pied piper of PVC plays popular parts

November 23, 2010 4:34 PM

Kent Jenkins rocked a homemade PVC instrument at a recent LMU talent show. The end.
posted by circular (31 comments total)

Wow, that goes from good to great about a minute in.
posted by griphus at 4:37 PM on November 23, 2010

Kent Jenkins rocked a homemade PVC instrument ...
posted by circular

Figures.
posted by StickyCarpet at 4:46 PM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

This is that 1 guy rocking a pvc instrument.
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 4:47 PM on November 23, 2010 [5 favorites]

The finale is bad ass.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:49 PM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Hey that was great!
posted by lazaruslong at 4:49 PM on November 23, 2010

Ah, I am sitting here, sick as a dog, and that made my entire day.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:55 PM on November 23, 2010

Ok, that had me grinning throughout. The kid has the markings of a showman - keeps eye contact for the most part with the audience, and did some nice transitions.
What was the song he went to after the James Bond theme?
[rant]The fat dude on the floor pissed me off - what, you text messaging is more important than showing support to someone who put monster time, money, energy, and plain mad skills into this project?[/rant]
posted by Old'n'Busted at 4:56 PM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is it wrong that I think the tone is one of the coolest things I've heard in a while?

Also: that 1 guy: it's like "Amish Paradise"-era Weird Al and Philip Roebuck had a baby.
posted by notsnot at 5:04 PM on November 23, 2010

I like the "you should've rickrolled everyone" comment.
posted by The Biggest Dreamer at 5:06 PM on November 23, 2010

old'n'busted, the song list's in the description.
posted by boo_radley at 5:12 PM on November 23, 2010

Nicely done. I wanna build one of those with the pipes twice as wide and twice as long, and see if I can get my upstairs neighbor's furniture creeping across their floor with the rumbles!
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:25 PM on November 23, 2010

Like "Blue Man Group," except for the "blue" and the "group" parts.
posted by not_on_display at 5:27 PM on November 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

I have not watched a full YouTube video in some time. I mean, before just now. Holy shit, snubbyj is amazing.
posted by absalom at 5:31 PM on November 23, 2010

boo_radley: thanks, I had not thought to expand the description block out.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 5:54 PM on November 23, 2010

Holy crap. If you get half way through and think "hey, this is pretty cool, but I get the drift", SIT YOUR ASS BACK DOWN and watch till the end.
posted by auto-correct at 5:55 PM on November 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

Holy crap. If you get half way through and think "hey, this is pretty cool, but I get the drift", SIT YOUR ASS BACK DOWN and watch till the end

Yes. He uncorks it.
posted by device55 at 6:23 PM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

the subterranean pipes and the Mario theme worked some kinda postmodern wonder for me. also, musical whack a mole ... just need moles. pretty dang rad visually and aurally. Good job Kent!
posted by mapinduzi at 6:29 PM on November 23, 2010

i am also sick like a dog (pinkeye! swollen tonsils!) and that was the best thing i've seen all day. awesome.
posted by janepanic at 6:49 PM on November 23, 2010

FYI, they have one of these at the Austin Children's Museum. They're color coded, and they have this little song book to tell you how to play simple stuff like Hey Jude and Happy Birthday.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 6:55 PM on November 23, 2010

If you have ever played two-mallet pitched percussion, it's a lot harder than it looks.
posted by phrontist at 7:05 PM on November 23, 2010

Also, he has to strike the pipes at a pretty specific angle to get a good tone, right?
posted by phrontist at 7:07 PM on November 23, 2010

Loved this. I've seen Blue Man Group before too, and I have to say, I love all these weird instruments. It takes quite a bit of talent to play something like this, and my hat's off to this guy, he's not just a talented musician, he's a talented performer, full stop. Like phrontist says, he not only has to have his technique down for a regular two-mallet pitched percussion instrument, he also has to whap those PVC pipes just so to get it to sound right. There's a couple times in the video he misses by a tiny margin, and you can hear the difference. He basically has to complete a good seal around the mouth of each pipe as he hits, with the right amount of force to get a solid vibration to travel through the tube.
posted by mrgoat at 7:28 PM on November 23, 2010

Uakti set the trend with custom instruments made of PVC. They have set a standard for musical inventiveness and pure beauty of execution for almost 3 decades. Check out youtube for more.

There are many, many more inventive artists that would go undiscovered if it wasn't for places like the blue and youtube to give them voice.

Now, all we have to do is find a way to get some of this stuff mainstreamed and put American Idle (sic) out of its misery.
posted by Vibrissae at 7:34 PM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

He has a blink-you-missed-it link to a second video at about 5:16-5:18 where he flips the paddle that takes you to him and his friend doing a Blue Man Group song.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 7:34 PM on November 23, 2010

I misread and thought you said this was Ken Jennings.

His absence notwithstanding, the quotient of awesome was not in any way less than I expected.
posted by eritain at 8:02 PM on November 23, 2010

I'd hit that!
posted by Mike Mongo at 8:02 PM on November 23, 2010

I'm impressed with his technique, but he has the wrong audience for his performance. They never seem to engage, which becomes uncomfortable to watch.
posted by bullitt 5 at 8:10 PM on November 23, 2010

I just knew this would be some Blue Man Group wannabe thing, but I'm relatively bored so I clicked the link. When I saw it was over six minutes long, I thought I'd make it a minute in, tops.

I was wrong, and that was awesome.
posted by makabampow at 8:28 PM on November 23, 2010

30 seconds in, the fat kid sitting on the floor promised himself he'd never waste another night playing World of Warcraft.
posted by davebush at 10:17 PM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I really want to know if he has some kind of background in mallet percussion, because he's got some pretty decent chops in addition to that generous helping of showmanship. Kid's got a future in performance.
posted by pts at 6:26 AM on November 24, 2010

Once at a high school leadership camp (i know right ugghh) talent show I played a medley of recognizeable songs on a 2L pop bottle half-full of water. I can't imagine how much fun I'd have with a thing like this.
posted by tehloki at 11:16 AM on November 24, 2010