ARP "WonderArp" ad, Down Beat Magazine 1973

 

ARP "WonderArp" half-page black and white advertisement from page 25 in the June 21, 1973 issue of Down Beat Magazine.

To date, I've posted three of the many many ARP ads that were popping up in Downbeat magazine during the 1970s. Each one very unique, but yet they all go together like peas in a pod.

These include a '74 Jimmy Page as well as '75 Carpenters and Pete Townshend ads. Aren't they gorgeous?

Now here's a forth, much earlier 1973 ad featuring Stevie Wonder and the ARP 2600. It's much simpler in design and although it still has the 'call to action' mail-in portion, its not that distinctive circular design with the ARP logo bullseye we see in later ads. 

More interesting that the design is what's available in those mail-in sections. In the WonderARP ad we get checkboxes for:

• send me everything you've got on all the ARP synthesizers, including free demo record
• $6.00 for the 2600 manual
• $1.00 for Odyssey manual
• $9.95 (regularly $14.95) for a 45-minute cassette course on playing the Odyssey live

In the Carpenters and Jimmy Page ads, we get three choices

• $9.95 cassette (as above)
• free demo record
• free full colour catalog. 

And finally, in the Pete Townshend ad we still get three choices, but they include a new item!

• 213 page "learning music with synthesizers" for $7.50 plus 50 cents postage and handling
• $3.00  "Who's ARP" silkscreened poster
• free ARP demo record and catalog

From a collector's point of view, this is a treasure trove of information on what's floating around out there - and I'm always on the look out (for a half-decent price).

Demo records and manuals I got... but those other items... woooooo-weeee! I want 'em all.

First, there's that cassette on learning to play the Odyssey live. Never seen it in real life... but someone's gone to the trouble of taking what I believe is the cassette tape created by Roger Powell and published by ARP in 1973 and added pics from an ARP booklet to create a video. They've plopped it up on Vimeo - you can click on what I believe is the cassette cover below to hear the cassette.

The second item of interest is that "Who's ARP" poster. I've only seen one or two pop up in online auctions, like this photo I found online. 

The third document that catches my interest and I've never been able to get my hands on is that 213-page "Learning music with synthesizers" book. And even if I had it in my collection - fat chance of me scanning it. I can't sit still long enough to scan 213 pages! Go talk to mu:zines... patience of a saint, that one... (shout out!)

Luckily for all of you, if you had done a quick search online chances are you would have found a scanned copy like I did over at thesnowfields.com (PDF). Not the best quality, but a fun read if you are into that sort of thing. :)

Here's an image of the front cover of the second edition from 1974. 

Written by David Friend, Alan R. Pearlman and Thomas D. Piggott, the book is based on programming the ARP Odyssey but, as said in the preface by Mr. Friend, "the theory and techniques can generally be applied to any synthesizer". And he's not wrong. Filled with tons of diagrams and drawings, the book is broken up into three parts - Theory, Operation and Applications. Like I said... a good read. 

Now that I've got those out of my system... back to scanning...

And I've scanned one page. That's enough for today.

Moog Sonic Six "Moog makes the scene" ad, Rolling Stone 1973

Moog Sonic Six "Moog makes the scene" half page black and white advertisement from page 51 in the February 1, 1973 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine.

After the great response to my early 70's ARP ad from Rolling Stone, I thought it would be fun to post this Moog Sonic Six ad from the same issue... just two page flips away!

The Sonic Six doesn't get a lot of love when it comes to advertising compared to its siblings like the Minimoog. Although Moog did come out with a lovely colour brochure in 1974.

Its interesting to note that in the brochure, Moog is not just going after the live musician looking for a light-weight synth in a carry case, but its also using up as much ad copy targeting the classroom as well. Now compare that to the Rolling Stone ad... no mention of classrooms at all.

Moog definitely knew their audience and stayed mum on the school angle.  :)

The ad copy is top notch - there is so much said in such a tiny amount of space. I liked it so much I've typed it all out...

"The synthesizer that started it all is the one behind the innovative new music groups like Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Mike Quatro, Jam Band. Behind the restless exploration of new sounds, rhythms and tone colors by Gershon Kingsley's First Moog Quartet. Now Moog quality and engineering are available in the Sonic Six, the complete electronic synthesizer in a compact carry-along case. And the famous Minimoog that brings studio quality to your live performances. For name of your nearest dealer, write Moog Music Inc., Academy Street, P.O. Box 131, Williamsville, New York 14221."

It uses phrases that have since become synonymous with Moog such as "the synthesizer that started it all" and "Moog quality and engineering", and for good measure references the Minimoog (smart move!). But even more exciting is the name dropping - Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Mike Quatro and ... one of my favs... Gershon Kingsley.

Gershon Kinglsey is probably best known for his song Popcorn.

Love that song. He also formed the First Moog Quartet, who were -  according to Wikipedia - "the first to ever play electronic music in Carnegie Hall." With Bob Moog there too! Kingsley passed away last December at the age of 97.

Now, I'm embarrassed to admit this next bit, and that's that I had a bit of a mind-blank for the first few minutes while staring at that lovely artwork in the ad. ELP, Kingsley and Quatro were all bands mentioned in the ad-copy, but I was struggling to remember the other two bands - Trilogy and Paintings.

Yeah... then it clicked. Trilogy is an album from ELP, and Paintings is an album from the Mike Quatro Jam Band. Duh.

And speaking of the illustration, I *love* the artwork used for this ad. There's even a signature there - Lawson - but I haven't tried looking it up to see if I can find anything interesting on the artist.

If you know more of Lawson's work, send me a note!

ARP Odyssey "Conduct an Arp" ad, Rolling Stone 1973

ARP Odyssey "Conduct an Arp" half page black and white advertisement from page 47 in the February 1, 1973 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine.

Sometimes I'll take an hour or two and just look through my archives, when all of a sudden something new will jump out at me. And so it is that after more than sixth months of brochure posts, it's time to fall back in love with a synth advertisement.  In this case, a lovely Arp Odyssey ad from Rolling Stone. I've never actually seen this ad in the wild anywhere else - in another publication or online as a scan. It has just somehow managed to hide in plain sight from me.

A happy surprise.

And not-so-coincidentally, The Alan R. Pearlman Foundation / ARP Archives happens to be at NAMM (booth #8600) soonly. Make sure to check them out and show your support - financially and otherwise! 

Before Contemporary Keyboard came on the scene in 1975, many Americans would find synth ads popping up in the pages of Rolling Stone - what founder Jann Wenner described as a cross between a magazine and a newspaper that wasn't "just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces". She also described it as "reflecting what we see are the changes in rock and roll and the changes related to rock and roll".

What better product to advertise in such a magazine as a synthesizer?  Synths had begun to change the landscape of rock with many musicians embracing the technology, and the Odyssey, released just a year earlier, was already creating buzz (pun intended) on stage and in studios.

A perfect match.

The ad itself it quite tall - it spans the full vertical of the page making it over 17" high. And half the width of the page, about five inches. At the top of the ad is the lovely and large, bold ad title. And right underneath that we get that first large image. Even with the big illustration, there is still lots of space, so its not surprising that there is a fair amount of content, but it is surprising how technical that content gets. After an initial introduction, readers come across this...

"Add such state-of-the-art firsts as phase-locked oscillators, digital ring modulator, sample and hold circuits, and a lot of the functions of a complete studio synthesizer, and you've got yourself a genuine space age instrument."

ARP obviously believed there were some pretty technical musicians reading the mag, and quite frankly, even those that didn't understand the lingo would probably be impressed by it. I still am. :)

And if the buzz words didn't impress you, then the very bottom of the ad might...

"ARP ... conducted by Stevie Wonder / Pete Townshend / Ike & Tina Turner / Frank Zappa / The Beach Boys / Elton John / and many others"

ARP name droppin'!  It's an effective marketing technique and if you've read any of my earlier blog posts about ARP ads, you know I think ARP was one of the best name-droppers in the biz.

But the real joy of this advertisement is obviously the illustrations that play off the "orchestra conductor" theme and content of the ad. I'm a big fan of illustrations in synth ads, so much so that I've created a blog tag so you can see some of the other lovely artwork to be found in synth marketing material.

Here we get two lovely pieces of art. The top image is that of a conductor in a auditorium with just an Odyssey on the stage, and, even better is the second image of the conductor standing beside the ARP.

Tell me that ain't gorgeous. I dare ya!

I just wish there was an artist's signature included with the ad. If you recognize the work, please send me a note!

The ARP Family of Synthesizer Demo Record, 1973

The ARP Family of Synthesizer Demo Record from 1973.

 Ever since I first used my USB record player to record that ARP Proportional Pitch Control sound sheet, I've been recording my old records. And now I've finally gotten around to using it again to record another older ARP demo record.

The first side of the record is all about demo'ing a few different  excerpts of music created by synth owners - with a voice over introducing each piece. The second side includes four discreet songs created with ARP synths. No voice-over here.

The ARP Family of Synthesizers - Side 1 - 1973 by Retro Synth Ads


The ARP Family of Synthesizers - Side 2 - 1973 by Retro Synth Ads
It is that first side of the record that interests me most as a marketing person. Although the music created by ARP synths do the final sell-job, it is the voice-over that steers the listener with that one-sided conversation.

And ARP is in fine form - really pushing their synthesizers in every industry - TV, film, education, on stage, on tour, and in recording studios. And they also give a big nod to all the amateur musicians across the country that were starting to buy synthesizers as prices started to drop (or at least ARP figured they would be).

ARP is also in fine form on the name-dropping. Just a tad over a minute in to side one, the announcer drops Pete Townsend's name. Bam! And the next thing you know, you are listening to a bit of Teenage Wasteland - I bet you can guess which part. :)

But it is about three and a half minutes in that really starts me smiling. ARP makes a good effort to get it's synthesizers in the schools by suggesting that their synthesizers possess "tonal resources beyond that of even a symphony orchestra". Good work.

ARP includes two musical excerpts to promote the use of synths in educational facilities. The first is a short "interesting interpretation" of a romanian folk dance by a student on an ARP Odyssey. Meh. And the second is a very short example of students creating their own compositions "using sounds of their own invention". Starts around the 5:00 minute mark. Not long enough. :D

Side two is made up of four songs by two musicians.

Roger Powell has been creating "retro-future music since 1973". He was the keyboardist for Utopia back in the day. Check out his Web site and MySpace page for his latest work.

I'm not as familiar with Dave Fredricks, and am assuming this is his Web page. Definitely got some chops  :)

My short summary of each song:

• Song 1: Dave Fredericks doing his thing. Ends strongly.
• Song 2 (starts at 2:23): Roger Powell piano-like piece. A nice long ending with a few odd things going on.
• Song 3 (starts at 3:57): Roger Powell is outta control! I kid!  Obviously a lot of effort went into this - just not my thing.
• Song 4 (starts at 5:27): Great song to end on. Dave Fredricks sounds like a new-wave Lawrence Welk. 

One of my big peeves when documenting ads and promotions is when there is no date printed anywhere - and that includes records. Unfortunately there was no date printed or etched anywhere on this record, so I decided to do a bit of search.

Obviously, one of the first places I looked for clues was in the recording. Side one contains all the jibber-jabber, so I focused my attention there and came up with these clues.

Clue 1: Four synthesizers are mentioned:

• Soloist
• 2500 - "the elegant concert grand of synthesizers"
• 2600
• Odyssey  

Wikipedia's ARP page includes a sequential listing of the introduction dates for all their synthesizers - and since no other synths are mentioned, I thought there was a good chance that it must have come out sometime between 1972 (after the Odyssey came out) and 1974 (before the String Ensemble made it's debute).

Clue 2. The first excerpt of music on side one is Pete Townsend's recognizable use of his "three ARP synthesizers" on the album "Who's Next".  The voice-over mentions that it had just been recently released - which was 1971. So, that help narrowed it down to roughly the same time period.

Scanning through the ARP ads that I've posted using my very own handy-dandy Advertising Timeline Tool (shameless plug), I quickly came across this ARP dealer ad-sheet, which includes all four of the synths mentioned on the record. This dealer sheet, like the record, is also pushing that education-angle, especially for the Odyssey. In my blog post I speculated that ad-sheet came out around 1973 or 1974.

So then I started looking at older ARP ads that I haven't posted yet - as well as started a Google Images search. I decided to contentrate on that classic Pete Townsend image of him leaning against his ARP, since I knew he was being heavily promoted by ARP at the time. The images that popped up quickly lead me to the "Thats Alright Mama blog - a blog dedicated to "custom records pressed by Rite Records of Cincinnati". And before you know it, I come screen-to-face with this.Yup. And cool - this record was pressed in Cincinnati. And best of all, the blogger includes a recording date - 1973!

Shortly thereafter I also came across this page. And this. . Doh!

Mystery solved!

The Internet is my friend.    :)