All language subtitles for Soundbreaking E04 Going Electric

[ Switch clicks, tube hums ]

[ Tubes humming ]

-My interest in music,
yeah, it starts when --

when things become electric.

-♪ They wanna get my

♪ Gold on the ceiling

♪ I ain't blind
-Pluggin' in

started a music revolution.

-Blues went electric.

They put it on a train
and took it up North

and plugged them in.

Hot-wired the blues.

[ Guitar solo ]

-I plug it in. I get it home and
I turn it up it's like "Khhhhh."

-"Ehrrrrr!"

-"Euhhhhhrrrrr!"

♪♪

-Suddenly, you didn't need
a horn section anymore.

-I spent most of the mid-'60s

not hearing anything
I ever sang.

-Electricity didn't just
turn up the volume,

it opened up a world
of new sounds.

-These albums
are kind of sonic fantasies

that could never actually exist
in real life.

-♪ I could never drown in

-I fell in love
with the synthesizer.

-Is this how you make up
all these songs?

With all these --

-We let the machines
make up the songs.

♪♪

-You cannot put me
anywhere near a synth.

I don't care
if it was old-school synth,

you know it's still
a manipulated sound.

-♪ They wanna get my

♪ Gold on the ceiling

-It was like they were working
on Frankenstein.

All day, all night.

-This is the story
of how one epic innovation

triggered
a musical chain reaction

that's still
throwing off sparks today.

♪♪

-It's amazing technology
already happening,

which expands
what can be created,

'cause someone will use
one of those things,

and by accident,
stumble into a brand new sound

that no one's ever heard before.

♪♪

-Just think of what would happen
to the music business

if we pulled the plug
on all the electricity.

♪♪

-Okay, then. Okay.

-It'll be an F for you.

-Here we go.

Just one more time.

-Right after I say,
"Are you sure?"

Da da da -- yeah.

-Oh.

-Hal, here's how I want
to do it. Takes like this.

-All right, it's fun time.
Fun time.

-Here we go.

-Oh, really?
-17, take one.

-This will be the keeper.
-[Chuckle]

♪♪

[ The Who's "My Generation"
plays ]

[ The Who's "My Generation"
plays ]

-♪ People try to put us down

♪ Talkin' 'bout my generation

-Well, amplification in The Who,
uh, is a very long journey.

-♪ Things they do
look awful cold ♪

-I mean, I remember when The Who
first were using Beatle 100s.

-Those are the first big amps
we ever saw;

they're called Super Beatles.

-And we covered the speaker
fronts with Union Jacks.

And it was such
a fantastic celebration

of, uh, loud music,
loud, loud, loud.

-Incredibly loud.
Incredibly loud.

-You didn't feel like
you were gonna be sick;

you felt like you were gonna
float up to heaven.

-In the area of London we lived,

there was a shop called
Jim Marshall's,

and he started making
amplifiers, and he says,

"Well, I've done this,
and I've done that.

Try this one out."

And they gradually got bigger
and bigger.

-It got bigger and bigger
and bigger,

and it was like,
kind of like the, uh, arms race

against other bands
we played with.

[ Guitar solo ]

If Jerry had two Fenders,
Jorma wanted two.

Jorma went up to four.
Jerry went up four, uh, Fenders.

♪♪

-Everything got louder, and the
drummer had to get louder, too.

-And we're playing 'em
harder and harder and harder.

Too hard.

Bob and Jerry, they were
ripping their cords out,

trying to sing over the din.

-♪ We'll be fighting
in the streets ♪

-And I think I spent most
of the '60s

not hearing anything
I ever sang.

It made me develop a pair of
lungs that I've still got today.

-♪ And the men
who spurred us on ♪

-In 1976,
The Who were recognized

as the loudest band
in the world.

125 decibels.

-♪ Yea-ea-ea-ea-ea-ea-h!

♪♪

-Over the course
of the 20th century,

electricity and amplification
didn't just make music louder,

it transformed it, and there's
no better example of that

than the electric guitar.

[ Playing outro ]

-The electric guitar
is its own instrument.

[ Guitar solo ]

-It magnifies
every little nuance

that the string gives off,

that you probably wouldn't hear
on a regular acoustic guitar.

[ Solo continues ]

[ Applause ]

The richness of tone
and the treble,

it brings that out.

[ Solo continues ]

-It can sustain.

[ Down-tempo blues playing ]

-You can make it sound
almost voice-like.

You can make
really gentle chords

and almost ethereal sounds,

and then with a flick
of the switch,

you can knock down buildings,
you know.

[ Up-tempo rock music plays ]

♪♪

-The electric guitar
became so popular

and it gave the power
to guitarists,

and it took all of us
a long time to go

and wrench it back out
of their nasty, little hands.

[ Up-tempo blues plays ]

-Well, first thing that happened
with the electric guitar

that was so important
was Charlie Christian.

People don't understand
how important he really was.

And he was discovered
by John Hammond.

-John Hammond helped define
the landscape

of American popular music
and jazz for a very long period.

He put Charlie Christian
together with Benny Goodman,

which put the electric guitar
on the...map.

He not only went to Oklahoma
and brought him,

he forced him on Benny Goodman.

A black guy on the most famous
white bandleader in the country.

And Goodman hated
guitar players!

[ Up-tempo jazz plays ]

-Early on in the '30s,
jazz guitar players

were the guys in the big band
with acoustic guitars,

and they would play chords,
just chords,

and it wasn't loud enough
to play the melodies.

[ Jazz music continues ]

-So somewhere around 1939,
Gibson comes out

with a amplifier
with the guitar.

It's like 150 bucks, and
Charlie Christian bought one.

-Hammond was so confident

that Goodman
would completely freak out

when he heard
that a guitar player

could play like a saxophonist,
that he would change his mind,

so he said, "Benny,
just do this one audition.

Just, you know, he's a kid
from Oklahoma, just do it."

[ Jazz guitar solo ]

And as soon as Charlie
started playing,

and that sound came out
of the amplifier,

the Benny Goodman sextet
was born.

[ Solo continues ]

-For the first time, the guitar
was not a background instrument.

Used to be dominated
by saxophones and trumpets.

Now, when you needed
any more power,

just turn that amplifier up.

♪♪

-Well, I'm a big
Charlie Christian fan.

♪♪

He's definitely
the first rock guitarist.

You can see
from there to Hendrix,

he's just blowing
everybody away.

-The fact
that there was a black man

playing an electric guitar,
it opened up the doors,

'cause when you hear his sound,

it's -- there's a direct
connection between the tone

of Charlie Christian's
instrument and the blues.

♪♪

-It's difficult
to think about music

without thinking about
the blues.

When you love music,
no matter what --

You like punk rock,
or pop music, or rock 'n' roll,

or jazz, or rockabilly, country,
they all lead right back

to the blues;
that's the root of all of it.

♪♪

-I didn't get an electric
guitar till 1946.

It would cost about $100 for
the amplifier and the guitar.

But the people just
making a living on the farm

ain't getting no guitar
too much, you know what I mean?

♪ Standing at a corner

♪ Fell down on my knees

♪ At a corner

-When I was young, I'd never
seen an electric guitar,

and where we lived
it wouldn't have did me

any good anyway
because we had no electricity.

-This area in Mississippi
gave birth

to this incredible
laundry list of people

who are the pioneers
of the blues.

Honeyboy Edwards,
Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters,

and some of them, of course,
left there.

[ Blues music plays ]

-From the early 1920s,
you have this massive migration

of African Americans
from South to North.

Chicago absorbs a lot
of Southern black migrants.

People call it the Up South.

-But really why I left the South
for was to make records.

I couldn't find no way to get
to make records down there.

I couldn't get no connections,
you know.

Said,
"Well, I'm going to Chicago.

-♪ Well, I'm goin' away
to leave ♪

♪ Won't be back no more

♪ Going back down South

-Every bit of music
that happens,

happens in the context
of a space.

So at some point, somebody said,

"Hey, we can't -- we can't hear
this acoustic guitar

over the amount of people
who are here."

-And you playin'
without an amplifier,

and people havin' a little fun,

takin' a little nip,
they forget you there.

-So let's plug it in.
Let's, like,

let's -- let's ramp it up.

-♪ Got my mojo workin'

♪ But it just don't work
on you ♪

-The difference
in the Mississippi Delta Blues

and Chicago Blues was they
basically just put it on a train

and took it up North
and plugged it in.

Hot-wired the blues.

-♪ My command

♪ Got my mojo workin'

-♪ Got my mojo workin'

-When the arc of the blues
hits Muddy Waters,

at that time with the
electrification of instruments,

it was all roads
perfectly met in one man,

in Chicago, in that moment.

Then when
the blues invaded England,

to me is one of the most
important moments in music,

because somebody
had to recognize these guys

for the musical heroes
that they were.

-♪ I don't want you to

♪ Be no slave

-It was fairly surreal,

the transfer of this music
into England.

Blues was completely different

to anything
that we'd ever heard before,

and it just had
a natural attraction.

-♪ I just want to make

♪ love to you

♪ Love to you

-Mick Jagger and Keith Richards,
I think,

had gone to school together,
they had known each other,

but they meet
on a train platform in London

and Mick has
a Muddy Waters record

and Keith looks at him and says,
"What's that, mate?"

you know, and that says a lot,
doesn't it?

They love, revere, the blues,
you know, they've studied it,

they are so heavily
influenced by it.

-♪ I just wanna make
love to you ♪

♪ Baby, love to you

♪ Baby, love to you

-Well, I didn't quite know
how to take the Rolling Stones.

It sounded like they were

trying to sing badly.

You know, it sounded like
they were going out of their way

to not hit the right notes,
you know what I mean?

-♪ I don't want you
to wash my clothes ♪

-The Rolling Stones
were the bad boys

of English rock 'n' roll,

and, and they were always
marketed that way.

They may not have been,

but that was the way
they were marketed.

-♪ I just wanna make
love to you ♪

♪ Baby, love to you

♪ Baby, love to you

-Keith is the riff meister.

How in the world does he come up

with something like
"Satisfaction"?

[ Cheers and applause ]

[ Rolling Stones's "(I Can't
Get No) Satisfaction" plays ]

♪♪

♪ I can't get no

♪ Satisfaction

-That really was the moment
that changed everything.

When "Satisfaction" came out,
that was it.

The Stones were the number-one
rock 'n' roll band.

♪ And I try, and I try,
and I try ♪

♪ I can't get no

♪ I can't get no

♪ Oh, when I'm driving
in my car ♪

-Prior to that song,

Brian Jones had always provided
all the riffs.

So when they went to America
and recorded "Satisfaction"

and brought it back, the fact
that Keith had played a riff

at all was pretty astonishing.

Equally, the fact that it had
such an amazing influence

on the song
was quite remarkable.

[ Guitar tuning ]

-I mean, it was a big deal

when I learned
that a lot of the stuff,

like, that I was
scratching my head over,

when I realized
it was in a different tuning.

That's how he was doing
that thing, you know?

It all started to make sense,
you know?

Muddy Waters would have used
this tuning a lot.

This was like, "Oh, yeah,
Keith Richards was doing..."

[ Strumming guitar ]

-Err-err [Laughs]

You know, just think of it
in terms of human speech,

what, the attitude
behind making a sou--

[ Grunts ]

It's like a machine gun,
man, you know.

That's -- that -- that's --
That's the statement being made.

That's what -- what -- what
Keith's doing with that sound,

that's -- that's what
Mick's doing with the vocal.

-♪ When I'm driving in my car

♪ And a man comes on the radio

♪ And tellin' me more and more

♪ About some
useless information ♪

-It's this cocky,
rebellious music.

It's, like, right in the face
of the oppressor.

Get the...out of my way.

[ Laughs ]

And that -- And if you're
14 years old,

it's audio testosterone.

-♪ All right

♪ I can't get no

-The production elements that
are employed on those records

only enhance the message.

Probably the earliest use
of the fuzz-tone.

It's very early use of that.

-The first specific unit that
was made to distort a guitar

opened up
incredible possibilities,

just because you could
make a note sustain

for as long as that,
apart from anything else,

and it made it sound
more aggressive.

-♪ Phenomenal lies

♪ On the cosmic eternity
party line ♪

The guitar can be a shield
and a weapon.

It can scream when I can't.

It can be the monster
or the villain.

It oughta just be a noisemaker

and if serving the song means
that it's a knife coming in

and slashing the painting,
then that's what it ought to be.

♪ Like a birth in reverse

♪ What I saw
through the blinds ♪

-The guitar,
when it's distorted,

sounds threatening,
even at low level.

If you switch off the distortion
and then turn up the level,

you don't feel threatened,
because it's a clear sound.

But for some reason,
the distortion,

it strikes, like, fear.

-I remember when I first got
my electric guitar,

it just didn't sound right.

I'm like, "Wait a second.

This doesn't sound like
'Revolution' by The Beatles.

What, oh, I need
a distortion pedal?"

I said, "Mom, can I please
have $25?

I have to get this thing.
It's called a distortion --"

"Distortion pedal, what's that?"

So I plug it in, I get it home,
and I turn it up,

it's like khhhh,
and I'm so excited!

My mom's, like,
"Is that thing broken?"

I'm like, "No.
Doesn't it sound great?!"

She's like, "Absolutely not!
[Laughs] Sounds horrible!"

[ Cream's
"Sunshine of Your Love" plays ]

-It must've been '66, maybe.

I was a student
at the Regent Street Poly,

and for our end-of-term
dance, we had Cream.

-♪ It's getting near dawn

♪ When lights close
-And the curtains open.

♪♪

It was like ohhh!

-♪ I've been waiting so long

♪ To be where I'm going

♪ In the sunshine of your

♪ love

♪♪

♪ I'm with you my love

-And it was just
an incredible moment.

And then, they suddenly said,

"We'd like to bring on a friend
of ours from the United States,

who's gonna play a few songs
with us"

and this bloke came on.
It was Jimi Hendrix.

[ "Purple Haze" plays ]

-He was the one that completely
upset the apple cart

amongst the guitar fraternity
in London, I know for a fact,

and pretty much everywhere else.

-Hendrix toured in soul bands,

so he really knew soul music,
like dance music.

He understood,
like, what made people move.

[ Mid-tempo swing music plays ]

-♪ Girl

-Jimi Hendrix was
a hell of a entertainer,

but he was in competition
with Little Richard

and you don't go
on a stage with Little Richard

and outdo Little Richard.

Little Richard got rid of him.

He was a genius!

Very technical and get the...
[Imitates guitar]

[ Guitar solo ]

[ Cheering and whistling ]

-He was influenced by people,

but because
it went through his brain,

it was filtered through
his mind, it sounded like him.

[ Playing with teeth ]

-And he was doing all this stuff
with his teeth

and behind his head
and all of that.

I was just, like, "Oh, my."

[ Guitar solo ]

-He taught us
that you got to loosen up.

The teeth in the back,
behind the head,

we wouldn't dream of doing that.

Can you imagine if Eric and I
had done this at the time?

They would've just thrown...
at us, you know?

His appearance
was also outrageous.

I mean, he had an afro,

which was sort of
out of control.

[ Guitar solo ]

His clothes were out of control,
sexy, as well.

I mean, all the ingredients
needed were there.

[ Guitar solo ]

He had it all.
He had fantastic technique,

which no one
can really get hold of.

[ Down-tempo blues-rock plays ]

♪♪

-He's such a historically
aware musician.

So he knows the masters.

The three kings
as he called them.

Albert, Freddie, and B.B.,
you know.

[ Guitar solo ]

But he's also
a psychedelic hippie,

and he understands
the whole world of recordmaking

as this world
of enormous possibility.

-Jimi Hendrix was the greatest
electric guitar player

I've ever seen or heard

or had the great privilege
of recording.

For about two weeks,
we were experimenting

with stereo phasing, which
had never been done before.

We said, "Jimi, come in.

We've got something
we want to play you."

So Jimi comes in,
and we start playing

the middle part of
"Axis: Bold as Love"

where the drums come in.

It goes badoo, doo, doo,
baduckadaduckada.

[ Drumbeat ]

And the phasing kicks in.

[ Drums phasing ]

He grabbed his head
in his hands, went,

"Ah! Oh, my God!
I can't believe you.

How did you do that?!
That was in my dream! Ahhh!"

I want that on everything, man!

And so every day
we were trying new things.

Heavy compression,
weird types of EQ,

backwards tapes.

[ Chimes, cymbals playing ]

-These albums, like
"Electric Ladyland"

are kind of sonic fantasies.

They are worlds unto themselves

that could never actually
exist in real life.

♪♪

I don't think
there was any artist

exactly like Jimi Hendrix
who could use his guitar

to mold and sculpt
time and space,

and just through
his guitar performance,

could give you a complete essay
on what the '60s were like,

on what it was like to be
an African American man

who was working
in multiple genres,

who was living in between

certain intersections
of identity.

[Cheers and applause]
[Phasing]

[ Guitar feedback ]

When you hear
Jimi Hendrix play guitar,

it's Jimi Hendrix's voice

screaming through
the instrument.

[ Guitar rumbling ]

He radicalized
the use and the form

and the point
of what the guitar was,

and so everybody
started thinking,

"What can I do
with a musical instrument?"

In large part
because of The Beatles

and what they were doing
with using Eastern instruments

and so on, but also I think you
have to credit Jimi Hendrix

for changing the game.

♪♪

-The impulse to change
the sound of the music

was nothing new.

It was -- That's what
rock 'n' roll always was,

always looking
for something different.

Then as technology continues
to develop through the '70s,

there's just more and more
possibilities.

[ The Who's "Baba O'Riley"
plays ]

♪♪

-My first introduction
to the synthesizer

was through Pete Townshend,

when he asked me to do
"Who's Next."

And he sent me the demos that
he'd made in his own studio.

He's an extremely
accomplished engineer.

[ The Who's "Baba O'Riley"
continues ]

[ Drumbeat ]

I couldn't believe the sounds

that were coming out
of these demos,

because of the synthesizer
he'd used.

Back in those days,
they were really complicated

[ "Greensleeves" plays ]
and looked a bit like

the old-fashioned
telephone exchangers,

[laughs]
cords going everywhere.

-There are oscillators,
which produce the sound.

Filters, amplifiers,
and envelope generators,

which shape it.
[Note descending]

-First of all,
he figured out how to work it,

but he then took it
and used it,

for the first time
in my experience anyway,

in the most extraordinary way,

"Baba O'Riley"
being a classic example.

[ Intro to The Who's
"Baba O'Riley" plays ]

He created a rhythm pattern

that was not only
a very strange sound,

but the actual rhythm itself
was rather odd,

and then wrote a song 'round it.

[ Band joins in ]

And juxtaposed it against
the power of Keith Moon,

John Entwistle, and himself,

playing guitar, bass, and drums.

And then, the extraordinary
explosive vocal

that Roger Daltrey gives us.

-♪ Out here in the fields

♪ I fight for my meals

♪ I get my back into my living

-One of my major problems was
to compete with Pete's demos,

which were invariably amazing,

and very often, I'd steal
elements from the demo,

the synthesizer track, and then
would play that in to the band,

and they would --
They actually recorded

to a playback
of Pete's synthesizer,

because the synthesizer
suggests the rhythm.

♪♪

-Keith had terrible trouble
with it.

Keith used to have to play
to a click track.

And he used to tape
the earphones to his head,

'cause he was such
an animated drummer.

You know, when we used to do
"Baba O'Riley"

and "I Won't Get Fooled Again,"
to a backing track

of that sound, it's a fifth
member of the band.

[ Synthesizer playing
calliope music ]

-The synthesizer really migrated
from the music lab

to the pop music scene because
of Bob Moog, a wonderful man.

He was a guy
with a pencil protector.

You know what I'm saying?

Short-sleeved white shirt,
pencil protector,

lots of pencils.

He was an engineer,
and a good one.

[ Synthesizer playing ]

A synthesizer means massaging
the electrons in space

to create a new sound
from nothing.

Bob Moog had a certain vision,

and a bunch of us
played into it --

[ Ethereal tune plays ]

Beaver & Krause...

Keith Emerson...

Silver Apples,

Wendy Carlos, Peter Nero.

A few people were starting
to push the synthesizer

into being an instrument
that people could use.

There was no school
you could learn

how to play the synthesizer.
There was no course.

You just had to pick it up
and start learning.

♪♪

But when I heard it,
my world exploded.

I ran straight into the arms
of electronica,

and I ended up buying
one of the first

Moog Series III synthesizers.

I loved it,
because it made me feel like

I was a U-boat captain
from another galaxy

when I was standing
in front of it.

And there was this
very wonderful guy

named Malcolm Cecil.

First-class
upright bass player and,

he was upright
and the bass was upright.

He said, "I have to learn
how to play the synthesizer."

I said,
"I'll make a deal with you."

-And he said,
"Would you be willing to show me

how to record properly?"

I said, "Well, would be willing
to show me

how to run that thing?"

-"I'll show you
how to play the synthesizer,

if you teach me how to become
a real recording engineer."

-And, I said, "Yes."

[ Synthesizer playing
ethereal sounds ]

-And that began
our journey together.

♪♪

-They were these two crazy guys,
and they built this massive bank

of synthesizers
they called TONTO.

-Modules by ARP,
modules by Moog,

modules by me and Malcolm.

-It looked like [Laughs]

it just took up,
I don't know, several walls,

with the patch cords
and it was insane.

♪♪

-We made a record which
we weren't sure was even music.

It was called "Zero Time."

Got a huge write-up
inRolling Stone

because it was so wacky
and weird.

Stevie Wonder heard it,

and the next thing we know
there's a knocking at the door,

and there's Stevie
in a chartreuse jumpsuit,

5:00 or 6:00 at night,
with our album under his arm,

and he wanted to know how we
were making this kind of music.

-I called Bob on the phone,
and said,

"Get over here.
We've got a new client."

-And we let him in the studio,

and we didn't wake up
for another five years.

[ Stevie Wonder's
"Living for the City" plays ]

-♪ A boy is born

♪ In hardtime Mississippi

♪ Surrounded by

♪ Four walls
that ain't so pretty ♪

-Steve walked into that studio.

He had so many songs in his head

that had been pent up in there
for so many years.

I don't know.
Motown had him on a formula.

-♪ Living just enough

♪ Just enough for the city

♪ Yah

♪ His father works

♪ Some days for 14 hours

♪ And you can bet

♪ He barely makes a dollar

♪ His mother goes

♪ To scrub the floors for many

♪ And you'd best believe

♪ She hardly gets a penny

♪ Living just enough

♪ Just enough for the city

-Motown treats their artists.

They have almost,
like, a finishing school,

so the way the artists dressed,
the way they performed onstage,

all cultivated
so as not to offend

what were considered
mainstream white sensibilities.

-And Steve turned 21
and he got --

was really fed up with it.

He's finally reached
his majority, said,

"I'm over. I'm leaving."

And he came to New York,
and we just started recording.

[ Stevie Wonder's "Superstition"
plays ]

-It was like they were
working on Frankenstein.

I mean, just up all day,
all night,

and coming up
with these nuances and timbres.

-♪ Very superstitious

♪ Writing's on the wall

♪ Very superstitious

-One slight touch of a button
could give you

a whole nother color.

So, Malcolm and Bob's
whole job was to figure out,

you know, what colors
were inside of his head.

-♪ Broke the lookin' glass

-I had a two-track tape running
at all times,

because that's where
most of the ideas came from.

And, I'd say,
"Hey, is that a song?"

And, we'd play it back,

something that he was
just musing around,

and he'd go,
"Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah."

And he would get an idea,
off we would go.

♪♪

We recorded well in excess
of 250 songs.

-When we finally got to
making an album, we said,

"Oh, we'll take this one
and that one,"

and somehow, for five years,
we could do nothing wrong.

Every record we touched
turned to gold.

-♪ You are the sunshine
of my life ♪

-Grammys, platinum, gold.

-♪ That's why
I'll always be around ♪

-Stevie Wonder was able
to take all the innovations

and then just bring it
to a level

that was so simple
to understand.

It was funky enough for soul
people and rock people

and music lovers in general
to appreciate it.

That's hard to do.

-♪ I feel like this is
the beginning ♪

-There's still
a lot of controversy,

because people feel like,
if you introduce electronics,

you're sort of changing
the nature of the sound.

Some people are against this,

and Stevie not only embraces it,
he, I think, leads the pack.

-♪ I'd find myself drowning
in my own tears ♪

♪ Ooh-whoa, oh, oh,
whoa-oh, oh ♪

[Synthesizer playing]
♪ You are the sunshine

♪ Of my life

-It's one of the most
versatile instruments.

This thing can sound
really clean.

It can sound like a whistle,

or it can sound really gnarly
and, like, disgusting.

[ Sound modulates ]

Through the process
of looking for a sound

that sounds like a flute,

I'll come up with something
that sounds like,

you know, someone getting,
like, stabbed in the neck.

This is my Mini-Moog.

This one's, like,
super-modified,

and I wanted it 'cause it's
exactly like the one Devo used

and they were, like,
the kings of the mini-Moog.

-We're all Devo.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-The first time
I was made aware of Devo,

I said,
"You've got to be joking.

They spit on people.
They do all of this?

They're never
gonna do anything."

Of course, Devo came out
with their first album,

and they were on
"Saturday Night Live."

I saw them on that
and was totally blown away.

[ Devo's "(I Can't Get No)
Satisfaction" plays ]

-We really were only on
college radio before that,

so nobody knew who we were.

It was almost like
"Saturday Night Live"

played a prank on the nation.

♪♪

"Satisfaction,"
it was like my anthem.

I remember playing the 45
at home, you know,

on a little portable machine.

-♪ I can't get no

♪ Satisfaction

♪ I can't get me no

♪ Satisfaction

♪ And I try, and I try

♪ And I try, t-t-t-t-try, try

♪ I can't get no

-There were people
that took offense

to Devo covering "Satisfaction."

And, and there was -- 'Cause,
you know, it's like, guard dogs.

They sniffed that we were
trying to change things

and that we wanted to, like,

tip over the potato cart
one more time.

10 years earlier, we were
art students at Kent State.

I just remember
being kind of shocked

that all of sudden
something that came

from just all of us announcing
that we were against

the war in Vietnam,

was now Jeeps and tanks
and National Guardsmen.

[ Barrage of gunfire ]

-The university campus
has been closed.

-After all the student protests
were crushed in this country,

everybody kind of went, "Okay,
that was a little too real.

They killed people.

They're putting people in jail

for disagreeing
with the government.

Let's just go back
to having a good time."

So, the bands like Kansas and
Styx and Foreigner came along

and the politics were kind of,
like, "I'm white.

I'm a misogynist.

I'm a conspicuous consumer
and I'm proud of it."

And, we were, like,
"What happened to Bob Dylan?

What happened
to all these people

that had something to say and
were critiquing our culture?"

I remember watching footage
of medical evacuations,

you know, from Vietnam,
and I thought,

"Those are the kind
of sounds I need.

I want to make music
with helicopters

and with ray guns
and with lasers.

I want to make music
where we're using sounds

that have something to do with
what's going on in our world."

[ Synthesizer sounds playing ]

I'd been interested
in synthesizers

and really felt that technology
was leading the way.

-You've got to explain all this
to us. I mean, like, is this how

you sort of make up all these
songs, with all these --

-Well, we let the machines
make up the songs.

We just are
the human instruments.

-We're using technology
to make caveman sounds.

-♪ Wha-hoo

♪ Ooh-ooh, ooh

♪ Ooh

♪ Wha-hoo

♪ Ooh-ooh, ooh

♪ Ooh

♪ Wha-hoo

♪ Ooh-ooh, ooh

♪ Ooh

-For the first couple records,

our record company
just thought of us

as this weird little art band,
but "Freedom of Choice,"

that album,
still kind of robotic,

but we hired a producer
named Bob Margouleff.

[ Engine starts ]

[ Siren wails ]

-I'm sitting there
in the front office,

and these two little
Volkswagen Bugs

come into the parking lot

and the Devos get out.

They're wearing jumpsuits

and hard hats
with like a tank on the side

with a plastic hose
going up their noses.

Even the jaded people
at the record plant

had to look at that one twice.

♪♪

But how did I construct
the record?

The same way I constructed the
record with Steve and Malcolm.

♪♪

The records have their same
root, the Moog synthesizer.

The synthesizer
is every instrument.

It depends
on how you want to use it.

♪♪

[ Cheers and applause ]

-The electric guitar
was still the primary instrument

of album-oriented rock.

In the mid-1970s,
that really starts to change,

especially with the rise
of disco.

Real watershed moment

was when people heard,
for the first time,

Giorgio Moroder and
Donna Summer, "I Feel Love."

[ Donna Summer's "I Feel Love"
plays ]

-First, I took down
a click track.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,

and automatically
the rhythm was

♪ Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
dun, dun, dun ♪

Whatever the synthesizer
could do.

But I didn't have a melody,

so I started
to sing a melody on top,

then Donna Summer came in
and wrote the lyrics

and she sang it.

-♪ Ooh

♪ It's so good, it's so good,
it's so good ♪

♪ It's so good, it's so good

Growing up, I wanted to have
more of that, you know,

like R&B sound, but my voice
was always really kind of pure.

♪ Ooh

♪ I'm in love, I'm in love,
I'm in love ♪

♪ I'm in love, I'm in love

So when we started making music
with the synthesizers,

I felt at home in that
kind of synthesized space.

♪ Oooh

♪ I feel love, I feel love,
I feel love ♪

♪ I feel love, I feel love

I was so caught up in
producing the music at the time,

but I think in retrospect,
I see the door that we opened.

♪ I feel

♪ lo-o-o-o-o-ve

♪ I feel love

-During the mix, the engineer
gave me a delay in the bassline,

and instead of doing,
dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,

We do, duttle, duttle, duttle,
duttle, duttle, duttle.

They'll repeat.

And I was suddenly, I said,
"This is -- this is it!"

The reaction was absolutely
fantastic and,

after a few months, it was
number one all over the place.

It's the most requested
song of mine.

-♪ Fallin' free, fallin' free,
fallin' free ♪

♪ Fallin' free, fallin' free

♪♪

-It's not something that
can easily be reproduced live.

The song
is totally synthesized.

-Even the drums
are a synthesizer.

-When people heard it,
they suddenly realized

that there were all kinds
of new possibilities

for popular music that had
nothing to do with the guitar,

that had nothing to do even with
traditional instrumentation.

-That possibility,
to make music out of technology,

was something that had been
there for a long,

now there's just a new gizmo
that we can do it with.

Isn't that cool?

I mean, you can trigger this
and sync it up,

and wow, let's do it.

There's never
a kind of like a,

"Oh, I don't think
we should do that" moment.

[ Playing "Don't You Want Me" ]

-Eventually the synthesizer
becomes common enough

for bands to brag
that they had no synthesizer.

♪♪

The synthesizer came to
symbolize something not natural.

-All through the '80s,
there's not

a really authentic-sounding
record in the '80s.

They're all highly processed.

-♪ Let's get physical

♪ Physical

♪ I wanna get physical

-Late '70s,
those horrible synthesizers,

it's hard for me to imagine

that that was
the golden age of recording.

-♪ Body talk

♪ Let's get physical

♪ Physical

-I never did like synthesizers.

No talent in a drum machine,
but it was cutting a lot

of musicians out of work,
the synthesizer.

-Everything was determined
by this regular beat.

Synthesizers, get on your bike;
get out of here.

[ Ethereal synthesizer plays ]

-I was in Cologne airport
and I was thinking

if you're going to have music,
what would be

the right kind of music
for a place like this?

It has to be non-narrative.

It can't have beginning,
middle, and end.

It should be like a river,
where there's

a sort of consistency
to the object itself,

but it's never exactly the same
from one moment to the next.

I studied painting, not music,

and I realized
when I was quite young

that the most interesting form
of painting

that you could do now
is with sound.

[ Ethereal synthesizer
continues ]

With the synthesizer,
we can make a sound

that nobody's ever heard before.

It's a little bit like
if you went to a painter

and said, "I know you've got
your box of paints there,

and you've got the seven colors
of the spectrum,

but here's another 4,000 colors
that you've never seen before."

It's this new form
that we still call music,

but we should call
something else.

♪♪

-Doing things
in an electronic way,

in a funny way
it's more personal,

because you have to create
the sound from scratch.

It's not just writing the note.

You're actually creating the
sound of the note from scratch.

[ Suspenseful music climbs ]

In the Batman movie
"Dark Knight,"

Batman inhabits
a very particular world.

I thought,
wouldn't it be interesting

to make a sonic world
for this character?

So I started by creating
a vocabulary of sounds

electronically.

So now on the keyboard,
I can, you know, brrr, you know.

They're --
They're indescribable.

It's not like, you know,
oh, here's a violin sound.

It's, you know,
it's some abstract thing.

[ Suspenseful music climbs ]

We tried to come up
with a very iconic sound

right at the beginning
of the movie,

which is this sort of
[Whooshes]

you know, like a giant flapping
of the wings.

[ Wings rustling ]

And slowly, during that process,
I actually start hearing

little bits of tune,
or little motifs, et cetera.

[ Synthesizer plays ]

There's a lot of snobbery
in classical music,

but my dad was an inventor.

I grew up with technology
and I saw

all musical instruments
as pieces of technology,

so for me, anything
that made a decent noise

was a musical instrument,

and should be incorporated
into the orchestra.

[ Note drones ]

I sort of know what
I want to say with the scene,

but I usually can't find
the notes straightaway, so.

The reason I regret
not going to music school

is just because
whenever I get stuck,

I wish I had a bit of Beethoven
in the drawer,

or you know, a bit of Mozart
to go and steal from.

And, what happens is
I don't have that.

So, if I'm stuck, I'd better
come up with something myself.

That's why hours and hours
and hours get spent in this room

with me torturing
this poor computer.

Let me have one more go.

♪♪

The way Hollywood operates
is they make these movies

and they cost hundreds
of millions of dollars

and basically,
at the end of the day,

they're waiting for me
to complete the music

and I'm doing it
on any old PC that you can buy

for, like, $10.50
and on a piece of software,

you know, that's probably
another $20.

So kids, if you want to try this
at home, knock yourselves out.

[ Electronic music plays ]

-I make all my records
in hotel rooms pretty much,

and airplanes, you know,
or on car rides.

I've made records in car rides,
you know?

Especially when you have,
you know, deadlines.

[ Skrillex's "Scary Monsters
and Nice Sprites" plays ]

-The synthesizer, the laptop,

they're all part
of the same world.

The laptop, especially, is the
folk instrument of our time.

-Our world is just --
is just a high-tech world.

You know, we are
the Internet generation.

We are fast-paced.
We need the laptops.

And yeah,
we're not great on guitars,

but we're great with our hands,
and we still make the melodies.

♪♪

-What is EDM?
Electronic Dance Music.

It is our new folk music, EDM.

-Yes! Oh, my God!

It has nothing to do
with the past.

It has to do
with creating sounds

out of space
that never existed before.

Sequences and sounds
from a new place.

We're like galactic travelers.

And we're on a journey.

♪♪

-In an era where everything is
being transformed by technology,

one of the most exciting aspects

of being original
is reinventing what's old.

[ Blues play ]

-Well, we knew we wanted to get
out of town to make a record.

-We wanted to go to
a classic studio,

a place that had history.

We decided to go to
Muscle Shoals,

and we got to the studio,
and it was pretty much just --

it was empty. No console,
really. Nothing worked.

All the wall treatment
that used to be there

in the '60s and '70s was gone.

[ Chuckles ]

You know, my dream of,
like, recording

in this period-piece studio,
like, vanished immediately.

But we had Mark Neill,
and he was the engineer.

-So Mark drove his preamps,
microphones.

Dan and I drove down from Akron
and brought a lot of gear.

-And so we set up all our stuff.

-No Pro Tools, 12-channel desk.

-And it was almost like we were
recording in the basement again,

in a room that wasn't really
acoustically correct.

But Mark understood all these
old records that we loved

and why they sounded so good --
not why they sounded old,

but why they sounded really good
and why the drums soundedhuge,

but they were mono, but there
were just like two mics.

[ Drum set plays ]

And we learned that
when we recorded with Mark.

♪♪

We called our managing
assistant, and we were like,

"We need a harpsichord, now."

And he found us, like,

a student model and he drove it
down from Nashville.

Started playing a little line.

♪ Do do-do do

♪ Do do-do do

♪ Do do do-do do

Pat started playing,
and it just immediately sounded

fun and interesting.

♪♪

Pat got on the mellotron

and plugged in
like 20 guitar pedals to it.

-♪ Whoa-oa-oa

-I had partial lyrics to
"Too Afraid To Love You."

♪♪

Figured out the chords
of the song.

And we just started
recording it.

-♪ My gears, they grind

♪ More each day

♪ And I feel like

♪ They're gonna grind away

And Mark got Pat
to play Mark's drums.

He's got this amazing-sounding
old Gretsch kit

that just resonates beautifully.

-♪ They drive me wild

♪ They're neverending

♪ Mile after mile

-And because it sounded so good,
Pat just played lighter

and it just --
His playing sounded so fluid

throughout the whole record.

♪ To love you

♪♪

♪ It's heaven on Earth

♪ It's in her embrace

♪ Her gentle touch

♪ And her smiling face

-We didn't distort the tracks

while we were recording
for the first time.

That was gonna be something
that was approached in mixing.

-It was Tchad Blake,
and the only instruction was

I sent him an e-mail that was,
"Do whatever you want, have fun,

and make it sound really
effed up."

♪♪

-♪ I just don't know
what to do ♪

♪ I'm too afraid to love you

-Everything is early days.

I mean, we've been doing
sound recording

for just over 100 years.

And people have been
building drums for thousands.

If you look at a grand piano,
what an incredible piece

of thinking and they
didn't do it overnight.

And I think the same goes
for computers.

We're at the beginning of this.

-The technology allowed us to
create new musical experiences.

It allowed us our liberty,

and it's gonna continue
to move us forward.

We have to embrace change
and celebrate it.

[ The Black Keys's "Lonely Boy"
plays ]

-Come on!

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh

♪ I got a love
that keeps me waitin' ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh

♪ I got a love
that keeps me waitin' ♪

♪ I'm a lonely boy

♪ I'm a lonely boy

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh

♪ I got a love
that keeps me waitin' ♪

[ Music fades ]

[ Cheers and applause ]

♪♪

-"Soundbreaking"
is available on DVD.

The companion book
is also available.

To order, visit shopPBS.org
or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

♪♪