Moog Cookbook (1996)

[Daft Punk's debut would come a year later.....]

The invention of the Moog was the invention of a whole new instrument with new sounds, so naturally people wanted to take existing songs and genres and hear what they sound like on it: Country Moog, Polka Moog, Classical Moog, Rock'n'Moog. Moog Cookbook is this idea updated to the 'alternative' rock hits of the late 80s and early 90s, so you end up with covers of Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, REM, Tom Petty, Offspring. Yet the Moog Cookbook doesn't just cover '90s alternative' but it also a product of that genre in attitude. It is ironically sugary in parts but hard-rocking when the chorus arrives, defiantly lo-fi & experimental but well-crafted and performed, reveling in samples and self-references as it brings something new. This is a classic mid-1990s 'alternative' album.

Come Out and Play - The Moog Cookbook


Like many songs on the album the cover of Offspring's 'Come and Play' seems like an un-salvageable mess. Each verse is done with a different keyboard sound that varies between from faux-oriental to a dying battery, the lyrics alternate from robotic to sampled clips, all of this is this backed by the most primitive Casio beats. It is a mess, by a catchy, evolving mess and by the end, when the songs starts referencing the showdown theme from the Good, Bad & Ugly (Sergio Leone ) then launching into 2001's open title music (Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra) while some beeping space-battles occurs in the background, you are smiling and simply content to be along for the ride.  Yet the original Come Out and Play was always something of an odd-ball song too as a punk-grunge rock ode to street violence grounded with an exotic Arabian/Surf guitar rift and the plain-spoken chorus.

Smells Like Teen Spirit - The Moog Cookbook


Teen Spirit is one of those songs that attracts plenty of covers but very are few successful outside of Tori Amos' inversion of it into a piano dirge. The Moog cover begins in classic synth spacescapes and Cobain's sarcastic 'hello' is now a disembodied voice floating in that ether. The instruments are as bizarre as "Ccome Out and Play': synth-sitars, off-tune notes, strangely delicate electronic piano, a sort of whistling. At points the song is so mellow that the Medusa-like gaze of elevator muzak rears its head...

Yet a punkier edge comes through repeatedly as the songs' usual growl of guitars is replaced with a cacophony of synthetic bursts like squelches, phone message beeps, spurts of electronic flatulence, and radio warpings. Cobain's mumbled lyrics are still barely articulated but now are coming out of Omnibot's mouth. And when the chorus crunch comes, it rocks and I'm not sure I can tell you why, but it does. Somehow the arty weridness and acoustical clutter resolves itself into something undeniably funky. On later listens I can hear the funk's underpinning in great bass modulations and organ keyboarding - but whatever the reason, the funkiness is there.

Why Moog Cookbook works so well is still a little mysterious to me. Like Space Ghost it should be a immature mess of mixed media and messages but it has enough velocity and chaotic momentum to actually take flight. Not every song on the album works but there are enough for me to suggest tracking this album (and its sequel and their soundtrack for the Moog documentary) down on Youtube. And I haven't even mentioned the best cover:

Keep on Rockin' in the Freeworld!



The wikipedia entry on the album is sparse but it does contain this vital clue to the organic funkiness that makes this album a classic:

Wikipedia wrote:The band's name is derived from a 1978 cookbook, 'Moog's Musical Eatery' by Shirleigh Moog, the first wife of synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog. The duo performs exclusively on analog synthesizers, especially Moog synthesizers. The liner notes from their first album proudly proclaims "No MIDI" to demonstrate that they played things by hand, rather than using computer sequencing, which is common for synthesizer music.