Best Tambourine

[DavidM]

The recent death of Gladys Horton and the mention of the Marvelettes started me listening to a few old Motown favourites, which then led me to thinking about the wonderful contribution tambourines make to many of those tracks. We've had a list of cow-bells, http://www.charliegillett.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=12757&p=72226&hilit=Cow+Bell#p72226, so it's time to do one for the Tambourine. Here goes;

The previously mentioned Too Many Fish in the Sea;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke1D_bLITPA

Barrett Strong - Money
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6xkT7FMyTc

Marvin Gaye - One More Heartache;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kbKIF39Vzs
(At least, I think that's a tambourine, but maybe out there someone knows better ?)

[Neil Foxlee]

Not best, but from the sublime to the ridiculous:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxm19NBAcfc

They don't make 'em like that any more, thank goodness...

[NormanD]

You want ridiculous?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0hTtsqiFCc

[AndyM]

I love that Lemon Pipers single, pop-softened-psychedelia being one of my favourite sub-sub-genres. Winningly weird footage too.

[Neil Foxlee]

I might have known you'd like it Andy (indeed I thought of you while posting it)!

Cf. Susan Sontag's Notes on Camp.

[AndyM]

Cf my own several writings on camp, dear Neil. Sontag schmontag.

[NormanD]

Some excellent early-1970s tambourine action from Lulu and the dancers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xop8Mvc-b1U

Camp/schlock/whatever

[Neil Foxlee]

Cf my own several writings on camp, dear Neil. Sontag schmontag.

Well, dear Andy, she was writing in 1964. (For other readers, btw, it's available here: http://interglacial.com/~sburke/pub/pro ... _Camp.html ).

Dare I say that it's a seminal text that deserves dissemination?

[Adam Blake]

The tambourine as guillotine tumbril? (mwahahahahaha!!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwzaifhSw2c

Andy, is this the best pop-softened-psych record ever made? Or do it's distant overtones of meaningfulness disqualify it? (I thought I detected a half speed tambourine buried in the mix but I could be wrong.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT4erciHaHU&feature=fvsr

[Hugh Weldon]

The conflation of two elements within this thread has now put the picture in my head of Susan Sontag hitting a tambourine. "In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art". Yes indeedy. Bang it sister.

Footnote - we had tambourines at junior school with a skin. Most of the tambourines we saw pop stars playing on TV were skinless. Isn't the former variety a little more versatile? Does it matter?

[Adam Blake]

The funny thing about the tambourine is that it's actually a very difficult instrument to play. People assume there's nothing to it - until they try and play one. The difficulty lies in allowing for the short time delay between shaking the thing and the little cymbals coming together to make the sound. Of course anyone can play one badly, but a good tambourine part is nearly always played by a proper drummer.

One suspects Susan Sontag might not be as good at it as, say, Pauline Kael.

[AndyM]

Sontag was of course a pioneer, and Notes On Camp is indeed seminal - or oval, more precisely - but Neil, you wouldn't expect any piece of critique from 1964 to be the last word, would you ?

'Porpoise Song' is a track I've always tried really hard to love, but I never quite get past admire. I think my vote for best pop-softened-psych hit would goes to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbS2KmEe ... re=related

(very iffy visuals, not inappropriately, but still a luscious track)

[Adam Blake]

"Kites", yes, of course! I'd forgotten about that one. Hey, you didn't frequent "Alice In Wonderland" at Gossips in Soho in the early to mid 80s, did you?

I can't top "Kites" but I'm more than a little fond of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHCiIkG92zc

[AndyM]

Not heard that before, but I am very taken. Soho in the 80s - not on your nellie! I was in Norwich. Which was not un-camp.

The other track I'd throw at you now is 'Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies' by The Association, but the only version on YouTube is a mouldy cover.

Should we get back to tambourines?

[kevin]

Thanks for posting that Simon Dupree song. A forgotten classic.

This is how to look cool playing tambourine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJO4KAv-GiY