2008 – The Times: The story in this morning’s paper is on the ruses various celebrities use to evade reporters outside the main criminal courthouse in Manhattan. Actor Rip Torn, for example, once led paparazzi through a park and past a gaggle of chanting construction workers before jumping into the cab of an occupied 18-wheeler, jumping out again, and rolling underneath the truck. Kirk Jones snuck in a side entrance while his driver successfully impersonated the rapper to photographers, sultry actress Uma Thurman enlisted the help of court officers and producer Sean Combs has a mini secret-service brigade. But the most fascinating courthouse celebrity by far is criminally insane singer Courtney Love, who sashays in and out of the building as though surrounded by adoring fans:
Courtney Love used the sidewalk like a red carpet, chatting and joking with reporters…
Sometimes celebrities do what they do best: bask in the attention. Ms. Love latched onto her lawyer, Scott B. Tulman, as they left the courthouse and gushed as if they were an item:
“Isn’t he handsome? Isn’t he beautiful?” Ms. Love then suggested she was pregnant with Mr. Tulman’s child.
“Are you out of your mind?” Mr. Tulman recalled telling her. “What are you doing?”
Another day outside the courthouse she finished off a partially smoked cigarette that she bummed from a passer-by.
“It’s like having a wild kid,” Mr. Tulman said. “After a while, you just shake your head.”
PR consultant Eric Dezenhall told the Times Love’s antics are fine, since “anything that extends the half-life of her career is probably a net positive.” Uh, sure. Maybe even get charged with more crimes like disorderly conduct and so forth and get spotted outside the glamorous criminal courthouse even more often, maybe!
2005 – Bob Moog, inventor of his namesake range of synthesizers and one of the most significant figures in the evolution of electronic music, dies at his home in Asheville, N.C. He is 71. A native of N.Y., Moog was diagnosed with brain cancer in late April and had since undergone radiation treatment and chemotherapy.
Dr. Robert Arthur Moog (pronounced /ˈmoʊɡ/ to rhyme with “rogue”) (May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005) was an American pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer.
Life
A native of New York City, Robert Moog attended the Bronx High School of Science, graduating in 1952. Moog earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Queens College, New York in 1957, another in electrical engineering from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in engineering physics from Cornell University. Moog’s awards include honorary doctorates from Polytechnic University (New York City) and Lycoming College (Williamsport, Pennsylvania)
During his lifetime, Moog founded two companies for manufacturing electronic musical instruments. Moog also worked as a consultant and vice president for new product research at Kurzweil Music Systems from 1984 to 1988, helping to develop the Kurzweil K2000. He spent the early 1990s as a research professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
Moog received a Grammy Trustees Award for lifetime achievement in 1970. In 2002, Moog was honored with a Grammy Tech Award, and an honorary doctorate degree from Berklee College of Music.
He gave an enthusiastically-received lecture at the 2004 New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME-04), held in Hamamatsu, Japan’s “City of Musical Instruments”, in June, 2004. Moog was the inspiration behind the 2004 film Moog.
Moog’s first wife was Shirleigh Moog (née Shirley May Leigh) a grammar school teacher whom he married in 1958. The couple had 3 daughters (Laura Moog Lanier, Michelle Moog-Koussa, Renee Moog) and one son (Matthew Moog) before their divorce. Moog was married to his second wife Ileana Grams, a philosophy professor, for nine years until his death. Moog’s stepdaughter, Miranda Richmond, is Grams’ daughter from a previous marriage. Moog also had five grandchildren.
Robert Moog was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor on April 28, 2005. Nearly four months later, Moog died at the age of 71 in Asheville, North Carolina on August 21, 2005. His end of life journey was captured using CaringBridge. The Bob Moog Foundation was created as a memorial, with the aim of continuing his life’s work of developing electronic music.
Development of the Moog synthesizer
Main article: Moog synthesizer
The Moog synthesizer was one of the first widely used electronic musical instruments. Early developmental work on the components of the synthesizer occurred at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, now the Computer Music Center. While there, Moog developed the voltage controlled oscillators, ADSR envelope generators, and other synthesizer modules with composer Herbert Deutsch.
Moog created the first subtractive synthesizer to utilize a keyboard as a controller and demonstrated it at the AES convention in 1964. In 1966, Moog filed a patent application for his unique low-pass filter U.S. Patent 3,475,623 , which issued in October 1969. He holds several dozen patents.
Robert Moog employed his theremin company (R. A. Moog Co., which would later become Moog Music) to manufacture and market his synthesizers. Unlike the few other 1960s synthesizer manufacturers, Moog shipped a piano-style keyboard as the standard user interface to his synthesizers. Moog also established standards for analog synthesizer control interfacing, with a logarithmic one volt-per-octave pitch control and a separate pulse triggering signal.
The first Moog instruments were modular synthesizers. In 1971 Moog Music began production of the Minimoog Model D which was among the first widely available, portable and relatively affordable synthesizers.
One of Moog’s earliest musical customers was Wendy Carlos whom he credits with providing feedback that was valuable to the further development of Moog synthesizers. Through his involvement in electronic music, Moog developed close professional relationships with artists such as Don Buchla, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, John Cage, Gershon Kingsley, Clara Rockmore, and Pamelia Kurstin. In a 2000 interview, Moog said “I’m an engineer. I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are my customers. They use my tools.”
R.A. Moog Co. and Moog Music
The Moog Music logo
The Moog Music logo
Main article: Moog Music
In 1953 at age 19, Robert Moog founded his first company, R.A. Moog Co., to manufacture theremin kits. During the 1960s, the company was employed to build modular synthesizers based on Moog’s designs.
In 1972 Moog changed the company’s name to Moog Music. Throughout the 1970s, Moog Music went through various changes of ownership, eventually being bought out by musical instrument manufacturer Norlin. Poor management and marketing led to Moog’s departure from his own company in 1977.
In 1978 after leaving his namesake firm, Moog started making electronic musical instruments again with a new company, Big Briar. Their first specialty was theremins, but by 1999 the company expanded to produce a line of analog effects pedals called moogerfoogers. In 1999, Moog partnered with Bomb Factory to co-develop the first digital effects based on Moog technology in the form of plugins for Pro Tools software.
Despite Moog Music’s closing in 1993, Robert Moog did not have the rights to market products using his own name throughout the 1990s. Big Briar acquired the rights to use the Moog Music name in 2002 after a legal battle with Don Martin who had previously bought the rights to the name Moog Music. At the same time, Moog designed a new version of the Minimoog called the Minimoog Voyager. The Voyager includes nearly all of the features of the original Model D in addition to numerous modern features.
Theremin
Robert Moog constructed his own theremin as early as 1949. Later he described a theremin in the hobbyist magazine Electronics World and offered a kit of parts for the construction of the Electronic World’s Theremin, which became very successful. In the late 1980s Moog repaired the original theremin of Clara Rockmore, an accomplishment which he considered a high point of his professional career. He also produced, in collaboration with first wife Shirleigh Moog, Mrs. Rockmore’s album, The Art of the Theremin. Dr. Moog was a principal interview subject in the award-winning documentary film, THEREMIN- An Electronic Odyssey, the success of which led to a revival of interest in the theremin. Moog Music went back to its roots and once again began manufacturing theremins. Thousands have been sold to date and are used by both professional and amateur musicians around the globe. In 1996 he published another do-it-yourself theremin guide. Today, Moog Music is the leading manufacturer of performance-quality theremins.
Pronunciation
The surname Moog is one of the most divergently pronounced names in popular culture. The following interview excerpt reveals Robert Moog’s preferred pronunciation:
— Reviewer: First off: Does your name rhyme with “vogue” or is like a cow’s “moo” plus a “G” at the end?
— Dr. Robert Moog: It rhymes with vogue. That is the usual German pronunciation. My father’s grandfather came from Marburg, Germany. I like the way that pronunciation sounds better than the way the cow’s “moo-g” sounds.
(Note that the English , which has a monophthong and devoiced final consonant.)
In a deleted scene from the DVD version of the documentary Moog, Moog describes the three pronunciations of the name Moog: the original, Dutch pronunciation . Moog reveals that some of his family members prefer the English pronunciation, while others, including himself (and his wife) prefer the Anglo-German pronunciation.
2005 – Elvis Presley’s single ‘One Night’ made chart history by becoming the 1,000th UK number one. Elvis, who led last week’s chart with ‘Jailhouse Rock’, had now scored more number one UK hits than any other artist with 20 number 1’s, beating The Beatles’ 17 chart toppers.
Lyrics:
(words & music by D. Bartholomew – P. King)
One night with you
Is what I’m now praying for
The things that we two could plan
Would make my dreams come true
Just call my name
And I’ll be right by your side
I want your sweet helping hand
My loves too strong to hide
Always lived, very quiet life
I ain’t never did no wrong
Now I know that life without you
Has been too lonely too long
One night with you
Is what I’m now praying for
The things that we two could plan
Would make my dreams come true
Always lived, very quiet life
I ain’t never did no wrong
Now I know that life without you
Has been too lonely too long
One night with you
Is what I’m now praying for
The things that we two could plan
Would make my dreams come true
2003 – Time Warner agrees to sell its Warner Music business to a group led by media mogul Edgar Bronfman Jr. for $2.6 billion. Warner Music artists include Madonna and R.E.M.
2002 – Lonnie Donegan, known as the “king of skiffle’ dies in his sleep in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England. He is 71.
Lonnie Donegan MBE (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002) was a skiffle musician, possibly the most famous of them all, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is also known as the King of Skiffle and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s.
Early life and trad jazz
He was born Anthony James Donegan in Bridgeton, Glasgow, Scotland, the son of a professional violinist who had played with the Scottish National Orchestra. His father was unemployed in the 1930s, and in 1933 the family moved to East London. In the early 1940s he mostly listened to Swing jazz and vocal acts, and became interested in the guitar. Country & western and blues records, particularly by Frank Crumit and Josh White, attracted his interest and he bought his first guitar at the age of fourteen, around 1945. From listening to BBC radio broadcasts in the following years he began learning songs such as “Frankie and Johnny”, “Puttin’ On the Style”, and “The House of the Rising Sun”. By the end of the 1940s he was playing guitar around London and visiting small jazz clubs.
The first band he played in was the trad jazz band led by Chris Barber, who approached him on a train asking him if he wanted to audition for his band. Barber had heard that Donegan was a good banjo player; in fact, Donegan had never played the banjo at this point, but he bought one and tried to bluff his way through the audition. More on personality than playing, he was brought into Barber’s band. His stint with the band was interrupted when he was called up for National Service in 1949, but his military service in Vienna gave him contact with American troops, and access to records as well as the opportunity to listen to the American Forces Network radio station.
In 1952 he formed his first group, the Tony Donegan Jazzband, which found some work around London. On one occasion they opened for the blues musician Lonnie Johnson at the Royal Festival Hall. Donegan was a big fan of Johnson, and took his first name as a tribute to him. The story goes that the host at the concert got the musicians’ names confused, calling them “Tony Johnson” and “Lonnie Donegan”, and Donegan was happy to keep the name.
In 1953 cornetist Ken Colyer, enjoying hero status for having spent time in a New Orleans jail (due to a visa problem), returned to England and, when invited to play with Chris Barber’s band, became the moving figure in it, more or less taking it over and running it as if it were his own creation. It actually was very much a cooperative. With the new name, Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen, the group, with Donegan, made its initial public appearance on 11 April 1953 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The following day, Chris Albertson recorded the group (as well as a Monty Sunshine Trio, with Donegan and Barber) for Storyville Records. These were Lonnie Donegan’s first commercially released recordings.
Skiffle
Donegan was the first person to become famous playing skiffle in the United Kingdom, and went on to have an influential hit in Britain and America with “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour”, released in 1959 and 1961 respectively.
While playing in Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen with Chris Barber, Donegan sang and played both guitar and banjo as part of their Dixieland jazz, and also began playing with two other band members during the intervals to provide what was called on their posters a “skiffle” break, a name suggested by Ken Colyer’s brother Bill after recalling the Dan Burley Skiffle Group of the 1930s. In 1954 Colyer left, and the band became Chris Barber’s Jazz Band.
With a washboard, a tea-chest bass and a cheap Spanish guitar, Donegan had a lot of fun entertaining the audiences with folk songs and blues by artists such as Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, casually giving the impression that anyone could do it. This proved so popular that in July 1954 he recorded a fast-tempoed version of Leadbelly’s “Rock Island Line”, featuring a washboard but not a tea-chest bass, with “John Henry” on the B-side. It was an enormous hit in 1956 (which also later inspired the creation of a full LP album, “An Englishman Sings American Folk Songs”, released in America on the Mercury label in the early 60s) but ironically, because it was a band recording, Lonnie made no money from it beyond his original session fee. It was the first debut record to go gold in Britain, and reached the top ten in the United States, and Donegan has suggested that it might have influenced the beginnings of white rock and roll, and certainly was an influence of a hybrid version of American country-rock later called Rockabilly.
The skiffle style encouraged amateurs to get started, and one of the many skiffle groups that followed was The Quarrymen formed in March 1957 by John Lennon. Donegan’s “Putting On The Style” / “Gamblin’ Man” single was number one on the British charts in July 1957, when Lennon first met Paul McCartney.
After splitting from Barber, Donegan went on to make a series of popular records as “Lonnie Donegan’s Skiffle Group”, with successes including “Cumberland Gap” and, particularly “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour”, his only hit song in America, released on Dot Records. He turned to a music hall style with “My Old Man’s a Dustman” which was not well received by skiffle fans, or in an attempted but ultimately unsuccessful American release by Atlantic Records in 1960, but reached number one in the UK singles charts. Donegan’s group had a flexible line-up, but was generally formed by Denny Wright or Les Bennetts (of Les Hobeaux and Chas McDevvit’s skiffle groups) playing lead guitar and singing harmony vocals, Pete Huggett on upright bass, Nick Nichols – later Pete Appleby – on drums or percussion and Lonnie playing acoustic guitar or banjo and singing the lead. Despite appearances that the style was simple and somewhat ‘unpolished’, all were accomplished and highly talented musicians.
Later career
Donegan was unfashionable and generally ignored through the late 1960s and 1970s (although he wrote “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” for Tom Jones in 1969), and he began to play on the American cabaret circuit. There was a reunion concert with the original Chris Barber band in Croydon in June 1975 – notable for a bomb scare, meaning that the recording had to be finished in the studio, though patrons were treated to an impromptu concert in the car park.
He suffered his first heart attack in 1976 while in the United States. Donegan underwent quadruple bypass surgery. He returned to the public’s attention in 1978, when he made a record of his early songs with such figures as Ringo Starr, Elton John and Brian May called Putting on the Style. In 1992 Donegan underwent further bypass surgery following another heart attack.
Then in 1994, the Chris Barber band celebrated 40 years, with a long tour with both bands, rather than just a concert. Pat Halcox was still on trumpet (a position he retains as of 2006). The reunion concert and the tour, were recorded on CD, and also on video (and later released on DVD, though the quality isn’t up to digital standard). As is Chris Barber’s normal style, he generously featured Lonnie in the concerts and the whole original band were much more relaxed than in 1954, making these real collectors’ items as the stereo was real and not electronically created.
He experienced another late renaissance when in 2000 he appeared on Van Morrison’s album The Skiffle Sessions – Live In Belfast 1998, a critically acclaimed album featuring Donegan sharing vocals with Van Morrison and also featuring Chris Barber, with a guest appearance by Dr John. He also played at the Glastonbury Festival, and was awarded the MBE in 2000.
His last CD was “This Y’ere the Story”, which tells his story – complete with the inaccuracies as to his introduction to the banjo and the Barber band as related above…
Donegan’s influence on the generation of musicians that followed him is unquestioned. He inspired both John Lennon and Pete Townshend to learn to play the guitar, and was responsible for hundreds of other skiffle groups being formed. One of them, The Quarrymen, later evolved into The Beatles.
Personal life
Lonnie married three times. He had two daughters by his first wife, Maureen Tyler (divorced 1962), a son and a daughter by his second wife, Jill Westlake (divorced 1971), and three sons by his third wife, Sharon, whom he married in 1977.
Death
Lonnie died in 2002 aged 71, after suffering a heart attack in Peterborough mid-way through a UK tour and shortly before he was due to perform at a memorial concert for George Harrison. He had suffered from cardiac problems since the 1970s and had several heart attacks in his last years.
Legacy
Musician Mark Knopfler released a tribute song to Lonnie Donegan called “Donegan’s Gone” on his 2004 album Shangri-La and said that he was one of his greatest musical influences. Donegan’s music formed the basis for a musical starring his two sons. Lonnie D – The Musical took its name from the Chas & Dave tribute song which starts the show. Subsequently, Peter Donegan formed a new band that performs his father’s material. Lonnies eldest son Anthony also formed his own band under the name Lonnie Donegan Jnr
Quotations
* “In England, we were separated from our folk music tradition centuries ago and were imbued with the idea that music was for the upper classes. You had to be very clever to play music. When I came along with the old three chords, people began to think that if I could do it, so could they. It was the reintroduction of the folk music bridge which did that.” — Interview, 2002.
* “He was the first person we had heard of from Britain to get to the coveted No. 1 in the charts, and we studied his records avidly. We all bought guitars to be in a skiffle group. He was the man.” — Paul McCartney
* “He really was at the very cornerstone of English blues and rock.” — Brian May.
Discography
* Rock Island Line/ John Henry (1955)
* Diggin’ My Potatoes/ Bury My Body (1956)
* On A Christmas Day/ Take My Hand Precious Lord (1956)
* Lonnie Donegan Showcase (December 1956)
* Jack O’Diamonds/ Ham ‘N’ Eggs (1957)
* Lonnie (November 1957)
* The Grand Coulee Dam/ Nobody Loves Like An Irishman (1958)
* Midnight Special/ When The Sun Goes Down (1958)
* Sally Don’t You Grieve/ Betty Betty Betty (1958)
* Lonesome Traveller/ Times Are Getting Hard Boys (1958)
* Lonnie’s Skiffle Party Pt.1/ Pt.2 (1958)
* Tom Dooley/ Rock O’ My Soul (1958)
* Tops with Lonnie (September 1958)
* Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour/ Aunt Rhody (1959)
* Fort Worth Jail/ Whoa Buck (1959)
* Fort Bewildered/ Kevin Barry / It Is No Secret / My Lagan Love Buck (1959)
* Battle Of New Orleans/ Darling Corey (1959)
* Sal’s Got A Sugar Lip/ Chesapeake Bay (1959)
* San Miguel/ Talking Guitar Blues (1959)
* Lonnie Rides Again (May 1959)
* My Old Man’s A Dustman/ The Golden Vanity (1960)
* I Wanna Go Home (Wreck Of the John B.)/ Jimmy Brown The Newsboy (1960)
* Lorelei/ In All My Wildest Dreams (1960)
* Lively/ Black Cat (Cross My Path Today) (1960)
* Virgin Mary/ Beyond The Sunset (1960)
* (Bury Me) Beneath The Willow/ Leave My Woman Alone (1961)
* Have A Drink On Me/ Seven Daffodils (1961)
* Michael Row the Boat/ Lumbered (1961)
* The Comancheros/ Ramblin’ Round (1961)
* Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It’s Flavor (On The Bedpost Over Night) (1961)
* More! Tops with Lonnie (April 1961)
* The Party’s Over/ Over the Rainbow (1962)
* I’ll Never Fall In Love Again/ Keep On The Sunny Side (1962)
* Pick A Bale Of Cotton/ Steal Away (1962)
* The Market Song/ Tit-Bits (1962)
* Sing Hallelujah (December 1962)
* Losing My Hair/ Trumpet Sounds (1963)
* It Was A Very Good Year/ Rise Up (1963)
* Lemon Tree/ I’ve Gotta Girl So Far (1963)
* 500 Miles Away From Home/ This Train (1963)
* Beans In My Ears/ It’s A Long Road To Travel (1964)
* Fisherman’s Luck/ There’s A Big Wheel (1964)
* Get Out Of My Life/ Won’t You Tell Me (1965)
* Louisiana Man/ Bound For Zion (1965)
* The Lonnie Donegan Folk Album (August 1965)
* World Cup Willie/ Where In This World Are We Going (1966)
* I Wanna Go Home/ Black Cat (Cross My Path Today) (1966)
* Aunt Maggie’s Remedy/ (Ah) My Sweet Marie (1967)
* Toys/ Relax Your Mind (1968)
* My Lovely Juanita/ Who Knows Where the Time Goes (1969)
* Lonniepops–Lonnie Donegan Today (1970)
* Speak To The Sky / Get Out Of My Life (1972)
* Jump Down Turn Around (Pick a Bale of Cotton) / Lost John Blues (1973 – Australia only)
* Lonnie Donegan Meets Leinemann (1974)
* Country Roads (1976)
* Puttin’ On The Style (February 1978)
* Sundown (May 1979)
* Muleskinner Blues (January 1999)
* The song Lost John was used to open the John Peel tribute album
* This Y’ere The Story (2000?)
* The Last Tour (2006)
2000 – Puff Daddy testifies before a grand jury about the December nightclub shooting that led to his arrest on possession charges. Jennifer Lopez attends the hearing.
1991 – Enigma went to No.1 for one week on the UK singles chart with ‘Sadness Part One’.
As Enigma is primarily an electronic music production, I assume you had a long standing interest in this area, so what artists influenced you to explore this direction right from the start? Influences, I’d have to say that I’ve always loved synthesisers, these are my toys. I have always been interested in electronic music and I started with the Minimoog and the legendary ones through to the generations of electronic equipment.
Did any artist/s in particular inspire you to pick up those instruments? Not really because I studied concert piano, so I’m a keyboarder all of my life.
So where did the original concept for Enigma derive? It was very simple, because I wanted to listen to a kind of special instrumental music but I couldn’t buy it so I did it by myself.
And incorporating Gregorian chants and eastern instruments? Yeah, it was more a question of ideology because the first record was based on this conflict between sexuality and the church, so it was very simple to use this as a sound logo of the Catholic Church. But I tell you what, sound philosophy yes? The sound is combined with the ideology of the records, but it’s nothing fixed, it’s coming along during the work, becoming clearer and clearer how I can transport my sound vision.
It’s never been contrived? No, I’m doing it very instinctively. Ok, in the back of my mind I am thinking about many things and I have a certain target of where I want to go and where I want to arrive, but how it will be at the end? As I always say, all the roads are going to Rome, which way I choose at the end is a question that is decided during the journey.
Is it true to say that Enigma is a one-man band, and that you’re involved in every aspect of the creation and production yourself? Yeah, it was from the very first day a one-man band; there were only some guest musicians for vocals or for guitars. On the new record I didn’t have the impression that I need some other vocalists, so I sing by myself and there are artificial voices, synthetic voices.
And the artwork on the new album looks quite interesting. It’s beautiful; it’s beautiful.
Yes, this big machine covered in leaves entwining it. The machine is from the British Museum of Marine… or something like that, it’s an old measurement instrument used from the past centuries.
Did you have a hand in designing the artwork? No, no, no, I have an excellent art director, which I’m very happy with.
And regarding lyrical content, there seems to be a lot less than on previous albums? I don’t know – it came how it came, so there’s no concrete messages. I don’t know; it was how it was, but I didn’t have the need to speak more. There’s not too much message behind the lyrical content this time, it’s more like a modern alchemist dream, who is dreaming about other galaxies – between science fiction and a visionary attitude.
How would you say A Posteriori differs from other Enigma albums then? I think the Enigma feeling, the emotion, the bloodline is still here, but transported in a completely different way. The sound and the structure of the songs are different to the albums before and I try to reduce the sound, not to be so bombastic as before. I wanted to go back a little bit to the simplicity of Enigma one.
It sounds quite different to me, perhaps more like a film soundtrack? Yes, but I always said I am doing soundtracks without pictures, the pictures are coming into your mind.
Has it been a struggle breaking away from the loops and samples of the previous Enigma style? It depends on the record you see because I always wanted to have a kind of lead sound, in brackets, lead sound for each album. So for the first one it was Gregorian charts, the second one the ethnic chants, the third was a mixture between both of them. Four was the classic stuff – the Carmina Burana from Carl Orff, fifth had nothing special as a sound leader, but in the new one I think the complete sound is a unit you know? And I think it’s the most compact Enigma album concerning the sound.
So it’s just a natural progression. I have to, because if not I get bored and music is my passion and I do it with all my love and all my energy, and it’s boring to copy myself so I will never do it.
Living in Ibiza, has the club scene there ever had an impact on you? Not at all, since I moved here to Ibiza in 1989 I may have been in a club for 1 hour every 3 years or something.
When Enigma was first successful you were in your early thirties? Yes.
So is there a difference between writing an album before you’ve sold 30 million album and then after? No, not at all. Because I’m doing it like if it’s my first album ever, and also with the same energy and with the same enthusiasm. And I’m happy like a little kid if it sounds how I like it and how I wanted to have it.
And you feel no external pressure to move the project in a particular direction? No pressure at all. And this rhythm of say every two and a half to three years, the albums are reflecting what I want to do in a certain period of my life, but life is not changing so dramatically in one year so that I could have something new. It has to be first born the idea, the basic idea, and then I transform it into music.
When you make music do you ever get excited about fulfilling what you perceive to be the desires of the audience? No, I have no idea what are the desires of my audience. I want to have an influence over everything even the single choices. Even if people say I’m nuts, I don’t care a bit because success is on my side.
When you’re creating a track, what’s the starting point? It’s each time different, one song can be testing a new keyboard; I like a sound and I start to play around and then woof, suddenly I have the base for a song. Other times I have a melody in my mind, other times I have maybe some lyrics, so it’s completely different, there’s no basic formula. There are songs maybe where the drum loop is important for me, and other ones where the drum loop is only like a rhythm machine and nothing important.
“I think the Enigma feeling, the emotion, the bloodline is still here, but transported in a completely different way.”
What are using the studio – are you working increasingly with computer software? Yes, because I reduced completely my huge studio and now I don’t have (laughs), so I made a little transportable studio with a monitoring system with everything included. So it’s reduced basically on the level of a quad processor with all the plug-ins that you have inside and that’s maybe 90% of the record. For the rest, I probably have only two auxiliary synthesisers, the Korg Oasis and the Roland V-Synth XT, but they were used only a little bit. But there are no effect machines or nothing; everything is plug-ins.
Has it been a challenge to switch over, having previously been reliant on hardware? No, basically the decision was very easy for me because I realised I’m using less and less everyday the huge equipment that I had. So I said why the hell have 55 kilometres of cables and they always have a bug somewhere? And it’s reduced now so I can do everything including mastering with my transportable machine. But I tell you, the amount of failures and bugs was reduced by 90%, so I could really make music and not moan with the software (laughs).
So you find that the technology is enhancing the whole experience and allowing your creativity to come to the fore? Exactly, exactly, exactly, so I didn’t have to squeeze my mind in such little ways about technical problems this time – so the decision to reduce the equipment was absolutely correct. But I’m missing nothing, so it’s not that I castrated myself, not at all.
You can tell by listening to A Posteriori that you’re not led by the technology. Without this technology I wouldn’t be able to have this equipment that I always dreamed of having, but I’m not a slave to the technology. The machines have to do what I want!
Unfortunately, with a lot of electronic music nowadays the reverse is often true. Absolutely, that’s the reason why I wanted to make a pure synthesiser album but in a way that does not sound at all like synthesiser music that was done in the past or present. And I think it’s correct to pretend that it sounds different, it’s not sounding so synthetic and so cold, like maybe people are used to if they hear the term electronic music – so the clichι goes completely the other way.
Is there still considerable motivation there for you to continue making many more Enigma albums? I always said, if I have an idea and I have the feeling that I can fulfil my targets – and I can keep the quality level high and have the feeling I’m still good enough for my own baby, then I will do some other records. But I never know. It’s always from one record to the other because I have first of all to be happy with myself and if I can’t do it so there will be no Enigma albums anymore, but I think that number seven will be for sure.
Do you feel the massive success of Enigma has made it difficult to match people’s expectations? No, not at all because it was extremely risky from the very first moment. It was never fulfilling the needs of the market and of the marketing machinery, so it was against a lot from the very first moment. I know, because I’m realist enough to know that the goal is at a very high level to fulfil each time, first of all for myself. It’s difficult to find a new way, not to have the impression that the project is standing still, that something is moving – there has to be an evolution in the project. But now if I hear all the six albums in a row, I must say that the way is fine because each one has its own identity without losing… say, the basic spirit.
Have you ever written an Enigma album that you weren’t entirely happy with, in retrospect? No, all of them are exactly… I couldn’t put them better. And that’s very important for me because then I can’t argue with myself, y’know “oh I miss this or miss that”. For my taste and for what I wanted to reach it was excellent for the period of time when I did it.
And of course many artists have attempted to imitate the Enigma sound? Yes.
I’m sure you’re aware of artists such as Enya and Deep Forest maybe. Do you think they achieved their goals? Phew (laughs). I don’t know if they achieved their goals or not.
I’m sure you’ve heard of Delerium? No.
Never? Never. I listen to music but I tell you, I’m also fixed on what I what I can get on my satellite dish if it’s on MTV or, I don’t know what music radio programmes, and so on. I don’t have the chance to listen to a lot of other music.
You’re so busy writing and recording that you don’t have the patience to listen to anything else? Oh, I have the patience but when I go into the final phase of record production I avoid listening to other things because I don’t want to be inspired – inspired subconsciously that is. I have to do exactly the opposite of what other people are doing. I have to go my own way, at least concerning Enigma.
“I’m not a slave to the technology. The machines have to do what I want!”
1987 – Robert Plant plays with his old group, the Band of Joy, in Folkestone, England. Plant performs Led Zeppelin numbers as a solo artist for the first time, including “Trampled Underfoot” and “Misty Mountain Hop.”
1983 – During a solo concert at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, Robert Plant is joined by his old Led Zeppelin cohort Jimmy Page. The two perform “Treat Her Right,” a song that was originally a hit for Roy Head in 1965.
1980 – Led Zeppelin announces its decision to break up on this day in rock history! Man… that was a depressing day for Rock fans… ouch! Hand me the bong!
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