1985 Grammys Synthesizer Battle

[TommyRude]

Not an x-stand in sight!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-NgnympxAE

[George88]

What the kids might call, cringe.

[Jonathan Hughes]

3 hours ago, George88 said:

What the kids might call, cringe.

I remember being really excited for it as a kid and Thomas Dolby and Howard Jones fan and thinking it was cringey then. 

[Joe Muscara]

What I found interesting was that John Denver did the intro, and he at least acted really excited by it.

[DJkeys]

I had a KX-5 I played for years in bands.  Actually, a great keybed and instrument-

 

-dj

[analogika]

Not a single keyboard plugged in, but hey — that was a great part played live on the 303 at 2:05. 
 

Wireless audio and MIDI back in 1985! 

[Chummy]

I love the KX5 too, I have a black one, I bought it because I like Chick Corea and 80s pop

[GRollins]

(With tongue firmly in cheek...) I would like to like to note that it took four guys to operate one Rick Wakeman's-worth of keyboards.

 

Just sayin'...

 

Grey

[George88]

The first documented, “Okay boomer” at the Grammys.

[kpl1228]

I have a different take on this.

I saw it as a look at where music was heading and where it was at that point in time: keyboards and keyboardists were going to be a huge part of pop music's future and not just being the hidden musicians behind the curtain (or sitting at a B3 or Rhodes way back there by the drummer) but as actual flashy performers of the newest flashy technology.

I was 21 at the time, and with things like this the musical world seemed limitless as synth people made their way onto mainstream TV and videos and magazine covers. Bo Tomlyn showed up in this new world, for crying out loud. Anything was possible.

I also decided to get a KX5 in no smart part due to the show. Time to get out front with the guitar players and see why they got all the cute girls, and at least pretend to have some stage presence. It worked. Mostly because I was 21.

[o0Ampy0o]

 

How much band can you fit on a small platform?

 

 

 

[Jonathan Hughes]

On 12/25/2023 at 9:27 AM, Joe Muscara said:

What I found interesting was that John Denver did the intro, and he at least acted really excited by it.

 

I remember seeing John Denver on the Tonight Show in the 80s, and his keyboard player had a rack bei=hind him that was six feet tall, and I think it was mostly filled with Yamaha TX816s, so maybe John was slowly easing his way into making technopop.

[Josh Paxton]

18 hours ago, Jonathan Hughes said:

I remember seeing John Denver on the Tonight Show in the 80s, and his keyboard player had a rack bei=hind him that was six feet tall, and I think it was mostly filled with Yamaha TX816s, so maybe John was slowly easing his way into making technopop.

 

And let me guess: he used that entire refrigerator full of gear to play a pad sound?

[Bill H.]

John Denver gettin' down with FM synths in the 1980s:

 

 

[nursers]

On 12/26/2023 at 11:22 AM, o0Ampy0o said:

 

How much band can you fit on a small platform?

 

 

 

Yep that's a small space though they spent close to a decade playing Australian pubs in spaces like that so they probably weren't even fazed  

[Joe Muscara]

4 minutes ago, Dr Nursers said:

Yep that's a small space though they spent close to a decade playing Australian pubs in spaces like that so they probably weren't even fazed  

And my ear says they're playing mostly to tracks anyway.

[stoken6]

1 hour ago, Joe Muscara said:

And my ear says they're playing mostly to tracks anyway.

That's one solution to cramped stages, I guess 👍

 

Cheers, Mike.

[nursers]

2 hours ago, Joe Muscara said:

And my ear says they're playing mostly to tracks anyway.

Yep absolutely  

[Redknife]

Thank goodness nobody got hurt

[TommyRude]

Watching John Denver announcing the next big thing reminded me of a few similar situations.  Somewhere, I think in the 80s or 90s at one of the awards shows, the host announced INXS as the “best live band in the world” right before they gave a performance.  Whoever writes and approves the scripts for these shows feels the need to say this stuff… it’s not needed.  Just let them play, the audience will decide what they like.  And announcing someone or something as the “next big thing” is often the kiss of death.  Probably why Bruce Springsteen vehemently protesting against Time & Newsweek when they put him on the cover in the same week back in the 70s, best thing he could have said, helped avoid the kiss of death.

[dglcomp]

I believe the piece of music used for the Grammy's event was recorded in Stevie Wonder's studio and Howard got to have a jam with Stevie. Also Howard supposedly had quite a few KX5's over the years and only stopped using them when failures became an issue and he switched to the new Korg one, he liked the smaller keys as he felt they worked better for a keytar.

[Jim Alfredson]

I love that video. It is so gloriously cheesy.

[ABECK]

Take out Thomas Dolby and the cringe factor goes way down.

[ABECK]

On 12/27/2023 at 8:12 PM, TommyRude said:

Watching John Denver announcing the next big thing reminded me of a few similar situations.  Somewhere, I think in the 80s or 90s at one of the awards shows, the host announced INXS as the “best live band in the world” right before they gave a performance.  

If this was 1991, that statement would have had a ring of truth to it.  The Live Baby Live show is a great example of a band that is dialed in perfectly.

[Jim Alfredson]

Here's a copy of the article about this performance from the June 1985 issue of Keyboard Magazine.

https://www.tmdrfan.com/tmdr/articles/keyboard_grammys_jun85.html

[elsongs]

On 12/25/2023 at 6:27 AM, Joe Muscara said:

What I found interesting was that John Denver did the intro, and he at least acted really excited by it.

I think it was genuine. I mean he used that opportunity to school the world on how to pronounce "Moog" after all!

[elsongs]

On 12/25/2023 at 2:24 PM, kpl1228 said:

I have a different take on this.

I saw it as a look at where music was heading and where it was at that point in time: keyboards and keyboardists were going to be a huge part of pop music's future and not just being the hidden musicians behind the curtain (or sitting at a B3 or Rhodes way back there by the drummer) but as actual flashy performers of the newest flashy technology.

I was 21 at the time, and with things like this the musical world seemed limitless as synth people made their way onto mainstream TV and videos and magazine covers. Bo Tomlyn showed up in this new world, for crying out loud. Anything was possible.

I also decided to get a KX5 in no smart part due to the show. Time to get out front with the guitar players and see why they got all the cute girls, and at least pretend to have some stage presence. It worked. Mostly because I was 21.

I was 13 at the time. I had been taking piano lessons for about a year then. I was getting by with a little Yamaha Portasound keyboard. It was this Grammy performance, Live Aid and pretty much every song on the radio that year that made me want a Yamaha DX7 soooooooo bad.

Flash forward to Christmas morning, 1985: I found a huge box (and a smaller box with accessories) by the Christmas tree. It was a brand new Yamaha DX7. My best Christmas present E-V-E-R.

And it's still going strong 38 years later.

[kpl1228]

17 hours ago, elsongs said:

I was 13 at the time. I had been taking piano lessons for about a year then. I was getting by with a little Yamaha Portasound keyboard. It was this Grammy performance, Live Aid and pretty much every song on the radio that year that made me want a Yamaha DX7 soooooooo bad.

Flash forward to Christmas morning, 1985: I found a huge box (and a smaller box with accessories) by the Christmas tree. It was a brand new Yamaha DX7. My best Christmas present E-V-E-R.

And it's still going strong 38 years later.

Great Christmas story. Sounds like it was your Red Rider BB gun.

Mine's similar. I was 21 playing for not-much-better-than-beer-money in a awful bar band on the road in some hotel in Bellefontaine Ohio on Christmas weekend a million years ago when my parents showed up with a DX7 in a case to my gig. Guess they saw enough promise in my rookie year on the road to do a little investment.

Turns out it was a co-signed loan and then they handed me a payment book, but still I was unbelievably grateful they stepped up for even that, as they had nothing and somehow got approved for a loan thru the local music store. I needed pro gear, I had scrimped for falling-apart old keyboards just to get a gig, and my parents knew it. The DX7 was all I talked about for a year, and I just couldn't get the $2K on my own, no matter how much I tried to save on the road. But 65 bucks a month? I could swing that. That DX7 made me viable and marketable and I went on to new bands and better gigs. But that DX7 was the catalyst. My first real newer pro board. The KX5 controller followed a few months later.

I forgot all about that moment. A good Christmas memory.

Parental involvement would be a good topic for this forum, actually.

[Josh Paxton]

On 12/28/2023 at 1:53 PM, dglcomp said:

Also Howard supposedly had quite a few KX5's over the years and only stopped using them when failures became an issue and he switched to the new Korg one, he liked the smaller keys as he felt they worked better for a keytar.

 

When I was learning Chick Corea's "Got a Match" just a few years ago, there was one passage where I was having trouble finding a fingering I liked. So I thought I'd see if I could find video of Chick playing it to see how he tackled it. That was when I learned the secret: Chick only ever played the tune on a KX5, and the mini keys made that particular passage way easier to reach. I ended up using his fingering and eventually got used to the stretch, but it took some time.