Dave Tompkins, featured in FADER 66, knows a lot about vocoders. His recently-released book, How To Wreck A Nice Beach, explores the history and evolution of the vocoder from a vocal encryption gizmo in World War II, to a well-known musical instrument for people like Michael Jonzun and ELO. Tompkins was able to impart some of his extensive knowledge to us a few weeks ago, before his book went to press. We met him at Big City Records in the East Village where he picked out some of his favorite vocoded albums and showed us a few archival mementos, including the original vocoder Bible and a vocoder machine itself.
Tompkins will be presenting his book tonight at McNally Jackson at 7pm, followed by an afterparty at Trophy Bar, featuring DJs Duane Harriott, Chairman Mao, Veronica Vasicka and Monk-One.