it'd have to be William Shatner's version of 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds'.

Oh and I have another vote for the "Duh-Duhd" quasi-music from the American tv show, Law and Order. It is THE most annoying sound...and they do it constantly! I know it's supposed to create tension and signify when they've hit on an important clue or somthing, but just hearing it makes me change the station!

anyone who wants to hear it first hand check this out:

[www.armchairnews.com]

now mind you, they play it loudly and between every scene and when there's an important event.

I've only watched 3/4 of one episode. That was the most I could handle. They played that sound 17 times before I changed the channel! And they use it on the advertising for it constantly! I HATE THIS SOUND!

(I think if my captives used it once and threatened further playings, I'd spill my beans, my neighbors' beans, and anyone else I could think of's beans!)

I like bagpipes fine, provided that they are outdoors, played well, and the piper knows more than just Amazing Grace and Scotland the Brave. I can only happily listen to them for a limited amount of time indoors though.

And I'll second the vote for William Shatner - either Lucy in the Sky or his version of Mr. Bojangles would be torture.

And then there was Leonard Nimmoy's song about Bilbo Baggins...
("Shudder!")

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Warning! Product may contain Newts!

So long as any of Leonard Nimoy's poetry was being recited...

Oh GSD I just remembered Leonard Nimoy and The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins .... and the *video* of it .... the horror! the horror!

On which topic, my favourite Borg jokes;

I am Dyslexia of Borg ... you will be ass laminated
I am Ned Flanders of Borg ... you will be ass-diddly-imilated
I am Homer of Borg ... you will be ass .... mmm, doughnuts ....
I am Mrs Doyle of Borg .... you will be assimilated. You will. You will, you will, you will, you will.
I am Elmer Fudd of Borg. Be vewy, vewy quiet... I'm assimiwating wabbits. Heh heh heh heh heh.
I am Marvin the Android of Borg. Assimilation, don't talk to me about assimilation. I think you ought to know I'm feeling very resisted.
Yoda of Borg I am. Futile is resistance. Assimilate you we will.
I am Dirty Harry of Borg. This is a Borg ship. The most powerful type of starship in the galaxy. In all the excitement, I can't remember if we already assimilated you yet. So what's it gonna be, are you going to be assimilated or what? Do you feel lucky, punk?
I am Humphrey Borgart. You will be assimilated. Maybe not here. Maybe not now. This could be the start of a beautiful collective.

Jon, LOL!

Well Magda, if you like bagpipes, have you heard of Martyn Bennett? -- He's a Canadian/Scots singer/songwriter/experimental musician. Born in Newfoundland, but his dad was a moderately famous Welsh fiddle player, and his mum was a Gaelic-speaking (and singing) folk singer from the Isle of Skye, where he now lives.

Anyway, in 1999 (I think) he brought out an album called Bothy Culture, drawing on his Scottish heritage -- he had learned to play the great pipes as a child -- that combined traditional Scots music, and especially the pipes, with modern dance music and techno.

Now I know that sounds weird, but it really is the most amazing sound. Saw him perform at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2000, just after his next album 'Hardland' came out, and it completely blew me away. (In fact I sprained my ankle dancing to it!)

So if you ever get a chance to see him perform, I'd thoroughly recommend it.



Jesus saves; Buddha does incremental backup.

I met an Uncle and Nephew pair of Algerian immegrants busking in Sheffield. They were doing rather good versions of rock and pop, and were astounded when I wanted to hear some of their own music. They had no idea that there was any interest in world music. The uncle had been a professional musician back in Algeria, but was working in a factory over here.
I put them in contact with the editor of 'Froots' magazine - Local Music from Out There. Dunno what's happened to them since, but I hope it's better than busking on Fargate.

I like bagpipes in moderation. And I do understand that people have to practise them somewhere in order to be able to play them in a manner which doesn't sound like a cat with serious medical problems, but I would really rather they didn't do it anywhere I could hear them. I grew up a couple of streets away from a man who used to practise the bagpipes regularly, and he could be heard over half the (otherwise very quiet and respectable) estate.

I'm with Jon - I prefer the uillean pipes. But then I generally tend to prefer Irish music to other forms of folk, though there are also a lot of Scottish songs I enjoy.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Northumbrian pipes are much better than the dreadful Scottish version, which were honed as a weapon of war, designed to strike fear into the trousers of the enemy....



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Wow this thread got long fast!

I was listening to the bluegrass classic May the Circle Be Unbroken on the CD in the way into work this morning. I love the really fast picking ones, like Black Mountain Rag and Foggy Mountain Breakdown.

And I like steel guitar, too. There's this street musician who sits outside the Santa Cruz Bookshop and plays a steel guitar, purely instrumental compositions of his own. There's nothing at all whiny about it. I love the slip-slidey sound of how it transitions from note to note, like a cross between a slide whistle and a guitar.

The kind of music that I will play over and over for the pleasure of it is what I think of as "roller coaster melodies", with big intervals. Something that pogos up and down (like Paul Simon's "The Boxer"), or climbs up step by step and then falls precipitously, sliding in one syllable. Lots of Patsy Cline's songs do that ("I really don't know, but I know, it won't let me be. I've got your..") I don't pay that much attention to the lyrics, it's the sound that gets me.

The kind of music that tortures me is anything that's highly dissonant. I was once literally in tears because of someone in my dorm playing Sun Ra at high volume for hours (this was back in about 1976.)

Back when I was still living in London I heard the sound of the pipes while passing the side of Euston Station one evening... On closer investigation the sound was coming out of a basement window, through which I could see a man in full highland regalia playing them as he marched around & around a small room. Practicing, presumably.

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"Warning! Product may contain Newts!"

I once travelled form Sheffield to Exeter and back with Pauline Cato, now one of the most respected Northumbrian pipers in the country, then, another member of Sheffield Uni Folk Soc. For some reason, the bagpipes were referred to as wombles.

We had to study the uillean pipes for school; never again *shudders violently*. Songs to make me talk include: anything by Avril Lavigne (she is so whiny and annoying!) and anything by S Club 7, Britney Spears, N*Sync, Liberty X and TLC. But I luuuuve Cold Play, Jack Johnson and the Chicago Soundtrack!

Like the Borg jokes. LOL lots.

I would do anything to stop the playing of the Teletubbies theme. Or maybe the Tweenies. Actually pretty much anything they show on CBeebies or Playhouse Disney...



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There's a hole in my creativity bucket and it's all leaked out.

You're showing your age again ;)



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Who, ilovespike? actually, she's being quite mature for her age...I should know, I was forced to carpool with someone who is OBSESSED with everything she just listed. I would crack in a millisecond. The Beatles, now, I have to disagree with. Aunty's showing her age in the opposite direction if you ask me! (jk aunty...)



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Revolt! Revolt! No matter why or when,
It's novelty--old novelty again.

Was talking to Sarah B, actually... She's the only one whose age I can remember, for reasons that I can't entirely fathom...

Celine Dion would do me in - I have a kind of Pavlovian reaction to the opening chords of 'My heart will go on (and on, and on, and...)'. I don't start salivating, more kind of foaming at the mouth...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

I'm with you on Celine Dione. I also have a particular aversion to a song called "Storm in a Teacup" which I think was by the Fortunes. I am showing my age here too! I bet Sarah B won't have heard it, but I hope some of you have and agree that "one drop of rain on your window-pane" would be enough to make you tell all!