Moogs in space

>> The Unireverse rock the cosmos in a vintage analog style

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Imagine you were to procure yourself a small monkey with the intention of teaching it a few simple tricks, small-object retrieval and the like, and the little bastard turned out to be a world-class chess wizard.

Or say you bought a second-hand Chevy Nova off some filthy rural eccentric, just a set of wheels to get around, right? You discover that buddy's installed a nuclear-fission engine that'll get you to Neptune on a good traffic day and makes for peel-outs that register on the Richter scale.

Total bonus, no? When Brian Damage, formerly of noise squad Phyecus, and his roommate Alex Moskos, of Ottawa indie rockers Kubelka, hunkered down in their Montreal living room to work out the Moog-pop project they'd been considering, that's kinda the bag they found themselves in. "We thought it would be more straight pop," says Damage. "We envisioned something like that Hot Butter tune, 'Popcorn,' stuff like that. From the first rehearsal on, it became a totally different beast."

The beast is called the Unireverse, and just recently they released their first CD, Plays the Music of godspeed you black emperor!* on the Moog (*and Others), on Damage's Total Zero label. It's faithful to the original idea of resurrecting the Moog-based cover band concept, but a tinny, gimmicky tribute to the hits of the day it's not.

Bob's their uncle

A note of explanation, for those who've spaced the analog-synth revival of the last few years (keywords: Air, Radiohead, Money Mark). "Moog" refers to a line of odd-sounding electronic keyboards created by American entrepreneur Bob Moog in the mid-'60s. "Moog didn't make the first electronic keyboard," says Damage, "but he made the first popular ones. Moog's own logic was that, having a background in music, he knew what sounds musicians wanted to use. That's what made his keyboards different from the other electronic ones out there."

"Different" is right--the Moog synth's cartoonish sonic possibilities blew up with characters in the novelty-album arena. The late '60s were inundated with robot-pop versions of soul hits, holiday jingles and the like, often far more enjoyable than they really should have been.

That's all Damage and Moskos wanted to do--a relief, perhaps, after their brainy and difficult previous projects. So what happened? Irradiated insect bites? CIA mind-control beams? Or maybe just a choice of tunes to cover that betrays the pairs' love of gigantic psych-rock opuses. "We're milking that whole thing for all it's worth," confesses Moskos.

"The first songs we did were the godspeed! tune and 'Inna Gadda Da Vida,'" recalls Damage, "just because they'd been going through my head for a while. I'd actually done a test, a demo, of 'Inna Gadda Da Vida' in that style, months previous." Add space-rock overlords Hawkwind and cosmo-jazz prophet Sun Ra to the rehearsal list and you've got ideal conditions for total fucking psychedelic meltdown.

(The rehearsal) space is the place

Many of you readers are thinking, right now, "Wait, did they get the notoriously reticent godspeed! peoples' blessing on this foolishness?"

"Um, no," mumbles Moskos.

"We didn't get it prior," says Damage, "but they seem to be taking it in stride. I guess they have a good sense of humour about it."

"Especially being up there with Sun Ra and Hawkwind," adds Moskos. "We treat them all with a fair amount of love. It's not like we're mocking them."

Late jazz legend Sun Ra gets particular props from the pair--"A big influence," continues Moskos, "in the fact that he was doing stuff that was so out there. He used electronic keyboards very early on--one of the first people in jazz to do so. He was obsessed with them. He did all kinds of crazy things, using tape machines, doing crazy, almost ambient music long before anyone else, just by running the headphone jack of a tape machine into the input jack, creating all kinds of weird reverb and stuff. They used to put new models of keyboards aside for him at music stores."

The Unireverse have no shortage of odd-model keys themselves. "We're using mostly vintage analog gear," says Damage, surveying the clutter in their living room/rehearsal space. "The main beatbox is an Acetone Rhythm Ace, which is a beast of a drum machine, meant to be propped up against your organ, I guess, for accompaniment. Besides that we've got the Radio Shack Mini-Moog and the Casio SH, and Alex has the Mini-Korg as well--all vintage gear. The Radio Shack one I actually bought new in the early '80s, my first keyboard purchase."

There's also a pocket-sized theremin in there, and an electronic bagpipe, the less of which is said the better. The Unireverse squeeze their gear for all their worth--a good move, considering the limited-time offer some of it constitutes. "The Mini-Moog has already started to decompose," says Damage. "It's got a few dents from some memorable live shows, and the lining is actually starting to melt. It's this weird felt lining that, I want to point out, Bob Moog didn't approve of, but the Radio Shack guys insisted on putting in. It's starting to turn into tar."

"Never go against the Bob's wisdom," says Moskos, shaking his head sadly.

You can dance if you want to

The Unireverse are planning another release, a full vinyl album for which they've already selected a few numbers. "We're doing a Pharaoh Sanders tune, 'The Creator Has a Master Plan,'" says Moskos, "and we're working on a Silver Apples tune, 'Lovefinger.' Got that one down already."

The original Sanders track, fans of his will know, featured a beautiful vocal element, something absent from the Unireverse's instrumental set-up. A sign of things to come? Sort of, perhaps.

"The vocal parts of 'Creator' will be reproduced on the keyboard. I don't think we'll be singing anytime soon--although I would like to somehow get a wordless choir. Think of the old Star Trek theme song. We've been talking a lot about that."

One thing that's firmly in the mix now, and warping the band's sound further even than what's on the CD, is the recent addition of Suzuki Kid on beats. "He does really out-there drum & bass, almost pure noise," says Damage of the Ontario native. So much for the minimal, metronomic rhythms that have so far supported the band's groaning, buzzing, bristling tones.

"People who listen to his music," says Moskos, "are always really surprised to see how much restraint he shows when he plays with us. It's working out pretty well, though. We're doing a good job of keeping him in check. What's great about it is that people actually dance to his beats. Our first show, which we played with the Acetone, was a stand-and-stare situation. But when we played at Jailhouse with Suzuki Kid, everyone was dancing. The programmed-beat sound is a clue to people that they can dance if they want. It's been difficult for us in that we're used to the Acetone, which just cranks out one beat, whereas with Suzuki, there are all kinds of possibilities. He can stop the beat, dub it out, all kinds of things."

"There was the possibility that he would change the music dramatically with these crazy drum & bass beats," says Damage, "but we wanted to take it as far out as possible, the most over-the-top music project we could possibly do."

With Goagajah and Detroit Metal at Jailhouse Rock tonight, Thursday, March 29, 9pm, $6, and with the Peter Parkers at Casa del Popolo on Sunday, April 1, 9pm, $5