Songwriting challenges

From my recording e-discussion list:

> I remember seeing Australian band Custard (from Brisbane, since broken
> up) play live with a children's size drum kit. But it was a good
> quality one that sounded good, just children's size. it looked
> awesome on a big stage.

The singer/bassist from The Presidents of the United States of America (Chris Ballew), plus a drummer (Tad Hutchison, The Young Fresh Fellows), formed a duo they called "The Chris and Tad Show". The rule was that they could use any instrument they could carry in one armload from the car: the drummer grabbed a little kid drum kit.

"The group started out as a "challenge band," where each band member was allowed to make only one trip to the car for equipment and whatever each member could carry in one trip was what they had to play simultaneously. Apparently Chris made the trip with a guitar, an amp, and a keyboard (Chris plays guitar and keyboard at the same time, sometimes playing the keyboard with a guitar pick or the headstock of the guitar), and Tad got the job of hauling the entire drum kit (a children's set). [...] they released a CD called "Hand Me That Door" on the indie label Orange Recordings."
(From near the bottom of
http://kcts.org/productions/kctsconnects/archive/episode_121.htm )

I like the idea of songwriting "challenges": One of these days [!!!] I plan to write and record a collection of songs using only instruments that were gifts (birthday, Christmas, hand-me-downs...). Not sure whether I'll include that to equipment (two mics, a small mixer), or to effects as well.


--GG