The Cheeky Moogies of Pop

 

The Monkees were the very first rock group to use a Moog

Mickey Dolenz bought one

Although I have seen this Doors tune cited as the first major use

Soon all the stars were at it

Too dour to be cheeky but George Harrison certainly had some effrontery in releasing a whole album of his Moog dribblings (one side actually played by Moog-man-for-hire Bernie Krause

They all had a go

Byrds too - although they are too earnest to be filed under "cheeky monkey"

Anonymous in Comments points me to this shot of Roger McGuinn and a Moog from the gatefold of Byrds untitled

Hang on a minute, that came out at the very start of 1968. 2001, A Space Odyssey came out in April. Did the Byrds come up with the idea independently, or had they heard about the film being in production? 

The lyrics

In 1996, we ventured to the moon

Onto the sea of crisis like children from the womb

We journeyed cross the great wall plain beneath the mountain range

And then we saw the pyramid, it looked so very strange

This beacon had a field of force that circled all around

And not a man could get inside, no way could be found

It was here for thousands of years before our life began

Waiting very patiently for evolving man

When the galaxy was young, they looked upon the Earth

And saw that its position was promising for birth

They searched for life, but finding none, they left a beacon bright

Its signal had not been disturbed in the eternal light

How wise they were to choose this place, they knew when we arrived

That our atomic energy we'd harnessed and survived

I look out on the Milky Way for people of the dawn

I know that they will come some day, but will our wait be long?

In 1996, we ventured to the moon

Onto the sea of crisis like children from the womb

We journeyed cross the great wall plain beneath the mountain range

And then we saw the pyramid, it looked so very strange

Ah, I see - the song and the film are based on the same Arthur C. Clarke story, "The Sentinel"....

I don't know why I never came up with  this gruesome but conceptually accurate pun before: 

sci-fidelia 

Would have worked as well as synthedelia, describing the electronic / rock convergence of late Sixties

"Electronic rock" was a term quite widely bandied about at the time, I discovered only quite some time after doing that piece. All studio-as-instrument stuff was considered part of "electronic rock" though, since it involved manipulating magnetic tape - not just rock with the add-on of synth and Moogy stuff.  So psychedelia and "electronic rock" were if not the same, then overlapping considerably. 

From Lilian Roxon's Rock Encyclopedia, published 1969

This one song is quite a good example of synth-meets-psych - how disappointed I was on picking up the second-hand album to find not a single song in the same vein as "Old Man Willow", instead it's all  rather hearty and rootsy gut-bucket rock. (Didn't  Elephant's Memory go on to back up Lennon during his power-to-the-people, back-to-basics phase?). Well, the middle section of jazzy horns and vamping piano chords in "Old Man Willow" reveals these traits, if only it all stayed in the dreamy, ripply, trance state...

Perhaps it's more of an electric organ than a synth sound

Someone should write a piece on the role of keyboards in psychedelia... It's as key as any studio trickery like phasing or backwards-guitar or wotnot... 

More from Roxon: 

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Despite the title, this Anthony Newley / Delia Derbyshire electronovelty doesn't actually involve a Moog I don't think

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Anon suggests that Moog possibly on this Byrds tune "The Hungry Planet" but if so it's just a woosh or two

Tyler in Comments reminds me of the electronic dabblings of the Dead - this puts Garcia's voice through Moog 

Jefferson Airplane's dabbles in that direction

Talking about sci-fidelia, the title track of "Crown of Creation" is lyrically derived from John Wyndham's The Chrysalids.