stuart@ssc-vax.UUCP (05/18/84)
I had season tickets to BalleTacoma (Tacoma WA's own dance troup) and about 2 weeks ago went to the season finale. It was really great! What it consisted of was 2 days of invitational competition from western U.S. troups from Calif. to Alaska and then the winners performed on Saturday evening. The home corp (Tacoma) was pretty dull, but the California groups were fantas- tic which leads to my question. One group did a routine to music by Manheim Steamroller, which the person next to me said he thought it to be from either Fresh Aire I or II. But the absolute knock-out was a group from Sacremento which consisted of 7 young ladies in blue body-suits dancing to something list- ed in the program as simply "Synergy". It really blew my socks off!! What/Who is/does this music simply listed as "Synergy"?? It was something in between classic and electric, with an influence not unlike Jean Michael-Jarre. All right music freaks, help me out - I've got to get this piece of music. So you won't think I'm someone from the geriatric set who goes to the ballet for my entertainment, I'm 26, male, used to be an FM album rock jock for 4 years, Country & Western gets me up and to work in the mornings, and Rock & Roll gets me home at night. In short, to me music is music and I love it all (broadly speaking - there are groups from every category I wouldn't walk across the street to see for free!). Anyway, can anybody help me out? Stuart Lewis ssc-vax!stuart
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (05/21/84)
Synergy IS Larry Fast, a electronic whiz/synthesist from New Jersey (don't hold that against him!) who has made a number of albums under the name Synergy. He has constructed a lot of his own equipment. His "Games" album from a few years back had a track performed on the then state-of-the-art Bell Labs digital synthesizer, and Fast has been at the forefront of digital technology in music. Fast made some equipment for Rick Wakeman many years back. I bring up Wakeman because there is, to me, a similarity between Wakeman and Fast. For me, Wakeman on his own was usually just a whiz kid showing off, but within the more controlled group environment with Yes, he really did shine as the multikeyboardist who "colored" the whole Yes sound. Witness "The Ancient" (Topographic side 3) and of course all of Close to the Edge. Fast impresses me much the same way. Most of his work on his own sounds rather droll to me (especially his very early stuff), but he has been involved with Peter Gabriel in the studio and on the road for the last few years now. His conributions to the Peter Gabriel sound have been nothing short of incredible (listen to "San Jacinto" live to hear what I mean). -- You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
ron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (05/24/84)
Synergy is a group. The album of theirs that I am most familiar with is Cords. Labeled as an "amazing transparent recording" (the record is clear plastic) it is pretty interesting synthesized stuff. The most striking is probably "Disrupting World Communications" also nicknamed by our group as RED ALERT SCOTTY. -Ron
ab3@stat-l (Rsk the Wombat) (05/24/84)
Synergy is one person: Larry Fast, electronics wizard. With the
help of oodles of electronics (thank you, Eventide Clockworks) he's created
several albums; the ones I recall are:
Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchesta
Sequencer
Cords
There are probably more than this...in addition to his original
compositions, he's included stuff from Dvorak and Mason Williams, among
other folks.
The albums aren't too hard to find in any decent record store...
--
Rsk the Wombat
UUCP: { allegra, decvax, ihnp4, harpo, teklabs, ucbvax } !pur-ee!rsk
{ cornell, eagle, hplabs, ittvax, lanl-a, ncrday } !purdue!rskgmk@uicsg.UUCP (05/24/84)
#R:ssc-vax:-15400:uicsg:8300027:000:735 uicsg!gmk May 23 20:49:00 1984 Synergy is a "band" consisting of one person, Larry Fast, who plays an assortment of synthesizers, sequencers, and electronics. I have one of his albums (possibly his first) called "Sequencer" (Sire 9103 326) (c. 1976) (Available on JEM imports.) I bought the album several years ago after hearing so much about this brave new music. I listened to it once and promptly filed it away. At the time, electronic music was still pretty new (to the general public) and some people apparently couldn't tell the difference between interesting, creative efforts and garbage. I'll take Tangerine Dream and Morton Subotnik any day. (Although I haven't heard anything that Fast has done recently.) Gary Koob ..!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsg!gmk
tynor@uiucuxc.UUCP (05/25/84)
#R:ssc-vax:-15400:uiucuxc:30800019:000:234
uiucuxc!tynor May 24 20:57:00 1984
Larry Fast plays synth for Peter Gabriel on tour and in the studio.
As far as SYNERGY goes, my favorite is 'Cords'.
Steve Tynor
ihnp4!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!tynor
University of Illinois Champaign-Urbanaemjej@uokvax.UUCP (05/26/84)
#R:ssc-vax:-15400:uokvax:4000033:000:303 uokvax!emjej May 26 11:13:00 1984 Synergy is Larry Fast, on various and sundry electronic instruments. An incomplete discography (all, I believe, on Passport Records): Games Cords Audion Neat stuff, I think. (Side 1, track 1 of *Games* is something I would *love* to see danced to; I hope it was what you heard.) James Jones