Day 3: The Zodiac Organ

If you are old enough to have been to a shopping mall in the early seventies, you might remember the organ demo man. My mom always wanted an organ. She had a piano, before she had me, but there wasn't enough room in the Gardena house for a second big instrument. But a couple of years after we moved into the John Street house, she bought this:

Yes, it's not JUST an organ; it also had a synthesizer! Though a lot simpler than the Moogs and ARPs available at the time (when I took a synthesizer class at the Dick Grove School of Music in Studio City, you still had to use patch cords), it was pretty sophisticated, and somewhere I probably still have my notations of various weird sounds I discovered in my attempt at being Keith Emerson.

There was also a drum machine!

This drove my poor father mad, but in the late 70s this machine served as the drummer of my first band, The Bromos, who never played anywhere other than my living room. (Take that, Echo and the Bunnymen and Sisters of Mercy!)

The organ came with a series of six lessons, given at the Baldwin shop in the Del Amo mall. My mother did three and I did three; I have vague memories of playing "We've Only Just Begun", with a "Soft Rock" accompaniment.

Love that Zodiac font!!!

The synthesizer has brightly colored templates you can place over the knobs to make various sounds.

When my friends came over, the Zodiac was hard to resist. Here are some members of the Dream Syndicate, working on some sounds for their first album. I seem to be supervising, and whoever took the photo didn't notice their thumb I guess.

Here's my brother, Kurt, who never played the organ as far as I recall, trying to look cool in 1984:

I tried desparately, with no success, to get him to re-create this pose recently. Someone I showed this photo to was amazed that the couch behind him, which was brand new at the time, is in the exact same position with the exact same striped blanket across its back. That's the way things rolled in the Leuschner home - if it ain't broke, don't replace it. That couch though, is actually broken; one of the corner legs came off. So when I was here on a visit in the mid 90s, using my sense and sensibility, I placed the collected works of Jane Austen under that corner. It was exactly the right height, and there it has resided until this day. Thanks, Jane!

My eldest nephew, Luke, always loved the organ. For a time he liked to park his cars on it:

But he also would have a go at playing it:

And he was much more agreeable about attempting to match this pose. 

We pointed out that he was shirtless in the photo (but no, we did not ask him to don a diaper!) and had his leg up on the bench. So... take two!

The Zodiac still works though could use a tune-up. Any offers considered!