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Tonto\'s Expanding Head Band
That they’re playing on Saturday at The Big Chill is exciting enough. But the fact that they’re bringing DJ Moonpup’s dad Malcolm Tonto to The Big Chill solely to check music’s progression since the 70s (when he invented the synth) is an honour for us all. Malcolm Cecil And DJ Moonpup talk us through working with Stevie Wonder, and dole out fashion advice (so as to not clash with our very own Mixmaster Morris).Over to DJ Moonpup…
With a name like Moonpup, are you really all hippies at heart?
When I was living in Malibu, California with my hippy parents (yes my dad had a band named "Tonto's Expanding Head Band"). It was 1983 and I was working at my first radio station (KBU) as a fledgling DJ. I always wore shorts so the resident DJ Malibu Mimi referred to me on air as the beach dog. Well as I was very young and very silly (nothings changed except I’m not so very young anymore), I used to moon people quite often as it always raised a giggle. So I told Mimi that I was a Moon dog rather than a Beach dog, however there was a character named Moondog that resided in the Malibu of the virtual movie world in the famed 60's beach blanket series called "Gidget". So as I was a fresh green DJ who needed a catchy name, I became a PUP instead of a Dog. So since then I became known as MoonPUP instead of BeachDOG. I still have a Dad with a band named "Tonto's Expanding Head Band" so I guess I am just another old hippy at heart.
How has the synth market evolved?
One of the reasons I wanted Malcolm (Tonto) to come to the Big Chill was as much for a new generation to experience the phenomenon that is Tonto but to allow my Dad to see where the music and culture he helped to pioneer has advanced in the last 35 years, and to meet fellow musical engineers, musicians and collaborators and to experience the very best of what the synth world has to offer. There’s no doubt the Big Chill is the best place for him to experience that vibe. I'm confident if not hopeful that some form of creative collaboration will come out of the experience and that my Dad will be somehow inspired by what he sees and hears.
To allow him to experience bands & Dj's such as Coldcut live and to meet such fellow genius as Matt Black or Mixmaster Morris and to open his eyes to how far the synth culture has developed is a real treat for me. One of the reasons I picked the Big Chill was that it is one of the best examples of a fantastic eclectic electronic line up and that it has no lack of amazing train spotters every where you turn. I’m proud to have created a moment in time where Malcolm can finally meet Mixmaster Morris live in person as the Mixmaster himself is one of Tonto's biggest fans, although I have told Malcolm not to wear his studded gold lamee hippy spaceman’s gear so as not to clash with Morris. I met Mixmaster approx 1993 on a boat party in the San Francisco Bay. I was Dj-ing on one deck and I finished my set and Morris was dj-ing on another deck. during his set he played one of Tonto's tracks and I went bezerk as nobody I had ever heard before had ever played one of my dads tracks at a rave setting. WOW I was amazed and Morris and I became my lifetime mate at that very moment. (No not MY lifetime mate silly!!)
Which decade was synth’s ‘time’?
I think you have to say the 90's were a good creative time. I have always loved the Kraftwork influence in the 80's, but it was Coldcut and similar sampling genius' of the 80's that developed massively in the 90's & onward. The onslaught of bedroom synth junkies, independent record labels and dj development was tremendous during this fertile period.
What can Big Chillers expect aurally and visually?
We have very cool visuals of TONTO and will be using live video cameras so Big Chillers can see what we are doing live up close. I'm very pleased that my mom Poli will be there and her amazing artwork will be shared in the experience as it is being used in our visual show. Our show is a total family affair and while the Big Chill has always very much been a family festival, for me its actually the very first time to be at any festival with not my kids, but with my parents. Wow, how cool is that!!!
And now, over to, Malcolm Cecil…
How do all the synths translate into the live show, as you're unable to bring the synths over will you try to recreate that sound or architecture?
TONTO (an acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra") is a bit on the big side to bring to Big Chill this year but the full sonic splendour for which TONTO is known will not be compromised. Our visuals are specially prepared for this BC performance and are totally new. They will feature "Virtual TONTO" and the debut of some original, stunning, colourful three dimensional art pieces created by POLI.
Tell us about the Wonder years?
TONTO's Expanding Head Band released "Zerotime" (our first album) in March 1971. Two months later, on the last weekend in May, which in the USA is a holiday called "Memorial Day", Stevie Wonder came to New York City looking for us. He showed up at Mediasound (where TONTO was living at that time) wearing a pistachio green jumpsuit and carrying a copy of "Zerotime" under his arm, asking if he could "see" TONTO. He had turned 21 on May 13th, about two weeks before, and consequently his recording contract with Motown and his publishing agreement with Jo Bette had both become null and void. Officially he had not written any new songs in three years but he had kept them in his head in anticipation of this event. He was following Marvin Gaye's approach to his music - he wanted total control over how his records sounded.
TONTO, being keyboard oriented, fascinated him. He wanted to play all the instruments himself, however, being unsighted, he needed us to not only program TONTO but also engineer the recording and handle all of the logistics and day to day administrative chores of record production leaving him free to focus his full energy into creating the music. From the very first session we hit it off famously. We enjoyed working together and had an extraordinary rapport. The music just flowed out constantly - and we captured it. We recorded seventeen songs that first weekend.
Often when we were doing some techie activity in which Stevie was not directly involved, he would become bored and would sit down at an instrument (we usually had them all set up ready to record in a circle, drums, grand piano, various electric keyboards, a vocal mic and of course TONTO) and play and sing whatever came into his head. He was always trying out ideas for new songs. We recorded everything he did.
He liked that we put ourselves on "Stevie Time" - working weekends, nights, holidays, whenever he wanted to go into the studio and record. To Stevie there is no difference between night and day. In recording studios it's the same, there are no windows to the outside world and no clocks so the time of day doesn't mean much and time becomes purely subjective.
We always worked on songs, not albums. In the four years we worked together we produced over 240 songs, most of which have never been released - and some of them are really great! When we had to deliver an album we would choose the songs from our ever-expanding catalogue. In fact one album got its name from that process. We were trying to select songs for a new album and every song we played Stevie said "That’s just GOTTA go on the album!.” After about 30 songs we said "hey, Stevie, this is an LP, not a talking book!". Stevie grabbed on to the idea immediately. "Why don't we release all 30 songs as a "Book" of 15 singles and call it 'Talking Book'?" Well, Motown x'd the book of singles part but kept the album name - "Talking Book". (Techie note: talking books are for the blind and have running times of up to an hour per side because they are speech quality, recorded at 16 2/3/ rpm - half the speed of commercial music vinyl records which normally run 18 to 20 mins per side).
In 1972 we moved from New York to Malibu, California. TONTO first lived at the Record Plant and later moved in with us at Point Dume in Malibu. During those years everybody wanted TONTO on their albums. We made four with Stevie, four with the Isley Brothers, one each with Minnie Ripperton, Ravi Shankar and George Harrison, Weather Report, Billy Preston, Joan Baez, Syreeta Wright (Stevie's first ex-wife), Randy Newman, The Doobie Brothers, Dixie Chicken, Richie Havens, and the list goes on and on. It was a very productive period for us. But we paid a heavy price - TONTO's second Head Band album, "It's About Time" got pushed back and back. Eventually we had to choose between working endlessly with Stevie and many other talented artists or taking time out to finish our own album. In late 1974, after delivering "Fulfillingness' First Finale", we decide to take a break from the hectic Hollywood Music Recording Scene and return to making our own music. So ended the "Wonder Years".
How do you all make your daily crust, any ongoing projects?
Since you ask, we have just released a best of TONTO’s Expanding Head Band CD which will be available at the festival ;-). TONTO is alive and well and living in upstate New York where we have our own studio and still produce, engineer and play on records and make sound tracks for movies and documentaries. We also "finish" (overdub, mix and master) CDs and sound tracks. Our never-ending ongoing project is archiving and restoring old analogue tape and acetate disk recordings. We recently discovered and restored a rare 30-minute live performance of the original 1957 Miles Davis Quintet in Concert which CBS Records has now released (Miles Davis "Round About Midnight" Legacy Edition).
Tonto’s Expanding Head Band perform in the Sanctuary Stage 10.40pm Saturday August 5th
Tonto's Expanding Headband - Biography
Tonto's Expanding Head Band was an influential electronic music duo from the 1970s, despite releasing a relatively small number of albums. The project was conceived by two Grammy-winning musicians and sound designers: Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff.
The TONTO synthesizer
TONTO is also an acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra": the world's first (and still the largest) multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer, designed and constructed by Malcolm Cecil. Its warm, fat bass sounds were particularly noteworthy and still cannot be recreated by the current breed of MIDI digital synthesizers and samplers.
TONTO was essentially a series III Moog modular synthesizer expanded with various modules (Serge with Moog-like panels, Oberheim, Arp 2500/2600, etc.). The first and only TONTO currently resides at Mutato Muzika studios, the headquarters of Mark Mothersbaugh and Devo.
Tonto's Expanding Head Band's first recording, the album "Zero Time", was released in 1971 and attracted the attention of many leading artists of that era because of the unique, warm, musical sounds that TONTO was capable of generating. Chief among those artists was Stevie Wonder whose involvement with TONTO started with "Music of My Mind" and continued through "Talking Book", "Innervisions", "Fulfillingness' First Finale" and "Jungle Fever", all projects which featured Margouleff and Cecil as associate producers, engineers and programmers.
Writing in Keyboard Magazine in 1984, John Dilberto asserted that "... this collaboration changed the perspectives of black pop music as much as The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper altered the concept of white rock". Indeed, the remainder of the 70s and 80s featured TONTO on albums from Quincy Jones, Bobby Womack, The Isley Brothers, Gil Scott-Heron and Weather Report, as well as releases from Steve Stills, The Doobie Brothers, Dave Mason, Little Feat and Joan Baez, among others.
The TONTO synthesizer was used in the movie "Phantom of the Paradise" (1974). The band's second album "It's About Time" was released in 1975.
Riding again in the 1990s
In 1996, the album "Tonto Rides Again" was released, featuring all of the "Zero Time" tracks in addition to seven additional unavailable tracks (including those from "It's About Time"). To coincide with the release, Mark Mothersbaugh (from the band Devo) said the following:
Once upon a time, Tonto represented the cutting edge of artificial intelligence in the world of music - Robert and Malcolm are the mad chefs of aural cuisine with beefy tones and cheesy timbres, making brain chili for those brave enough and hungry enough. Consequently, back in the cultural wasteland of the Midwest, the release of Tonto's Expanding Head Band was an inspirational indicator for starving Spudboys who had grown tired of the soup du jour. It was official - noise was now Muzak, and Muzak was now noise. So with Tonto "riding again" and the orb-of-sound resurrected, expect a healing. The masses are asses who need Tonto's glasses. Lookout, here comes Tonto!
Also, Stevie Wonder said:
How great it is at a time when technology and the science of music is at its highest point of evolution, to have the reintroduction of two of the most prominent forefathers in this music be heard again. It can be said of this work that it parallels with good wine. As it ages it only gets better with time. A toast to greatness... a toast to Zero Time... forever.
Written: 1st Jan, 70
Read: 7149 times
