Talkin' old school.
December 5, 2015 5:06 PM   Subscribe

You might not have guessed that the spiritual ancestors of talk box talkers Pete Drake and Roger Troutman are musicians from faraway Thừa Thiên-Huế Province in Vietnam. Don't believe me? Just check it.

Talk box at Mefi previously: here.

And my post on Pete Drake from 2011, here, although, typically, most all of the YT links there are dead. A little reminder, then, to download early and often, children, if there's a clip you wanna go back to in the future, cause information doesn't want to be *free* as much as it wants to be *on your hard disc*.
posted by flapjax at midnite (12 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
More like YouTube is becoming one of those places "nobody goes anymore because it's too crowded". Or something equally illogical about Content and Monetizing and Copyright... if there are a lot of clips on YouTube nobody's making money off it... or if there are none, somebody's getting rich and we don't know who...
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:46 PM on December 5, 2015


I would have guessed that the second video ("it") was totally electronic, rather than made with some kind of mouth-connected instrument. Neat music, thanks for the post.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:58 PM on December 5, 2015


That was great, and also funny because I started to download it, as I do, and for the first time thought "maybe you really don’t need to download all the cool things, maybe it will actually be there later". Then I read below the fold and went back and downloaded. What was I thinking?
posted by bongo_x at 7:38 PM on December 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


Oh man, I'd never heard of this! Thanks for sharing it!

While we're on the subject of talking instruments, it's definitely worth mentioning Alvino Rey and his amazing/groundbreaking/creepy creation Stringy the Talking Steel Guitar (which you can hear in this soundie clip). The way it worked was that Rey's wife would be backstage with the talk box, while Rey played the steel guitar and led the band up front. Some of the sounds they made together were absolutely incredible, and it can be hard to believe that they were produced in the 40s.

That laugh is just terrifying, though...
posted by teponaztli at 8:01 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


HOLY HELL THAT THING MAKES THE BEST NOISE
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:55 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Wow, that is really a great sound.
I assume its based the the same principle
as the mouth bow and jew's harp
posted by quazichimp at 9:53 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


That is fucking awesome, flapjax. Thanks for this post.
I'd never seen your earlier, fantastic talk box post, but funny story: a few months ago I had a brief exchange on Twitter with the George Harrison account and Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub,) during which I had the epiphany that since Pete Drake and Frampton were both involved in the All Things Must Pass sessions, that's where Frampton got his whole talk box deal from. Which I guess I was the last person on earth to realize, but anyway, Frampton favourited my tweet which kind of made my night.
posted by chococat at 10:27 PM on December 5, 2015


Wow, neat stuff. Gave me flashbacks to my childhood when I'd stick earbud-like headphones in my mouth with the stereo cranked to make my own crappy talkbox contraption.
posted by p3t3 at 10:36 PM on December 5, 2015


quazichimp, yeah, the mouth acts as a resonator, so moving your mouth and lips changes the shape and size of the resonator and opening, modulating the sound that's produced.

And you totally beat me to the punch in posting that Buffy Sainte-Marie video - my favorite part is when she looks at him and cracks up.
posted by teponaztli at 10:46 PM on December 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Bit of a derail- that Buffy St. Marie Cripple Creek song is pretty frickin raunchy for Sesame Street, don't you think? I'm pretty sure it's about a young man who goes into town to a bordello to spend his pay from working in the mine!
posted by Philby at 12:04 AM on December 6, 2015


quazichimp, thanks for the Buffy clip. She was about the only figure in the 60s folk revival scene that I know of who used the mouthbow.

And although I've been chastised in the past for linking to Metafilter Music here on the Blue, I will risk the ire of certain segments the user base (and possibly the mods) and link to mouth bow posts and jaw harp posts at Metafilter Music. The selection you'll find there is comprised mostly of my contributions, posted before I gave up on the subsite, though there are a few here and there by other folks.

(I always did my best to draw site-wide attention to MeFiMu, thinking that was basically a good and desirable thing, but this will be my last time to do so if there is some problem with it again this time.)
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:25 AM on December 6, 2015 [2 favorites]


that's awesome, flapjax! I gotta go ask my momma now if she knows more about it!
posted by numaner at 12:17 AM on December 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


« Older Why exit interviews are important   |   Be excellent to each other. Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments