Sweet Baby Jesus But This Dude Can Fugue...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
This is from some old “Synths Are Frakkin’ Awesome” video of the sort that crop up now and again. Dude’s name is Don Muro, and he’s got a Korg DS-8 and something I can’t quite make out under it, and the whole rig is set up like a dual manual organ with foot pedals. He obviously puts the rig to the test with one of the harder fugues in the Bach cannon (see what I did there? Double pun!), The Gigue Fugue.
I’m a passable keyboard player, but seeing this sort of thing makes me feel like I just started to toddle about. (To preempt the obvious comments that are about to be typed, yeah, it’s 80s-tastic. Yeah, we all looked like tards back then. Yeah, the synth sounds are weak. Deal with it.)
EDIT: Interestingly, the video was removed due to the fact that it said “Played in the style of Wendy Carlos” in the description. Serendip, LLC, which is the company that controls Carlos’ copyrights, is extremely aggressive in sending out takedown notices to YouTube, eBay, et al, as a simple Google search of their name will show.
As I mentioned in the comments, while I certainly understand aggressively protecting your copyright, as that’s your prerogative as a creator, this company (although I think “company” may be a loose term, as it appears to be either Carlos alone, or one dude that works for her) is completely ludicrous in some of its actions. It seems that any mention in the description of a video of her name is grounds for a takedown notice, which is simply silly at best, and at worst a complete and total misunderstanding of what copyright actually means.
In any event, that’s why the video is gone, as far as I can tell. They never contacted me, and honestly, I’d just ignore them if they did, as I’m not the sort that is going to go running to the hills from a stupid nastygram that has no legal basis, but I’m just curious as to what end this serves. It seems to defy logic, as far as I can tell.
19 comments
Never mind the keyboard playing, the dude's footwork is awesome!
Yeah, that shit is hard as hell. Some of the other videos from that series are hilarious, though. I recommend this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4saeUfjm3pI
I mean, I can't fault the guy's playing at all, as he's got chops and to spare, but that video is a good example of how to make things as banal as possible in any given time period.
-CR
Wow. That is pretty darned impressive.
Those are some fruity ass shoes, as well. Thing is, when you are doing serious music with your feet (i.e. not just hitting on and off on your stomp pedals, or holding down a high string note on your Taurus during "Red Barchetta"), the type of shoe you wear is important. When I was working on learning pedal steel, my normal shoes weren't that useful, and I had to go pointier. Cowboy boots would work fine for pedal steel, but wouldn't give you the heel flex this keyboardist obviously needs for the pedal board.
I did not like the vibratoed notes on the top keyboard. I know that delayed vibrato was a big deal and all when it was introduced, but I freaking hate that sound. Otherwise, it was really beautiful, especially if you like that whole "Switched On Bach" thing.
Korg DSS-1 on top and a Korg DS-8 on the bottom.
Fancy fucking footwork! Holy crap.
That was some hot foot action. I thought for a minute it was fake feet.
I play this piece in my sleep and play drums as well. However this playing with the footwork is harder then both. Nice!!
He used to write for Keyboard magazine, I think.
Does anyone else remember organ stores in the mall? You would walk by and some dude would be doing this live at the front of the store. I saw my first synth in one of those, a Juno 60 I think.
He used to work for Korg at one point too doing demos for their products. I think he demoed the M1 way back in the day. Can't be for sure it was a while ago, but I vaguely remember some octopus kind of playing.
Yeah, I saw one of his Korg demos on campus, back when I was in college. That was early/mid-80s. The guy could really play, obviously. He had kind of a cool story in that basically he'd wanted to be able to play Bach properly on a home rig for years and had finally been able to get the foot pedals rigged up so that he could do it.
He could even make the then-new Poly-800 sound fairly impressive, although he cheated a bit. During the Q&A session after the demos someone raised their hand and said, "please play any of the pieces you just played, on any of the equipment you just demoed, but with that reverb turned off" while pointing at what was at the time Korg's top FX box, discretely perched near the back of the stage. Don said, "why sure, no problem!" -- and then didn't.
He did write for Keyboard also; some sort of performance column, appropriately enough.
--Adam
Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqwS6u7OnFA
That was some very impressive playing. The footwork especially!
I didn't mind the synth sounds at all. Exactly what I would expect from the man's style of dress! Ha.
Great post.
"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Serendip LLC."
Serendip LLC seems to be a company not to be trifled with: http://firetiki.blogspot.com/2008/10/carlos-confusion.html
Well, it's obviously not the music, which can't be copyrighted. The video's description said "in the style of Wendy Carlos" but as far as I'm aware, you can't copyright a "style" as such.
*shrug* They didn't write me. But Wendy nee Walter wasn't mentioned until this point.
EDIT: The plot thickens. A simple Google search for Serendip, LLC shows that they _aggressively_ go after virtually any mention in the public sites of Ms. Carlos. Apparently you can't even list a Walter Carlos album on eBay without a takedown notice following shortly thereafter. (Which is interesting, since it says on the cover "Walter Carlos." I have several of that vintage myself.)
I'm all for protecting your copyright, if that's your bag, but that's completely fucking ridiculous.
-CR
Well because, you know, talking about her too much on those free intarwebs might reduce her popularity.
I'm still looking for the 1979 Playboy article, which is the only place where Carlos has publicly discussed the transformation from Walter to Wendy. I think that the "Walter Carlos" takedowns are not due to the Carlos, but due to the Walter. And yeah, I have plenty of Walter Carlos albums as well - most of the used records will say Walter. My copy of The Shining soundtrack has Wendy, and my Switched On Bach collection says Wendy, but the rest are Walter. I mean, that was her name back then. I understand privacy and all, but he/she was in the public eye pre/post op. This ain't Soviet Historiography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_historiography
BTW, a super old website of mine is mentioned on Wendy's site. I take some nerdy pride in this:
http://www.wendycarlos.com/surround/surround4.html#psinets
"Things are confused by another name for this all-pass filter audio tool, the "Hilbert Transformer" (a fine, if technical description, in this case implemented digitally (with C-Sound) can be found at this link)."
"that video is a good example of how to make things as banal as possible in any given time period."
No kidding. In particular, that brief TR-808 section of the second video you posted has to be the most uninspiring use of that machine *ever*.
Re: Wendy Carlos...perhaps the most famous example of her litigiousness was her lawsuit against Momus for the song "Walter Carlos" on his album The Little Red Songbook. Ironic, really, considering the album was in many ways an obvious homage to Carlos, dripping as it was in synthesized baroque music.
I can see how the song in question pushed Carlos' buttons, but when you consider that the song "Everyone I Have Ever Slept With" name-checks a variety of art-world stars and hipsters he admittedly never slept with, you start to see that being skewered by Momus on that record is a token of affection. He kids because he loves.
As he said later in an interview about his follow-up album (in which he wrote commissioned songs for $1000 to repay his label's legal bills): "...in a way, making an unauthorized portrait of Walter Carlos led to me making thirty authorized portraits of all these people who gave me 30,000 dollars combined to write a song about them. That gave me a huge amount of material as a writer to celebrate their diversity, their otherness, and their difference from me. Sometimes you get bored with your own personality as a writing subject. It was great to have other people give you the details."
Though I'm sure Wendy doesn't see it that way, "celebrate [her] diversity, [her] otherness, and [her] difference from me" was exactly how I interpreted the song about her when I first bought the album.
Anyway, lyrics of the song are here for the curious: http://www.nndb.com/people/798/000066600/
Watch out, or THIS site will be taken down as per Serendip LLC's claim to Copyright Infringement.
Some people just have nothing else better to do.
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