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BMF to Raffle Lou Reed’s Moog Guitar

Bob Moog Foundation To Raffle Lou Reed’s Moog Guitar Beginning March 9, 2010 12 (EST)

March 8, 2010

Asheville, NC — The Bob Moog Foundation announces a once in a lifetime raffle opportunity to begin Tuesday March 9, 2010 at 12pm (EST). The Foundation will be selling $50 raffle tickets for a chance to win one of Lou Reed’s Moog Guitars. Only 200 tickets will be made available. Participants can purchase raffle tickets online at the Foundation’s online store http://moogfoundation.org/shop . The raffle will close when the 200 tickets have been sold and a winner will be chosen by an automated random selector. All proceeds go to benefit the projects of the Bob Moog Foundation. Employees and volunteers of Moog Music, the Bob Moog Foundation and Lou Reed are not eligible to participate in the auction.

Moog Music Inc., the company which carries on the legacy of synthesizer pioneer Bob Moog through its innovative instruments, is donating the Paul Vo Collector Edition (1 of only 300) Moog Guitar, serial #005, signed and played by Lou Reed, to the Foundation. The strikingly beautiful instrument is a maple top Tiger Eye Flame with an ash body, maple neck and ebony fret board. Reed has signed the front of the guitar; his labels for the guitar’s controls remain on the instrument as well as the brackets for his guitar strap.

Lou Reed, best known as the former guitarist, vocalist and principle songwriter for the experimental rock band Velvet Underground, has enjoyed a prolific career as a solo guitarist known for the pioneering of many sound effects including distortion, high volume feedback and nonstandard tunings. His love affair with the innovative Moog Guitar began early, as he played the instrument in its prototype phase. Reed experiences the Moog Guitar for the first time in this YouTube video. Upon hearing the guitar for the first time, Reed exclaimed “This is amazing….this opens the door”. Reed performed on the Moog Guitar on the David Lettermen Show in the fall of 2008.

Mike Adams, President of Moog Music, states “Our thanks to Lou Reed, who experienced the Moog Guitar in its earliest evolution and inspired us to continue our development efforts. Gratefully, the proceeds from this raffle will support the Bob Moog Foundation. Both the Bob Moog Foundation and Moog Music serve to honor the genius of Bob Moog.”

Michelle Moog-Koussa, Executive Director of the Bob Moog Foundation acknowledges “The Bob Moog Foundation is deeply grateful for the support of Lou Reed and Moog Music. The funds raised from this raffle will be of great assistance in expanding our Student Outreach Program, the program in which we bring Moog instruments in to the schools and teach children the science behind the sounds of electronic music. This program, even in its infant stages, has opened children’s minds and engaged their spirits to explore the extensive sonic possibilities that Moog instruments offer.”

Moog Music and its customers carry on the legacy of Bob Moog. Moog designs and manufactures electronic musical instruments, including Little Phatty® and Minimoog® Voyager® synthesizers, Moogerfooger® effects modules, Etherwave® theremins and The Moog Guitar. Founded by Bob Moog, Moog Music designs and manufactures its products in Asheville, N.C. www.moogmusic.com

The Bob Moog Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization whose mission is to carry on the legacy of Bob Moog through educating and inspiring children and adults through the power and possibilities of electronic music and through the intersection of science, music and innovation. The foundation has three main projects: preserving and protecting Bob Moog’s archives, creating a Student Outreach Program that brings electronic music into the schools, and its hallmark project, the creation of a Moogseum in Asheville, NC, for which it was recently awarded a $600,000 lead grant by the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority. For more information see

www.moogfoundation.org.

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MoogFoundation.org — behind the curtains

Hello to all of you out there in our online community.  I wanted to take a minute to give you an update on 8 months of hard work by a small group of dedicated volunteers in building this website.  So, I present:  a peek behind the curtains of the MoogFoundation.org.  First and foremost, thanks to our Rockstar team:  Gene Felice, Jeremy Ferguson and Mike Ostrich.  These guys have put in countless hours to make this machine work and in doing so, added tremendous value to the foundation and given us so much more capacity to fulfill our mission.

First, a quick tour of the software to give credit where it is due.  We use the open source, world-rocking, amazing Wordpress content management system, as well as Linux, MySQL and PHP.   We use about a dozen free and open source Wordpress plugins, which I won’t list for security reasons, but sincere thanks to all of the developers who have made these systems available and open source.

There are several third-party services that expand our functionality.  We use iContact for our email newsletter, Groundspring for secure online donations, and we based the original design of the site on a template from GraphPaperPress.  The current design of the site is a collaboration of our team, with Gene Felice doing the heaviest lifting.

It would surprise some people to realize just how much we have going on.  Did you know, for example, that we have an iPhone and mobile friendly version of the site?  Yep, we do.

A few other things people might not realize is that we have a regular blog series that will be expanding across the course of 2010.  We maintain a micro-site for the Moogseum at www.Moogseum.com.  Beyond that, we have our Twitter account, Facebook page and Facebook Causes page, a YouTube Channel, a MySpace page and an email newsletter list that reaches somewhere around 5,000 people a month.

[edit:  I also forgot we maintain a Flickr account with lots of great pictures of Bob's Archives.]

Later in the year, I hope that we can be a little more transparent about the traffic to the site, but for now we are not releasing that information.

All of this is in place to help us foster innovation at the intersection of science and music.  So special thanks again to our Rockstar team.  You guys are amazing!

And thank to you, our friends, donors and allies.

–Sean McDonald, board member

p.s.  I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our bloggers–Dave & Seva–and our truly tireless Executive Director, Michelle Moog-Koussa.  This foundation depends on Michelle for everything we do, and she is remarkable in her commitment!

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MoogFoundation.org down for maintenance

[update Feb 10:  We are still undergoing a few changes.  You may have problems with the email server today.  Sorry!]

Hello.  Thanks for visiting (or subscribing to) MoogFoundation.org, the online home for the Bob Moog Foundation.

We want you to know that, from Jan 29 – Feb 2, we’re going to be doing some maintenance on the site.  This work might cause the site to go down for a while, or behave in new (and buggy) ways.  We don’t anticipate any problems, but just in case, we thought we’d let you know.

This is part of a series of improvements we’ve been making since late August, 2009.  Our goal, as always, is to give you a better experience, while advancing our mission.

If you are a regular visitor, or even if this is your first time, we welcome your feedback.  You can use our contact form, or you can email me directly.

Thanks for understanding — please come back soon!

Sean McDonald

Board member with the Bob Moog Foundation

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Bob Moog Foundation Makes Waves at NAMM

January 2010

Bob Moog Foundation Making Waves at Winter NAMM 2010

Happy 2010 to all of you from the Bob Moog Foundation! The year begins for us with big plans as we head out to Winter NAMM in Anaheim, CA next week. Our friends at Moog Music are once again sharing their booth space with us. You can find us there (Booth #6100) making waves with a new video about the Foundation and sharing some recently restored material from the tapes in Bob’s archives. We hope to see many of you there! For those of you who can’t make it, follow us on Facebook and Twitter for daily updates.

We are also proud to be co-sponsoring three events at NAMM that highlight the Moog Legacy and synthesizer history:

  • Main Showcase at NAMM Features Items From Moog Exhibit

From January 14-17, the Bob Moog Foundation, in collaboration with the NAMM Museum of Making Music, will feature dozens of items taken from their exhibit Waves of Inspiration:The Legacy of Moog in the main showcase on the floor of the convention center. Of particular note, an extremely rare Eaton-Moog Multi-Touch Sensitive keyboard will be on public display for the first time. Numerous vintage instruments, photographs, articles and project notes will also be on display. The full exhibit runs at the Museum through April 30, 2010.

  • Celebrating The Legacy of Vintage Keyboards Through Documentary Film

On Friday night, January 15th, from 6-8pm in the Avila Room at the Anaheim Hilton, neo-symphonic synthesist Amin Bhatia and documentary filmmaker Dianna Dilworth headline an evening exploring the evolution and impact of vintage keyboards. Amin Bhatia will be joined by Michelle Moog-Koussa, Executive Director of the Bob Moog Foundation for a question and answer session followed by a screening of a short documentary on the making of his innovative realization of Bolero Electronica, for which he used over 70 synthesizers covering 75 years of evolution in synthesis in music. The documentary features rock legends Steve Porcaro and Patrick Moraz and Roland Founder Ikutaro Kakehashi.

Following Bhatia, Dianna Dilworth and Markus Resch of the Mellotron Archive will screen Mellodrama: The Mellotron Documentary which explores the rising and falling fortunes of the Mellotron – the first musical keyboard to “sample” the sounds of other instruments – from its birth in a California garage in the 1950s, through its dominance on concert stages in the 1970s, through its almost religious cult of followers in the 2000s. From the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields” to Black Sabbath to Kanye West, Mellodrama traces a 50-year odyssey of musical invention, revolution, betrayal, and rediscovery.

  • Panel Discussion To Explore the Impact of Bob Moog’s Work on the Music Industry Past, Present and Future as Interpreted though Museum Exhibit

On Sunday January 17th from 3-4pm in the Idea Center at NAMM, The Bob Moog Foundation and the NAMM Museum of Making Music will present a panel discussion in celebration of the premiere exhibition Waves of Inspiration: The Legacy of Moog. The

discussion will involve industry and musical luminaries in an exploration of the impact of Bob Moog’s work on the music industry as it relates to the exhibition at the NAMM Museum of Making Music public display through April 30, 2010.

The discussion will be moderated by Museum Curator Tatiana Sizonenko

Panelists include:

  • Craig Anderton (Senior Editor: Harmony-Central.com, Senior Editor: EQ Magazine, Contributing Editor: Keyboard Magazine)
  • Herb Deutsch (collaborator on first Moog synthesizer)

  • Larry Fast (Synergy, Peter Gabriel)

  • Brian Kehew (Moog Cookbook, The Who, Exhibit Advisor)

  • Michelle Moog-Koussa (Executive Director, the Bob Moog Foundation)



  • When the Show Ends, An Exclusive Moog Tour Begins


    The Museum of Making Music, in collaboration with Moog Music and the Bob Moog Foundation, is offering an exclusive tour of their exhibit Waves of Inspiration:The Legacy of Moog to NAMM attendees only. The exhibit is the first-ever public display of a rare collection of vintage instruments, photographs, diaries, schematics, catalogs and project notes from the Bob Moog Foundation Archives, along with the prototype of the first Moog modular synthesizer and much more.

    On Monday, January 18, a bus will depart from Anaheim to the NAMM Headquarters (where the Museum is housed) in Carlsbad, California. Hosted by Michelle Moog-Koussa (Executive Director of The Bob Moog Foundation), Mike Adams (President, Moog Music Inc.), exhibition advisor Brian Kehew and museum staff, the tour includes lunch before departing back to Anaheim in the early afternoon. Space is limited and an RSVP is required. For more information and to RSVP, please contact Carolyn Grant at carolyng@namm.org or call 760-801-7180.

    Celebrating the Moog Synthesizer with Pioneers Herb Deutsch and John Eaton

    The week after NAMM, we will be at the NAMM Museum of Making Music to join electronic music pioneers Herb Deutsch and John Eaton for an evening of music and conversation regarding their collaboration with Bob Moog on two groundbreaking instruments. The event, Celebrating the Moog Synthesizer, takes place at the Museum on Saturday, January 23rd at 7pm. Tickets are available for purchase online through the Museum.

    We’re off to a great start in 2010! Thank you all for your ongoing support that makes our work possible.


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