Most of this early work was done while lived in a condemned house on 
Seymour Street that we rented from an old gangster named Joe 
Philliponi.  It had a large space ideally suited to group rehearsals. At 
one end were a piano, a stand-up bass and other instruments. The walls 
were lined with various sound effects devices - bird calls, bags full of 
balloons which you'd blow up with beans inside and bang against your 
head for thunder claps, small stawberry boxes used for the sound of 
splintering wood during ship wrecks, the rain making machine which 
was basically a record turntable we'd put rice onto so that it fell off 
onto different surfaces. We had something we called "the rhythm 
machine". It was analogue precurser to the cheap little beater box every 
solo bar musician uses today and consisted of a large cranked wooden 
drum with pegs sticking out of it that hit the ends of long wooden 
pivoted arms when the drum was cranked. These arms rattled cans full 
of bird shot, rang bells, and one struck a bass drum. The pegs could be 
repositioned to changes the rhythm pattern. 27