Bob Moog. Like rogue. Or pogue.
I spent most of my youth saying the man’s name like the sound a cow makes plus a G. I’m sure a lot of people did. Sorry, Bob.
He’s no relation to former NHL goalie and [FUCK] Dallas assistant coach Andy Moog.
He made some of the first analog synthesizers. Then some of the best. They were used in everything from prog rock to classical to funk to introspective, anus-gazing ART music.
Today would have been Bob’s 81st birthday and just I saw this video.
It is what amounts to a fifteen minute advertisement for exact replicas of Keith Emerson’s Moog Modular System.
Pictured: A custom skyscraper of Moog analog synthesizer modules and the guy from Emerson Lake & Palmer who used to stab his Hammond organ with a knife for that true, natural sustain.
This thing would be totally awesome if you:
- Couldn’t already reproduce these sounds an order of magnitude more cheaply and less ostentatiously with software, or even smaller hardware.
- Didn’t have to wear a sequined cape, leather pants, and silk kimono to play it properly.
The way I see it, this is basically the same thing as any other kind of geek building a replica of Captain Kirk’s chair or an old Tron arcade cabinet from scratch. Except you’re paying Moog $150,000 to do it for you.
From a practical standpoint, it’s stupid unless you’re a keyboard demigod who can afford an extra roadie to haul it around and fix it when one of its million components inevitably breaks and is also bored with smoking joints rolled with $100 bills and snorting cocaine through a foot long, diamond-encrusted gold straw from a Tiffany crystal punch bowl.
On the other hand, it looks and sounds bad as shit.
If you played that thing on stage…those hirsute 1970’s groupies would be moist in no time, boss.
Fo sho.
Anyway, happy birthday, Bob! Thanks for the bleeps and bloops! Your work inspired generations of talented musical pioneers and charlatans alike.
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