Dead musical instruments... brought back to life by YouTube? Check out this
mellotron demo film, a rare
trautonium keyboard in some guy's garage,
trautonium music by composer Oskar Sala, an original
Ondes Martenot, a documentary on the telharmonium (parts
1,
2, and
3), and the
Sonovox (used to funny but not-suitable-for-work effect in this parody of
Sparky's Magic Piano). Meanwhile, avant-gardists have revived the art of
prepared piano, but more mainstream acts such as
Tori Amos and
Ferrante & Teicher have also experimented with it. Last but not least, another performer of prepared piano is
Margaret Leng Tan, but I think she should get more accolades as the best
virtuoso of the toy piano since Schroeder from Peanuts.
posted by jonp72
on Jan 31, 2008 -
14 comments
This cheesy 1979 promo film from the group,
Blackjack, offers a glimpse into the hard rock past of balladeer Michael Bolton, which also includes a co-writing credit for a
Top 40 hit by Kiss. Similarly, Bill Joel disavows the days when he
posed in medieval armor next to slabs of raw beef on the cover of the self-titled album by Joel's heavy metal duo,
Attila, although
Julian Cope is a fan of the album and its Deep Purplish vibes (check out
Holy Moses and
Wonder Woman). To round out the trifecta, we have Tori Amos who got marketed as the metal-chick frontwoman of
Y Kant Tori Read (check out the video for
The Big Picture). On the other hand, metalheads have the opposite problem of hiding their pop past. Examples include the industrial metal band Ministry's early days as a
new wave synth act and Tommy Iommi's brief tenure as a
member of Jethro Tull before becoming lead guitarist of Black Sabbath. Meanwhile,
Bon Scott, the late lead singer of AC/DC, is probably spinning in his grave over the YouTube footage of him as an
Australian teen idol and a
bearded hippie with a recorder.
posted by jonp72
on Nov 26, 2007 -
70 comments
