Though he may not be as well known as someone like John Lennon or Muddy Waters, Gershon Kingsleys contributions to modern music are equally on par with those men. Born in 1922 Kingsley is best known for composing one of the first electronic pop songs called appropriately enough Popcorn. Kingsley was one of the first to take the Moog synthesizer and create music without instruments. Now one of his legendary albums, God is a Moog, is being reissued.
Buy God is a Moog
Daniel Robert Epstein: Youre releasing God is a Moog, how long has that been in the works?
Gershon Kingsley: About five or six months I think. Are you connected with something they call SuicideGirls?
DRE: Yes.
GK: What is SuicideGirls?
DRE: SuicideGirls is kind of like Playboy magazine but for punk girls.
GK: Ill have to do something with it. Why did they come to me?
DRE: Your music is very revolutionary.
GK: You think so?
DRE: Dont you think so?
GK: I dont know what I think about my music.
DRE: Thats not up to you, I guess.
GK: I never think about my music as revolutionary. If anybody thinks what Ive done is revolutionary, you should go to a psychiatrist.
DRE: Im sure you mustve heard people compliment your music over the years.
GK: Thats true. But I dont know why.
DRE: You dont take compliments well?
GK: Yes, but Im almost interested why Ive been said a revolutionary because when I started out I wasnt revolutionary at all. Maybe its like an oxymoron. After you didnt do revolution you suddenly become a revolutionary.
DRE: What is it you were trying to accomplish with your music back then?
GK: Look, what is your specialty? Writing?
DRE: Yes.
GK: Do you like to write a book?
DRE: I would love to.
GK: See. I always wanted to write a symphony or something like that so it always goes back to striving for the most important thing in our life. I was always interested in new sounds. Thats why I got involved as a Moog synthesizer.
I was just looking at the new website of a virtual Moog synthesizer from a French company. You dont even have to get a Moog synthesizer. For $300 you can get a whole synthesizer on the computer.
DRE: Wow.
GK: They have examples and its incredible. So you see thats a revolution. For an instrument that used to cost maybe $100,000, you can get it for $300 now as a virtual model inside the computer.
DRE: Yeah but $100,000 forty years ago might be $300 today.
GK: When I did my first commercial, I went to Bob Moogs place and I bought a Moog from him, which it cost me $3500 in 1969.
DRE: That was quite a bit of money back then.
GK: Then three weeks later I got a hair dryer commercial and they wanted a Moog synthesizer. They paid me $3500. So I got my money back after two weeks.
DRE: You were 48 when God is a Moog came out.
GK: I wrote everything. I broke so many rules.
DRE: How so?
GK: Its a reverse revolution. You figure it out yourself.
DRE: As lot of people point to your work as some of the first electronic work.
GK: Yes. How old are you, may I ask?
DRE: Me? Im 30. Im a young punk.
GK: Young punk. [laughs] Im an old punk.
DRE: Youre an old punk.
GK: [laughs] Epstein? So youre Jewish too, huh?
DRE: Im totally Jewish.
GK: Totally Jewish?
DRE: Yeah.
GK: Listen. When I said reverse revolution its because I was 48 when I brought my hit out. Right? When I started with the Moog synthesizer. This is why I call it a reverse revolution. I go backwards. Its a reverse revolution I call it.
DRE: What made you decide to go with the Moog synthesizer?
GK: I was always interested in sound. I had an album in the 60s and one of those songs, Baroque Hoedown, became the number for the Main Street Parade at the Disney parks.
When I was a young person I always loved to listen to great music by Stravinsky. So when I met one of the guys who had one of these instruments that looked to me like a telephone switchboard, I asked him, how do I get this instrument? So he introduced me to Robert Moog, who lived at the time in a little hamlet in the northern part of New York State. That was when I was introduced for the first time to electronic music and to all these kinds of generators and oscillators. I got sick of it in the beginning because heres an engineer talking to a composer. But I finally bought it and caught myself up into these sounds and so I got used to it. Now Im objectified. I was the first one who dared to put a quartet in Carnegie Hall of Moog synthesizers.
DRE: What did people think of this back then? I imagine some people where offended.
GK: Oh, sure. The thing is that there was a very famous impresario at the time who presented me in a concert. When the concert started and at intermission some people came to me and said, I dont understand. How can you do that piece of crap like this in your concert? The impresario said You wait. Thats the future.
DRE: It took a little longer than you all thought.
GK: Yes and today we have virtual synthesizers. I can have a little keyboard of about four octaves and I put it into a 12 inch Mac laptop and I have a virtual Moog on the computer. Thats all they need.
DRE: Youre very good with computers obviously.
GK: For my age. We have three ages. You know that? Young, middle-aged and you look good for your age.
DRE: What about new music?
GK: Thats why people like the Reboot Stereophonic came to me and they took some of my old music. If youre Jewish youll think somethings funny. I put Yiddish songs through the Moog synthesizer. They loved it so they put it out. I also did the first rock service for a synagogue which was created in 1968 and became a classic over the years.
DRE: What are you working on now?
GK: Im always working on something. Right now Im writing a concerto. I wrote an opera two years ago based on a famous Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who saved 100,000 Hungarian Jews during the war and disappeared. I also wrote an opera about him called Raoul.
DRE: Has that gone up?
GK: No. The important thing is that I wrote it. Many people talk about writing an opera and they never do, but I wrote it.
DRE: Are more of your older albums going to be reissued?
GK: In the past I brought like 20 or 30 albums that all move around. Some of them are not there anymore and you find them on the Internet.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy God is a Moog
Daniel Robert Epstein: Youre releasing God is a Moog, how long has that been in the works?
Gershon Kingsley: About five or six months I think. Are you connected with something they call SuicideGirls?
DRE: Yes.
GK: What is SuicideGirls?
DRE: SuicideGirls is kind of like Playboy magazine but for punk girls.
GK: Ill have to do something with it. Why did they come to me?
DRE: Your music is very revolutionary.
GK: You think so?
DRE: Dont you think so?
GK: I dont know what I think about my music.
DRE: Thats not up to you, I guess.
GK: I never think about my music as revolutionary. If anybody thinks what Ive done is revolutionary, you should go to a psychiatrist.
DRE: Im sure you mustve heard people compliment your music over the years.
GK: Thats true. But I dont know why.
DRE: You dont take compliments well?
GK: Yes, but Im almost interested why Ive been said a revolutionary because when I started out I wasnt revolutionary at all. Maybe its like an oxymoron. After you didnt do revolution you suddenly become a revolutionary.
DRE: What is it you were trying to accomplish with your music back then?
GK: Look, what is your specialty? Writing?
DRE: Yes.
GK: Do you like to write a book?
DRE: I would love to.
GK: See. I always wanted to write a symphony or something like that so it always goes back to striving for the most important thing in our life. I was always interested in new sounds. Thats why I got involved as a Moog synthesizer.
I was just looking at the new website of a virtual Moog synthesizer from a French company. You dont even have to get a Moog synthesizer. For $300 you can get a whole synthesizer on the computer.
DRE: Wow.
GK: They have examples and its incredible. So you see thats a revolution. For an instrument that used to cost maybe $100,000, you can get it for $300 now as a virtual model inside the computer.
DRE: Yeah but $100,000 forty years ago might be $300 today.
GK: When I did my first commercial, I went to Bob Moogs place and I bought a Moog from him, which it cost me $3500 in 1969.
DRE: That was quite a bit of money back then.
GK: Then three weeks later I got a hair dryer commercial and they wanted a Moog synthesizer. They paid me $3500. So I got my money back after two weeks.
DRE: You were 48 when God is a Moog came out.
GK: I wrote everything. I broke so many rules.
DRE: How so?
GK: Its a reverse revolution. You figure it out yourself.
DRE: As lot of people point to your work as some of the first electronic work.
GK: Yes. How old are you, may I ask?
DRE: Me? Im 30. Im a young punk.
GK: Young punk. [laughs] Im an old punk.
DRE: Youre an old punk.
GK: [laughs] Epstein? So youre Jewish too, huh?
DRE: Im totally Jewish.
GK: Totally Jewish?
DRE: Yeah.
GK: Listen. When I said reverse revolution its because I was 48 when I brought my hit out. Right? When I started with the Moog synthesizer. This is why I call it a reverse revolution. I go backwards. Its a reverse revolution I call it.
DRE: What made you decide to go with the Moog synthesizer?
GK: I was always interested in sound. I had an album in the 60s and one of those songs, Baroque Hoedown, became the number for the Main Street Parade at the Disney parks.
When I was a young person I always loved to listen to great music by Stravinsky. So when I met one of the guys who had one of these instruments that looked to me like a telephone switchboard, I asked him, how do I get this instrument? So he introduced me to Robert Moog, who lived at the time in a little hamlet in the northern part of New York State. That was when I was introduced for the first time to electronic music and to all these kinds of generators and oscillators. I got sick of it in the beginning because heres an engineer talking to a composer. But I finally bought it and caught myself up into these sounds and so I got used to it. Now Im objectified. I was the first one who dared to put a quartet in Carnegie Hall of Moog synthesizers.
DRE: What did people think of this back then? I imagine some people where offended.
GK: Oh, sure. The thing is that there was a very famous impresario at the time who presented me in a concert. When the concert started and at intermission some people came to me and said, I dont understand. How can you do that piece of crap like this in your concert? The impresario said You wait. Thats the future.
DRE: It took a little longer than you all thought.
GK: Yes and today we have virtual synthesizers. I can have a little keyboard of about four octaves and I put it into a 12 inch Mac laptop and I have a virtual Moog on the computer. Thats all they need.
DRE: Youre very good with computers obviously.
GK: For my age. We have three ages. You know that? Young, middle-aged and you look good for your age.
DRE: What about new music?
GK: Thats why people like the Reboot Stereophonic came to me and they took some of my old music. If youre Jewish youll think somethings funny. I put Yiddish songs through the Moog synthesizer. They loved it so they put it out. I also did the first rock service for a synagogue which was created in 1968 and became a classic over the years.
DRE: What are you working on now?
GK: Im always working on something. Right now Im writing a concerto. I wrote an opera two years ago based on a famous Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who saved 100,000 Hungarian Jews during the war and disappeared. I also wrote an opera about him called Raoul.
DRE: Has that gone up?
GK: No. The important thing is that I wrote it. Many people talk about writing an opera and they never do, but I wrote it.
DRE: Are more of your older albums going to be reissued?
GK: In the past I brought like 20 or 30 albums that all move around. Some of them are not there anymore and you find them on the Internet.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
What a charming guy. A reverse revolutionary indeed.