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The funny, fantastic, and all-too-human history of the drum machine...told for the very first time!
With a foreword from
rock and roll hall of famer Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran!
Praise for
Dancing to the Drum Machine:
“Dan LeRoy takes on a subject that could easily result in a dry, strictly-for-geeks read – the history of machine-rhythm - and turns out a juicy deep-dive that will appeal equally to the lay-person interested in the evolution of pop culture as to the gear-head and serious musician. What this richly researched and entertaining book shows is that far from dehumanizing and deskilling music, the drum machine depended on human imagination: the vision and dedication needed to create the technology in the first place, the ingenuity of amateur and professional musicians alike, as they struggled with these newfangled boxes and extracted magic from them.
It's a story that's largely untold, and LeRoy tells it with vivid clarity.”
―Simon Reynolds,
author of Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture and Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-84
“(A) rattling good read...Dan LeRoy’s story is driven by insights and anecdotes from musicians and inventors. These are drawn from a dizzying array of interviews and other sources. The detail accumulates into a pleasing and cogently argued account of how drum machines developed until they became ubiquitous."
―Mark Brend, Reverb
author of Strange Sounds: Offbeat Instruments and Sonic Experiments in Pop and the sound of tomorrow
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