I was invited by a great-hearted friend to the Simon & Garfunkel
concert in Salt Lake on Tuesday (no worries -- I'll save my long,
giddy, nostalgia-drenched review for another day and another
eGroup).

But given the simple instrumentation that S&G traditionally favored,
I was surprised to find them backed up by a full band, including
musicians playing melodica, a 10-foot horn of some kind (looked like
a slide version of a didgeridoo?), and a theremin. That was the
first time I've seen someone play a theremin, and it was neato.

Anyway, I was thinking as I left that it's a good thing Tommy makes
his own instruments, because apparently the race for the funkiest
sound is heating up. And the winner of this race will of course be
the person who can conjure music from everything -- including (but
not limited to) traffic jams, shortwave radios, dot matrix printers,
rocking chairs, polaroid cameras, and dogs scampering on linoleum
floors.

Marie