Lothar and the Hand People was a late-1960s psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...

 band known for its spacey

Space rock

Space rock is a subgenre of rock music; the term originally referred to a group of early, mostly British, 1970s progressive and psychedelic rock bands such as Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, characterised by slow, lengthy instrumental passages dominated by electric organs, synthesizers, experimental...

 music and pioneering use of the theremin

Theremin

The theremin , originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device...

 and Moog modular synthesizer

Moog modular synthesizer

Moog modular synthesizer refers to any of a number of monophonic analog modular synthesizers designed by the late electronic instrument pioneer Dr. Robert Moog and manufactured by R.A Moog Co...

.

The band was notable for being "the first rockers to tour and record using synthesizers, thereby inspiring the generation of electronic music-makers who immediately followed them." Formed in Denver in 1965, Lothar and the Hand People relocated to New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1966. The band played gigs

Gig (musical performance)

Gig is slang for a musical engagement in which musicians are hired. Originally coined in the 1920s by jazz musicians, the term, short for the word "engagement", now refers to any aspect of performing such as assisting with performance and attending musical performance...

 with groups such as The Byrds

The Byrds

The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...

, Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

, Canned Heat

Canned Heat

Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...

, The Lovin' Spoonful

The Lovin' Spoonful

The Lovin' Spoonful is an American pop rock band of the 1960s, named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. When asked about his band, leader John Sebastian said it sounded like a combination of "Mississippi John Hurt and Chuck Berry," prompting his friend, Fritz Richmond, to suggest the name...

 and Chambers Brothers; the band jammed with Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

. Lothar and the Hand People played music for Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...

's play The Unseen Hand, and was the opening act at the Atlantic City Pop Festival

Atlantic City Pop Festival

The Atlantic City Pop Festival took place in 1969 on August 1, 2 and 3rd at the Atlantic City race track, two weeks before the better known Woodstock Festival...

.

Capitol Records released two albums by this short-lived band: "Presenting … Lothar & the Hand People" (1968, produced by Robert Margouleff

Robert Margouleff

Robert Margouleff is a Grammy Award winning American record producer, recording engineer, electronic music pioneer, audio expert, and film producer....

) and "Space Hymn" (1969, produced by Nick Venet

Nick Venet

Nick Venet was an American record producer who began his career at age 19 with World Pacific Jazz...

). A Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

review described Lothar and the Hand People's music:

It is electronic country, a kind of good-time music played by mad dwarfs, and it is really good to listen to. There is no tension here, no jarring forces at war with each other. It may be strange that New York, the city which deifies speed and insanity, could produce this music, but it is as if Lothar and the Hand People have gone through this madness and come out on the other side, smiling.

The band's most popular recording was the title song "Space Hymn." In 1997, The Chemical Brothers

The Chemical Brothers

The Chemical Brothers are a British electronic music duo comprising Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons. Originating in Manchester in 1991, along with The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method, and fellow acts, they were pioneers at bringing the big beat genre to the forefront of pop culture.- Background...

 sampled the Lothar song "It Comes on Anyhow" in "It Doesn't Matter" on their album Dig Your Own Hole

Dig Your Own Hole

Dig Your Own Hole is the second studio album by British electronica duo The Chemical Brothers, released on 7 April 1997. It features Noel Gallagher of Oasis and Beth Orton as guest vocalists...

. A music video for Space Hymn screened in 2004 at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival and the ION International Animation, Games, and Short Film Festival, Los Angeles.

The band's unusual appellation refers to a theremin nicknamed "Lothar" with the "Hand People" being the musicians in the band. Lothar and the Hand People was the source for a Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

skit called "Lothar of the Hill People" and a Boston-area theremin band named The Lothars.

External links

• Lothar and the Hand People, Official Website
• Lothar and the Hand People, MySpace Music
• Lothar and the Hand People, Theremin World