Music
Let’s Have a Party - The Piano Genius of Mrs. Mills
This well-done documentary is a lot of fun.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 16, 2020 -
Comments (4)
Category: Cult Figures and Artifacts, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Music, Twentieth Century
Virgin Prunes, “Theme For Thought”
Their Wikipedia page.
An even earlier version of the song here.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 09, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Antisocial Activites, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Music, Avant Garde, 1970s, 1980s, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Crackers
Crackers, available on Audio CD for $33.08 from Amazon, is the sound of people cracking their knuckles and other joints. Migone explains the origin of the work on his website:
The tapes were edited at Avatar in Quebec City. Crackers was then first presented as an installation in a group show curated by Emmanuel Madan entitled “Incredibly Soft Sounds” at Gallery 101, in January 1998.
He notes that a follow-up show, in January 2000, featured "a video of my right ankle cracking repeatedly for twenty minutes ."
If you don't want to buy the CD, you can listen to the tracks for free on Migone's website.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 07, 2020 -
Comments (1)
Category: Music, 1990s, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Chicken Fat
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jan 05, 2020 -
Comments (9)
Category: Body, Bodybuilding, Music, 1960s, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Radiorama, “Vampires”
Their Wikipedia page. Don't abandon this until the actual "singing" starts.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Dec 23, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Bombast, Bloviation and Pretentiousness, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Music, 1980s, Fictional Monsters
Nothing Happens
Nothing Happens by Michelle and Uri Kranot from Michelle & Uri Kranot on Vimeo.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 21, 2019 -
Comments (0)
Category: Ambiguity, Uncertainty and Deliberate Obscurity, Boredom, Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements, Music, Cartoons
“Give Me a Red Hot Mama and an Ice Cold Beer”
Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 14, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Music, 1950s, Women, Alcohol
How much total weight does it take to play a song on the piano?
Pianist Moissaye Boguslawski (popularly known as 'Bogie') calculated in 1927 that "in the four minutes it took him to play Rubenstein's 'Staccato Etude' he exerted force of 14,700 pounds." Apparently he then used this bit of esoterica to impress the ladies.The wikipedia entry on Boguslawski notes, "Boguslawski was known for skillfully attracting media attention. A 1936 piece in TIME magazine said of him, 'When straight news about himself is scarce, 'Bogie' is likely to come forth with such a project as his proposal to promote world peace through voice culture, since animosity arises when unpleasant tones are heard.'"
Muncie Evening Press - Aug 11, 1927
Ithaca Journal - Nov 23, 1926
Posted By: Alex - Wed Nov 27, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Music, 1920s
The Bugaloos
The Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Nov 25, 2019 -
Comments (1)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, Music, Television, Pop Art, Surrealism, 1970s, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Symphony with Airplane Propellers
American composer George Antheil scored his Ballet Mécanique (or Ballet for Machines) for sixteen player pianos, two conventionally played pianos, four brass drums, three xylophones, a tam-tam, seven electric bells, a siren, and three airplane propellers. Here's what happened during its first U.S. performance in 1927, according to Nicholas Tawa in The Great American Symphony:He was labeled a charlatan and was forced to retreat to Europe. All the while, the New York fiasco haunted him like a nightmare. His reputation remained in ruins.
Baltimore Sun - Apr 17, 1927
While the inclusion of the airplane propellers provided a dramatic flourish, apparently it was the attempt to synchronize the player pianos that was the real technical challenge, and impossible with 1920's technology. In a 1999 Wired article, Paul Lehrman describes an effort to perform Ballet Mécanique with the help of computer technology.
While over at logosfoundation.org, one can find a description of a more recent project to perform Antheil's symphomy with full-scale propellers... because apparently previous performances, for safety reasons, never used full-sized propellers.
Thanks to Virtual in Carnate for alerting us to the existence of Antheil's propeller symphony.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 04, 2019 -
Comments (3)
Category: Music, 1920s
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |