The tracks of the final tracks, one could say, were laid 58 years ago.
When I first heard the Beatles in late 1963, my first thought (simultaeous with, What voices! What harmonys! What chords! What perfect fucking contruction! What bass lines!) was, I don’t ever have to cut my already-long-for-the-period hair again! So as 1964 rolled in I started to hear guys-always guys-hollering, hey, are you a boy or a girl? So on it had happened over a hundred times. I was getting pissed. Then! Inspiration! Get a duck call! (Remembering their loud avian skronk from when my dad hunted ducks every fall).
And so I did-3 or 4-which hung around my neck on lanyards all my waking hours. What sweet vengeful pleasure, answering the jerks with a blast of duck or even ducks! Shut them all the fuck up. Except for single digits of the few, who replied along the lines of, Oh, you’re a duck? Anyway, I found one of my old duck calls a couple years ago.
Then there’s the Wildly Noisy Wooden Thing, which was first given to me by Alan “Gunga” Purves in Rotterdam in 2006. It was about the size and shape of a trumpet mouthpiece, and came in colors. It mostly sounded like a kazoo, but with a vast array of sonic distinctions, and it made suck noises as well as blow sounds. Besides that Alan had, in three small boxes, the greatest collection of hand-held sound makers I had ever seen. I bought a bunch of more WNWTs online, $4 or 5 apiece, and eventually, there we were, WNWT, duck call, and I, on that fateful day of August 5th, 2021, when I was waiting for the band to arrive for rehearsal. What would happen if I played both these at once? I thought, and proceeded to do so. The WNWT, as I said, makes sounds on the inhale and the exhale, which made for syncopation. The ensuing sounds elated me beyond reckoning. The sonic possibilities seemed endless, indeed, the sonic surprises haven’t stopped coming-nonstop!, for the last 15 months. But getting back to Fateful Day, the doorbell rang, and it was Eli Hetko. I answered the door, and greeting him with a duo blast. I didn’t know what to call it/them, but my default label was Voice of God. Which was appropriate, if one considers the possibility of He/She/It manifesting as Goofyness. So when Eli heard that, has asked, what’s that?, and I said, the Voice of God! Same thing happened when Sam Werbalesky and Steve Espenola came. Meet the Voice of God! But that was just a place-holding name, and eventually I called the playing of the two-at-once Kirking, from sax player Roland Kirk, who played two reeds simultaneously.
Which brings us to oil cans. They haven’t made them for decades, but you’ve all seen The Wizard Of Oz. Remember the Tin Man being oiled with an oil can and it went doink doink, doink doink? (The oil can is a hand-held metal delivery system for oil, and in the early 20th century it was standard equipment for all cars. I have a Ford one and a Pierce-Arrow one, In my youth we used them to oil the chains and axels of our bikes). Anyway, the doink! doink! of the oilcans of my youth called to me in a loud voice, and I went into an oil can aquiring frenzy. Every single oil can has a different sound. Even my two Ford oil cans (from a Modal T? Or A?) sound different. So, oil can doinks and I, true lovers since childhood. I’m not sure when it was I started getting them on Ebay, I had about three I had found in antique stores for about $10 each. That’s about when I started doing two of them at once. 2016? 17? In 18 or 19, I unscrewed the spikes from the bottoms. The results were a somewhat inkwell-like shape, which, when played upside-down, yielded surprisingly different sounds from the “right” way. People say they sound like horse-clops (fantastic sound!), some say the sound “African”, or like a gamelon.
Which brings us to the Buck Gardner six-way bird whistle. About when I was getting oil cans on Ebay, I also was looking for duck calls, and got a whole bunch. There was even a site for “antique” duck calls. There are even duck call conventions. There’s an online club that lists people who make duck calls. Every state has a whole bunch of folks making them. Turned out most of the duck calls were not so hot. None produced the tonal multiplicity of my old one. And-eerie coincidence-my old duck call had been fading in the past year. It stopped making any sound at all for a couple of months. Then the sound came back for a couple of months, only to disappear a few months later. Ah, but the third time, when I was finally going to record the duck call + other device. Only it’s dead. I have to send it to the duck call doctor.
But that’s ok for now, it turned out that the WNWT had 3 basic and very distinct modes: straight -forward, blowing into the “right” ends, blowing into the “wrong” ends, and with just one reversed. In the latter case I found it best to sort of tuck the bell end between my lips. For some reason, it felt better with the bell end towards the left. Strangely, when you reverse the two devices in any of the three modes, they will sound a little different, and the sound of each WNWT is a slightly different as well.
So there are two kirking/oil can tracks here, the first with oil cans and WNWTs, the final track adding double Buck Gardner six-way bird calls. These are the first recorded examples of what I hope to be an ongoing musical innovation, so they could be thought of as a kindergarten-level example. One of my fondest dreams is of the combination of kirking and oil cans going viral, and performing, in the words of Ed Sanders, a total assault on the culture.
Front cover image by legendary Kentucky photographer C.I. Ogg (1855–1950). Ogg travelled by jolt wagon,
and documented the culture and way of life of the southern Appalachian highlander for over sixty years.
His diverse portfolio has been widely circulated, however his work remains largely uncredited. Much of his
Life’s production can be found in the Berea College Special Collections and Archives in Berea, Kentucky.
