Keith
Emerson & Dr. Robert Moog 1970
Last year at the Moog Fest in New York to celebrate
the great man's creation, Bob found a quiet corner in my
dressing room. He sat munching an apple while watching
me warm up on a practice keyboard that was turned around
with the keys facing away. I had to lean over the
instrument in order to play it in such an irregular and
awkward position. Bob sat observing what was so
obviously an impractical exercise without saying a word.
Finally he said, "Do you always practice like that?"
Without thinking I replied that I did. This answer
didn't seem to phase him one bit. He didn't ask any
further questions on the subject maybe because he'd got
an answer that he expected. It led me to thinking that
that's the way he worked.
Being at one with his creation, he might have expected
it to work for him. But it was a completely different
thing to find musicians great or small, all over the
world, using his invention to greater effect. I think he was
often overwhelmed by that fact. And what about the theremin? A box with a couple of aerials that could
frighten anyone of a nervous disposition when waving
one's hands around it! It could play the notes that were
between all the other notes!! I mention all this because
Bob seemed unwavered faced by either a tough road or an
easy one. He'd trod most of them with "Amazing Grace"
and humor! He had a great loud uninhibited laugh that
always made me feel comfortable. It made itself very
audible when I first met him in London in 1970. It was
well known then that the Heathrow baggage handlers (not
being avid gardeners) treated suitcases with the same
respect as a sack of cow shit. Having successfully
retrieved his luggage it therefore amused him greatly to
notice that left, going round and round on the conveyer
belt, was just a handle with the baggage tag still
attached...and somebody actually claiming it without
complaining.
I was very excited when
Bob attended an early 70's ELP concert for the first
time and had him sit on stage and out of view of the
audience behind my speakers. This is a story that Bob
loved to tell:
"...Keith had invited me to come wherever backstage
was. He and I piled into his mandatory limousine and we
went through the mud, rocks and broken glass-which is
what you expect to find underneath the tracks of a New
York City Subway train-onto a soccer field. He got out
with the rest of the group and they walked onto the
field up to this wooden platform stage out by one goal.
At the end of the field, there was a line of ten or
twelve portajohns. There were about 10,000 young males
packed in there. I don't remember any seats; people were
just trampling on the soccer field. That's where I saw
Keith do his number with the organ and knives, with
pieces of keys flying off.
Lo and behold, who
should I meet there but a customer friend of mine,
Gershon Kingsley. Gershon was a successful middle-aged
professional studio musician...Anyhow, I meet up with
Gershon by the row of portajohns, and he's completely
disorientated and freaked out. Behind us, you can smell
the shit and piss and the doors to the johns are banging
open and closed. And in front, here's this guy throwing
an organ around, making keys go flying off, and making
the instruments scream. All of a sudden, Gershon
shrieks, 'This is the end of the world!'"
Dr.
Robert Moog
Well, Bob, it's not
the end of the world. As you
created my sound with your creation, I will continue to
define it with my definition... God Willing!
Keith Emerson
August 22, 2005
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