go electric/acoustic

[Benjamin Zimmer]

OED doesn't have "go electric" ('to switch from acoustic to electric
instrumentation') or "go acoustic" ('vice versa').

In _No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan_ (1986), Robert
Shelton quotes an unpublished March 1966 interview with Dylan:

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"Nobody told me to go electric," Bob said emphatically. "No, I didn't even
ask anybody. I asked not a soul, believe me.... Hey, I went electric on my
second record." (p. 356)
http://print.google.com/print?id=34KWSYgateQC
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0306812878
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I'm sure Dylanologists could track down contemporary print accounts of
Dylan "going electric" at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Here are the
earliest cites I can find for "go electric" and "go acoustic":

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1969 _N.Y. Times_ 20 Apr. D32/1 "The year Dylan went electric," she [sc.
Joni Mitchell] said, "the folk clubs started closing all over the
country."
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1971 M. SAUNDERS in _The Rag_ 20 Sep. (backpages.com) Black Sabbath have
been creeping up on Grand Funk, though, especially now that GFRR are
selling out and going acoustic on LP and such shit.
http://backpages.com/article.html?ArticleID=3056
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--Ben Zimmer