Survey of the Bastardate: what instrument would the Evil One choose to torment you for eternity?
Tales of True Adventure for Rugged Men Not Unlike Yourself
Tales of True Adventure for Rugged Men Not Unlike Yourself
Survey of the Bastardate: what instrument would the Evil One choose to torment you for eternity?
I don’t know that any instrument grates on me like bad voices. If I had to direct a choir of country bros or screamo or sensitive whispery singers I would punch Satan.
Vuvuzelas or accordions if I must stick with an instrument.
I’m going with the recorder, mostly because I was forced to play one in elementary school. Banjo is a close second, bagpipes third.
I’m with you on recorders, and really on any flute precursor, especially those appearing in movies when they want to invoke a mystical or tribal vibe. They invariably sound new-agey and irritating. So yeah, no pan flutes for sure. Even modern flutes annoy me on many occasions. As for banjos I can tolerate one kind of buried in the mix if I like the song enough. Solo or, God forbid, more than one? I’m postal.
Agree with all of the above. Irritating voices, bagpipes, vuvuzelas, accordions…no thanks.
And Jews’ harps.
Harmonicas present an interesting situation for me. I like them in blues based rock. They can be ok in folk rock or maybe regular folk as long as it’s not cloyingly sincere folk, especially of the politically earnest variety. Then they become noxious. But worst of all is when a very skilled harmonica player improvises or plays something melodic. For example, there was some Dave Matthews 90’s hit that began with a technically accomplished harmonica player improvising. I nearly had several wrecks lunging at the radio to change stations. It made me want to start breaking things. It was especially noxious because it appeared right at the beginning of the song; you didn’t have time to change stations before the harmonica began its grim business.
One Christmas I was at the home of one my wife’s relatives, and the host put on a CD of Christmas songs all played with a harmonica backed by acoustic instruments including a banjo. (As a truly traumatic event, the first song seared into my memory: it was “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”) Mrs. Renfield took note of my white knuckles and twitchy facial muscles and quietly managed to get the music changed before figgy pudding was thrown.
I found Happy Harmonica Christmas by a Billy Blackstone. Promoting it as “jazzy” is quite a stretch. It’s terrible.
Also, Nashville Harmonica at Christmas Time (with unnecessary “quotation marks”) may be what they played you. Found it on a “Forgotten LPs” youtube channel. Clearly not forgotten by a deeply shaken Renfield.