Junkyard Percussion?

**Azol** · 11-06-2014

Originally Posted by GuitarGeek

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.

It's actually been mentioned in Close to the Edge: The Story of Yes book by Chris Welch. They assembled all the junk in a garage mounting some pieces to the rack (as far as i remember) and at some point it crashed to the floor and this sound also was captured on the album.

**spacefreak** · 11-06-2014

Kinothek Percussion Ensemble is something you should look out for...

**B D** · 11-06-2014

I just remembered - Kerman and I used lots of trash percussion here and there on Crisis In Clay. There's one song where Dave was beating on a large sliding corrugated steel door with a log. We used an old cement mixer filled with stones and trash somewhere too.

BD
www.bdrak.com

**alanterrill** · 11-06-2014

Ameobic Ensemble used to have a percussionist who used 'kitchenware' -you can just about see him in the background here:
Jablkon's drummer also uses a variety of non-standard percussion in his kit but I can't find a suitable clip at the moment.

**Polska** · 11-06-2014

Jerry Marotta used a garden weasel when I saw him with The Tony Levin band.

**Rarebird** · 11-06-2014

Kaisers Orchestra (I think)

**trurl** · 11-06-2014

Garden Weasel makes an amazing sound. I have one...

**davis** · 11-06-2014

**The Gak Omek** · 11-06-2014

Scrap Arts Music

http://scrapartsmusic.com/

**walt** · 11-06-2014

John Cage-Quartet-for percussion.A superb rendition of this composition, as well as other landmark works for percussion by Cage can be heard on a Mode cd by Third Coast Percussion ensemble.Highly recommended.

**bob_32_116** · 11-06-2014

It's hardly "prog", but this guy's percussion instrument of choice is an empty beer carton that he called the "Fosterphone".

He is also the man who introduced everybody's favourite celebrity, Rolf Harris,

to the song "Two Little Boys".

I was also going to mention harris' famous wobble board, but I'm not sure if that's technically a percussion instrument.

**rcarlberg** · 11-06-2014

Thanks all. Some wonderful vids. Bobby McFerrin is always amazing!

Stomp and Scrap Arts Music and Kinothek and Blue Man Group all make a living doing wonderful-sounding "non-standard percussion" -- which makes it all the stranger, don't you think, that more drummers don't follow Bob Drake's lead in including it more often? Hell, you hardly ever hear cowbell anymore.

**JKL2000** · 11-06-2014

I saw Violent Femmes on the tour for their first album, and the drummer had a snare drum and an upside down metal trash can - that was it.

**Dana5140** · 11-06-2014

Futureman, from Bela Fleck's band plays all sorts of stuff. Barry Altschul long ago used to find bits and pieces of metal and incorporate them into his kit.

**syncopatico** · 11-06-2014

With the band Air, Henry Threadgill occasionally played the "hubkaphone" which was his rack of suspended (automobile) hubcaps.

**Dave (in MA)** · 11-06-2014

Keith Moon's kit was sometimes ready for the junkyard by the end of the show.

**GuitarGeek** · 11-06-2014

Originally Posted by rcarlberg

Blue Man Group all make a living doing wonderful-sounding "non-standard percussion" --

Well, they use "non standard percussion" in their music, but the concert I saw back in 2004, and the CD I have by them, has plenty of "conventional" instruments too, including vocals.

But one of the big features of their show was the tuned PVC pipe instruments, which were used throughout the concert. They used them to play the sequencer/synth part on their cover of I Feel Love (yes, the Donna Summer song) and the organ part on Baba O'Riley. Elsewhere in the show, they made use of...I think I read they were boat antennae. When they swished them back and forth, they made a sound like a helicopter. And, at one point in the one song, one of them played a solo, that kinda sounded like turntable scratching. I believe they also used a grand piano as a giant hammered dulcimer, and there's probably a few others I'm forgetting.

**GuitarGeek** · 11-06-2014

Originally Posted by JKL2000

I saw Violent Femmes on the tour for their first album, and the drummer had a snare drum and an upside down metal trash can - that was it.

I read an article about them way back when where it was mentioned that they started off their performing career as buskers. Hence, I think that's where the "snare drum and trash can" drumkit came from. If I remember correctly, their bassist also played an early acoustic bass guitar.

**Mikhael** · 11-06-2014

Originally Posted by Progbear

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.

“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).

Kansas used to use an anvil onstage, for the Monolith tour I think it was. Very theatrical use of it as well.