Wax On, Wax Off

New exhibit shows off bygone listening technologies

Comments (0) By Tricia Parker Thursday, Dec 31 2009

At a recent reading, author Sherman Alexie lamented his sons’ relationship to music. Gone are the days of waiting for physical albums to come out, waiting in line at Tower Records, peeling off the cellophane, and gathering ‘round the turntable in eager anticipation of the moment the needle hits virgin vinyl.

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A little nostalgia can be a healthy thing, but at some point, all that waxing about the vinyl days just makes you seem … old. Unless you’re examining the intersection between design and material culture in the music world, which the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art strives to do in “Rewind Remix Replay: Design, Music & Everyday Experience.”

Curators say the exhibition consists of more than 300 objects, such as a Moog guitar-synthesizer hybrid; a strange Lite-Brite-esque Yamaha synthesizer known as the Tenori-on; and the “Oracle” acrylic-and-glass turntable. Visitors will even be invited to bring their own wax with the “DJ in a Box” kit in the galleries, and can share their own stories and photos for the exhibition’s living-music timeline.

Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: Feb. 25. Continues through May 23, 2010