Electronic Music (1): Tony Bassett
(by John Foxx)
CONNECTIONS AND DNA:
Here is the first of a few pieces of writing on the development of electronic music - or, at least, my version of it.
Some of these may seem tangential, but I think the interplay between them created a sort of ecology that made other things possible.
I’ve always been at least as interested in the connections as in the events themselves, and try to identify them whenever I can.
TONY BASSETT AND INVENTIONS
My first encounter with an electronic instrument was through Tony Bassett. He lived in Park Road, very near my street in Chorley, Lancashire. His mother worked at a lawyer’s office in town, and she kept a very sociable open house.
I often used to call in for a chat and a coffee and listen to records with a school friend, Arthur Sweeney. We were all around twelve or thirteen years old at the time.
Tony was fascinated by electricity and electronics and the sheer scale of their possibilities. Telstar had been launched and Joe Meek had brought out the instrumental a few years before. Electronics were in the air - quite literally - and the future was already in orbit. We were also aware of the atom bomb and the cold war, so it was all equally exciting and terrifying.
He bought all the home electronics magazines and was already a sort of eccentric inventor, regarded as a bit of a boffin, always assembling mysterious devices on the kitchen table.
The first one I saw was something he’d adapted from a transistor radio - if you went near the aerial, a sound began to come from the speaker. The nearer you got, the pitch rose and so did the volume. It was impressive and fascinating. Tony said it was a musical instrument - or a burglar alarm. He used to leave it on his windowsill at night hoping someone would try to get in or steal it. No takers.
We used to try to get a tune out of it, but you needed perfect physical control and patience. Still, the noises were quite something. It could really shriek.
But what intrigued me most about the Theramin was the fact that you were interacting with a complex, invisible force-field. It was a direct demonstration of unseen energies and the physical effect of your presence and movements on them. Science fiction met reality for me at that moment.
Another invention was the time machine. Tony constructed this from an old Xerox copier. He explained there were still a few problems. We said, ‘Go on Tony, let’s see it work.’ He switched it on and set the controls. There was a humming sound and that was it.
Apparently it had actually time-travelled, but only for a few seconds. The problem was the batteries - they couldn’t last more than that - and of course you can’t connect it to the mains. He was working on the problem.
Years later I was recording with Louis Gordon at our friend Roger’s studio - he’s the sound man for New Order. I walked into the control room and sitting on the console was a theremin he’d just bought. I immediately said - ‘I bet that’s made by Tony Bassett’ - there was just something about the build and style that immediately brought Tony to mind again. I turned it over and there was his label.
By an odd coincidence, some years before, I’d happened to see him on a television show demonstrating esoteric psycho-electronic devices. I’ve always loved that kitchen table invention ethos - after all, most of the 20th century’s great inventions, from James Watt’s steam engine to Logie Bard’s wee gadget, the television, were made in a similar manner.
http://www.digital-athanor.com/PRISM_ESCAPE/article_us86be.html?id_article=81
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5qf9O6c20o&feature=player_embedded