Paul's "Moog"

[inman at interpath.com]

Paul S.  designed the Radio Shack Moog!  I'll be damned.
For five years, I've been waiting to tell this story.
I'll bet everyone on the list has a story like it.

Five years ago, I walked into a small music store on Main
Street in Great Falls, Montana -- a small town in the 
Northwest part of the US for our friends in far places.  
I admit from the start that I had no money to buy anything.
But I had a half an hour to kill while my future wife and 
mother-in-law were dress shopping at the department store
down the street.

At 10:00 in the morning (bedtime for most musicians), I 
walked into the store.  There was a teenaged kid, still
half asleep, setting up shop.  As I searched the store
for anything of interest, what did I see?  A MINIMOOG
high up on top of a stack of amps.  I couldn't believe it.
I asked the groggy kid if I could try it.  "Sure," he said,
and with all of the energy of a 100-year-old man, he got
a small ladder, climbed up, and pulled it down.  As he went
to get a cable, I realized it wasn't a MOOG after all.  It
was a Radio Shack synthesizer.  Concertmate?  This was a 
Minimoog.  No, this was a Radio Shack synth.  A Radio Shack
Minimoog?  What in the world was this thing?

Well, as I checked the controls, it sure looked like a 
Minimoog.  By the time the 100-year-old teenager returned,
I had set some of the controls for a patch, not enitrely
knowing what it would sound like.  After I showed the clerk
the out jack, he proceeded to plug it into a little amp.
I asked him if he knew anything about it.  He said, no; he
was a guitarist.  "Mmm," I said.  "You mind if I fiddle
around with this?"  "No, go ahead," said.  "Do whatever you
want."  (Obviously not the owner of the store.)

With the keyboard patched into the amp, I wondered what would
come out of the mutant mini.  Could I get a decent sound out
of it?  Would it make any sound at all?  What the hell, I 
thought, and hit a key.  Did it make a sound?  Like no other!
A tone came out of that thing that was so intense that the
wave could have sterilized a pit bull.  Oh no, I thought.  This
kid is going to throw me outta here!  I turned to look at him.
But he wasn't angry.  He was staring straight at me, and on 
his face was look like a fourteen year-old boy who had wandered 
into the women's shower at the Playboy Mansion.  "Cool" was 
all he said.

Needless to say, I spent the next half and hour tweaking the 
little beast, and having a helluva lot of fun.  Every once
in a while, the kid behind the counter looked over at me.
At the end of the half hour, I apologized, saying I wish I
had the money to buy it.  It was cheap, but I was in grad
school at the time and $200 was $200 I did not have.  He
kindly didn't complain.  Feeling a bit guilty, I offered to
clean up and put the synth back up on top of the amps.

"No," he said, quickly.  "You don't have to do that."  He
looked at me and I looked at him and we both knew what he 
would be doing the minute I walked out the door.  Another 
future great guitarist's career right down the drain.  

Everyone has criteria for what makes a great synth: sounds,
technical specs, real time control, programmability, etc...
There are fine points of performance and craftsmanship on
which synthisizers can and should be judged.  But, at some
level, synths can be divided into two basic categories.  
There's cool.  And there's not cool.

Five years later, unfortunately, that little music store is 
gone.  Maybe too many people with not enough money playing
the synths all day!  But everytime I am in Great Falls and 
walk past the shop where the music store used to be, I 
remember playing that odd little "moog."  

"Cool," the kid said.

He was right.  Very, very cool.

Elliot