Crazy.

October 11, 2007 7:26 PM

You've never heard a box of Stoned Wheat Thins, a big tub of Necco, a little wooden frog, a Tupperware bucket, an empty jar and a theremin sound this good. It's Crazy. No, really, it's Crazy.

Those of you enamored of this kind of sonic robot/automata/tomfoolery might also wanna check out my earlier FPP on the Japanese masters of electro-mechanical musical magnificence, Maywa Denki.

And just for good measure, here's Patsy's Crazy. And Gnarls Barkley's Crazy.

posted by flapjax at midnite (19 comments total)

Cute rubegoldgergian video, but, as an idealist, it seems to me to be a totally perverse use of the Theremin, designed to be an interface between the human and the music-making machine. Yeah, I know, that was, I hope, part of the "joke," but a lot of effort for nothing, if you ask me.
posted by kozad at 7:37 PM on October 11, 2007

God, Patsy Cline just makes me swoon. I'd never seen video of her singing before. She had just a surreal amount of control.

The robot was amusing, but Patsy -- wow.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:41 PM on October 11, 2007

FAM, I love you, man.
posted by humannaire at 7:44 PM on October 11, 2007

Oh, yeah, Patsy was just, just... honestly, I get chills every time I hear her do Crazy. One of the great, great vocalists. And by the way, for those of you who don't know, it was Willie Nelson what penned that little gem.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:44 PM on October 11, 2007

Walkin' After Midnight.

*swoon*
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:45 PM on October 11, 2007

One of my favorite concert experiences ever was watching Add N to (X) at a little venue called the Grog Shop in Cleveland (for Clevelanders, this was before it moved to its newer and nicer digs). They were rocking out with their analogue equipment and busted out a theremin and in true rock star fashion held the theremin over the crowd to let us stick our hands through it to make noise. It was like Sonic Youth doing one of their long form feedback squeal outros except everyone is a robot.

Also, these were really cool videos.

Also, now that I think about it, two of my other favorite concert moments occurred at the Grog Shop: seeing Crash Worship turn a concert into a bacchanalia when I was 15 and getting blistering drunk with my best friends the night before I left Cleveland for good at a Pogues cover band show.
posted by Falconetti at 7:48 PM on October 11, 2007

Pretty good music ... FOR A CRAZY PERSON.

Actually, it's pretty cool. Thanks, flapjax.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 7:49 PM on October 11, 2007

Previous theremin version of Crazy.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:29 PM on October 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Thanks for adding that link, LobsterMitten. I had thought about adding that "Crazy theremin" clip it to the FPP, since the Moonmilk clip is in fact labeled on YouTube as a "video response" to that clip, but it just got too... crazy. And now I see it would've been a double, anyway! Double crazy!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:36 PM on October 11, 2007

Yeah, I basically can't get enough of this kind of thing. I could've sworn that I first saw the robot version you linked on Mefi, but didn't find it on a search.

It's interesting to think of what other contemporary songs would yield to this kind of treatment - Amy Winehouse's song Rehab comes to mind...
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:39 PM on October 11, 2007

Awesome, is what this is.

You might also check out the band Octant, a duo plus a robot drummer which seems to maybe work similarly.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 10:44 PM on October 11, 2007

Wow, Karlos, sounds interesting. Gotta wonder why a band like that, with such an obvious visual component, has NO VIDEOS UP ON THE WEB! Damn! I wanna see their drumming contraption! So, members of Octant, if you happen to stumble upon this thread, get some videos online, y'all. Unless it's against yer religion or something...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:16 PM on October 11, 2007

honestly, I was kind of surprised at how poorly-done the theremin part is. I mean, it's automatic; the pitch arm thing is swinging in one axis. given that you already have a robot theremin apparatus, how hard could it be to make it play more accurately? am I being naïve here?
posted by revfitz at 12:31 AM on October 12, 2007

posted by revfitz given that you already have a robot theremin apparatus, how hard could it be to make it play more accurately? am I being naïve here?

Have you ever tried playing a theremin?
posted by fandango_matt at 1:59 AM on October 12, 2007

The Gnarls Barkley one sounds like Mega Man background music.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 4:02 AM on October 12, 2007

I can't hear it because of my magical headphones.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 4:36 AM on October 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Awesome! flapjax, that made my day. Thanks.
posted by nickyskye at 5:46 AM on October 12, 2007

Nickyskye, having made your day is something that makes me very happy indeed!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:52 AM on October 12, 2007

See, I am curious here. While the MoonMilk stuff is fantastic, and I love it -- is it really accurate to refer to it as a theremin-playing robot? It's really a sort of wind-up automaton, isn't it? What is the difference between a robot and a wind-up machine?
posted by chinese_fashion at 8:13 AM on October 12, 2007