Big Kumquat| music

Samples can come from anywhere. Some of these descriptions are true, but many are lies. You can judge for yourself which are true. Send an e-mail to bigkumquat@aol.com listing the items below which you believe to be true. Those who guess well will be sent a free postage-paid CD single, the "Oops, I Lost Your Mind" remixes by Kumquat versus Tadpoles.

1. circle stars

a. The female voice samples come from the LP record, "A Child’s Introduction to Colors and Shapes," from the Children’s Learning Workshop series - a popular set of educational albums issued in the seventies.

b. On a balmy summer evening, a small group of friends puttered around in a home recording studio, with tape rolling. One veteran of these sessions felt she knew how to provide good sample fodder, and began spontaneously rapping about circle stars, dots and stripes and the like.

c. Henry was trying to use a lighter. He just couldn’t get it to work. He failed to realize that it was a childproof lighter. "It’s Henry-proof!" someone joked.

d. "The Complete Wiccan Encyclopedia," a CD-ROM guide to all aspects of the Wiccan faith, contains audio clips describing the proper drawing of the Pentagram, and other Magickal Shapes. Samples used with permission.

2. in the wonderworld of science

a. A friend who works for a television network provided access to hours of old news and talk show footage from the forties and fifties. He assured me that nobody will ever be able to figure out the exact source of the samples used, and that the copyrights are no longer valid anyway.

b. Samples were captured from the Voyager CD-ROM release, "Ephemeral Films." This is an excellent collection of short corporate promotional films (and other kitschy propaganda flicks) which were produced from 1931-1960.

3. the windmills the fairies

a. At a small stand selling strange old videotapes in London’s Portobello Road market, I came across what appeared to be a German aerobics workout tape, circa 1987. Aside from providing hilarious footage for party viewing, it yielded samples for this piece.

b. Via the internet, I ordered a custom cappuccino maker from a Belgian company. A fairly complex machine, it came with an instructional videotape....and, well, one thing led to another.

c. My friend’s father is a short-wave radio enthusiast. I asked him if I could bring my sampler over one evening...I grabbed some snippets from some European short wave broadcasts...I believe they are mostly Dutch.

4. proboscis

a. As they were winding down following an eventful day, the talk of three friends turned deeply conceptual, centering on the idea of infinity and multi-dimensionality. Microphone and tape were set up to capture this conversation.

b. Guitar samples come from the "Monster Guitars" sampling CD from Megamidi France. These samples are maddeningly designed to sound like well-known rockish riffs - and yet, they aren’t quite familiar to the listener.

c. For the last segment of this piece, a sample is snagged from a cooking CD-ROM...the part where the narrator explains how to boil water. Glad we had the CD to show us how to do that...we would never have figured that out on our own!

5. the lawn is gonna die

a. After an office holiday party, a busload of soused revelers heads home. One shoots videotape. The conversation is saucy, the bus motor groans in the background. A long sample taken from this videotape is audible during the "bridge" segment of this number.

b. Crazy Marvin, a radio DJ from the late sixties, issued an album on tiny Lid Records out of Englewood Cliffs, NJ (Lid Records is long gone). The album showcases his sleazy stand-up act, and provided raw material for these samples.

6. gradually expanding rutabaga

a. Myron, Bruce and Fred are jamming in a dank basement. Bruce and Fred beat on conga drums and acoustic guitars, Myron is just having fun with the microphone. He holds the mic close and says, "Oooooooowwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"

b. Upon purchasing a sampler, I figured that one thing I needed immediately was a killer sample of breaking glass. I bought some plate glass just for this purpose. I set up mic, mixer and tape, and smashed the glass with a ball peen hammer. Cut my hand up pretty bad, but at least I used the sample one day.

c. At our annual Halloween party, we usually roll tape at some point...so that we can capture bizarre commentary from partygoers. At this party, Dana was doing a convincing imitation of humpback whale song...Marcia can be heard laughing in the background.

d. Vicki was talking about the song "Fly, Robin, Fly." "So smooth, and easy," she said.

7. everyone is afraid of clowns

a. The prominent "dum, dum, dum, dum" comes from the children’s record, "Olly and the Hobgoblins." This is the scene where the Hobgoblins are grimly marching across the tundra, preparing to unleash their wrath (but they don’t yet know about Olly’s magic crayon).

b. When I was a child, my dad bought a used electric organ from a church for fifty dollars. We used to set up our little Radio Shack cassette tape recorders and make tapes of organ performances, from which the organ sample used in this track is drawn.

8. kumquat manifesto

a. Beverly and Joan were drinking some potent Bloody Marys that I’d whipped up. For some reason, they began singing a bizarre a-cappella medley of "Cumbersome" (apparently by the group Seven Mary Three, although I’ve still never heard the actual song) and "How Soon Is Now" by the Smiths. Luckily, tape was rolling to capture their lusty harmonies. The moment where they sang "Cu-um" in "Cumbersome" proved to be perfect for grafting onto a nice "Quat!" to make a mutant self-promotional Kumquat sample, for use in the Manifesto.

b. Our old apartment in Boonton, New Jersey, was known for its questionable plumbing, including a very noisy bathtub drain. When we finally moved, I captured the bathtub drain on tape, yielding a very visceral, bowel-churning sample.

c. Todd was talking about the time when he was "sitting on this car, looking up at the sky, just digging on clouds...it was just really cool." He got sampled.

9. first the drum

a. I made a videotape of my nephew’s school band concert. At one point, the kindergarten music teacher played an interactive musical game with her students. She had them beating on various percussion instruments: "First the drum, then the triangle," she would say. I believe she was British, or possibly Australian. When the children played too loudly, they were scolded: "Ooh! That was much too loud!"