Lonesome Electric Turkey

Today in rock history, January 24, 1970, Dr. Robert Moog introduced the Minimoog synthesizer. It was smaller, rugged enough to be used onstage, and was more affordable, having dropped to about $2000. Some of you may remember the recording “Switched-On Bach,” by electronic musician Walter Carlos (later to become Wendy Carlos, but that’s a whole different story), released in 1968, using the then-new Moog synthesizer to perform classic Bach compositions. Judging from the picture on the album cover, it would have taken a truck to haul it and team of technicians to program it. By the way, Switched-On Bach was one of the first classical albums to sell 500,000 copies, and (eventually) to go platinum. The Minimoog opened up the synthesizer sound to a whole raft of touring bands, used here most notably by early adopter Frank Zappa and the Mothers (played here by Don Preston) in their recording of “Lonesome Electric Turkey” (God, I love the names of his tunes!) on “Fillmore East Live 1971.” I'm including the other video because, well, it's really strange, and shows Frank and the original Mothers in their prime. By the way, guys, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure those aren't turkeys you're herding around! Thanks to http://crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault.com/?aid=35309 and www.wikipedia.org for the info, sorry about the lateness of this post, and keep on rockin’!