Bob Moog Foundation Executive Director Michelle Moog-Koussa, aka, The Moogstress, shared her thoughts today on the question, “Why celebrate the life of Bob Moog?”.
She writes:
Bob dedicated his life and career to poking his soldering iron around in the sonic universe and unleashing aural possibilities not previously available to musicians.
Bob Moog’s life’s work is an invitation for people to express themselves with a new palette of sonic possibilities. As a famous musician recently said to me “Bob kicked the door down and we just walked through it”. Bob Moog’s work is a portal to sonic discovery and a catalyst for creativity. That is certainly a life worth celebrating.
Bob Moog’s legacy is getting an explosion of attention today, due to Google’s Doodle Synthesizer, aka the MiniGoog.
Here are some of the highlights:
- A folky MiniGoog video song
- Reader Julien Bayle created ‘the most Old School’ and UGLY Moog Doodle Hack.
- Synthesists posted a lot of Moog tribute tracks, like this Voyager workout.
- Spectrasonics’ Eric Persing add 78 patches to the Bob Moog Tribute Library.
Let us know if you’re doing something to celebrate Bob Moog’s life today – whether it’s with a toast, a tribute track or just getting your synth on!
He truly started a revolution…
Inspiring words.
It’s important to remember other pioneers – like Buchla, Oberheim, Dave Smith – but Moog jump started it all.
This conjured up an image in my head of Bob kicking down a door XD
Moog made the synthesizer, portable. An achievement unto itself that put America on the synth map for sure.
But now? It’s a brand like Starbucks.
That disgusts me. An art form that encompasses so many genres and ways of doing things can be summed up in one word.
I seek not to belittle the man nor his contributions, but the people that seek to turn his name into a commodity.
It’s unsettling but it’s the way of the modern world.
Everything is reduced to or elevated to a cult of personality.
And then everything becomes one cult fighting another, or one cult paying tribute to another.
I love modern high technology, but one of the cool things about, say, guitars or flutes is that they’re just what they are, guitars or flutes for making music, they’re not a homage to or rebellion from some “hero” or “villain” man or woman who made them or some competing technology.
Hollow Sun has the first two Atomic Shadow albums on sale at a special price until June 1st. All proceeds from this effort will be donated to the Bob Moog Foundation. Even if you hate my noisy crap it is for a very deserving cause.
^^ asshole validating previous post on “brands” Pay for your self publicity elsrwhere