Emerson Lake And Palmer

Image: kscherer11

Saturday Synth Porn: Great shot of Keith Emerson rocking out, with his monster modular synth as a backdrop.

via the Synthtopia Flickr Group

The Museum of Making Music and The Bob Moog Foundation have announced Waves of Inspiration: The Legacy of Moog, a special exhibition set to run from August 29, 2009 – April 30, 2010 at the Museum’s facilities in Carlsbad, California. The exhibit is the first of its kind, marking the first public display of the artifacts from Bob Moog’s archives.

The exhibition, which highlights the inventor’s career and the impact that it had on the world of music, will feature rare vintage synthesizers and other related Moog instruments and memorabilia from the Bob Moog Archives and from various private collections.

A custom video presentation created by Moog historian and exhibit consultant Brian Kehew will form a central part of the exhibit. The exhibit will explore the numerous musicians, engineers and colleagues who played a vital role in the evolution of the Moog sound and the relationship between and the inventor/toolmaker and the musician, as well as the genesis of a variety of musical interfaces.

The instruments featured in the exhibit will trace the history of Moog’s work. The exhibit begins with vintage theremins and a prototype of the first modular synthesizer, which originally belonged to Herb Deutsch, an experimental music composer from Long Island whose 1963 meeting with Dr. Bob Moog would help define the synthesizer as a musical instrument, and set a course for the future of electronic music. Other excellent examples of modular instruments from the late 1960s and early 1970s will be on exhibit, most notably Keith Emerson’s famous “Monster Moog” will be featured for the first time as a part of the museum display. Read more…

Every Sunday, we bring you a sweet Sunday Synth Jam or two.  This week we’ve got a classic synth jam from Keith Emerson.

OK – this is as much of an organ jam as a synth jam, but when you hear Emerson, Lake and Palmer wail on Knife Edge, there will be no quibbles about that sort of thing.

Keith Emerson jams on organ, wails on the synth, engages in onanistic pantomime with a ribbon controller, makes strange electronic mating noises with a spring reverb and then finishes the thing off by playing the organ again, backwards.

Whew! Read more…

ELP synth god Keith Emerson is working on a new album, and has a lot to say about it. 

“I can honestly say that my forthcoming album, which has all new compositions, truly defines all that I have worked for, not only in my musical life, but in my entire life!” says Emerson.

“My new album takes in a lot of my past while making a huge departure into the future – hence the OASYS,“ he explains. “Bob Moog’s creation was, for me, the mother of all inventions which allowed great companies, such as Korg, to take it further. The material covers pretty much the history of prog rock and beyond; it is very organic.”

As for album names, after judging his initial ideas as sounding “too contrived,” Keith has gone for the most straightforward option. “ELP’s first album was just called Emerson, Lake and Palmer,” he explains, “therefore my first original studio band album will simply be called The Keith Emerson Band, featuring Marc Bonilla.” Read more…