Moogfest 2010

  On 9/3/2010 at 2:48 AM, MadnessR said:

Lived in Asheville my whole life. Saw Squarepusher, RJD2, Autechre, Jamie Lidell, and have even played @ The Orange Peel more than a few times with 2 different bands. Can't afford to go...SuX

It is a chunk of change...

Bonobo!!!!

Even more artist's being added to the lineup tomorrow... Stay tuned...

As promised...

The newest artist additions as of 9.17

Javelin

Alex B

Nosaj Thing

Dark Party

Headtronics (Bernie Worrell, Freakbass & Adam Deitch)

Shout Out Out Out Out

Volt Per Octaves featuring special guest Bernie Worrell

Projek Moog with special guest Brian Kehew

They announced today that even more artists will be added in the days to come....

And again here's the already mentioned lineup...

Massive Attack

Thievery Corporation

Four Tet

Matmos

Devo

Bonobo

Van Dyke Parks

The Disco Biscuits

Ikonika

Clare and The Reasons

El-P

Dam Funk

Dj Spooky

Saturn Never Sleeps featuring King Britt and Rucyl

Panda Bear

Girl Talk

Caribou

Two Fresh

Hot Chip

Pretty Lights

Big Boi

Rjd2

MGMT

Mimosa

Kuroma

School of Seven Bells

Jon Hopkins

Dan Deacon

The Octopus Project

Emeralds

Mountain Man

Jonsi

fuck, this is becoming quite decent - i'm definitely leaning towards it if i can work it out

Yea... I know... It' weird... This is actually some serious shit now... Asheville is turning into the Ibiza of the south...

More additions to the lineup released today... Mainly Dj sets... Including one from our favorite Dam Funk!

http://moogfest.com/2010/news/more-lineup-additions-dj-sets-to-satisfy-your-late-night-cravings/

It's over now...

I didn't go but I hear it was extremely successful and Moog has decided to make it an annual event...

MATMOS!

I went. It was awesome. Well at the least the people around were! Asheville was crazy packed. Drunk people falling all over the place. Matmos was amazing! I've loved them for years and it was great to finally see them, and so close up. They REALLY put on a great show, and the PA sounded fantastic (as it usually does at the Orange Peel). BASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Caught the 2nd half of Massive Attack. It was okay. Watched the first 25 mins of Shpongle and walked out laughing. I'm not hating, I already knew how erm, "basic" his "experimental" music is. I certainly respect anyone just for doing their thing. But it was good to see that many people dancing and having a good time to electronic music. They certainly could've gotten a better headliner for the civic center Sat. night closer.

Speaking of which. They should REALLY get more ELECTRONIC acts in the upcoming years. Sure synthesizers don't necessarily equal electronic music, but there were a LOT of "band" style groups that just "feature" synthesizers. Granted there was a great number of electronic acts on the bill, most of the set times were very short, and Dj's really got the better slots.

Matmos only played an hour and that's a true shame. I could've watched them for 3. And even though i'm not a huge DJ Spooky fan, he only got 45 MINUTES! Wtf, that's insane!

Anyway, good times. It was worth the $75 Saturday ticket just for Matmos. I'm really hating the NC indoor smoking ban though, boooo. Standing out in the freezing cold is not fun.

Also, Asheville NEEDS MORE CABS! Good gracious. My friend and I waited for like 2 hrs trying to get a cab since I tried to save money and stay about 10 mins out of downtown. I said screw it Sunday night (Halloween in Asheville was awesome) and stayed at the Renaissance and went to a "rave" till 4am.

I highly suggest anyone thinking about it next year to go. if for no other reason, because Asheville is a wonderful place and the vibe is always so good.

They really need to try and get some Rephlex, Warp, Mu, Ninja Tune, Mute, etc artists.

sounds great been to asheville once before and it was lots of fun...would love to go to moogfest but ya +1 for more electronic acts

  Quote

 

By JON PARELES

Published: November 1, 2010

 

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Mark Mothersbaugh, the keyboardist and singer of Devo, reminisced on Friday night about visiting the R. A. Moog Company’s synthesizer factory in Buffalo some time in 1971 or 1972. “It was like heaven,” he said. He was onstage here at Moogfest, a three-day festival with more than 60 acts — bands and disc jockeys, theremin soloists and professed synthesizer geeks — to celebrate the Moog synthesizer, an instrument that transformed music by giving composers countless new sounds.

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Festivalgoers dancing at Moogfest. More Photos »

 

At the factory, Mr. Mothersbaugh said, he saw shelves holding rows of Minimoogs, the pioneering, suitcase-size synthesizer that was introduced in 1970 and made electronic music portable. It was, he declared, “the most futuristic thing I’d ever seen.”

 

That future was four decades ago, before digital synthesizers, laptop computers and smartphones put the tools for electronic music on desks and in pockets. Moog Music, as the company was renamed, is now in Asheville, in the mountains of western North Carolina where Robert Moog (pronounced to rhyme with “rogue”), the inventor behind the synthesizer, lived from 1978 until his death, in 2005.

 

The nonprofit Bob Moog Foundation is raising money to build a “Moogseum” here based around Mr. Moog’s extensive archives, and it presented daytime panel discussions on the history of the synthesizer, featuring Mr. Moog’s collaborators and resurrecting some of his early equipment. A display case at the Orange Peel, a club commandeered by Moogfest, held a Minimoogseum: a history of the Minimoog and a playable theremin.

 

The festival drew 7,000 to 7,500 people a day and offered five stages at places in downtown Asheville that ranged from clubs to arenas. Visitors saw many Moogs, recent and antique, come and go.

 

But Moogs were not mandatory for acts wanting a festival booking. “It’s a thread, it’s not a box,” said Ashley Capps, whose company, AC Entertainment, produced Moogfest.

 

Matmos, an electronic duo whose brilliant set built terse loops into overarching, evolving structures — largely meditative, occasionally wry — confessed that it was using Roland synthesizers. There were also Korgs, Yamahas, Nords and plenty of unassuming laptops, many of them loaded with Moog samples, in a lineup oriented toward the electronic and the experimental.

 

Moogfest included rock (Massive Attack, Sleigh Bells, Caribou, Jonsi, MGMT, Thievery Corporation); pop (Hot Chip); funk (Disco Biscuits); hip-hop (Big Boi, El-P); and electronica both abstract and aimed at the dance floor (Four Tet, Pretty Lights, Bonobo, Jon Hopkins, Dan Deacon, Marty Party).

 

Mr. Moog’s original 1964 synthesizer — he called it the Abominatron — was bulky, balky and sometimes unpredictable. It was analog, not digital, creating sounds by sending a continuous electronic signal to a speaker, not a stream of numbers through a converter. To analog devotees that continuous signal is intrinsically superior to digital music, which reproduces sound with tens of thousands of samples per second, which means tens of thousands of infinitesimal gaps between them. Analog sound, said Amos Gaynes, Moog Music’s applications engineer, has infinite resolution, “down to the granular level at which reality is perceived.”

 

The first commercial Moog synthesizers could play only one note at a time, not always in tune. Early synthesizer users had no preset sounds to fall back on: they plugged in patch cords, turned knobs and experimented. A musician could create a sound, but the synthesizer had no memory; once the sound was changed, it was gone, possibly forever. Heat and humidity also affected the instrument. When digital synthesizers arrived, in the 1980s, sales and prices plunged for those primitive analog synthesizers. They seemed destined for obsolescence.

 

But not so fast. From their sometimes-unstable oscillators, filters and amplifiers, Moogs and other analog synthesizers produced sounds that more reliable digital synthesizers would not: buzzes, swoops, whooshes, scrapes, gurgles, screeches, burps, crackles and countless other onomatopoeia-worthy noises. Interactions among the waveforms that were generated by the oscillators, and modulated by waveforms from other oscillators, or from a noise generator, were often untamed. Turning a knob or wiggling a wheel on the Minimoog could radically change a timbre in mid-note, making it feel more handmade, less synthetic. Analog sounds are a funky corrective to sterile digital tones; colliding waveforms make a beautiful noise.

 

Moogfest was a festival of strange sounds and monumental beats, of drones and loops, and of synthetic tones that grew to feel natural. For extra oddity a good part of the audience wore Halloween costumes all weekend.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/arts/music/02moog.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&hpw