Junkyard Percussion?

[rcarlberg]

I had a weird thought today, are there any bands / albums out there that use non-standard percussion, like garbage cans, buckets, tin sheets, rusted wheels, pieces of metal, glass tubes, etc. ? Seems like EVERYBODY uses a standard drum kit of one size or another.

Which is odd because "percussion" is a wide open definition, it can be anything. There have been many many internet sensations of kids on the street playing plastic buckets, and drummers walking down the street tapping out rhythms on everything they walk past. Fred Frith's "Step Across the Border" and Evelyn Glennie's "Touch The Sound" both feature extensive non-standard percussion.

Why have I never heard of a band doing this?

[-=RTFR666=-]

Peter Gabriel's opening act on the Security tour at the Richfield Coliseum was a band called "The Electric Guitars" that featured no guitars and several of the members playing junkyard percussion just as you describe. Unlike other PG openers like Random Hold, The Call, Yassou N'dour, Papa Wemba, or the Blind Boys of Alabama, I've never heard or seen any mention of this band since seeing them on stage that one time. Maybe someone else can recall?

[A. Scherze]

Einsturzende Neubauten
David Van Tiegham
Stomp

[Udi Koomran]

Sleepytime
Moe Stiano

[raconteur troubadour]

Bill Bruford used a cracked cymbal he found in the garbage for the Red album. He liked the way it sounded, I do too.

[walt]

Art Ensemble of Chicago,particularly during their stay in Paris, circa 69-71,before drummer Don Moye joined(the band continued to use "little instruments after Moye came on board).All four members played a variety of standard and non standard percussion instruments(little instruments),in addition to their main instrument(sax, trumpet, bass).These percussion instruments were used as "colors".

Michael Giles MAD BAND uses a variety of standard and "found" percussion in addition to electric guitar.

[bigbassdrum]

Patrick Moraz - The Story of i ???? may just be regular percussion

Yes - The Gates of Delirium - I think I remember them using found pieces of metal during the 'battle' part of the song

[Halmyre]

Tom Waits - Sixteen Shells from a Thirty-Ought Six

[Magic Mountain]

Not a band, but a cool video:

[trurl]

Odd and lo-fi percussion is tough to get in a mix unless the music is very specifically tailored for an off the wall sound...

[Scrotum Scissor]

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum used loads of it to brilliant effect both live and in the studio, although most apparently was adapted and adjusted. It can be seen on several concert clips.

I believe Bob Drake has used some on several of his solo albums.

Much of what usually goes by the term "found sounds" would pass as percussion, I suppose.

[SteveSly]

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum used loads of it to brilliant effect both live and in the studio, although most apparently was adapted and adjusted. It can be seen on several concert clips.

.

Agreed, the Sleepytime drummer was amazing live using all kinds of weird "junkyard" percussion.

[SteveSly]

Peter Gabriel's opening act on the Security tour at the Richfield Coliseum was a band called "The Electric Guitars" that featured no guitars and several of the members playing junkyard percussion just as you describe. Unlike other PG openers like Random Hold, The Call, Yassou N'dour, Papa Wemba, or the Blind Boys of Alabama, I've never heard or seen any mention of this band since seeing them on stage that one time. Maybe someone else can recall?

I remember them being one of the worst opening acts I ever saw. Gabriel came out and introduced them before they came on, but by the end of their set almost the whole stadium was actually booing them off the stage. Can’t say that I have seen that very often nor seen a band get such a negative reaction.

Since my musical pallet has expanded a lot since those days I have often wondered if I saw them today if I would still think they were that bad. Probably not………

Anyway, I have no clue what happened to them after that tour.

[spellbound]

Test Dept., an industrial band from London, creatively uses non-standard percussion as part of their sound.

[Mister Triscuits]

Peter Gabriel's opening act on the Security tour at the Richfield Coliseum was a band called "The Electric Guitars" that featured no guitars and several of the members playing junkyard percussion just as you describe. Unlike other PG openers like Random Hold, The Call, Yassou N'dour, Papa Wemba, or the Blind Boys of Alabama, I've never heard or seen any mention of this band since seeing them on stage that one time. Maybe someone else can recall?

I remember one guy played a 50 gallon drum like a conga. I have a 7" single by them which may be their only release--at least I never saw an album (and they're nigh on impossible to Google). It's not as noisy as their live show was.

[kayfabe58]

Tom Waits has numerous examples...

[chalkpie]

SGM
Waits
Bob Drake
Jamie Muir
Harry Partch
cardboard amanda
Evelyn Glennie
Varese (!)

[trurl]

Dinosaur Jr??

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Far Corner had a junk percussion drum set. I'm not sure how often tey used it though. (The only song I remember it being used on was The Unleashing from the 'Intermission' download)

[Progbear]

We were discussing Combo FH, who used random household implements and mechanical tools as musical instruments as a major component of their sound.

Also, the first Sparks album used ashtrays and other odd items in lieu of a proper drum kit on some of the tracks (including the single, “Wonder Girl”).

[GuitarGeek]

I once read a sort of an encyclopedia of percussion instruments when I was a teenager (this is where I learned the difference between a gong and a tam-tam), which listed brake drums as an instrument.

Re Gates Of Delirium: I forget who it was in the band who said that when on tour in the US, he'd go to junkyards and buy things like old car parts and whatever. Apparently, that's what you're hearing during the battle sequence.

I also seem to recall once seeing a musician on TV who built a percussion instrument using wrenches. I mean, literally, this guy went to Sears or whatever, bought a set of wrenches, and suspended them from a metal frame (kind of like those used for gongs).

Then there's the anvil (as heard on The Forge Of Vulcan by Hawkwind), though I imagine the instrument used by percussionists would be a bit different from one that would actually by used by a blacksmith.

And there's also the slinky, which is literally a giant spring (as the name suggests) that is sometimes used by percussionists. I believe one of John Cage's orchestral pieces called for such an instrument, though I know of no recordings or performances where this has actually been done.

And though Karlheinz Stockhausen's Mikrophonie I was theoretically meant to be played on a 60" tam-tam, he said once that you could use "an old Volkswagen".

[Progbear]

Then there's the anvil (as heard on The Forge Of Vulcan by Hawkwind), though I imagine the instrument used by percussionists would be a bit different from one that would actually by used by a blacksmith.

It was probably not the case when originally used, but usually nowadays, “anvil” in a musical sense refers to a smaller, more portable instrument that just produces the sound of an anvil.

And there's also the slinky, which is literally a giant spring (as the name suggests) that is sometimes used by percussionists. I believe one of John Cage's orchestral pieces called for such an instrument, though I know of no recordings or performances where this has actually been done.

“Electric Slinky™” was one of the instruments among Patrick Moraz’s rig during his time with Yes. Buzzy Linhart played on with Jimi Hendrix, too. I remember during my “sound experimentation” phase in high school discovering that holding a microphone up to a Slinky™ and twanging it produces “laser-gun”-like sounds. It’s the same concept behind the foley for the light-saber sounds in Star Wars, the base was produced by amplifying the sound of a struck guy-wire for a telephone/power line pole.

I recall seeing a drummer playing a rack of suspended key-blanks, but I can’t remember who (perhaps Andy Ward with Caravan of Dreams or Gary Parra with PFS or Trap).

[GuitarGeek]

the foley for the light-saber sounds in Star Wars, the base was produced by amplifying the sound of a struck guy-wire for a telephone/power line pole.

Not the lightsaber sound, but the laser guns. I remember seeing this on a TV special about the making of the Star Wars movies way back in the early 80's.

The lightsaber sounds is a combination of the hum generated by an idling movie projector and interference caused by a television monitor on an unshielded microphone. They got the pitch changes in the sounds by playing those two sounds together through a loudspeaker, and swinging a microphone in front of it, creating a natural doppler effect.

I believe I've read that Darth Vader's breathing was done by recording the sound of a scuba regulator (a Dacor Conshelf, I believe was the specific model), so the next time you go scuba diving, that's not Darth Vader coming up behind you, it's just someone with vintage tastes in scuba gear.

If I remember correctly Chewbacca's "voice" was created by recording and manipulating various animal sounds.

Sorry to get sidetracked, movie sound effects are another thing I've always been fascinated by.

[B D]

I believe Bob Drake has used some on several of his solo albums.

.

Almost every song on The Skull Mailbox and Other Horrors, maybe even all of them....and many on The Shunned Country. The strange thing about it is that once you put the junkyard drumkit in the music, 99% of the time it just sounds like a drumkit. One good example is the song called Kaziah's Pet from The Shunned Country, the drums on that one were a mass of rubbish; steel plates, boxes, an old metal sink, barrels, containers of nuts and bolts, broken glass, not an actual "drum" in sight. You can tell if you pay attention but it really just ends up sounding like (a slightly funny sounding) normal drum kit.

And these from AA Kismet:

On this one I used carboard boxes and all sorts of trash for the drums, scattered around on the floor, with me kneeling in the midst of it hitting things (which kept moving farther and farther away as I played, like an expanding universe!). I had to wear goggles because every time I hit the "snare" (a box filled with broken glass) bits of it would fly out!
https://bdstudio.bandcamp.com/track/cabo-de-gata

Cardboard boxes piled with various mettalic trash, microphones inside the boxes:
https://bdstudio.bandcamp.com/track/nina
On that one we got the buzzy lead guitar tone by lying the amp on its back and resting a thin sheet of metal covered in small screws and nails over the speaker.

BD
www.bdrak.com

[GuitarGeek]

It was probably not the case when originally used, but usually nowadays, “anvil” in a musical sense refers to a smaller, more portable instrument that just produces the sound of an anvil.

.

According to Wikipedia, musical anvils are typically made from steel, rather than the duller sounding cast iron anvils that are typically used for industrial purposes. According to Wikipedia: "In practice modern orchestras commonly substitute a steel bar or other suitable steel structure that is easier to tune than an actual anvil, although a visibly convincing anvil-shaped prop may be shown as desired."

Wiki also shows a picture of a set of chromatically tuned anvils:

220px-Tuned_Anvils_from_Emil_Richards_Collection.jpg