you've been hit by a smooth cardboard roll

November 12, 2015 10:53 PM

Patrick Mathis performs a pretty rad arrangement of Smooth Criminal on an orgue de Barbarie.

previously

posted by en forme de poire (29 comments total)

that was awesome
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 11:08 PM on November 12, 2015

The Cinema has taught me that such an instrument, played in such an environment, should be aflame.



I suppose this is close enough.
posted by louche mustachio at 11:14 PM on November 12, 2015 [9 favorites]

previously

This is the only "previously" with a link that still works, although this post should link to this video.
posted by John Cohen at 11:37 PM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah this was way better than I expected. A really great arrangement and it's fun to watch all the punchout shapes roll up and be like "ooh, what will that triangle sound like?"
posted by daisystomper at 11:58 PM on November 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

At some point, Smooth Criminal became Jackson's Bohemian Rhapsody, and I'm OK with that.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:18 AM on November 13, 2015 [9 favorites]

Oh and obviously this is a must watch video. I love the enthusiasm of the organist.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:18 AM on November 13, 2015

Oh man, that grin at the end.

Does anyone know what the two switches/pulls he uses a couple of times actually do?
posted by cromagnon at 1:11 AM on November 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

That was lovely, and it inspired me to see the original for the first time in what Google tells me is 28 freaking years. (Performance starts around the 1-minute mark.)

It reminded me what an astonishing talent Jackson was, with his gift for slithery earworms and his genuinely otherworldly dancing, but it also reminded me of the era when his oddness shifted from fascinating pop star oddness to genuinely odd oddness. I'd forgotten the kind of terrifying zoot suit orgy time-out that comes out of nowhere right in the middle of the clip, with everybody moaning and swooning around until you feel like something awful is about to happen, but then it doesn't. Everybody remembers Jackson prowling around the club like a demon and doing that freaky leaning move, but we forget all the weirdness around that.

I think this may be right around the time when he debuted a face that was one plastic surgery too far. It's striking how he spends a lot of this clip kind of hiding behind the hat, his face in shadow. It's in keeping with the noir style, but the glimpses you do get of his face are rather startling. And of course he's got cute little kids running around and imitating him, stirring up memories of all the awful rumors.

Anyway, the part where the orgue kind of goes crazy in the middle of the song is probably about as close as they could get to how the song goes crazy in the middle of itself.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:58 AM on November 13, 2015 [7 favorites]

I assume the roll was damaged, that big block that makes an ugly screech about 2/3 through. What a cool thing this man has done.
posted by Meatbomb at 3:36 AM on November 13, 2015

I love the fact that he seems to be playing it in the middle of a pile of driftwood, as if this instrument had just blown in from a storm so violent it crossed the realities.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 4:33 AM on November 13, 2015 [23 favorites]

I loved the arrangement, but I would have preferred a video with live sound. I wanted to hear all the mechanical noises of the organ along with the music.
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:12 AM on November 13, 2015

Yeah, shame the video was not synched properly. Great sound, nonetheless. I loved the way he used a barrage of pipes as the rhythmic stabs: an organic ORCH5!

external programme computers ftw!
posted by scruss at 5:17 AM on November 13, 2015

That was magnificent, and for someone who's turning a crank and feeding in roll of paper, that guy gives and intense (and joyful) performance.

cromagnon, judging by when he's using them in the song it looks like those things are tweaking the air pressure being fed to the pipes. He's always adjusting them when the arrangement goes from sparse to dense or short sounds to long sounds.
posted by threecheesetrees at 5:20 AM on November 13, 2015

...or vice versa
posted by threecheesetrees at 5:27 AM on November 13, 2015

I kept expecting Steve Buscemi to get stuffed into that thing.
posted by lagomorphius at 5:40 AM on November 13, 2015 [4 favorites]

> At some point, Smooth Criminal became Jackson's Bohemian Rhapsody, and I'm OK with that.

Smooth Criminal is my all-time favorite song to hear covered, there are so many great interpretations of it. Curiously, I've never really cared for the original and consider it to be very low in the list of great Jacko tunes.
posted by davelog at 6:16 AM on November 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm not quite sure what the point of his left hand motion is. Just holding it down?
posted by smackfu at 7:48 AM on November 13, 2015

I started watching this and was reminded of my grandparents' player piano. Welp, I thought, I know how this goes. I don't need to watch the whole thing.

Then I reached the everything-goes-to-11 bridge in the middle, with the giant block of sound.

And then I reached the triangles.

And then it ended with his delighted grin.

It's lovely that it started out strong and got better from there.
posted by sgranade at 8:21 AM on November 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

that freaky leaning move

Just checking everyone knows that Jackson had a US patent on how the leaning over move was done.
posted by colie at 8:29 AM on November 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

I feel like we need a FanFare to discuss the Smooth Criminal video (and a million other culturally significant music videos from the eighties).
posted by roger ackroyd at 8:36 AM on November 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

What a delightful instrument.
What an awesome arrangement.
What a great arm workout!

Alien Ant Farm's version is my favourite cover of Smooth Criminal, but this is now a close second.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 8:41 AM on November 13, 2015

For all that Jackson was problematic with a capital P, I think he's still likely one of the best songwriter/composers of the 20th century. Rewatching the video, there's elements that remind me of this Astaire/Charisse number.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:51 AM on November 13, 2015

This is a perfect video game soundtrack.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:18 AM on November 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

The atonal, almost completely human-generated break in the middle strikes me as a bit of a ballsy move in retrospect for the 1980s, but perhaps I just listen to too much Tagaq. It's something of a joke on the audience. On the other hand, I think he pulled similar stunts in other music videos.

But it's a perfect spot for some retro black midi which had its origins in surrealist player piano compositions.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 9:28 AM on November 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

Whoa. After playing that, I'm pretty sure my iPad is now an instrument of Meth Satan.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:11 PM on November 13, 2015

> Rewatching the video, there's elements that remind me of this Astaire/Charisse number.

CBrachyrhynchos: The Smooth Criminal video is an explicit tribute to that number.
posted by cardioid at 12:14 PM on November 13, 2015

> Rewatching the video, there's elements that remind me of this Astaire/Charisse number.

CBrachyrhynchos: The Smooth Criminal video is an explicit tribute to that number.

This was the subject of the oldest post under the previously link above (since moved to a new URL on YouTube), and is a well edited compilation of that along with a few other movies to fill in, to fit the full length of Jackson's song.
posted by radwolf76 at 5:03 PM on November 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Here's the same guy playing a bunch of children's toy instruments.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 12:03 PM on November 14, 2015

That was surprisingly lovely!
posted by maggiemaggie at 12:36 PM on November 14, 2015