Shamanzarek

The 1971 New York Rock Ensemble album Roll Over features the great musician/film composer/producer Michael Kamen playing a lot of RMI throughout. Lenny Kravitz covered the song "Fields of Joy" in 1991. Martin Fulterman aka Mark Snow of X-Files fame is also a member of the band.

It looks like that effect may actually be done on guitar. Check out live versions and there is also a guitar solo cover by pop kin on YT. See if that is the sound in question. There is one live version with a violinist making pretty wild sounds with Miller also contributing some slides with heavy echo. You might be off the hook for having to recreate that sounds.

Getting any 80s Juno is likely to be quite costly these days. The main reason they are so popular is that when the price of used models went way down around 30 years ago any kid could afford one. A few of these young artists have a hit record with a particular sound only this synth can produce exactly. Then every young musician wants one and the prices start going up. About fifteen years ago I found a Juno 60 on CL for $400 so because I knew with all the raves on synth forums that if nothing else I wouldn't lose money on it. I did use it with a band that played a lot of 80s music and it was much better than using a synth sample. I probably would have kept the Juno 60 but had to sell off some gear for a move and I made over two grand on the Juno. If you can find a 106 for the right price it might be worth getting but not at anywhere near $3000 or more. The Junos have a nice pleasing overall sound but the synth parameters are much less flexible than found on many other synths new or vintage. The main thing I don't like about the Juno is that it is almost a certainty that you will have the Chorus all the time. These were among the first budget synths so they came up with a cheaper to produce and very accurate DCO oscillator which lacked the depth of multiple VCO oscillators found on the high-end polysynths in the early to mid-80s. Then a genius engineer came up with the idea to add an onboard chorus effect to simulate the motion of VCO oscillators. Roland sold them to naive beginners lacking any Moog experience (along with a few naive pros) for under $2000 and the rest is history. Personally I prefer a synth that sounds great with no need for a chorus effect. Unless you need a 106 as a set decoration for an 80s movie there are so many very capable new synth options today at much lower prices

1979 ad.

I first became aware of British keyboardist Zoot Money in the late 60s from the Eric Burdon and the Animals album Love Is which was the last album under the Eric Burdon and the Animals name and also included Andy Summers later of The Police on guitar. Summers and Money had also worked together in Money's Big Roll Band. Money played with many prominent British musicians throughout his career and later played in Humble Pie from 2001-2002. https://www.clashmusic.com/news/zoot-money-has-died/

The Mandrake Memorial Rock-Si-Chordl is still for sale on eBay. A piece of rock history for only $2999.99. It is located in Pennsylvania.not far from Macungie. https://www.ebay.com/itm/354546125123?_skw=rmi&itmmeta=01J7KEHFHMYNC1KNZ9ANQYD92J&hash=item528c988943:g:VBEAAOSwesdj1Eub&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAAwHoV3kP08IDx%2BKZ9MfhVJKnmRrOVc78nEZd0I5unTO1a1FmwB8rTkS3HQtFOQGeN15EePKytNaBQ8BwkiWDborji7qr45qeAZl%2FFzMa%2FYdibnvmLEX3SOchS%2B9MT24UXZxzzoidOoDLHKoOcr8ZsQxX7cvpmx8ZkCBcQkhnQufXHB2Ns67N121mWWKXShBhWnTewn8ipW0gPemfzPN%2FKPcq%2Fmby6prmHNWTpVuxiQ2cFPPaTmu8aYygnM1aG94CnPQ%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR_D4xe68ZA&edge=0

Perhaps the greatest feature of this accordion is that you can play it through headphones so nobody else hears it.

As for lack of foldback on spinet organs there is a way to somewhat compensate for it which I have seen in videos of Steve Winwood and Matthew Fisher. When they come to a climactic chordal sequence in a song they play right hand in the highest octave on the upper manual with the left hand playing the same chords in the next octave down also on the upper manual. This method works for chords but would be difficult for solos with both hands having to play the same notes an octave apart.

I began playing organ in bands in 1970. I didn't have a combo organ so I started out using our living room Wurlitzer 4100A all tube spinet through a guitar amp. The Wurlitzer was not very roadworthy and after a road trip to Reno, NV the lower manual wasn't working. I limped through a two week six night a week gig with only a mostly working upper manual. I had my repair guy come fix it when I got home. He recommended I get a Lowrey which he said were extremely well-built. For a couple of weeks I rented a Vox Super Continental from the repairman which I used for some local gigs in Oregon. Then we got another Nevada stint lined up and the band insisted that I needed a better organ. So I went to the local Hammond dealer in Salem, OR. They tried to sell me on the Porta B which they thought was the hottest thing on the market for a band musician. They also had an M-3 which I played and liked much better than the Porta B. This was early 1971 and the M-3 was over ten years old at that time. I remember I paid just under $1K for it. Played it through the guitar amp for a while and then shortly after bought two brand new Leslie 147's from the organ repairman for slightly less than the M-3. It was a great sounding band organ and could cover most of what you expect from a Hammond. In Oregon beginning around the mid-60s the Sunn amplifier company had a side business of portablizing Hammond organs mostly M-3s and some B-3s. I saw a few Northwest bands with them although at the time I thought Sunn was making organs because of the Sunn logo on the back. I also remember seeing the occasional national act come through town using an M-3 or other spinet. There was the Sons of Champlin with Bill Champlin playing an M-3 and the James Gang with Joe Walsh on an M-3 or maybe an M-100. At least a couple of hit records in the US were recorded with an M-3 most notably "Green Onions" by Booker T (without a Leslie) and "Foreplay/Long Time" and "Smokin'" by Boston. In England there were almost no M-3s sold there but many famous bands used an L-100 or M-100 in the 60s and 70s making many iconic hit records with them. There is no reason why an M-3 couldn't be a viable alternative Hammond for recording or local performance purposes. The main concern is these organs are now over 60 years old and quite likely need work. They can certainly be kept working but with their low value you need to be able to work on them yourself. Assuming you can find a tech any repair is going to cost much more than the value of the organ. Then the price of a Leslie speaker could be a deterrent unless you just happen to have one. Here is a Pacific Northwest band Don and the Goodtimes who used a Sunn modified M-3. Don played keyboard on "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen, formed one of the first Prog bands Touch in 1968, and was a staff producer for Elektra records.

This is my cat Jett. I have had cats most of my life and Jett is the best of all of them. When he was a kitten he sat and watched me change the strings on my guitar. When I was done he walked over and plucked a string with his mouth. About eight years ago I was patting him and noticed he was purring loudly. So I started hand drumming on him and he loved it. Now he expects me to drum on him every day and my hand drumming skills have improved immensely. I checked on YouTube and other people do have cats that like to be drummed on. When I come across other cats I try drumming on them but none have put up with it for very long.

I saw Sugarloaf in 1971 in Salem, Oregon. Jerry wasn't using a Leslie for some reason. He played B3 and Clavinet through what looked like four 4x12 speaker cabinets. When they started playing you couldn't hear the organ and the sound crew rushed out to put mics on the cabinets. The band had six members and did mostly new material. Usually when a band plays songs I haven't heard before it kind of goes over my head but in this case the new songs were very memorable. I looked for a new album for weeks afterward but nothing ever came out. The band had a lead singer who sang everything except "Green-Eyed Lady". Jerry was featured on "Bach Doors Man", his take on Bach's Prelude in D Minor. There was a second drum set on stage and Jerry played an extended drum solo on one song. I was very impressed by the band but then they seemed to disappear until "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" which was really a Jerry solo record co-written with John S. Carter, Jr who co-wrote the lyrics for "Incense and Peppermints" and later worked with some big names like Bob Seger, Steve Miller, Sammy Hagar, and Tina Turner. Probably pure coincidence but "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" was produced by Frank Slay who managed the Strawberry Alarm Clock as well as Freddy Cannon.

The first Spirit album is still one of my all-time favorites. "Mechanical World" actually got airplay on our local AM top 40 station in Oregon at the time. Then Spirit hit big with "I Got a Line on You" and followed it up with "1984" which also got a lot of airplay. Looked like they were on their way to the top and then the band fell apart. Locke mostly played Wurlie or acoustic piano on recordings so the overdriven organ on "1984" was a new sound for them. The song was available only as a single when it came out in 1970 and didn't appear on an LP until The Best of Spirit in 1973. I couldn't see buying that album for one song when I already had everything else. So I never got a copy of "1984" until the CD era. From videos it looks like Locke actually used a Farfisa Professional organ on stage.

I was going over Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" yesterday and noticed how busy the bassline is. It wasn't immediately apparent if it was bass guitar, synth or a combination. I looked it up and found Nathan Watts played on the initial recording and Stevie later replaced the bass guitar with synth. Watts is credited with bass on Songs in the Key of Life but synth bass is very prominent on that album.

I had my gear which included an OB8, DX7, and Jupiter 6 set up at a Rusty Pelican restaurant in Brea, CA for a two week engagement. One night a guy hid inside until the restaurant closed. When he opened the front door it set off the alarm. He was carrying out the Jupiter 6 when a police car happened to be driving by. They caught him red-handed. I assume he was planning to go back in for the other synths. In all the SoCal venues I played for years this was the only attempt though I heard of others having keyboards stolen.

Which reminds me I have a sealed vinyl copy of Digital Moonscapes which I somehow acquired in the 80s when I didn't have a turntable. Hate to open it now in case it has collectible value. I loved Tomita's Snowflakes are Dancing and Firebird when I heard them in the 70s.