Self - Gizmodgery the all toy album

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jckinnick
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Self - Gizmodgery the all toy album

Post by jckinnick » Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:32 pm

Anybody ever heard of this guy his name is Shelf. He made an album with nothing but childrens toys and its pretty good. Hes played in Becks band for the past two years.


Released in September of 2000, Gizmodgery is a considered by most to be a musical breakthrough. Using nothing but kid's toys, Gizmodgery moves from break-beat pop, to old-school alternative, to classic 50s rock-n-roll. Matt Mahaffey and Co. didn't waste a second in pulling off the insane task of melding over a hundred different toys into a musically pleasing arrangement. Using everything from Speak & Spells to toy cell phones, Matt brings it all to life with his wonderful production skills.


Gizmodgery was, of course, recorded with toy instruments by Self as the above writeup states. However, this was not a "musical breakthrough". Pianosaurus is usually credited with the birth of composing pop rock music purely with toy instruments, and they did it in the late 1980's without help from Pro Tools or any of the other crazy production techniques used on Gizmodgery.

This isn't to say that Gizmodgery isn't a great album, though, because it really is amazing. The melody and structure that Matt Mahaffey can get from the toys is incredible, even if it is heavily manipulated. He uses the following toy instruments on the recording:

Little Tikes Xylophone
Mattel Disney Piano
V-Tech Phone Pal. 2000 Toy Phone
Toy Antenna Twist
Fun Rise Remote Control
Little Smart Tiny Touch Phone
200 Toy Battery Operated Electronic Drum
Playschool Busy Guitar
Talking Whiz Kid Plus
Mattel See & Say
My First Football
Kids 2
Centipede
Evenflow "Ball&Sphere"
My 1st Years "Spinning Toy"
Maple Toys "Toy"
Schoenhut Toy Piano
Suzuki Omnichord OM-27
Suzuki Q-Chord
The 1 Man Jam
Hasbro Musi-link
Mattel Star Guitar
Groovy Tunes Guitar
Yak-Bak
My 1st Shaver
Sysonic Drums
Micro Jammer Drums
Mini-Performer Keyboard
"Talk To Me" Robot
Hal Leonard Piano Fun
Party Bros. Tamborine
Assorted Talking Animals
Assorted Toy Drum Kits & Toy Cymbals
Assorted Generic Toy Cell Phones

KyleHale
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Post by KyleHale » Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:45 pm

Gizmodgery is an amazing album, as is Self. I was fascinated to hear that he did the entire album with kids toys. I think everyone on TOMB should be checking out that album. Its crazy how well it is mixed as well... its amazing how good of an album you can produce not using standard elements of rock.
check me out!

kylehale.net

jckinnick
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Post by jckinnick » Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:49 pm

Yeah its a great album its hard to find though. Also check out Pianosaurus's 1987 album Groovy Neighborhood, not quiet as good but still interesting.

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Post by cgarges » Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:39 pm

jckinnick wrote:Also check out Pianosaurus's 1987 album Groovy Neighborhood, not quiet as good but still interesting.
Man, I was just gonna mention Pianosuarus. I'll have to check out that Shelf stuff, Sounds cool.

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Post by Wilkesin » Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:50 pm

see thing is...i just wanna make sure everyone realizes this bands name is SELF not shelf, dont know if it was just a bunch of typos or what, but ya, self....tennessee represent and all!
Slider wrote:"we figured you'd want to use your drum samples and reamp through your amps anyway, so we didn't bother taking much time to get sounds".

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Post by cgarges » Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:56 pm

Cool. I was just going by the first post, as I don't know anything about him. Thanks!

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Post by jackson park » Mon Feb 19, 2007 9:33 pm

Yeah, I was gonna say it's Self. I have a few friends who are really into his music.

Remember those Expedia commercial taglines? "ExPEDia dot commmmm" That was Self supposedly.

He's extremely talented.

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Jeff White
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Post by Jeff White » Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:46 am

Matt is now a member of Beck's band. Saw him play the role of multi-instrumentalist back in October and he's a huge talent. Been a Self fan since discovering him in 2000.

"I gotta trunk fulla amps muthafucker!!!"

Jeff

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Post by mjau » Tue Feb 20, 2007 7:30 am

Caught Self when they/he toured for this album - totally awesome experience to see grown men rocking small, plastic instruments on stage.

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Post by jckinnick » Tue Feb 20, 2007 12:45 pm

Wilkesin wrote:see thing is...i just wanna make sure everyone realizes this bands name is SELF not shelf, dont know if it was just a bunch of typos or what, but ya, self....tennessee represent and all!

Yeah my bad its Self not Shelf, what song was on that Expedia thing was it "Truck Fulla Amps" because that song sounds familiar.

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eeldip
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Post by eeldip » Tue Feb 20, 2007 12:58 pm

i visited his basement while he was recording that record. man, there were lots of toys around.

i cant believe the drum sound he got out of that toy kit.

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bhmcc
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Post by bhmcc » Wed Feb 21, 2007 7:35 am

Anyone know where to buy 'Self' cds? Everywhere I look they are ~$30+!!!

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Post by mjau » Wed Feb 21, 2007 7:53 am

eeldip wrote:i visited his basement while he was recording that record. man, there were lots of toys around.

i cant believe the drum sound he got out of that toy kit.
Man, that is awesome. Totally jealous.

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scott anthony
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Post by scott anthony » Wed Feb 21, 2007 8:28 am

http://www.myspace.com/mattmahaffey

Matt's stuff is great. He had a song (This Is Love) on a soundtrack I mastered last year, one of my favorite tunes on the record, pure pop confection. He told me it was originally the opening number in Shrek 2 until they replaced it at the last moment for a Counting Crows tune. Said syncing it up to the movie "is the bomb"

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eeldip
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Post by eeldip » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:57 am

mjau wrote:
eeldip wrote:i visited his basement while he was recording that record. man, there were lots of toys around.
i cant believe the drum sound he got out of that toy kit.
Man, that is awesome. Totally jealous.
i wish i could remember more, but this was pretty much before i was into recording. all i remember is that he way using a 414 for the toy drums? nah, how could i remember that? he might have been using 414s for the drums.

and he was living in this creepy subdivision. and his wife was a hot suburban looking girl.

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