By Keith Walsh
Michael Lehmann Boddicker’s passion for electronic musical instruments began when he was a teenager growing up in Iowa in the 1960s. “ I actually was shown an EMS Synthi in a songwriting class in high school, and I started taking lessons with a professor who taught me synthesis on paper,” said Boddicker, whose first synth was an Arp Soloist. “An Arp Soloist is a keyboard with presets on it, that had pressure sensitivity like aftertouch, so you could add vibrato, or growl or whatever, and that was very hip. It was on a lot of R and B records.”
After high school, Boddicker studied electronic music at Iowa’s Coe College, and jazz and classical composition at The University of Wisconsin and The University of Iowa. He came to Los Angeles in 1974 — and since then has played on hundreds of popular music recordings, gathering an ever-growing assortment of synthesizers along the way. “(After) the Arp Soloist, my second was an Arp 2600,” he said. “And then I got a Minimoog. After I got a Minimoog, I got a Micromoog, which is used on a lot of hit records, I used it on ‘Let Me Tickle Your Fancy,’ that one by Jermaine Jackson. And then after the Minimoog I got a modular Moog.”
Fast forward to 2019. With his equipment rental company, SST Synthesizer Rental Service, Boddicker makes his synth collection, which now numbers in the hundreds if not thousands, available to studios and artists. His experience with analog synthesis, of playing on hit records and composing music for films, as well as his work with N.A.R.A.S.’ Synthesizer Symposiums in the ‘80s made Boddicker a natural to head up Synthplex 2019, an effort he joined after fellow electronic musician and producer Michael Learmouth approached him at last year’s NAMM Show in Anaheim, California.
Putting together Synthplex differed from the symposiums in the amount of time involved, Boddicker explained. “N.A.R.A.S. had a whole battery of people — they were already putting on Grammy Awards,” he told me, “and they were putting on those things, and I’d say, ‘hey I got an idea, let’s pop for breakfast,’ and you’d have 650 people for breakfast at 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday, and I just showed up and spoke, and it was still my event.”
For Synthplex, however, Boddicker was more involved with the day-to-day organization. “The team,” he explained, “besides Mike and I, we have built in people, so Mike has a graphics guy who works in his office, and he has his wife, who looks over stuff as well, and I have my wife, who looks over stuff, and I have the equipment guy, who works with me. I had to bring on a guy, there are so many financial parts….”
Synthplex offered a mix of contemporary synths along with vintage instruments. The Pop Up Synth Museum, for example, which let attendees tweak an array of classic analog synths, was managed by veteran synthesist and session musician Casey Young. In addition, Boddicker’s brother Herb oversaw a video crew of 8, who worked tirelessly to document all of the event’s 65 seminars and 50 musical performances. “They’ve been here from 7, 8 o’clock in the morning, till midnight, 12:30 every night,” Boddicker said.”And they’ve done all the seminars, they’ve done all the musical acts.”
Boddicker, who amusedly says he was so busy with Synthplex that “I wasn’t able to walk my dog for three months,” can be proud of what he and his team have accomplished. In addition to the seminars, which featured speakers Roger Linn, Dave Smith, Thomas Dolby and Hannah Parrott, among others, with topics as diverse as music technology and careers for women in music, Synthplex 2019 featured 85 exhibitors and a wide range of electronic and pop acts who use synth technology.
Boddicker has seen and heard more variations on synthesizer design over the years than just about anybody on the planet, and is excited by the resurgence of analog modular synthesizers and the powerful creative options made possible by software synthesis. The next step in the evolution of electronic musical instruments? “We just need the human-machine interface, that’s the next key,” he said. I asked him how this would look. “You know, the Linnstrument’s a great example. The Eowave is a great example. ” So while synthesizer aficionados have been proclaiming for decades that the future of music has arrived, it turns out that in 2019, this might actually be true.
Synthplex ran from March 28th to 31st at the Burbank Marriott Convention Center. I’m very much looking forward to Synthplex 2020.
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