i love gimmicks! (current weirdo projects. please share!)

[iron mitchell]

here are a list of some of my little oddball musical side-projects that tend to last one or two shows and/or one or two recording sessions before i move onto something else...
please share to this thread. i'd like to see what is rolling around in other people's heads.

body cabinet: i took a goodwill-purchased pinstripe business suit and sewed 8 small speakers (various sizes and brands) into it, as well as running cords, hot mics, and a few small effects pedals (the mini danelectro distortion and overdrive pedals) through the suit. i basically am able to just move around and create really neat feedback and shit. lots of semi-scripted shit kinda like emil beaulieau, but way more self-destructive and crowd-destructive. played two shows. no recordings.

new odor: i have these two coolers. one is halfway filled with pga punch from my 20th birthday (i'm getting pretty close to 24 now) and the other is filled with swamp water, v8, urine, and other random stinky shit. we place waterproofed contact mics into both of these coolers and then freeze them. then we take them to the show and place them between us and the audience(?) with the lids shut and fans blowing what smell does come out towards us, and allow the sound of them being thawed to be looped into something resembling a dance beat. we'll add thumping bass and blah-blah-blah until we have us a nice groove going... whoa! some people stand up and start paying attention! add my friend playing some nice, brainless bass grooves and my girlfriend lays down some generic 80's synth... check it out! the kids with nice haircuts are digging it! so when i think the time is right, i open up the coolers, turn the fans on the audience, and push them over towards them. cleared house! awesomeness. one performance (don't come back!). no recordings.

formica linnaeus: i use an antfarm i bought from a yardsale for $1 that i have rigged with five piezo contact mics. when the ants run over the mics it creates a crackling rain kind of sound. i have to fill the antfarm pretty full, and sometimes also drop food in for them in order to get enough activity to really keep it very interesting, but i also use plenty of echo and loop pedal effects to prevent too much silence. i tend to use about 10 different effects pedals when trying to pull this off. i also have a pretty rad ant costume that i painted a swirly neon green color to wear for live shows. i've recorded one tape for this project and performed one show.

ghosts 'n goblins: started out as hepatitus g, we broke out of the "hepatitus youth mold" and integrated actual music from the ghosts 'n goblins nintendo game. so you basically get video game loops run through a big muff and a rat pedal and two guys and two girls (or an extra girl and two extra guys when japanese karaoke afterlife experiment and unicorn hard-on are in town) in brown ghost sheets and latex elvis suits wrestling over the fog machine and the strobe light. both shows have ended in broken bones and busted heads. two shows. one cdr recording split with chainsaw paws.

i've also taken a bit of a part in a few other projects, but these are all pretty much my doing with a bit of help from others (and i need to get back to work on burning cdr's for next week with my "real" bands). i'll maybe list more later.