In honor of our 50 Years of Sequential celebration, we are pleased to present a guest post by David Abernethy, the author of The Prophet from Silicon Valley, an in-depth exploration of Sequential Circuits’ history. Mr. Abernethy shares exclusive behind-the-scenes insights, drawn from his personal experiences during the book’s research. This is the first article in an enlightening three-part series.
Untold Stories from ‘The Prophet from Silicon Valley’ – Part 1
In the ‘Story Behind the Book’ section of my book, The Prophet from Silicon Valley, I conclude that it had been ‘one hell of a trip’. The research took me far and wide – sure, there was Skype, but face-to-face interviews proved to be the best type by far. There were many highlights along the way, and I’d like to share two that really stand out for me.
First off, March 2013, I was based in Silicon Valley for a week or so. It was a bright, sunny Saturday morning and I set off to a downtown, San Francisco café to meet ex-Sequential Circuits software engineer, Josh Jeffe. Just setting-off was a real adventure, for me anyway; driving on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road – well, to me it seemed wrong. In New Zealand, we sensibly drive on the left. Needless to say, I concentrated hard, and I had my TomTom – I couldn’t imagine doing this without one.
So, I found the café – even found a car park – and Josh and I found each other inside. Cafés are great meeting places, but very noisy, this particular one was horrendously noisy, but I soldiered on, asked Josh all the right questions, particularly about the VS, and the interview recording came out just fine. Thank you, Josh. Then it’s off across the bridge to Marin County to have lunch with Denny Zeitlin. Another great interview – Denny had battled with the original Prophet 10 in making the soundtrack to the 1978 version of The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.
After lunch, it’s a drive over the hills, towards the Pacific, to the remote community of Bolinas to interview Suzanne Ciani. After negotiating the excruciatingly narrow and windy bends of unmarked roads around the clifftops, I followed Suzanne’s detailed instructions and finally got down to the local tennis court where she’d just finished her game. She gave me a quick tour of Bolinas beach (it’s a beautiful place, but don’t tell anyone – Bolinasians are very protective of their seaside patch), then it’s back up the hill to her place to talk Prophets.
It was quite a long interview and Suzanne was animated the whole way with many wonderful Prophet stories, including that famous Dave Letterman Show incident, where it all went horribly right … Towards the end of the day, it was getting chilly, so I nipped out to the car to get my sweatshirt and I’m face to face with a deer, nonchalantly meandering around the front yard, munching on things. ‘Oh yeah, we have bears too,’ Suzanne informs.
As the sun sets, I’m making the long drive back to Silicon Valley. Strangely, as I pass through the city, my TomTom loses its navigation. I press on heading south, pleading with the TomTom to get back in touch. It does – phew! And I’m still driving on the right – yay! All in all, a memorable day.
Another standout, was the day I went to Crediton; a tiny village in the Devon district of south-west England. I had to get to London first and on arrival I received an email from Tony Banks’ manager – ‘yes, Tony will be happy to talk to you, will call in the next couple of days’ – brilliant! Meanwhile, it’s off to Crediton. I took the ‘big’ train (Gordon?) from London to Exeter, then got on a ‘little’ train (Thomas?) to Crediton. There to meet me is Roger O’Donnell, keyboardist in the Cure. We spent a couple of hours in Roger’s home studio, talking Prophets and me taking photos of his old gear, then he drove me around to Peter Forrest’s place. Thanks for the lift, Rog.
Peter compiled The A-Z of Analogue Synthesisers books and after chatting about Prophets and stuff, he revealed he has updated copy of the books. Fabulous! Late in the afternoon, he pointed me in the direction of the station and I made my way back to London. Now, I’m not one for carefully monitoring my phone – I usually know where it is, but I usually ignore it – however, on this occasion, amazingly, I had it placed in the breast pocket of my jacket, where I could actually hear it over the noise of the train, should it happen to ring. It rang. I answered, and it was Tony Banks – ‘You wanted to talk about Prophets …’ or words to that effect. I fumble a reply in the affirmative and seeing as I’m on a train just now, how about tomorrow? ‘I’ll call you at 9 tomorrow morning,’ he said. I felt like leaping up and announcing to the other passengers in the carriage, ‘Hey, I’ve just been chatting to Tony Banks!’ The next morning, 9am on the dot, Tony called, and another enlightening interview began.
I did a quite a few interviews for the book – musicians, ex-Sequential staff, industry competitors, writers – and I was constantly surprised at the level of enthusiasm by all, talking about the subject and the fondness they had for those times. There was a real sense of pushing the technology, overcoming challenges, getting unheard-of results and paving the way for future music. Pioneering stuff. And a great nostalgia trip.
David Abernethy, January 2024
David Abernethy’s The Prophet from Silicon Valley stands as the definitive history of Sequential Circuits. For those interested in the fascinating details of Sequential’s iconic instruments and the innovators behind them, the book is available for purchase on Amazon. (International readers can also find local print-on-demand options through Amazon.)