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Gizmo - was Daevid Allen/glissando guitar
Dig
out a copy of Art Thompson's Stompbox book for the inside story of the
Gizmotron. It was the straw that broke Musitronics back apparently,
founder Aaron Newman;
"The
beginning of the end for us was around '77 when we got involved with a thing
called the Gizmotron. It was an electromechanical bowing device brought to us
by a sales rep who knew someone in the band 10cc. The Gizmotron as
invented by band members Lol Creme & Kevin Godley, & they'd
used it for the string-sounding parts on their hit "I'm Not in Love". The only
problem was that Lol was the only person who could actually play the thing. We
were blown away by the Gizmo's potential but in hindsighte shuld have
realized that it couldn't work. The Gizmo had some physical limitations
that you couldn't really overcome. For instance, we found if we made them
during the winter, they wouldn't work properly in hot weather. It was the
characteristics of the plastics and none of us were plastics engineers. We were
out of our realm."
Lack
of sufficient funds drove them to sell off Musitronics to ARP (themselves
suffering from the Avatar's commercial failure) and concentrate on Gizmo
Incorporated until Aaron suffered a heart attack and decided to call it a
day.
