We’ve been following the progress of Jeremy Bell’s adventures with cassette tape and his scratchy ScrubBoard prototype with some enthusiasm. He definitely falls into “the crazy ones” category with his slavish devotion in taking this concept as far as he possibly can. And now he’s confident enough of the idea and technology that he’s made a live performance video with singers, and together they deliver their take on The Beastie Boys’ “Brass Monkey“.
Watch as Jeremy scratches and live samples the dulcet tones of Elena and Grace right back at them in a Q&A style. I always love arrangements that veer widely of the original, but this is a bit of a vocal clash to be honest, and the left/right vocal split is quite jarring in headphones. But the principle is sound which I suspect is what Jeremy wanted to do here. It absolutely proves the principle of the ScrubBoard, and with some honing will sound better once the technique is honed.
Once again, great work from Jeremy. And now he’s landed a role at Universal Audio, he’s got access to more audio wizardry than most to take this idea even further.