Band features two keyboard-playing chickens

In the late 1990s, Jeff Simmermon formed a band with two chickens as members. This is his story.

The keyboard players in my band were spacier than Sun Ra, more abstract than John Coltrane and brought more sheer, squalid anarchy to the stage than GG Allin and the Sex Pistols combined. When they weren’t playing music they were either feeding, fighting, or shitting on the floor – and they managed to do a lot of that onstage, too. But they didn’t just act like barnyard animals, they were barnyard animals: the keyboard players in my band were two chickens named Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline.
I played percussion on a modified vintage typewriter miked up loud enough to sound like the thunder of an angry God. At that volume, the space bar and shift keys rumbled like a kick drum, and the letter keys snapped like a tight snare. My friend Tim, the band’s other human being played the guitar and bass semi-simultaneously, wearing the guitar up by his collarbone and the bass slung low at his hips – he’d loop the bass notes through a pedal and play rhythm guitar against himself while I thumped and cracked the typewriter. Once we hit a stride of sorts, we’d pull a blanket off the top of the cage where Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline sat with two little Casio Keyboards.

We’d glue chicken feed to the keys we wanted them to hit the most, the ones in tune with Tim. But really, whatever the chickens played was up to them – we just tried to follow along as best we could. We told ourselves that we were influenced by classic country, John Cage, dub reggae and Gonzo the Great. But really, we just tried to create listenable backing rhythms while two birds with brains the size of your pinkie nail took center stage.

Brainless Barnyard Keyboards: The Short Saga of Royal Quiet Deluxe, Chicken Band.
(If you just want to hear what the music sounds like, listen to "Royal Quiet Deluxe" here.)

Discussion

Take a look at this

#1 posted by travelina

, July 23, 2008 2:52 PM

That photo clearly shows Chicken Boo, the boyfriend of Katie Kaboom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSXBjqH2QQc

#2 posted by IWood , July 23, 2008 2:59 PM

If he'd worn the chicken head he might've gotten his espresso the way he wanted it.

#3 posted by mokudan , July 23, 2008 3:01 PM

This is a photoshopped version of the following:

http://dreamchimney.com/sleevery/sleeves/view/1161

It's the back cover of the album "Sunlight," by Herbie Hancock from 1978. Not the easiest to get one's hands on, but if you would like to hear what the lovechild of Jazz and Disco sounds like, it's the album to get. Candy sweet, and funky as hell.

#4 posted by dubitable , July 23, 2008 3:02 PM

Actually, that photo clearly shows Herbie Hancock and his rig from the back cover of the album "Sunlight," photo-shopped with a chicken-head placed over Mr. Hancock's shoulders:

The back cover of Herbie Hancock's album "Sunlight"

#5 posted by dubitable , July 23, 2008 3:03 PM

Doh, Mokudan beat me to it.

#6 posted by IWood , July 23, 2008 3:05 PM

Alright then, if Herbie Hancock had worn the chicken head, then he might've gotten his espresso the way he wanted it.

#7 posted by MichaelRN , July 23, 2008 3:51 PM

But can you dance to it?

#8 posted by Gary61 , July 23, 2008 3:55 PM

Yeah - but can they play 'Turkey in the Straw' ????

Huh? Well, can they?

sheesh - I didn't THINK so .....

#9 posted by Phikus , July 23, 2008 4:00 PM

I witnessed Austin band Brown Whornet once take the stage dressed and clucking like chickens in their underwear. They had the audience laughing so hard with them that it took about 20 minutes before they could even begin their set. They wore the makeshift chicken gear the rest of the night.

#10 posted by Phikus , July 23, 2008 4:02 PM

IWOOD: Yeah, but if he hadn't, would he have been too chicken to have said something about it?

#11 posted by jdixon , July 23, 2008 4:10 PM

Another side of the Murky Coffee kerfuffle guy?

#12 posted by icky2000 , July 23, 2008 4:12 PM

I didn't know chickens could be musicians. I wonder if the unpredictable habits of poultry perhaps explain the quality of the music of .

#13 posted by Axabitte , July 23, 2008 4:13 PM

Oh man, catnip inside each piece of a set of drums at an outdoor venue in an alley… Stray Cat Strut, here we come!

#14 posted by Phikus , July 23, 2008 4:19 PM

I wonder if they had to cross the Rhodes...

#15 posted by inboulder , July 23, 2008 4:20 PM

yes but can they play tic-tac-toe

#16 posted by travelina

, July 23, 2008 4:24 PM

Rather spooky music. especially the part when the chicken says "Liberace." But really there was no need for them to be pooping on the floor-- they could have been pooping on the pool table like in Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon on N. Burnet Rd. in Austin, which hosts a Chicken Shit Bingo every Sunday afternoon:
http://intelligenttravel.typepad.com/it/2008/05/we-cant-make-th.html

#17 posted by waugsqueke , July 23, 2008 5:20 PM

Robyn's current band is all bears.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LUeOXfeOlk

#18 posted by garyb50 , July 23, 2008 5:35 PM

Embarrassing

#19 posted by Takuan , July 23, 2008 5:57 PM

sssh! fool! (if Antinous hears, we'll all be Prilled!!)

#20 posted by Antinous , July 23, 2008 6:08 PM

Actually I was thinking of the Henhouse Five Plus Two clucking In The Mood.

#21 posted by John Coulthart , July 23, 2008 6:24 PM

I hope they did a cover version of 'Barnyard in Orbit' by Perrey and Kingsley. Or Mussorgsky's 'Ballet of the Chicks in their Shells'. Isao Tomita's Moog version of that includes much electronic clucking.

Oh, and announcing yourself as a band of bears is a good way of getting a group of large hairy gay men turning up at your gigs.

#22 posted by takeshi , July 23, 2008 6:52 PM

There's a punk band in Denver called Chick-a-Boom. They've only played two shows so far, but at the end of each one, they've killed and eaten their lead singer.

#23 posted by romwell , July 23, 2008 7:50 PM

#14 - golden =)

Old Jeff Simmermon has a barn
E-I-E-I-O
And in his barn he has some chicks
with-a-CAS-I-O

With a MiniMoog here and a MiniMoog there
Here a Moog there a Moog
Everywhere a Moog Moog
Old Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O

#24 posted by Pipenta , July 23, 2008 8:33 PM

Chickens rule.

#25 posted by NoahApples , July 23, 2008 8:47 PM

Well played, Phikus.

#26 posted by Phikus , July 23, 2008 9:19 PM

=D I knew someone would know the boards well enough to get that one...

#27 posted by Cowicide

, July 23, 2008 9:34 PM