid-'80s he started with Laserworks. Udo is in the business with all those art forms since then!..."


via Fabricio Carvalho aka Astronauta Pinguim on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

Festival Oscillations Brazil Starting July 25

Follow-up to this post. A reminder and flyer for the event via Fabricio Carvalho on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge:

"Festival Oscillations
SESC Vila Mariana

Programação:

25/07/2013 (quinta-feira) 19:30 - Auditório do SESC Vila Mariana

Abertura
Filme "Moog: a documentary film" (2004)
Palestra/performance "From Moog to Mac", com Herbert Deutsch

26/07/2013 (sexta-feira) 19:30 - Auditório do SESC Vila Mariana

Filme sobre o Krautrock
Palestra com Harald Grosskopf
Palestra com Hans-Joachim Roedelius

27/07/2013 (sabado) 21:00 - Teatro do SESC Vila Mariana

Concerto: Hans-Joachim Roedelius

28/07/2013 (domingo) 18:00 - Teatro do SESC Vila Mariana

Concerto: Silver Apples"

Barbara Eugenia with Astronauta Pinguim

Bárbara Eugênia fala sobre seu novo trabalho - Metrópolis 04/06/2013 - Parte 1

Published on Jun 7, 2013 metropolis·5,108 videos

"É o que temos! Este é o nome do novo e segundo disco da cantora Bárbara Eugênia."

Two videos featuring Fabricio Carvalho of Astronauta Pinguim on Minimoog and Crumar Tocatta with a MATRIXSYNTH T-Shirt! The top one is on Brazilian national TV! Thank you Fabricio! :)

Barbara Eugenia Por que brigamos
Published on May 24, 2013

"Lançamento álbum "É O que Temos" - Sergio Porto, Rio de Janeiro"

The Korg VC-10 Vocoder on Astronauta Pinguim

KORG VC-10 Talking Music Ad via this post on Astronauta Pinguim.  Click through for a review on the VC-10 including videos and pics.

"Produced between 1978 and 1982, the Korg VC-10 vocoder was the most popular among the many vocoder models made in the 70’s by several manufacturers. When the VC-10 came on the market, both the Korg - originally called Keio Electronic Laboratories - as the voice decoder (or vocoder) had some years of existence. What Korg did was attach a synthesizer to something that already existed and that was what made this instrument extremely popular: portability and the convenience of having a vocoder that didn't require external instrument to generate audio signal and modulate the pitch. They created a "self-sufficient” vocoder – you could only plug a microphone into it and was all ready to go!"

via Fabricio Carvalho on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

Astronauta Pinguim: An Interview with Larry Fast

"Lawrence Roger Fast was born in Newark, New Jersey (USA) on December 10th, 1951. Since his childhood Larry was very interested in music and electronics. He started to build early electronic circuits about 1966 and his first contact with the Moog modular synthesizers was on 1968. Some of his own designed devices started to be sold on commission on late 1971. Larry attended Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, where he obtained a degree in history in 1973.

In the early '70s, Larry Fast had the opportunity to meet Rick Wakeman, who played with the famous progressive rock band Yes at that time and asked Larry to build some synthesizer modules to him. It was just before Yes recorded their live album "Yessongs" (recorded in 1972 and released in 1973) and Rick Wakeman used the modules built by Larry on this album. In June of 1973 Larry went to England to give minor technical support to Rick Wakeman on Yes' album "Tales From Topographic Oceans" while circulating his own music demos to labels in London.


In 1975, Larry released "Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra", the first album from his solo project - Synergy - and in the same year he collaborated with the British-German band Nektar on an album ("Recycled", 1975) and the subsequent tour. In 1976 the second Synergy album, "Sequencer" was released (Larry is finishing the artwork to re-release "Sequencer" remastered from the original analog mix tapes in 24 bit 192 khz audio and digipak format right now!). Also in 1976 he was invited to play the keyboards with Peter Gabriel, who had recently left Genesis to become one of the world's most creative and famous artists. Larry played with Peter Gabriel for 10 years (from 1976 to 1986) and recorded 8 albums (in part or whole) with him: PG1, PG2, PG3, PG4, Plays Live, Birdy soundtrack, tracks on Shaking the Tree and So.

During the period that Larry was the keyboard player of Peter Gabriel's band, he found time to consult with Moog to develop at least two very famous synthesizers, the Polymoog (1976) and the Memorymoog (1982) and also kept his Synergy project, releasing 6 albums more: "Cords" (1978), "Games" (1979), "Audion"(1981), "Computer Experiments, Volume One" (1981), "The Jupiter Menace Soundtrack" (1982) and "Semi-Conductor" (1984). In the late '80s he worked as the A&R coordinator and executive producer for The Audion Record Company, the legendary electronic music label and released "Metropolitan Suite" (1987). In 1998 Semi-Conductor Release 2 was released with a lot of bonus tracks and in 2002 "Reconstructed Artifacts", an album containing digital re-recordings of previous Synergy tracks, was released. Most of Larry's Synergy albums were re-released in various editions, some of them with bonus tracks!"

You'll find the full interview on Astronauta Pinguim.

via Fabricio Carvalho on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

MATRIXSYNTH T & Moog Tattoo

via Fabricio Carvalho on Facebook

An Interview with Paddy Kingsland of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

You'll find the full interview on Astronauta Pinguim, including mentions of Delia Derbyshire & Daphne Oram.

BTW, today is Paddy Kingsland's birthday.  Happy Birthday Mr. Kingsland!  :)

Pictured: Paddy Kingsland and the EMS Synthi 100 (the Delaware)

"Patrick 'Paddy' Kingsland was born in Hampshire (England) on January 30th, 1947. He took piano lessons in his youth and got his first guitar when he was 15. By this time he also built his own valve amplifier and began to play in a band in his school days. After attending Eggars Grammar School in Alton, Hampshire, Paddy joined the BBC. He was a technician there until, in 1970, he had the chance to join the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the famous department that was responsible for providing the soundtrack and sound effects to BBC radio and TV shows. Paddy worked there for 11 years and created the music for many programs, including "The Changes", "The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and several episodes of 'Doctor Who'!

"In 1973, BBC Records released the album 'Fourth Dimenson'. Although it was credited to The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, "Fourth Dimension" is the first solo album released by Paddy Kingsland and includes tracks that he recorded from 1970 to 1973, using mainly the EMS synthesizers VCS3 and Synthi 100 (the Delaware)..."

You can still find the release on Amazon and eBay.

The first synth to enter the BBC? "The first synthesizer arrived in 1970 - an EMS VCS3. It was great for learning about voltage control and making sounds, but no good for playing tunes on. The Arp Odyssey which came a bit later was much better for that."

via Fabricio Carvalho aka Astronauta Pinguim on the MATRIXSYNTH Lounge. You can find interviews with other synth legends on his site or via the Interviews label below.

An Interview with Bernie Krause on Astronauta Pinguim

Full interview on Astronauta Pinguim here.

Pictured: Bernie and the Moog synthesizer (photo by Jon Sievert)

"Since I do not see too well, my world is mostly informed by sound. So naturally, as a young child I gravitated to music studying violin and composition. When I became a teenager, I switched to guitar (when the hormones kicked in) because… well, you know. When I was in my 25th year I joined a very famous American folk group called The Weavers. After they broke up in early 1964, I moved to California from New York, and began to study electronic music at Mills College in Oakland, which was the leading institution for experimental techniques at the time. While there, I met Paul Beaver, who became my music partner, and together we helped introduce the Moog synthesizer to pop music and film on the West Coast and in the UK."

You can find links to more of Anstronauta Pinguim's interviews with the synth world's greats here.

via Fabricio Carvalho on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

An Interview Tim Blake by Astronauta Pinguim

Timothy Blake of Gong and Hawkwind.  Check out his double EMS Synthi system and Moog System 55.  On his relationship with EMS:

"My EMS relations were mostly with Robin Woob (now the owner) and the technical people, Graham Wood, Graham Hinton, with whom most of the unique modifications to my set-up were designed.

I've met Zinovieff, of course, but not Cockerell or Cary. Peter seemed to look down on those who played the EMS synths, regarding them as toys he sold to finance his huge computer music studio. I have never heard a note of his music!!

I believe I once impressed Peter at an EMS lunch, by enjoying his Cheese with very hottest oh his home-made chutneys!! Strange stuff, Electronic musicians!"

Read the full interview on Astronauta Pinguim here.

via Fabricio Carvalho of Astronauta Pinguim on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

And Interview with Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Kluster / Cluster & Eno

Hans-joachim Roedelius birthday is today, October 26. Fabricio Carvalho wrote in on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge to let us know he has an interview up on Astronauta Pinguim here. It's a fascinating read so do not miss it.

On the instruments first used: "We used electric organs, cello, guitar, kneeviola, tonegenerators, echomachines and many mostly selfbuilt little electronic devices in the beginning. Brian when he came to our place brought one of the first synths that existed at the time but nothing else, so he played this synth, guitar, bass and he sang. It was not him who produced that album it were the four of us first with/on a fourtrack tapemachine that Michael Rother provided..."

BTW, after you finish the interview, be sure to check out his others.  You can find them by doing a quick search on "Interview" on the top left Blogger search box on the site.  You'll find interviews with John Eaton, Gershon Kingsley, Hereb Deutsch, Vince Clarke and more. 

An Interview with Jon Appleton - One of the Creators of the NED Synclavier

via Astronauta Pinguim where you'll find the full interview.

"APPLETON - I have the first and the second Synclavier but I don't play them. I am not sure they work. Sydney and Cameron and I developed the instrument first from something called The Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer. It was my conception and their design..."

Check out the "all-star" pic below. You should recognize some of the names. Peter Zinovieff was he man behind EMS. Via Fabricio Carvalho on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

Astronauta Pinguim also brought us interviews with Vince Clark, Gershon Kingsley, Herb Deutsch, and Jean Jacques Perrey.

Remember you can find all interviews featured on the site via the Interviews label below.

Moog Prodigy Multi-Page Promo Poster / Product Sheet

via Astronauta Pinguim where you'll find the full set of scans and a write-up. Click the pics to read.

When folded out, the poster is 16.5" x 23" inches.

via Fabricio Carvalho on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

The Crumar Toccata

YouTube Uploaded by astronautapinguim on Apr 19, 2011

Via Astronauta Pinguim where you'll find a great overview of the Crumar Toccata including history and pics.

"Founded in the late '60s/early '70s by Mario Crucianelli, Crumar was an Italian company that became very famous in its time mainly by their synths, keyboards and organs (both in compact or not so compact models). Mario was brother from Pierro Crucianelli, president of Elka - another very well known Italian company. Crumar existed until 1987 and the company's golden age was in the second half of the '70s, when they put on the market their "Pianoman" and "Stringman" models (1974) and later the model that combined the two machines in one, the "Multiman" model (1977). Even with this machine achieving a great reputation on the market, for me Crumar's coolest instruments are the "Hammond organ clones" made from 1974 on which had a great sound, very close to Hammond organs, but much more compact and easier to carry than the originals.

The Crumar Toccata organ was released in 1981 as a more compact version of all previous models of these "Hammond clones", more specifically the model T1/C (whose main difference was having one extra octave - higher than the Toccata's four octaves - and drawbars, like that ones from Hammond organs). The Crumar Toccata organ was manufactured until 1986..." Click here for the full post.

via Fabricio Carvalho aka Astronauta Pinguim on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge