Here’s a hard to find video happy synthpop pioneer Jean-Jacques Perrey’s E.V.A.

Anybody remember/know what the song’s title refers to?

In this video, Dana Countryman gives an overview of his very cool DIY Ondes Martenot Ring Controller project:

I’m building a Ring Controller, in the style of a vintage Ondes Martenot, to control my modular synthesizer. Here is the first video, showing my progress, so far.

I’m controlling a synthesizers.com Q125 Signal Processor, which in turn, is controlling an oscillator on the big synth.

This is a work in progress, and I’m continuing to complete this instrument.
Another video will follow this one, when it is completed.

Countryman has toured with French electronic musician Jean-Jacques Perrey, and is helping to keep happy Moog music alive.

The DVD features a new 2 hour, 3 camera interview; two complete lectures from the Tryptych and Transmediale festivals (also featuring the late Bob Moog) and Transmediale concert with Dana Countryman in high definition widescreen, rare photo gallery and more.

The CD is described as an insanely happy instrumental collection of original tunes, and also includes five melodies by other composers. Using classic “Moog”-style analog synthesizers, as well as acoustic instruments, the CD is styled to be very retro, and very happy.

Jean-Jacques Perrey is a legend, and a pioneer in the popular electronic music field. He was the second musician to ever own a Moog Synthesizer, and one of the first to record with it, way back in 1966. Over the past five decades, Perrey has released many classic Moog albums, featuring his trademark crazy tape loops and his catchy original melodies.

His theme Baroque Hoedown (co-composed with Gershon Kingsley) has been featured as part of Disneyland’s much-loved “Main Street Electrical Parade” for over 30 years.

More recently, Perrey’s music has been sampled by countless popular Hip-Hop and Rap artists, including Ice T, DJ Premier, Gangstarr, and many others. At age 77, Perrey is still very much active, and still creating Music for Smiles and Laughs.

A recent Perrey/Countryman concert in Berlin, Germany had a sell-out crowd, and that performance will be released soon on DVD. To support the release of new The Happy Electropop Machine, Perrey and Countryman will be performing the new album in a mini-tour of concert venues this August, starting in Seattle, and continuing on to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

A tour of the United Kingdom is planned for the Spring of 2007, followed by a tour of Japan, later that year. The Happy Electropop Machine is described as a refreshing blast from the past, focusing on catchy melodies, at a time when interest in the Moog Synthesizer is suddenly in vogue again.

Show Dates for The Happy Electropop Machine:

Live in Seattle
Sunday, Aug. 27, 2006, 7:30 pm
The Triple Door – 216 Union Street – 206-838-4333
$15.00 advance, $18.00 door

Live in San Francisco
Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006, Doors open: 7 pm – Show, 8 pm
Recombinant Media Labs -
763 Brannan @ 6th St. in San Francisco’s SOMA District
For more information: 415-863-3068
Tickets are available by emailing info@researchpubs.com

Live in Los Angeles
Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006, Doors open: 7:30 – Show, 8 pm
Knitting Factory – 7021 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles 90028
323-463-0204

Moog, inventor of the modern synthesizer, has been building electronic musical instruments for nearly half a century. Along the way, he’s made prodigious contributions to modern culture and music, including today’s electronic dance music scene. The feature documentary film. by filmmaker/musician Hans Fjellestad and producer Ryan Page, explores Moog’s collaborations with musicians over the years, and his ideas about creativity, design, interactivity and spirituality.

Hollywood’s Moog captures the film’s aura with an eclectic mix of original music by artists such as Stereolab, Meat Beat Manifesto, Tortoise, Money Mark, Jean-Jacques Perrey & Luke Vibert, 33, The Moog Cookbook, Plastiq Phantom, Psilonaut, Roger O’Donnell (The Cure), Bernie Worrell & Bootsy Collins, The Album Leaf, Pete Devriese, Bostich, Charlie Clouser, Baiyon and Electric Skychurch’all produced on Moog instruments specifically for the soundtrack.

“This CD covers an amazing range of music,” says Moog. “To me, this CD is a tribute to all the musicians who have used Moog instruments to express their musical visions.”

The set comes complete with a bonus disc highlighting classics such as Emerson Lake & Palmer’s Lucky Man, Yes’ Close To The Edge, Gary Numan’s Cars and New Order’s Blue Monday.

The film was shot on location in Asheville, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo and London and features appearances by Walter Sear, Gershon Kinsgley, Jean-Jacques Perrey, Rick Wakeman, DJ Spooky, Keith Emerson, Herb Deutsch, Bernie Worrell, Pamelia Kurstin, Charlie
Clouser, Money Mark, Mix Master Mike, and others.

“Synthesizers are different from other musical instruments,” explains Moog. “They don’t have fixed tone colors, like a guitar or a drum that we listeners can identify when we hear them. A synthesizer sound can be low or high pitched, or have no pitch at all.”

“It can be sustained or percussive, muted or bright, thin or fat, smooth or raucous, familiar or strange. It can evoke images of a symphony orchestra, a rising sun, a hoard of insects, an earth-moving chine, and much, much more. They enable a musician to shape sounds efficiently and intuitively, so that the synthesizer becomes a natural extension of the musician’s imagination.”

The track listing for MOOG is as follows:

• 33 – Abominatron
• Stereolab – Variation One
• The Moog Cookbook – Bob’s Funk
• Jean-Jacques Perrey & Luke Vibert – You Moog Me
• Psilonaut – The Sentinel
• Meat Beat Manifesto – Unavailable Memory
• Bernie Worrell & Bootsy Collins – When Bernie Speaks
• Electric Skychurch – Endless Horizon (I Love Bob Mix)
• The Album Leaf – Micro Melodies
• Charlie Clouser – I Am A Spaceman
• Plastiq Phantom – Sqeeble
• Bostich – Realistic Source
• Pete DeVriese – You Have Been Selected
• Money Mark – “Nanobot Highway”
• Baiyon – Mixed Waste 4.2
• Tortoise – Beautiful Love
• Roger O’Donnell – Another Year Away

Bonus Disc

• Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Lucky Man
• Gary Numan – Cars
• Jean-Jaques Perrey – E.V.A.
• Devo – Mongoloid
• New Order – Blue Monday
• They Might Be Giants – Baroque Hoedown
• Yes – Close To The Edge