Bands with the coolest instruments.

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Looking, or sounding.

Like I enjoy Devo's guitars were they sawed off the sides and added weird mechanical parts all over it. And I certainly enjoy the vintage moogs Add (N) to (X) use.

Who else has cool/interesting/neat-o equipment?

― David Allen, Friday, 11 July 2003 15:39 (twenty-two years ago)

quintron's drum buddy
radiohead's ondes martenot

― Felcher (Felcher), Friday, 11 July 2003 15:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Ralph Carney - puts a mouthpiece on anything hollow. The slide clarinet is particularly cool.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 11 July 2003 15:42 (twenty-two years ago)

.. Or did you men "cool" like Nigel Tuffnel's hotrod guitar or Rick Nielsen's guitars?

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 11 July 2003 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

john fogerty's baseball bat guitar

― Felcher (Felcher), Friday, 11 July 2003 15:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Neptune's homemade metal instruments. Captured by Robots' entire...thing.

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Friday, 11 July 2003 15:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Rahsaan Roland Kirk's "stritch" and "manzello". Les Claypool's "stick bass". Talvin Singh's "tablatronics". Skerik's "saxitar". Bootsy Collins' "space bass".

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 11 July 2003 15:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Here's a good indicator of the last one I mentioned there:
http://www.2rad.net/~slothy/pfunk/bootsy/7.gif
he he he I love Bootsy

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 11 July 2003 16:02 (twenty-two years ago)

all the shit einsturzende neubauten makes

― Felcher (Felcher), Friday, 11 July 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.chaofeng.com.au/intruments.htm#per

― scott seward, Friday, 11 July 2003 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

sleepy time guerrilla museum

― brian pickles, Friday, 11 July 2003 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Could anyone possibly achieve a higher level of coolness than by having the utter lack of dignity to weild this....?

http://www.guitarden.com/simmons/press_photo.jpeg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 11 July 2003 17:23 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.pbgadget.com/images/europe/ams-rn5~c.jpg

― christoff (christoff), Friday, 11 July 2003 17:24 (twenty-two years ago)

"NEED. MORE. NEEEEEECKS!!!"

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 11 July 2003 17:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Martin Tielli's two guitars are pretty classic.
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf000/f076/f07608lph7b.jpg http://www.dropd.com/issue/43/Rheostatics/tielli3.jpg

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 11 July 2003 17:33 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/futurist/

Also, Hella

― Xii (Xii), Friday, 11 July 2003 17:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Blue Man Group I thought would be an obvious one...or are they too far off the spectrum?

― Allison (Allison), Friday, 11 July 2003 18:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I love Prince's guitar. It looks like some kind of medeival torture equipment.

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Friday, 11 July 2003 19:24 (twenty-two years ago)

the guitar that boyd rice fitted an electric fan to.
also the things that sahko's 0 use live.kraftwerk's old electric cooker hob style drums.

― frenchbloke (frenchbloke), Friday, 11 July 2003 19:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Must go with the singing saw a la Neutral Milk Hotel.

― Kate Silver (Kate Silver), Friday, 11 July 2003 19:38 (twenty-two years ago)

cevin keys drumasaurus!!

― kephm, Friday, 11 July 2003 19:48 (twenty-two years ago)

along that vein, all the random shit olivia tremor control used for black foliage

― Felcher (Felcher), Friday, 11 July 2003 19:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Gryphon 0\/\/|\|Z j00 all!!!11!1

http://www.gaudela.net/gryphon/pics/Gryphon-GT05a.jpg

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 11 July 2003 19:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Captured By Robots, since the guy built an entire robot band, which he controls thru a sequencer and a weird guitar/casio combination.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 11 July 2003 20:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Sun Ra to thread!

― T. Weiss (Timmy), Friday, 11 July 2003 21:34 (twenty-two years ago)

all the homebrew electronics Chris Carter cooked up for Throbbing Gristle.

― Mike Taylor (mjt), Friday, 11 July 2003 21:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Warn Defever and his Electric Pinecone

― fffv (fffv), Friday, 11 July 2003 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't find a picture of Eugene Chadbourne's electric rake anywhere online! Help!

― Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Saturday, 12 July 2003 01:16 (twenty-two years ago)

http://wymple.gs.net/~aaswell/rake.jpg

― chules, Saturday, 12 July 2003 01:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Thank you.

― Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Saturday, 12 July 2003 02:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Greg Jenkins on cactus:

http://www.octapod.org.au/s/spike.jpg

(Didn't find what I was really looking for -- pix of John Cage playing the same "instrument". Which I first saw on some television New Year's special that also featured the Thompson Twins playing "Hold Me Now". Come to think of it, they had kind of cool-looking oversized percussion instruments, didn't they? But it still seems to me like the most bizarre juxtaposition of high- and low-brow music...)

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Saturday, 12 July 2003 02:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Wolf Eyes' table setup has midi'd up boxes but then also weird organic arc-welded junk that seem fresh from a Michigan junkyard. It spans this entire tech spectrum, making it tempting, but un-trainspottable. When they opened for Black Dice in Chicago last fall, they also got some amazing sounds out of their "horns"... like here come the warm jets, but a lot more ominous and bad-trippy.

There was some joking in certain small circles about "customizing" drum machines a la Aphex Twin, i.e., painting the cases silver...

― elliott (ebb), Saturday, 12 July 2003 03:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Greg Jenkins on cactus:

Speaking of jamming with plants: Morphogenesis.

― Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Saturday, 12 July 2003 03:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Harry Partch's various unique percussion, string, and keyboard instruments

Hans Reichel's daxophones and modified guitars
www.daxo.de

Uakti's homemade instruments (partly inspired by Partch and Walter Smetak)

― Marcus Barr (Marcus Barr), Saturday, 12 July 2003 03:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Dud though: bands who treat their unique instrument like some secret weapon that is unveiled as the climax-to-be draws near: "everybody cheer the kaleido-extasiphone" (Reichel himself draws heavily on that novelty aspect)

― nestmanso, Saturday, 12 July 2003 08:14 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.jasperblake.freeuk.com/cheek/images/tools_guitar1.jpg

― Jay K (Jay K), Saturday, 12 July 2003 14:42 (twenty-two years ago)

"Everybody cheer the proto-spadochord"

― nestmanso (nestmanso), Saturday, 12 July 2003 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

I can dig it.

― nickn (nickn), Saturday, 12 July 2003 21:38 (twenty-two years ago)

A few at random: the 13th Floor Elevators used to employ an electric jug...one of the songs on Eno's "Taking Tiger Mountain" features a typewriter solo...Roy Wood from The Move uses crumhorn (the instrument wileded by the fellow in the Gryphon photograph above).

― Nom De Plume, Monday, 14 July 2003 15:49 (twenty-two years ago)

mike patton to thread

― Felcher (Felcher), Monday, 14 July 2003 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Harry Partch owns the thread. but Paul and Limpe Fuchs' ballastring and fuchshorns, Robert Rutman's awesome steel cellos, Noise-Maker's Fife's contact-miked antlers, Reed Ghazala's Vox Insecta and Patrice Moullet's cosmophone are also too cool for school. as are Cul de Sac's "Contraption," the guts of a steel guitar mounted on a baby's coffin, or something like that; Andrea Neumann's "innenklavier," a piano sans frame studded with electroacoustic sensors; David Knott's custom stringboard instruments. and Michael Prime's lab full of psychotropic plants, biofeedback monitors and water machines.

― summerslastsound, Monday, 14 July 2003 16:24 (twenty-two years ago)

just go here right now

― summerslastsound, Monday, 14 July 2003 16:28 (twenty-two years ago)

In terms of custom designed guitars, I don't think any ax-shaped ax could beat Michael Anthony of Van Halen's bass that's shaped like a Jack Daniels bottle. That man is seriously dedicated to drinking. And rocking. But mostly drinking.

Gene may have a bass shaped like an ax, but if he had a guitar shaped like his favorite pastime, then he'd have a bass in the shape of a Polaroid camera. Which would be pretty cool.

― Colin, Tuesday, 15 July 2003 04:09 (twenty-two years ago)

The Brazilian band group is all about their self-made instruments, which have names like "Aqualung" (it makes sounds when water is poured through it), "Trilobyte" (a percussion instrument made of PVC pipes), "Wheel", "Tower" etc. It may sound gimmicky, but the band has a wonderful, otherworldy sound which wouldn't be possible without these weird instruments. Can't find any pictures of them, sadly.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 07:56 (twenty-two years ago)

The Brazilian group Uakti is all about their self-made instruments, which have names like "Aqualung" (it makes sounds when water is poured through it), "Trilobyte" (a percussion instrument made of PVC pipes), "Wheel", "Tower" etc. It may sound gimmicky, but the band has a wonderful, otherworldy sound which wouldn't be possible without these weird instruments. Can't find any pictures of them, sadly.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 07:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry about the double post.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 07:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't believe that no one has mentioned the MUFFTARS!!!

http://home.att.net/~sueno/mufftar.jpg

My sister found a whole cache of albums by them in this barn. Yes, they really do use guitars made out of car mufflers.

― kate (kate), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 08:09 (twenty-two years ago)

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