* (restored)
‘I am willing to claim that almost every exotic instrument played by whomever in the Rolling Stones, and recorded after they entered the Olympic Studios in November 1966, actually were played on the keyboard of the Mellotron. Whether it was a trombone, saxophone, French Accordion, you name it. Even the much debated lead guitar on Let It Loose. Yes, and even the percussion track on Sympathy For The Devil. When the Rolling Stones left Olympic Studios for the basement of Nellcote, the Mellotron was gone. Left behind. Because Brian Jones was dead. Nobody needed the sounds of the sixties anymore. If it, the Mellotron, turns up on later albums, then you know the track itself probably was recorded in the sixties.’ — godgammeldags.nu
Inside the Mellotron
____
Intro
‘The Mellotron is an electronic musical instrument invented around 1960 to provide the sounds of violins, cellos, flutes, choirs, horns, pretty much anything, from a keyboard. Given the technology of the day, the reasonable way to do this was with strips of magnetic tape. So the Mellotron uses a strip of magnetic tape, a pinch roller, tape head, pressure pad, and a rewind mechanism for each note on the keyboard. ‘The heart of the instrument is a bank of parallel linear magnetic audio tape strips. Playback heads underneath each key enable the playing of pre-recorded sounds. Each of the tape strips has a playing time of approximately eight seconds, after which the tape comes to a dead stop and rewinds to the start position. ‘A major advantage of using tape strips, as opposed to tape loops / cassettes (cf the Birotron) is that the Mellotron can reproduce the attack and decay of the instruments recorded on the tape. ‘A consequence of the eight second limit on the duration of each note is that if the player wants to play chords that last longer than eight seconds, he/she has to release different notes in sequence in a process that has been compared to a spider crawling across the keyboard. ‘To our modern day technological sensibilities this cumbersome mechanical contraption seems kludgy as can be, especially you’re watching the tape rewind operation, but the fact is that no modern technology keyboard can come close to the quality of presence so characteristic of the Mellotron sound. Why is this? Because the tape playback mechanism is the musical instrument. It matters less what is recorded on the tape. ‘Among the early Mellotron owners were Princess Margaret, Peter Sellers, King Hussein of Jordan and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. The instrument was, and still is, a centerpiece of the psychedelic rock, art rock, and progressive rock movements.’ — Don’s Mellotron Page
Read a economical but comprehensive history of the mellotron here
Trailer: ‘Mellodrama’
___
Users
‘The Beatles were introduced to the Mellotron by Mike Pindar of the Moody Blues who are thought to be the first rock band to employ the instrument in a popular song. The Beatles’ first use of Mellotron sounds was on the song Tomorrow Never Knows where they used reel to reel recorders to record Mellotron brass and string sounds which, along with other sounds, were then brought into the studio. The heavy weight of the Mellotron prevented the machine from easily being transported. The Beatles hired in a machine and subsequently (and more prominently) used it on their single “Strawberry Fields Forever” (recorded November-December 1966). The Beatles continued to compose and record with various Mellotrons for the albums “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band”, “Magical Mystery Tour”, and “The Beatles” (White Album). ‘Other artists utilizing the Mellotron on hit records in this period included The Zombies (“Changes”, “Care Of Cell 44”, “Hung Up On A Dream”), Donovan (“Celeste”, “Breezes of Patchule”), Manfred Mann (several Mike D’abo-era recordings, including “So Long Dad”, “There Is A Man” and “Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James”), The Rolling Stones (“2000 Light Years from Home”, “We Love You”, “Stray Cat Blues”), Deep Purple (“Anthem”), The Bee Gees (“World”, “Every Christian Lion-Hearted Man Will Show You” & “My Thing”), Traffic (“House for Everyone”, “Hole In My Shoe”), Pink Floyd (“A Saucerful of Secrets”, “See-Saw”, “Julia Dream”, “Atom Heart Mother” and “Sysyphus”), Procol Harum (“Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)”), The Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow, Cream’s “Badge”, “Anyone for Tennis”, The Left Banke’s “Myrah”, Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) (Chamberlin), Nilsson’s “The Moonbeam Song”, and The Kinks’ (“Phenomenal Cat,” “Autumn Almanac,” “Sitting By The Riverside,” “All Of My Friends Were There,” “Animal Farm,” “Starstruck,” “Days,”), David Bowie’ “Space Oddity”. ‘The Mellotron was crucial to shaping the sound of the progressive rock genre, and it featured in the sound and recordings of more bands of that era than not. Among the more prominent examples are King Crimson, Yes, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Genesis, Hawkwind, ELP, and Tangerine Dream, but even such unexpected bands and artists of the period as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan used the instrument in their recordings. After all but dying out during the punk and New Wave era, the instrument had a great rebirth of popularity in the ’90s that continues until today. Some of the recent and current artists who have used the Mellotron extensively include Guns N’ Roses, The Mars Volta, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Sigur Rós, Dinosaur Jr, Pulp, U2, Primus, The Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, Counting Crows, Oasis, Barenaked Ladies, Sheryl Crow, Tori Amos, Lenny Kravitz, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, Modest Mouse, Ayreon, Muse, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Prick, Grandaddy, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Charlatans, Paul Weller, Radiohead, Porcupine Tree, Anekdoten, Air, and Opeth.’ — 120 Years of Electronic Music
The site Planet Mellotron has an extensive discography of all known post ’50s recordings using the Mellotron that in some cases include reviews and anecdotal evidence.
(top to bottom: Robert Fripp, Tarantula, ELP, John Lennon, Mike Pinder (Moody Blues), Barclay James Harvest, Tangerine Dream, Rick Wakeman/Yes, Ian McDonald/King Crimson, Brian Jones, Michael Quatro, PJ Harvey, Paul McCartney, Peter Baumann, John Paul Jones/Led Zeppelin, Jon Lord/Deep Purple, Julian Cope, Graham Bond, Geddy Lee/Rush, David Sylvian, Tony Banks/Genesis, Rick Wright/Pink Floyd
__________
The instrument
_____
Further
Mellotron Information Central
The Melloman – DIY Mellotron
All Things Mellotronic
Make a Mellotron out of four Walkmans
Tapeworm, a Mellotron-like synthesizer
Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie
The Mellotron Symposia
Mellotron Sounds
How a Mellotron works @ candor chasma
______
Examples
Robert Wyatt ‘Seasong’
John Lennon’s Mellotron experiments circa ’68
The Flaming Lips ‘Race for the Prize’
Rolling Stones ‘We Love You’
Big Star ‘Kangaroo’
Moody Blues ‘Legend of a Mind’
Blur ‘Badhead’
Bee Gees’ ‘Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You’
Dinosaur Jr. ‘Thumb’
Kinks ‘Phenomenal Cat’
Dzyan ‘Khali’
King Crimson ‘The Court of the Crimson King’
Roxy Music ‘Street Life’
Family ‘Peace of Mind’
Pavement ‘Transport Is Arranged’
Genesis ‘Watcher of the Skies’
Tom Waits ‘In the Colosseum’
Led Zeppelin ‘The Rain Song’
Daniel Johnston ‘Syrup of Tears’
Frank Ocean ‘Nikes’
Family ‘Voyage’
Fiery Furnaces ‘Restorative Beer’
Hawkwind ‘The Golden Void’
Sparks ‘Thank God It’s Not Christmas’
Pink Floyd ‘Atom Heart Mother’
Radiohead ‘Exit Music (For a Film’
Lana Del Rey ‘The greatest’
The Move ‘Blackberry Way’
*
p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Our heatwave, or the worst part of it, was a one day (yesterday) affair, we’re told, so I have signed off on love doing his AC cosplay in your apartment starting now. If love or you remember, how was ‘Leviticus’? Have a great long weekend with your pal hopefully without the sun’s excessive interference. Love feeling a bit flabbergasted as he was just informed yesterday that his friend DC’s novel ‘The Sluts’ has just been banned in Germany by something called The Federal Agency for Child and Youth Protection in the Media, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thank you, B. ** Thom, Hi. Sorry, yeah, once I start writing the p.s. I stop looking for new comments. Bad habit. A fellow fake food lover! Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo has one of the world’s largest collections of fake food. Makes a weird kind of sense, no? Yes, what Pinget and you said, precisely. I spent more than two years devising the structure of my novel ‘The Marbled Swarm’, and I’ve reached the conclusion that no one will ever find it and mentally map it out, but c’est la. Lenora Carrington’s short stories are so good, so much better than her paintings. And I have a lifelong big love for Incredible String Band. Back in the day, I saw them live maybe 9 times. All of which is to say, great day you had there. I mostly hid from the heat. I think it’s fading out now. Enjoy everything’s totality. ** jay, Hi. I certainly don’t have anywhere close to a decent understanding of German culture apart from some of their films and literature, but the Syberberg films still cast a spell, I think. Kudos and gratitude again for your playing and piano. I love all those pauses and thinking and lingering and so on in music or, well, in anything so much. Those points in Zac’s and my films are often the most successful (to me). Any temptation on your part to play a Mellotron? Pretty different can of worms, I guess. ** Adem Berbic, I guess when people use the word ‘overwhelmed’ they mean a tidal wave kind of effect. The emotion that ‘overwhelms’ me the most by far is anxiety, which is not very show-offy. In my case at least. I think what you describe makes sense. It’s easily imaginable. ** Steeqhen, Hey there! As to your question, no, I don’t think I ever feel like my mind has any control over the reality in which I am a smart part. Except when I’m writing, but that’s not real, or I guess I mean when I’m writing I feel like actual reality is on vacation. Which isn’t to say I think a mind can’t control reality, but then you get to the whole ‘what is reality’ question, which I never think I can answer. Happy b’day to your friend, and advance happy b’day to you. I do think that one can decide an occasion marks the ending of something and the beginning of something new/else. So go for it. ** Steve, That is sadly very hard to imagine. Oh, I really enjoyed your latest ‘RNR’ episode. So much I didn’t know. I was particularly pulled into Philip Golub, Pylar, Psycroptic, and Kelela so far. That Haru Matsui track I chose is by far my favorite from his album, yeah. I keep hitting it, but not so much the rest. ** HaRpEr //, Ostensibly, being ‘in a place with it that is unlike anything I’ve felt when writing before’ sounds very positive. Yeah, I tried hard in ‘The Sluts’ to deal with the internet as just a very particular, labyrinthine, unreliable space. ** laura w, Yes, they do. It’s a lifesaver. After8 is among Paris’s total musts when you come. Agreed, about the Tulathimutte, and, having done an event with him and heard him talk, I think he would agree. I’m so sorry about the declining in your head. Maybe ease back on the caffeine? I’m a fan of chewing gum, which has a curious concentrating, relaxing effect? My friend and I had to bail yesterday because it was just too hot. But today seems okay so far. There’s a cloud cover and everything. ** Bill, At least when I saw ‘Our Hitler’ projected ages ago, they had two intermissions, if that helps. Really nice about the gig. Paris is surprisingly good at that sort of thing. Granted, Les Instants Chavirés is where about 80% of them happen. ** Nicholas., I couldn’t not notice. I didn’t mean the art was bad, I guess I meant that maybe it set up high expectations or something? I can’t remember. My end … just post-heatwave for the moment and gonna see friends and do/eat dumb shit at the summer fete foraine, I think? Nothing too heavy in theory. xo -> tu. ** Right. Today I have a revived a very, very old post about my all-time favorite musical instrument, the magical Mellotron! See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
@DC, that’s good to hear, I think. Maybe my frame of reference is just off because my benchmark for intense emotion is, I dunno, doing MDMA or LSD for the first time. And yes, same, anxiety is the main one. Or it’s almost like a meta-emotion which shakes all the others up like a can of coke you want to spray everywhere. But there’s no spray. Hm. Having articulated that has actually really dinked my brain. I’m lucky that the most self-destructive things I generally have an appetite for these days are cigarettes and sometimes biting my nails. Fuck the German government. I think that department bans anything as quote-unquote edgy as Rammstein and up.
@Steeqhen, perhaps it’s just because my comment also had to insist it’s not schizo, but I think I get a version of what you mean. As in, various things including meditation have given me a pretty strong belief that the lion’s share of each individual’s reality is fabricated, as in, there’s what’s actually there, but then the affective and emotional character and means of responding to each thing is the work of our minds, and that latter actually makes up way more of it than what’s literally present. And if it’s the work of our minds, then it’s unsurprising that things can be assigned a fictional character or a narrative form or a sense of actual or symbolic causality, and those things are no less subjectively real than whether it’s raining or not. The extreme, reductive version of this is stuff like ‘happiness is a choice’ and ‘have you tried not being depressed,’ which is obviously horseshit. And for me, there’s actually an (increasing?) tension between the feeling of having gained some (admittedly subtle, indirect, slow-burn) agency over the character my mind assigns to reality (as borne out in the fact that the reality I inhabit now is way less hostile than, say, five years ago), versus the fatalistic idea that I have no real control over my mental health, and I’m essentially counting down the clock until it decides to go to shit. Or, like, despite things seeming to have improved over those five years (and, I mean, looking at the facts on the ground, it’s obviously, incontestably, cartoonishly clear that they have), there’s a fear that that process has actually just been like filling an empty box with nice, more-or-less-validating distractions, but the walls and dimensions of the box are the same as what they were before. Does that sound schizo?
hi dennis–
i love the mellotron too – it feels like the first instrument ever made with an identity crisis, like is the magic from the mechanism or the pre-recorded tape or something else? every subsequent reproduction of it, whether physical device or VST plug-in or other (EHX makes a guitar pedal version, which is what Modest Mouse use) seems to imply it’s the stock recordings that are its core – but I’ve always wondered why don’t more people make their own tape loops for it?
i hope today is well for you. i kind of have a longer letter to send about another subject but I’m not sure where to send it. if you can see the emails attached to comments, and if it isn’t too weird to receive something from a total stranger, could you send one to me? sorry for the trouble. thanks for this blog, and for Wrong, and for existing in general.
Roxy Music – Ladytron is up there with my favourites and it has a bunch of Mellotron sounds that Eno liberally sprinkled in there. That instrument fits right in with their “more is more” approach.
Looking forward to the Room Temperature premiere in Leeds tomorrow night! My brother will be chaperoning me and he knows not to expect any conventional sort of film. But my dad did enjoy the PGL screening in Glasgow all those years ago so my family does have a history with your work.
The mellotron has this odd “lonely” sound. I think my favorite mellotron players are Robert Fripp and Brian Jones. Especially the last part of the Rolling Stones’ “We Love You.” Or is that Nicky Hopkins? And “Strawberry Hills Forever” is a great mellotron pop song. Or is it pop? Is it John Lennon playing the mellotron? The mellotron is still a mystery.
Germany seriously banned “The Sluts”? And it took them what, 20-odd years since publication? When you say “banned” I assume you mean being placed on the “Index”, which is a typically German double-standard workaround that enables censorship & the simultaneous denial of its existence. Any work that’s on the Index can’t be displayed in stores, advertised or reviewed. It turns the work into an invisible under-the-counter item with weird black market vibes. But oh no, it’s not censorship they say… give me a fucking break.
But admit it, part of you is secretly thrilled by this, no? It certainly does no harm to the currency of your outlaw status. I will say this: when I was a kid, to me & my friends the Index always served the opposite of its intended purpose. We actively sought out movies because they were on it. I still remember the shock of seeing “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” on Amazon Prime a few years ago. In the 90s & 00s it was firmly indexed, meaning impossible to get anywhere. You had to ask some weird kid’s older brother for a bootlegged VHS tape like you were buying drugs. Needless to say this added immensely to the thrill of it all. Now one by one distributors are going to court arguing that the work’s artistic merits outweigh its potential for harm. That’s how “TCM” came off the Index, & Ellis’s “American Psycho” too if I remember correctly. Sade, by the way, is exempt for “historical” reasons. The bullshit stacks sky-high…
Not much to report on my end, which is why I haven’t been commenting on a daily basis. Summer here in Spain grinds life to a near-halt, because as long as the sun is out no one voluntarily goes outside except to hit the pool. The trade-off are the evenings, which suddenly revive the social life. As long as you don’t fight that rhythm you’ll be fine. And it’s not like central Europe is any cooler these days.
For god-knows-what reason I was curious to revisit “Deliverance”. Man, my patience for narrative film is all but spent. It’s not a “bad” film per se, but I realize now that when plot mechanics, character-building & psychology are at the forefront I’m basically out. It bores me out of my skull. I know I brought this up not too long ago but this drove it home even more. I guess what interested me about “Deliverance” was the subject matter, all kind of up my alley: civilization vs. the wild, brute instinct, the exploration of masculinity. But it’s all so tediously prosaic… And the infamous “squeal like a pig” scene? All I could think was how poorly edited & staged it is. Oh well…
I’ve got a Mellotron sample pack, but you need to edit or pitch-shift the loops because each holds one note at the same volume for 7 seconds. I love its sound, though. There was a recent documentary about the instrument.
How did the German censors pick up on THE SLUTS, so long after its publication? Is it fully illegal to sell there, or just barred for minors? You’re in the same company as Kathy Acker, so that’s something to be proud of.
I’m glad you enjoyed the latest “Radio Not Radio” show. Pylar’s DELIRIO is exceptional leftfield metal. My next one will include several songs I learned about from the Gig Day.
insane about germany getting uptight about the sluts. i wonder why they’re upset now, but didn’t american psycho also run into some weird bullshit from them, too? germany is an odd country- on one hand, they make a big deal about their liberalism and more lackadaisical culture around sex and drinking and then on the other hand you have their banned book index. at least it hasn’t been shrink wrapped by australia! yet.
at least france appears to be immune to a lot of this bullshit, but of course they have a literary tradition that rewards transgression.
i should really cut out caffeine, but it does make me feel better! no gum allowed in the library, sadly. a lot of my issues rotate around magical thinking which sounds nice but is actually evil, but i get these weird ideas in my head about things like my house burning down or being infested by bugs or whatever and then those thoughts take on this sort of inevitable flavor. articulation is hard. i used to be able to exorcise them through writing but now it’s harder and to cope i end up doing a lot of checking and mantras and other ocd behaviors or get really depressed and don’t want to leave my house or whatever. i am too inarticulate for talk therapy. i may go on medication. this is all grossly oversharing. i am not backspacing.
i’m sorry your plans died. this summer fete foraine sounds fun, tho! i hope your day was better than mine 🙂
Hi Dennis,
Mellotron…. reminds me I need to check out more 70s music, the only face I recognise here is Sylvian. Even the greats like King Crimson I haven’t got around to just yet…
For the past while I have been listening to 90s 4AD bands, almost exclusively.. His Name Is Alive, Lisa Germano, Red House Painters. Really like the rickety room tone, it’s cosy. I’m into the visual language from this time, how designers were using swirly fonts and rusty, acid colour schemes on cover arts to let you know it’s something darker, same goes with some books from that time, kinda see it with the first editions of Frisk and Try
If you see this, do you have a fave Lisa Germano album? I gotta hand it to Lullaby for Liquid Pig in terms of overall consistency/potency, but Slide is suuuper underrated I think! Happiness is the goldilox zone variety one tho…
Heh, nothing wrong with calling it on new comments after initiating the PS! I forget about time zones sometimes!
I really do think Incredible String Band was the best of the bunch in terms of the whole psych folk etc thing… really spectacular, wide-framed atmospheres conjured with pretty simple acoustic instruments… my bread and butter I suppose! They also fall into that wonderful camp of bands with two distinct lead songwriters whos individual quirks complement each other (Beatles, XTC, Animal Collective, Deerhunter, etc…) Any fave songs/albums from the string band? I love Job’s Tears, Maya, Balad of the New Moon, Very Cellular Song… so many…
I loved Leonora Carrington’s novel a lot, but wow those short stories really had me laughing, more than most books. What a pleasure that she wrote this stuff, helps shine a light, at least a bit, on the non-visual art elements of the surrealists…
And hey, happy mellotron day, huh? I was sold, like many, by the Strawberry Fields intro, but was sooo pleased to learn of the string tones a bit later. The early Tangerine Dream stuff has some stunning mellotron for sure. They were, if just for a few years, one of the best bands in the world. Kinda got a bit silly tho, eventually… I think that Watcher of the Skies from Genesis is probably the best implementation of the mellotron texture EVER. And one of the best droney basslines ever too! What a crazy song, none of the other Genesis songs have hit me as nice…
Gonna echo Fionn above me and ask, are you familiar with Lisa Germano? Maybe one of my favourite songwriters of the 90s… she does the lazy slurred kinda vocals in a really nice way, and has a super great casual sort of language with her lyrics. Hilarious that she was playing violin with John Cougar Mellancamp and stuff before doing solo records and signing to 4AD etc…
Hope the week has started to cool down, or be more bearable in some way? Bye!
At this point I’m just in a kind of dissonant state where I can’t fully tell if my ideas are making it onto the page or not. I can’t fucking wait until I somehow manage to finish the first draft. I reckon it’ll take a long time. I initially decided that I was going to write it all out according to my plan from front to back without moving anything around and scrambling it later, but I’m going to go back on that. If I just write whatever I most want to write, then I can realize that there’s certain things that I would’ve forced myself to slog through that my heart isn’t actually in, and I want to avoid forgetting ideas I have for the later part of the book.
I didn’t realize that was a mellotron on ‘Race for the Prize’! One of my favourite songs ever, as is Big Star’s ‘Kanga Roo’, and the instrument sounds kind of gothic and whimsical/nursery rhyme-ish on the Kinks’ ‘Village Green…’ album. So many great songs in that list. I actually love a couple of King Crimson albums, but I don’t know if people would expect me to because prog isn’t my thing.
Uh, I’m always so pissed off by the immediate reaction to disavow any art that doesn’t tell you outright that the challenging material is bad. It’s so cowardly, because some people actually think that speaking positively about the book in any way equates to endorsing what is being depicted.
Great to see the return of this day, Dennis. I love it and the instrument. I think I might have suggested this demo clip before:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yrXtmKGkSa4
I used to be in Paris mostly in the summer, when Instants Chavires is on holiday like most civilized Europeans. I will catch a gig there someday. I see some fine items on their calendar for the fall, including a set with my friend the very fine saxophonist Michael Foster with the always intriguing Chris Corsano on drums.
It’s been pouring here, and this is not a fun place in bad weather. But better than the heat!
Bill
Bill
Hey there, Dennis, I feel like my grandparents had a wood-paneled Mellatron in their living room, or some sort of doppelganger. Lots of knobs and whatnot. But piano-ish. It was probably just some kind of weird organ or something. Who knows. I had no idea this instrument was used on those Blur/Pavement songs. Awesome! Just skimmed and saw ‘The Sluts’ has been banned in Germany??? WTF. That ‘group’ sounds hella uptight. A German version of Parents Music Resource Center. You will be proud to know that ‘The Sluts’ is front-and-center at City Lights in San Francisco. It’s right there as you walk in. Just saw a week or so ago. Anyway, yo. Take care, Don
Hi Dennis,
The Mellotron. First song coming to my mind rn is OMD’s Maid Of Orleans.
Something about the truncated nature of the notes feels like someone broke apart an organic thing and then reconstructed it, just imperfectly enough. A beautifully singing reanimated corpse.
(Also reminds me a bit of the cat organ.)
Laura is still working to get her legs back under her. She misses the blog. Lot of FOMO going on, man.
During the day, she’s taking it slow, tinkering on poems mostly. Working on the novel is still too daunting atm.
There’s this line she wants to fit in, but hasn’t quite found the right spot for yet.
“Faysal’s bitten-off nail a sliver of divine light torn through the blood-black bedding”
I fucking love it. Maybe more so because I’m aware of the context. Anyway, there it is.
Have a good Friday, everybody! x
P.S. FUCK, how i LOVE Race For The Prize and The Soft Bulletin. What a fantastic parting gift from the 20th century that was.
Have you ever blogged about Zaireeka and the parking lot experiments?