If someone were to make me pick between video games and music as my favorite form of entertainment, I’d be hard-pressed to make a choice. I love video games but spend more time talking and writing about them than actually playing them these days. With music, I actually started off my writing career as a music journalist. And while my game playing time per day can be measured in minutes, the time I spend listening to music is measurable in hours. Lots of hours.

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I’m able to carry around most of my best-loved albums with me at all time. This comes in handy during long train commutes and when walking about town. And although I like all the albums on my Zune, I often find it hard to choose one to listen to when presented by all the choices at once. Today, I chose to listen to a band I hadn’t heard in a long time: The Moog Cookbook.

The band’s comprised of two members: Brian Kehew and Roger Joseph Manning Jr., who in the album liner notes are credited as Meco Eno and Uli Nomi, respectively. In case you’re wondering and are okay with me geeking out about music, these stage names are homage to Meco (famous for bringing us Star Wars Disco), Brian Eno (famous for being Brian Eno), Uli Trepte* (influential Krautrock bassist), and Klaus Nomi (the scary-looking falsetto-singing clown who is sadly no longer with us).

Both Kehew and Manning are seasoned musicians and have performed with dozens of acts, both on tour and in the studio. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you’ve likely heard their work. Manning was also in the band Jellyfish, an act that people just weren’t ready for at the time.

Getting back to The Moog Cookbook: They’re a band that, for the most part, covers songs by other bands – all on analog synthesizers (mostly Moogs, as their name implies). But they don’t just cover songs straight-up. They certainly take a lot of creative freedom, such as throwing in short riffs from other sources. These riffs are sometimes so short that it’s hard to determine where they’re originally from. In fact, their covers are so creative that when listening to the band for the first time, I had some trouble identifying which songs were being covered. Some choice examples of their catalog include Weezer’s “Buddy Holly,” Cheap Trick’s “Surrender,” and Air’s “Kelly Watch the Stars.”

While synth music isn’t for everyone, it’s hard to deny that Kehew and Manning are not only great musicians, but genius ones. So far, The Moog Cookbook has three albums: The Moog Cookbook, Ye Olde Space Bande, and Bartell (which is named after Bill Bartell, who is arguably the most connected man in music – no joke).

For more on The Moog Cookbook and to hear their music, check out their page at Roger Joseph Manning’s site. Further geeking out about synths can be had in this hilarious video starring Manning and Ross Angeles.

Here’s their video for “Black Hole Sun.”

*UPDATE: Contrary to popular belief, Uli Nomi is not homage to Uli Trepte - my bad! From Brian Kehew: “FYI (no one seems to know this) … Uli Nomi is a mix of Klaus Nomi and Uli Jon Roth of the Scorpions (no kidding) as they are the most polar opposite human beings in music… but both totally cool!”

So there you go!