MOTM

Here's a little bit about my live electronic experience with Richard Bugg as 
"Cosmic Debris" in the mid-eighties. Here's an equipment list
from one of the albums we did:

Richard: ARP 2600b, MOOG sys 12b, MOOG 951 controller, E-mu modular 
synthesizer, E-mu Drumulator, Emulator 1, Lexicon PCM41, Lexicon M93 
Prime Time, Countryman 968 Phase Shifter, MicMix Dynaflanger, Oberheim 
OBXa, Armstrong Emeritus C Flute, Armstrong G Alto Flute

Barry: ARP 2600/3604p, ARP 2600/Emu, ARP 1602 Sequencer, Oberheim 
Obx, Oberheim SEM 1a, Oberheim OB8, Oberheim DSX, Oberheim SEM 1, 
Lexicon 224v4.2, EMT 251 Reverb, Publison Fullmost, MOOG model D, Moog 
Drum, Synare, Artley Wilkins C Flute, AngKlung (Bali)

http://www.cosmic-debris.com/history.html

We used pretty much the same core instruments live and often toted even 
more gear to the nearly 100 shows we did over a few year period including: 
OB 8 voice (the big SEM one), OB TVS (SEM), Prophet V, Emulator II, ARP 16 
voice Piano, MOOG Sonic Six, Lexicon PCM42, etc. Most of the time we 
literally were moving a "ton" of gear when you included the hefty "real" road 
cases we had for most of the stuff, plus we carried our own PA.

About a third of the gigs we did were "no pay" (arts festivals, public access 
cable TV shoots, local morning live TV [5:30 a.m.!] and live college radio) 
which generated sales of recordings. The others included a monthly 
"electronic music night" at a jazz club, planetariums, coffee houses, art 
galleries, shopping malls, private parties, for which pay ranged from a few 
"tens" of dollars to few hundred dollars. The highlights were opening for 
Shawn Phillips, opening for John Cale (and doing a set with him!), playing a 
big party for our State Governor (that had a laser show - woo hoo!) and doing 
live EM for a number of modern dance performances and plays.

Richard moved on to the west coast and started new editions of Cosmic 
Debris. I kept doing studio work and recorded a series of electro-acoustic 
recordings that sold well enough that I could quit doing studio work for others, 
15+ years later recording sales have slowed down enough that I'm back in the 
studio, this time at a media manufacturing plant (CD/DVD).

Some of my best and worst memories are about playing live EM with Cosmic 
Debris. We had our fair share of hecklers, Richard would sometimes sample 
them and make them part of the performance. For most part we took that 
attitude that we were providing background music for human activity, so we 
encouraged people to talk, etc. - just not to throw things.

Am I glad I did it? Yes. Would I do it again? ...I'll have to get back to you on 
that one. One scary bonus is that the shows we did for public access cable 
are still running - we're usually on right after "John TV".

Barry