"The Plastic Cow Goes Moooooog"
Arranged and performed on the
Moog synthesizer by Mike Melvoin,
1969
This
week we dig out an honest to goodness piece of vinyl to put on the hi-fi.
There is nothing quite like early synthesizer music; the unreal tones,
the strange pitches, the space-age psychedelic attitudes...and there's
nothing quite like rock and roll covers played on the Moog synthesizer.
It's like rock tunes turned to muzak and then given a few hits of acid.
Remember that first Casio keyboard you got years ago with the dozens of
different voices? Well, that's what the Moog became. The Moog, itself,
was limited to four basic sounds, for which the performers had to come
up with original, ultra-modern sounding names. To quote a passage from
the liner notes: "Listen , if you will, for such onomatopoetic sounds as
a 'phased rubber band,' a 'glass shower,' 'damped bells,' and a 'soprano
with a gurgle.' They're there. You've never heard them before, but you
will hear them again!" Some of the tunes that get the Moog treatment are
"Born to Be Wild," "Spinning Wheel," "The Ballad of John and Yoko," "Lay
Lady Lay" and "Sunshine of Your Love." And as scary as this all appears,
the album actually grows on you with time. Yes, we can damn them for the
plague called "New Age Music" they brought us, but we must love them because
they at least tried to speak the language of rock and roll, even though
it was through the voice of Robbie the Robot.
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