flickr by jon_blak.
Hmm... I know Philip Dodds and the ARP 2500 were featured in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Philip Dodds the head engineer of ARP is the guy playing the 2500 in the scene where they communicate to the mothership. The story is he was flown out to show how to work the synth and was asked to be in the film. I never thought about what other synths might have been featured.
I have an 8-track tape of the Electric Moog Orchestra performing bits of the Star Wars soundtrack. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteI have the vinyl of that Star Wars album. I don't think it has anything to do with ARP, just another "Switched-on" cash-in.
ReplyDeleteI have that 8-track of Star Wars as well. Unfortunately, don't have an 8-track player any more :)
ReplyDeleteWould love to hear this Close Encounters album!
It's misleading to connect the story of the Arp and Dodds to this album.
ReplyDeleteFYI - Patrick Gleeson also did a sort of pop-ish Star Wars album on his Emu - so ther was competition in the let's do "Star Wars" on synthesizers arena... but of course Meco's disco covers must have outsold both by many times.
As a kid I actually saw this album several times at Woolworth's marked $3.99. I think the fact that the cover was so darn cheap looking and that it was at Woolworth's ... and that it wasn't $1.99 kept me from buying it. I eventually bought the Gleeson Star Wars album at a record show. Not all that interesting.
It is kind of interesting that the age when everyone was turning out quickie Moog albums was 1969-70. This is of course quite a few years later. Tomita clearly proved there was a viable longer term market after 1974 but then again his albums were at a much higher level.
I wonder if the fact that Close Encounters and Star Wars both had orchestral scores (though some of the Close Encounters score was reasonably avant garde when not being warm and Spielberg sounding) that some part of the audience wanted "futuristic" sounding music . Then again replaying the more or less old fashioned score on synths may not get you there.
It shouldn't be misleading. I'm a big fan of the movie and the ARP 2500 was a HUGE piece of the movie for me. When I found out that it was Philip Dodds playing the synth, and not an actor, I thought that was pretty brilliant. You have one of the most impressive synths featured and the person playing it in the film is the actual person responsible for creating the instrument. As a synth buff it doesn't get cooler than this in film for me. To find out the "Close Encounters" album featured Moog and not the ARP 2500 is very dissapointing. In Spinal Tap spirit, if the album featured ARP, "this amp" would go to 11.
ReplyDelete...not to be confused with the Meco record where Suzanne Ciani played lazer sounds on her Buchla. I hope she was paid well.
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