I want to be taken seriously as the type of musician that plays stuff like an electric rake. I mean, how seriously do you take someone like Spike Jones? They take him pretty seriously - a really good musician who made a great contribution in terms of humor, which is part of what I try to do too.
Eugene Chadbourne
I play these sort of comical instruments I invented, like the electric rake and the electric plunger. I do a lot of almost stand-up comedy material. Just the juxtaposition of the different styles in itself sometimes is funny. Like, I do sort of an acoustic version of 'Purple Haze' that has some bluegrass licks in it.
Sometimes you have trouble because someone 'likes' your music so much. They follow you around for hours singing little bits of the songs, or just freaking out.
There are no bridges in folk songs because the peasants died building them.
There's no type of music I don't like. I think it's important to be able to make fun of all types.
I do the protest stuff. I do country and western. I play both acoustic and electric guitar in a lot of different styles, from loud, psychedelic stuff to quiet finger-picking.
People love the electric rake. You just hit it or whatever you want to do. You can't play 'Swanee River' on it. You have to just make terrible noise. Occasionally, it will make a sound like a note.
I think dissonance in music makes you think. It isn't, 'Oh, that's a pretty melody I can whistle.' You have to sit down and listen to tell it apart from other things.
I started using contact microphones that you can place on common, ordinary objects, like a rake. I put a microphone on it and it picked up the tines vibrating and turned it into a horrible din. What attracted me to it was the horrible din - that's what I really liked.
Can you imagine a guy breaking into your car, and he steals your guitar case 'cause he thinks it's a guitar, and he gets it home and opens it up and there's a rake inside it, an electric toilet plunger and a dog skull? That actually happened.
