Online Petition to Keep Bob Moog's Archives in Asheville with the BMF

You'll find the petition here. If you haven't heard the news see this post.  I'll add this to it as well.

The petition was setup up via Michael Koehler who sent in the following:

"I am not involved with the BMF, but am friends with Michelle. She knows that I am doing this.

I am very passionate about it because I was fortunate to knew Bob for a short while and know that he would not want things to go the way that they are going right now. I am not trying discredit Cornell or say anything bad about them. They are a fine institution. I am just trying to help them see what moving the archives would mean.

There is so much more to this material. It is not simply 'Bob's stuff'. In Bob's work, he always included colleagues and musicians in the development of his works. If we send these notes off to some storage facility where only scholars can reference them, most of this is lost. The BMF is connected with many of the musicians that worked with Bob. They have the ability to connect the information that Bob wrote down from the engineering standpoint and re-connect it with the musicians that worked with Bob to create it. I have witnessed this first hand. I am telling you, this type of documentation and interpretation would be impossible with the items at Cornell. Think of all of the nuggets that have come out of the BMF. Stories, video clips, etc. Remember all of those insights? It is almost as if Bob were still here. Cornell will most definitely have a totally different output. It will be much more sterilized and scholastic.

I saw first hand the work that Michelle and her team have done. There were literally rooms of material laying in in total disarray. One piece of gear that was salvaged by her team was the very last minimoog made from the original factory. The synth was barely salvageable at the time. That was in 2006. Had it laid there, out in the shed, exposed to the elements, do you think it would even be salvageable today? And, even if it were, do you honestly believe that Cornell would even restore it? In the list of items, it most likely would not be on the top of the list. But the reason that this synth was so iconic to save was that back in the day, Bob had the fore-site to know that something like this should be preserved. Remember, this was at a time when you couldn't give analog synths away! Bob was like that, he knew to save things not for himself or his own legacy, but because some day, these things will be important to someone.

Another example, the BMF has restored 100 recordings. I have heard some of these. Amongst them is a recording where Bob sent a minimoog prototype to Sun Ra to play with and asked Sun Ra to let him know what he thought of the synth. Sun Ra used it in a performance the night that they received it. They did not have a user manual or any instructions, they just went with it. Sun Ra recorded this performance and sent the tape to Bob. This was the first recording of the minimoog and it was also an iconic recording of a concert as well. I can tell you that if this recording goes to Cornell, no one will be able to hear it. The licensing rights will never be able to be cleared by them for public consumption. No way a record label will give that away easily. Way too broad of a license. Where as the BMF would be allowed to play these recording during their exhibits and seminars because they would be able to keep custody of the recording preventing broad public dissemination.

I could go on, but I have probably typed your eyes out! :)"

You'll find the petition here.