In 1974 while I attended St. Olaf’s Paracollege, my best friend Larry Heyl ran the Moog Studio. He taught me how to plug patch cords and fiddle knobs to wring squawks out of the Moog Modular Synthesizer. I was earning a hand-rolled degree in Creative Studies so I added torturing the Moog to my curriculum.

To me the Moog was a machine for making weird noises so I pushed it into uncharted territories of sonic strangeness. I didn’t emulate any musician but indulged in pure sonic experimentation. I taped a handful of tracks and called my album “Babie’s[sic] First Words” Twenty years later my daughter renamed it “Boogafoo Music”, which stuck.

St. Olaf Moog Studio Gear:

Moog modules:

1 x 901 oscillator bank with 3 oscillators
2 x 921 oscillators
1 x 905 reverb
1 x 903A noise generator
1 x 904 filter
3 x 902 voltage controlled amplifiers
3 x 911 envelope generators
1 x 951 keyboard

Locally made:

3 x 901 oscillator banks, 1 with 3, 1 with 4, and 1 with 5 oscillators
2 x 4:1 mixer
4 x 2:1 mixer

3 x stereo tape machines (Revox A77, Tandberg 6021X, Ampex 601)