If you can’t find a partner use a wooden chair. And if you can’t afford an instrument then make your own. DIY, everything from building your own guitar to experimenting with a laptop, has been a constant ingredient in folk and then pop music. Skiffle, Congotronics, Steelpan bands and Punkrock, to name just a few genres.
Over on the Punk Rock in London thread, Colin H recently lamented that, whereas you can’t move for books about punk rock, very few books have been written about its DIY precursor: the 1950s skiffle boom. This was music where everyone could join in. But for some reason, it’s the genre that time has largely forgotten. A case for the Afterword to investigate further!
I was very young at the time and, other than Lonnie Donegan’s My old man’s a dustman (not his finest hour perhaps) being played on Junior Choice with Uncle Mac, skiffle made little impression on me. There were however dark murmurings from my parents. Coffee bars were dens of iniquity. Capucinos? The entry drug to a world of European depravity and vice.
This was a youth trend that was sweeping the nation. In the late 1950s, there were estimated to be 30,000–50,000 skiffle groups in Britain. Probably a thousand in London alone, inspired largely by the chart-topping success of Lonnie Donegan. Trad jazz was very popular in the 50s but jazz instruments were expensive. But with a guitar, a washboard, kazoo, comb and paper, jug, young people could make music together. And they did in large numbers for a few years.
However the arrival of rock and roll and developments in washing machine technology spelt the death of skiffle. Musicians moved on and joined rock, folk or blues bands. And if you couldn’t get hold of a washboard, your skiffle band just would never sound right.
Some stalwarts kept the flame burning. The first LP John Peel ever bought featured Lonnie Donegan and he remained a lifelong skiffle fan. In the 80s he championed the career of neo-skiffle band Terry and Gerry.
Van Morrison was one of many future stars who played in a skiffle band as a teenager. He told a story about how one of his bandmates, Irvine Gilbert, created a wind instrument out of a lead pipe he found in the Beechie River near their home.
“You blew into it. He was lucky he didn’t get typhoid.”
In 1998 Van paid his dues and recorded a live album in Belfast with Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber: The Skiffle Sessions. Not a sterile musuem piece, it gives rather good idea of what the excitement was all about. Dr John was in town that evening and popped along after his own gig to add some fine piano to a few tracks. Something like that of course would never have happened in the Golden Age of Skiffle. A musician who could actually play! Rather like Oscar Peterson playing on a track by The Adverts.
This DIY spirit is not just a European thing.
Congotronics, is the name of the extraordinary, extremely danceable music made by Konono No 1 from Kinshasha, whose instruments are made from objects they found in the local junkyard. A band that really must be experienced loud and live.
Or what about the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago: the steel pans? Created out of necessity from the only material available, abandoned oil drums, and now a popular, global phenomenon. Any panners lurking among us?
Two areas I’d like to hear about from you.
Are there any skiffle fans in our midst with a favourite artist or song? Have you any theories as to why it vanished so rapidly and so completely? Lonnie Donegan always felt rather bitter that when the film was made of Absolute Beginners, the classic late 50s novel, skiffle was very conspicuous by its absence on the soundtrack.
Secondly, have any of you a favourite track full of the spirit of DIY music? Any genre, country or period. I’ll even accept Billy Bragg singing Handyman or Nine Inch Nails.
While doing a bit of research, I stumbled across this excellent article about Lonnie Donegan by Simon Warner.
http://www.popmatters.com/column/warner030709/
Well worth a read. I suspect @Colin H might find it interesting if he has not already read it
‘The Restless Generation’ by Pete Frame is very good on the skiffle period (and much else about early British rock and roll). Worth digging out ‘Frankie and Johnny’ by Lonnie Donegan – an outstanding record.
And John Peel’s personal LD favourite.
I’ll look out for that book, JJ.
Konono No. 1 are indeed ace. Here’s my favourite track, Paradiso, a staple of my DJ sets. I’ve yet to see anybody actually come up with a coherent dance step to it, though.
If you haven’t, your really should try and see them live, Steve. They get into an extraordinary, hypnotic, minimalist, repetitive groove and just keep taking it higher and higher. To stand still is not an option.
Konono No.1 are fantastic, they’re an act I’d love to see live.
Staff Benda Bilili have the whole Self-Made Junkyard Instruments thing going on too, and make it work nearly as well. The core members are paraplegic and zip around Kinshasa on trikes that they’ve also cannibalised from junked parts.
A few years I happened to be in Pinner and saw that my old primary school, Cannon Lane, had its summer fete. It was a very conservative place in my day. So imagine my enormous surprise when they announced the school steel band playing … No woman no cry. Times have changed.
No clip of that but steel bands can, for better or worse, play pretty much anything.
Joy Division
Daft Punk
Rhianna
That JD one is particularly good. Another audience challenge of mine, Cars by Katzenjammers.
At the age of 13, Madagascar guitar virtuoso D’Gary built his own guitar. A remarkable player.
I think that this track samples “water drums” from a field recording of African women splashing out a rhythm while washing their clothes in the river. Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the original, but I’m sure I have it on a compilation.
And here is an example of water drums
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNzX5t5S4Ls.
Those water “drums” are remarkable, Alias. But can you imagine the headaches the roadies have if the Baka Women go out on tour?
The percussive qualities of water! Who’d have though it?
The percussive qualities of water? Try a large bowl of baked beans followed by a long bath. It’s not just Michael Jackson that loves Bubbles..
Water and electricity – health and safety nightmare!
@alias – Could it be Baka Beyond? Their album, ‘Heart of the Forest’ has water drum tracks on – sampled here:
I think you’ve got it. Thanks a lot.
You can build it, but you can’t move it…
And here are two more instruments from the same guy:
The band (Wintergatan) played at SM&A this year, but I didn’t see that gig so I don’t know if they brought those two along.
That is really the top end of DIY @Locust. As is this wonderful creation by Cabo San Roque from Barcelona. I saw them play a few songs at Roskilde and was rather impressed.
Those canny Catalans must surely be Bagpuss fans?
You can’t get more DIY than this.
Bobby McFerrin – Thinking About Your Body
Peter Gabriel, from “PG II”
Come up to me with your “What did you say?”
And I’ll tell you straight in the eye
D.I.Y. D.I.Y. D.I.Y. D.I.Y.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kZQzo3AwW0
Re: Skiffle – another thumbs up for ‘The Restless Generation.’
Having virtually listened to nothing else for about a year a few years back, these things became apparent.
1. Hardly any skiffle records were made.
2. The gap between Lonnie originally charting (8/1/56) and skiffle taking over the nation was huge…..the John and Paul meeting at that fete in the summer of ’57 was one of the Quarrymen’s first gigs.
3. Rock ‘n’ roll did not follow skiffle, the two ran concurrently.
4. Hardly any skiffle group covered ‘Rock Island Line,’ Lonnie’s ‘Showcase’ LP from the end of ’56 had more often-covered songs on it.
5. The greatest case study of a skiffle group is the Quarrymen.
Thanks Deram. Excellent points which I will read through again and ponder.
Lonnie got to the top of the UK charts just before Elvis. So skiffle seems to have had a slight head start, but it’s a good point you make there.
One of the biggest UK skiffle hits was Freight Train by Nancy Whiskey with the Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group. It reached number 5 in 1957 and sold over a million copies. Nancy even went to America and performed the song on the Ed Sullivan show.
Listening to it now all I can say is it’s hardly a musical performance of Mahavishnu proportions. We must have been easily pleased in 1957.
Relax ladies, etc.
I just had a look though a few singles boxes and came up with this EP by UK skiffle giants The Vipers, also from 1957.
Produced by George Martin (then aged just 31) it features future kids TV presenter Wally Whyton (second right) then calling himself Walt Whyton.
The Vipers also recorded a version of No Other Love originally by Dickie Bishop and The Sidekicks. It was this song that the teenage Paul McCartney heard on a jukebox in a Liverpool coffee bar and 40 years later covered it on his Run Devil Run album
http://i.imgur.com/H7MNm5j.jpg
Here’s the original Dickie Bishop version
Jesus, that’s dreary…
Let’s not forget that other early skiffle star, James Page.
It’s a little-known fact that the great Lonnie Donegan took his inspiration from that trail-blazing skiffler Lonnie Donovan.
I bet they were fighting off the birds with a shitty stick
“Lonnie Donegan took his inspiration from that trail-blazing skiffler Lonnie Donovan”?
Edith Friction!
Great thread, although nothing, not even Keira Knightley and a hot apple pie, is going to make me listen to skiffle. Accidental overhears through the decades have made me instinctively wince away. As to home-made, self-made DIY music, the humble guitar was the liberator, and still could be, but its use is in decline and it is no longer the foundation of pop n’roll. Nothing else as simple and democratic and flexible has risen to take its place, steel drums included.
Well, lest we forget, according to the late, lamented bob, the guitar means nothing in popular music today and probably never did.
With a few noble exceptions, the guitar has become something of an embarrassment to yoof today. They certainly don’t want to be seen carting one around – who do we think they are? Furniture removals workers? And you don’t get blisters swiping a tablet.
But it was the Absolute in terms of liberating musicians, for the blues-players on down to the folk singers who set the template for rock. And the argument that it’s “not needed” any more is made by people who haven’t come up with a replacement, or the talent to make themselves stars using one.
I was watching a documentary about American guitars recently and the consensus was that guitars by Gibson, Martin, Gretsch and, to a lesser extent Fender (which were much more modular) were hand-built to the highest standards in the post-war period up to 1963.
What happened then? The Beatles and the Stones happened and guitar demand exploded in America. The big companies simply couldn’t cope and were forced to hire unskilled labour to meet the orders. Then in 1965 Fender was sold to CBS and a few years later Gibson was sold to a far east company and quality went further downhill (even though production remained in the US).
Conclusion. Your late 60s/70s American guitar is probably not nearly as good as those classic 50s/early 60s examples.
Quality got back to normal in the 90s and today is apparently as good as ever.
Well for the sake of argument, you could say that the yoof of today are more interested in electronic music, and they can generate that on an app on a tablet that is probably cheaper than an electric guitar was back in the day. They could argue that this way of making music is more flexible and simple (no instrument to learn) than the guitar, and that the guitar was simply the best technology available at that time.
To paraphrase Jeff Beck: you put an electric guitar around the neck of any good looking young man and he’s instantly a star. The same thing is not going to happen with a tablet or any kind of electronic device. Exhibit A: the Pet Shop Boys.
Fair point, Johnny, but I didn’t have the PSB in mind, I was thinking more of hip hop artists who can compose their backing tracks electronically and then rap over the top.
I’m playing Devil’s advocate here by the way.
Point taken Hawky.
Just a footnote to my earlier post about the big American guitar companies. Not only were they forced to hire unskilled labour to meet demand after 1963, but they couldn’t get the same quality wood as before in sufficient quantity, so they sourced wood wherever they could, some of it not very good.
Guitar novice’s question: how important is the wood quality for an electric guitar? It doesn’t influence the sound heard by the pick-ups does it?
My original point referred to the quality of the wood, rather than the sound it produces. The wood in a 50s Gibson Les Paul for instance was probably already decades old before it was made into a guitar.
After the guitar boom began demand was so great that the manufacturers had to use newer, cheaper wood, some of it not cured properly.
Also Brazilian rosewood, widely used on guitars up until the 60s is now protected by conservation laws and requires a special licence to move across borders.
Likewise, up to the 20s/30s some high-end American guitars even used real ivory for nuts, bridges and inlay. These can’t be sold outside the country of origin these days.
It’s a great argument, Hawk. I’d be convinced by it if the music that resulted from this technological abundance and accessibility was built to last. The clicks and swipes used to create it don’t allow the development of an individual voice that (say) guitar technique does. Nor do they require basic grounding in music (you know – chords n’ shit). Nor are they conducive to band format. I know we “don’t need bands any more”, what with the theft culture of hip-hop (boosting beats and “tunes” for your own brand of bling) and the Nomates Geek School of Glitch. But where’s the talent? Where’s the fun? Where’s the rush?
Well on the built to last part, isn’t it too early to say? My point is, surely this is a criticism that has been laid at popular music from East St Louis Toodle-oo to Dancing Queen.
I think you’re raising a very interesting point regarding the development of an individual voice. Is it more difficult to do that if you’re reliant on software packages produced by someone else? My gut says yes, and that it is easier to develop your music if you’re dependent on instruments rather than loops.
The massive turnover of new non-guitar-led music in recent years – without producing major stars (never mind “where’s the new Dylan?” – I’d settle for the new Christopher Cross) – with its reliance on bold new forms that discard out-moded concepts like writing songs others want to sing means being new is enough. Music isn’t that important any more – it’s a style accent, less invested in than a pair of sneakers or a “video” “game”. If it’s contemporary, and the textual associations are right, that’s enough. You don’t have to waste too much time listening to it, and it’ll be forgotten when the next fashion accessory demands your attention. The move towrds non-physical carriers has a lot to do with this – most contemporary music can’t rely on album/CD sales because “kids today” don’t like to be too far from their phones. So an unplayed music file just disappears with no trace – there’s no archeology there for future generations for whom the physical doo-dad of music will simply no longer exist at all. And before someoneone mentions the resurgence of vinyl – check sales figures today against a few decades back. It’s a niche market, a fashion trend, and very little to do with the growth (or otherwise) of contemporary music.
So back to the thread – it’s a DIY world we’re living in, as long as the doing is done on a smartphone and that’s “self” as in “selfie.”
Great post
Yes but…the other side of the archaeology coin is that all those millions of unknown artefacts from earlier decades now have a permanent online presence on YouTube.
This, for instance: JC no doubt has a mint condition demo copy in his collection, but your and my chances of finding an actual artefact are pretty near zero, I’d have thought. I could have lived without hearing it, but that’s not the point.
Cuh! There’s probably another thread over there -> where you’re moaning about how all the contemporary guitar bands are poor imitations of the Olympian giants of the sixties. And you’d be mostly right, but not because there was something special in the water back when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister. Rather, it’s something of a giveaway when a “band” decides their route to the top is by emulating the pickin’ and a strummin’ of their antrcedents that what will come out of the amps will likely have a whiff of the second hand about it. It’s when Quiet Neil suggests adding a little Plink Plink Fizz (just like those vaunted sixties acts did about two years in) that things take an interesting turn.
The problem with experimental or adventurous music (as anyone who remained tuned in to entire episodes of the John Peel Show will know) is that the majority of it will be unlistenable cack. Nonetheless, it is in this haystack of dead ends where you will find the needles of good stuff.
As to why there are fewer stars, well there weren’t so many voices trying to be heard back then (and they only had to shout louder than one another rather than all the competing noises about now). Also, many of the more interesting acts now are serial collaborators, not so keen to push a single denim patch logo/ multi-decade corporate brand, but happier to issue work at random under multiple identities.
When you say this new stuff isn’t “built to last” you have become your own Grandpappy…
I think a major part of the problem is quality control. Up until the digital age changed everything, in order to be allowed anywhere near a recording studio, you had you have something to say and/or some degree of musical ability.
As soon as it was possible to make recordings in your bedroom with more technology than the Fabs had at their disposal when they made Sgt Pepper (the high water mark of 60s pop, lest we forget) then all bets were off and any talentless bedwetter with a half decent haircut could (and often did) make their own records.
They don’t call it indie landfill for nothing.
Well @disappointmentbob is a big lad, so I’m sure he can take “talentless” jibes on the chin. But since he’s not here right now can I clear up the “bedwetter” thing? Fact is, it was just one time and caused absolutely by Mr Pandabear nodding off with his nighttime Vimto drink unfinished, spilling all over the sheets.
Otherwise, spot on.
Sew – “When you say this new stuff isn’t “built to last” you have become your own Grandpappy…”
Except that back then it wasn’t built to last, either. Nobody thought anybody would still be listening to sixties pop (then a derided artform) half a century later.
I know the dangers of the “kids today – cuh!” point of view, but it’s really the whole nature of the music business that’s changed, from top to bottom, and I don’t lay the blame for that on “kids today.” Everything changes, and to expect pop music (which started as a disposable plaything for teenagers, an opportunity to get rich quick for shysters and con-men) to get incrementally “better” for ever and ever is unrealistic. Every artform has its heyday, and I’m not being a merchant of gloom (or my own Grandpappy) for stating the bleeding obvious. There is no new Dylan, Presley, Beatles, whomever. That age has gone. There is no wider cultural movement to inspire and nurture new talent of that dimension. But “kids today” aren’t that bothered. Smartphone apps are more important – and exciting! – to them. This isn’t a damning crit of “kids today”, it’s the truth.
It may well be the Golden Age of gaming and superhero movies, fitness ba and smartphone apps. Selfies may well be this generation’s mode of expression. I’ll give the Bingos and Bobs and Tiggers that. What I don’t believe is that contemporary music, in the broad sphere you could describe as popular, is enjoying any kind of exciting renewal or evolution. For those of us who witnessed the extraordinary explosion of pop music in the sixties, and its development into the seventies, it’s all very, very tame. If I was a “kid today” (and thank the gods I’m not) I’d be fucking with my phone out on a date too.
… and also – to imply that Bob has a “half-way decent haircut” is charity to the point of denial.
One thing that struck me, when reading mini’s entertaining thread about The Qietus top albums, was the number of those that appeared to be ‘soundscapes’ with no discernible choons. A few mentions made of ‘early Pink Floyd’ as a marker, which is understandable shorthand, but misses the point that the Floyd released two blinding singles at the very beginning.
https://www.teenageengineering.com/
You can carry your synth around in your pocket now, too.
Pet Shop Boys: um, different demographic, JC?
Well, they play electronic devices and look like a couple of twats, so it’s close enough for me
Something is happening here and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr Conch?
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth.
If you’re so hurt then why don’t you show it?
You just want to be on the side that’s winning
I’m wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be.
(I’ve got this all wrong, haven’t I?)
Wiggle wiggle wiggle like a gypsy queen
Who’s gotta big red cherry nose?
Reckon you’ll be ok there, HP – with the exception of Lonnie Donegan (pretty much a genre all on his own anyway) the rest of skiffle can safely be ignored.
Although this was a very good album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGIMT6zbIHg
My second favourite Van album, behind “Astral Weeks.”
Oh yes, I think you speak for thinking people everywhere on that one, Der.
Cheers H.P., us funsters have to stick together.
Hit me with your selfie stick!
“We must have been easily pleased in 1957.”
I know what you mean Chas McDevitt and a lot of these skiffle records, JC. Listening to them now in 2016, it’s difficult to see what all the fuss was about. Brits singing American songs, often with a bogus US accent. Dull dull dull.
But if we took a listen to the other appalling stuff that was in the UK charts at the time, we’d realise better how exciting and liberating this music was.
I think Van Morrison has done a great job with the Skiffle Sessions set in communicating that thrill. I’m sure he couldn’t have done it without Lonnie, who as Mike says, was head and shoulders above the other skifflers. He seems to have been a man with enormous charm, charisma, humour and personality. Peel’s devotion is very understandable.
This is what the 1980s skiffle revival sounded like.
Terry & Gerry
Another nugget I picked up from my skiffle obsession…..
Skiffle contests were all the rage in 1957, I believe the Quarrymen entered and lost one, and the prize on offer was invariably a chance to record in a studio.
So, therefore, hundreds of amateur recordings must have been made and pressed up.
Question – Where did all those recordings go?
In an attempt to answer tour question, Deram, I stumbled across this.
http://sounds.bl.uk/jazz-and-popular-music/skiffle-recordings
Interesting to read how the name skiffle came from a 78 rpm called Hometown Skiffle that was a favourite of Lonnie D and Chris Barber
And how the Donegan smash hit single, Rock Island Line, was one of the songs that they used to play in the interval. Like many of the bands of their time, they’d take a break from the trad jazz, which was their standard fare, and in the interval play “roots music from the USA – blues, folk blues and Memphis jug-band music – played by a stripped-down line-up of the musicians.” This all went down so well that a single was put out in Lonnie’s name, thus kicking off the skiffle craze.
Here’s another very interesting piece which explains how the skiffle craze was party the result of visits to the UK by artists like Big Bill Broonzy in 1951.
http://www.sandybrownjazz.co.uk/forumskiffle.html
And from the same site, an article which tells of all the US artists who visited the UK in the 50s, often enjoying a greater recognition than they had a home.
http://www.sandybrownjazz.co.uk/forumfifties.html
Can’t listen to all those skiffle treasures, annoyingly – users in the EU only. The British Library sees through my VPN, which not even the Beeb does. Obviously there’s a vibrant revenue-generating market for the waxings of the Arthur Baird Skiffle Group in Australia.
The thought occurs – it won’t be long before listeners in the EU won’t be able to listen either.
Pshaw and tchah.
What a depressing thought. If it’s any consolation, there are two Arthur Baird tracks on Spotify, Mike. Skiffle agit-pop by the sound of things but done with great gusto.
Some fine, much appreciated Devil’s Advocacy, Hawkfall.
But can you scrawl “This machine kills fascists” on your laptop?
Well of course you can, and maybe in 2016, it’s an equally effective weapon?
But you cannot write, as Half Man Half Biscuit did, “This machine kills wasps”.
Objection your honour, I would like to point out that from its earliest days Hip Hop has demonstrated itself to be as highly effective musical medium for registering social and political protest as folk music ever was.
Free Base!
Gosh yes. But I’d change that “from its earliest days” to “in its earliest days”. It very quickly (maybe within a years or so) settled into a recursive assembly and re-assembly line product.
Ah no argument from me there I’m afraid. I was cool for approximately 2 months in late 1987 when I had “Yo! Bum Rush the Show!” on tape before hardly anyone had heard of them. I loved Hip Hop back then (or “rap music” as it was called). Old School Hip Hop was very inventive and a whole lot of fun – Public Enemy were by far the most exciting band I heard as an 18 year old in 1987 – but I’d lost interest by the end of that decade. To be fair, i think even Chuck D had by then.
Some mainstream hip hop maybe an assembly line product. But out on the fringes, there is still a lot of the social and political protest going on. It’s the folk music of our time.
And talking of folk music, I’m sure you are all interested in the best kind of wood to use for making a stick for Morris dancing. Nowadays, I fear the urban Morrisman probably goes to http://www.morris.com and orders a pole and bells. Back in the day, folk musicians often made their own instruments, so he went out to the forest and found a hazel tree.
http://www.thewidders.co.uk/resources/morris-stick-collecting/
It’s not the folk music of our time, any more than Death Metal is. Folk music is the folk music of our time.
Another of the pioneers (along with Donegan and Donovan) – Ken Colyer, 1956:
Ken, like Alexis Korner in his world, is one of those pioneers that people tend to talk about rather than listen to. His main thing was the ‘revivalist’ wing of trad jazz – reviving the very earliest New Orleans jazz style, before most of its key people/instrumental soloists (like Louis Armstrong) moved to Chicago and made further less ensemble-based recordings. A bit like a punk revival band ONLY playing tunes from punk records made in 1976.
Reading between the lines there, Colin, I now realise: Donovan invented skiffle. I should have guessed!
The spirit of skiffle is alive and well and living in Paraguay. These kids have made some remarkable creations.
Thinking about the history of instruments, there must have been turning points when this process went over from amateurs to professionals. Someone with woodwork skills (which most people had back in the day) could make themselves a guitar, lute crumhorn etc. But no amateur, for example, could produce a piano. Also you couldn’t move it around with the ease of a lute or guitar.
Donovan plays skiffle in 1965. Guitar, kazoo and harmonica
Can’t get more DIY than someone who builds their own instruments. Analogue drums etc.
(edited because I can)
There’s also the London Philharmonic Skiffle Orchestra.
Blimey! The LPSO are as zany as their name suggests.
Difficult to tell from the YT clips, but I get the impression they are rather fun live.
With so many AWers in Australia, I’m surprised we haven’t had a bit more Didgeridoo It Yourself. Such a popular instrument.
Here’s a geezer who made a PVC digeridooto help him stop snoring! It didn’t help at all. Now there’s a surprise.
Here’s Phil Shiva Jones, legend of Quintessence, with his didgeridoo
Doesn’t Rolf Harris claim to have invented the wobble board? It’s not exactly Mussolini making the trains run on time but it’s something for the positive side of the ledger..
The wobbleboard is due for reappraisal. Unlike Rolf’s prison sentence for didgeridoo.
Do you think that every so often, when making his case for early release, Rolf has to walk down a corridor, passing the Parole Board, and instead going in to see the Wobble Board?
Popular Swedish artist Robert Broberg first got into making music by lying to a newspaper about fronting the first Swedish skiffle group. When the article ran he got offers to play gigs and quickly had to assemble an actual group and start rehearsing.
The low whistle, now so ubiquitous in irish, has only been around for a while, it being a hasty concoction made from some left over copper pipe when Finbar Furey sat on his flute. (Ouch!)
The full story on which (a little more elaborate than your nevertheless essentially accurate sentence!) is in a certain book about piping.
Jeez, Colin, is the wolf howling quite so hard at your door….? Give us a chance, I have barely picked my Tamalin cd off the doormat after last weeks telling off. You know I will eventually. And, whilst you’re at it, rather than those pop groups you write about, the Wishbones and the Maharishis (is that right?), how about books on the banjo, the steel and the vibes. Shouldn’t take long.
This very entertaining short film about a rather unusual break-in, Music for one apartment and six drummers, was just made for this thread. It’s a Swedish-French collaboration and the musicians are a group called Six Drummers.
Those drummers again. Who says that crime doesn’t play?
In these days of reduced revenue, many musicians are probably wondering if the glass is half full or half empty. Unless of course they play the glass harp, in which case they know exactly how much each glass contains. The glass harp has been around a long while. It was invented in 1741 by an Irishman Richard Pockrich.
Pockrick’s ideas were developed by Benjamin Franklin, among others, to create the glass armonica, an instrument for which many composers wrote music for.
That glass harp playing is extraordinary…
There are many everyday objects which begun a second life as a musical instrument.
The jug, for example, which had something of a golden age in the 1920s.
Fritz Richmond: jug virtuoso
These days you are far more likely to find a cowbell at a salsa show than at a dairy farm. Or at a Blue Oyster Cult gig.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ufj5P3W7Jw
More cowbell? My pleasure.
A very serious chap playing the skrabalai. Lithuanian cowbells.
Finally, the ethereal, spooky sound of the singing saw, an instrument I would expect is popular among lumberjacks.
The true originator of rock music, Neddy Dick from Swaledale Yorkshire
http://www.lithophones.com/index.php?id=22
Would you like to spoon?
Nice one, Locust. A DIY classic. As played by Sams Spoons of the Bonzos, Duncan Campbell of UB40 (the only spoons player registered as such with the Musicians Union) and Boris Yeltsin who would entertain his colleagues with performances on his wooden spoons.
It appears that Sylvester McCoy also plays the spoons and has a carrying case made specifically for them.
That is Simon.A long time crew member at Strummercamp fest held near MCR.A very nice bloke with many interesting tales.He has played spoons with many top of the bill artist at S’camp.Billy Bragg,Selector also Undertones if memory serves me correctly.Great thread KFD.
Thanks a lot for your kind comment @Citizen Smith, And hats off to you for recognising Simon there. The hive mind of the AW is a wondrous thing: a constant delight to me. Not much that escapes our collective glance.
This instrument must have been invented pretty early in the dawn of mankind…
Mr McCoy is indeed an accomplished spoonist/spooner/spoonerist. Did he play them in role as Dr Who?
In the OP I commented that necessity is the mother of invention. But so is imagination and a joy in creating something new and unusual. Just look at that device Locust posted.
Jug bands and skifflers also seem to have come up with odd instruments just for the fun of it. There’s something a bit skiffley about the Bonzos. Not least in the Intro and Outro.
Judy Dyble had posted a photo of herself with S McCoy on her Facebook page with the spoon case. Am seeing her Sunday will ask if I can post the picture on here. Copyright stuff strikes again.
And here’s a picture of the erstwhile Dr. Who with his spoons case. The question is, who can identify the lady with him?
http://i.imgur.com/bIRu5LI.jpg
As above Judy Dyble.
Edited I can even name the person in the background should you so wish.
Go on then
And yes, it’s the great Judy Dyble, original singer with Fairport Convention, pictured a few days ago at Cropredy.
And I just noticed our posts crossed. The picture showed up on my Facebook feed, so I’m sure Judy won’t mind us seeing it here.
Tis Nigel Schofield author of Fairport by Fairport, and other stuff.
That diminutive Spoons Case is a work of genius. Now there’s a man who takes his musical cutlery seriously.
The spoons are also popular in several other countries, however in Russia, Greece and Turkey they are made of wood. What a loss that there is no clip of Boris Yeltsin letting rip on his spoons.
The Turkish version is called a Kaşık. The playing style means that one can dance and make merry fun all over the stage while performing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_srSzGP_CQQ
Before Radio One, John Peel and all the pop radio of the 60s there was Ken Sykora’s Guitar Club on the Home Service which began broadcasting in July 1957. I’d never heard his name before yesterday but it sounds like rather a fine show.
http://www.themanwiththejazzguitar.com/story-of-gc-page-1/4581508587
Budget per programme was a princely 80 pounds and the rather distinguished guests were paid 15 guineas.
Ken was an interesting chap. As well as being a talented guitarist and radio presenter, he was also a wiz in the kitchen and when his family relocated to Scotland in the 70s he became something of a celebrity chef.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/mar/24/radio.obituaries
Harumph! Can you imagine having a meal cooked by one of those DJs on Radio One?
Being so old (see other threads, passim) I remember Ken Sykora’s Guitar Club well. Wasn’t much interested in jazz at the time, but I was interested in guitaring. Here’s a complete episode.
A fascinating listen. Mike. Ken was way ahead of his time.
Back to odd, home-made instruments for a moment.
The guy in the pirate hat in this Bela Fleck clip, Roy Wooten, is playing a drumitar, a guitar-shaped electronic drum set. He made it himself.
And now the ondes martenot, patented in 1928, the same year as the theremin and with a similarly spooky sound.. Messiaen was very fond of it, as is Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead.
Thanks for introducing me to Thomas Truax and his Hornicator, @Hubert Rawlinson.
Very Heath Robinson.