TG 30 - Beaver and Krause. A look at the career and music of Moog synthesizer exponents Beaver and Krause, alongside other groups and composers they worked with in the late 1960s and early 70s. As well as tracks by the pair of Moog men, the programme includes music by Roger Kellaway; Emil Richards; Mort Garson; The Electric Flag; The Monkees; The Byrds; and George Harrison.
Comments
This is a passage from the liner notes for the reissue of the Zodiac Cosmic Sounds album, made by the producer of the album Alex Hassilev.
"The Audio Engineering Society (AES) convention was taking place as we were getting this album together. It may have even been going on during the recording of it. I do know that I went down to the AES convention to check out this thing called the Moog synthesizer, and to meet Robert Moog. And I was just bowled over by this thing. We decided to hire the Moog, which was the only existing one in town at that time. I mean, nobody had started to work with this instrument yet. We hired it right out of the AES convention and brought it here. But of course, it didn't play in real time. We overdubbed it."
This passage is from Electronic and Experimental Music by Thom Holmes, and is a quote from Robert Moog.
“We went out to California to the Audio Engineering Society convention in April 1967... This was the very first synthesizer we had shipped west of the Rockies. We had arranged for a representative to sell these things on our behalf out there. He invited all of the session musicians that he knew to come down to see this thing... One night during that show, we took the modular synthesizer to the recording studio where they were working on Zodiac Cosmic Sounds. Our representative, Paul Beaver, produced the sounds, turning the knobs and hitting the keys.”
IH.
Krause met Beaver at Mills in the late summer of 1966, introduced by Jac Holzman, then President of Elektra. After a trip to Trumansburg, NY to visit Bob Moog and see the factory, they purchased a Model III synth. That was the instrument used on The Zodiac album. Krause also attended those sessions but did not play. It is important to note that they introduced the synth to the Hollywood contingent at the Monterey Pops Festival in June of 1967. The rest is history.