I was going through some old cassettes when I ran across this: it's a demo I made while I was working at Guitar Center in LA in 1979. My co-worker Jackson Howe and I hooked together every piece of gear we had in stock that could be interfaced. Mind you, this was way before MIDI, we're talking control voltage and gates, all analog.
We hooked together four Arp sequencers to drive approximately 14 or 15 synths. There is no drum machine; one synth would be used for a kick drum, one for a tom, etc. We had two or three Arp 2600s, an Odyssey, lots of other Arp and Roland synths, and I think a Mini-moog was involved, because I had an S-Trig converter cable. The lead was performed live on an Oberheim OB-1. The whole mess went through a mixer, and was captured live on a cassette, hence the lo-fi sound. There are no overdubs.
I drove the whole store nuts with this for weeks, and the manager was pissed at me because I was being a mad scientist and not selling. I hated it when one of the synths I was using got sold, because it messed everything up.
I gave a copy of the tape to my friend Ronnie Foster, who played it for Stevie Wonder. A week or so later, Stevie called me at work to get me to do the same electronic percussion thing in the studio, with a mess of his 2600s. The song was "Race Babbling" from his "Secret Life Of Plants" record, and that's how I got started doing recording sessions. Fun times.
The synths are a bit out of tune at times, the playing is sloppy, but it's fun to listen to after all of this time. Hit the green play button below to hear it.
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