Alan Palomo started his solo project Neon Indian out of the ashes of two different bands, Ghosthustler and Vega (the latter still exists). It was a natural move for the synth-wielding Texan, who had come to better understand what he wanted in songwriting and production through the band experiences. Then when Psychic Chasms exploded on [...]

When Chromeo played Nashville’s Cannery Ballroom back in September, band members P-Thugg (Patrick Gemayel) and Dave 1 (David Macklovitch) used a dizzying area of sounds to bring their electrofunk show to life. “Our setup is a combination of electronic and live instruments,” says P-Thugg, writing over e-mail a few weeks after the Nashville show. Onstage, [...]

Whether your thing is knob-twiddling IDMers, dance, funk bands or psych-rock, MoogFest has you covered. And, wisely, they’ve programmed it so that fans will have to make some hard decisions. Girl Talk or Panda Bear? Thievery Corporation or Jonsi? Here are 10 artists we don’t want to miss. MGMT and Kuroma Okay, technically two bands. [...]

MGMT is playing MoogFest on Friday night. Over Halloween weekend, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, partiers, ravers and electronic music freaks will all descend on the mountain hamlet town of Asheville, North Carolina, for the first-ever MoogFest, celebrating the art and innovation of Robert Moog, who made Asheville his home in 1978. The festival promoter, AC Entertainment, [...]

Van Dyke Parks may be one of the few acts at MoogFest you won’t see on stage with a Moog synthesizer. But that doesn’t mean the legendary songwriter, composer, arranger, pianist and performer doesn’t have a unique history with the instrument. “If anyone should be playing MoogFest, it’s me,” Parks says, half-joking, from his home [...]

Photo by Laura Dart On an Americana Music Association panel moderated by the William Morris Agency’s Jay Williams, Ashley Capps, founder of AC Entertainment and the predominant force behind the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, said he’s very excited about the way the 2011 Bonnaroo festival is starting to shape up. Capps [...]

Modern keyboards have made an indelible mark on the history of songwriting. Analog synthesizers emerged right alongside early computers, and the two technologies will presumably be running buddies until the very end. While so much focus gets put on the guitar’s prominence in songwriting, the piano’s linear layout has always been the most fundamental writing [...]

MOOG MINIMOOG VOYAGER Analog Synthesizer LIST PRICE: $3,395.00 If you’ve ever heard Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”—specifically the opening solos of Part I and Part VI (and again at the 2:00 minute mark of Part VI when Richard Wright doubled David Gilmour’s lap steel with a synth sound)—then you’ve heard what a Minimoog [...]

It truly must be played to feel the potential it harnesses.