Countdown to Moogfest: An Interview with AC Entertainment's Director of Connectivity, Jeff Cuellar

By Hilary Cadigan

Robert “Bob” Moog, according to Wikipedia, is not only the inventor of the Moog synthesizer but also an American pioneer of electronic music.  But in today’s fast times, where the looming behemoth of electronic music has become such a standby that even the subcultures surrounding it are starting to feel mainstream, one might wonder if anyone is paying attention to how it all began. 

Bob Moog

In an era where few people have any idea how to even pronounce Moog’s name (answer: it rhymes with “vogue”), turning a historic legacy into something that modern music fans can not only acknowledge but also celebrate is not an easy task.  But if there’s anyone that could rise to the challenge, it’s AC Entertainment, the Knoxville, TN-based promotion company in charge of none other than Bonnaroo, one of the biggest and most popular music festivals in the country.

In a phone interview with Jeff Cuellar, AC Entertainment’s Director of Connectivity, I got the full scoop on the company’s newest brainchild: Moogfest, the three-day, eight-venue music and arts festival that he and his team created in response to this challenge.

Moogfest began in 2005 as a small, one-day event in New York City that sought to pay homage to Moog’s original followers.

“It was a great event, but the organizers at Moog Music came to us because they didn’t feel like it was hitting the mark,” Cuellar explained.  “It was more like a flashback than a flash forward, and we wanted to change that.”

According to Cuellar, the rebirth of Moogfest was based on one simple question: “How can we take the vision of Bob Moog and make it into something people can experience right now?”

For Cuellar and the AC Entertainment team, that meant showcasing the industry’s current innovators, artists whose work embodies Bob Moog’s legacy every day.

“I’m talking about genre-bending music, a sound-splicing way of pushing the boundaries, artists who are testing the limits, coming up with new sounds people haven’t heard before, challenging what music can do, mixing art with soundscape and creating a great live show overall,” he said. “At AC Entertainment, we’re connoisseurs playing off our palates.  When it comes to selecting musicians, at this point, it’s just something you know. Flaming Lips? That’s Moogfest. We’re keeping our finger on the pulse, knowing what’s new out there while also letting our fans know about older stuff, like Tangerine Dream and Suicide, bands that put a stake in the ground to allow for newer bands like Neon Indian and Washed Out. It’s not genre specific—we’ve got everything—it’s about the sound.”

And so, the new and improved Moogfest was born, complete with a newfound location—Asheville, NC—the place Bob Moog called home for the last 30 years of his life. 

“Asheville is a unique place,” Cuellar said, “Perhaps it’s the mountains, perhaps its the people, perhaps it’s just the great food, but it all adds up to one of the most halcyon settings known to man, and ties together a beautiful package for a perfect weekend. In Asheville you can fully engulf yourself into the city itself—Downtown is walkable and unbelievably hip, the people love live music—we’ve got something amazing to be tapped into and a culture that supports it. It’s truly the perfect setting for an event like this, and the hometown response has been incredible.”

Asheville will also provide the site for the East Coast debut of Brian Eno’s newest labor of love: 77 Million Paintings, which Moogfest’s website describes as “an evolving sound and image collection born from his continuous exploration with light and the aesthetic possibilities of generative software.” According to Cuellar, the exhibit “utilizes several flatscreen televisions and culminates in an endless kailodscope of imagery that is both thought-provoking and inspiring. It’s not something you glance at and walk away.  It makes you want to sit down and debate the perils of life.” 

77 Million Paintings has only been shown in California so far, but Cuellar says that Asheville’s YMI Center, where it will be displayed throughout Moogfest weekend and up until November 30^th, has such cultural relevance, that it “adds a mind-blowing mix of new and old that has been inspiring even for Brian Eno and his team.”

Ultimately, that mind-blowing mix of new and old seems to be the backbone for Moogfest as a whole.  With emphasis on the mind-blowing. So join me in Asheville on Friday, October 28^th, and, as Cuellar says, “get ready for a trip to the fourth dimension!”

For tickets and additional information, visit http://moogfest.com/.