Artificial Radio Hour with Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill: Artificial Radio Hour with Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill Part 50

Hey there folks!

Sorry the show is late, in addition to being long. The length usually means it will come together quickly but not so in this case. The problems I've been having with the Internet Archive haven't delayed me that much, but they haven't helped.

Here is a Dropbox link, please let me know how that works for you.

Well, the plan was to have this one finished early so I could get ahead. And here we are, it's not early and I’m not ahead. Oh well.

This is the pop/easy listening end of the Moog craze of the late 60s, generally. Wendy Carlos’ Switched-On Bach from 1968 sparked a load of mostly novelty, cash-in records at first, but some artists went deeper than just covering the hits of the day. In fact, some of the artists who performed on these records were already old hands at the synth game who were just trying to cash in themselves…

Four songs in the show this week are by “Christopher Scott” a.k.a. Jean-Jacques Perrey, a French electronic musician and composer. In 1969 he released an album called Switched-On Bacharach, with ten Burt Bacharach covers. It must have been a success because he released a follow-up in 1970 called More Switched-On Bacharach with eleven more tunes. (Interestingly enough, he apparently gave his alter-ego a knighthood, because he’s credited as “Sir Christopher Scott” on the second album.) When Perrey recorded library music for the Editions Montparnasse 2000 label, he used the name “Pat Prilly”.

Dan Lacksmann released three albums of primarily covers as The Discotheque Sound. He went on to greater success with the band Telex, even reaching the Eurovision finals (although they were aiming for last place).

Kenny Ascher, Alan Foust, and Norman Dolph had two albums as The Moog Machine, the first was Switched-On Rock and the second was a Christmas album. Ascher went on to co-write “The Rainbow Connection” with Paul Williams, and Dolph wrote the novelty hit “Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)”, which led to a lawsuit (and probably a very lucrative settlement) when MacDonald's ripped it off. I don’t know what Foust got up to.

Brian Kehew and Roger Joseph Manning Jr. briefly revived the “Moog covers album” concept starting in the late 90s as The Moog Cookbook. Sporting masks and aliases (Uli Nomi and Meco Eno) the duo played the alt-rock hits of the day in a retro, analog-synth style.

Sy Mann was a pianist and arranger on the Arthur Godfrey Show on CBS, but pretty much all of the albums he released under his own name were Christmas music played on the organ. “Switched-On Santa” is supposedly played on a Moog, but I suspect most of it is actually a Wurlitzer organ with a lot of echo effects.

Aivi & Surasshu compose music for Steven Universe, which is probably the best cartoon out right now.

Q.R. Ghazala is the inventor of a technique called “circuit-bending” that he uses to create electronic musical instruments out of electronic toys. The sounds created are really great.

Gil Trythall is primarily a composer of contemporary electronic classical music, but like many others, he saw a possible money-making opportunity after Switched-On Bach and released Switched-On Nashville in 1970. (It seems Switched-On Country was taken.)

Gershon Kingsley was Jean-Jacques Perrey’s partner in the duo of Perrey-Kingsley. Their big hit album was The In Sound from Way Out! It was released in 1966, before everything had to have “switched-on” or “Moog” in the title. “Baroque Hoedown”, from that album, was later used as the theme for Disney’s Main Street Electrical Parade. On his own, he wrote the song “Pop Corn” which was on his 1969 album Music To Moog By. (See?)

Dick Hyman has a funny name, and also preceded Sy Mann as the pianist and arranger for Arthur Godfrey. He released many easy-listening classics, including multiple synth albums.

Whew. It’s taken me forever to write this up, I’m definitely going monthly next year. Talk to you all next week!

Enjoy!

-Rev. Dr. Dr. Phill

I Say A Little Prayer - Christopher Scott (1969)