Past few posts have been nothing but 80s/90s gold. Well, now for something COMPLETELY different. This is the kind of shit I listen to when I really want to forget about the real world.

Marty Gold
Moog Plays The Beatles
Okay, before I get to the wackiness involved with this I have to make a confession. I stole these MP3s.

Well, not really. I do own this album. But when I recorded it way back when it was on my shitty turntable that spun too fast. I didn’t want to post those versions, but I also didn’t want to dig the LP out of my massive stacks of unorganized records and re-record it either. Luckily an awesome blog called 36 15 Moog posted it and the author of that blog kindly gave me permission to steal from him. I recommend everyone check out that AMAZING blog if you want even more Moogy madness. His recording equipment is amazing because this copy sounds crystal fucking clear. Dude gets props in my book. I just added that blog (and other outstanding blogs by the same guy) to my blogroll. Check them out.

Now, with that out of the way we can discuss this amazingly stupid record. It’s an early entry in the Moog craze, coming out in 1969, just a year after Wendy Carlos’ amazing Switched On Bach started the craze, and it’s particularly sly in combining the Moog mania with the tail end of Beatlemania. As Moog novelty records go it’s fairly good if not at all experimental or adventurous. I have worse Moog records for sure though, it’s hard to make “Eleanor Rigby” unlistenable after all.

The Electronic Concept Orchestra
Moog Groove
I know very little about this “group.” I use quotes because I’m pretty damn certain it was most likely just a couple dudes with a Moog, a drumkit and a dream. The back cover of the record (which you can read here) is one of many Moog album linear notes to go off on the “new sounds” that the Moog could create. That seemed to be a fascination with the Moog when it first came out. Everyone wanted to hear a “new sound.” I suppose that makes sense, and you could probably mirror that fascination with the auto-tune/robovoice of today. That being said, Moog Groove isn’t really packed with “new sounds” as much as it is packed with old sounds done in a slightly new way. I can’t imagine anyone from 1969 buying this record and upon first listen proclaiming “My god! I’ve never heard a sound like this before! My ears, they are awoken from a slumber that I didn’t even know they were in!”

The selection is a little weak as well. Like every single fucking Moog album ever made it includes a version of “Aquarius” from Hair, as well as its own fair share of Beatles covers. The take on “Grazing In The Grass” is pretty fun though. It’s also fun to compare the two version of Penny Lane and Hey Jude on both of these albums to see how different artists used the Moog. While Marty Gold used a simple guitar-like sound for the melody of “Penny Lane” The ECO went for a faux-vocal approach, which fits the song much better in my opinion. Both are stupid fun regardless. Enjoy and I’ll probably have some more “normal” music up later this week. In the mean time if you want to hear some amazing Moog-based music check out this post. If you want to hear some hysterically odd Moog tunes go here. You should check out this other post if you want to here some pre-Moog electronica. And click at your own risk here if you’re retarded and horny for even more Moog.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 at 5:30 am and is filed under Complete Albums, Moog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.