A couple of nights ago I attended the release party for the new book on the San Francisco Tape Music Center, edited by David Bernstein. There was a fantastic panel including Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Bill Maginnis, Don Buchla, and David Bernstein, and the event was incredibly well attended. So well in fact, that the venue reached capacity and they had to kick many people out on threats of shutting down the event. That left many of us outside peering in through the windows.

I picked up the book and although I haven’t had time to go through it completely, it looks fantastic. If David Bernstein’s previous writing is any indication, this is a must have for anyone who wants a full picture of American electronic music history. It contains interviews with the entire core group of the TMC, including Don Buchla, who doesn’t like interviews very much. The book is accompanied by a DVD with recordings of compositions originating at the Tape Music Center, along with visuals by Tony Martin.

Speaking of Don, he had a hard time getting in too…you can see his head near the wall, mysteriously surrounded by a glowing halo…

One of the nice things on display at the event was the Tape Music Center’s Buchla Box, the first (? at least large scale) Buchla modular synthesizer. It normally lives at Mills College in Oakland, CA.