I got a fever, and the only Rx is more slide whistle

May 4, 2011 9:40 PM

Banjo+washboard+car horn+slidewhistle+clowncar=?

If one were to really like this*...

and this** (very specifically at what happens around 1:25 beyond)...

and then this*** too...

then what other musics should one be on the lookout for?

Thanks weirdos! :p

* bonzo dog band by a waterfall
** spike jones I dream of jeanie
*** I don't know who, soundtrack to an Ub Iwerks cartoon

posted by ian1977 to Media & Arts (17 answers total)

Weird Al Yankovic? It's rock, rather than jazz, though. (Except that every album has at least one polka, performed on an accordion.)

There's also Victor Borge, and Peter Schickele, whose comedy was/is about classical music. One of Schickele's better inventions is called a "tromboon". It's a trombone with a bassoon reed instead of a standard mouthpiece.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:52 PM on May 4, 2011

Thanks Chocolate Pickle! Borge and Schickele look fun!

I think I am looking for music that, when heard, screams 'OMG something zany is happening!' but the lyrics don't have to be funny, or even existent. Zany old timey cartoony music. Is that such a category?
posted by ian1977 at 9:55 PM on May 4, 2011

Here is another more succinct example (bonzo dog band again, 'i'm bored') of the style I am looking for.

(but any and all zany musics would be helpful too)

((okay I'll stop posting now, thanks!))
posted by ian1977 at 10:02 PM on May 4, 2011

You might like Hoosier Hotshots.
posted by knilstad at 10:05 PM on May 4, 2011

This is also much more rock and roll, but the feeling you're describing is how Frank Zappa makes me feel. With Zappa, something zany is happening.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:03 PM on May 4, 2011

Definitely Zappa.

The Insect Trust had some music that crossed the zany border.

Not that they ever did anything else quite like this (I think, gave up on them years ago), but Dave Matthews Band had one unreleased song called JTR with this out-of-nowhere circus style outro (starts around 4:10) ; always thought that was one of the greatest things they wrote.
posted by mannequito at 12:24 AM on May 5, 2011

Raymond Scott and Carl Stalling are responsible for a lot of the old Warner Brothers cartoon music.
posted by Balonious Assault at 12:42 AM on May 5, 2011

The first (self-titled) A Hawk and a Hacksaw album.
The Real Tuesday Weld — Bathtime in Clerkenwell.

Chacun a son thingy, but Zappa doesn't match this for me. Impossibly oh-lookit-me-clever noodling with dick jokes is more how FZ comes across for me.
posted by scruss at 4:41 AM on May 5, 2011

Spike Jones (not the current hipster...the 40s and 50s band leader)
posted by Billiken at 6:09 AM on May 5, 2011

You might like The Wiyos, Dean Elliott & His Big Band, The Beau Hunks (who have recorded music by Raymond Scott and other composers of the era), R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders, and parts of the amazing collections of Ren & Stimpy Production Music. (Part two is linked from the first post.)

RE: Zappa, I'm not sure he's such a good overall match either - although Revenge of the Knick Knack People comes to mind (sorry, couldn't find any free audio/video of it!)
posted by usonian at 6:16 AM on May 5, 2011

I meant to mention The Goons, too.
posted by usonian at 6:23 AM on May 5, 2011

Bernie Green's Musically MAD, made in 1959 for MAD Magazine, comes across as sort of a second-rate Spike Jones, but it's definitely the sort of thing you're looking for.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:12 AM on May 5, 2011

You might also enjoy Anna Russell deconstructing Wagner and Gilbert & Sullivan (though there's not a trace of audible slide whistle).
posted by flabdablet at 7:16 AM on May 5, 2011

Also check out the YouTube videos of street musician Claudio Montuori, aka Birdman.
posted by Balonious Assault at 8:00 AM on May 5, 2011

Maybe try out the White Ghost Shivers? Austin-based band, hilarious, talented, awesome.
posted by Polyhymnia at 10:32 AM on May 5, 2011

I very enthusiastically second the Hoosier Hotshots! There is a band member who only 'speaks' in slide-whistle, much like how Harpo Marx only speaks in horn honks. (The same person actually introduced me to both the Hoosier Hotshots and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.)
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:15 PM on May 5, 2011

Late to the party, but I'll 2nd The Wiyos as well as R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders.

I'll also add Ukulele Ike (Cliff Edwards), Irving Aaronson and His Commanders, and Roy Smeck
posted by fings at 2:13 PM on May 31, 2011