merry moog: traditional electronic holiday music

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:01:23 -0500

A gift of music from Anne Benkovitz and Thom Holmes for your holiday enjoyment. This site reprises several selected tracks from our Merry Moog holiday CD compilation from 2005. We’ve also included a few extras from Thom’s past holiday collections of original and remixed music. The original CD version included a spiffy CD case (see image above) designed by Anne that doubled as a Christmas tree ornament.

Click on the links below to listen to each track. Note that these recordings were transcribed from vinyl records. To the best of our knowledge, none of these recordings is currently available on CD. The copyright for each song remains, of course, with the recording artist.

Dedicated to the memory of Bob Moog (1934—2005)
CD Package design by Anne. ©2005
Song selections from the following vinyl albums:

Switched on Santa by Jean Jacques Perrey. Arrangements by Sy Mann. (1972, Pickwick SPCX-1007)

A Very Merry Electric Christmas to You by Douglas Leedy (Moog and Buchla synthesizers), (1970, Capitol ST-339)

Christmas Becomes Electric by Moog Machine (Kenny Ascher, Alan Foust, Norman Dolph), (1971, CBS Records CS-9959)

Moog Interludes
The original Merry Moog CD contained twelve, brief interludes performed on the Moog. These tracks were taken from my own archives of recorded studio sounds that I created on a Moog Modular synthesizer in 1972. Here is a sampling:

Bonus Tracks by Thom Holmes
(not included on the original Merry Moog CD)

I’ve always loved the John Lennon/Yoko Ono Happy Christmas song. I created this experimental remix in 2000. It consists of two real-time remixes of the same length that were then combined into the stereo version you hear in this recording. All of the effects were accomplished by simply manipulating the controls of a CD player.

My own version of the holiday classic. From 2001.

Dating from 2000, this track is an alternative soundtrack to a short film I made called Parade. Growing up in Detroit, I fondly associate the radio broadcasts of fundamentalist preachers with the holiday season. Because of this, I thought it was fitting to include this track on my holiday CD in 2000.

I created this mash-up in the early 1970s when my love of kung-fu movies was unbounded. I often spent my days off during the holidays going to kung fu films. This track appeared on my holiday CD in 2000.

Yes, this is a 45 RPM recording of the Three Stooges singing their own unique version of Jingle Bells.

Vinyl treasures of electronic music

merry moog: traditional electronic holiday music