North State Journal for Sunday, May 15, 2016
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A picture of Robert Moog and a quote grace the wall at the Moog Music Store in Asheville, Tuesday, May 10. Started by the American pioneer in electronic music, Robert “Bob” Moog, Moog Music is looking forward to the the annual Moogfest May 19 - 22 that will be hosted in Durham for the first time this year. The festival is all about conversation and experimentation between musicians, scientists, inventors, designers, and many more.
EAMON QUEENEY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL
MOOGFEST from page C1 participate in the free exchange and collaboration between some of the brightest technologists and the most creative artists in the world,” Parker said. The event started as a simple gathering of like-minded friends and musician fans of Moog and his musical inventions in New York City in 2004. The nature and tone of the festival changed drastically after Moog’s sudden passing in 2005. “It was a shock to lose Bob, and the festival becomes more of a celebration of Bob and his achievements and all the people that were inspired by his work,” Parker said. “A way to celebrate his spirit and to honor him.” After hosting Moogfest in New York City through 2008 and taking a break in 2009, the festival found its way home to Asheville in 2010, where it became what Parker characterized as “more of an electropop festival.” Then, in 2014, the event stepped up to the next level and started hosting forward-thinkers from around the world. Daytime sessions were added to focus on discussing the technology behind not only music but also creative outlets in general. “People are used to seeing the synthesizers being played in a live performance setting,” Parker said. “But there’s so much that happens for the five years before an instrument is released. So many different folks that work on those instruments. So we decided to tell that part of the story, as well, and celebrate that aspect of Bob.” With the heart of Moog Music rooted in Asheville, where the company is based and has hosted Moogfest since 2010, the natural question that floats to the surface is why move the event to Durham? Parker says it has everything to do with Moogfest’s shift in focus from not just music but also technology in general, pointing to the city’s wealth of tech
startups and proximity to an international airport. “Once we made that change, when we were talking about technology in the state of North Carolina, the Research Triangle area, and Durham in particular, is really the beating heart of the tech scene in North Carolina,” she said. “For that reason, it was a really natural fit for us to move the festival from Asheville, which is our home … but when you’re talking about a festival that is focusing on technology and the role that it plays in art and music, it really makes sense for it to be in Durham.” While the spirit of Bob Moog lives on through innovation at Moogfest, a different kind of reverence is focused on back home in Asheville, where Moog Music still manufacturers the same types of devices that Moog engineered and crafted throughout his career. “Everyone knows that technology is all about forward progression, things being easier and faster and smaller and cheaper and more accessible and more affordable,” Parker said. “Modular synthesizers are the opposite of that. For us at Moog, it’s very important for us, we place a lot of value in the things that have come before us. We’re very sensitive to trying to learn from the successes of the past and making sure that we don’t overlook the things that were meaningful and the intellectual property that was meaningful that this company has had for so many decades.” This year, Moogfest and the city of Durham will host just as many daytime conference programs as nighttime music performers. Folks that attend the daytime events will experience a focus on very specific themes, including art and artificial intelligence, as well as an additional focus on transhumanism, Afrofuturism, and virtual reality. A full listing of Moogfest’s expansive schedule of events, including a number of free events, can be found on sched.moogfest.com.
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“Sekret Machines” | Charlotte By Cory Lavalette North State Journal
D
r. Andrew Hartley has written countless books: mysteries and thrillers, academic books, children’s and young adult fantasy, and even novelizations of some of William Shakespeare’s bestknown works. His latest, “Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows,” is a collaboration with former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge — and another notch in Hartley’s varied writing career. “I never do anything that I don’t particularly enjoy, which is why my yard always looks a mess,” Hartley said. Hartley is a professor of Shakespeare Studies at UNC Charlotte on top of being a New York Times bestselling author. A native of England, Hartley taught in the United States for two decades after first coming to Boston University for his master’s degree. From there, his path to North Carolina was pretty typical of those who once lived in New England. “I’d been in Boston for seven years, and I remember putting my Christmas tree out the last year that I was there, and it was still there in April because the snow had never gone down,” Hartley said. “I was just like, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’ So I was happy to leave.” The 51-year-old — who uses A.J. Hartley in his published works — taught in Georgia for nine years before coming to Charlotte 11 years ago.
Hartley’s most recent project is perhaps the most unique in his personal and professional trek. DeLonge’s interest in UFOs — a fascination, even obsession, some believe led to him being replaced in Blink-182 — led to working with Hartley on the the new series. DeLonge spends much of his time poring over information on UFOs and meeting with people in aerospace, engineering, the military and politics. Hartley then writes what the duo considers historical, not science, fiction. “Initially I thought this was going to be an aliens and UFOs book, and it’s really not,” Hartley said. “A lot of it is about a conspiracy of silence. And a lot of it is about human capacity and human technological capacity. It’s not about little green men.” After talking and meeting, Hartley and DeLonge agreed to work on the first book. DeLonge presented Hartley with the latest information he gleaned in his research and meetings, and Hartley did the writing. “A lot of my focus became about credible, plausible characters who people feel like are regular people. They’re not Indiana Joneses,” Hartley said. DeLonge was so pleased with the early results that two more books in the series with Hartley are planned, along with a separate three-book series by Hartley that DeLonge’s media company will market. Has working with DeLonge swayed Hartley at all on the phenomenon?
“Sekret Machines: Book 1 Chasing Shadows” by Tom DeLonge and A.J. Hartley.
CHRISTINE T. NGUYEN | NORTH STATE JOURNAL
“I think it’s easy to come into this kind of thing thinking, ‘Oh, this is all crazy, tinfoil hat stuff,’” he said. But Hartley said some of the evidence DeLonge has unearthed, including people on their deathbeds coming clean about their work in Area 51 and other places, has certainly made him think. “One of the things you constantly run up against is the fact that people lie to us,” Hartley said. “They’ve been lying to us about a lot of things for a long time. And they only stop lying when they get called out.”