MOTM

<< << > -----Original Message-----
> From: jwbarlow@... [mailto:jwbarlow@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 8:24 PM
> To: motm@egroups.com
> Subject: Re: [motm] Emu control voltage keyboards

> In a message dated 6/6/2000 11:19:28 AM, ivancu@... writes:
>
> > All of these were formerly from Frank Zappa's studio, so they hold a
> >particular sentimental value for me as well.
>
> How did you come by these (if you don't mind my asking)? >>

For some reason I didn't get this message.  I noticed that happened a few 
other times; not sure what's up.

Anyway, the story of these goes back a couple of years.  A while ago I 
happened upon the Joe's Garage Website:

http://www.zappa.com/Joes_Garage/Joe's_garage.html

This is a division of Barfko-Swill, the Zappa estate company that distributes 
his music.  Evidently this sight had been up for  a while, but most of the 
good stuff was gone.  What was left was not too interesting, mostly old 
flight cases.  March 1999 I l was going through the list again and found three
 "keyboard for Emu analog synthesizer" listed at $75 each.  I called and it 
sounded like a done deal, but after a few days was told that they were doing 
inventory and were going to repost all the items in a while after they 
figured out what they actually had in the warehouse.

That went on for months, and then for a year... and nothing (still nothing as 
you can see by the website).  So I called again and ended up talking to a 
very helpful guy in the warehouse who used to work managing Frank's gear.  He 
told me the story about the Emu modulars, and that Frank hadn't used them in 
some time, and that the modulars were sent to a museum in France but years 
later they found the keyboards and the museum didn't want them (the exhibit 
was setup... they didn't want to change it).  So, they were added to the 
Joe's Garage list.  Anyway, I told the guy that I still wanted to buy them 
(he said "I never thought anyone would want them for anything), and he 
thought that even though the new list wasn't on the website that since he 
could verify them in inventory they could be sold.  So, a few phone calls 
later back and forth I ended up buying them for $75 each, along with $125 
FedEx shipping.  Unfortunately somebody there thought that packing meant 
wrapping thin cardboard around the units and shipping them, no padding at 
all.  Knobs and switches are damaged, cabinets are scratched, but to be 
honest they look like they were pretty beat from being in storage for many 
years.  Certainly salvagable though.

Needless to say I am very honored to be in their posession, much less the 
fact that I hope to one day have one of the 4000 keyboards controlling my 
MOTM rig.  It will be nice to have it once again doing what it was made to 
do, knowing that once upon a time Frank was twiddling its knobs and playing 
its keys.

Ivan