Music Made with Telephones

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Ok, I'm recording a C60 tape of music made entirely by using phones and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for band names/song titles/album titles/etc. It's all done on 4-track using cel phones, rotary, and standard wall-phones, and I was thinking maybe it could include playful references to the early phreaker culture of the 60s/70s/80s. Anyways, please post any brainstorms =)

thanks

― Adam Bruneau, Friday, 7 March 2003 21:14 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm not really sure what you are looking for.

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Friday, 7 March 2003 21:18 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm not sure what you are looking for either, but you should listen to Macha Loved Bedhead's album where they cover Cher's "Believe" on the touch tone telephone.

― Carey (Carey), Friday, 7 March 2003 21:22 (twenty-three years ago)

There's an early Milemarker song with redboxing/payphone tones on it.

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Friday, 7 March 2003 21:24 (twenty-three years ago)

You can play Mary Had a Little Lamb yourself pretty easily...

3212333222333 etc.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 7 March 2003 21:25 (twenty-three years ago)

There's a track on Kraftwerk's 'Electric Cafe' which uses a phone ringing as a motif all the way through it. Can't remember the exact song title but it works really well.

― James Ball (James Ball), Friday, 7 March 2003 21:26 (twenty-three years ago)

More or less all of Flash & The Pan's output was recorded using a telephone as a mic.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 7 March 2003 21:29 (twenty-three years ago)

japanther sings out of a payphone reciever at shows, if that counts (which it probably doesnt)

― juiceboxxx (juiceboxxx), Friday, 7 March 2003 21:33 (twenty-three years ago)

You should do a cover version of Skyy's "Call Me."

― maria b (maria b), Friday, 7 March 2003 23:40 (twenty-three years ago)

search: Bad Brains (some vocals done over the phone from jail!)

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 7 March 2003 23:44 (twenty-three years ago)

japanther sings out of a payphone reciever at shows, if that counts (which it probably doesnt)

i am spoonbender does something similar.

also... there's those guys in austrailia that put out every combination of ten tones eleven times possible... so 100,000,000,000 little songs... the tones being the same tones the phone company uses... therefore saying that the phone company owes them royalties everytime someone dials an 11 digit number.

silly stuff. the worlds most prolific band!

http://www.magnus-opus.com/media.html

― msp, Saturday, 8 March 2003 00:10 (twenty-three years ago)

There's a song on the Penguin Cafe Orchestra s/t album.
I think it's called "Telephone & Rubber band"

― A Nairn (moretap), Saturday, 8 March 2003 00:19 (twenty-three years ago)

"i am the operator with my pocket calculator"

pocket calculator, kraftwerk

― inhuman, Saturday, 8 March 2003 00:47 (twenty-three years ago)

i think rammstein's du hast, has something, its really fuckin rad, on live aus berlin, the lead guy's got a phone or some shit like that, its been years

du hast, rammstein

― inhuman, Saturday, 8 March 2003 00:50 (twenty-three years ago)

wasn't 2600 Hz the frequency that the hackers used to get free phone calls? as an aside, i want to hear that tape!

― your null fame (yournullfame), Saturday, 8 March 2003 02:42 (twenty-three years ago)

ELO - "Telephone Line"
(there're some 'tones' in that toon too)

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Saturday, 8 March 2003 02:47 (twenty-three years ago)

there was an album called "electronomusic" that had at least one song done entirely on telephone ringers. from the early 70s i think.

― your null fame (yournullfame), Saturday, 8 March 2003 03:18 (twenty-three years ago)

There is a song on the album 'The Geometrid' by Looper which is made of ringtones. I think this will be a rather annoying C60 Adam. For me anyway. Good luck. Hope it turns out well.

― ali (ali), Saturday, 8 March 2003 18:24 (twenty-three years ago)

the 80's band The Phones were amazing....

― john fail (cenotaph), Saturday, 8 March 2003 19:21 (twenty-three years ago)

does NEw Edition's "telephone man" have any telephone sounds? anyway, that is a grebt song.

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Saturday, 8 March 2003 19:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Christopher Just's 'Vienna Calling' is fabulous and features lots of telephone rings, including the classic mobile interference signal intro - in fact i'm gonna get this track up for download by the end of the month

― stevem (blueski), Saturday, 8 March 2003 19:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Kraftwerk "The Telephone Call".

Also, D.H.S.'s "Telephone Sounds"... as in Dimensional Holofonic Sound, which is a project by Ben Stokes who also works with Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto as TINO CORP.

There's also a Phil Milstein track from his "Tapeworm" noise/sound loop record which is just a cacophony of telephonic sounds..

Apparently, these audio pranksters in Australia have copyrighted the DTMF/MF tones associated with dial tone sounds just because they did a little research and found out they weren't already copyrighted.

― donut bitch (donut), Saturday, 8 March 2003 20:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Also, RE: singing through phones, Bob Log III's telephone helmet contraption.

http://www.weretwins.com/strikeforce:euler/helmet.gif

― Matt B. (Matt B.), Saturday, 8 March 2003 20:38 (twenty-three years ago)

the penguin cafe orchestra track that a nairn mentions upthread is really good

― robin (robin), Saturday, 8 March 2003 20:45 (twenty-three years ago)

you can search the web for "quarter.wav" or something - the tone that triggers American payphones to think there's been a quarter put in "bddddddddddp"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 8 March 2003 21:06 (twenty-three years ago)

I used to have an American album called "DEVO-tees", which was a compilation of people covering Devo songs (maybe instigated by a radio program). I think it was made in 1979. Anyway, there was a version of "Jocko Homo" on it that was made with just voice and telephone. I think the band was called "Touch-Tone Tuners".

― tom (other one), Saturday, 8 March 2003 22:35 (twenty-three years ago)

I have a tape somewhere of Bob Mould playing a live radio appearance and me calling in and getting on the air and playing along on my touchtone keyboard.

― Paul Eater (eater), Saturday, 8 March 2003 22:36 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think anyone has actually answered the *question* up there.

Song titles - "Cellphone Asshole", "Local calls are free" and "Blotto Box Boyfriend"

Band name - "Switch You! Bored Operator" (exclamation point placement optional)

― Kim (Kim), Saturday, 8 March 2003 23:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Wow - I didn't answer the question - sorry! I didn't read that carefully enough to know that you weren't just asking for suggestions of other people's music. And I don't have any good titles or anything.

― tom (other one), Saturday, 8 March 2003 23:53 (twenty-three years ago)

I demand a cover of *69, pefferably in a eurobeat type of thing just to cheese of REM.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Saturday, 8 March 2003 23:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Scanner to thread.

― bnw (bnw), Sunday, 9 March 2003 02:05 (twenty-three years ago)

We have a few ideas in the works. The band has several groups and I think tonight we decided to scale it down from C60 to C30 or so. We'll have a total of 30 songs, 15 per side. I already have 8 taped and we have several samples of completely random answering machine tape recordings that will probably end up somewhere on the album too. (Maybe even a cover of The Kink's "Party Line". Well, maybe not.....)

We were trying to think of band names and kept running into walls, while we had some good song titles or album titles ("Receiver" maybe..?) but aside from the founding descriptor of Phone-Punk, which is more or less misleading and just really there for some kind of starting point. Anyways the songs we have recorded sound really nice and fuzzy, with the 4-track cranked up all the way so everything is compressed into a thick electronic wash.

For live shows we were going to advertise them as "Phreak-Outs", the fans of the group naturally being "Phreaks". There'd be several people on stage, with 2 or 3 telephones hooked up to pickups for melody and rhythms and using rotary phones or push-button sounds as percussion. One idea even had 2 people manning an operator switchboard for percussion.

We were thinking about somehow scamming AT&T into giving us money somehow to do free publicity or something, and shipping the tapes in hollowed-out receivers or possibly cartoonish kind of oversized cardboard cel-phones designed to look like something Zack Morris would carry.

Anyways, I really appreciate these posts. I'm sure we'll have a website up soon or something, maybe a BBS. Again if anyone has any good ideas for terms or band names (cos this can be a multi-band thing definitely) please post them. It's easier to think of stupid puns ("woah, this phonepunk band is off the hook!") but we really want to make this something more - serious, not gimmicky.

― Adam Bruneau, Sunday, 9 March 2003 06:42 (twenty-three years ago)

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