BSPH: The Moog Machine - Jumpin' Jack Flash

Cover versions are tried and tested way of introducing an emerging artist or style. It is based on a play on the contrast with the original version. The thing can show a variety of skills of a performer. It can establish an artist as something worthwhile. In that sense, it is hard to overestimate the influence of Wendy Carlos' album "Switched-on Bach". It was a legitimate game-changing product - it manages to broaden the appeal and basically reinvent commercial viability of electronic music.

"Switched-on Rock" is an album by The Moog Machine, a project created to cash-in on the "Switched-on Bach" popularity. It was formed in 1969 as a blatant cash-in but in the process it evolved into something else. The project was overseen by Norman Dolph, the man behind "Velvet Underground & Nico", and arranged by Alan Foust.

The album consists of moog-flavored covers of various popular rock songs. The catch is that these are not cover versions in a pop music sense of the word. "Switched-on Rock" cover versions are more in the vein of jazz covers where the composition is taken as a foundation for further exploration into a thing of its own.



"Jumping Jack Flash" is one of the most interesting cover versions on an album. Part of its charm is in its abrasive clumsiness. The thing is - Moog synthesizer is not very fitting for replicating pop songs - it is more a exploratory tool than a mimicking gobbledygook. But with a little help of well-tuned Moog Synthesizer and some rabid drums this iconic Rolling Stones tune had morphed from a glorious rock'n'roll stomper into a monstrous ripping roaring Dalek invasion into the Pac Man labyrinths.

In many ways this is a twisted love child of "Switched-on Bach" method and Silver Apples aesthetics. It sounds as a sincere attempt to be user-friendly that backfired and instead petrified the listeners in utter consternation. It is weird.

The Moog Machine version follows closely the original and even replicates the vocal melody in the verses. Even though it sounds horrendous, extremely uncomfortable and absolutely unnecessary. But i guess it was obligatory. Because of that - just pretend it is a sonic succubus trying to annoy you. It works better that way. Oddly enough, the rest of an arrangement sounds almost natural.

Intro is basically a sonic replication of Orpheus descending into depths of hell and bathing in the hyenna lather with a menacing grimace and ominous sound. The song is covered with Moog signature warbling swishes. Combined with cymbal splashes they make an of impression a meteor rain in the middle of an ocean. The drums are trying hard to pretend that this a real song and not a terror attack but they constantly get off the leash and start messing around as if it was some doozy ESP-disk release. It works in the verses but in the choruses the temptation is too much and drums go for a business of its own. The drum patterns in the second verse are something to behold. It is a backbeat for a James Brown Soul Power Break.

The solo is particularly fascinating as it is basically a drama of synthesizer losing it, going out strange, apeshit, batshit and chickenshit in the same time. The solo starts as a replication of the original guitar solo but in the process it gets a panic attack and turns into a ever growing tangled heap of smoothed and smothered zigzag lines. Gradually it turns into a wall of homogeneous noise and then it stops and you are left to think what just happened. I recommend to listen to it separately from an album - just for sake of a silence afterwards.

The irony of this cover is of course in the fact that around the same time Mick Jagger had recorded a soundtrack for Kenneth Anger "Invocation of my Demon Brother" on the Moog synthesizer and it was glorious backwards.

Nevertheless, this particular version of "Jumping Jack Flash" deserves a listen simply because it is so different and in the same time so familiar that it evoke eerie feeling of unease.

https://youtu.be/LU1iGhyEDmg