pierreoliver wrote:
Tony Banks sold his mellotrons more because of their "tempramental nature" |
There was an interesting programme on Radio 4 this weekend on the history of the Mellotron & they interviewed Tony Banks and others - it seems most of those who took them on the road hated them, but those who had them for studio use loved them... it all came down to maintenance - the head of Streetley Electronics said the worst one they ever saw was Tony Banks's after the 'Seconds Out' tour, where the insides seemed to be held together with gaffa tape
. Given these stories, it seems that certain players only hated the machine because their road crews couldn't maintain them properly.
One story told on the programme was of Orchestral Manuevers In The Dark playing a French festival, where the lighting & instruments all ran off the same generator; the mellotron player would play a surging chord & the lighting tech would bring the lights up dramatically... causing a drop in power to the mellotron, which would grind to a halt - they had to send a note to the lighting techs with a list of the songs where the mellotron was used with the plea "keep it dark".
pierreoliver wrote:
It will be a pleasure seeing your organ.England is the first country I want to visit.Where do you live in England? |
I live about 30 minutes north of London in Stevenage - hey, when you come over, you could use the visit as an opportunity to bring me your M400 as a present... as for my Hammond, OK, it's a poor shot (I must get a decent photo one day...), but here's my L122 & 145... I really must re-start lessons again
Incidentally, have you heard of the new digital "Memotron", released earlier this year?
Definitely looks the business and considerably smaller than the original (would look great on top of my Hammond - dream, dream...)
Hmmm - seem to have drifted off the original purpose of this thread, the EMU Vintage Keys Module; anyway - I now have a 'watch' on two such items in Ebay, one of which, the guy's been trying to sell @ £200.00 for months now with no response - if it's still there when I get back from holiday (next Saturday, I'm off to Gran Canaria for a week of chilling out with my wife), I might see if he'll take an offer...
Edited by Jim Garten - June 05 2006 at 03:35