Godfrey's Cordial

In 1968, the all-Moog Synthesizer album "Switched On Bach" was released. While the modular synthesizer had been around for up to 3 years previous to this release, it was this release which exposed the unique and beautiful sound of the Moog Synthesizer to the general public. The general public was enthralled... which made dollar-signs in the eyes of music producers everywhere. Between 1968 and about 1974, there was a torrent of albums released featuring the new audio technology. Sadly (or not so sadly), many of these releases were overly-sugary, hastily recorded, and massively exploitive. These works, recently termed "Moogsploitation," have a growing following. Godfrey's Cordial began in around 2002 as a side project of the already-analog-synthesizer-saturated band Automatic Gainsay (www.myspace.com/automaticgainsay2). Once Marc Doty started to collect analog synthesizers, he became compelled to embrace the original genres of music associated with these devices. Any of the Automatic Gainsay songs that were overly sugary, poppy, or kitschy became Godfrey's Cordial songs. In 2002, Marc Doty found a very old collection of royalty-free recordings of music intended for film from the late 60s, early 70s. With a bit of cutting and splicing, some of these pieces were capable of being made into full songs. After adding drums, ornament, and of course, modular synthesizer, these pieces became the first Godfrey's Cordial songs. Marc Doty often scores for theater, and it's very common for his scorings to include bits of Moogsploitation. "Troubled Past (Randy's Theme)" is an example of this. Built atop a country song comprised of an actual Optigan (www.optigan.com) performance, Troubled Past features the delightfully sappy Moog! Another example would be "The Park" from the theatrical production "Psst."