Well, it is a kind of funny story how we thought of the Plasma Globe invention, and it all started on April 3 when were on a podcast for Shark vs Octopus in downtown San Francisco. Ian and Dez were interviewing us and asking us a lot of cool questions, one of the questions is here wait...I know its... we have it someplace around here because we recorded it for the you tube... hang on a sec, A-and;
So, then a week after that podcast, Matthew Zipkin or Zippy as we call him sometimes, purchased a Chinese Plasma Globe off Ebay for eight dollars. He and Cyrus tore it apart and looked around in there and then put it back together, but afterwards there was much more plasma running around inside the glass globe when it was on, pretty cool looking and we're not sure if that did something to the gas in there when we took it all apart.
We tried all sorts of things to have it make noise for us but nothing seemed to want to work so we tried holding live pickups to it, holding a live quarter inch wire and touching it, which worked but not so well as we had in mind from the podcast idea. So we kinda forgot about the whole Globe thing for maybe a month or two when Zippy got me a Thingamagoop which I've been using at shows now which is a lot of fun I sorta started looking around all the time for strange gizmos like my Thingamagoop, and that twisted speak and spell that I bought, but then I really wanted to make the globe thing after seeing how all these other cool people made these unreal sound inventions and decided to get all obsessed about it because Zip and I wanted one we could call ours, a glowing little fun to play with scream and whooper, something no one else had. At last I thought to try a theremin out. I saved up some money and bought one on the internet for a great price. When it came to my house (which only took like four days, those theremin guys rule!) Zippy and I were ready with screwdrivers and things to take the Globe and Theremin apart. We wanted to have fun taking them apart and making this nutty creation but for some reason Zippy just turned them both on and we found out that if you stand in between them wait a second Zippy kind of explained it in here someplace… hang on a sec...email searching...oh here it is... A-and:
Quite simple really!
The theremin is just plugged into Timmy's amp, and placed near him when he plays with the globe! Easy!
The theremin is designed to pick up tiny changes in the interference in its little radio field, namely body parts with high capacitance.
When you touch the globe, the "lightning" grounds to your body, covering you with static electricity.
SOOooo the theremin reacts normally to the proximity of Timmy's body – and then goes COMPLETELY APE SHIT when Timmy's body is covered in static electricity. Hence, the distortion and FUGGINCOOLness.
luv,
Zip
And so we got this kick ass invention now that we want to play live at our shows and I know we're gonna, I've been practicing a lot. We named it The
Imipolex G, after a certain type of Rocket Insulation from this crazy book I can't stop reading about deadly rockets and sex called Gravity's Rainbow.
Anyway, if anyone else out there has any ideas about how to bend the theremin or combine them into one thing I'd love some help, I'm way into knobs and switches and buttons but I haven't bent anything myself.
Now I run all of this through my mixer and into my mini Hiwatt for a really kick ass tone. I don't have my camera (left it at the gf's) so I took a cell phone picture which is blurry and crap but it'll work for now, also I am making you another video which will be uploaded tomorrow that shows all the cool noises. This stuff is all fun but the neighbors keep banging on my floor/their ceiling, Screw them, this is science....
