Chicken-suited street musician plays "What is Love" on Melodica, rocks righteously (video)

Here is your Friday soundtrack, people. Alex Ringis of Synthtube says,

I was in Melbourne for Game Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP) 09, and I found this busker standing outside Flinders Street Station in Melbourne. He was playing the hit 90's track "What Is Love" on bass guitar, ~~Pianica~~ Melodica, with the assistance of a loop pedal. What is remarkable (evidently) is that he did the entire thing wearing a chicken suit. The real action in this video starts at around 1:20, when he gets DOWN with the improv action on the Pianica.

Holy wow, this rooster can play! Synthtube link, and Vimeo link.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Anonymous

omg if i saw this irl id throw a twenty
Anonymous

Revealed : Chicken Man is JAMES BOWERS
http://www.synthtube.com/?p=332
http://www.myspace.com/jamesbowersmusic
Anonymous

People like him, are the best kinds of people in the world
Anonymous

that guy better watch out for Peter Griffin.
bcsizemo

Roxbury…

And from the sound of it I could see Weird Al doing a nice polka cover of it as well…

He should put together a whole album, I’d totally rock that.
Anonymous

whats with all the emo people?
Anonymous

Lets all dance with the Chicken !!!!!
Anonymous

Someone give this man his Grammy!!!
MisterTribal

Cool little doco about Claude Woodward’s music and alter ego…

Who is the Sonic Manipulator?”

I particularly love the door-mat at 2:25
Anonymous

He’s no Sour Shoes
Kimmo

Sonic Manipulator – inspired by Marty McFly’s Darth Vader?
Anonymous

How about a couple chicken Butabi dancers?
Anonymous

Haha that rocks .. made my day.
ruzkin

Melbourne has some amazing buskers. You should showcase the Sonic Manipulator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMKBEO0YCVk&feature=related

He builds all his own instruments from hacked toys, like a super-soaker that makes noises when he pumps it, or the bizarre Orbatron: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxLnCah3StM&feature=related , or my fave, the Greet-O-Meter with modulating joystick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fylHWuD_vTA&feature=related
- jackie31337
  
  Why don’t we have street musicians like this in Helsinki? To date, the two most unusual things I have seen on the street in Helsinki have been Black Superman (he wears a superman costume and balances on a rope tied between two trees), and a trained cat show put on by a woman and (presumably) her children.
- Ian70
  
  Holy crap – how has The Sonic Manipulator NOT been featured on this blog yet???? That guy’s homebrew/hacked kit plus his presentation is just -insane-.
  bOING this fella!
MrJM

He’s a pretty good musician, but that’s no excuse for acting like a giant cock.
- Anonymous
  
  now now theres no need to hen peck him about his life style choices
- Anonymous
  
  straight to pun hell, you fiend!
barryfandango

wait a minute, that was terrible!
Anonymous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T224ls2PCwc

It’s also done by the fantasibolous street-cirkus action performers Sirqus Alfon. Check out that youtube link dude.
Hagarack

He needs to go on tour. I’d pay â‚¬20 to go see him.
Anonymous

its called a melodica by the way……nice job
Lexicat

all i know is i want a pair of shoes like that…
chief_seattle

How do you know its gender?
- Anonymous
  
  I am a professional Chicken sexer. that’s definitely male…
- Hagarack
  
  A very good point, I thought about it after I posted. It’s impossible to know. I really want to know who they are so they can be famous internet person like Tay Zonday.
- Anonymous
  
  Well, it WAS a chick, I can tell you that much…
Thomas Wincek

@jaytkay
“Holy moly, that’s a $500 US instrument.
Playing music on the street in a chicken suit pays better than I would have guessed.”

And how much do you think the most ubiquitous street instrument out there — a saxophone– costs, you knucklehead.

Street musicians aren’t playing on the street because they’re absolutely broke dummy, many are really good musicians looking to maybe make a couple of bucks during practice time…
Kimmo

Melbourne rocks : D

I was in the CBD last night (quite pissed apparently, judging from my hangover), and walked by this gorgeous busker singing Joni Mitchell’s Yellow Taxi… she was so good, I turned around and parked my arse for half an hour : )
mdh

TECH QUESTION: Is there anything I can try that might make the Vimeo Player NOT s*** a**?

Vimeo is always a herjy jerky siezure inducing sound skipping mess on my Mac with Firefox.

anyone have ideas?
Anonymous

Speaking of Ozzie buskers with loop stations you’d be making a mistake if you missed this one – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhBoR_tgXCI&feature=related
Anonymous

@mdh : I have never had any problems with Vimeo on FF, but FYI as the poster of the video, I’ve been informed that my “free embedded” plays have long since been used up (the video has hit 42 and a half thousand plays already), and imho you might have better luck if you just watched the vid directly on the vimeo site. :)

Regards,

RingMod@synthtube
Anonymous

I can’t stop listening to this chicken!

The instrument is a fun one; I think this is the same or similar:
Asylum Street Spankers – “Dance This Mess Around” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYulEKYcCgo
olmsteader

That is not a pianica. It’s a Hammond 44 acoustic electric meledica. It has metal reeds and an internal pickup. No synthesizer involved at all.
Anonymous

Too bad it’s not a banana suit.
- ChesterKatz
  
  @Anonymous#31: He performs in a Melbourne band with a bandmate who dresses as a banana. Just look at him:
  
  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=458467&subj=205515055159&id=1044555088
Anonymous

I wonder if he started out playing on the corner of his driveway with the pianica. A gift from his dead mother. When he made enough money he hedged his bets and bought the guitar. Now he went to bigger and better street corners until he finally bought the loop petal and amp. He started to make it big, $20 from some nice business man who enjoyed walking to work everyday and hearing a wonderful rendition of “What is love” his favorite song. Having enough money now, he could finally do what he always wanted. He ran as fast as his street performing legs could take him and bought the final piece. A chicken suit. Now he plays all three things, in that hard won chicken suit. Play for the angels chicken man, play for the angels.
Anonymous

(s)he’s actually playing “where do you go,” if memory serves.
- Ian70
  
  @6 Sorry, you fail at Name That Tune. that is “What Is Love”.
  
  I wonder if this performer paid their Licensing Fee to have Performance Rights on this song. If not, then all of the money given to them during the performance is STOLEN MONEY, and should immediately be surrendered to the RIAA. they should then present themself, their bass guitar, keyboarding instrument, and chicken suit for immediate incarceration.
Anonymous

That’s an incredibly tough crowd.
- AirPillo
  
  I was thinking that too, that is a tough crowd.
  
  Where I live at least some people give street performers paper money, not spare change.
  - Maneki Nico
    
    Where Australians live, they have A$1 and A$2 coins (the A$2 coin is currently worth about $1.82 of those US paper dollars). Up here in Canada we have those too, and we frequently toss ’em to buskers. I can only assume the Aussies are as generous.
    
    Maybe not such a tough crowd after all…
    - AirPillo
      
      Oh! Well in that case, not such a tough crowd after all. You could get a snack and a soda for each one of those coins’ worth here, not bad!
olmsteader

correction, melodica, damn these woolen mittens.
ill lich

Huh, apparently “pianica” is Yamaha’s trade name for what nearly everyone else calls a melodica.

A friend of mine refused to work at McDonald’s because it was degrading, preferring to play music on the street for change. I wonder if he’d consider this degrading?
Anonymous

seems pretty obvious to me that this is keller williams in a chicken suit
Xopher

Just look at that awesome chicken costume.

Just look at it.
noah django

this has been bothering me for a while, maybe a fellow boinger can explain why Vimeo videos wont play on my computer? I have a Clear G4 wireless connection and run MacOS X v.10.5.8. YouTube plays fine or any problems solve by letting it buffer slightly. I can wait for the whole Vimeo file to buffer and playback is still f-ed up. Oh yeah, I usually run Firefox but Safari is no better. I wanna watch the CHICKEN!!!
jaytkay

Gahh, it took a while for me to figure out where that song was seared into my brain. Which Saturday Night Live skit used that tune? Was it the the Roxbury guys or Mango?
jackie31337

In addition to the unique performance, I love how this video gives you a view of all the random things that happen in one spot on the street over the space of about five minutes.

Also, I need to know where I can get a cart thingy like the woman who comes in around 2:16 has!
Spud

Did anyone else see Napoleon Dynamite around 1:50?
Doctor Popular

And here is Ellingson’s awesome sketch of said melodichicken http://www.flickr.com/photos/josh1/4177516902
Anonymous

Awesome musician! Best dressed chicked in town!
meatpigeon

Now street musicians are using swanky equipment? Wild.
olmsteader

Ah, well the folks over at synthtube seem to be confused as to what a pianica is

“itâ€™s the instrument known as a â€œPianicaâ€, which is a breath-controlled keyboard thatâ€™s basically a breath-powered synthesizer.”

Anyway, I now know how I’ll be spending at least part of my xmas vacation. Anyone know where I can rent a chicken suit in San Francisco?
ScottTFrazer

Isn’t that Andrew Bird?
- ili
  
  Oh, well played, sir!
- alowishus
  
  Andrew Bird! HA! On so many levels, HA!
  
  You should get a prize.
Anonymous

This is at Flinders Street station in Melbourne, Australia. The musician is a man. :)
Anonymous

:D awesome dude
Wingo

Interesting – I’ve never played a melodica for years and never heard it referred to as a pianica.

But if we are splitting semantic hairs here, the Hammond version in the video is referred to by that particular company as a melodion. :)

Apparently different companies have different names for it, three in all.
Anonymous

Australia’s got Talent. He better win it next year!
Wingo

Interesting – that first sentence I wrote made no sense! (Ignore the first “never”)
jaytkay

Holy moly, that’s a $500 US instrument.

Playing music on the street in a chicken suit pays better than I would have guessed.
Anonymous

I love this! Awesome!
Anonymous

Keller Williams in a chicken suit….Yeah! I can see that oddly enough! That actually makes total sense to me.
quintiliusvarus

Nodame?!
Billy Blight

Ugh. This is pretty awesome, but all music associated with Night at the Roxbury is pretty much ruined for me.

The soundtrack keeps a fairly consistent beat the whole way through at we used it in marching band for practice. Hours in the hot Texas sun, hundreds of kids marching back and forth to “Make That Money”.
Anonymous

From @Synthtube.com : Apologies : we seem to have mixed up our pianica / melodica….. Please enjoy chickensuited man doing cool stuff in lieu of proper terminology ;)
IronyElemental

Keyboard Chicken says:
Baby don’t hurt me
Don’t hurt me
Bawk BAWK!
Anonymous

AWEsome. Made my day. Thanks !