Switched on : Bob Moog and the synthesizer revolution /

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Includes bibliographical references and index.Foreword by Francis Ford Coppola -- Prelude -- PART ONE. THE FLUSHING GEEK. Depression's Child ; Bronx Cheers ; Our Guarantee ; No Exit -- PART TWO. SLIPPING BACKWARDS ON A BANANA PEEL. Transistor Man and the Crusaders ; Do It Yourself ; The Abominatron ; A Eunuch in a Harem ; A Few Thousand Screws -- PART THREE. COSMIC SOUNDS. Hallucinations for Your Ear ; The Star Collector ; Long Live the Moog! ; Hello, HAL ; The Plastic Cow Goes Moooooog ; Socket To Me, Baby! -- PART FOUR. SHORT CIRCUITS. Panicsville ; Mini and the Beast ; A Palace Revolution ; The Island of Electronicus ; I Bought Bob Moog -- PART FIVE. AN APOCALYPSE NOW. The Gelatin Pit ; Vexations ; Genericide ; Yankee Go Home ; The Briar Patch -- PART SIX. THE GRAND POOBAH. Genius for Hire ; Comes Now the Defendant ; The Desperate Voyager ; Patron Saint of Electrogeeks ; The Show That Never Ends."The Moog synthesizer "bent the course of music forever," Rolling Stone declared. Bob Moog, the man who did that bending, was a lovable geek with Einstein hair and pocket protectors. He walked into history in 1964 when his homemade contraption unexpectedly became a sensation. Suddenly everyone wanted a Moog. The Beatles, Doors, Byrds, and Stevie Wonder discovered the synth, and it was featured in film scores like Apocalypse Now and A Clockwork Orange. The Moog's game-changing sounds saturated 60s counterculture and burst into the Disco party in the 70s to set off the Electronic Dance Music movement. Bob had singlehandedly founded the synth industry and became a star. But he was also going broke. Imitators copied his technology, the musicians' union accused him of replacing live players, and Japanese competitors were overtaking his work. He struggled to hang on to his inventions, his business, and his very name. His story upends our notions of success and wealth, showing that the two don't always go together. In Switched On, Albert Glinsky draws on his exclusive access to Bob Moog's personal archives, and his probing interviews with Bob's family and a multitude of associates, for this first complete biography of the man and his work. Switched On seats the reader on Bob's roller coaster for a ride at turns triumphant, heartbreaking, and frequently laugh-out-loud absurd-a nuanced trip through the public and private worlds of this legendary inventor who permanently altered the course of music"--