Anyone know where this image is from?
"LEM Studios." Via
Cynthia on AH:
"The picture appears on the back of the LEM album MACHINES (highly recommended), Wavefront Records 1977. It is Bryce Robbley's chrome mannequin and Serge System next to Doug Lynner's Serge System, and Alex Cima's Steiner Parker SynthaSystem... It was shot in Star Track Studios on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood, circa 1977 or so. Danny Sofer of Oberhiem Electronics also played with them and may have contributed the Polyfusion modular on the right side of the picture? They also used an ARP String Ensemble, a Synthi AKS, and an EML PolyBox, a Syndrum, some Oberheim, and a little Buchla 200. These guys were good friends of mine and part of the Synapse/LEM/Triode crowd. They recorded together under the names MOBIUS and LEM (Live Electronic Music). Bryce (RIP) and Doug went to Cal Arts, and Doug's 5-panel Serge was the very first sold as an assembled unit, instead of as a synth kit from the CIA "staircase assembly party" days. Doug went on to use his Serge in the band INVISIBLE ZOO which enjoyed radio airplay of their pop tune "Synthesizer Man" and he performed with it as recently as last October when he and I played live at the the Sacred Elixirs Festival at the San Jose Convention Center."
Update via Loren in the comments: "I use to have that album. You forgot to add Steve Roach as another person who played with these guys. I know Steve played in MOBIUS and I think he made a guest appearance on the LEM album if my memory is correct."
Update: more from Peter Grenader of
Plan B:
"A bit more trivia about one part of that photo - the Steiner-Parker
Synthasystem shown in the photo to the left of the robot's ear. - that was
Alex Cima's..
After Alex stopped rep'ing Steiner Parker in Southern California, this
system became the property of John Waddell, who already had one other and
along with a VCS3, were being used for the Electronic Music Studies
department of Birmingham High School in the SF Valley, LA. John was my very
first EM mentor and is wholeheartedly responsible for me being accepted to
CalArts as he pushed me to enter a concert competition that Alex hosted. I
did, I made it, I submitted that to Cal Arts, I made that. Waddell gave me
the best music theory instruction I've ever had, up to and including CIA.
John passed away four years ago, and willed that Steiner-Parker to
me...which I really loved and, although it's recently found a very good home
in Marina Del Ray. It's a great system.
Back about 1977 (?) Alex and I hosted a couple of EM concerts together, one
of which LEM performed live on the seond half. Cima and I also performed
live once with Emmett Chapman, which was one of the highlights of my
performance career. Oddly enough i didn't touch electronics on that one - i
was playing flute and sax, w/Alex on synths, this dreadful percussion player
Alex found and Chapman, who as usual played the stick like no other.
I ended up inheriting Alex's EM concert series, called Electronic
Explorations, after he had had enough. I did three or four of them, one
co-produced by John Waddell, which got that horrible review in Synapse by
Doug Lynner (of LEM) i've spoken about here before. The poster for that
event was done by a very good friend of Cynthia's at the time who used the
name of Sue Dinim (get it?) for her artwork credits.
Ain't it weird how the fabric of the LA electronic music scene was sewn?
Alex Cima is still around, teaching recording and electronic music at
Fullerton College and while he has long departed with his various Steiners,
still owns his Synthi AKS."
"Around only 200 were produced between 1975 and 1979, they were each hand made by Nyle Steiner himself. This is not the later and most "common" Crumar Italian version but the original US version. It sounds far more better and has much more sound options. The sound module which comes in this early version is the legendary original Steiner Parker Microcon analog synth. 
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