BEYOND THE VALLEY OF MOOGFEST
Nov 05, 2010
On Halloween weekend, October 29-31, more than 60 bands as well as thousands of revelers found themselves caught up in the spirit of Robert Moog.
BY STEVEN ROSEN AND FRED MILLS
Indeed, ‘twas a free-wheeling and free-ranging celebration of synthesizer pioneer Moog. You can read our advance coverage of the event, including interviews with the festival organizer and with Moog's daughter, elsewhere on this site. Meanwhile, below we present our post-mortem, penned by BLURT editor Fred Mills and contributor Steven Rosen.
Check out our gallery of related MoogFest images (all courtesy Moog Music) as well, right here. [Photo above courtesy Moog Music; image by Matthew Read]
Incidentally, there was a considerable amount of MoogFest coverage nationally, including an appreciation of Moog in the New York Times, a "10 Best Moments" roundup in Spin and an interesting review in the Wall Street Journal. Additionally, popular local blog Ashvegas kept a running tally of all manner of colorful goings-on, additionally posting a slew of images and YouTube clips of live performances.
That Asheville (and Robert Moog) Feelin': An Overview, by Steven Rosen
It was the kind of perfect day Lou Reed sings about. Last Sunday in Asheville, North Carolina, during MoogFest - Halloween afternoon - Ben Hovey, a local synthesizer/keyboards player and trumpeter who'd played the previous evening as part of the ad-hoc Projek Moog ensemble, had set up in downtown's Pritchard Park for a free performance as part of the Surreal Sirkus Arts Festival, not specifically part of MoogFest, but clearly in the event zone.
The sun was shining, weather mild, trees loosening yellow autumn leaves in the slight breeze, and his music - as he effortlessly switched among instruments - had a groove to it both mellow and insistent.
The air felt clean and clear - the city bans smoking in the park, really a village square in the center of a major intersection. Because it was Halloween and Asheville (an Eastern Austin) is a city overflowing with creative types, all sorts of imaginatively costumed people were dancing, swaying, playing to the music.
A guy wearing a huge Residents-like eyeball with red vein lines posed for pictures with a child. Two young woman twirled hula hoops like lassos. Two costumed people on stilts paraded in and out of the park, while an amazing dragon - its long claws extending from a person's hands to the ground - made a late appearance. And a balding man wearing a blue skirt and see-through top took photos of the proceedings.
It all felt so organic, so natural, so like a community making and enjoying music. And in that, there was an important revelation in addition to a lot of pleasure. In some quarters, electronic music - synthesized music - is felt to be artificial compared to acoustic music or traditional electric-guitar-based rock.
If Moogfest did anything, it proved that synths have soul. Or souls. And I'm sure the late Robert Moog, who created the Moog synthesizer in 1964 and the especially influential, portable Minimoog in 1970 and lived in Asheville in later years, would have been pleased. He was a very spiritual fellow. (He died in 2005.) His company, Moog Music, and the Robert Moog Foundation - which wants to further his legacy with programs and a museum - are still based in Asheville.
The three-day MoogFest, which mostly had indoor shows that required paid day- or weekend passes to attend, was produced by Knoxville-based AC Entertainment, which also backs Bonnaroo and Big Ears festivals While most of the featured acts incorporated electronics into their music in some way, that wasn't a requirement. They just had to be "different" in some thought-provoking way from the kind of arena-rock/country-rock guitar-based bands that usually dominate festivals. I had read attendance was capped at about 7,000-8,000 each day, although it seemed more were present on Saturday and Sunday nights.
A couple of the best sets were virtually synth-free. Clare and the Reasons, featuring the smoothly expressive and introspective vocalist (and elegant whistler) Clare Muldaur Manchon, highlights a band that moves among various acoustic instruments from song to song. They had the intimate, lovely chamber-rock sound of an Antony & the Johnsons on songs like "You've Got Time." They also supported pianist Van Dyke Parks for a set, as he offered a witty, good-natured tour through his wonderful songbook. His Friday night set at the acoustically pristine Thomas Wolfe Auditorium ended with Manchon singing lead on "Heroes and Villains," which Parks wrote with Brian Wilson back in the 1960s.
As for performers who avail themselves of electronics, I didn't get the adulation given Pretty Lights - DJ Derek Vincent Smith who performed on the huge Civic Center Arena stage with a drummer - since the act sounded a lot like listening to a record, with so much of the music sampled. On the other hand, Big Boi impressed by filling that same stage with back-up singers and players, doing his best to make his celebratory, party-ready music live.
And Sunday night at the Wolfe offered two great bands that have incorporated synths into their pop sound in different ways. Neon Indian, which on record is just Alan Palomo recording on laptop, live became a vibrant band backed by an arresting light show. Palomo's catchy, trippy songs like "Should Have Taken Acid With You" and "Deadbeat Summer" helped set the scene, as did his active stage presence, which included playing the Theremin. But the crowd also helped make the show exciting. Many had luminescent, neon-like hoops and rings, or wore feathers - even headdresses - atop their noggins.
And the pop swagger of Britain's Hot Chip - in the tradition of bands like ABC and Human League, even Roxy Music - is so infectiously cool it's incredible they don't rack up Number One hits one after the other in this country. Their songs on stage evolved slowly, layering melodic chorus on top of melodic verse until each soared with the beauty of its craftsmanship. It seemed like all six of the band members took turns playing synthesizers, and Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard's trade-off on lead vocals was thrilling.
The most dramatic act I caught was Massive Attack - elder statesmen of politicized trip-hop - who played the arena on Saturday night. Longtime member Robert Del Naja isn't the strongest vocalist - he had trouble projecting - so he lets guest singers like Martina Topley-Bird and Horace Andy take turns, offering up a revue-style performance. The show has the arty, theatrical conceptualism of U2 or Pet Shop Boys live shows- a huge LED screen behind the band flashes out grid-like patterns, as well as barbed messages about global economic and political inequalities. It reaches its apogee when Deborah Miller sings the broodingly forceful, climactic "Safe From Harm" as the board posts chilling quotations from tyrants past and present. Point made...and you can dance to it.
Because MoogFest was held on Halloween weekend, the audience - the whole city, really - competed with the performers for attention. The best I saw was also the eeriest and most poetic:
Walking down a relatively quiet, dark downtown side street on Sunday night, I passed a costumed couple walking arm in arm - she in bright red, wearing a hood and he in a tux and wolf's head. They nodded hello and walked on. Asheville is more than a great city for a music festival - it's just plain a great city.
***
Don't Stop Believin': Selected MoogFest Daily Highlights, by Fred Mills
From the BLURT Twitter feed, Saturday morning, Oct. 30:
#Moogfest recap 1: Dan Deacon electronic/nu-ambient improv at Orange Peel a cranial-uncorking surprise. Plus, he led us in ad hoc yoga moves
#Moogfest recap 2: Nortec Collective w/Bostich & Fussible (spaghettis mariachi goes Big Beat) will be the "damn, you missed it!" set of fest
#Moogfest recap 3: Van Dyke Parks spinning insider's tales, closing w/misty eye-inducing Heroes and Villains (Clare And The Reasons backing)
#Moogfest recap 4: Fri night drum circle at Pritchard Park as unhinged as ever, while street costumes were off the hook. Hallo, spaceboy!
#Moogfest recap 5: MGMT finished strong, but too samey midset, leading to mass exodus from Civic Center. Big Boi crowd out of control tho.
A portent of the good things to come and the good vibes to be had for the weekend occurred the first hour or so of the event. Following an opening reception at the Moogaplex - located in the Haywood Park Hotel, it was a combined performance space and exhibition hall put together especially for MoogFest - Dan Deacon officially opened things at the Orange Peel venue. With his gear (laptop, Moogerfooger, etc.) set up on the club's floor in front of the stage, he prefaced the set by warning concertgoers that folks looking for one of his signature raveups (at that point he made harsh, cliché-techno sounds into his mic) would have to wait until his second set at midnight at the considerably larger Asheville Civic Center. Instead, he serenaded the steadily-arriving crowd with a 40-minute ambient/improv set - but not before first leading everyone in what were essentially exaggerated yoga moves and breathing exercises while instructing them to spread out and then lower themselves down onto the floor to form a mass semi-circle. "Now that I've tricked everyone into sitting down...." quipped Deacon, as he commenced fiddling with his sounds.
It was a remarkable, almost Moses-commanding-the-sea, moment, and no doubt late arrivals to the Orange Peel were mildly perplexed to walk into the room and see so many fans with eyes tightly closed and seated in modified lotus positions. But as suggested above, Deacon somehow managed to set a tone that surely would have registered nicely with the late Dr. Moog, a man who believed firmly in the spiritual nature of music and music making and the social connectedness that music can foster.
Immediately following Deacon's set there was a mass exodus from the Orange Peel as punters streamed up Biltmore Avenue in the direction of the Civic Center (and the adjoining Thomas Wolfe Auditorium), where the first of MoogFest's marquee acts, Big Boi, would be playing shortly. Which was a pity, because only about 250-300 folks were left in the Orange Peel as Nortec Collective Presents: Bostich & Fussible took the stage. Their set easily gets my "The Show You Missed And Will Wish You Didn't" award for the entire weekend, as the group, with its mixture of live (guitar, accordion, trumpet, tuba) and electronic (laptop plus a pair of handheld iPad-looking devices) instrumentation, mashed up musical genres with the sort of devilish glee normally reserved for anarchists, subversives and enemies of the state. Call it an amped-up, thumping brand of intergalactic Tex-Mex norteño and Mariachi, with a dose of spaghetti western themage for good measure. And with that, punters - we were off to the races for this musical weekend.
Among the Friday evening highlights...
Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO - which had been scheduled to perform until guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh severely injured his hand - appeared onstage with the Octopus Project, doing a couple of songs the Texas band had learned while en route to Asheville, and then the duo was given the Moog Innovation Award. Apparently a lot of festival attendees missed seeing the collaboration, as the festival organizers had suggested it would actually take place during the time originally slated for the DEVO concert, and as a result here was a good deal of grumbling on Twitter and on blogs about this miscommunication, one of the few instances where MoogFest stumbled. The grins on the faces of Casale and Mothersbaugh as Moog Music's Mike Adams presented them with a brand new Moog synth hot off the production line, however, were infectious.
Big Boi literally whipped a packed Civic Center - from the looks of it, one of the younger audiences of the weekend - into a hip-hop frenzy, and while the crowd stuck around for MGMT's set, after a fairly strong start that kept most of the bodies moving, the band gradually lost steam and chugged along at a midtempo pace that didn't pick back up again until the very end. It didn't help matters that they had sound issues, and those problems were compounded by the Civic Center's notoriously iffy acoustics (the following night Massive Attack would have no similar problems). And before that final surge, at least a third to a half of the audience had already departed, most likely in the direction of the Orange Peel for the back-to-back sets from RJD2 and Mutemath.
Meanwhile, Saturn Never Sleeps - producer King Britt on gear and collaborator Rucyl and vocals and gear - were in a deliciously deep trance mode at the Orange Peel, piling on the dark beats and heavily-echoed vocals for a clearly energized crowd. After that it was back to the Thomas Wolfe for Clare and the Reasons plus Van Dyke Parks, and as Mr. Rosen duly noted above, it was a performance of rare beauty. It was obvious that Parks has found a young group of gifted musicians who are totally simpatico with his own peculiar vision. And he seemed genuinely touched by the appreciative response from the crowd, offering a number of self-effacing comments that couldn't disguise his pleasure.
Dan Deacon pulled his Moses trick once again sometime after midnight at the Civic Center. This time the music was deafening and his audience was a heaving, bouncing mass, as opposed to mentally chanting "omm," with fans steadily descending out of the seated area and onto the arena floor. At one point Deacon stopped the music and began barking instructions for the crowd to spread apart - just like the Red Sea - in the middle of the arena floor. While overhead cameras projected close-ups of the audience onto a pair of large screens, Deacon singled out two particularly energetic guys who he told were going to have a dance contest. The "contest" petered out prematurely, but it was still pretty cool to witness Deacon's command over nearly 7,000 people. Dude should run for office. Or president of the NRA.
***
From the BLURT Twitter feed, Sunday morning, Oct. 31:
#Moogfest Day 2 recap 1: @TaraBusch synth/singing showcase at Moogaplex in afternoon was mesmerizing and drew a delighted crow.
#Moogfest Day 2 recap 2: saw @WorldCafe taping of Mountain Man at LAB, David Dye clearly as blissed out by their vox as we were.
#Moogfest Day 2 recap 3: Projek Moog set at Orange Peel hypnotic, complex, jamming fun, esp. when Brian Kehew joined in on Moog Voyager.
#Moogfest Day 2 recap 4: Caribou in the big "huddle" at Civic Center for a stunning set whose dynamics kept growing
#Moogfest Day 2 recap 5: per earlier txt, #Jonsi set at TWA deeply emotional, inspirational, amazing lights/projections.
#Moogfest Day 2 recap 6: secret Four Tet & Caribou tag-team DJ set at Moogaplex drew massive line, cops, and more.
#Moogfest Day 2 recap 7: Massive Attack was deep, heavy thunder, shot through with uber-political visual messages
The second and third days of MoogFest featured a number of daytime workshops, panels and demonstrations at the Moogaplex. Additionally, Moog Music had set up number of pieces of equipment, with headphones, to allow attendees test out the gear for themselves. (Yours truly had never played a Theremin before; now I know what I want for Christmas.) The whole idea was to expose the public to more than just a bunch of great bands; to bring Dr. Moog's relevance into the present, and to suggest ways to carry his legacy forward into the future. Not surprisingly, a lot of the musicians in town for the weekend were also spotted in the audiences at the Moogaplex gatherings.
One treat on Saturday was analog synth whiz and blogger Tara Busch performing a set of her compelling original music (imagine Kate or Tori wielding a Moogerfooger instead of a piano).There was also a panel called an "Exploration of the Bob Moog Archives" that featured, in addition to projections of photographs and a discussion about how the Bob Moog Foundation intends to curate the Archives, a series of tantalizing audio clips that included Moog himself (playing "The Streets of Laredo" on one of his earliest synths, no less), Walter/Wendy Carlos and Sun Ra (in the vaults is a previously unheard live concert, which the Foundation hopes to release one day, featuring Ra soloing on a Minimoog B prototype).
Then the following afternoon, Moog Music's Richard Devine put on a mind-warping display of showmanship and technical expertise via the Abominatron, summoning outrageously overdriven interstellar sounds. (From my notes: "several species of small cyborg animals gathered together in a black hole and grooving with a synth.") It was the equal of any DJ set I witnessed all weekend, which is saying a lot. After Devine came a panel, "Examining the Legacy of Mini Synths," a verbal and visual feast for gear geeks either immersed in or enamored of the pre-digital electronica milieu. Fun fact: ELP's Keith Emerson has been quoted as saying that the Minimoog and other mini synths helped show the world that keyboards - and by extension keyboardists - weren't just "furniture." Now you know who to thank, kids (Bob Moog).
Additional daytime happenings not specifically part of MoogFest but timed to coincide with it included an intimate World Café live session taping with Mountain Man at the Lexington Avenue Brewery's music room (the trio's spidery, elegantly swooning harmonies left both host David Dye and those of us in the audience shivering with delight); and a preview of the forthcoming G. Love album, Fixin' To Die (featuring production and musical backing by the Avett Brothers) courtesy Asheville-based media company Creative Allies, which had sponsored a contest for fans to design the official MoogFest poster.
Among the Saturday evening highlights...
Projek Moog kicked off the nighttime festivities at the Orange Peel, and once again, those who missed the first show of the evening will one day be kicking themselves. The combo - guitarist Billy Cardine (Biscuit Burners), bassist Jay Sanders (Acoustic Syndicate, Donna the Buffalo), Ben Hovey (Asheville Horns), on trumpet, keyboards and electronica, drummer Jeff Sipe (Jimmy Herring, Leftover Salmon), and Moog's senior engineer Cyril Lance on the Moog Guitar - got together just for MoogFest, serving up a cerebral stew par excellence. A lovely Sanders-penned waltz prompted a deeply soulful solo from Lance bearing echoes of classic Jeff Beck; Cardine took the spotlight with the new, fresh-from-the-factory Moog lap steel, sounding more like an otherworldly violin than a guitar (check this photo); and Hovey processed his trumpet through the filters of a Theremin, holding the former in his right hand and manipulating the latter with his left, to arrive somewhere between Miles Davis Bitches Brew territory and the jazz-electronica fusion of Toshinori Kondo and DJ Krush.
Then for the final two numbers, synth whiz, Moog Cookbook member and Moog Foundation archivist Brian Kehew came out to join the band on Moog Voyager. As the ensemble launched into "The Rockford Files" theme, the dim flickers of recognition that creased audience members' faces gradually gave way to broad grins. The only way to top that was to throw in a monstrous (ahem) cover of Edgar Winter's classic synth-powered hit "Frankenstein," with every player nailing their individual breaks.
School of Seven Bells, at the Wolfe, made a far bigger noise than three people should reasonably be expected to make. On one level, the programming-heavy, widescreen sound brought to mind a stripped-down Arcade Fire; on another, a distaff take on U2's cinematic grandeur (right down to the arpeggiated guitar riffs). For widescreen, however, it would be hard to top Jonsi, who followed S7B, and you can add emotional to that description too. Synching melodicism and dynamics with images and films projected onto a huge backdrop, Jonsi and his band went for total theatre a la classic David Bowie to leave the audience 100% enraptured. And next door in the Civic Center, roughly slotted in between those two acts, was Caribou, making the most of a somewhat awkward stage arrangement - the band was crammed into a small spot at the front because there was so much other equipment for Thievery Corporation and Massive Attack also on the platform - and effectively using their tight "huddle" the same way Neil Young and his Crazy Horse feed off one another. The dynamics kept building, from groove-oriented numbers to edge-of-rave, wall-of-sound blissouts, equal parts pop and dance, until the crowd was bouncing along nearly as enthusiastically as it had for Big Boi the previous evening.
Towards the end of Jonsi's set a text went out from MoogFest central alerting those who'd signed up to receive messages that Four Tet and Caribou would be doing a "secret" show over at the Moogaplex. A line formed rapidly outside the Moogaplex to extend out the building, and reportedly the ensuing crush drew the attention of the Asheville police force. As people slowly eased into the space one person at a time, they were greeted by the two men in full-on tag-team/battle-deejay mode, slipping from deep house to vintage disco and back again. A woman dressed up like Frida Kahlo, complete with monobrow and a flower stuck in her hair, was busy shaking her ass like it was jukejoint night down in Mississippi, and her partner, one of many Hunter S. Thompson lookalikes spotted over the weekend, just leered in approval and tried to keep up. Here comes Halloween!
Per Mr. Rosen's comments above, Massive Attack was probably the most exciting act I saw all weekend - in a word, they were massive, not only overcoming the Civic Center's tough acoustics but also mounting one of the more eyeball-singeing light shows I've seen in some time. Four Tet, doing his official set over at the Orange Peel shortly afterward, simply kept the brain buzz going with techno and deep dub. Outside the club was a nearly-impossible-to-navigate line that stretched the length of a full city block up Biltmore Avenue, fans being admitted at that point strictly on a one-out/one-in basis. A couple of days later, MoogFest organizers would concede that this may have constituted their one big miscalculation for the weekend, because even though a number of Massive fans probably just bolted next door to the Wolfe to catch the remainder of the Disco Biscuits show, it didn't take a genius to predict that a lot of them would also head over to try to get into Four Tet at the considerably smaller venue.
***
From the BLURT Twitter feed, Monday morning, Nov. 1:
#Moogfest Day 3 recap 1: Richard Devine puts the Abominatron through its paces at the Moogaplex. Damn machine lives up to its moniker.
#Moogfest Day 3 recap 2: Moogaplex panel on history and legacy of mini-synths was nicely finessed for tech geeks and laymen (like me) alike!
#Moogfest Day 3 recap 3: Surreal Sirkus Arts Festival in Pritchard Park a stone(d) delight. Ben Hovey's laptop/trumpet treatments especially
#Moogfest Day 3 recap 4: As noted last night, Headtronics (Freekbass, DJ Spooky, Bernie Worrell) at Orange Peel tore the roof off tha sucka.
#Moogfest Day 3 recap 5: Mimosa's hard-clang Civic Center set left more than a few asses sore and ears, uh, clanging. In a good way.
As Mr. Rosen so eloquently outlined above, Sunday afternoon in downtown Asheville was just about as perfect as one could hope for. Costumed partiers had already been the norm for both Friday and Saturday; on Sunday, an outfit was required wearing. (Yours truly went as a rock critic-nerd. Go figure.) The absence of some of our fair burg's "Keep Asheville Weird" teeshirts only testified to the enhanced presence of out-of-towners alongside diligent locals, but trust me, everyone was fully intent on making sure that the dictum remained operative. To anyone who did come to town, either harboring many expectations or none: here's hoping you'll return soon for another dose.
Among the Sunday evening highlights...
After an afternoon of lounging in Pritchard Park and taking in panels and performances at the Moogaplex (see above), the only logical thing to do was kick off the nighttime survey at the Orange Peel. Onstage was Headtronics, comprising DJ Spooky, Freekbass and the legendary Bernie Worrell. The set kicked off with a couple of hi-nrg numbers, then Worrell commanded the mic for a rubbery version of "Take Me To the River." Soon enough, "funk" became the operative term - there was even an extended section dipping into vintage Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson - and the trio kicked out the jams while making things look impossibly easy. Midset, Spooky gave a shoutout for the new iPhone Moog synth app that had just been announced recently. Good timing.
You couldn't exactly call Sleigh Bells a "highlight," although the duo was fascinating in a kind of trainwreck way. I haven't seen a band clear a room quite so fast since I caught the Replacements circa 1984, over-hyped by critics and doing their drunken best to live down the hype. Sleigh Bells is a duo that can't seem to decide if it wants to be Big Black, Royal Trux or The Kills; also, since a stage hand had to come out nearly every song to adjust the effects box, why not just stick an instrument in his hands and make him a member? Still, it would be interesting to see Sleigh Bells in a club rather than a theater like the Wolfe, because they do have a punkish abrasiveness and an adventuresome charisma that, if channeled, just might take ‘em somewhere.
The good Mr. Rosen has already quite handily summed up many of the other blog-worthy moments from Sunday, above - Pretty Lights, Neon Indian, Hot Chip. Another surprisingly potent performance was courtesy Mimosa, whose hip-hop DJ set at the Civic Center rivaled Four Tet's the night before in terms of clearing out ear wax and making the walls rattle.
Between the two of us, we were zipping back and forth all over the downtown area of Asheville for 2 ½ days and nights, plus change. We ran into old friends, made new ones, compared notes with fellow journalists, and even hoisted an ale or two with some of the artists who wound up next to us in venues, cheering on their peers. And the one consistent thread that emerged was exactly what MoogFest was intended to be all about: celebrating the wide-open, boundary-less spirit of musical diversity and exploration that Robert Moog pioneered.
The folks behind MoogFest have apparently already begun sketching out next year's event - I'd reckon that makes it a success. Sure looked, felt and smelled like it.
[Photo Courtesy Moog Music; image by Matthew Read]
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