Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO & Jeff E. Winner with Raymond Scott's Motown Electronium

Video shot by Stan Warnow; bonus scene from DVD (http://ScottDoc.com)
• Transcript follows:

MARK MOTHERSBAUGH: So sick! I mean, there are temporary touch-buttons called "Doowah!" What does that mean?!

JEFF E. WINNER: It was made for Motown, so we figure he was trying to relate to their vocabulary.

MM: That's great. I don't know — but it really makes you wanna hear this thing. Looks like this was some sort of a — like that was the sequencer part of it. Decay, staccato, envelopes, and chords, but there's just such a mixture of things...

STAN WARNOW: You don't really know that much about what each one of these things did? It's a mystery to all of us, I think.

MM: It's all speculation until you fire it up. Maybe Mister Entenmann... is that his name? He would probably be able to come here and say, 'Here's what they did, and I'll tell you why he bought red Krylon spray paint for this...'

SW: Yeah, he would.

JW: Raymond told this guy what he wanted, and he executed it, on this very model.

MM: That's amazing.

SW: Mitzi said he worked on it from the very beginning, until it was shipped out to Motown.

MM: They made a beautiful cabinet for it. The cabinet's kinda interesting because it's the most retro part of it, in a way.

JW: Yeah.

MM: It looks like an old telephone communications station or something.

JW: An airplane.

SW: My dad valued all that stuff, and he had a complete wood-working shop, when he had that big place...

MM: When he was really going.

JW: He seemed to like this shape, because even his big rooms full of equipment, when it filled his room, was also this same kind of angle.

MM: Yeah, like a cockpit. You're sitting right there and you're like...

JW (to MM): Here's an earlier version, and here's that digital thing you were talking about last night. But he completely rebuilt it.

MM: Look at that room, that's amazing.

JW: See these angles?

MM: That's cool! (laughs)

JW: It used to be whole walls-full, then he shrunk it down, more and more.

MM: (laughs) This one almost fit on the console of your car, you could drive your Honda around town with a...

JW: Do you happen to remember if this is all removable? Does this stuff come off? Is this the base? You don't know? Is there 'guts' in there, or is that mostly empty?

MM: Oh no, there's stuff in there. Let me see... It's pushed up against the wall right now, so we can't... but there is some things inside it.

SW: That's what I was wondering.

• Category

  Music