CS-80s are like something alive because they've got layers and layers and layers of circuitboards in a tightly-enclosed space and they take about 20min to warm up. If you move them, you may have minutely bumped some of those circuitboards and will need to retune the whole thing. Taking one on tour was like taking a harpsichord on tour - the CS-80 needed its own tech. I got to play Stevie Wonder's at NAMM one year and it has a lot more in common, viscerally, with an organ than it does with a synth.

Shown here is a CS-70m, basically 1/8th of a CS-80 and much more readily available on the market. I've seen a CS-80 for sale exactly twice - I almost bought one off of cEvin kEy of Skinny Puppy back in the late '90s for $800 but in the end, couldn't justify putting that much on a credit card as a student. The choice haunts me to this day. The other time was when I stumbled across the old auction pages blowing out Frank Zappa's gear... two years after the fact. he had two of them for $400.

When they've got Vangelis talking about playing, it's worth noting that he's mostly diddling around on a PPG Wave, which was pretty much the world's first commercially available digital synth... so effectively the opposite of the CS-80.

Finally, the recordings Vangelis used to score Blade Runner were tied up in litigation for more than ten years. If you wanted to listen to the Blade Runner Soundtrack, you got to hear an instrumentation by the "New American Orchestra."

The first time we heard Legit Vangelis was prolly '92. The CD was six months out but the music store in Santa Fe had an advance copy. I bought it immediately. Probably the first thing I ever prepaid.

I used to tune club sound systems with this track. A proper system will shake the ashtrays off the counters.

We drove to Dallas to see the Director's Cut. Twelve hours each way.