Instrumental mimicry
Posted by Sven on 12 September 2008 - 12:16pm.
Posting a clip of Jimi Hendrix's 'Machine Gun' in the gun songs thread below, made me wonder if there are many other examples like this where an instrument is used to impersonate other sounds, as opposed to using a sound effect. The only other one that springs to mind is Rolling Stones - 'Little Red Rooster', where Brian Jones evokes hounds howling and dogs barking with his guitar. Any thoughts?
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Madonna
Somehow Madge makes her guitar sound like a belching mouse.
Genius.
And she makes a First
Of playing Air Guitar on a Real Guitar.
For some reason
That makes me think of 'Air on a g-string.'
Rory's scratching-cat Strat
When he played "Off The Handle" live, for the line about a pissed-off cat Rory Gallagher used to manage a sound effect that wouldn't have shamed a Tom & Jerry cartoon.
Bill Kerchen - car horns, fog horns and some mad solos
On top of all that, around 6.14 in he plays tennis....
Astonishing...
How, oh how, have I lived for 39 years on this here planet without ever hearing this guy play until now?!
He is incredible!
That was brilliant, just brilliant. I'm going to have to revise my best guitar player list...
Agreed
He played on Nick Lowe's 'The Impossible Bird' album, which is one reason why it swings so well.
His own track, 'Hammer of the Honky Tonk Gods' was on a Word CD last year too. What a fantastic player.
That is
really marvellous.
the intro to Leroy & The Drivers'
Sad Chicken - a funk classic from 1967 - actually mimics the sound a sad chicken might make...
Since I've Been Loving You
That Led Zeppelin song about Robert Plant's pet mouse you can hear John Bonham's Bass Pedal squeaking just like a mouse. Oh yes you can....now I'll get my coat.........
Steve Vai
Much derided in these parts, but the start of "Yankee rose" by David Lee Roth where Diamond Dave and Stevie's guitar "talk" to each other is great!
There's a great impersonation of a chicken on "Scratch my back" by the Fabulous Thunderbirds courtesy Jimmie Vaughan.
Todd Rundgren - Runt
On Bat Out of Hell, rather than use a sound effect of a motor bike revving, Todd got out from the producer's chair & did it on the guitar.
Adrian Belew is noted for making his guitar do animal noises
He played with many famous bands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Belew
Little Red Rooster again...
On the great Sam Cooke version, Billy Preston pulls the same stunt with his Hammond B3.
Cars and Guns
Car on the Animals' "Roadrunner":
Tommy Gun drumming on "Tommy Gun":
(Has anyone noticed a sudden increase in the number of embedded YouTube clips that say, "We're sorry. This clip is no longer avilable."? It usually doesn't mean it though - often they reappear another time. Is this a connection issue, a YouTube police thing, or what?)
John Peel...
...once said that the guitar solo in Led Zeppelin's 'In The Evening' sounded 'like a giant door opening'. That's quite accurate actually!
Bombs, machine gun fire, napalm, screaming horror...
Metaphorical sound - following on from Hendrix
I believe Bono asked The Edge to 'put Nicaragua (or was it El Salvador?) through his amplifier' when U2 recorded 'Bullet The Blue Sky'. That seems kind of absurd - it's just a rock song and kind of typical of the pretensions of the man perhaps. Isn't it really just an exciting bit of rock guitar, but then again it's possible for music to convey anguish, anger and despair, so maybe not so preposterous an idea? The track sounds pretty good though - the guitar sounds fantastic. On the negative side it's a bit of a Jim Morrison impression of a vocal and possibly the drums are too intrusive, in eighties fashion.
Serendipitously I realise, after thinking of this song for this thread, that the 'Rattle and Hum' live version includes an intro featuring Hendrix's 'Star Spangled Banner', holding with the idea that it was an anti-Vietnam statement, although it's not clear that was really Jimi's intention since he actually spoke in favour of US military involvement abroad, ironically.